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Chocolate Pumpkin Nut Butter (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Refined Sugar-Free)

January 6, 2016 By Karen

Do you dream? Not big, what do I want the world to look like dreaming, but actual sleep dreaming? I do. I have technicolor vivid dreams that play out like complicated shows. They’re either long and involved and jump from scene to scene, or they’re straightforward, but in syndication, repeating themselves year after year, theme after theme. Anxiety dreams that are so cliched they’re embarrassing: I’ve missed every rehearsal, don’t know my lines, am missing my costume, and the curtain is about to go up, or I’ve missed every lecture, and now I have to take the final having never read the books. I’ve got a whole lineup that plays nightly, and I wake in the morning aware of how obvious my issues all are. Sometimes it’s revealing, other times it’s exhausting, but mostly it’s just constant. I dream almost every single night, and I tend to remember details for long stretches of time. I can still recall scenes of dreams I had when I was a kid, and the feelings attached to them. The familiarity I felt towards a celebrity after he had a part in the pictures in my sleep, the freedom of flying through the sky, with clouds all around, doing the breast stroke through the air because of course that’s the most realistic human flying move, or the stomach dropping horror of swinging and falling from the chandelier in the foyer of my childhood home. I depend on my dreams, and I appreciate them. But there are nights that I just wish I could sleep soundly and wake peacefully, rested and refreshed because my brain had simply shut down for the night.

A couple weeks ago was no different. …

Cardamom Snickerdoodles

December 31, 2015 By Karen

December flew by, and while I have lots I want to share with you all about the last month, I’m going to save it for after the new year. (Here’re two highlights though: I went as a plus one to The White House staff holiday party (!!!), and we just got a kitten (!!!). Two crazy exciting things in my world that I promise to tell you more about.) But as the ball gets ready to drop, I just wanted to make sure to wish you all a happy and healthy 2016, and thank you for reading and cooking along with me this year. I love your comments and hearing about what you’ve made, and appreciate you taking the time to share it all with me.

And while I hope that the coming year is smooth and easy for you, I have do doubt there will be bumps along the way. There always are. Whether they’re silly and trivial, like the mess I made the other night before these cookies (my Oasis isn’t always so peaceful,) or they’re more serious ones, involving health, loss, or big life choices, remember that you can look for comfort in your kitchen in the form of healthy food to feed yourself or those you love, or a big bowl of cookie dough. Both are equally important. Both make things better.

And since so many people out there make all sorts of pledges to start diets after January 1st, I figure I better squeeze one solid cookie recipe in before midnight. I came up with these Cardamom Snickerdoodles on Christmas, and have made them a couple of times this week just to make sure I got the recipe right for you all. (I don’t know if you remember, but I kind of have a thing for all things snickerdoodle. Remember these: Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Frosting? They were one of the most popular recipes on the blog in 2015!)They’re soft and chewy cookies, spiced with a good amount of cardamom and just a hint of cinnamon, but not too sweet….

Sesame Date Granola (gluten-free, refined sugar-free, vegan, and all around healthy)

September 28, 2015 By Karen

A few years ago, my husband decided to cut refined sugar out of his diet. And I’ve got to be honest with you, when he did it, I was mad. And I don’t mean just a little bit annoyed. I mean MAD. Big, angry, cranky, wanted to kick and scream, MAD. Now, I realize that an appropriate response would have been to be impressed, supportive, proud or inspired, but I felt none of those things. It’s not like he was even trying to pressure me into joining him, he just quietly started reading labels and stopped eating any of the desserts I baked and didn’t order treats when we were out. It was all very reasonable, but it didn’t feel that way to me. It took a few months for me to understand my own reactions, but it came down to a feeling of jealousy. He has discipline and will power that I never believed I could possess. Because I doubted my own ability for restraint, I resented that it came so easily to him.

And come on, have you seen this blog? Do you know me at all? Then you probably get how important sweets are in my life, and how a good cookie or cake brings me sheer happiness, and a chewy brownie brings me comfort when all else fails. So the idea of giving that up scared the daylights out of me. Scared maybe isn’t the word…..I was worried that I would feel deprived, and that isn’t something I was willing to entertain. But truth be told, his sugar-free period lasted around 6 months, and he then went back to his normal ways.

But jump ahead to this past spring, and the sugar-free plan resurfaced. But this time, I was finally open to thinking about it. What changed? Me. I changed….

Peach, Ricotta and Basil Pizza

August 27, 2015 By Karen

Hello! I know you haven’t seen me here much these last few months, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been in my kitchen. I’ve said it before: it’s my happy place. My oasis. When there’s nonsense going on, I retreat to the place where nothing can go wrong, and where I can get a few minutes of solitude. Okay, maybe you are looking at that last sentence and thinking, “But everything can go wrong in the kitchen!” Sure, flour can be spilled, dough can be too sticky, crust can get burned, but really, is it the end of the world? No. Is it a disaster? Never. Unless you’re slicing a digit and bleeding all over the place, or burning yourself on a hot pan (all things I can proudly say I’ve done, more than once,) mistakes in the kitchen aren’t tragic. So just take a deep breath and embrace the fact that you can be creative, you can feed yourself and people you care about wholesome food, and it’s going to taste damn good in the end. Oh, and that solitude? Sometimes it happens, and pushing dough to the edges of a pan is meditative, and other times I’ve got whining kids cranking out saying they’re hungry, or that their brother was mean. But truthfully, just being in the kitchen calms me down, and my reactions are kinder there.

