Global Dine In

Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips

I have been buying too many bananas for the past few weeks. Maybe it’s because school finally started for us and I thought I’ll need a lot of things to put in school lunch bags. The great thing about bananas is that even if you overbuy, there’s lots of cool recipes that can make use of them — even when they’re a bit brown. Below I make a wonderful banana bread recipe that also has lots of nuts and chocolate goodness.

Blackberry Cobbler

I can’t believe summer is slipping away. This summer we got a lot of fresh blackberries from our garden, courtesy of a wild Himalayan blackberry plant that really took off when I watered the vegetables around it. Picking the berries was tricky because there were lots of thorns, but it was well worth it! I was able to harvest maybe $100 worth of berries from a plant that it considered a weed by many in our area. We ate most of the berries by themselves, but I had so many that I ended up making lots of blackberry cobbler.

Beef Chili

It’s been over a year now since I stopped working. I miss the part about creating recipes, cooking for a big crowd, and getting compliments from my customers. I don’t miss the heavy physical toll on my body, however. I am happy now to cook for you readers!

Yellow Curry Chicken

A few weeks back we got yellow curry from a local Thai restaurant. I was pretty excited about it as I hadn’t had yellow curry for a long time. We used to sell a lot of yellow curry in my old restaurant. To be honest I was a bit disappointed by what we got. It was lacking flavor and somewhat watery. To me, a good Thai curry should be slightly creamy, spicy, tangy, and with a touch of sweetness.

Italian Style Turkey Burger

Sometimes I crave a burger, and over time I’ve learned how to make a lot of different types of them. There are so many choices! You get to make decisions over the type of bun, cheese, condiments, sauce, and type of protein (it doesn’t have to be beef!).

Zucchini and Sausage Chowder

If you’re thinking of starting or expanding a garden, one of these easiest and nicest things to grow is zucchini. They produce a lot in a short amount of time and are great tasting vegetables that can be used in many different foods. Like last year, I planted too many in my garden this year! After giving many away, they are still coming and so I’ve been creating new recipes by which to use them. Be sure to check out my “zucchini” category on my blog for other recipes.

Curried Honey Baked Chicken

If you have been following me for awhile, you already know I like curries. Of course a lot of people do too, but we don’t always have time to plan and put together a curry from scratch. Today I have solved that problem by sharing a curry recipe that is much easier and faster to make than you might expect.

Zucchini Poppy Seed Bread

It’s been really hot where we live, but my garden has been thriving. I’ve been getting a lot of zucchini in particular. Some of them grew too big in fact, and therefore are not very tender. Yet big zucchinis are still great to use for savory or sweet breads. Check out other zucchini-based recipes on my blog that I have posted from last year’s harvest.

Slow Cooked Pinto Beans

I like to stock up on canned beans whenever I see them on sale. However I have been preferring to buy dry beans and then cooking them up from scratch. I’ve learned that this isn’t much more work, and it’s worth it because the slow-cooked beans are so tasty and inexpensive. You can flavor them any way you want. They could be a side dish or a main dish depending on how much your family likes to eat.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Pound Cake

We recently got back from a week’s vacation to Illinois to visit wonderful family there. While we were gone I was worried my garden wouldn’t survive the dry hot weather that Oregon gets this time of year. To my surprise my garden did well except for some strawberry plants. Nonetheless I was able to harvest some ripe strawberries when we got home, and I set about figuring out how to use them.