If you remember, Chad Williams is the fitness guru behind Anthrophysique and the Evernote Ambassador for Fitness.  Here he’s sharing one of his favorite healthy recipes!

Beer Butt Chicken is one of my favorite meals of all time. It’s a pretty simple recipe and best of all, it’s done on the barbecue.

When it comes to cooking, I like my meals on the BBQ. I’m not so handy when I have to do things in the oven, but over an open flame I’m better at getting it just right. I also like the flavour you can get and the control you have.

If you’ve never had this meal, you’re in for a treat! Continue reading →

I’m three months into my thirtieth year, and it’s become official: I am not aging backwards.  I had briefly entertained the notion that, by some arcane feat of magic or dubious loophole in the natural law, I might merely crest the top of this thirty year timeline before slowly and gracefully falling backwards where I would begin to age in reverse, somehow growing younger and fresher as the days wound on.

Now that I’ve written that out, it does sound a little stupid.  But I like to think that stranger things have happened.  Case in point: the platypus.   Continue reading →

I make some of my best dishes off-the-cuff when I don’t feel good.  When I’m sick, I need rest, green tea, and hot delicious food, in that order.  Plus throwing together a very quick, simple but tasty meal for myself lifts my mood and helps me feel better.

This little veggie hash is one of those things.  I didn’t think much of it when I threw it together the first time, but then it was gorgeous.  So gorgeous I had to make it again a few days later.  It not only takes very little time and looks gorgeous, but it’s easily customizable and full of veggies and it features one of my favorite sausages of all time: calabrese.   Continue reading →

Strawberry Marshmallows

I’ve been on a marshmallow-making kick lately.  I’ve made vanilla bean, chocolate-Grand Marnier, amaretto dipped in almonds and chocolate, and chocolate covered strawberries.  Next I plan on lemon, stuffed marshmallows and vegan marshmallows.  Why, you ask?  Because happiness and marshmallows are pretty close to being the same thing.  Fluffy, pillowy, flavorful, fun to melt on a stick and smoosh in between pieces of chocolate and graham cracker.  There are a lot of similarities between the two.

Also, it’s surprisingly easy.

Continue reading →

We had two really warm days this week.  By “really warm,” I mean, 50 degrees in Michigan in January.  They were promptly and predictably bookended by several days of snow and freezing temperatures.  It’s the kind of weather that makes me think about….well, running away to Tahiti.  But also biscuits.

I love biscuits.  Pillowy, fluffy, savory biscuits, dripping with butter and all the promise of delicious flavor conveniently transported to my mouth in one hand-sized package.  My favorite, of course, is the buttermilk biscuit that I can now make in my sleep, practically.  But I’ve been working on other species, if you will, of biscuit.   Continue reading →

Did you have a merry Christmas?  Or, if you don’t celebrate Christmas, did you have a terrific Tuesday?  I did.  I got to spend time with friends and family and relax and eat good food.  That’s what holidays are truly about.  And I’m lucky enough to be off work for the next two weeks, and it’s a good thing too because I have serious plans for my kitchen and pantry…but more on that in a later post.

I promised you the third and final installment of our Citrus Dinner series—that is, the recipes and dishes we made for our citrus challenge, featuring delicious and fresh satsuma and clementine oranges from Whole Foods.  Thus far we’ve covered a delightful Champagne Wednesday cocktail (berry punch with clementine simple syrup) and a wholesome cheese plate (goat cheese, olive oil, raw almonds, fresh satsumas), plus two main courses (clementine-roasted chicken with thyme, mushrooms and tofu en papilotte).  Now, for the grand finale….

…dessert. Continue reading →

Whew.  Say that three times fast.

Continuing with our citrus fest, let’s move on the main show, shall we?  If you remember from last time, Whole Foods sponsored a little bit of experimentation using their fresh, in-season clementines and satsumas.  And with these beautiful little balls of sunshine, we made a delightful feast.