So what have I been cooking? I’ve made 9 pizzas in the last seven days. Yes, nine. Four had peach, basil and homemade ricotta, two were avocado, corn and basil, a pesto pepperoni and a standard pepperoni, and then one with garlic oil, figs, mozzarella, Maldon sea salt and a splash of balsamic. I just got on a kick, and I can’t seem to stop. Here’s the thing: pizza is really easy. It’s one of those tricks, that once you learn how to do it, you wonder why you never did it before. And you can throw anything you want on top, and most of the time it works. This week, they all worked. And they worked so well that I just kept repeating them.

I’ve been making my own dough for a few years now. I’ve tried tons of recipes, but my all time favorite is from the cookbook and blog, Dinner: A Love Story, by Jenny Rosenstrach. Her recipe is pretty much Jim Lahey’s no-knead dough recipe, and it’s a winner….

Summer Fruits Tea Cake (and 10 Books to Go With It)

July 8, 2015 By Karen

I love the feeling of falling into somebody else’s world, temporarily leaving my own reality to find a place in another. In some ways, I experience that in my work. It’s my privilege as an interpreter that I’m allowed into the most private moments of other people’s lives, or simply that I have the opportunity to walk into situations that I would never otherwise have access to. Although that’s not at the foundation of why I became a sign language interpreter, and certainly not a main reason why I continue to be one, it is a part of what keeps me balanced.

Being in the hospital room as a child is born, in the court room when a divorce is granted, on the course as someone learns to ride a motorcycle, in the classroom where they study to be a priest, a rabbi, a teacher, a lawyer, an historian or an artist, in the office when someone is fired, on the phone for a fight between a mother and her son, or on a stage in front of tens of thousands of people, it’s my honor to gain perspective from other people’s lives.

While my professional access to these experiences might be unique, I know I’m not alone in the desire to immerse myself in other’s stories. And for as long as I can remember, I’ve done that with books. I was the little girl hiding with the flashlight under the covers, escaping into The Secret Garden. I was the teenager devouring trashy novels and Wuthering Heights with equal abandon (which I guess might have been trashy in its day.) In my twenties I called the New York Public Library my second home, and missed my subway stop time and again as Barbara Kingsolver, Isabelle Allende, J. K. Rowling and David Sedaris wove their tales around me. And in my thirties I fell in love with audio books and cookbooks, returned to children’s literature, and began a habit of reading electronically.

I read so much that I can’t keep track of it all without maintaining a list, and so for years…

Quick Tip: Roasting Green Beans

April 13, 2015 By Karen

I just wanted to pop in with another quick tip that might be obvious to some, but a revelation to others. Roast your green beans! I know, everything on this site seems to be about roasting: Roasted Broccoli, Roasted Honeynut Squash with Za’atar and Pomegranate Molasses, Roasted Peaches with Basil and Ricotta, Spice-Crusted Roasted Salmon.) But it’s only because roasting is one of the easiest ways to cook delicious food, and it’s healthy. So it’s time for roasting green beans!

It seems ridiculous to even write a recipe for this, because as with all vegetables you’re pretty safe if you just spread them out on a baking sheet, with lots of space between them, and toss with extra virgin olive oil, kosher salt and freshly ground pepper, and stick them in a hot oven, tossing occasionally. 425 degrees Fahrenheit for 25 minutes, and you are good to go.

*Oh, and the bear up top? My big kid got to take Paddington home over the weekend and document his adventures. He helped with these green beans, so he got to have his own photo shoot with the results….

Cardamom Almond Matzoh Brei

April 6, 2015 By Karen

On Friday night, the first night of Passover, I sat at the kitchen table reading two children’s books to my little guys about the holiday. The stories tell of traditions that have been passed down from one generation to the next, and reflect what my world looked like growing up, but not what it is now. I’m very aware that the families in these books don’t look like my family, and I wonder about the message my own kids take from these illustrations. It’s a conversation I could probably have with my 8 year old at some level, but I haven’t yet. It makes me think about writing a new book.

This is what the cardamom seeds look like from the pod, before they are ground.

Instead, while they nibbled on crumbling pieces of matzoh slathered in salted butter, I read them the story of …

Quick Tip: Freezing Ginger

March 26, 2015 By Karen

Just a quick tip for you all today, because my brain and time has been otherwise occupied, and lately my kitchen has been the scene of studying more than anything else. Which means I have been all about easy meals and shortcuts, and I thought some of my tricks might be worth sharing. And I realized that while this might seem obvious to some, maybe it hasn’t crossed your radar yet: You can freeze ginger!

I don’t know about you, but I always seem to buy fresh ginger for a recipe, or to throw into a stir-fry, and I tend to have more than I need. And it ends up shriveling in my crisper drawer into a freakish looking fuzzy mess, and I have to toss all the extra that I wasted. And of course, I then need it for something else, and I’m mad. So the solution is simple: when you buy your ginger, simply peel it all at once, chop it into different size pieces (some big, some small) and toss it in a Ziploc freezer bag and store it in the freezer. Obvious, right? (Except that for years it wasn’t obvious to me at all.)And you can then use that frozen ginger straight from the freezer. Just grate it using a microplane, or let it thaw for a bit in some room temperature water, or throw it in your Green Smoothie as is. (Which is what I did this morning in the picture below. My smoothie turned a bit darker because I added some blackberries and carrots to it, but the shining star was the cube of frozen ginger that got blended up with the spinach, banana and yogurt. It was ridiculously good. Trust me: add ginger to your smoothies.)

And when I take a break from studying, I’ll put together a post on how else to use your ginger. I’ve got a hot and sour mushroom soup recipe that I made for our cooking club a couple of weeks ago that is going to make you look at what you get from Chinese take-out in a whole new way. In the meantime, back to the books…..