Here’s how to roast vegetables: Preheat the oven. Cut up the food. Drizzle olive oil over it and season with salt and pepper. Place on a cookie sheet. Cook, flipping once.

Doesn’t get much easier, hey?

Roasting is done with high, dry heat, and as the food cooks, the sugars caramelize providing a crunchy browning around the outer edges. It really is a versatile cooking method, and works well for everything but leafy greens, like spinach or lettuce. (Though kale is thick enough to hold up to the heat, and crispy kale chips are pretty delicious ☺).

After your veggies come out of the oven, customize them with toppers and add-ons. Think: fresh chopped herbs, lemon or lime juice, grated cheese, or balsamic vinegar reduction. Dip ‘em in ranch, or use the room-temperature roasted veggies for a lovely hor d’oeuvre platter with some yummy dip or spread. Or, toss some bacon bits on there, because everything tastes better topped with bacon.

Here are my Top Ten I Heart Roasted Vegetables tips for success:

• Roasting is done with high, dry heat. So make sure your oven is pre-heated. I usually preheat the oven high, like 425, then leave it there or even turn it down a little for cooking.
• Use a baking sheet or shallow dish. Roasting needs circulating heat to cook, so if you try to roast in a big pot, the heat can’t really move very well around the vegetable pieces.
• Line your baking sheets with parchment paper. It makes cleanup a snap, saves your baking sheet from that impossible-to-wash-off-gunk, and promotes browning (more so than aluminum foil).
• Cut the vegetables as close to uniform in size as you can – if they’re the same size, they’ll cook at the same speed.
• Don’t over crowd your sheet pan – if the vegetable pieces are close together, they will steam instead of roast. Meaning, they’ll be mushy instead of having that great crispy browning.
• Make sure your vegetables are dry (water will turn to steam, leading to wet heat), then drizzle a little oil over the cut vegetables and toss to coat. The oil actually helps distribute the heat, which will promote even, all-over browning. You can also experiment with dried herbs and spices, and of course don’t forget to season with salt and pepper.
• Flip the vegetable pieces at least once during cooking to help get that good all-over browning.
• Consider where you place the baking sheet in the oven. In traditional ovens, the heating element is usually in the floor of the oven, so if you place the baking sheet on a bottom rack, the vegetables will brown faster. This may be a good thing, but can also burn if you don’t watch it. Sometimes if my vegetables aren’t browning up enough, I’ll put it on the bottom rack of the oven for the last few minutes.
• If you have a convection oven, use it. Roasting works by circulating high heat around the food pieces. Convection helps speed this process along.
• If you’re roasting a few different kinds of veggies at once, cut the pieces to sizes that reflect how quickly they will cook – i.e. if you have potatoes and bell peppers, cut the potatoes in small pieces and the peppers in much larger pieces since same-sized piece potatoes will take much longer to cook.

Here are some time guidelines for my favorite veggies to roast. Keep in mind they are just estimates for 1” pieces at 400 degrees, flipping once:

Potatoes, sweet potatoes, winter squash: 40 minutes
Beets, onions: 30 minutes
Cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes (seed and pulp removed): 25 minutes
Eggplant, zucchini, summer squash: 20 minutes
Bell peppers: 15 minutes
Asparagus and kale chips: 8 minutes

Now go roast some vegetables! Enjoy!

When I was a kid, Mike Schmidt (as in, Mike Schmidt star 3rd baseman of the Phillies) lived in my bedroom. Well, maybe not the actual Mike Schmidt, but a life-size poster of him. You’d think this might be slightly alarming for a child – waking up every morning to a strange man with a handlebar mustache and borderline mullet staring at you as you blink your sleepy eyes open. Eh, well, what can I say. We were very trusting out on the farm.

My Dad was on the board of the National Milk Producers, and therefore had a hand in the advertising done for Milk. Before there was GOT MILK?, there was MILK! IT’S FITNESS YOU CAN DRINK!, and MILK, IT DOES A BODY GOOD!. Who better to measure how well the cow juice was working than a professional baseball player? (Celebrity endorsement at it finest.)

This life-size poster had a ruler along the side, so you could “Drink Your Milk and See How You Measure Up to Mike Schmidt”. (Once I tired of Mike, he was replaced by the Philly Flyers’ Dave Poulin. His 5 o’clock shadow and lack of front teeth was way cooler than the mustache. Then he stared at me for a few months.)

Anyway, the point of all this is baseball. And how my roommate Mikey was really the only connection I had to the great American pastime as a kid. Sometime in the past 25 years since, my family has become baseball nuts and no one ever told me. SUE! loves going to games, my brother married a Met’s fan (but we don’t really talk about that), and my grandfather can rattle off all the stats for any team, game, season, blah, blah, blah. It’s a natural progression I guess. Fulltime famer to fulltime Phanatic.

Don’t get me wrong. I love waving a big fan finger just as much as everyone else. But really, I like to go to a Mariner’s game on a gorgeous evening when the Mountain is out, drink a big cold beer and eat my one hot dog of the year. The baseball is sort of just a sideshow. Oh, and the tiny old Asian man in a suit who is at least 100 years old, always standing in the same spot on the Occidental snack alley, yelling at the top of his very old shriveled lungs “PEEEEEEE-NUTS!!” I would go to every game just to see him.

But once those attractions have worn off, there’s still one last thing that can lure me to a game. And that’s kettle corn. And don’t think about getting me a small, normal sized bag. I want the cubic yard-sized bag of the hot, salty, sweet, sticky popcorn. Don’t think I’ll be sharing with you, either. Get your own. Ug, it’s so good. Where has kettle corn been my whole life? If my kitchen was even one inch bigger, I’d install one of those cauldron-kettles and make it every day.

So. In honor of this favorite treat and Opening Day, I have a fun recipe for you. It’s a kettle corn chocolate chip cookie. I know you’re thinking this is crazy. Popcorn in a cookie??? Trust me, it’s genius. It’s crunchy where the sugar coating of the popcorn has burned in the oven just a little bit, and it’s chewy where the popcorn has started to go a little stale. Plus it’s a chocolate chip cookie!

Bonus points, because after you’ve stuffed your face with .75 cubic yards of kettle corn at the ball game, you probably are going to need to go on a diet. And this cookie is practically a bite sized diet, because while most cookies are all sugar and butter, this cookie is only half sugar and butter, and half popcorn. Cha-ching! (Or you can just eat twice as many.)

Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen started this whole stick-some-popcorn-in-a-cookie silliness with her new cookbook. And I have to say, it’s genius. I tweaked her recipe a bit and added kettle corn instead of just regular, boring, plain popcorn and chocolate chips because, well, DUH! But if you can’t get down to the Ball Park to get a bag of kettle corn, the plain stuff will work. Heck, I bet caramel would work, too. Either way, give it a try. These cookies are so yummy it’ll have you singing “Take me out to the balllll game (for kettle corn).” Enjoy!

Kettle Corn Chocolate Chip Cookies

Time to prepare: 30 minutes
Yield: 18 cookies
Adapted from: Eat My Words Blog and Deb Perelman/Smitten Kitchen

½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
½ cup light brown sugar, packed
¼ cup sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 large egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ¼ cup (155g) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
3 cups kettle corn popcorn
1 cup choc chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, sugars, and salt.

Add the egg and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Combine the flour and baking soda and stir with a fork to break up any large chunks and mix. Add to the sugar mixture in two steps.

With a wooden spoon, fold in the kettle corn and chocolate chips, and stir to distribute as evenly as possible – the ratio of cookie batter to chips and popcorn is about 1:1, so it’s a not going to look right. Have faith.

Portion out the batter with an ice cream scoop onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, leaving about 2″ in between cookies.

Bake 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe Tips:
You’re going to worry when you are stirring in the popcorn because there’s not very much cookie dough. Have faith. This looks terribly wrong, but is completely right.

An ice cream scoop is the way to go with when you’re portioning the batter. It’s literally half popcorn, so it doesn’t really hold together very well. If you use a scoop, you can really pack the batter, and then it sticks together well. And your cookies will all be the exact same size and perfectly shaped, too . ☺

These cookies are best when eaten within 24 hours. The popcorn does go a little stale, and they aren’t as good then.

Gorgeous day at the Pike Place Market, from a truly unique perspective. Never noticed all those daffies on the roof!

I had the most amazing dinner the other night, courtesy of my favorite foodie-in-crime, Bri. You’d think she was a celebrity, she is always doing something 500x cooler than I am doing at the same time. In reality, I think she just has a really cool job, and I frequently bribe her to let me come along as her plus one.

Most recently, we attended a four course ranch-to-table dinner in the private library dining room of the Pike Place Market hosted by the resident BB Ranch butcher shop. The library room is one of the huge windows on the second floor of the market, right above Rachel the pig, and the butcher shop is right across the street on the ground level. The dinner is amazingly crafted, beautiful plates of food featuring meticulously nurtured meats. It deserves every one of those adjectives, trust me.

William von Scheneidau, BB Ranch founder, and resident swarthy cowboy, hosts the evening and is the perfect mix of knowledgable farmer, fine food connoisseur, and genuinely nice guy. And by the end of the night you’re happy to throw back whatever home-brewed libation he offers and follow him anywhere, including straight into a meat locker where you may be left to die. (True, and almost unfortunate, story.)

If you’re interested in your very own BB Ranch dinner, here’s the info. I highly recommend. Hope you enjoy the photos from the night! And if you have any swanky events like this and you need a plus one, call me!!

Pulled pork quesadilla with pickled peppers and tomatoes, topped with a roast jalapeno.This was actually the second course. The first was too amazing looking to wait for a photo.

Lamb two ways, though the only thing I remember about the two ways was that they were both so yummy. Sitting on some roasted carrots and broccolini, paper-thin potato gallete, and topped with a gianormous bacon-wrapped shrimp.

Dusk at the Market – so beautiful with the Olympics in the background.

Bri must look trustworthy. No one let me carry the scull around.

Amazing vantage point! So neat to watch the Market below.

Cheers! Down the hatch with BB’s whiskey tasting.

BB Ranch founder William von Scheneidau showed us what he’s working on in the meat locker…

This critter head was in there… I’m sure it will be a tasty delicacy some day…????

Bri and the Big Man. (You can decide who is the Big Man – the one with two bullet holes in between his eyes, or the guy who put them there!)

So there’s a chance that I might be an official Seattleite. It hit me 4 miles in, as I was running down the street with 2 fistfuls of snow peas. Pull up a chair, this is a good one.

I’ve been on the waiting list for a P-Patch garden since moving here, and finally snagged a plot this spring. Seattle has an amazing network of neighborhood gardens, and for about $25 a year, you can have a 10′ x 20′ patch of dirt to call your very own. I’m sure you can understand how I have an aching in my bones to do this.

In my over-zealousness, I planted all sorts of stuff way back in February, after a few warm sunny days that fooled us all into thinking it would be a mild winter. Consequently, the fruits of my labor have been mixed at best. I seem to do an excellent job raising… weeds. Or the unidentifiable plants the garden’s previous owner had planted. Oh well, I chalk the experience up to entertainment and a hefty dose of nature therapy. Any actual food that comes out of the ordeal is strictly gravy.

After tending to my practically barren garden for months, things are starting to percolate a bit. On my run tonight I decided to swing by the garden and check things out. Imagine my surprise to find actual PEAS, ready to harvest, shining in the evening sun. Oh, I was about as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. Only these gifts were heavy with the toils of my sweat, blood, and tears. Sort of. Hopped up on excitement and without really thinking the whole thing through, I started picking them frantically.

I have two varieties – one a snow pea, and the other a sugar snap pea. Note: I know from experience better than to grow peas that you have to shell. The work to potential nutritional value/yield ratio is entirely too lopsided – in the wrong direction. In any event, in no time I had more peas than my sweaty little hands could hold.

And then it hit me. I had no eco-chic reusable shopping bag or obnoxiously cute farmer’s market basket to hold my bounty. Oh, and I was still about two miles from home. So I did what any self-respecting Seattleite would have done. I ran home with the peas in my hands. What choice did I have?? A panhandler did ask me while I was waiting to cross at a red light if the peas were a snack instead of one of those “energy bars.” Nope, just silly me, picking my garden and then running home. But let’s just pause for a brief second to picture that one in our heads – crazed red head, running down the street, noshing on handfuls of snow peas for mid-workout sustenance… That actually might work.

