During the early days of the pandemic, when everyone was in lockdown, I learned while cooking three meals a day to make substitutions for ingredients that I didn’t have on hand. Fontina cheese might be replaced with white cheddar, onions might be used instead of leeks, and lime juice  stood in for lemon juice in many of my recipes. Such replacements became so routine that gradually I began to realize that I liked the newer versions better than the originals. That is certainly true for the spicy turkey chili Continue reading →

During the hectic days of the holiday season soups were my “go to” dish. When the frigid temperatures arrived in our New England town along with snow last month, I made a lentil soup with smoked garlic sausage. My spouse loved it and took seconds, and then thirds. I also packed up a container to take to a friend who had returned home from a short hospital stay. For Christmas Eve I prepared a hearty vegetable potage topped with melted Gruyère that we shared with our son and his family. And, finally we invited out of town pals to welcome 2023 with us, and on the first day of the new year we savored bowls of a delicious broccoli soup with curried crème fraîche. The recipe for the latter is featured here today. Continue reading →