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WHISKEY SLUSH | Live the Live ™
This is my version of a holiday drink I was introduced to me by my mother-in-law from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This classic is loaded with sugar. But then...so is everything else around the holidays! 9 cups water 2 cups sugar 4 “Constant Comment” tea bags 12 oz. frozen OJ concentrate 12 oz. frozen…
ROASTED BUTTERNUT SQUASH WITH CRANBERRIES | Live the Live ™
With Thanksgiving around the corner, I'm sharing my favorite holiday dishes I post every year around this time. My Mom loved that nasty, gooey cranberry log that oozes out of the can. It would hit the bowl with a splurt and would wiggle for about an hour. I'm more than happy to avoid that and…
CLASSIC PARKER HOUSE ROLLS | Live the Live ™
The holidays on on our minds already. Time to start bringing out the recipes... What's a Thanksgiving dinner without Parker House rolls? Parker House rolls are one of my all-time favorite treats. They're so light and delicious because milk and melted butter are used to make the dough. I'd make and eat them every weekend…
ROASTING A TURKEY ON A WEBER GRILL | Live the Live ™
With Thanksgiving on everyone's mind, I'd like to share my recipe for what I consider to be the perfect turkey. I often get asked if I deep-fry my turkey for Thanksgiving. I think it's way too messy and time-consuming for nothing better than an "OK-tasting" bird. I lived in the South for a few years,…
CAULIFLOWER “STEAK” WITH MEAT SAUCE | Live the Live ™
Cauliflower seems to be the "it" veggie these days. You'll find it riced to take the place of rice or mashed potatoes, in a crust for pizza, and now, the dish du jour is a cauliflower steak. All you need to do is to slice the cauliflower into thick, steak-like pieces, and then bake them.…
BRINING A TURKEY | Live the Live ™
Since I'm moving this week, it's probably a good time to focus on my annual Thanksgiving posts.... I get requests to publish my holiday recipes every year, so, with Turkey Day just days away, let's get it started... If people complain about your turkey being dry, you need to brine it before cooking. No matter…
“MEXICAN” CHICKEN WINGS | Live the Live ™
I've got dozens of chicken wing recipes, but even so, sometimes I just want something different. I decided to take my favorite taco seasonings recipe and adapt it to chicken wings. Caramba! One of the tastiest wings I've made in a long time! This is such an easy and delicious recipe to make, even for…
PORK TENDERLOIN SOUP WITH CHICKPEAS AND KALE | Live the Live ™
Pork tenderloin is a lean cut of meat that can dry out easily when roasted. It's usually just a couple of inches around, and over a foot long...a shape that can easily go from juicy to overdone in just a few minutes if you're not watching it carefully. This recipe really is based on what…
MARINATED LAMB LOIN AND CHOPS | Live the Live ™
Lamb is such an underrated meat. It was one of the things my Mom cooked really well, so I grew up loving it, and was never bothered by the gaminess of it. If the gaminess does bother you, look for American lamb. If gamier meat doesn’t bother you, go for the gusto and get grass-fed…
BANG FOR THE BUCK BOOZE | Live the Live ™
There seems to be no end to the bourbon craze, and until it does end, I’m constantly looking for new bargains. For example, for a long time, my go-to bourbon was Eagle Rare 10 Year Old, which I could get for about $32 a bottle. It’s now up to $80 a bottle in some places.…
PIZZA MONTANARA | Live the Live ™
Despite the large Italian community we have here in southern New England, there's no exceptional pizza to speak of. I suppose you could say "them's fightin' words!" but if it's here, I haven't found it yet. (Fellini Pizza is about the best in Providence.) So where is the excellent pizza? New York City, of course. OK...maybe…
DEVILED EGGS WITH TUNA | Live the Live ™
One of our favorite restaurants here in southern New England is The Back Eddy in Westport, Massachusetts.Great water views, great food, wonderful people. One of their best-selling appetizers is deviled eggs, topped with raw tuna or without. My version has none of the finesse of their original dish, but it has a lot more tuna and…
