How to make crisp and evenly cooked bacon in the oven without all the grease splatters and mess of frying it on the stove. Pin It Bacon. Have you ever noticed that bacon has the ability to instantly trigger a response in your brain? Its salty goodness reaches to the recesses of your mind, and you are transported to a time other than the one you’re in. My personal bacon memory sends me back to six years old. I’m sitting in my grandma’s kitchen at the breakfast bar, knees tucked... more

An easy way to get fresh, roasted squash butternut (or any other) purée to use in recipes at home. So, as evidenced by my insistence on making my own pumpkin purée, you can probably imagine that I did not purchase a can of squash earlier this week for the butternut squash soup with bacon and sage. Instead, I roasted a butternut beauty that had been sitting and waiting patiently for me to finish making desserts and to start making dinner for the family again. I purchased it way back at the beginning... more

The last of the everbearing strawberries and groundcherries from the market find love as a sweet jam. It’s been warm here, the kind of warm that makes you want to take long bike rides through the trail system that runs just east of your house, stopping to enjoy the view of the lakes and swamps in the area. Swamps are magical. The sun has been shining. Blaring, really. It’s like August in October at the moment, but with golden leaves on the trees and pumpkins on the menu for dinner. Rather... more

I have a confession. I don’t remember ever buying pumpkin in a can. Ever. I know my mom did when I was younger a few times, but generally, our pumpkin came from, well, a pumpkin. For years in high school I avoided pumpkin pie with it’s brown, creamy texture. Then I realized it was because I’d always had my pumpkin fresh. Fresh as in orange. When I started cooking with pumpkin on my own, I naturally went for the fresh pumpkin, but the grocery stores sell by the pound, and... more