Two weeks ago, before the madness of the ice storm, I promised you my favorite recipe for using homemade seafood stock.  Today, I deliver!  While my sister is definitely the risotto champion in the family, I love to make it on days like today when the weather is cold and dreary.  The rich, creamy texture of this one pot meal brings comfort, while the tender asparagus and bright lemon zest carry promises of spring. Read more

This month, Eric and I have cut our food budget in half to try and save more of the rent we get from our exchange students.  I have to admit that I’ve been slacking a bit in the food budgeting due to the excuse of needing more to feed the boys.  But this month, I’m back on track, meal planning and everything.  One of my favorite tricks for saving money on food is making my own homemade stock.  So today, I’m super excited to share my method of using seafood shells to make a rich and flavorful seafood stock recipe. Read more

If I were going to eat one food until I was so stuffed I couldn’t eat another bite, it would be oysters.  Cooked or raw, I can eat my weight in the sweet, salty, slippery mouthfuls.  At Blog Her a couple months ago I was treated to dinner at Nobu in San Diego.  The food was amazing, but my absolute favorite was the oysters with Nobu salsa.  When we recently stayed in a cabin on the beach near Oysterville, I whipped up a batch of my own salsa based on what I had at Nobu. Read more

As a brand new gardener I have been patiently waiting for my very first tomato plants to burst with plump red and golden fruit.  Unfortunately, the weather has not been working with me.  The large amount of rain we had at the beginning of summer really slowed the growth of everyone’s tomatoes.  I have lots of green ones, but I’ve only had three ripen so far.  I really wanted to use my first two tomatoes in a simple dinner that featured their sweet flavor.  With some peas from my garden and shrimp from the freezer, I had just about everything I needed for an easy summer dinner. Read more

Recently at Sam’s Club I noticed a big bag of frozen whole tilapia for only $12.  The fish were cleaned and scaled, they just needed to be cooked.  I find cooking whole fish is a great way to save money on seafood, but people are often intimidated by it.  If you fall into that group of people, don’t worry, I’ll walk you through it step by step! Read more