Dinner Diva: Not paper or plastic, please. I’ll take the bamboo!

There’s a relatively new product on the market that you may or may not be familiar with — bamboo dinnerware. These reusable and/or disposable dishes are made from the sheath of the bamboo plant. Bamboo can grow more than a meter per day and the plant matures within 5 years, making it one of the […]

Dinner Diva: How to roast a whole chicken

For many new chefs, roasting a whole chicken can be an intimidating task. But, really, there are few things that are as easy to pull off (or impressive) in the kitchen as a juicy roasted chicken. The most important thing is to start with local organic free-range poultry whenever possible. I always reach for smaller […]

Dinner Diva: Think Outside the Side Dish

How many of us live in households where the dinner plate consists of a serving of meat, starch, and a small portion of vegetables? Now that I eat a Paleo diet, my plate looks a lot different than it once did. No longer do we eat rice, couscous or pasta at my house. When you […]

Dinner Diva: Making the perfectly balanced salad

I serve a large green salad with almost every meal, and this is the time of year I love most, thanks to all of the gorgeous fresh spring greens and vegetables! Since I have this salad thing down to a science, I thought I’d share some tips with y’all as to how to make amazing, […]

Dinner Diva: When school’s out for summer, start teaching about food!

Pop quiz: How do you get kids to eat just about anything? Answer: You get them involved in the kitchen. There’s no surefire guarantee that your kids will eat something they have had a hand in preparing, but it absolutely increases the odds of them trying and liking a dish. Get your kids right in […]

It’s a crab boil! Dinner has never been easier.

It’s soft shell crab season in many parts of the US right now and if you haven’t taken advantage of that yet, I strongly recommend doing so! Sweet, delicate crab meat is so delicious. It’s also an excellent source of nutrients, protein, and those important Omega 3s. Crab is also a low-risk seafood for mercury […]

Dinner Diva: Healthy grilling tips

It’s barbeque season! And while we all love the thrill of the grill, it’s a known fact that cooking meat over charcoal can be harmful to our health because of the carcinogens that come from cooking over chemically charged lava rocks and from eating charred meat. Rather than giving up the grill on those hot […]

Dinner Diva: Stock up on vegetable broth!

When you start making your own stock, you’re going to have a hard time buying it from the store ever again. Making stock from scratch is about as satisfying as it gets. Being the one who purchased (or even better, grew!) the vegetables that you’re using to nourish your family means that you know exactly […]

Dinner Diva: Something to stew over

I recently wrote blog posts teaching you how to braise and how to sear. So it just occurred to me that I should go ahead and combine the two and tell y’all about how to stew. What hits the spot on a cold day better than a nice steamy hot bowl of thick beef stew? By definition, a […]