Mom’s Super Healing Chicken Stew

Fact: There are times in life when you need your Mama-Bear, no matter how old you are.

Fact: Yes, I sometimes refer to my Mom as Mama-Bear. No one should look surprised. Does she call me Baby-Bear in return? Maybe. Am I nearly thirty years old? Affirmative. Just go with it.

Fact: Mama-Bears are really good at making ordinary food taste like liquid gold.

For example, while I was under the weather this past weekend my Mom whipped me up a chicken stew that tasted like fifty billion liquid hugs. I’m not kidding. It tasted like growing up, and all the times I had the sniffles. It smelled like my grandmother’s kitchen on a wintry day. Through the scent of it bubbling on the stove came the memories, through the memories came the feelings of familiarity and warmth, and through that warmth came a deep feeling of love. Who ever thinks love is not a legit ingredient in cooking is wrong. Or, maybe they’ve just never tasted a Mama-Bear’s chicken stew. That’s okay. I’ll show you how it’s done. […]

How To Make An Awesome Cauliflower Crust Pizza!

There comes a time in every girls life where she finds an extra head of cauliflower in her fridge, converts that head of cauliflower into pizza, and then proceeds to nonchalantly shove that ENTIRE pizza down her pie hole. You know that whole “dance like nobody’s watching” saying we hear so frequently? This is the sneaky-awkward-alone with my feelings on a wednesday-food-blogging-girl equivalent. I ate this pizza like no one was watching (even though my dog watched the whole time–begging–judging–begging). Should we make some “Eat Like Nobody Is Watching” t-shirts? Maybe, yes. Sometimes you just have to let your hair down and go for it. Er… maybe in this case pile your hair into a messy bun on top of your head to avoid any sauce splatter that is headed straight for your coif. Don’t give me that look–like you’ve never gotten a big chunk o’ tomato sauce stuck in the ends of your ponytail. We’re friends. We can admit these things. This is a safe space. We’re in the trust tree. […]

Totally Easy Slow-Cooker Kalua Pork

Happy New Year, Friends! I hope you enjoyed a bit of holiday R&R! What did you do? Did you travel? Did you stay home? Was there any Christmas caroling? How about scandalous NYE romance? Did your crazy aunt get drunk and take off her wig? I want stories. Spill it. You should write me. I enjoy a good tale.
I had a quiet holiday this year. The husband and I enjoyed cozy fires and copious amounts of carbs mixed with cheese. There was bourbon-sipping and movie marathons. There was friendship, wine, merriment and board games. There were cookies, a bag of butterscotch caramels, and a complicated relationship with a bag of chocolate-drizzled kettle corn. I’m just now slowly and reluctantly coming out of my Netflix coma and assimilating back into the real world. I suppose I should start drinking more water and wearing less yoga pants (oh, and possibly doing MORE yoga) — but, let’s just ease into things. I’m needing a little more time to regroup and reboot before I come in here guns blazing a fired up trail of resolutions and green juice. We’ll get there. There will be a notebook scrawled with 2014 intention setting and polar bears doodled haphazardly in its margins. But, for now… let’s just enjoy that sleepy moment right after waking up from a long nap. The late morning sun is shining in through my window and I just want to lay here a little longer with my eyes closed and take it all in. It’s comfortable here. […]

Red Wine-Braised Short Ribs

Christmas is in six days.
But, we’re not going to talk about it.
Instead, we’re going to discuss how Hawaiians measure things. Later we will segue into how the only thing to do is to eat these short ribs for breakfast, lunch and dinner and then again for breakfast. Buckle up.
Over Thanksgiving my family came to stay with us. It was great. Things only became greater when my Mom decided to make her short ribs. I’m not one to turn down an offer when there are tender chunks of beef involved. We’ve discussed it before… but, steak is truly my power animal. […]