Continuing the strawberry theme, I have to tell you about this strawberry-rhubarb pie!  I've always loved the tang of fresh rhubarb and it goes really well with sweet strawberries. We are finally getting the fresh local strawberries from our local farm stand. It's been an unusually cool spring, so many things are slower in ripening than usual. So glad to be able to enjoy the superior strawberries that are grown at this Laguna farm. One of the fun things about this pie is that the parts that make it up can be made in advance and then the pie assembled the day you plan to serve it ..read more

We are finally getting local strawberries and they are just the best...sweet and juicy, so fragrant and fat. A family tradition is to have strawberry shortcake for the May birthdays. Two sisters down just had her birthday, so this is for her. Although I enjoy a strawberry shortcake made with sweetened biscuit dough, the classic cake for the family was a plain yellow cake (often made from a mix in a box) with strawberries sandwiched in the middle and whipped cream over the top. I found a great plain yellow cake in a book called The Wooden Spoon Dessert Book by Marilyn Moore. Since I only want ..read more

Sweetie really liked this dish and said if we had this all the time that he would eat more vegetables...that sounds like a vote for this veggie pasta dish that is roughly a pasta primavera. The primavera part is Italian (I think) for Spring. The zucchini is certainly not a spring vegetable, but most of the rest are. This is sort of a three-ring circus pasta. You are boiling pasta water, and then pasta, prepping and steaming or boiling some veggies and also sautéing others. Then you are also making a cheese sauce! It takes a bit of time to prep the veggies but it can be done while the pasta w ..read more

Being away from my kitchen on Mother's Day seemed strange, but fortunately my daughter's family was fine with me making a super sized Dutch Baby with berries for breakfast, so I still got to bake. BTG-guy made bacon and Raine manned the powder sugar sieve. It was delicious and easy. If you just do it with blueberries, it's even easier...we used blueberries and cubed strawberries. I've now made this dish using four different ovens and I have to say that knowing your oven makes it easier to bake this. You want to know how quickly your oven gets to the heat needed for the recipe. If it takes ..read more

I suspect that every Italian cook has their own version of this soup. I read the recipe recently on the Washington Post newsletter Voraciously for this version, but, of course, made a few changes myself.  Below the recipe in the newsletter there are variation, too. To start with, I didn't have celery or carrots but I had the rest, so forged ahead. I used the chicken broth for the liquid and used gemelli pasta since that's what I had (I was making this at night once I saw the recipe...because I had the time and was inspired by the full flavors and the description). Instead of red beans ..read more

It's been a while since I baked anything with chocolate...which is too bad because chocolate treats are some of the best. Sweetie likes his on the soft side, so I wandered through my cookbooks and found a recipe in Dorie Greenspan's Dorie's Cookies that sounded just right. A bar cookie, so easy to make multiple servings, all at once. The addition of walnuts adds to the joy. A little espresso brings out the chocolate richness. Extra chocolate in the form of chips or chunks (I went with the latter). Don't overbake...and that's chocolate perfection. This cookie is a cross between a blondie (due ..read more

There is something really nice about the combination of lemon and raspberry. Lemon is a winter flavor and raspberry is a spring flavor, but together they are heavenly and not limited to any season. This recipe was found in the Costco Connections magazine for April, so thinking spring. I needed something sweet to serve with tea a couple of days ago...a friend was coming over for tea and to play a game. This seemed like just the thing...and I had almost all of the ingredients handy. First you have an oatmeal-rich bottom crust, then a sweet and creamy lemony filling, then fresh raspberries for ..read more