DELICIOUS AND HEALTHY!

I missed blogging last Sunday. There was just too much going on. But I have the whole day to myself so I will have plenty of time to share my recipes and my thoughts today.

Last time I sent out my e-mail reminder for my weekly Blog, I invited readers to let me know if they would like me to address anything in particular. I got a response from a friend who has been enjoying my blog, and asked me if I would particularly address "Healthy" dishes. Today's recipe is about as healthy as you can get, and as easy as it gets too!

Tilapia with Vegetables In Lemon, Olive Oil and Tarragon Sauce.

Preheat oven to 350 or preheat the grill outside on medium with the lid closed

4 pieces of tilapia (or any nice white fish such as cod, halibut, whiting)
1 cupful of cut up carrots (I used the shortcuts cut in half lengthwise)
1 1/2 c. lima beans (use green beans of you prefer)
2 T. olive oil
1 -2 T. butter (optional - it's fine without the butter)
2 T. lemon juice
1 T. dried onion flakes or 1/2 small onion sliced into thin slices
1/4 t. dried tarragon
Salt and pepper to taste

Place a large piece of heavy duty aluminum foil on a sheet tray. Bend up the edges a little so when you add the liquid ingredients they don't run out.

Place the fish (frozen or thawed) on the center of the foil. Top it with the carrots, then the limas or green beans, add the lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and tarragon.

Now wrap the foil up around the fish like you see in this picture. Seal it up good so it won't leak, turn the ends up a little to keep liquids from seeping out. Bake for about 25 - 30 minutes if you started with frozen ingredients, about 15 - 20 if you started with thawed.

After the time has elapsed, take the package out of the oven and open carefully (HOT STEAM!!) to check for doneness in the fish. It should be nice and white and flaky. If you think it's done, it is!

Serve with a few roasted potatoes or mashed potatoes made with some plain yogurt and a little 2% milk instead of cream and butter. Or if you're trying to watch what you eat, no need for anything else at all.

Don't like fish? You can adapt this recipe for chicken. Use chicken tenders or boneless, skinless breast cut into smaller pieces. Change up the veggies too - use broccoli, green beans edamame (soy beans) . Try the chicken with corn, diced tomatoes and green pepper with a light sprinkle of cumin for a Mexican flair . Whatever you like. Tarragon is very good on chicken, but you could use basil, thyme or oregano and of course, garlic and parsley. Experiment with flavors you like.

I'm not a nutritionist so I won't be able to provide calorie or fat content. And if you're on a special diet, don't take any advice I give you - check with your doc.

Portion control counts for a lot. Using healthy ingredients is important too. I use as little fat, salt and simple carbs as possible! I recently heard that people who leave out the carbs entirely from their diets are depriving themselves of the nutrition they give your brain! Apparently complex carbs train our brain to help us control the cravings we get for the cupcakes and the Wonder Bread. Complex carbs (whole grains, brown rice, root vegetables, beans, fruit) are good for you! Simple carbs (refined sugar, processed white flour, soft drinks) - BAD!

Olive oil, other lite oils such as sunflower or grape seed oil) veggies, fish and fruit can provide the nutrition that we all need that are so vital to health, but won't add those nasty cholesterol building fats or blood pressure raising sodium to your diet. Too much sodium also makes you retain water so you'll always be a couple of pounds heavier than you have to be if you take in too much sodium.

Don't let ingredients like sunflower or grapeseed oil put you off. They are a tad expensive, but not so much that one couldn't afford to keep a bottle at home. For example, I have a bottle of grapeseed oil that I paid about $5.00 for, and a bottle of sunflower oil for about $4.00. You only need a little when you use them, so once you have a bottle in your pantry, you will find that you can make many many dishes before the bottle is gone. I got the grapeseed oil at Peters Gourmet.com. It's a great site to find all kinds of goodies for very reasonable prices. The sunflower oil came from Marshall's in their gourmet department. They have a great little gourmet section where you can find all kinds of seasonings, sauces and other things also for pretty reasonable prices. I go often looking for things on sale. Anyway, don't let something that is an "unusual" ingredient put you off. You'll reap the benefits of healthier and tastier food.

