One of the nice things about writing a food blog, it turns out, is that you meet other people who like food. And in this networked world, you soon meet their friends, and friends-of-friends, and so it goes until you find yourself, as I often do, surrounded by people who love food, eating good food, talking about food. 
Sometimes those people even cook for you. Continue reading
My first half-gallon of tangy, delicious sauerkraut ended badly…
…and I found myself looking for ways to serve the last few brine-less cups left in the bottom of the jar.
What would you do? Continue reading
Do you remember your first ice cream cone?
Here’s how it went, maybe, if you were one year old at the time: chubby fist, gleeful grin, strawberry ice cream everywhere, little fingers clutching the stump of a soggy cone as a rueful grown-up finally wrestled it away. That was my youngest daughter today.
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Welcome to Emmy Cooks! You can see some of my favorite recent recipes by clicking the “My Favorite Recipes” category on the sidebar (here are May, June, and July). If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to receive a daily recipe by email, or follow Emmy Cooks on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.
Think of these as a convenience food.
I know you can buy frozen french fries, but honestly, a potato is pretty convenient all by itself. Chop a pound or two into batons, toss them with oil and salt, and roast them in a hot oven while you make the rest of dinner. You’ll have to hurry, though, because they’ll be ready inside half an hour and you’ll want to eat them hot.
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A friend sent me an urgent email the other day.
“Make this salad,” he instructed.
“I like that salad,” I told him. “But have you tried this one?”
He re-sent the original link. I saw his point, and went out to buy a watermelon.
There are no new recipes under the sun, or something like that. I love the flavor combination featured in this salad enough that I’ve featured a similar recipe before. But this variation is even simpler because instead of making that creamy oil-free dressing (which is, by the way, well worth making), you just squeeze a lime into the salad with a pinch of salt for clean, bright, summertime flavor.
This recipe is also worth revisiting at this time of year because it’s a great way to use up any odds and ends from your CSA or exuberant vegetable shopping. Do you have a clean-out-the-fridge day of the week? It’s Saturday around here, both because there’s time to cook and because I need to make room for the next CSA box in the fridge. Continue reading
It’s the time of year when peaches are piled so high on the counter that we hardly make a dent in them as we eat one after another, on the back porch or leaning over the sink, juice running down our wrists. The baby reaches for them: “apple! Apple!” (All fruit is “apple” in her lexicon.) We get peaches in our CSA box every week, and buy more, and then our neighbors came over with a heaping bowl, sharing the bounty of a box they brought home from some warmer, peach-growing place.
Time to make a crisp.
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The tomatoes are purple, broad-bottomed, flecked with green. These are not my backyard Sungolds. They’re Cherokee Purple heirlooms, hefty in my hand, and they come from east of the mountains where it actually gets hot. They’re rare visitors in my kitchen, but I know just what to do with them today.
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Recently I find myself enchanted by an unusual number of the recipes I see in my blog reader. This salad. This pasta. This pizza. I want to make half the recipes I see every day. At first I wondered if I was just feeling hungry, but then I realized: corn is in season.
As you know, summer and soup are not confined to separate seasons here in Seattle. Continue reading
I’m afraid I can’t write a post for you tonight because I am too absorbed with Pinterest, which I never really explored before today. Ooh, pretty! Very distracting. I see the attraction now. Come visit me at pinterest.com/emmycooks/, wouldja?
But here’s the nice thing about jam, I guess: it can happen in the background in fits and starts while you’re doing other things. (Cooking an elaborate Senegalese feast, for example, or fooling around on the internet.) Continue reading
Emmy Cooks 