Quite a few years ago, when my husband and I were on our honeymoon in France, I first heard of tarte tatin. And that’s all – I heard about it. Every time I tried to order it, I was told it had “expired”. The first time I was told this, I was very confused, but by the end of the trip I realized “expired” meant 86’d, or they’d run out.

Disappointment faded away, and I had long forgotten about the tarte tatin, until I had a bunch of gravenstein apples in my kitchen, just begging to be turned into a dessert. In trying to decide what to make, I stumbled upon the idea of a tarte tatin, as they seem to be having a bit of a renaissance here at the moment. The dessert couldn’t be simpler… except for flipping the darn thing. (more…)

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Comfort food, Dessert, French, Vegetarian by Courtney

Actually, a couple of years in the making. Two years ago, while peeling a bunch of apples for this meal, I decided I certainly couldn’t waste all of the peel. I happened to have a full bottle of Stoli vodka, so I decided to drop the peels into an empty bottle, cover them with vodka, and let it sit for a couple of months.

A couple of months came and went (more…)

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Dairy free, Drink Time, Gluten free, Prep for Later Use, Vegan, Vegetarian by Courtney

At the age of 18, I moved away from Tennessee to the midwest, and I had more than my fair share of culture shocks. Most of these had to do with food. A ham biscuit at Hardee’s was made with deli ham, because no one north of Kentucky had ever heard of country ham. White Lily flour was only sold in Williams-Sonoma, and a small bag would cost you eight dollars. Barbecue was most often beef, most often ribs. And in the self-proclaimed barbecue capital of the world, being invited to a barbecue didn’t mean you were going to get smoked meat, but that you were simply grilling out some burgers and hotdogs. And soup beans… no one knew what these were. How was I to explain it? I had no other words for soup beans – they were soup beans, cooked and served with cornbread most usually. (more…)

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Comfort food, Dairy free, Dinner, French, Gluten free, Southern by Courtney

Just a picture to share with you this NFL Sunday. Here’s to your team!

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Drink Time by Courtney

If you’ve ever travelled to the Caribbean, hopefully you’ve taken the chance and tried one of their more unique meats – conch. I’ve had it in fritters in Key West, I’ve had it as a marinated piece of meat in St. Thomas, but until now, I had never tried conch chowder.

Now, I have no idea if canned conch is regularly stocked in stores, but quite a while back I noticed a local market had it stocked, so I picked up a can (I now know that Amazon carries it). And then it sat in my basement stores. For a while. So long, that just this past week I realized I had a few months left to eat it, otherwise, it would be headed for the trash. So peruse my cookbooks I did, and conch chowder I decided upon. (more…)

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Caribbean, Dinner, Soups, Wine pairings by Courtney