I've had my share of flops trying to see if I liked different combinations. Part of learning what flavors go together is tasting them. You will never know if tarragon is good with beef until you taste it. It's NOT by the way. But its wonderful with chicken, fish and eggs. Thyme is perfect with chicken and even good in a marinade for beef, but I don't like it as much with pork. Pork loves rosemary and garlic and so does lamb. Garlic is good with everything, right? No! I don't particularly like garlic with eggs, and I'm not really all that wild about it with fish. Fish lends itself better to onions and fennel. But garlic is good on almost everything else. I don't think I have to elaborate on that. Almost everyone loves garlic! Of course, just because I don't like a certain combination, doesn't mean you shouldn't try it. You may love garlic with eggs!!

NOT MUCH TO BLOG ABOUT TODAY

I don't really feel like writing my web log today. Not really in the foodie mood this morning. I have too much laundry to do and I have to go grocery shopping and in just kind of a funky mood today. Grocery shopping should put me in the mood to cook, and to think about food, but I'm not going until later. For now - "I got nothin' "

There are two things I recently decided to do. Who knows how far I'll take them. I really don't have the time some of these projects deserve to have devoted to them, but I like having the ideas and acting on them, even if they don't go anywhere. Its what keeps my creative juices flowing and one day, I can pick and choose from all the little projects I want to do and make something out of one or two of them. Anyway, once you are out of ideas, what else is there to do but sit around and watch the Kardasians display their butts or yell at each other because one of the other sisters has been selfish! I'd rather sit on a cactus! Well, I don't have to worry about that - I usually come up with something else to keep me away from those insipid television shows.

Anyway, one of the things I want to do is take my blogs and turn them into books. This Blogger has a feature whereby you can submit your blog pages to them, and the will format, print and bind them into a book for a mere $14.95 for 25 pages and an extra 25 cents for each additional page. I'm sure I'll do this one. I'd love to have this on my cookbook shelf, and $14.95 + is affordable.

The second thing I am already working on is putting together a cookbook for kids. Recipes that are healthy, delicious, and most of all, easy. And I'm not talking about how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Some of my favorite dishes are ones that are supremely easy to prepare. I will target the cookbook at kids who are old enough to help Mom in the kitchen and are allowed to use kitchen utensils and cook on the stove with a parent's supervision. Probably starting at around 10 years old. Obviously a parent would have to be the judge about whether their kids are capable of working in the kitchen safely. Here's one example of the kind of dishes I'll include:

Take a package of chicken wings, put them in a foil lined baking pan. Salt, pepper, bake until almost done. Douse in your favorite barbecue sauce, bake another 15 minutes. Voila, barbecued wings that your kid made!! And I'll be sure to include the ways to make the dishes as healthy as possible, like removing the skin from the chicken before you sauce it. It's a little extra trouble, but removes more than half the fat!

Hmmm, what will the title be? "Hey Mom! Look what I made!" or "That's right! I made it!" or ..... I'm open to ideas!

I was cooking simple things at home when I was 10 or 11. I learned just by watching and helping my Mom. The most important thing about kids cooking is make sure they are safe, of course. So if the recipes they are provided are as simple as possible, you can spend a lot more time on teaching them technique and safety in handling kitchen equipment and using the range.

Listen, any kid who can tell Mom to take a break from cooking dinner one night is a great kid in my book!

No recipes today yet though - I guess because I'm not inspired. Maybe later tonight.

.......... It's about two hours later and I've been inspired by hunger, and nothing that I can grab and eat. So I had to make something for lunch.

Refrigerator first - a few pieces of celery left from a veg tray, a half bag of those little carrot short cuts. Next, the pantry. Tomato soup and some tri-color corkscrew noodles.

QUICK MINESTRONE
Makes 4-6 servings

1 - 2 stalks of celery, sliced
1 1/2 cups of short cut carrots, cut into pieces
1 T. canola or olive oil
1 26 oz can tomato soup (naturally low fat, low calorie!)
1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
Water or chicken stock
1 can white beans (kidney, cannelini, navy)
1 T. dried oregano
1 T dried garlic flakes
1 T dried onion flakes
1 cup full of any kind of chunky noodles
( I used what I had - corkscrew - and I broke them up a little in the food processor)

Saute the cut up celery and carrots in just a little canola or olive oil or medium high heat. Just let them color a little. Now, dump everything else into the pot. Add enough water or chicken stock to bring the soup to the thickness you like. Stir and let the soup simmer on low heat until the noodles are done; about 12 - 15 minutes depending on the pasta you use. Be sure to stir occasionally to keep from burning the bottom of the soup. The flavor of the oregano, dried garlic and onions will bloom while the soup simmers . You would never know it was made from a can!

