Sprout & Pea

There’s a first time for every­thing, and last week­end just so hap­pened to be my first time in Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia. I spent my Fourth of July explor­ing a new city and relax­ing in a nearby rural sub­urb with good com­pany, deli­cious food, sun­shine, cats, dogs and yes, even the Amish. I even had my first intro­duc­tion to Johnny Cakes (also known as corn­meal pan­cakes) and I can’t wait to get the recipe for this new favorite tasty break­fast treat. Before the fire­works set off and after a lit­tle game of bad­minton, we stuffed our­selves full with burg­ers and hot dogs topped with grilled kale, along­side lentil salad, green beans and an array of other good­ies. Read more:

Grow­ing up, my fam­ily ate a lot of chicken for din­ner and over the years my mom would use her culi­nary knowl­edge to whip up new recipes that never ceased to sat­isfy our big appetites. After so many new vari­a­tions and “what are we hav­ing for din­ner” ques­tions, my mom just began to respond with “chicken some­thing” and it stuck. When I was home in Miami this week­end, my mom made my favorite “chicken some­thing” dish– chicken cut­lets with a dijon lemon shal­lot sauce.
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I’ve never been a fan of seafood. In fact, the taste and smell of any sea related food gen­er­ally makes me a lit­tle queasy– except for tuna out of a can. Believe me, this sounds just as crazy to me as it does to you, con­sid­er­ing canned tuna is quite potent.  Per­haps even more bizarre, is that I have met sev­eral other peo­ple through­out my life who have said that they too will only eat tuna out of a can when it comes to seafood.
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Arti­chokes have been a long time favorite veg­etable of mine and there’s no bet­ter way to enjoy them than steamed with a great side sauce.  Grow­ing up, when most kids begged their mom for mac and cheese for din­ner, I would beg mine for steamed arti­chokes.
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Arti­chokes are by far my favorite veg­etable. I think I grew up lov­ing them so much though because of the dip my mom always made to go with them. I recently made a steamed arti­choke and this deli­cious but very mayo heavy dip and decided it might be about time to embrace my health con­scious ways and try to make my own, health­ier ver­sion of may­on­naise.
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