Every year, there are many holiday traditions at my house. We take a long, cold hike on December 23rd. On Christmas Eve, we cook and open one gift and crowd into overfilled church pews. Christmas Day, we wake early and gobble steamy cinnamon rolls and welcome a visit from my…
Skillet Chicken Dinner
When it’s busy, there’s nothing better than a one-pan meal that can be whipped up in less than a half-hour. If you dry Roma or cherry or grape tomatoes from your garden, this is a great way to use them. Plant parsley in a pot and move it inside in…
Easier Than Pie Apple Cake
This recipe first crossed my counter as I was staring down a bushel of quickly softening apples and not enough fridge space to store them. It has returned again and again as an easy favorite that’s just as good for breakfast as it is for dessert. Whip up a batch…
Brightening the Winter Blues
“The light changes 10 minutes every day,” explained my friend about the palpable shift from one morning to the next in the Alaskan city where she lived for several years. She had loved that fast-forward sunlight feature. How each day was dramatically different from the one before. How the sun’s rays could…
Fall Is My Nesting Season
Anyone who has welcomed a new baby to their world has heard of the nesting instinct — that desire to put in place every supply, every space, every tool ahead of the life-changing arrival. I have no new babies in my future. And yet, the urge to organize, plan, prepare…
A Little Recycling Magic
A new group in town called Sustainable Roanoke provides info and inspiration via Facebook. But its leader, Celeste Delgado-Librero is committed to action as well as education. One of her first steps was to gather together like-minded folks committed to finding a place for those hard-to-recycle items: #5 plastics, foil-lined…
Raspberry Cream Cheese Muffins
These were a hands-down hit for my house last spring and early summer as we had raspberries ripening on our backyard bushes faster than we could eat them. But frozen berries work, as well. The beauty of this recipe is that the fruit provides much of the sweetness, so no…
Super Simple Roasted Vegetables
Eating local means embracing root vegetables, especially in the winter — and on into spring. That’s hard for some folks, I know. To me, roasting the roots brings out their best flavor — and makes for a pretty simple meal. My go-to roasted veggie recipe includes winter greens and nice…
Beet and Black Bean Burgers
When your kids are begging you to make veggie burgers from nutritional powerhouses like beets and black beans, you know you’ve landed on a keeper of a recipe. I have made tofu burgers and grain burgers, bought frozen veggie patties from the grocery store and certainly ordered my share of…
I’ve Missed You!
What can I say? What started as a busy few months morphed into a yearlong (Really? How did that happen?) break. But I’m back. With recipes. And not-to-be-missed local food events and links to my writing. Speaking of which … that’s really what’s to blame for my — shall we…