Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa (Salsa de Molcajete)

The salsa roja recipe is popular. Ridiculously popular. But we had some company in town and I needed salsa fast — nigh onto immediately. Rick Bayless recipe to the rescue! This is quick and easy, and simple to tweak:

You’ll need:

1 to 2 fresh jalapeño chiles (my late-season ones from the garden weren’t that hot so [...]

Mashed black beans

I recently came across this Rick Bayless recipe for simple mashed black beans. Can you ever go wrong with a Rick Bayless recipe? I’m saying no. With a little tweaking for what I had on hand and what sounded good, I ended up with this:

2 Tbsp. bacon drippings (I always have some in [...]

Oven fries

McWho? These are great! Can you believe they’re not fried?

Here’s how to satisfy your french fry craving without gobbling trans fats:

All-oven method:

Slice a potato (or two — that above is actually just a half a potato) and let the slices soak in hot tap water for at least 20 minutes — just like the oven [...]

Crispy oven roasted potatoes

Can you tell how crispy these are? This is one of our very favorite side dishes.  And all you need is a potato, some butter, some olive oil and some spices. Yay for simple! We’ll start with a soak in hot water to remove some of the starch from the potatoes, which will allow them [...]

Summer salad

One of many perks to having a garden in the back yard? THIS at any time:

I love this super simple salad! Fresh baby lettuce from the garden, homemade croutons, diced tomato, cheeses, and just a bit of Newman’s honey dijon dressing. SO good! And now that we’ve installed chicken wire around the garden, all [...]