Recipes Archives | Page 2 of 13 | A Thousand Threads (2024)

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Easter salad with avocado, sweet peas, and lemon vinaigrette

April so far…

5:40am: First alarm, groan and dig deeper under the covers. Hope Mark gets up first and makes it stop. He does.

5:50am: Second alarm, sleep right through – bless that man.

6:00am: Mark is up, radio is on… dig deeper under the covers and hope it all goes away.

6:10am: It doesn’t. I’m already running 10 minutes late. Debate whether to wash hair, grease vs. 10 more minutes in bed. Bless that dry shampoo.

6:20am: Turn circles in the shower to distribute warmth.

6:40am: Agonize over what to wear… what’s comfortable is unfortunately not what’s professional…

6:50am: Try to strike a balance somewhere in between, end up looking like I hang out in Spicoli’s van at lunch.

2 Comments | Posted on: April 2, 2015 | Category: Recipes

Hot cross bun bread pudding

I’m terrible at winning contests. Can a person be terrible at winning contests? Put my name in a hat and 999 times of 1000 you won’t see it again.

Such is my sad story every Easter. I’m a sucker for the White House Easter Egg Roll… it’s just the cutest thing. And especially when Austin was small I just knew it would make his day if I could get us in. At 9, I’m fairly certain he’d kick the First Lady in the shins and challenge one of the poor secret service agents guarding the fence to a karate chop duel… but still I try.

… and every time, I’m unceremoniously rejected, forcing me to speculate that maybe it’s because I live in Maryland, or they just don’t like the letter H. There must be a conspiracy somewhere, right?

9 Comments | Posted on: March 31, 2015 | Category: Recipes

Meyer lemon shaker slab pie

Now, I have to admit… I do like tart. You’ll never offend me with a tart apple or a lemony lemonade. So a case might be made that I’m not the one to talk to about tart desserts.

And slicing up a whole lemon and throwing it in a pie might sound a little crazy, but bear with me here, because this unassuming little dessert might surprise you.

When Meyer lemons are used in place of their more lip puckering companions, I find it hard to believe that anyone could turn up their nose at this tasty Shaker pie.

3 Comments | Posted on: March 26, 2015 | Category: Recipes

Cinnamon buns with bacon, peanut butter, and banana

This week you guys — we can barely keep up! But we do have a fun treat over on Relish Decor’s blog: warm gooey, cinnamon buns with bacon, peanut butter, and banana.

Perfect for those super busy weeks when it snows on your spring. (You know, nbd.)

Head over for the recipe and to check out our good friends at Relish!

And if you find yourself in Frederick — do be sure to stop by. Their shop is the best.

1 Comment | Posted on: March 19, 2015 | Category: Recipes

Hoecakes with cream cheese and golden plum jam

My two truths and a lie trump card is that as a junior in high school, I spent a full year traveling to rodeos across Oregon as the Coos County Fair & Rodeo Queen.

… I’ll wait while you compose yourself.

I know it sounds silly now, but it was a huge honor. I grew up a 4-H kid, and had been riding competitively since I was eight. In my small circle of horsey friends, the rodeo queen was practically a goddess. I dreamed of the moment I could compete for that crown, and never thought for a moment I’d win.

The competition includes a speech, an interview, and multiple riding tests… so it’s not easy. And my horse was never exactly a winner. A stout little reining pony built for driving cattle, we’d been together since she was two… and I was so proud of her. But she never quite fit in with the more polished and calm, and more-common-in-4-H, western pleasure winners. She was quick and scrappy… and despite her desperate hatred of parades (I understood) I think she was always meant to carry the queen.

She swept me through the competition with grace, and I managed to do her justice in the only way I knew how, by standing up in front of a whole lot of people and blathering on.

Meyer lemon pasta with mustard seed and turmeric

Great love can open your eyes and make the world seem new… and pasta and I, I’m not afraid to say it, we’re one of the greats.

Our love affair began at a young age… first with buttered noodles and mac & cheese, then gnocchi and lasagna. To this day, I can’t for the life of me understand why my father has never taken a liking to lasagna.

0 Comments | Posted on: March 4, 2015 | Category: Recipes

How to shape your own cavatelli and fettuccine

If there’s one thing that prevented us from making our own pasta in the past, it was the (totally misguided) feeling that we wouldn’t be able to do it without going out and spending a whole bunch of money on that KitchenAid attachment everyone seems to have. When push came to shove, we never could justify the cost (sort of like the ice cream maker I’m dying to buy…), no matter how much we wanted it.

We went way too long before we realized how silly it was to hang all of our pasta dreams on a silly piece of equipment — in reality, it’s easy to make pasta with nothing more than your own hands.

… and some pretty killer pasta, at that.

The attachment is still on the wish list, of course. But now, at least we know we can get by without it. And we definitely do.

Here’s how…

5 Comments | Posted on: March 2, 2015 | Category: DIY, Recipes

How to make your own pasta from scratch

All of the best food words come from Julia. I think of her every time I grab for a bottle of wine or get my hands all up in a pretty plated dish. She talks me through my most favorite moments in the kitchen, and she talks me through my least… but the wordsI find myself repeating most are, “…nothing is too much trouble if it turns out the way it should.”

One of the most memorable meals we’ve ever had was made so in part byhandmade pastaso perfect itneeded nothing more than a bit of butter to blow our minds. We’ve talked about that meal at least once a week since, and we’ve dreamed about perfecting our own technique.

Handmade pasta is like handmade bread… it simply can’t be beat. The undertakingcan feel daunting, andI’m not going to say it’s easy (anything that involves kneading probably shouldn’t be called easy) but it’s nowhere near the complicated process you’d think. And the reward is beyond compare…

5 Comments | Posted on: February 27, 2015 | Category: DIY, Recipes

Saffron leek soup

We all have our little pleasures. Manicures, lunches out, fancy espresso… they’re the things that make the day to day just that much better (or more bearable). And it’s for exactly that reason that we’re willing to spend a good chunk of our hard-earned money on them.

For Mark and I, hands down, our little pleasure is food. When we’re able (and probably even when we’re not) the answer to where our money goes first is almost always food. Things like paper towels and cleaning supplies will drive me up a wall every time I have to replenish, but a nice bottle of wine, a creamy chunk of cheese, fresh herbs and spices… those, I can always justify.

2 Comments | Posted on: February 24, 2015 | Category: Recipes

Jack White’s guacamole

Much to Jack White’s apparent dismay, the details of his tour rider leaked out last week — but since we love a man who loves good guac, we thought they were sort of charming.

After hearing the story on NPR, we mixed up a batch — a little skeptical about the lack of garlic, but excited nonetheless. And we almost ate the whole thing standing over the bowl. All the while musing over whether the crew treats it like a contest at each stop, keeping track of who can make it best.

(As it turns out, they do.)

3 Comments | Posted on: February 18, 2015 | Category: Recipes

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