• citrus olive salad
    Winter

    Citrus & Olive Salad

    This citrus and olive salad is a sweet and tangy, colorful, full flavored and incredibly simple recipe to brighten up a winter’s day. Beautiful crimson blood oranges (though naval or cara cara will certainly do) are balanced beautifully by marinated red onions, oil-cured black olives, and a robust extra virgin olive oil.  Finish with a sprinkle of Mediterranean flaky salt to bring out those delectable flavors.

  • braised short ribs
    Autumn,  Winter

    Rigatoni with Dark Cocoa and Red Wine Short Ribs

    “Chocolate, the ‘food of the gods,’ conquered not just the candy shop, but also the kitchen.” – Riccardo Magni Don’t make the mistake of thinking this rigatoni with dark cocoa and red wine short ribs is  a chocolate-y or sweet pasta dish, it’s absolutely not.  Not even close.  Savory and enchanting?  Absolutely. I live in a part of New Jersey that is home to one of the world’s most famous chocolate makers.  In fact, it’s not uncommon for the aroma of chocolate to blanket the entire town well into the wee hours of the morning.  Since chocolate is literally in the air here – the constant reminder of it has…

  • piernik
    Winter

    Gingerbread Cake with Christmas Jam (Piernik Staropolski)

    A classic Polish gingerbread cake recipe, Piernik Staropolski. My daughter’s 5th grade class was tasked with a “Christmas Around the World” project in Social Studies and of the three countries she chose to research, she was granted Poland.  Seeing as though my children share in their father’s half-Polish ancestry, we took to researching traditional Polish Christmas desserts to add to our repertoire of holiday goodies, and decided upon an heirloom gingerbread cake recipe with Christmas jam, a version of the classic Polish Piernik Staropolski recipe.

  • mulled cider
    Winter

    Wassail

    “Here we come a-wassailing Among the leaves so green; Here we come a-wand’ring So fair to be seen.” For most of us ‘wassail’ is a word we know from a popular Christmas carol though there’s a good chance that most of us cannot explain what it is – and with good reason, as wassail has been mostly lost to history and time. Come with me as we step back into a Dickens novel.  Let’s walk the cobblestone streets to a boisterous tavern somewhere in 19th century England, and partake in the merrymaking with a mug full of hot and aromatic wassail.

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