This is a dish for my bachelor brother, Jay, who lives alone and has those awful working hours only doctors on-call could endure. Sure, it looks glam on Grey’s Anatomy, but I honestly don’t think he’s romping in the supply closet. Or at least I don’t want to think that.

Simple, flexible recipes with little clean-up are the type of recipes that I think Jay would appreciate and this one is from Cooking Know How cookbook by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough (they have a blog called Real Food Has Curves). Baking fish in parchment paper packets is so incredibly easy, almost foolproof for cooking novices.

Clean up is as quick as crumpling the paper and tossing it away.

Co-author Mark must have had burning ears, because as I was typing this column out, he had sent me an email gushing about their new book that’s hitting the shelves in a few days, “Ham: An Obsession with the Hindquarter,” which they describe as “a hymn to backsides.” I’ll be sure to test a recipe and share with you all as soon as I get a copy in my hands.

How to bake fish in parchment paper (video)

This vegetarian omelet (or omelette to be fancy) is savory, rich with a creamy tomato basil sauce.

And there’s not one ounce of cream.

In fact, this breakfast is certified healthy, i.e. it’s a recipe directly from the chefs at the famous Rancho La Puerta, where they know how to make healthy taste goooooood.

recipe for Rancho La Puerta’s vegetarian omelet at Steamy Kitchen on TLC.

Believe it or not, I’ve been in a cauliflower rut. And you can bet that my kids have let me know, “awww…Mom…cauliflower AGAIN?”

I think I’ve hit the household roasted cauliflower limit as that’s the only recipe that I’ve been cooking. My family is protesting. Ouch.

So, it’s time for a change and this was a big one…but it certainly was a hit. The recipe is Tomato Braised Cauliflower – a simple Greek recipe from How to Roast a Lamb: New Greek Classic Cooking cookbook by Michael Psilakis that came out last year (highly recommend this book)

Another recipe I’ve made from this book is the Greek Burgers with Roasted Pepper Feta Spread <- stop right here and bookmark that recipe. It seriously will put you in a happy place.

And this Tomato Braised Cauliflower recipe will go just nicely with it. Get recipe at Steamy Kitchen on TLC.

Happy New Year! I thought I’d start the new year right with a light salad (just don’t eat too many of those warm goat cheese rounds on toasted baguette, ok?!) Wishing you and your family a fun-filled, healthy and prosperous New Year!

It’s a brand new year and I’ve just now started my winter garden, which includes celery, salad greens and herbs such as sweet basil, parsley, cilantro, Thai basil, chives and thyme. Some gardeners will say I’m late, others will say I’m too early, but all I know that this little snippet of time between Christmas and New Years is the perfect schedule for my household.

My mother-in-law, an avid quilter, and my father-in-law, a skilled woodworker, are both in town. Neither of which has anything to do with MY garden, except for the fact that the mere presence of them forces my husband to work less at the computer and be on his best behavior as a model parent.

“Oh, dear husband, since you’re not programming code at your desk this week, how about helping plant our family garden that provides nourishment to your children?” Of course, I have to wait for the perfect moment to bring this subject up, both in-laws have to be present and we must be at the dinner table enjoying a lovely family moment. How could he say no? He looked at me, cocked his head and smiled.

Round 1, wife.

Yes, I know how to get things done in my household, sometimes it involves a bit of sneakiness and creativity. But then my husband got right back at me the next evening at dinner when he winked at me and announced, “so now that we have a salad garden, can we think of recipes other than the same boring mixed greens?”

Round 2, husband.

This recipe is from a brand new cookbook called In a Cheesemaker’s Kitchen written by the founder of Vermont Butter and Cheese Company, Allison Hooper. The company is most known for their goat cheese, but also make cultured butter and cow’s milk products like Quark, Fromage Blanc and Mascarpone. I’m in love with their Quark cheese, which is a German-style fresh cheese.

For this salad, I’ve used their Bijou cheese, which is goat cheese that is molded and into small, adorable rounds. The cheese is aged for one week, and the longer it is aged, the shaper and more robust the flavor becomes. I’ve cut each button-shaped round into three thick slices to top on a baguette slice and after a couple of minutes under the broiler, the cheese melts and oozes all over the bread. Try this recipe with any type of cheese you like, even a spoonful of crumbled gorgonzola on each bread slice.

The beautiful purple flower on the cheese is actually the little flower bud from Thai basil from my garden. Regular sweet italian basil will have light green buds and white flowers.

I have no reason to dislike kale, but it’s one of those vegetables that I don’t usually buy. It probably has everything to do with location. At the grocery store down the street where do most of my shopping, the kale-in-a-bag sits perkily next to collard greens in-a-bag which sits next to the fresh cut fruit in-a-bowl. And that’s the section that I avoid.

Fruit is not that hard to cut and I just can’t get myself to pay an extra $2.00 a pound for someone to cut fruit into big chunks, package them in a cheap plastic container and then suffocated with plastic wrap. I’m a hypocrite because I happily buy green beans in a bag, asparagus on a styrofoam tray, chicken in a vacuum bag and orange juice in a box. Just not fresh fruit.

When I was in New York last week, my friend Grace asked me if I had ever tried crispy kale chips. At first I thought it was one of those fancy health food products, made with gourmet ingredients like tricalcium phospate, hydrogenated soybean oil and ascorbic acid. But no, Grace said, just kale, olive oil and salt. So, I had to try and now I’m hooked. The kale leaves bake to a shatteringly crisp, crackly snack. They really shouldn’t be called chips, they look nothing like them, but when I called them chips, the kids came running to try.

Oh, and for the record, I’m totally okay with buying kale in-a-bag, I just give the fruit in-a-bowl the evil eye as I walk by.

***

How to make Crispy Kale

Start with a big bag of kale.

And the most important step is to spin dry the leaves.

Then drizzle in some olive oil

Toss to coat. Here’s another secret – do not salt the kale just yet. Adding salt before it goes into the oven is just bad, soggy news. The salt will make the kale leaves leach out some water, which in turn will make them soggy in the oven. And that mans soggy kale, not crispy kale.

After tossing with olive oil, bake in the oven until the leaves are shatteringly crisp but still bright green. Timing depends on how much olive oil you use. Then season with salt.

And then you call it “Crispy Kale” see if your kids will eat it.

Yup!