My Mother made lentil soup often and a pot of lentil soup cooking on the stove still reminds me of those cold, snowy days growing up in New York City and the warmth and delicious aromas of our kitchen linger with me today. Mom’s recipe for lentil soup was a meatless dish and with her knack of adding a pinch of this and a pinch of that made this a very flavorful dish.
Winter has hit most of the nation with quite a punch and nothing can warm the tummy better than a hearty bowl of hot soup. My version of a quick vegetable soup came to me one cold day when it was snowing and sleeting outside. It was getting late and I wanted the family to have some hot soup when they came in from the cold at the end of the day.
Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Who doesn’t enjoy “dressing-up”, receiving tons of candy, and getting the living daylights scared out of you? I’m happy to see the excitement and fun of Halloween has grown more and more popular each year.
A special treat I enjoyed making for kids and adults alike are English Muffin Pizzas. It is a quick, easy and healthy food that is sure to please trick or treaters before they go running out the door. I won’t post the recipe here, but have a look at my “Marinara Sauce Recipe” and “Homemade Pizza Recipe” for reference and also be sure to watch me prepare the pizzas in the video below.
A quick and delicious side dish is my jazzed-up baked beans. It is so simple to prepare and it will taste as if you have been cooking this all day long. This is a perfect recipe to accompany any outdoor grilling you are doing, such as hamburgers, frankfurters, chicken, and my all time favorite Barbecue Beef Brisket.
Ingredients:
(See my BBQ Brisket Recipe for a video of this recipe)
Serves: 6
While living in Texas for many years, I became a devout fan of barbecue. In Texas, barbecue is an art and everyone competes for the best barbecue sauce. I loved all that I tried and now when I visit Texas, I have to make a stop at some of my favorite barbecue restaurants.
I never could duplicate the recipes to my liking, mainly because of the amount of time it takes to slow cook on the barbecue grill to get the true essence of great tender, flavorful barbecue. Eventually I found an easy and very delicious method for making barbecue beef brisket. Brisket is a tough cut of meat and needs marinating and slow cooking in order to become tender.
This recipe brings back fond memories for me as it was a dish my daughter, Allison, loved from the time she was a little girl. It became her all time favorite dish and she would always request it, no matter what the occasion was. Be it a birthday, coming home on a college break, or when she became a working woman. It was a dish she always looked forward to. It got to the point that we would all refer to this meatloaf recipe as “Ali’s Meatloaf”.
Company is coming for dinner and I plan to prepare a menu that I have served numerous times and it always gets rave reviews. In fact, last month my dearest friends or I should say my surrogate family, Christopher Lowell and his sister, Laura, came for a visit and I prepared several meals for them.
It was such a thrill for me to cook for Christopher who has visited several times. Usually, if we didn’t go out to eat, he would do the cooking while I was his assistant chef, which really meant I did the chopping and stirring while he did all the work. He is a master cook, so I am always honored to be his assistant.
Winter is upon us and that means cold and flu season and not to mention blustery cold weather. What better comfort food to have when sick with a cold or flu or on a cold wintry day, but a delicious, healthy cup of homemade chicken soup? What makes this homemade chicken soup recipe a little different is the addition of paprika to the broth. Instead of a bland looking hot water broth, this soup achieves a wonderfully lustrous golden color. This recipe is so quick and easy to make too!
Ingredients:
12 c water
