Hoosier pie, aka Indiana Sugar Cream pie, is one of those simple staples born out of necessity. Containing just a few basic ingredients, this indulgence was invented for lean times when all you had around was a dairy cow, some sugar and a sack of flour. But despite its humble origins, this pie has garnered quite the cult following. Our catering company, Wild Plum Events, recently catered a friend's birthday party and he requested Sugar Cream Pie for dessert. Not having the fi

It's been a bit too long since my last post, but I've got a pretty exciting excuse: Alex and I recently launched a boutique catering business, Wild Plum Events & Eats, and we've been awesomely, exhaustingly busy this past month! From holiday soirees to classes to dinner parties, we cooked up a storm. One of the stand-out dishes that we whipped up was a chicken liver pâté based on Chef Jim Drohman's Gateau de Foie de Volaille, or smooth chicken liver terrine, from Seattle's dr

I'm a mega fan of good, fresh octopus. Sadly, it's hard to find done well around these parts. Octopus generally shows up as a chewy, cold cost-saver on a chef's special sushi plate. Which is a tragedy because when it's cooked right, it's oh-so tender and buttery. Alex and I had some epic wood-grilled octopus on our honeymoon in Tulum, Mexico. It was super fresh and lightly licked over hot flames, lending it a subtle crunch. The not-so-great cell phone shot below is from the T

Bacon Tomato Toast is one of my absolute favorite things to eat in the summertime. It's a bit like a deconstructed BLT, but the focus is more on the T than the B. It's super simple to make: Dice up some fresh garden tomatoes, toss them with slivers of crisp, smoky bacon, a couple sprigs of fresh tarragon, a splash of sherry vinegar, a pinch of salt and a healthy glug of olive oil. Pile the colorful mixture onto a slice of warm toasted sourdough that's also been bathed in oliv

Last weekend, Alex and I took a trip to McCall and foraged buckets of plump huckleberries, fat from all the warm summer rain. Everywhere we turned in the damp mountain forest, there was another huckleberry bush drooping under the weight of its abundant berries. It was an epic harvest that stained our hands a vibrant purple and left us with more huckleberries than we knew what to do with. Since we returned home, we froze some, dried some and still have plenty sitting in the fr

According to Italian tradition, June 24 is the best day to make nocino, a lightly sweet, bitter black liqueur made from unripe green walnuts. This day is said to be the prime time to pick walnuts for nocino-making because they haven't yet formed their hard interior shells. Expanding on a tradition I started last summer, we hosted a little nocino-making party last night. Alex gathered a basket full of pungent, Pine Sol-y green walnuts from a neighbor's tree and we got to work

A couple of months ago, Alex and I started a regular dinner party with another couple. Every two weeks, one couple hosts and cooks dinner for the other. It has turned out to be such an enjoyable undertaking and a great chance for us all to catch up. For this week’s dinner, I had some leftover polenta that I wanted to use up. I was picturing a caprese-style stacked appetizer in my head, but couldn’t decide on the execution so I started scouring the internet for recipes. I didn

Last night, I hosted an Idaho Potato Vodka tasting for an upcoming article in the Boise Weekly. I used the tasting as an excuse to whip up some Russian-themed snacks, including smoked steelhead trout and cream cheese on rye-caraway crackers and crispy potato latkes with sour cream and fresh cherry compote. I based the latke recipe off this one from America's Test Kitchen. To get the latkes extra crispy, you wring out the raw shredded potato and onion mixture then wait for the

I repurposed the leftovers from our Barbecue Chicken Dinner Party and made an epic salad for lunch yesterday. It had all the hearty awesomeness of a Cobb salad, with some extra crunch from fresh local veggies and a wonderfully creamy dressing. I fried up a couple pieces of Applewood-smoked bacon leftover from my from my Bleu Cheese, Bacon and Honey Bites, chopped up some of our remaining barbecued chicken, thinly sliced some purple cabbage and snap peas from the Boise Farmers

We had my folks over for a little dinner party last night. It was a such a sweltering day that I was afraid the chicken might cook itself in the car on the way home from Whole Foods. Thankfully it didn't, and once I walked through the door into the cool AC, Alex slathered the bird in some sea salt and let it dry brine for 45 minutes. After he rinsed off the salt, he rubbed the chicken in a little olive oil and fired up the Traeger on the back patio. While the chicken was on t