Broccoli pesto pasta

I’m on a bit of a pasta kick lately. This is partly because I now live in a house with a kid, and pasta is almost sure to be well reviewed, and partly because April and May are the among the craziest times of the year for me and pasta is easy. Moral of the […]

Orzo and feta salad

It must be getting towards spring, even here, because I’m ready to think about salads again. But not green salads: every year in June, my farmshare delivers up so much lettuce that eating green salad every day — sometimes twice a day — is the only way to manage it, so I try to save up my green salad desires for that. Instead, I’m going for bean salads and salads like this one that combine grains and vegetables. orzo salad […]

Quinoa, or how to improvise in the kitchen

The magic line separating me from real cooks, I have long believed, is about improvisation. As I’ve learned to cook, I’ve become more and more comfortable winging it — applying familiar preparations to new combinations of things, taking “season to taste” ever more literally — but I’m not someone with a natural talent for looking […]