Anyway, let me tell you, these peas were well worth any self-inflicted absurdity. They taste like – get this – peas! It’s sort of sad how we don’t even notice how bland much of our produce is. Not surprising considering that it’s taken days – or even weeks – to arrive at the market. These peas were mere minutes old!

As soon as I got home I whipped up quite a dinner with them. But I’m not even going to bother giving you the recipe since it will be 100% un-replicable. It was a hodgepodge of leftovers, freezer fodder, and peas. If you must know, it was a very lose interpretation of fried rice, and that basic recipe is listed below. I used left over wild rice that I cooked in chicken broth and then tossed with roasted grape tomatoes and ate for dinner last night. As for veggies, I threw in diced onion, leftover roasted red peppers, frozen corn, and of course – my prize-worthy peas. (Believe me, it took real restraint to leave out the Tupperware filled with roasted brussles sprouts. That would not have been delicious.) I had a few lonely shrimps in the freezer and tossed them into the mix along with a scrambled egg. Like I said, random. But tasty! Just goes to show that fried rice is a jack-of-all-trades champ to have up your sleeve when you need to clean out the fridge.

Even though this fried rice isn’t authentically Seattle, apparently I am: passive-aggressively running through the rain, fistfuls of politically correct, all organic, hippie-approved produce in hand. Enjoy!

Basic Fried Rice

Click here to print this recipe.
Time to prepare: 30 minutes, 20 if you are a quick chopper
Serves: 4

1 cup chopped protein – chicken, shrimp, pork, beef, tofu (optional)
1/3 cup onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
vegetable oil
soy sauce
fresh ground black pepper
2 eggs, scrambled
3 cups fresh veggies, chopped in ½” pieces – bell peppers, broccoli, zucchini, squash, beans, sugar snap peas, carrots, beans all work very well, but use whatever you have.
1 cup frozen veggies – corn, sweet peas, edamame (optional)
2 cups cooked rice, preferably day-old

Over very high heat, heat a tablespoon+ of oil in a large skillet or wok, preferably non-stick. Add the onion, garlic and protein and cook, stirring frequently until the protein is about half way cooked through.

Push the protein to the sides of the pan. Add the eggs and cook until they resemble scrambled eggs, stirring frequently. Season with pepper.

Add the veggies and cook until cooked but still crisp, about 2 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons soy sauce, stir.

Push the contents to the side of the pan and add the rice. Smooth out so that as much of the rice as possible is in contact with the pan. Let the rice cook for a minute or two, slightly burning to the pan. This is essential to avoid soggy rice and to get that great crispy texture.

Stir the contents together, allowing the rice to sit for 45 seconds or so at a time to burn a little. Add more oil if necessary. Add another 2 tablespoons of soy sauce, or to taste.

Cute little macarons, ready to eat!

Almost.

If you’ve never had a macaron, these aren’t the coconut drop macaroon (rhymes with racoon) cookies. French macarons are meringue sandwich cookies, are are usually filled with ganache or flavored buttercream. If you’re feeling particularly cultured, try the french pronunciation “mak-a-ruh” with your snootiest up-turned nose. Either way, you’ll love their delicate crunchy exterior, and chewy cookie center.

Absolument délicieux!

Piping the batter.

Drying the pre-cooked cookies.

But don’t let this discourage you – even when they are flat, or your pied (the little bubbly “foot” at the base of the cookie layer) is missing, they still are chewy and crunchy and delicious. If you’re a brave kitchen soul, give them a try. I recently took a class at Sur la Table to learn from the pros. I’d made them a handful of times and couldn’t get them fluffy enough. The class is hands-on and runs in most store locations, so if you have a Sur la Table near you, check out their schedule.

Macarons are a neat cookie to add to your recipe box because they look tricky, and they come in myraid flavor combination, so it’s fun to experiment and make some really unique cookies. Add in some powder or gel food coloring, and you’ll have cute little cookies lined up on your own kitchen counter. As long as you use the base recipe, (see the tangerine recipe below, minus the tangerine zest) you can add in pretty much any flavor to make them unique. Just look for very flavorful ingredients – like extracts – because you need to keep the wet to dry ingredient proportions pretty close to the original recipe. Or, opt to replace up to half of the almond flour with ground coconut, hazelnut, pistachio, or coco powder. Just make sure that whatever you sub in is very finely ground, and dry. (Lay it out on a cookie sheet and dry in a 200 degree oven for a few minutes if necessary.)

I’ve listed a few different cookie and filling options below for you to mix and match. But first, here are my favorite tips, and common pitfalls, for making french macarons.

Tips for Perfect Macarons

• Use a spice grinder instead of a food processor to get the dry ingredients really fine (unless you use pre-ground meal).
• Almond and coconut meal are just pre-ground almonds and coconuts. You can find them in the baking asile of the grocery store, but they’re both expensive! Many bulk food sections carry these ingredients, and may be a more economical way to go since you can purchase the exact amount that you need.
• Use powdered sugar that has little or no cornstarch in it (check the ingredients). Less expensive brands typically have more cornstarch as a cheap filler.
• Use a digital scale to measure your ingredients (it’s much more precise) and weight the ingredients post-sifting.
• Use old eggs, separate them a few days before, and bring to room temperature before you start making the batter. Make sure when you separate them, there is absolutely NO yolk in the whites – you’ll never get them to peak if there is any yolk in there. If you don’t plan ahead enough to separate and age the egg whites, you can microwave them for 10-20 seconds on medium heat. This will help eliminate some of the moisture – the point of aging them.
• Use powdered or gel food coloring so you don’t throw off the batter consistency.
• Add the cream of tartar at the very end of egg white beating. It’s a stabilizer, and helps keep the whites fluffy. If you add it at the beginning, you’re not going to benefit from the full effect.
• When piping the cookies, hold the piping bag 1/2″ above the paper, perpendicular to the sheet, and hold it still. (The picture above isn’t correct – the bag is slightly off-balance. You can see how the cookies are piping at an angle.
• After piping the cookies, whack the trays with the heel of you hand to get the bubbles out.
• If you’re making multiple trays, jot down the time you piped them on the parchment sheet. Then use this as a guide to note how long it took them to dry, and use the same drying time for the rest of the batch.
• Use box fans to dry the cookies before baking. Also, beware of over-drying. Once you can run your fingers along the top and they are dry and not sticky, you’re ready to go. Unless it’s very hot or humid out, it only takes about 20 minutes to dry the cookies.
• The finished macarons will be better after a day in the fridge – this allows the filling and cookie flavors to meld a bit.

