a little zaftig

Purple Prairie Barley Muffins

by Laura 4 February 2011

This beautiful violaceous heirloom grain caught my eye at the co-op yesterday, so I picked up a bag and decided to grind it into flour and turn it into a batch of muffins. I think I was channeling my Honey Girl, because I improvised a baking recipe. I took the lovely lavender flour and added [...]

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Lacinato Blue Kale Soup with Creamy White Beans and Ham (Slow and Lightning Quick)

by Laura 3 February 2011

Okay, confessions first: I love kale. But even my Dear Husband and Sweet Boy, who would never be true cheerleaders for a soup with kale, eat it up happily. And now that Americans seem to be gobbling down bitter salad greens like arugula and frisee, I hope I can talk you into looking past kale’s [...]

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Orange Flower Water Margarita

by Laura 3 February 2011

Early this morning my Dear Husband and I were listening to A Good Noise on kzum.org. He doesn’t usually share my (ahem, excellent) taste in music, but even he was dancing around, coffee in hand. I was poking through the refrigerator and contemplating the bits and bobs, remnants of recipes past. I think it was [...]

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Bostock

by Laura 2 February 2011

When my Honey Girl was home for her long winter break, we went to Rustica, our favorite bakery in Minneapolis. If you’re ever in Minnesota, it’s a must-stop, the kind of place that makes you wake up, shake a bit, and utter your equivalent of Jenkies. This is a bakery with some serious magic; the [...]

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Heart-shaped Brownies with Fudge Frosting

by Laura 1 February 2011

Before we moved out of the city, we lived on Hague Avenue in the Merriam Park neighborhood of St. Paul. My sister Molly and I walked to school at St. Mark’s and to Don’s Country Boy on the corner of Selby and Hamline Avenues by ourselves, where we would pick out a candy bar for [...]

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Emmer Wheat with Hen of the Woods

by Laura 29 January 2011

The little co-op where I do the bulk of my shopping has had some lovely and surprising cultivated organic mushrooms lately. Yesterday they had black trumpet and maitake, or hen of the woods. Seeing them labeled maitake brought back sudden memories of a teacher’s room in Suita, just north of Osaka, 22 years ago and [...]

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Sugar Cakes

by Laura 28 January 2011

I first made these big, delicate sugar cookies for a candidate meet-and-greet a few years ago. The event was a success, but from the cookies’ perspective it was kind of a disaster. My wonderfully feisty friend Bonnie had asked if I would make some cookies for the event, so I made ten kinds. I delivered [...]

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Boneless Short Rib Ragu

by Laura 27 January 2011

This sauce is so simple and so delicious. It has all the unctuous richness of short ribs, but you don’t need to fuss with extracting them—dripping from the pan—to remove bones or shred them. It’s the kind of recipe that, after a little time devoted to browning, is quick to put together and perfumes the [...]

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Sugar-dipped Coconut Doughnuts

by Laura 26 January 2011

Our Honey Girl loves doughnuts. So on one of her last days home, we made these doughnuts together. These meet at the intersection of carnival food and slice of cake. They are tender on the inside and moist from the flaked coconut, and their exteriors are just a touch crunchy like a good old-fashioned doughnut [...]

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Chicken Soup with Egg Dumplings

by Sophia 25 January 2011

A Guest Post by my Honey Girl From the way my mom has taught me and talked to me about baking, I know each of her meals and after school treats for us were made with love. My mom’s cooking is one way that she cares for us everyday. She’s always said that you can [...]

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Danish Hazelnut Snails (Snegler)

by Sophia 24 January 2011

A Guest Post by my Honey Girl Every Saturday morning during high school I would wake up early to bake. I particularly liked recipes that called for the butter to be cut into the dough by hand. I loved the rhythm of the integration and the feeling of pinching those cold knobs of butter into [...]

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