GNOCCHI (OR PASTA) ALLA VODKA | Live the Live ™
Not everyone agrees as to the origins of vodka sauce, some claiming it was invented in Italy in the mid-1970s, and others claiming it was created in an Italian restaurant in New York City. But one thing most people can agree on is that it’s absolutely delicious! Pasta alla vodka is a favorite of my…
KOREAN/CHINESE CHICKEN: SWEET WITH A LITTLE HEAT | Live the Live ™
The combination of sweet with a little heat is something I just can't get away from. Whether I'm barbecuing, putting together a poke bowl, or preparing my favorite Asian recipe, I gotta have it. I was looking back at a previous blog I had written about Korean barbecue, and I was really craving a lot…
BEEF BONE MARROW WITH A PRETZEL CRUMBLE | Live the Live ™
I have to give credit for this recipe where it's due. A few years ago, we traveled to Washington, DC, and one of our best dining experiences was at the Blue Duck Tavern, a stunning restaurant matched by its unique and beautifully prepared plates. One of the most memorable appetizers I enjoyed was the roasted…
CHICKEN ROLLATINI | Live the Live ™
Chicken Rollatini was one of the first dishes I learned how to make back in my teenage days on Long Island, working at a local Italian restaurant called Pizza City East. (The original Pizza City was in Ozone Park, Queens.) It was a simple dish: a chicken breast rolled up with prosciutto and mozzarella, and…
SOY GLAZED POTATOES | Live the Live ™
I was going to prepare some teriyaki beef sirloin tips for dinner a few weeks ago, and my daughter requested potatoes instead of rice. But she wanted an Asian-inspired potato side dish. Now, that's something I'd never heard of before, so we did some research and she came up with a recipe on line that…
REUBEN SOUP | Live the Live ™
It's getting cooler out there. This is a great recipe for a cold day, and you can buy most of the ingredients at your supermarket. Why have soup and a sandwich when your soup can be your sandwich? I had all the ingredients to make a Reuben sandwich. But I wanted soup. So I made Reuben Seup...I…
ROASTED CHICKEN WITH ALABAMA WHITE SAUCE | Live the Live ™
If you watch as much Food Network and Cooking Channel as I do, you've probably heard of Big Bob Gibson's Bar-B-Q in Decatur, Alabama. Smokin' and grillin' since 1925, they put the now-famous Alabama white sauce on the map. They would smoke whole birds, then dunk the entire bird in a bucket of white sauce…
FETTUCCINE ALFREDO: THE ORIGINAL MAC AND CHEESE | Live the Live ™
My first foray into serious cooking started when I bought "The Classic Italian Cookbook," by Marcella Hazan. Like many great recipes, Fettuccine Alfredo is not complicated...but very few restaurants that offer it, actually get it right. Most of the Alfredo sauces I've had were watery, floury, and salty and had nothing in common with the real…
BRAISED CHICKEN WITH TOMATO, GARLIC AND OLIVES | Live the Live ™
I was craving comfort food, and I didn't want to go to the store, so I looked in the pantry and fridge for tasty ingredients, and went this route. There are many similar versions of this dish out there, using different cuts of chicken--or a whole bird cut up. I just happened to find a…
HOME MADE BEEF AND VENISON JERKY | Live the Live ™
Like hot dogs and Slim Jims, jerky is one of those "mystery meats" we love but don't really know how it's made or what part of the animal it comes from. Really excellent jerky is a rare treat, and once you have it, you will never go back to that rancid, preservative-filled dog meat you…
GARLIC BREAD, TWO WAYS | Live the Live ™
My daughter loves foods that are heavy on the garlic, so this is a special treat we make when diets don't matter! It's buttery, it's garlicky, it's carby, and it's absolutely delicious! I use 2 kinds of garlic in my garlic bread: fresh and granulated. I think it packs a garlicky punch even better than…
CHEESE STUFFED MUSHROOMS | Live the Live ™