Fresh out of the oven.

Common Macaron Mistakes and Troubleshooting

• My macarons are flat. (They still taste great though!) You probably over-folded the batter. Did you use cream of tartar? It helps stabilize and strengthen the egg white structure.
• There are air pockets in the cookie. You possibly under-baked them. If that’s the case, you may need to lower the oven temperature so they can bake longer without burning, or cover them lightly with aluminum foil for the last few minutes of baking. You may also have not had fine enough dry ingredients.
• The bottoms of my macarons are overcooked. Try doubling up your baking sheets – placing the one with the cookies on it on top of another that’s turned up side down. This gets the batter an inch or two off the oven rack, which is metal and will be hotter than the oven air.
• My macarons stick to the pan. Try cooking them for another minute or two. They should lift off the parchment paper easily straight out of the oven.
• What are stiff, firm peaks? Lift the whisk out of the batter – the egg white peaks should not fold over off the tip of the whisk. You should also be able to turn the bowl upside down and the egg whites should stay put.
• My egg whites have started to separate into chunks. You over-beat them. If you do this, simply add another unbeaten egg white and beat until you get to the right consistency. Then just remove 1/4 cup of the egg whites from the bowl and continue.
• I can’t get the meringue to stiffen up. Make sure the egg whites are at room temperature, you’re using a stainless steel or copper bowl, and there are no traces of egg yolk in there.
• My cookies don’t have feet. Your batter was probably under-beaten, or your meringue was broken. You may have baked them at a too-low temperature, or over dried them, too
• My cookies are lopsided You probably didn’t pipe them straight – hold the piping bag perpendicular to the counter, or they dried on an uneven surface. Also, they may have baked on an uneven surface – i.e. thin baking sheets that warp in the heat.
• My cookies are all different sizes and shapes. Use a template – print out this sheet, and place it UNDER your parchment paper. Pipe the cookies to fill these circles, then gently slide the paper out and use it on the next sheet.
• I think I over-baked my cookies. They are really hard and crunchy. That’s okay, pipe the filling and leave them in the fridge for 24-48 hours. The moisture from the filling infuses back into the cookie, and they’ll probably be just fine. And it’s better to overcook these cookies than undercook them.

Ready to be filled – note the little bubbly “pied” or foot.

Chocolate Macarons

From: Sur la Table
Yield: 35 sandwich cookies
Time to prepare: about 2 hours, active time: 30 minutes

6 ounces powdered sugar, divided
4 ounces almond meal or flour
2 ounces Dutch-process cocoa powder
5 large (5 ounces) egg whites, at room temperature
1 pinch cream of tartar
3.5 ounces granulated sugar

Tangerine Macarons

5 ounces almond meal or flour
7 ounces powdered sugar
1 tablespoon very finely grated tangerine zest
1.5 ounces granulated sugar
3.5 ounces egg whites, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 375. Prepare parchment paper-lined baking sheets, using piping templates if desired.

Pulse 1/3 of the powdered sugar and all of the almond flour in a food processor to form a fine powder. Then in a medium mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

Sift the mixture twice to make sure it’s uniform in consistency.

In a dry, clean bowl of a stand mixer with a whisk attachment, whisk the egg whites until foamy. Gradually add the granulated sugar. Once incorporated, scrape down the sides of the bowl, increase the speed to high, and whisk until stiff, firm, glossy peaks form. Add in the cream of tartar at the very end.

If using food coloring or other add-ins (like the tangerine peel), add before you fold in the dry ingredients. Don’t worry about mixing it in, when you fold in the dry ingredients it will even out.

Add the almond flour mixture 1/3 at a time to the egg white mixture and fold, using a large silicone spatula or bowl scraper. Keep folding until the mixture is smooth and shiny. It’s done when it’s firm, and drips slowly from the spatula. The egg whites will start to deflate quickly, so immediately add in the almond mixture.

Transfer the batter to a pastry bag with a #12 1/2″ plain round tip. Pipe 1.5″ rounds on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Work quickly – your hands will warm the batter as you hold the piping bag, which can lead to runny batter and flat cookies. Whack the bottom of the tray with the heel of your hand or on the counter to eliminate any bubbles.

Dry, preferably in front of a box or window fan set to low, until the tops are smooth when you touch them lightly with your dry fingers. If you don’t have a fan, just leave them in a cool, dry corner of your kitchen. Check them frequently – you don’t want to over dry them or else they might not rise.

Bake the cookies 10-15 minutes, rotating the baking sheets half way through.

Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. If they don’t release off the parchment paper easily, increase baking time on the next batch by a minute or two.

Chocolate Ganache Filling

From: Sur la Table
Time to prepare: 1 hour (includes cooling time)

6 ounces heavy cream
8 ounces high quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 ounce (2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon cognac or brandy (optional)

Orange Chocolate Ganache Filling

6 ounces heavy cream
8 ounces high quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 ounce (2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed tangerine juice

Mocha Ganache Filling

6 ounces heavy cream
8 ounces high quality bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 ounce (2 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened
1.5 teaspoons instant espresso powder dissolved in 1/2 teaspoon warm water

In a small saucepan, heat the cream over medium heat to a simmer.

Place the chocolate in a heat-proof bowl, and pour the hot cream over top of the chocolate. Let stand for 1 minute.

Slowly stir the chocolate mixture with a silicone spatula to combine. Add the butter and whisk the mixture until smooth. Add the flavoring if using.

Let cool to room temperature, stirring every 10 minutes.

Raspberry Buttercream

From: Sur la Table
Yield: about 2.5 cups
Time to prepare: 15 minutes

2 large egg whites at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries, thawed, drained, pureed, and strained

Place the egg whites and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and hand whisk to blend. In a medium sauce pan, add an inch or two of water, and bring to a simmer. Place the bowl over the sauce pan, making sure the water doesn’t touch the bowl. (Double boiler) Whisk continually until the mixture reaches 140 degrees.

Immediately remove the mixture from the heat, and attach the bowl to a stand mixer with the whisk attachement in place.