Instant Minestrone! Mmmmm. It was really good! Low calorie, low fat, low sodium, lots of veggies, savory herbs, and just a little bit of comforting pasta! Enjoy a bog bowl of this!

I think this one will go into the kids cookbook!

HERBS MAKES EVERYTHING TASTE BETTER!

Just back inside from cleaning out the herb garden for the upcoming growing season. The chives are already 10 inches high and it’s only the first day of Spring! The Greek Oregano is perennial and it looks like it will come back again this year. The Garlic Chives are only about 4 inches high, but are looking good. The potted thyme plant was a little overgrown last season and the winter took a lot it. Had to cut it back severely, but it will definitely grow again. Some of what I cut off still had some nice green leaves, so I’ll wash it and put it in fridge. I see some Chicken with thyme in my near future. The two rosemary plants are still alive, so they got a nice haircut too giving me several branches of fresh rosemary to use or dry.

Let’s see ….. what else? Oh! My beautiful mint plant has died! I kept it in a container in the center of the garden, but either the winter took it this year, or it was just plain pot bound. I think it was the latter. I’ll get a new one and put it in a bigger pot. Must have mint. No mint – no mojitos!!

I also lost my potted lemon thyme.Not only is it a pretty little plant, it has a very distinct lemony scent that’s hard to resist so I’ll have to replace that as well.

The Herb Garden isn’t very big. I have it on the sunny side of the house and didn’t make it too wide because it’s right there where there is sometimes a lot of foot traffic. It may not be very big, but I get more herbs than I can use. I dry everything I can't use and seal it in vacuum food storage bags. I could never use it all before it loses its flavor. What I usually, have: just two parsley plants, one thyme, 2 chives, 1 garlic chive, 2 rosemary, 1 mint, sometimes a tarragon plant, sometimes an extra lemon thyme. The Greek Oregano started out as two small plant

s, and I didn’t realize how much it would spread. It’s like a ground cover, so I have to work fairly hard to keep in under control. But I wouldn’t give it up. It’s one of my favorite herbs and it’s really pretty too. I use as much fresh as I can all during the growing season, and then dry the rest to use all winter.

Because I live near farmland, we have a LOT of grasshoppers and other bugs. As you can see in this picture, I have to keep my basil plants in a cage to keep them from being munched down to the stems. Two years ago, I had no basil. It was like the earth stood still when I went outside to water and saw nothing but stems on my three basil plants. The cage not only protects them from being eaten, but they also benefit from the light shade the screen material provides.

I dry my herbs by just hanging them in kitchen. I have a piece of soft wood that I hung like a picture on the side of my cabinets and I put the pinned herbs up there for about 2 weeks.

I also grow Nasturtiums in a container, and a few pansies on the front porch because they are edible! Even if you don’t want to eat them, they are beautiful food safe garnishes. I use a big purple pansy with a long stem on it to garnish a pina colada - it's beautiful! Other edibles are carnations, roses, marigolds and violets. Try some of these in a salad. Most of them have a bit of a peppery flavor.

Since this isn’t a gardening blog, why don’t I get to some of my favorite ways to use herbs.

Up until about 10 years ago I never used herbs or spices. I didn’t know how to use them mostly because I didn’t know what they tasted like. So when Food TV came into my life it was the beginning of being a better cook. I still talk to people sometimes who tell me they have never used or tasted basil or rosemary.

Take chicken for example. Put some salt and pepper on a chicken and toss it in the oven and you’ve got dinner. Not bad either! But add some rosemary and garlic or thyme and lemon and you have an aromatic, succulent piece of chicken like you’ve never had before. I suppose it’s possible there are some people to don’t care for basil, or rosemary, of any other herb for that matter, but I can’t imagine this!

One of the simplest and most delicious things you can do with herbs:

Oven Roasted Potatoes

Preheat oven to 350

6 redskin potatoes (any kind will do, but these work really well.

2 T Olive Oil

1 T Rosemary

1 t. garlic powder

1 t salt

(This is not my photo)

Cut the potatoes into bite size chunks. If you are using those little red potatoes, then you can leave them whole, or cut the larger ones in half. Wash them well after cutting them and drain them on a towel so they are mostly dry.