Looking forward to an interesting weekend, doing some mushroom foraging in the woods of Vermont with some friends I haven't seen in many years. Hopefully, we'll find some tasty fungi to bring back to the kitchen to cook up! These 2 recipes are great side dishes for any occasion, and they're tasty by themselves, or…
RETRO CHICKEN PASTA CASSEROLE | Live the Live ™
My daughter likes to find new recipes on line for us to try. And although they might look like new ideas to her, the ingredients tell me these recipes came from somebody's cookbook from the 70's. Hey, maybe I'm the exception to the rule, but I haven't opened a can of cream-of-anything soup in at…
THE GUINNESS STOREHOUSE TOUR IN DUBLIN, IRELAND | Live the Live ™
To give you a good idea of just how many people walk through the doors of the Guinness Storehouse at St. James Gate, in Dublin, Ireland, every year, the tour was listed in 2023 by World Travel Awards as the world’s leading tourist attraction. It’s located on the grounds of the original Guinness…
GREEK-STYLE SHRIMP | Live the Live ™
Though it may sound Japanese, the word "saganaki" refers to a small frying pan used in Greek cooking. The most famous of these dishes, simply called saganaki, is a fried cheese, often flamed at the end with a little ouzo. Shrimp saganaki is one of my favorite Greek dishes, and it usually involves cooking shrimp…
THE OBAN DISTILLERY | Live the Live ™
One of the highlights of my recent trip to Scotland was to visit the Oban Whisky distillery. Oban is a lovely seaside town, about a 2-hour's drive from Glasgow on a sunny day. Unfortunately, for me, it was pouring buckets of rain, so my drive took a little over three hours. Nonetheless, the…
SPAGHETTI (SQUASH) AND MEATBALLS | Live the Live ™
I always thought that spaghetti squash was a sort of "gimmick" vegetable. But once I roasted it, I realized just how delicious it could be. Squash is a great lower-carb gluten-free substitute for pasta. But feel free to use spaghetti in this recipe if you like! Cooking spaghetti squash is easy. I wash…
BUTTER CHICKEN WINGS | Live the Live ™
These are even better than they sound! A few months ago, I received chef Chetna Makan's book, "Chetna's 30 Minute Indian," as a gift. The first recipe I tried was butter chicken, of course, because it's so delicious. It was a big hit with my daughter and friends, and we're looking at other…
COCKTAIL BARS VS PUBS IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND | Live the Live ™
I’m not a big beer guy, so my travels to Scotland and Ireland did not include a lot of pub visits. Despite being told by my driver that the pub next to my hotel was an excellent “puller,” (at least I think that’s what he called it), my thing is cocktails. Sure, a…
HARD ROCK CAFES | Live the Live ™
Since I like to check out rock n roll memorabilia, and I am a tourist from America, after all, I check out Hard Rock Cafes wherever I go. The one in Edinburgh, Scotland was small and not that impressive. (There was one in Glasgow that suddenly shut down earlier this year.) But the one in…
LAMB (OR CHICKEN) WITH A MUSTARD/MAPLE MARINADE | Live the Live ™
I marinated and roasted both lamb and chicken with this marinade, and both worked great. So if you're not as big a fan of lamb as I am, no worries. The key to the success of this dish is to make sure you give the meat a lot of time to suck…
A CLASSIC LITHUANIAN COLD BEET SOUP | Live the Live ™
The heat of the summer always has me craving a cold beet soup my Mom made... It's interesting that an Eastern European country that is as far north as Newfoundland has one of the most refreshing cold summer soups of any country in Europe. It's a cold beet soup called Šaltibarščiai (pronounced shul-tih barsh-chay) and it's classic…
ONE FOOD-FILLED DAY IN PORTLAND, MAINE | Live the Live ™
I overheard a conversation at a Portland, Maine, restaurant where the server told one of their customers that Portland has the most restaurants, per capita, in the country, second only to San Francisco. I would not doubt that for a minute. Although I live just minutes away from Providence, Rhode Island, a pretty darn good…