The other day within my wondrous list of google reader feeds, For the Love of Food blog featured chickpea nibbles and like the dog in the movie Up! I saw squirrel!!  Beans, salt, crunch, hunger – I was so making this snack right now even though I was mid-sentence in [...]

A well-stocked cupboard is essential for turning out good meals in a crunch. Although I love to collect exotic dried beans at the farmers market, cooking them is usually a weekend activity. Thank goodness my mother-in-law, Cuban queen of beans, taught me that canned beans are a perfectly acceptable substitute [...]

The holidays had their way with me and my vegetables.  For nearly three weeks (and likely more) it was a race to the finish.  On Christmas Eve Eve, down to the wire, in a mad wrapping session, locked up with scissors & tape, bows & paper, and a [...]

Planning one vegetarian dinner a week is a simple way to a healthier diet. Unfortunately, we scientists confused y’all in the 70′s by obsessing that vegetarian meals needed to contain all 26 “essential amino acids.” Cross-referencing tables of ingredients is not conducive to whipping up meals for hungry families. Moreover, [...]

It’s Friday, one day from being up to our shoulder pads in football both on the sidelines of my son’s rec league and on the sofa yelling bad and good things as Defensive Coach of remote control for a Big Ten alma mater. Further, the teenager will be sequestered with a laptop, [...]