Whip the mixture on high speed until it cools to room temperature, is light and billowing, and resembles marshmallow fluff. (Touch the side of the bowl and to measure the temperature – it should be room temp.)

With the mixer on medium-high, add the softened butter, a tablespoon or two at a time, blending completely before the next addition. Scrape down the bowl half way through the butter. Continue beating until all the butter is added, and the mixture looks like velvety mayo.

Switch to a paddle attachment, and with the mixer on low, add the raspberry puree. Beat until smooth, 3-5 minutes.

Use immediately, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days. Bring to room temp and beat on low speed until smooth before using.

Assembling the Macarons

Once the macaron cookies are cooked and cooled, and the filling is prepared and cooled, you’re ready to pipe:

• Match up similar sized cookies in pairs.
• Place the filling in a pastry bag with the same 1/2″ (clean) tip, or in a plastic bag with the corner snipped off.
• Pipe the filling onto the bottom side of one of the cookies, piping enough filling to cover about 1/2 the cookie.
• Sandwich the other half of the cookie on top, pressing down slightly so the filling comes to the edge.
• Hold in the refrigerator overnight to meld the flavors.

Macarons may be stored in the refrigerator for up to a week (if they last that long!!). You can also freeze them with decent results, but be sure to separate rows with wax paper, and get a very tight seal on your container. They’re very vulnerable to humidity.

photo from www.pikeplacemarket.org

Pike Place Market is at the top of the list of Seattle icons, food or otherwise. It’s the oldest farmer’s market in the country, and was the first of its kind to connect producers (farmers) directly with eaters (you and me). Just wandering down the Market is a lovely assault on your senses. The bustling tourists, buckets upon buckets of brilliant flowers, the smells of produce stacked in perfect rows, and of course – the flying fish.

What a lot of people don’t know is that the Market also houses the Pike Place Market Foundation – a not-for-profit organization supporting Market-based services, including a child care and preschool, a medical clinic, a senior center, and the downtown food bank. Very cool.

There are events going on at the Market practically on a daily basis, but by far, my favorite is Arcade Lights. It’s an evening of food and drinks in the Market featuring local restaurants and food producers. The biannual event is coming up – April 19th! Your ticket gets you a stack of tasting tokens to use at the over 60 independent food trucks, specialty shops, restaurants, wineries, and breweries on display. It’s the quintessential introduction to Seattle cuisine, at the quintessential Seattle food hot spot. The best part? It benefits the Foundation.

How can you score these tickets? You can buy them for about $30, OR, you can win a pair here! Exciting! Just leave a comment on this post or on the Seattle Palate facebook page, telling us what your favorite thing to eat at the Pike Place Market is. If you’ve never been to the Market, then guess On April 2nd, we’ll draw one lucky winner randomly from everyone who comments, and they get the pair of tickets. Easy peasy. Word to the wise: you can purchase tickets that night at the door, but it gets CROWDED, and advance ticket purchasers get in a half hour early. I highly recommend getting there when the doors open.

The complete list of vendors is here. But all you really need to know is that if the waffle truck is there, GET THE WAFFLES. Hope to see you there!

Here are the Details:
When: Friday April 19, 2013.
6:30 advance ticket holders, 7:00 everyone else

Where: Pike Place Market North Arcade
Pike Place & Stewart Street, Seattle, WA 98101

When we were little and in Capital “B” Big trouble, the big gun was called in for disciplinary purposes. The Capital “B” Big gun was my Dad. He’d come in from a long (long) day out in the barn, and really, the last thing he had was the mental energy to deal with my brother and I bickering over back car seat territory or my (alleged) smart mouth. Poor SUE!, at her witt’s end, she’d send us to sit on the hope chest at the end of my parents bed, and wait for him to come in for dinner and deal with us.

I found myself sitting on that hope chest frequently.

He’d walk in, with this dreadful, awful, you-couldn’t-possibly-have-let-me-down-more look on his face, and I’d know, to the depths of my bratty little soul, that I was very much in Capital “B” Big trouble.

A product of the child-rearing-via-belt generation, my Dad took the complete opposite approach. He’d draw a long, deep breath, sit down next to me, and spend the next 2 hours* reasoning with me, talking through why what I had done was a bad decision, and how bad decisions effect other people, and they have repercussions, consequences, and I very well could have just changed the entire trajectory of my life by mouthing off to my mother. Is your computer screen dripping with the guilt of my childhood yet? It should be. (*Perhaps a slight exaggeration.)

Sauté the onions, garlic, and ginger.

It’s worth noting that this child rearing approach put the absolute Capital “F” Fear of God into me. Oh, it worked all right. The thought of letting down Dad was enough to make me beg for a real, honest-to-goodness grounding. I was practically begging him to take my bedroom door off the hinges.

And he would wrap up this dissertation on bad choices with his favorite saying – WATCH OUT FOR THE KITTY CATS. To this day he says it pretty much every time I leave after a visit, and often after a serious phone conversation. The proverbial Kitty Cats. They’re everywhere. Lurking, stalking, just waiting for you to make a silly little mistake so they can pounce on you.

This metaphor took on a new, and all too vivid meaning the year we got SUE! a beautiful bird feeder to hang outside the kitchen window so she could watch her beloved little chick-a-dees while standing at the sink. Dad meticulously hung it on a long rope at the perfect viewing height, dangling from the outstretched limb of a gorgeous maple tree right outside the window. Bring on the dirty dishes, her little piece of kitchen zen was complete.

Add the curry paste, cilantro, lemon grass, lime leaves, and coconut milk, and simmer.

We all stood there in this Norman Rockwell-esque family huddle, proudly looking out the picture window at the filled-to-the-brim bird feeder, just waiting for the happy song birds to come. And on the farm, if we had one thing, it was a lot of birds. In no time, this adorable little bird landed right on the bird feeder, so happy to have found some perfect little sunflower seeds. Chirp, chirp, chirp. And on the farm, if we had one thing, it was big, fat, barn cats. And in no time, a cat lept out from the bushes underneath that bird feeder and in one swoop ate the bird.

Circle of life, people. Up close and personal when you live on a farm.

Unfortunately, the jumping ability of big fat barn cats wasn’t taken into consideration when hanging the bird feeder, and it was the feline equivalent of a silver platter. Tender young jaws still gaping, without a word my Dad walked out the door and hiked the bird feeder up a few feet and then we all pretended like it never happened.

