Buckle up, because this big batch of Chicken & Smoked Sausage Gumbo makes a near-full 6.5 quart pot. I always figure if I’m going to the effort of making a rich, deeply darkened roux on the stove top, then I’m gonna make a lot of it while I’m at it. It’s totally worth the time. […]
Comforting Split Pea Soup
While split pea soup is undoubtedly un-pretty, it has been one of the most-made meals in my winter kitchen. Without realizing it, so much of the last few years has been about finding tiny moments of comfort, wherever they might be found. Which is the flip side of the anxiety coin that has been grocery […]
Smoky Southern Greens
If you didn’t know that greens can be an utterly decadent dish all on their own, I present as evidence these smoky Southern greens. I most often give collards this pork-studded treatment, but any green you enjoy will benefit from the gentle braising that yields a silky-tender bite and aromatic pot liquor. Whether you stick […]
Brothy Italian White Beans with Sausage & Kale
Somewhere along the way, I forgot that food was supposed to feed me, too. Not just my body. I’m not gonna say that it took a pandemic to learn that, because it’s a lesson that life has been trying to teach me for, frankly, decades at this point. But nearly a year of changed financial […]
French Onion Pot Roast
I’ve carried a single photo of my mother & I to every place I’ve ever lived for the last 20-plus years, but I’ve never really looked at it. I’d tuck the blurred image – me, squinty & self-assured despite the fact that my pink-buttoned dress likely hides a diaper; her, focused on the camera, the […]
Classic Cosy Weekend Beef Stew
I flip my face to the other side of a too-thin pillow, a smushed pancake of sleep resting on the crook of the elbow I’m using to hold my head aloft. My hand is, predictably, numb. But that’s not what woke me. Tilting my head, I search for voices, either raised & unrepentant or muffled […]