After yesterday’s tummy warming comfort food, Meatballs in Mushroom Cream Sauce, I thought I would share something a little lighter for those of you still enjoying the hot summer weather.  All you need for this quick and easy salad is a couple ripe tomatoes, a cool cucumber, salt, pepper and good quality extra virgin olive [...]

In addition to french fries and mozzarella, tater tots are another one of my guilty pleasures.  But do you know how hard it is to find a decent plate of tots? First, I scour restaurant and bar menus in hopes that I find one that serves them. Once I do, I am often disappointed as [...]

Maybe it is just my friends and family, but it seems like ranch is the “it” dip. Whenever I go out to dinner with friends, chances are there will be some ranch at the table, and we’re not always eating salad. It turns out that ranch is great with french fries, chicken tenders, burgers, veggies, [...]

Eggplant Parmesan is a staple at just about every neighborhood Italian restaurant. And for good reason. It is crispy, cheesy and even though it is fried, you feel it’s a least a little healthy because anything with the word eggplant in it has to be.  Right? At least that is what I was telling myself [...]

Have you ever had a meal while on vacation that you just cannot find when you return home? You dream about it, crave it and search for it everywhere only to come up empty handed time and again and eventually you break down and cry. OK so maybe it is not that dramatic. But you [...]

If there were a list of my all-time favorite appetizers, potstickers would be near the top with wontons, eggrolls, chips and salsa and calamari. Like wontons and eggrolls, you can get just about any mixture of flavors inside potstickers. I have had them with shrimp, beef, chicken and veggies only. For this recipe, I wanted [...]

Non-garlic fans, if you exist, will probably want to stop reading right now. Chances are you will not be interested in what I have to say. Garlic fans on the other hand, just might fall in love.  To you, this may be heaven on a plate. There is no holding back, these yukon gold french [...]

“Take me out to the ball game, take me out to the crowd, buy me some peanuts…”  For many baseball fans, these lyrics mean sunny summer days, eating hot dogs, drinking cold beer and rooting for your favorite team. If you are one of these fans then you know that we have reached the half-way [...]

When Ryan and I go out for pizza at one of our favorite pizza restaurants, we also usually order a side of garlic cheese bread. The way I look at it is, if you’re going to go out and eat pizza you might as well eat more bread and more cheese right? It may be [...]

I know, I know two spicy dishes in one week. But I just could not let the 4th of July pass by without sharing this recipe with you. While most of the recipes that I have shared this week have been present at our family functions, this one in particular is one that I can [...]