Every parent fantasizes about the perfect vegetable dish, the one children will adore and eat without protest (and ask for seconds). Maybe, just maybe, this cheesy broccoli brown rice will be that dish for your family. Maybe not, but I guarantee you will lick the bowl clean, even if your kids don't. This is a great base dish. For vegetarians, it's hearty enough to be a main course. Stir in some leftover rotisserie chicken, or grilled shrimp, to stretch it into an easy weeknight dinner for the whole family. The cashews on top are completely optional, but add a nice crunch. I make the whole recipe in my rice cooker, which is a small three-cup model, because it's just so much easier to make brown... Read more →


My husband Ted, who doesn't eat pickles, supports my habit by biking to the farmers market every week to buy a big bag of cucumbers and a bunch of fresh dill. I whack off the top four or five inches of the dill fronds and layer them in a container with the cucumbers. Then, I wrap the rest of the dill in a plastic bag, and often forget about it until it withers and turns googly. Last week Ted rescued the forgotten dill, and combined it with lemon zest, yogurt and Greek seasoning to flavor a batch of turkey meatballs. A mix of regular dry breadcrumbs and flaky panko yielded a lighter texture that allowed the dill flavor to come through. In place of plain... Read more →


My cousin Sandra deserves all the credit for bringing these amazing Thai chicken satay skewers into our lives. Neiman Marcus deserves credit, too, because the recipe originally appeared in one of their cookbooks, but to me, these will always be Sandra's skewers, because she introduced us to them. The chicken in this recipe marinates in a bold mixture of fish sauce, soy sauce, and herbs. Most satay marinades feature coconut milk, which mutes the power of the herbs a bit, but this one does not. The only changes I made were to reduce the amount of brown sugar, and to substitute lemongrass paste for a stalk of fresh lemongrass. We like to serve the skewers with light and easy sliced cucumber salad, and with our... Read more →


Does this ever happen to you? You assemble all of the ingredients for a particular recipe on your countertop, but somehow, you end up cooking something completely different? I won't tell you what I was planning to do with this salmon and corn, except to say it was, well, the opposite of soup, but the day demanded a chowder, and it couldn't have turned out better. Spontaneous changes in the menu require creative use of whatever is in the pantry, or, as in this case, what's not in the pantry. I had no chicken or fish stock in the freezer or on the cupboard shelves, so I used the universal substitute -- water -- and added a bit of half-and-half. To keep the chowder gluten-free,... Read more →


Ah, turkey meatballs. It's no secret that my husband Ted and I love turkey meatballs seasoned any which way, and we have fun mixing up big batches and stashing them in the freezer for salads and meatball sandwiches. This summer I've fallen in love with salsa verde -- spicy green tomatillo-based salsa -- so it was inevitable that salsa would find its way into our most recent meatball variation. The key to these meatballs is to drain the salsa of excess liquid, so that what you add to the meatball mix is mostly the solids that carry all of the salsa spices. It takes just a few minutes, and you can set the salsa in a sieve to drain while you assemble the remaining ingredients.... Read more →


Whenever I buy a quart-size bottle of buttermilk (and why is there is no other size available?), I use some for baking, some for salad dressing, and the rest for marinades. Buttermilk is a great tenderizer, as any fried-chicken lover knows, and that's especially handy for grilled boneless, skinless chicken breasts, which can dry out quickly on the hot grill unless they've been marinated first. This recipe calls for a quick marinade, of one hour but not more than two hours, so with buttermilk and chicken breasts on hand, you can start this when you get home from work, and have it on the grill in time for dinner. Add a side of potato salad, some grilled vegetables brushed with olive oil and seasoned with... Read more →


When the zucchini come in, there's almost no way to keep up. A few are bound to get too big, or too old, before you get around to harvesting or cooking them. You can carve those over-the-top zucchini into boats, and stuff them (or float them!), or you can spiralize them into noodles. I love zucchini noodles, which are, somehow, a lighter version of diced or sliced zucchini. They hold less water, so they don't need to be salted and drained before you use them. I like to give zucchini noodles (also called, charmingly, zoodles) a quick sauté before adding them to this egg casserole, along with the onion and bell pepper, just to make sure they don't leave any excess liquid in the final... Read more →