When fruit is plentiful I love to make batches of homemade jam. In fact, I haven’t purchased any store bought brands for four years. Like all things cooking, I often look for ways I can cut down on time. Although you still need to use canning skills to preserve this jam, it’s prepared in the microwave which speeds up the process and also lessens the heat in the kitchen. Most of the time I’ve used peaches in this recipe, but I think nectarines would work just as well. My next tweak for this one is using mangoes so feel free to give them a try too. 4 large peaches, peeled, and cut into1/2…

  When I was growing up in England our summer vacation was usually a trip to the beautiful Spanish island of Mallorca. It’s been many years since I’ve been there but some of the new to me foods I got to try for the first time have always stayed in my mind. One such dish is paella. I’ve had a couple of attempts to make it myself but could never quite match the taste. To my surprise while I was searching on the Vitacost site I came across paella rice that’s premade with all the great spices needed for this dish. It was on sale so I thought I’d give…

  Sometimes recipes are created when I’m cleaning out the fridge ready for the following day’s shopping expedition.  This one came about just that way. Red peppers, a jar of jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, cilantro, and in the pantry, half a box of elbow macaroni.  Throw them all together, add some dressing, load the final result into some lettuce leaves or use a side salad and you have a cheap and easy summer lunch or supper. 4 cups cooked elbow macaroni (I use whole wheat because I think the flavor and texture is better) ¼ cup chopped fresh cilantro 2 medium sized tomatoes, cored and chopped 1 small red pepper, deseed…

Lemon Tree I’ve always wanted a lemon tree and finally have one. I found a miniature version for $5 at the Home Depot. They did have larger ones too which were tempting but I want to see how the miniature one fares indoors during the winter before I get ahead of myself. I’ve not had much luck brining in plants from outdoors so fingers crossed the little lemon tree survives and even yields some lemons for cooking. Growing Your Own Food Speaking of growing your own food, I planted some tomatoes, lettuce and microgreens in my Aerogarden. During the summer lots of these ingredients vanish in a couple of days…

The garden’s producing more cucumbers than you know what to do with or they’re 2 for $1 at the store. Both good reasons to try something besides slice them and put them on a salad. This was my first attempt at a cold cucumber soup. Two things you need to consider are, one, cucumbers don’t impart much taste. Two, they’re largely water so adding more isn’t a good idea. You can get rid of a lot of the water content by chopping the cucumbers and putting them into a sieve that you place over the sink or a bowl and sprinkle them with some Kosher salt. Next dilemma is solved…

  Last week I purchased a 10 lb. box of Vidalia onions for $6.99 thinking I’d freeze or dry them for future use but then had a change of plan for some of them. I used six of them for this week’s Meatless Monday meal. I had some cooked lentils sitting in the fridge and also red peppers had been on sale. Combine these two with some mushrooms and you’ve got the perfect filling for an onion. These Vidalia onions were on the large size and took a long time to cook so next time around, and something you might want to do, is boil them for about five minutes…