Pick your favorite vegetables, and cut to bite-size. Blanch them off individually to the desired doneness.

I recently told my Dad that I was a Kitty Cat. This is obviously a load of kitty-cat-poo, we never outgrow the KITTY CATS. I have plenty of them right at home in the kitchen. Hands down, the one that sneaks up and bites me in the tush most often is heat. I love hot, spicy dishes, but I tend to give my tolerance way too much credit and end up with a tongue that doesn’t work for a good two days.

Because of this, I haven’t made many thai curries – it’s just too easy to underestimate how hot such tiny peppers can be, and end up with something practically inedible. But my deep obsession with Green Curry is so fervid, and the local Thai joint employees were getting a little too chummy with their best customer (me), so I decided I needed to figure out my own home Green Curry.

Well let me tell you, I am THE CULINARY KITTY CAT QUEEN with this dish. Soooo yummy that I am still dreaming about it a week later. Pick your favorite vegetables, serve over some rice, and it’s a healthy quick(ish) weeknight dinner that rivals any thai restaurant green curry I’ve ever had.

In the past I’ve made my own green curry paste, and I think that’s where I was getting into trouble. This time around, I got a jar of pre-made curry paste from Whole Foods – the brand is Thai and True. It’s deliciously spicy without blowing out your taste buds. Caveat here, green curry paste is green because it’s made with hot, green peppers. A lot of them. So this curry is inherently hot. But it’s not scald-your-taste-buds-off-hot. And you can use more or less of the paste depending on how hot you like it. You could also add a little sugar, lime juice, or fish sauce to the sauce to mellow it out a bit. (Remember the flavor color-wheel trick?) Following this recipe below, you’ll get about two-star hot on the Universal Generic Completely Subjective Thai Five Star Heat Rating. For whatever that’s worth.

If you are nuts about Green Curry, you must try this recipe. It might just earn a spot in your regular recipe rotation. Enjoy! And I feel like I have to say it for Dad, please, watch out for the Kitty Cats.

By the way… tomorrow we’re drawing the winner for the VIP tickets to the Voracious Food Awards – still time to enter!!

After the curry sauce has simmered a bit, discard the lime leaves and lemongrass, and blend to a smooth sauce.

Thai Green Curry

Adapted from Eva Restaurant’s Chef Amy McCray
Serves: 4
Time to prepare: 45 minutes

4 tbsp butter
1 onion, diced
2 tbsp garlic, chopped
2 tbsp ginger, chopped
2 tbsp green curry paste
1 long stalk lemongrass, ends trimmed, and cut on the bias in 2-inch pieces
6 kaffir lime Leaves
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1-15 oz can coconut milk (not light)
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp fish sauce
salt and pepper
2 chicken breasts, sliced thinly in bite-size pieces
1 small eggplant, peeled and diced
2 bell peppers, diced
1/2 head cauliflower (about 2 cups), cut into bite-size florets
2 medium carrots, sliced in 1/2 pieces on the bias

In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the onion, and sauté until translucent, about 4 minutes.

Add the garlic and ginger, and sauté 2-3 minutes more, stirring frequently. Add the curry paste, and stir to coat the onions.

Add the lime leaves, cilantro, lemongrass, and coconut milk. Bring to a simmer and cook over low heat for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

While the curry is simmering, prep the vegetables and bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Remove the lime leaves and lemon grass from the curry. Add the lime juice and fish sauce, stir well, and season with salt and pepper if needed.

Using an emersion blender (or a regular blender), blend the curry to an almost smooth consistency. (optional)

Add the chicken and gently simmer until the chicken is cooked through completely, about 5-8 minutes.

While the chicken is cooking, blanch the vegetables individually to desired doneness, 1-4 minutes, depending on the vegetable. (Blanching them one kind at a time will ensure that individual textures are correct.)

To serve, spoon vegetables onto the plate, and top with a few pieces of chicken and a few spoonfuls of the curry. You may also serve over a bed of rice.

Notes:
Swap in whatever vegetables you like. This dish also works well with shellfish or tofu.

If you don’t have an immersion (or stick) blender, you can use a regular blender. Ladle the sauce into your blender, but don’t fill it more than 1/3 of the way. You’ll have to do it in batches. Also, remove the plastic stopper in your lid and cover the opening with a dish towel when you blend. If you leave it on, steam can build and blow the lid right off when you hit the on button.

This recipe uses a few asian ingredients you may not have in your pantry, but they should be fairly easy to find:

• Green curry paste will be in the ethnic aisle, and comes in a small glass jar.
• Ginger is widely available in most grocery stores, in the produce aisle. To use it, peel the outer skin off with a vegetable peeler. It’s okay if you don’t get all of it off, it’s fine to eat.
• Lemongrass can be found in most grocery stores, it’s usually by the ginger in the produce refrigerated section. If you can’t find it, a teaspoon or so of grated lime zest (coupled with the ginger already in the recipe) will work in a pinch, but there’s no great substitute.
• Fish sauce can also be found in most grocery store’s ethnic aisle. If you can, use the brand with the three crabs on the label. Fish sauce is the salt component to this dish, and won’t make this taste like fish, I promise. In a pinch, you can substitute soy sauce in this recipe, but start with 1 teaspoon and taste, then add another, taste, etc until you get the seasoning correct. 1 tablespoon might be way too much, so be careful using this substitution.
• Kaffir lime leaves will be in your produce section, near the lemongrass. If you can’d find them, you can substitute lime zest.

It’s worth noting that ginger, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves all freeze beautifully, and are great infused in teas and waters. Fish sauce and curry paste last for a while in the fridge (months), though if you find preservative-free versions, they won’t last as long. So consider adding them to your pantry list!

Wow, right?

The event features bites from 40 of the Seattle’s best restaurants and food trucks, an open bar with beer and wine, and cocktails stirred by over a dozen mixologists from some of our Seattle Weekly’s favorite watering holes. Plus, as a VIP, the doors open for you an hour and a half before they do for everyone else, meaning short lines and plenty of delicious snacks. You’ll also have exclusive access to the VIP Paramount Club, which features a private open bar and extra special snacks, PLUS a VIP Swag Bag, which the Seattle Weekly people promise me will be full of amazing prizes.

