Month: September 2014

Baking in the Almost-a-Kitchen–So Long, Miss Gab

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                In memoriam:  Miss Gab.  July 4, 2008 – September 26, 2014

Our world is made up of many things--special times, prayers, phases, people, schools, skies, places, music, mountains, meals, oceans, books, travels, and, for me, dogs.  If you’ve read this blog long, you’ll know the dogs often figure prominently in the stories and cooking adventures at our house; they always have.

(Below:  May, 2009:  Fiona, our first female golden, with puppy Miss Gab on top of her and then Miss Gab and Tucker with friend Newman)

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(Below:  puppy Tucker with Britta, under Miss Gab, and his own grown-up happy self)

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And while I don’t often enough chronicle loss and pain here in a what appears to be a cooking blog, I can’t move on, cook, or write without a tribute to our Gab–so long part of the Two-Dog Kitchen.  Maybe I just need to get it down so that I can see it here, maybe make some sense of it.  But there’s no sense to this story.  You’ve guessed this isn’t a happy tale. Continue reading →

Favorite Zucchini Recipes from More Time and Dinner Place

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This time of the year it’s tempting to fast forward and begin a bit of food talk about autumn roasted vegetables, spiked hot chocolate, chili, or pumpkin bread.  My blogging friend Lydia Walshin reminded me of this today.  But out west and up high (and elsewhere, too) where the vegetables are just now thinking about coming in –if they come in at all– we’re loving the lush summer extravaganza of corn, tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, eggplant, beans, cucumbers, and sweet bell peppers to name just a few.  It’s still summer; my tomatoes are just beginning to ripen.  I’m eating Colorado peaches for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  The best corn of the year just arrived in the grocery this week.  And you’re trying to figure out what to do with all that squash, right?
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(Above: “Fried Egg Skillet with Zucchini and Salsa” — a one-dish breakfast, lunch or dinner. Just sauté the zucchini and onions, break the eggs on top, cover, and cook until the eggs are just how you like them.)
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Zucchini might be my favorite vegetable; I eat is several times a week year-round– often for breakfast in my egg-white omelet or even stuffed into a sautéed veggie wrap. This post highlights my own favorite zucchini recipes from the last few years. I’ll probably include a few with yellow squash, which are just as prolific and delectable.  If there are photos you can’t abide, know that I KNOW they need to be redone and smile at them for me.  In the meantime, eat zucchini!  (By the way, said friend Lydia has published a lovely, quick book all about lovely ways to cook zucchini.  Check it out here.).
Here we go, beginning with morningish meals, including the one above at top:

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Ina Fridays — Soups, Salads + Sides — Grilled Salmon Salad Redux

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IMG_6629The first Friday of the month, I group-blog Ina Garten recipes with a great group of writer-cooks. Scroll down for more info and to click on the links for more soups, salads or sides.  Come back October 3 for Ina Fridays main dishes….

Finding a way to cook and blog when there’s no kitchen in the house is an effort. A problem.  Perhaps a puzzle.  A frustration, despite looking forward to the kitchen I’ll have by mid-October. I hope. We’ve been gone to Europe (a few pics at bottom) and had a new grand baby (ditto) since I last posted…and, in the meantime, the kitchen was gutted and the rebuilding was begun.

securedownloadAbove:  East wall.  Long pipe is the vent from the basement to the roof for the hot water heater.  Shorter pipe–at right–is the vent for the range hood.  This wall used to be all cream, melamine “Euro-style” cabinets that were incredibly easy to keep clean. (Wipe off with clean dishcloth or spray with Windox and paper towel dry on really industrious days.)  I had them when we lived in Europe and then loved them in this house.  They fell victim to the hue and cry to update.  (What does that mean?  Does anyone tell that to the people in colonial houses in Williamsburg?)

One of the oddest things is that I keep starting to go to the kitchen.  Which isn’t there.  It seems my world is in that room, though as a musician I know that’s only part of my life.  But my feet, my heart, my mind…continually move toward a now nonexistent room.  The construction has also cut off our living room (plastic-shut for dust/dirt), filled our guest room, master bedroom, laundry room, and garage with boxes, and often prohibits us from entering the house due to ladders, men on stilts, spray guns issuing forth, load of wood in the entry, and so on.  In other words, we  SHOULD HAVE MOVED OUT.  WHAT WERE WE THINKING? Continue reading →