Now put them into a bowl along with all the other ingredients. Mix well to coat thoroughly. Place them on a cookie sheet lines wit

h foil, or into a 9 x 12 baking pan lined with foil. Bake them until they are fork tender and lightly browned, about 20 – 25 minutes.

Just as simple:

Garlic Bread with Herbs

Turn the broiler on high.

1 loaf good Italian bread, or a French loaf will do just fine. Frankly, this would be good on hamburger buns!

½ stick softened butter

2 t garlic salt (or 2 cloves fresh garlic finely minced)

1 T dried basil, dried oregano, or dried thyme, or a little of each

Parmesan cheese (optional)

Mix the butter, garlic and herbs together to make what is called a compound butter. (This is not my photo)

Cut the loaf in half length wise and spread both sides. Wrap the loaf in foil and bake for 15 minutes.

Alternately, slice the bread and spread each slice with the compound butter. You can top these with a little Parmesan now if you like. Place the slices on a cookie sheet. Broil until brown. DON’T WALK AWAY FROM THIS! Watch them get brown or they will burn before you even know what happened.

Experiment with different kinds of herbs on this bread. It’s a good way to find out what kind of herbs you like. Rosemary, oregano, basil, thyme, parsley, even tarragon if you like it, would be delicious on this. As it happens

all of these taste great together in a compound butter (except the tarragon).

Tomato, Onion and Herb Salad

3 large tomatoes, cut into big chunks

2 cloves minced garlic

1 t. kosher salt

½ red onion, sliced very thin

5 or6 fresh basil leaves, minced (or 1 T dried basil leaves)

1 T Olive Oil

2 T Balsamic Vinegar

Fresh ground pepper

Mix everything together. Let sit in refrigerator for about 15 minutes.

Lemon Thyme Butter

½ stick butter, melted

2 T fresh lemon thyme

Add lemon thyme to melted butter and let sit for 5 minutes to absorb the flavor. Drizzle some over a piece of cod that’s been sautéed in a skillet with a little olive oil. Salt, pepper.

Or toss some cooked shrimp with a little of this thyme butter. It would even be good drizzled on breast of chicken.You don’t need a lot of this on anything, a little goes a long way. But go ahead and enjoy as much as you like! Only you can control the calories you eat!

Here are a bunch of ideas on how to use herbs. If you want a recipe for anything I mention, just let me know, I’ll send one!

Thyme

Add about 1 t of thyme to your meat loaf mix

Stuffed peppers – I was amazed at how good it was!

Scrambled eggs add 1 t dried to 3 eggs.

Add a little dried thyme to your biscuit mix or corn muffin mix.

Thyme is wonderful in Lentil Soup or Stew!

Try it in white bean dip with a little red pepper flakes

Basil:

Fresh whole leaves in salads

Fresh whole leaves on a chicken sandwich with avocado and mayo

Top a pizza with fresh leaves that are cut into little strips.

Toss a big handful into your pot of tomato sauce

Use some dried basil and sun dried tomatoes to flavor home made bread dough

Top a pizza crust, or French load with mozzarella, basil, garlic and olive oil, broil to golden.

Oregano

Toss into tomato sauce

Top a pizza

Use in a Greek Salad that has olives, feta cheese

Make a marinade for a London Broil using oregano, garlic, pepper, red pepper flakes, olive oil and balsamic vinegar

Tarragon

Good with seafood, chicken and eggs. Add just a very small amount of tarragon or it will overpower anything you use it in. Great in Chicken Salad, Seafood Soups, Souffles, Shrimp Quiche, Scrambled Eggs.

Make a little of this to keep on hand:

Rosemary Salt

½ c Coarse Sea Salt

2 T fresh rosemary leaves

Put into your spice grinder and whiz until the rosemary is evenly distributed. Be careful not to turn the salt into powder. Sprinkle this on chops, steaks, or lamb before cooking.

Roasted Rosemary Chicken

1 whole roasting chicken (you can use Cornish Hens if you like – you know, those little tiny chickens)

about 1 T of kosher salt

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, finely chopped, or about 3 t. of dried

4 T butter, room temp

Preheat the over to 350

In a small bowl, add the salt and the rosemary to the butter and mix it well to make what is called a compound butter.

