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

After my first experience with fennel a couple years ago, I’ve become a bit obsessed.  Fennel is in season year round (check out what food is in season when!) but I seem to always use it as a transition vegetable.  I love to work it into recipes when the season is changing.  For this one, I use some of summer’s zucchini roasted with fresh picked fennel, onion and garlic. Read more

It’s raining again.  That’s typical for spring in the Pacific Northwest.  We really have two seasons, rainy and summer.  I’m so anxious for my vegetables to grow and it’s tough to be patient.  I’m surviving off of frozen and canned vegetables, (with the occasional tiny lettuce leaf on my sandwiches!) and have been trying to find fun flavorful ways to use them.  After agreeing to cook a month’s worth of frozen dinners (in one day) for my grandparents, I came up with this vegetable soup recipe in a moment of desperation.  Fortunately, it turned out so well that I couldn’t wait to share it with you! Read more

Every time I cook with asparagus, I fret over those woody ends that I’ve always been taught are good for nothing but the compost pile.  While I can add them to my freezer bag of vegetable scraps to make stock, I felt like there had to be something more I could do with them to let the bright taste of asparagus still be featured.  That’s how I came up with this asparagus soup recipe using leftover asparagus ends. Read more

I think that the best part of the roast goose I posted last week was the easy Vietnamese soup I made with the leftovers.  A subtle mix of sweet, sour, salty, savory and spicy make the soup broth irresistable.  The soup not only used up leftover goose, it also allowed me to use the vegetables that were starting to wrinkle up in my fridge.  I wouldn’t want to use them in salads or eat them fresh, but they were perfect for soup! Read more