Amazing. Prizes.

I know exactly what you’re thinking: For the love of God, tell me what I have to do to win these tickets?? Leave a comment here or on the Seattle Palate facebook page with a request – it can be a recipe you’d love to have, a kitchen tip, or a culinary trick you wish you knew how to do. On March 19th, we’ll draw one lucky winner randomly from everyone who comments, and they get the pair of tickets. Easy peasy.

Here are the details:

WHEN: Thursday, April 4th, 2013, 6:00 PM – 10 PM

WHERE: Paramount Theatre, 911 Pine St., Seattle, WA 98101

I remember my first catastrophic culinary screw up like it was yesterday. I think it was a Super Bowl party, and I was so nervous because I was cooking lots of food that I had never made before for a bunch of people I was hoping to impress. I decided to make this sloppy-joe-ish recipe that was my boyfriend at the time’s absolute favorite thing to eat. His Mom would make it especially for him, and now this cherished dish was going down in flames in my kitchen. Fast.

I followed the recipe exactly. So exactly, in fact, that I dutifully added the 1/2 cup of lemon juice the handwritten recipe called for. Now I’m not sure how many of you eat sloppy joes on a regular basis, but let me tell you. They shouldn’t taste like lemon juice. Even as a very (very) novice cook, I new as I read the recipe that it sounded like an awful lot of lemon juice. But that’s what his Mom’s recipe said, so I dumped it in the pot anyway. And then I promptly had about two pounds of tomato-y meaty lemon juice on my hands. BARF.

I sort of went into melt-down mode. My beautiful Martha Stewart Super Bowl Party was in serious jeopardy, not to mention my one and only shot at replicating my boyfriend’s Mom’s signature dish. Who cares which team wins with grave matters such as this on the line??

Luckily, a friend had come over early to help me get ready, and she is an absolute wiz at winging it in the kitchen. She’s one of those people who never looks at a recipe, yet always turns out amazing food. How does she do it? Supernatural powers? Definite option. Divine intervention? Quite possible. Highly skilled at knowing how flavors work together? Bingo. She took one whiff of that lemon meat and got right to work (she didn’t even have to taste it to know it was awful!). The fridge door flung open and she started doctoring up that pot of food like no one’s business.

The result was far from the boyfriend’s favorite dish, but it was actually pretty good. Or at least by the time dinner was served, everyone was sauced enough to not notice. Happy ending to this story!

But it brings up a good point, and one that people ask me about all the time: how do you get to that culinary zen where you don’t need to follow a recipe, and you can just wing it? Well, it’s not something you learn overnight, that’s for sure. But there are a few things you can do to tweak a recipe into a winner, salvage a broken dish, or anticipate what’s going to work and what’s not:

• Know what flavors you like. If you’re reading a recipe, and it calls for cumin and you hate cumin, you’re probably not going to like the dish. So sub in something else instead.
• Know what flavors play well together. Basil and oregano. Lemon and dill. Ginger and garlic. Pay attention to the flavor profiles in dishes you like so you begin to learn what flavors play well together (and that you like).
• Become familiar with how quickly common ingredients cook. Onions are fantastic when you give them lots of time over moderate heat. Garlic will burn if left in the pan for the same amount of time. Big pieces of broccoli will take longer to cook than chunks of asparagus. Anticipating how long things take to cook will help you add substituted ingredients at the right time – because the best way to do it is rarely all at once.
• Just like on the color wheel, flavors have opposites that mellow them out. The primaries on our flavor wheel are sweet, acidic, and salty. If something’s too sweet, adding a little salt or acid will mellow it out. Too acidic? If it’s a sweet dish, add sugar. A savory dish, add salt.
• Salt added during cooking brings out the flavor of the ingredients. Salt added at the end of cooking just makes things taste salty. So season as you go, and add a bit of salt and/or pepper at each stage of the process. I use finger-pinches to measure out salt – my 3-finger pinch (grabbing salt with my thumb, index and middle finger) is 1/4 teaspoon. My 4-finger pinch is a half teaspoon. (To measure yours, grab a pinch of salt then use a measuring spoon to measure it.) I also use kosher salt when I’m cooking, and I always buy the same brand. Different brands have different salt crystal sizes, meaning my 3-finger pinch can yield 1/3 teaspoon with another brand. Doesn’t sound like a big deal until you stop measuring completely and start winging it and over salt everything because you’re not used to it.
• Experiment with substitutions. If you’re reading a recipe and come across an ingredient that you hate or don’t have in your pantry, think about what you could sub in to make it work instead of scrapping it. Grains are all pretty much interchangeable – rice, orzo, quinoa, cous cous – when cooked, they all can sub in and out for each other without missing a beat. You know what else can sub in? Petite diced mushrooms or eggplant. Grated zucchini even works pretty well. Why? Because they have mild enough flavors that they won’t obstruct the other ingredients in the recipe. And when cooked, they have similar consistency and texture to meat.
• TASTE IT!! I’m always amazed when giving cooking lessons when people look at me and say, is that right? I don’t know! Taste it!! The beauty of cooking is that you can adjust as you go. Baking is a different story. That’s chemistry and stuff. But cooking – you can wing that.

OK! So armed with these tips, let’s look at this Stuffed Peppers recipe. The original recipe called for ground beef, rice, fresh parsley, rosemary, an egg, bread crumbs and feta cheese. It had you mix all the ingredients together raw, and put the filling in the halved peppers, and bake for 40 minutes.

My goal was to sneak in some more vegetables, while eliminating the starch and the dairy. I also wanted to be able to make a big batch of the filling and bake off the individual peppers over a few days. Lastly, I had a sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t going to love rosemary in this dish.

Instead of the rice, I used grated zucchini, and peeled, fine diced eggplant. Since I was getting rid of my starch, I didn’t really need an egg to bind everything together, so that ingredient was eliminated. To accommodate the multiple days worth of cooking, I decided to cook the filling completely ahead of time, then portion out what I needed into the pepper shells each day. I didn’t want the filling to dry out (which often happens when heating-cooling-heating), so I added a can of diced tomatoes. Then I adjusted the spices to fit my taste – parsley, basil, and some tomato paste. Since my filling was completely cooked ahead of time, I could cut the baking time in half.

