South Beach

Yes dears. It seems that somewhere between the summer and fall, I gained some weight. This pan of mini-quiches could only mean one thing: it's diet time.

Before you get all critical on me, hear me out. There are some good things about the South Beach diet. One being you get to eat these for breakfast, and they're really good. They suggest dinners like grilled salmon and veggies with butter, if you like it like that.


Most people don't get enough protein in their diet, anyway. I eat a lot of salads for lunch, so that's not really a major life change.

Yes, I'm aware that you don't "lose belly fat first." You lose water weight. But it gets rid of that icky bloaty feeling, and that's nice. If you're a total bread-addict, it can help break the craving (seriously!).

We won't discuss how long I lasted. We'll just say I thought about it a little more.

I like having warm oatmeal for breakfast. This is a very good, healthy thing. And even though exercise apparently doesn't help you lose weight, it does something good. Eating too much meat can be rough on your digestive system, and really not good if you're limiting fat. Then there's the holidays. It's downright rude to turn down a beautiful cookie or a perfect piece of cake this time of year.

And I love to bake. Bakers just don't do diets.

Baked Acorn Squash

Happy fall!


This is one of my favorite dinners ever. It's slow to cook, but worth it. This is how I usually do it.

Corn Chowder

Corn chowder is one of my favorite soups. I don't like clam chowder, but is there really anyone who doesn't like corn?

Most creamy soups call for just that - cream. I'm not about to invest in a container of cream, since I rarely make anything that would require it. Luckily, SparkRecipes usually has me covered on the low-fat replacement recipes.

This was, unfortunately, the best photo I got. And unlike most low-fat recipes, I found this kind of ... thin. So maybe substitutions aren't always good. In the background, you can see a fried egg ready to be dropped in by my husband. Maybe that's the way to go.


The climate at our new house is much, much different from Long Beach. We're 2.5 miles from the ocean instead of seven, and it makes a huge difference! I expect the winter to get pretty chilly and damp, so you can expect more soups from my kitchen.

Salmon & Polenta

A random, quick weeknight dinner:

(George Foreman) Grilled salmon. Plain ol' polenta (there's usually a recipe on the cornmeal canister - think mashed potatoes, except corn). And black beans.

I love black beans. They're fine plain, but they're very versatile. Here, I added onions, canned chopped tomatoes, and cayenne pepper. In a pan, cook the onions and spices in a little olive oil until they're soft. Then add the tomatoes and black beans, and just heat them up.

Avgolemono Soup

We had dinner at Daphne's not that long ago, as I was coming down with my most recent cold. Their lemon chicken soup sounded like the perfect thing for my oncoming illness. And it was! It was light, and not too acidic. I'd recommend it even if you're feeling great.

And then I was sick. And it was too hard to go out and get it, but all I could think about was how good the steamy lemon would be. So my dear husband took the recipe and made it for me. And it was just as good, if not better!

The thing is, my husband measures. Carefully. And follows instructions. I absolutely refuse to cook like that.

The night I chose to make it, though, made things very interesting.

It seems like almost every day, in the later afternoon, the wind picks up for a few hours. On this particular day, it picked up with a vengeance. We went for a short run, and it was like getting sandblasted. By the time we got home my eyes were tearing and my nose was stuffed. The whole time there were sirens up and down the streets, and I couldn't help but think it was because of downed power lines...

I set straight to work on dinner, and at that point a hot, clearing soup could not have sounded better. And then ...

Our power went out. Yes, that is me, cooking on the gas stove, in my running clothes and a headlamp. Is this why people prefer gas to electric stoves? Fortunately I had the stove's glow and was standing in front of the drawer with the matches when the power went out; my husband was back in the cavern of our closet collecting laundry. Yikes.

Thankfully, the soup wasn't interrupted at all. First off, I didn't have any chicken broth. So I substituted eight cups water. I couldn't find chicken soup base and instead got bouillon, and yes, I know these aren't interchangeable. But you can imagine how rich broth and bouillon might be! I'm not a fan of cooked celery (or celery at all, for that matter), so I just cut up more carrots. I had lemon juice instead of full cut lemons, and used only a couple of egg yolks. There always seem to be extra yolks when you bake a lot.

