Good Taste

Taste Columnist

Hallelujah!! It is finally warm and dry enough to get outside and do some yard work. It is so rewarding to rake away the leaves and see crocus, tulips, and jonquils pushing through the soil. There are loons on the lake and the sky is blue. This is the time that I like to pre-make meals so I can spend more time outdoors. Dinners are easy as you can always put something in the crockpot and let it go for eight to ten hours. For lunch, I like to make a simple picnic-type meal that can be enjoyed indoors or out.

Roll-ups can be made ahead and refrigerated. You can swap out the turkey for any other shaved meat or even cold, cooked shrimp. Use what your family likes. (PB&J works well, too). While I assemble everything else for the roll-ups, I put the bacon slices on an aluminum foil-lined jelly roll pan, place in a cold oven, turn the oven to 400 degrees, and 15 to 20 minutes later the...

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Taste Contributor

“Mom, I love your cooking!” If only it were so. Rather, the conversation usually goes something like the following: “Mom, what’s for dinner?”

Mom then lovingly divulges the name of the dish she just finished preparing after spending her drive home focused mainly on how she can magically turn something from her kitchen into something that will nourish and please the entire family. “Ughhh, I hate filet mignon with a baked potato and all the fixings. You never make anything good. Why can’t we have mac and cheese?”

This is the usual predicament I find myself in, at minimum, four days a week. Raising children is not an easy task. Getting them to eat nutritious food that they enjoy, is an even more arduous task. So, I have turned to allusion.

I have taken foods that we all enjoy and given them a healthy spin. Of course I still throw in a frozen pizza, PB&J, and boxed macaroni and cheese here and there, but since I enjoy cooking, I force myself to get creative and use what I know will work. The winner in my house, tacos! Yep, that simple mixture of spice, fat, and carbohydrates has won itself a spot on our table many times.

However, the appearance...

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Taste Contributor

There is a country song that talks about hearing voices — the advice and helpful hints of wise loved one’s a person hears repeated over and over again in their head. There is not a time I am in the kitchen when that is not true.

My mom taught me many invaluable lessons and tricks in the kitchen and I do “hear” her many times when I am cooking or baking.

Each time a recipe calls for vanilla extract, I hear her voice telling me a capful is a teaspoon (or close enough).

Every year at pickling time, I hear my mom’s voice telling how many bunches of dill to use, how to slice the garlic, the alum to add for crispness, the length of time...

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