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Last week I wrote about how to cook beans from scratch and why they are so much better than canned beans. Did I inspire you enough to go to the store and buy a bag or two? I hope so! Taking the next step to make refried beans is almost too easy. Refried beans are not really fried twice as the name suggests. The word “refried” comes from the Spanish word “refritos”, which means “well-fried”. Refried beans are simply cooked beans that are mashed and fried in a skillet with some...
Last week I wrote about falling in love with refried beans and learning how to make them. They are simple to cook and are the ultimate comfort food on a cold winter day. The number of people who don't know how to cook beans from scratch surprises me and they eat them from cans. Are they afraid of the beans? Is it because there is so much confusion about the right way to cook them – to salt or not to salt, that is the question! Presoak or no? Cooking beans from dried is not m...
Lately I've been reminiscing about riding my paint quarter horse, Quincy, on my friend Lolita's five hundred acre working farm in Hubbard, Oregon. Lolita and I rode most Sunday mornings and we would laugh and say that we were at "The Church of the Horse". Riding with her was a deeply spiritual experience because on every ride we would see sights that were breathtakingly beautiful and the images would stay with me the whole week. For example, on one winter not-a-cloud-in-the-sk...
You know by now that I am a fan of food made from scratch ingredients. Usually boxed food or “cheat and heats” just don’t hold a candle to food cooked with love and real ingredients. I can’t now recall how a box of Pillsbury Quick Bread banana nut mix made its way into the pantry. Perhaps in the middle of the night it snuck in on little cat feet? Or maybe in an unconscious daze I plucked it off a shelf at the grocery store. Regardless, there it was sitting in the cupboar...
Last week I went to a bakery in Bend and was shocked to see artisan bread being sold by the half loaf. The bread was about the same price I paid for a whole loaf a couple of years ago. We've all witnessed the rising cost of food in the past year but this seemed to punctuate the seriousness of the problem. I have heard the term "shrinkflation" which means smaller sizes for about the same price and this was a perfect example. This price increase had a profound effect on me and...
