Dining Al Fresco

When it hasn’t been raining, I’ve been enjoying the pleasure of dining outside on the patio. But it seems like there are some meals that work for al fresco dining (sandwiches, salads, that sort of thing), while others are better suited for indoors (for some reason, stir fry seems better suited for the inside). [...]

Learning to Cook with Tempeh

I’ve been a vegetarian for over 15 years and I still don’t really “get” tempeh. I mean, I know it’s good stuff and I want to be able to cook with it, but I still don’t entirely know its secret. Most of this comes down to tempeh’s distinctive flavor, which is hard to [...]

Store the Surplus: How to Freeze Fresh Vegetables

I’m back. Sort of. I’m still recovering from a kidney infection but trying to get back to business as usual. Right before all this happened I went grocery shopping, and it pained me to see all my fresh veggies going to waste in the fridge. So today I willed myself to enter [...]

Foods to Eat When You’re Sick

I don’t normally like Gatorade. Ok, I’m lying – I love the stuff, and most other types of flat, fake-orange beverages. But usually I have the will to resist. Not when I’m sick.
We all have our own food cravings when we’re under the weather. Bob at Slashfood has a [...]

Optimize Your Grocery List

Grocery lists are back, baby. Though for some of us, they were never gone…

A while back I published my grocery list template for healthy people. Since then, the financial market has gone down the pooper and we the people of of this glorious economy can’t afford to waste money on impulse purchases and overpriced [...]

How to Make Thrown-Together Meals

I don’t mean thrown in the literal sense, not that I mind a good old-fashioned food fight. But today I’m talking about cooking, specifically, cooking quickly and with random ingredients found around the kitchen.
Today I found myself in that very situation. I had neither onion, nor tomato, nor tofu, three foods [...]

10 Minute Steel-Cut Oatmeal

For those of you who read this blog regularly, this may come as a surprise: I’ve been taking a break from the Bircher Muesli.
Both the cold weather and my recent camping trip have put me in the mood for hot oats again. My favorite type of cooked oats is by far [...]

Plane Food

After a whirlwind week of sightseeing, rambling, and pub-hopping around London, my dad returned to Chicago yesterday. But our parting did not bring sweet sorrow – I will see him again tomorrow back in his neck of the woods. In just a few hours I fly to Chicago for a very long and [...]

Food Diary: A Freezer Full of Dal

Today’s food tip is something most of you have probably heard before, but it is the food tip that makes most of my Indian feasts possible.
Food Tip #12: Cook in bulk and store leftovers in the freezer.
My favorite food to keep on hand in the freezer is lentil dal. So to make up for [...]

Food Diary: Surviving the Silly Season

I am really not good at the whole late night thing. But as Christmas approaches, more opportunities than ever are cropping up to stay up past my bedtime. Add to that my trip home to Chicago in a little over a week, and my social calendar has been wonderfully full of last chances to [...]