Use the handle of a wooden spoon and insert it at the neck part to get under the skin on the breast. Move the handle around underneath the skin of the breast on each side, going in as far as you can. Once the skin is loose, take about 1 Tbs of the butter mixture and shove it in there, doing the same on both sides.

Now use a knife and make a little cut down at the “ankle” of the drumstick and insert the wooden spoon handle again to loosen the skin. Put a little butter under there on both legs. Do the same at the thigh area, making a small cut at what might be the knee” of the leg. Loosen the skin on the thigh as much as you can and add some of the butter under the skin, doing this on both legs. If you have a little of the compound butter left, smear it all over the outside of the bird. Sprinkle a little pepper on the bird too.

Alternately, you could just rub the outside of the chicken with the compound butter and forget about under the skin. It’ll be very tasty, but the meat is definitely more tender and juicy if you use the under the skin method. This is a pretty messy process, but I guarantee it's worth it.

Now put the chicken into a roaster, preferably on a rack that’s been placed in the bottom. Tie the legs together to keep them from cooking too fast and browning too much. If you don't have any twine, try this little trick. Take a piece of foil and twist it into a rope. Wrap it around the legs and tuck it tightly - it will work beautifully!

Depending on the size of your bird, roast the chicken for 1 – 2 hours. You can tell the chicken is done when the juices run clear (not reddish). Or when you think it should be done, you can take a pair of tongs and gently grab a drumstick. If you can see that it is ready to come away from the bird with just a little effort, the chicken is done.

Just follow the directions on the packaging and you should be fine.

Let the chicken rest for about 15 minutes before you slice it so all the juices won’t run right out of the meat.

There are so many uses for herbs it would take a whole cookbook to cover them all. You can even use herbs in cookies! Lemon thyme cookies are scrumptious! Basil Orange cookies, mint brownies, lavender tea cookies, and even Earl Grey Tea Cookies. Maybe tea isn’t an herb – it’s debatable, but these are really good!

Lastly, if any of my local friends want to try some dried herbs, I have lots of rosemary, thyme and oregano. Let me know if you want to try something and I’ll send you a recipe and some herbs.

DAWG GONNIT! MY STORE DOESN’T HAVE ANY VEGETABLE STOCK !

How do I make something that really tastes good?
My Green Bean Soup, the small pot for the upcoming Soup Night, is for my vegetarian guests. Anyone else can have some, of course, but these days I make it especially for them. There has always been a second pot of soup just in case someone doesn’t care for the main event, but my guest list has included several vegetarians recently so the second pot has turned into a vegetarian choice. And by the way, my non-vegetarian friends seem to gravitate toward that pot quite frequently! The grocery store I shop at does not carry Vegetable Stock in a can or a box. Go figure. I will often use the stocks off the shelf in the grocery – they are quite tasty and most of them are low sodium and low fat. (I try to make my soups as healthy as possible.) It’s a lot work to make your own so save yourself some time and use what you can buy when you need it. Even the generic brands are good. Just be sure to taste whatever you use so you don’t end up putting in too much salt. You may not even need any more salt depending on the brand you use.

Vegetable stock is a lot easier to make than chicken or beef stock. Obviously, you don’t need any meat. Whenever I do choose to make my own chicken or beef stock, I make sure to brown the meat very well before I add the water and other ingredients. It doesn’t have to be cooked through, it only has to have lots of brown on it. So you can brown it on medium-high to high heat. The brown color will add a LOT of flavor. You can certainly do the whole thing without taking the time for browning, but you are missing out on extra flavor that way.

Since I have to make my own vegetable stock this time, I used the opportunity clean out the vegetable bin after grocery shopping today. And keep in mind, I didn’t buy any of this today, it was all left over from last time I shopped. Here’s what I found.

A partial bag of carrots, a small zucchini I didn’t use, some celery that had slightly frozen (I hate when that happens), a large leek, some celery tops I used for a garnish and didn’t throw out, and two heads of romaine lettuce. You may remember I told you about how I used some romaine in a vegetable soup I made a couple of weeks ago and how good it was. I have some more lettuce that is not going to get used before it goes bad, so it’s going in the pot too. Everything you throw into the pot will be thrown away, so you can use pretty much anything in here. I mean, you could even use potato peelings if you had them (and of course if they were clean). I had some dried, sliced, roasted garlic in my pantry but fresh garlic will work just as well.

