Even with spring just around the corner, my hunger for comfort food remains high. And this dish, especially when paired with creamy polenta, is about as comfort food as it gets. It's rich, hearty, deeply flavoured, and guaranteed to chase away the last of the winter chill from your bones.

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know that I turn to Nora Roberts for comfort reading and comfort eating. There is a soothing formula to her trilogies. In times of crisis (hello, pandemic…) I know what I’m going to get and that her characters are never going to let me down.The trilogies that I enjoy most feature food pretty prominently. There is almost always a member of the team who is either a professional cook or someone who cooks elaborately to think, relax, or strategize. This specific pasta comes from "Stars of Fortune" and is so simple to make that you could easily enjoy it any time the fancy strikes.Full disclosure, in the book it’s penne and black olives, but I went with what I had and thought would be delicious. Please feel free to do the same. “Pasta with Tomatoes and Olives” is as open-ended a direction as you would like it to be.Note: I used my air fryer’s dehydration setting to roast my tomatoes, but you could do them in the oven just as effectively. Or, buy a jar of sun dried. Or, use them fresh. There’s no wrong way to do this.

The wife and daughter left for a few days to visit relatives, so I've had the house to myself since the weekend. You think that I'd use that freedom playing in the kitchen and going hog-wild whipping up new recipes, but strangely enough, the opposite happened. I've struggled to find motivation to go into the kitchen and cook. Maybe because it'd only be for me. It's been so bad I almost picked up a quarter pounder for dinner on the way home. Luckily, I detoured to the grocery instead. It took a bit of brainstorming, but eventually this dish came to me. It's not exactly original, because I made something very similar using chicken thighs a few weeks ago, but it's a start. And more importantly, it was really good.

I was in Eugene, Oregon at the Famers Market, I stopped at a little Tamale Stand, she had Several different kinds of Tamales...They were FABULOUS!!! So I tried doing some myself and came up with this recipe. ENJOY!

Today was Family Day, a provincial holiday to celebrate family togetherness. After a busy day out and about, my original plan was to come home and make a simple Filipino torta for dinner. Problem was, neither my wife nor my daughter are particularly big fans of torta, and it just seemed wrong to make a Family Day dinner that the entire family wouldn't enjoy. So I took the same ingredients, added a little mint and Greek yogurt from the fridge, and made Mediterranean inspired meatballs with tzatziki instead. It was much more enthusiastically received. And pretty darned tasty, too.

Tasty and loaded wth Omega 3 and vitamins E & C, magnesium, riboflavin, phosphorus, and potassium. I always look forward to this dish when Purslane comes into season (beginning of summer in California). Think of it as a summer stew.

Hello everyone, I am not sure if everyone has heard of the fires that occurred in the Athens area and around Greece these past few days. 🙁 This is a tragedy as lives were lost in these fires. The photos and what I have been told by friends and family are shocking and very sad. We do have family and friends who live in Athens who are well, but we also have a friend who lives in the Mati Area where most of the fires were at high intensity. He did battle to save his home, along with others who were trying to find a save place to hide from the fire. My husband has spoken with him he and his mother are ok. I am deeply saddened for the lives that were lost in this tragedy, may their souls rest in peace. 🙁 🙁 🙁My post will be quite short today please find below the ingredients and preparation.

I modified this recipe from one I found a while back so that I could use up ingredients in the refrigerator before my food shopping trip for the week

My son was getting tired of spaghetti with tomato meat sauce. I thought I would switch it up a bit now that school is out.

A traditional beef flavored ragù that gets its tomato base from only the paste. Adding tomatoes is not necessary, since you’re flavoring the meat with tomato, not flavoring a tomato sauce with meat. Adding 1 cup of finely chopped zucchini (optional) to the "soffritto" gives this sauce a balance of more vegetables to the meat.

Cooking is at its funnest when you're being creative. Like when you take a bunch of ingredients you think will work together and throw them into a pan to see what happens. Sometimes it won't work, often it does, and on rare occasions it comes out absolutely amazing. This dish definitely falls into the latter. I took some Mediterranean ingredients, reminiscent of puttanesca, and threw them into a chicken braise instead. The resulting dish was rich, nuanced, loaded with juicy olives and succulent chicken, and totally, satisfyingly delicious.