When I was a little girl, I looked forward to making and decorating cutout sugar cookies at Christmastime. I loved all the fun decorating materials: nonpareils, colored sugars, silver dragées, cinnamon red hots. My mom would tie one of her aprons around me, put a tray of cutout cookie shapes in front of me, and…
When I was single, I ate salad for dinner a lot. Like, five or six nights a week. Now, I eat it more often for lunch, but the salad itself hasn’t changed a whole lot. I tend to stick to the same mix of ingredients, with just a couple of variations from time to time,…
If you’re not prepared, making dinner can be a dreaded chore. The first steps to getting dinner on the table in a stress-free way have to do with planning ahead, but even if you’ve organized yourself and done the shopping and are ready to go, if you get into the kitchen and find yourself in…
I used to make baked enchiladas completely from scratch, making the verde sauce from fresh tomatillos. After L came along, though, that was a bit much for a weeknight dinner. Then, I started making these enchiladas, which have become a staple in my dinner rotation. They’re quick to assemble – I make it even easier by…
Halloween is this week, which means it’s time to start thinking about Thanksgiving. Christmas is my favorite holiday, and I imagine it always will be, for many very good reasons. Christmas is magical in that it centers around the miraculous birth of Christ, the tiny baby who came to save the world. Christmas has incredible ambience:…
With the temperatures finally hanging in the 60s every day, I’m cooking more and more fall weather meals, and baking a loaf of no-knead bread once a week to have with soups and lunchtime salads. My weekly shopping list permanently includes a jug of apple cider, which we sip hot with mulling spices in the…