So we covered the berry punch with clementine syrup (which I already have another request for—as one of our New Year’s Eve cocktails) and our lovely fresh satsuma, almond and goat cheese plate (still one of my favorite appetizers ever).

But there was more.  Oh, so much more.  I’d been wanting for a while to make a thyme-roasted chicken dish and figured that adding a bit of citrus would make it even better.  And I was right. Continue reading →

I’ve decided on the perfect description for this #champagnewednesday thing: “It’s like a tiny Christmas, covered in bubbles.”  I think that pretty adequately sums things up.

This week’s cocktail is called the “French 75″–a pretty potent blend of gin, lemon and sparkling wine.  We used Meyer lemon and cava in ours.  It was good, seriously potent, but I think I’d make a few swaps next time, namely that instead of lemon juice and powdered sugar, I’d make a lemon simple syrup.  Also, a bit of ginger.  I feel kind of ginger-y these days.

Continue reading →

This is one of those weeks that just calls for tiny m&m cookies.  I don’t know what it was.  Maybe it’s excitement from my Skillshare class starting this week.  Maybe it’s end-of-the-year stress.  Maybe it was half a bag of tiny M&Ms sitting leftover on my counter and a half bottle of Amaretto out on the bar.  Who’s to say, really?

The point is, there are two things currently in my house that we should all strive to emulate. Continue reading →

Last weekend, a terrible thought hit me.  “Summer is practically over,” I thought.  “It might as well be September.”

But that’s crazy.  Summer is far from over.  Summer is merely at its peak.  Summer tastes sweet, juicy and goes well with cream soda.  You know how I know this?  Because summer is currently on sale in one of its purest forms: cherries.

Prompted by what turned out to be a fantastic idea by Whole Foods, we threw a cherry party this week.  That’s right.  Cherry all the things.

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Did you know that Michigan is the cherry capital of the world?  In fact, according to Wikipedia, the Traverse City area alone produces up to 360,000,000 pounds of cherries per year. 

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I’ve never actually cooked with fresh cherries before.  I’ve used dried ones in cookies and oatmeal but never used fresh.  Part of my hesitation was that I generally preferred strawberries, having not tasted how good cherries could really be before this week.  Part of my hesitation was due to this idea that cherries are hard to use.  I mean, pits?  Stems?  Let’s just call the whole thing off.  But no.  Turns out, fresh cherries are actually really easy to use, especially if you make a small investment in the right hardware.

So I thought to myself…can I make an entire meal with cherries in every dish?  Yes.  Yes I can.  Challenge accepted.

[heading style=”2″]Menu![/heading]

With recipes and bonus links below!

Appetizers:

• cherry salsa (fresh sweet cherries, red onion, garlic, serrano peppers, lime juice and zest)

• cherry gazpacho (sweet cherries, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, oil, vinegar and basil)

Main course and side:

• sirloin-cherry burgers with melted brie (ground sirloin, chopped fresh cherries)
• cherry-cranberry coleslaw (coleslaw mix, dried cherries, dried cranberries, cherry syrup, vinegar and mayo)

Dessert

• chocolate fondue with berries (cherries, raspberries and strawberries, marshmallows and graham crackers; fondue is semisweet chocolate, cream and amaretto liqueur)

Drinks

• Cherry cream soda (cream soda with cherry syrup and Black Cherry Cream soda from Sprechers)
• Cherry mojito slushies (cherry syrup, lime juice and zest, fresh cherries, rum and mint)
• Cherry rum and cokes (cherry syrup, cane sugar Coca-Cola and dark rum)

Yes.  It was a thing.  A red, sweet, full-belly kind of thing.  Any my challenge to you now is…what kind of cherry dishes are you going to make?  If you haven’t tried experimenting with fresh cherries before, trust me–now is the time.

I’d also like to thank Whole Foods for the inspiration for this party, as well as providing me with a gift card to procure the ingredients.

[heading style=”1″]Recipes[/heading]

How to make cherry syrup, from Karen’s Kitchen

How to dry cherries at home, from the Kitchn