I first heard Cynthia Lair share recipes on NPR, including from a snippet of her online cooking show which can be pretty funny. After this, I looked up her website and printed off some recipes that sounded good – and they were! I think it was her apple-walnut kale recipe that really sold me. I had never cooked much with dark greens as they can be bitter and tougher, but I began giving them a try thanks to Cynthia. And I discovered I really like them – and (a bit of a shock to me) so does Jay.
Cynthia Lair focuses on making food that is fresh, uses more natural ingredients, and is fairly simple to cook. Ideas that sound good to me! For Christmas, Jay got me her cookbook which I have recently been using A LOT. The recipes are a little different than our standard fare, usually quite tasty, and, for the most part, do not require a lot of time in the kitchen. Did I mention they are quite filling too? I mean, I know this is the goal with food, but sometimes a meal just doesn’t stick with me as long as others. An added bonus with her cookbook, tips for feeding kids a variety of foods as well as how to make parts of meals baby friendly — both of which I’m sure will come in handy in this house soon.
I would suggest checking our her website and see what you think!
- Author name:
- ekbo
- Publish date:
- June 9th, 2010
- Discussion:
- 7 Comments
- Categories:
- Friendly Messages
- Tags:
- About ekbo:
-
Visit website
Why do my links never work? I guess if I posted more often I might figure it out…
http://www.cookusinterruptus.com
i am intrigued! been reading a bit on her blog and amazon reviews, and for sure like what she has to say. am contemplating making the teriyaki chicken and vegetables for dinner tomorrow. but pat’s parents are arriving, and i’m always nervous about making a new recipe for company! but nothing else is sounding good on a hot summer day, so i may just do it anyhow. thanks, eve!
OMG! Iloved that skit they had on NPR with her doing that radio cooking show while her family drama is contantly interupting. Her daughter Jane was in a band and had a todler and was living at home and the sink was a problem and the handyman would be trying to fix it and then she’s be stressed out about how strapped for cash they were. It doesn’t sound funny here but please listen to the archives of the show. I guess it makes her stuff sound fit for real life. That walnut kale thing definately sounded good. I think I like kale. Isn’t it in that white soup I like at the Olive Garden? It has the floaty bits of green stuff and sausage. Liked the princples or food philosophy too. Seems like we could incorporate some of these dishes and not feel like we were hurting to eat healthy. So it is awesome to hear that they are filling too. Thanks Ekob!
okie dokie, so i took the plunge and made the chicken vegetable teriyaki: http://www.cookusinterruptus.com/index.php?video_id=43 for dinner tonight. it did taste good, and was pretty quick, but the teriyaki sauce ended up being pretty soupy. i compared it with the stir fry sauces i usually make, and they include corn starch, whereas the cynthia lair recipe did not. so i think with a bit of corn starch it would have been great! and a slightly nit picky observation: the video recipe did not match the written recipe. the video included broccoli and also cooked the cabbage separately from the other vegetables. okay and one more even more nit-picky thing–how is the sauce supposed to reduce any noticeable amount when it is cooking on low heat?
so eve, what recipes do you like other than the kale one? i would make it, except there’s no kale in CH. not that that is a problem for much longer!!!
melissa, i’m going to have to listen to that NPR segment!
Hey Em, they are on the website that eve shared. I checked the link last nite. Made Jeremy watch the one with the Carribean Lime Halibut. We don’t have a pan that will go in the oven and in the stove so we can’t do that one. Each recipe has a little piece of the story. Like the halibut recipe has Jayne’s band getting a gig in Pasco. Mom’s all bent out of shape b/c she has date night plans. But the dad cancels it so they can watch joquain (Jayne’s son.) Oh, it just cracks me up.
i like the carribean lime halibut recipe (tho i got a nasty burn forgetting that i had just taken the pan out of the oven as i turned it on the stove top… but i survived — and jay really likes that one too)
since i’ve been using her cookbook, i don’t know how many recipes from the book are online (i know some are, but not all). one i really liked was pan fried tofu with soba noodles (really filling and tasty!) and cooked greens and drizzled with an almond ginger sauce. also liked this quinoa red bean chili. and a lentil onion dish (sorry, don’t remember the name off the top of my head — and the other main ingredient). oh, we’ve had these nut burgers a couple times that i really like (they’re a bit crumbly, but so tasty!). on her site is a recipe for man-to-man black bean chili that is pretty good…
and when you get back to the states em, i have this yummy kale/tofu/barley stew from mark bittman that i really love (jay too). it’s not a quick dish, but so, so good!
She spoke at a PAC meeting (co-op pta) and was really funny in person. People at my co-op rave about her nonstop. I haven’t tried any recipes yet but I’ve been meaning to pick up a copy of the book for a long time.
I thought she had a lot of interesting things to say about what we feed our kids (and ourselves) based on common folk wisdom about heath versus the reality of our health problems in the US.