Rather than rice, I cooked up a cup of barley. There are so many interesting grains available! Barley seemed like a safe and easy one to branch out. I thought it was fantastic addition, and insanely filling.


If you think eight cups of liquid plus everything else seems like a lot, you're right. The recipe makes a lot, and easily got us through the whole week!

Pumpkin Cake

Since I didn't have a proper treat to take in to my last day of work, I wanted to make something quick. And impressive. And tasty.

What did I have on hand? Pumpkin.

I also had an untouched springform pan. Normally they're for cheesecakes, but why not a cake? But, I was a little squeamish about making a pumpkin cake from scratch given my recent track record and short time frame. Pumpkin bread is pretty fluffy, so why not that?

I can't remember which recipe I used, but they're all pretty close to each other. Here's a big list of them for you. Take your pick.



Springform pans are generally a little larger than regular cake pans; therefore, it came out pretty short. To be honest, it came out pretty meh. So I made a simple, quick vanilla glaze out of my Betty Crocker. I've been meaning to learn how to make it, but was always kind of intimidated. Sometimes the simplest recipes come out the hardest! Now that I know what to do, though, I expect it to be a quick add for a lot of my baked goods.

I had some green frosting left over from a previous project (I don't know what, but it wasn't the Halloween cake. This actually came before Halloween.) and these awful, awful pumpkin spice kisses. They only taste good mixed with something else. So I made a little quick pumpkin-esque decoration around the edge.

It went over pretty well at work (and, I heard later, the next day). No one knew it was bread rather than cake. This is the perfect kind of thing to bring in: sturdy, travels well, keeps for a while, and easy to make!

Halloween Cake

This Halloween was totally awesome. Hectic, but awesome.

Friday night I stayed home to get the house in order, and put the finishing decorations on the cake. The preparation ended up more work than I expected, but it was worth it.

Saturday morning was the Pumpkin Run. I'll be the first to admit: I didn't want to be there. It was early, cold, I'm out of shape (with a few extra self-conscious pounds to prove it), and far enough for me to worry that we wouldn't have enough time to get cleaned up. I was not pleasant.

It ended up I ran faster than I ever have. My time was a boggling 28:37. Under 30 minutes!! I'm crediting the local hills, since the path was fairly flat. I think I scared the spectators toward the finish line after I saw the clock and hauled it across the finish line (but for the record, the clock was under 28 minutes when I crossed). You can read more about it here.

We came home, got cleaned up, and started partying. People came and went as they pleased, but I loved having everyone over. Where's this cake, you ask?


Of course, everything was edible. I used the doll cake pan to make the "hill." The fences were pretzels stuck together with chocolate. The tree was just chocolate chips melted in a pastry bag and squeezed out onto a sheet of wax paper. The same chocolate (Albertson's brand chocolate chips, to be exact) held together the graham cracker coffin. And if you look closely, you can see the green fingers creeping out. The tombstones were fun-size Heath bars, cut in half, and decorated with white frosting. Oh, and the dark gravelly road? Crushed Teddy Grahams. They were cheaper than regular graham crackers, albeit disturbing to crush up. The cake was chocolate, like dirt, according to my husband. Oh and those pumpkin spice kisses? Nasty. Just FYI.

I also roasted pumpkin seeds from our carved pumpkins. Thirty minutes at 375 degrees, coated in cooking spray and Lawry's salt. I roasted almonds in cinnamon sugar at the same time, but really that's not the right method. I should have melted the sugar and cinnamon in a little butter on the stove. Que sera.

We had an evening of trick or treaters. My favorites were the toddlers who, at the start of the night, didn't quite understand what was happening, but by the end of the night were totally in to getting candy from the strange lady who was oh so excited to see them. Cute.

Thank goodness Sunday was daylight savings day. We needed the break!