Improve Your Kitchen Prowess: Upcoming Chicago Cooking Classes

Chicago is a city that provides world-class dining opportunities. But locals know it is also a city that offers a wide variety of learning opportunities to experienced foodies and kitchen newbies alike. I'm sort of a cooking-class geek; I can't get enough of them. While perusing through upcoming classes to satisfy my own inklings, I was excited to see that there is really an embarrassment of

Chicken Tortilla Soup

The combination of the subtle adobo heat with the bright flavors of lemon and cilantro make this Chicken Tortilla Soup an ideal way to savor those increasingly cool late-summer evenings. This is a soup that I have been making for more than 8 years now. That fact should tell you two things: first, it has stood the test of time. This is one of a small number of soups that are so good that we make

What the world eats each week...

What we eat speaks volumes about who we are and how we live. If you are anything like me, you often pass the time waiting in those grocery store lines peering into the lives of those around you as the evidence chugs by in carts and on checkout conveyors. Hot dogs, beer, frozen pizza? Bachelor. Diet muffins, diet soda, chips and kool-aid? Mom is trying to lose weight but the kids aren't having any

Gourmet Italian Pasta Salad

In this dish, pasta salad, that iconic American summer food, grows up and goes gourmet. I bring in high flavor touches like sun-dried tomatoes, hot marinated artichoke hearts, and creamy Asiago cheese to create a high-taste, low fat pasta salad that is bursting with well-balanced Italian inspired flavors. This is a dish that everyone raved about, and had many of my friends eagerly asking "Where

Irish Chicken Salad Sandwich on Soda Bread

Summertime always seems like the perfect time for chicken salad. It is a medium that offers endless possibilities for creativity to bring an unusual gourmet touch to a lunch or picnic. However, after a series of more innovative chicken salads, I found myself craving something a little closer to traditional, but not so traditional as to be boring. In that spirit, the idea of importing the flavor

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Raisin Scones

In a busy world, where more and more families spend increasing amounts of their budgets on eating out and commercial food, sometimes you just want home baked goodness. It is a form of love embodied in flour, sugar and butter. It can be self-love when you deserve a treat, love for your neighbors, or love for a friend. But no matter how you slice it or slather it in butter, baked goods are always

Healthier Fruit Crisp Topping (with a hint of ginger!)

There is perhaps no dessert more perfect for summer than a seasonal fresh fruit cobbler or pie. My husband is a fresh fruit dessert fanatic. There is no quicker way to that man's heart than to surprise him with a pie or cobbler made from fresh seasonal fruit. And if you buy seasonal fruits at the peak of their ripeness, the fruit itself has almost all the succulent sweetness you need, with very