Vegetables. Face it, they’re boring. But we must serve them along with the main dish. It’s required Cooking 101. In fact, some only serve vegetables. Vegans, you know. But I have a hard time with ame old, same old veggies. A few days ago, I bought some zucchini, as a change of pace, and I tried a new recipe - Roasted Zucchini and Parmesan. It was delicious, and it’s really … [Read more...]

  I have been having fun with some Tex/Mex recipes – nothing fancy, stuff like Enchiladas, Tacos, Mexican Lasagna, and the like. I’m sure a real live Mexican would say, “What the hell is this? It’s not anything I’ve ever eaten or would eat.” But for those of us who the closest we ever get to Mexico is landing in Dallas, it’ll do. One thing that concerns me about cooking Mexican is … [Read more...]

By Nancy B   I have had customers ask me this question. They want to know if Nancy B is a real person or just a name I decided to use. Have you ever noticed how much people like to talk about themselves? I do and I also do. I thought I would tell you how I got into this business to begin with. Before our third child was born, we had a darling ladies and girl’s clothing business. … [Read more...]

Lonely they sit among the more popular vegetables in the produce section. There are usually just 2 or 3 of them in their given bin, but people pass them by. They are spaghetti squash, perhaps the tastiest of all the squash – winter or summer. There are two drawbacks to spaghetti squash. First, they run about $1.50 a pound, or about $5 or $6 each, and second, they are the dickens to cut … [Read more...]

  One of the classic Seinfeld episodes was about muffin tops. Elaine suggested to a friend that somebody should sell muffin tops, not the whole muffins, because the tops were the best part. Her friend stole her idea, opened a muffin top store and Newman ended up eating thousands of leftover muffin bottoms. It was one of my favorite episodes. Recently, I saw that Betty Crocker had a … [Read more...]

The Plantz family from Charlottesville had an exciting trip with Capt. Reese Stecher of BeachBumFishing.com at Oregon Inlet.  Site casting to vast schools of red drum, the family scored with fish after fish. Reese said there are plenty of stripers in the sound, but that there are too many drum around to mess with the stripers. He also said that the speckled trout are showing up now, but they … [Read more...]

  When we were counselors for the youth group at our church, we often served Sunday night dinner for the kids. Of all the meals, they overwhelmingly preferred Sloppy Joe’s and Spaghetti Pie. Spaghetti Pie may be the ultimate comfort food. It’s tasty, easy to prepare, and everybody loves it – especially kids. There are dozens of recipes for the pie, but as always, I go for the … [Read more...]

  There used to be an Opening Day of Trout Season and it was the equivalent of a Barnum & Bailey Circus coming to town. Men, women, and children headed for the mountains to try and catch a few of the hundreds of thousands of trout that had been stocked and were now hungry enough to eat raw worms. I have been a participant of lots of Opening Days during my fishing career, but one … [Read more...]

I went into Aldi’s Grocery store on the way home to pick up some lettuce for that night’s salad and saw a cluster of vine ripened tomatoes for two bucks and change. They looked good and I bought them, not really knowing what I would do with the little red fellows. I decided to roast them. Sometimes we cooks overlook the simplest of recipes. Always struggling with what to prepare for side dishes … [Read more...]

When company comes, cooking breakfast can be a chore. There’s bacon to fry, cheese grits to stir, potatoes to roast, eggs to fry and toast to brown. But what if you could put an entire breakfast into a single muffin tin? You can, and it’s both good and easy - allowing more time for company and less to spend in the kitchen. And it’s fun! I saw a recipe from Betty Crocker that triggered my recent … [Read more...]