Confession:  I have never been an asparagus lover. When I was growing up in Wisconsin, there were three foods that signaled spring: chives (or wild onions, depending on what your yard held), rhubarb, and asparagus. The chives meant Mom’s wonderful potato salad would soon grace the table, and that was good. The other two, however,…

Has chili and soup fatigue set in on your efforts to incorporate more dried beans and lentils into your diet? Are you completely out of the seasonings needed to make those really wonderful east Asian dishes your local Indian restaurant serves? If you are a fan of sausage, peppers and onions, this might be a…

There was a time when muffins were the plain Jane cousins of cupcakes, back before they were laden with chocolate chips and dried cranberries, covered with thick layers of streusel topping and loaded up with butter or oil and lots and lots of sugar. They had few ingredients and were usually served with butter and…

Consider the lentil for a moment:  cheap, easily stored, quick cooking, high nutrition, and eminently flexible. And did I say cheap, er, inexpensive? Yet here in the US, the lentil is an ingredient probably the majority of home cooks have never tried to prepare on their own. Time to change that, perhaps with a resolution…

Part of my extended family loves rice, with just about anything and everything; part of my family does not. Some of the latter are great lovers of bread. Pita bread, whole wheat bread, bread. So when I was thinking of making a lentil and sweet potato curry, I began to think about naan along with…

Sometimes the best place to start with a cooking or baking project is with the sides or accompaniments. Think about your basic boneless, skinless chicken breasts. On their own, they are really pretty tasteless and, well, dull. However, prepare some great sauce or cook up a vegetable side and add some marinaded and braised chicken…

First there were just boiled eggs dipped in salt and pepper. Then perhaps came the egg salad sandwiches, then the deviled eggs. Now, every time you open the refrigerator, you are still faced with three, four, or even more colored creations staring you in the face. Will the family really accept another night of eggy…

When I cook dry beans, I generally do a great big batch, since two pounds will take little more time or energy than a cup or two, and the prepared beans are easily frozen. This week, however, I had a ham taking up a lot of freezer space, so some of the pinto beans that…

The perfect boiled egg…how hard can that be? Actually, not too hard at all, but it can also be an elusive goal, especially if you want to avoid that gray-green ring around the outside of the yolk or to have the center still runny when you had hoped to make deviled eggs or use the…

For most of us, most of the time, papaya hardly seems like a “frugal” ingredient. However, some time ago, a local grocery had some large papayas at a very good price. Remembering the wonderful fruits I was able to enjoy when visiting my kids in their South Pacific home, I couldn’t resist and bought one….