Here’s what I used: Keep in mind – you can really use anything you have in the fridge.

VEGETABLE STOCK
Into a soup pot with about 2 quarts of water, enough to cover everything with about an inch of water over the top:

2-3 carrots, chopped into large chunks
3 – 4 stalks of celery cut into large chunks
1 small zucchini
1 large leek chopped up and then rinsed very well (leeks can be very dirty inside)
or 1 medium yellow onion, cut into quarters, peel and all (the peel gives a lovely rosy color)
1 or 2 Romaine Lettuce heads (the whole heads, or just the trimmings (bottoms, stalks from leaves)
1 large dried porcini mushroom (throw in any kind of dried or fresh, for some extra flavor)
1½ - 2 Tbs. salt
Pepper to taste
Two cloves of garlic, smashed with the back of a knife, or the equivalent of any form of garlic you have
A dash of nutmeg (Approx 1/8 tsp)
½ of a small bay leaf (I don’t like too much of this unless it’s chicken or beef stock)
Bring it to a boil, turn it down and let it simmer for about an hour. All the veggie parts you put in there should be very soft. Notice what a nice color the stock has taken on from all the goodies you added to the pot.

Taste it. You can add salt/pepper now, or leave it as is and add salt/pepper later when you use the stock to make your dish.

Drain the stock through a large sieve. I would just throw all the veggies away now. You’ve cooked all the flavor out of everything so the veggies themselves are really not worth much at this point.

It’s now ready to use to make any kind of soup or sauce you like. If you’re making vegetable soup, just throw in some fresh veggies and let them cook to your taste. This will provide the veggies you want in the soup and add a little extra flavor to the stock at the cook.

Freeze leftover stock in small portions and you can use it make sauces or just thaw, heat and sip on it on a cold winter night.

It’ll never turn out the same twice unless you write down what you’ve used and the quantities you used. I find I like it just as much no matter what I put in the pot. However, there are a few of things I personally prefer NOT to add to any stock. I think a good stock should be fairly benign to allow you to add whatever “different” flavors you want to the dish/recipe you’re making with the stock.

Green Peppers – I find them a little bitter in the stock when simmered for a long time.
Ginger – unless you want the whole batch for something that “screams” for ginger, I would leave it out.
Green Beans – the flavor is too distinct in the stock and will make anything you use it in taste like green beans.
Whole fresh peas – same as green beans – they add too much pea flavor to the stock, unless you want that.
Corn – corn is OK, but it adds a lot of sweetness to the stock. So it’s good in chowders, or corn soup.
Potatoes – adds too much starch to the pot and a little too much potato flavor, unless you’re making potato soup or a chowder that asks for potatoes.

Just think a little about the flavor of the veggies you are adding, and about how they might taste in the finished product. This has a lot to do with knowing how to cook without a recipe, being an intuitive cook. If you think about what different foods taste like, then try to imagine how certain things would taste together. How would peas taste with a bay leaf added? Don’t know what a bay leaf tastes like? Then experiment because you will never know what it tastes like unless you try one. Here’s one good way to try a bay leaf. Make some chicken stock without one. When it’s nearly done, taste it. Then add a bay leaf, and ½ hour later. You will taste a depth of flavor that you did not have before.

I know it all sounds like too much to absorb, but this is the way you learn to know how flavors work together. Knowing what individual ingredients taste like is an important key to cooking intuitively, and it doesn’t happen overnight.

I’ve been cooking since I’m 11 years old and didn’t’ start using herbs and spices until maybe 5 – 7 years ago. I have no shame telling you that while I clean the house wash dishes, process vegetables from the vegetable garden, and even sit here writing a Food Blog, the Food Channel is on. Even if I’m not listening closely. It’s almost like “brainwashing”. But I’ve learned more from that TV show than from anywhere else! I never used fresh ground pepper from a pepper mill before! I never used rosemary before!!! It has become one of my favorite herbs! (I’ll write a Blog on herbs soon). And I will tell you that I have become a much better cook by watching/listening to the Food Channel.

I know I had a lot to say today. But don’t let it overwhelm you. One step at a time. Don’t ever hesitate to ask me a question or ask me for a recipe for something you’d like to make. Nothing could give me more satisfaction that sharing what I know with you.

(FYI -All the pictures you see are taken by me, of food I've prepared myself. I'm taking pictures of everything I make these days!)