Good Press

It doesn't happen often that I search my own blog for one of my family's favorite dinner recipes and not found it. This one, it seems, I haven't posted. We love the flavors of this breakfast-for-dinner recipe. Rachael Ray says it's good for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I have taken it -- minus the eggs -- to work the next day for lunch. We especially like the addition of Manchego. If we don't have it, grated Parmesan isn't a bad substitute. I usually skip the salsa. CHILI SWEET POTATO HASH WITH FRIED EGGS & FRESH TOMATO SALSA 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, 2 turns of the pan 1/2 pound bulk breakfast sausage, such as maple sausage 1 medium sweet potato, scrubbed clean, cut in 1/2 lengthwise, thinly sliced into 1/2 moons 1 large red onion thinly sliced, divided 2 teaspoons chili powder, 2/3 palm full 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/3 palm full 2 teaspoons ground coriander, 2/3 palm full Salt and pepper 3 yellow vine ri...

Wow. Tonight's dinner was special and awesome. I consoled myself for missing tonight's firemen's parade at the 67th Annual Preston County Buckwheat Festival by making a fully-cooked-just-heat-and-eat glazed ham with from-scratch summer squash cornbread and sweet potato, dried cherry, Madras curry and bleu cheese dressing. (That's dressing as in a casserole-style side dish that can also be used to stuff turkeys and game hens, not salad dressing.) I'll get right to the recipes and photos. Yum! SQUASH CORN BREAD From Taste of Home's Simple & Delicious Sept./Oct. 2008 This recipe makes two -- one to eat now and one to freeze. If you're trying it for the first time, you can halve the ingredients make just one, as I did. I like that it packs in extra nutrition and uses up some summer squash. 5 medium yellow summer squash (about 2 pounds), chopped 2 packages (8 1/2 ounces each) cornbread/muffin mix, such as Jiffy 4 eggs, lightly beaten 2/3 cup 4 percent cottage...

I do this thing -- well, I used to do it more often, when I had a bigger grocery budget and reason to be near a big-city grocery store -- where I see an ingredient that I consider hard to come by in rural parts. Rose water, for example. I used to snap up the hard-to-find ingredient -- one time it was haluski noodles -- and bring it home only to find that I had misplaced the recipe I'd been saving to try if I ever found the elusive ingredient. The ingredient would spoil or go stale and I'd toss it, never having found the recipe I wanted to try. That's why I never bought the rose water when the nearest Kroger opened its ethnic section a few years ago. I was tempted, but I knew that recipe would be nowhere to be found at home. But that fear and reasoning didn't stop me from snapping up a package of chorizo, a Spanish link sausage, at a fancy Giant Eagle a few months back. And it stayed in my freezer until I found a good recipe to try. But to try that recipe required some s...