Salsa Mexicana

Many, many years ago, Christmas 1999, to be precise, a dear friend gave me a cookbook of Salsa recipes. This book has 50 recipes for salsas. Tomato salsas, chile salsas, fruit salsas, tropical salsas, and corn salsas. So Many Salsas! Page 8 of this book is the most stained and dripped upon page in this book, because it is the page with our favorite go-to homemade salsa. Super simple to make, with easy to find ingredients, it’s a keeper. Enjoy.

Martha Washington’s Bean Soup

When I was a young wife and mom, a Texan married to a Pennsylvanian and living in Germany, cooking for my husband was complicated. He was not raised on the staple dishes of my own upbringing, and I was unfamiliar with the foods of the North. Enter Jo. Jo and her husband lived downstairs from us. She was from Pennsylvania, and besides being an avid cook, she had a desire to have someone to "mother." Jo and Roger quickly became dear friends to us, surrogate grandparents to our firstborn, and in her kitchen I learned to make the mysterious meals that my husband loved. This soup is one of our favorites. So good for a cold or rainy day. This soup is a reason to have ham- so you can have a ham bone to make soup! (And I still don't know what Martha Washington has to do with it!)

Brûléed Mashed Sweet Potatoes

My kids, oddly enough, never went for the marshmallow-topped sweet potato confection that has graced Thanksgiving tables across our land from sea-to-shining-sea since introduced to the Pilgrims by Squanto when he saved them from starvation.  That's the story, right?  I may be getting my culinary history confused here.  The point is, as far as my family is concerned marshmallows should only be eaten melty and warm, between graham crackers with gooey chocolate.

But I digress- this is supposed to be about sweet potatoes.

This recipe came from some magazine, some number of years ago, and is delicious, and totally marshmallow-free....  

Salmon Caesar Salad

To be honest, I can't remember which magazine this came from.  I know we began making this while we lived in Florida, so it may have been Cooking Light, but we have given it a tweak or two over the years, so it''s all ours now.  This is perfect for a light summer supper or first-night of camping meal to cook over the campfire when you are anticipating a steadily degenerating diet going from burgers and finally to hot dogs in the coming days...  (the photo above was taken on a camping trip.)

Broiling salmon in your oven's broiler may be an option if you are grill-less and desperate, but I don't like the smell it leaves behind in the house, so I'm including the grill tips we have learned over the years.

Sweet Potato Muffins

Simply because these will likely be breakfast tomorrow, and have become my favorite breakfast muffin since I found the recipe in Runner's World magazine a couple of years ago, I'll post this up now.  I've increased the amount of sweet potato to keep the muffins moist, and topped them with cane sugar for a delightful crunch.  Bake several sweet potatoes at once, ahead of time, and refrigerate or freeze until you're ready to bake them up into these wonderful, good-for-you, perfect-before-a-morning-run, muffins.