Pitting Cherries (Removing the Pits, and Nothing but the Pits)

20200607092103_IMG_4021Yes, I know.  There are cherry pitters designed for this task.  But if you lose half the cherry with the pit, that kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it?

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Rendered Fat (Tallow, Lard, and Schmaltz)

No, I don’t live on some isolated homestead.  Yes, I could easily go to the store and buy some lard.  No, I don’t want to because making your own is easy enough to do, and why not save money and reduce waste in the process?

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Basil Pesto

20180818_110820If the original creator of pesto was still alive, it would be on my bucket list to find them and give them a long, garlicky kiss of thanks.  I owe the quality of my gastronomic life to that person.

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Harvesting Grape Leaves

20180702_100425I have come to realize that so many of the foods I was **ahem** “not fond of” were ones that started with less than fresh ingredients.  Count dolmades, a Greek delicacy made with grape leaves, as one of them.

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Peeling Peaches (Using Common Sense)

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The fuzz has got to go!  Give your peaches a quick rinse first.

Ah, common sense.  The ultimate tool in anyone’s arsenal, and yet the one that is the most under utilized.  Let’s change that.

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Ultimate Summer Garden Spaghetti Sauce

20180707_141030I used to make a “simpler” (read: plain) version of this sauce and the boys loved it.  Then I decided to get crazy and add other vegetables.  My boys cried.  Then they ate it.  They forgave me.

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Greek Summer Salad with Anchovies

20180629_115755There are few tasks when visiting family in Greece that I enjoy as much as going to the λαïκη (lye-ee-KEE), the farmer’s market.  There you will find the ripest, most colorful produce, buckets of olives, slabs of feta, and the freshest seafood and meats.  I drool walking past each display.

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Pitting Plums (and Keeping Fingers)

20180701_184827I have a few (okay, a fair amount, ummmm… maybe a lot) of kitchen gadgets.  Some I use more often than others, but I really do use them all at some point in time.

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