So completely different recipe, huh? Well, it’s an extreme example. It’s what I had on hand and what I knew would taste good to me. You could make just one of those substitutions and it would turn out fine, too. The point of the story is to pay attention as you’re cooking so when you want to adjust things, you can roll with the punches. It takes practice to be able to wing it. But as my Dad says (who is a pilot): as long as the plane is in the air, keep flying. Meaning – keep tweaking your lemon meat until you either decide it’s good enough to eat, or it’s so beyond rescue that you call out for pizza! Enjoy!

Stuffed Peppers

Click here to print this recipe
Yields: four small or three medium/large bell peppers, halved and stuffed
Time to prepare: 1 hour

1 lb ground beef
1/2 onion, diced
3 small zucchini, grated with a cheese grater
1 small eggplant, peeled and diced to 1/4″ pieces
1 – 15 ounce can diced tomatoes
3 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 teaspoon each, dried parsley and basil
red pepper flakes
olive oil
salt and pepper

In a large skillet, brown the onion and beef (along with a 3-finger pinch of kosher salt) until the onions are soft and the beef is cooked through completely. Remove from the pan and discard the majority of the grease.

Add the zucchini and eggplant to the pan, and toss, browning slightly. Add a little olive oil to the pan if needed to keep the vegetables from sticking. Sprinkle with another 3-finger pinch of salt and a few grinds of fresh pepper, add the tomatoes, tomato paste, and the seasonings and saute until soft and cooked to your liking. Return the beef and onions to the skillet and mix, cooking a few minutes to let the flavors meld. Taste and adjust the seasoning as needed.

Slice the bell peppers in half, lengthwise. Trim out the ribs and seeds, leaving the stem intact (it’ll keep the pepper more bowl-shaped than if you trim it out, and will hold more filling). Rub them with olive oil, inside and out. Fill with the meat mixture, and place on a baking sheet or dish, lined with parchment paper, a silpat, or sprayed with cooking spray. Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes (20 if you have small peppers, closer to 30 if you use larger peppers). If you like the peppers to have a little bite, cook them for less time, if you prefer mush-ier peppers, leave them in until they start to loose their shape and collapse a bit in the pan.

Notes:

Use whatever ground meat you prefer – turkey, beef, pork or a mixture would all work well.

Be sure to use a baking dish or heavy baking sheet. If you use a flimsy one that warps as it heats, you can end up flinging your pepper across the oven (not that that actually happened to me…..)

A great addition to this recipe would be some shredded cheese over the filled peppers – you can add it the last few minutes of baking.

The filling can be made in advance and refrigerated up to three days, or frozen. You can also eat the filling in rolls, taco shells, tortillas, or over rice. (Or on it’s own for that matter.)

This recipe would work great in a toaster oven!

I am not a morning person. Like at all. Not even a little bit. Neither is Brody, for what it’s worth. He’d stay in bed all day long if I didn’t utter the word “breakfast”. But whisper that word from clear across the house and he’s out from under the covers and down a flight of steps in about two steps. All sorts of wide-eyed and (short) bushy tailed. Would I love to be able to be that perky the second my feet hit the bedroom floor…

But since I’m not, my mornings are ruled by ritual and habit. Thank goodness I’ve been brushing my teeth and putting on deodorant every morning for years – otherwise, there’s a good chance it’d never reliably happen. Like many of you, I like a good cup of very strong coffee. But even more than that, I love a good smoothie. Not the sugar-laden Jamba Juice disguised milkshake. A real, fruit and veggie smoothie. I made this one of my morning habits a few months ago, and it’s a fantastic way to start the day. Who eats two servings of spinach, two servings of fruit, and one of dairy by 8:00 in the morning? ME! And who feels good enough about the nutritional foot they started the day off with that they can eat a donut at 9:00? ME! er, um, just kidding.

To make your own pick-me-up morning smoothie, stick two big handfuls of spinach or (de-stemmed) kale in the blender. Top with a cup of frozen fruit, and then a cup or so of almond milk, coconut milk, old fashioned regular milk, or even juice. Push the blend button. Voila! Other nice add-ins are yogurt, peanut butter,  protein powder, non-sweetened cocoa powder (for the health-conscious) or powdered hot cocoa mix (for the rest of us).

Now before you get all bent out of shape about drinking spinach or kale at 7:00 in the morning, let me make one very bold statement. I promise you, you will not taste it. Seriously. I have no idea how it works, but somehow the spinach taste is cancelled out, and it is all nutritional goodness and no vegetable taste. I love sneaking leafy greens in all sorts of food, because who doesn’t need more kale? But this spinach-in-the-smoothie is one pretty legit trick.

Here are some great tips about smoothies, in no particular order:

• If you use a banana (and I recommend that you do), only use a half of one. Unless you want a banana flavored smoothie. If you use the whole banana, no matter what else goes in the blender, it’ll taste like banana.
• Sometimes the smoothie plots against you and doesn’t want to blend. Just add a little more liquid and stir everything up (NOT with the blender running!) Once you get the smoothie blending consistently top to bottom, let it go for about a minute or two to make sure the spinach and fruit is completely chopped up.
• If you end up with a bunch of bananas that are ripe that you aren’t going to eat in time, peel them and stick them in the freezer. They’ll get kinda mushy and brown, but will taste perfect in smoothies (or any recipe for that matter).
• I typically make a blender full of smoothie, which is the equivalent of two pretty big glasses. I drink one and stick the other in the fridge for tomorrow morning.
• Your smoothie won’t look anything like the bubble-gum pink Jamba Juice smoothie. Spinach is dark green. Add some blueberries, and your smoothie turns a lovely shade of extremely off-putting brown. Don’t be scared. Typically, the darker the fruit or veggie, the more nutrients it has. That army green smoothie is jam-packed with goodness.
• Yes, you should make a spinach-milk-cherry-cocoa powder smoothie. Maybe immediately.

If you look closely at the first picture on this post, you’ll see the perky Brodster waiting patiently for me to whip up that smoothie. If you look really closely, you’ll see that he’s licking his lips. That’s because he always gets some smoothie, too. I pour some in his bowl and he licks it up lickedey-split. Dogs need spinach, too! I just really hope he doesn’t get brain freeze. Enjoy!

Trust me on this one.