My blog has been a little short on recipes this summer. Partly it's because we eat out more during the warmer months, which gives me more material for restaurant reviews. When we have been eating at home, I've been focusing on favorite recipes that I've already posted: we've eaten lots of pasta with fresh sauce and linguine with zucchini and chickpeas
As I've mentioned before, I have a near obsessive urge to use up every last bit of a bunch of cilantro. I hate wasting food, in part because I relish the challenge of figuring out how to utilize a...
Today is the second anniversary of My Mixing Bowl, which started back on July 22, 2012 with a post about garlic scape pesto. Over the past year, I've added 87 posts with new recipes, restaurant...
When it comes to vegetables, my preparation methods feature a lackadaisical approach that I sometimes wish I could apply to other areas of my life. Miniature cucumbers get eaten straight from the...
Zucchini is my unsung vegetable hero of the farmer's market. Although it lacks the hipster cachet of kale or beauty of an heirloom tomato, zucchini is reliably abundant, reasonably priced, and versatile. Grated, it adds a rich moistness to muffins and quick breads; sauteed in olive oil with some salt, pepper, and garlic, it's an easy side dish; cut into spears and served raw, it pairs with just about any dip that strikes your fancy.
Sailing in and out of Stockholm was the best scenery of our cruise. Both sides of the narrow shipping channel are lined with islands (24,000 total in the Stockholm archipelago), some barren bits of...
As a proud Finnish-American (among the many European nationalities I can claim), Helsinki was the port I was most looking forward to seeing. Unfortunately, the day started with a heavy drizzle that...
Mike and I had very different motivations for taking our Baltic cruise. I was all about the “Baltic” angle, spending months beforehand researching the best bakeries in Copenhagen and the sights in...
I'm taking a break from my cruise blogging to write about one of my absolutely favorite things about summer in Minnesota: fresh strawberries. For a few weeks in late June and early July, I feast upon...
In St. Petersburg, we were the farthest from home, geographically and culturally. We were used to not being able to read signs by this point in our trip, but in Russia we didn't even know the alphabet...
Although many of the cities we visited on our cruise have medieval roots, Tallinn is the best preserved. The medieval city wall (which now encompasses a very small section of the city) is still intact...
Geographically astute readers may be wondering how Berlin is included on a Baltic cruise itinerary, since it is, in fact, rather landlocked. The answer is that after departing from Copenhagen, our...
Mike and I spent the beginning of June on a whirlwind Baltic cruise through six countries in nine days. We saw medieval city walls in Tallinn and a remnant of a much more modern wall in Berlin, ate...
I decided to make some tabbouleh for a potluck last month because I was in the mood for something fresh and herbal. It was a hit--one woman went back for thirds--and I found myself eating the...
Although I would never admit it in a job interview, I chose my career mostly because I really wanted to work in downtown Minneapolis. I fell in love with the hustle and bustle the first time I got off...
Over the years, I've had my fair share of dinner recipe failures. Sometimes it's just a matter of taste: the fancy pasta dish that led to the realization that Mike and I share a vehement dislike of Brie; the anchovy flatbread that ended up in the garbage (it was part of the Brooks Bakes Bread project); and a truly bizarre pasta salad that involved bow tie pasta, corn, salsa, and Italian dressing.
In general, I'm not much of a cupcake person. It's not that I dislike them; they just fail to entice me in the same way that say, ice cream does. (Although I do love frosting. My ideal cupcake would probably have about an inch of cake topped with two inches of frosting.) However, last month my mom made a batch of incredible key lime cupcakes for my grandma's birthday.
I spend most of my time on this blog writing about topics like the wholesome tastiness of obscure whole grains, the joy of opening a CSA box and finding the first strawberries of the season, and...
Lately, it seems like everyone and her second cousin is on the paleo diet. One of my coworkers seems to be subsisting on kale smoothies and hamburger patties, while another has brought in dairy-and...
Another year, another annual appetizer and dessert potluck. Since the avocado and tomato crostini that I made for last year's event were a hit, I wanted to make something in a similar vein. I was...
