Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

We eat healthy food at our house 90% of the time... and add to that my husband almost never eats ground beef. So there are two things that I tend to eat if I'm home alone... primarily pizza. There, I said it. Pizza with all its oozy, cheesey, saucy, mushroomy, pepperoni-ish goodness. And every once in awhile I'll cook smashed burgers topped with sharp cheddar or pepperjack and avacado and carmelized onions. Oh... making me crave pizza. And that potato and green chile soup!!!

As a born and raised Mexican-Texan, my take would be to add an equal amount of ground coriander to the cumin. :) I also make enchilada sauce at home, but use whole dried chiles rather than powdered. It means we have the keep the windows open during the sauce making, but it also allows me to play with the number and type of chiles I use (my current favorite: 3-4 extra hot hatch, 3 guajillo, 3 chipotle, 3 dundicot).

I also live in the midwest and *love* goat cheese. I don't care what kind of trend it is, I'll just call it good. And continue to love the fact that my goat cheese comes from goats about 30 mins away. Yum.

@grumpyglutton: thanks for your comments on subsidized agriculture. I live in the heartland where corn and soy are king, and not even all people here realize that the reason the corn and wheat products are so cheap is because of the subsidies and how that plays into the overall food market economy.

One more thing to add to that, my understanding is also that for farmers who take subsidies also cannot grow any other crop on that field. For example, a crop might have the potential to be harvested in July, leaving time for another late summer crop (different food) to be grown, but in order to keep those subsidies, the land can only be used for the subsidized crop. A second harvest of something else renders their agreement void. Someone correct me if I'm wrong in this assumption.

I also don't know about the rest of yall, but the CSA's around here are full with long waiting lists. My family is caught between that rock and a hard place. Sure, I'd love to eat local and we do shop at the farmer's market a couple of times a month. However, fresh vegetables are only available fresh for a short amount of the year up here. Not to mention that in order to balance our desire to eat healthily and frugally, we go for what is inexpensive at the store (i.e. the greenbeans for 99cents this week, the napa cabbage for 89cents/lb next week).

I can appreciate the grandiose vision that Alice Waters has and kudos to her for being able to live that lifestyle. However, if she truly wants it to be universal and not just something that is available to the elites, talk about how to make it accessible to all is necessary.

Too many people are/have grown up not even knowing how to cook something that comes out of a box! My mother and I learned to cook together. We need to start with baby steps. Capture the gems that are universal (such as learning how to grow foods in pots or in backyards or cook and enjoy foods that aren't "typical" and are less expensive) and ignore the rest for now.

Don't suppose you have a picture you can post of the dish? This sounds delicious, but in my mind I'm imagining guacamole with chicken mixed in (which actually sounds really good...).

Cutting our own christmas tree at the tree farm. The "cold" Texas air, warm hot chocolate or apple cider.

@mslaas - I agree! Plus, I can't afford to collect the way I'd like to. I was fortunate that the person who taught me about wines stressed drinking (and collecting) what you like and to be adventurous. Not to just follow Parker or the wine mags and to think twice about paying for a "vintage" or name.

Mmm; I grew up eating black eye peas and I love them. My recipe is a bit different (think rotel tomatoes and ham rather than bacon and tabasco sauce).

@BananaMonkey: To the question about shortening cooking time; don't use canned black eye peas! I use frozen peas (so that I don't have to worry about soaking them the night before). However, the cook time is still about an hour in order to get all the flavors to meld together just perfectly and the texture to be right on. Plus, the canned black-eye peas are usually really salty and that takes away from the other flavors.

Cranberry bread... even if it is more like cake. :)