Weekly Menus

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here! This week, as I continued to explore the world of low-sodium foods, I realized that I had several pounds of carrots that needed to be eaten up. How did this happen? How does it ever happen? You know how it is, you’re at the farmer’s market, the carrots are piled high and all those photogenic carrot greens fluttering in the breeze and you …

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here! Years ago, Mr. Stone Soup and I ate at a restaurant in the Central Valley. I ordered salmon ( a HUGE mistake), but Mr. Stone Soup order cider-vinegar braised pork chops, which were divine. This week, I’m continuing my dive into low-sodium recipes. This is a recipe I developed as an homage to those cider-vinegar braised pork chops, only with very low sodium, …

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here! This week, I’m continuing my exploration of low-sodium cuisine. I’m happy to report that I’m surviving my low-salt experimentation and learning to appreciate the flavor of fresh ingredients even more than I used to. And the best part? I continue to lose weight at a rapid pace. It’s amazing what some simple changes in my diet have done. Of course it has included …

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here! This week, I’m continuing my exploration of low-sodium cuisine. I’m happy to report that I’m surviving my low-salt experimentation and learning to appreciate the flavor of fresh ingredients even more than I used to. And the best part? I’ve lost 8 pounds in about 9 days. That’s some results, huh? Today, I’m featuring this terrific recipe for pumpkin-pie spiced oven-roasted sweet potatoes: These …

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here! In my opinion, there is nothing much scarier than a “follow-up” appointment with a specialist. I spent last week in an anxious ball of stress worrying about my salt intake, how much water I was drinking and how high my blood pressure was. Today, I went to my follow-up and things are a good deal better, but I’ll still have to go back …

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here! Today, and for the next few posts, I’m going to deviate from my sauces of California Cuisine to bring you a special segment on low-sodium California Cuisine recipes. Here’s why: On Sunday, Mr. Stone Soup took me to the emergency room. This is never a good way to start your day. We got there at 7:45 in the morning, which was fortunately just …

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m so glad you’re here! Today, I’m continuing my dive into the sauces of California Cuisine and this week I’m focusing on pesto. So far, I’ve featured traditional sweet basil pesto as well as almond-thyme and lemon pesto and spinach-pecan pesto, and today, I’m sharing a mint pesto recipe that is inspired by the mint chutneys and sauces of both Indian and Afghan cuisine. California cuisine is …

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–so glad you’re here! Today, I’m continuing my exploration of pesto with a recipe for spinach, pecan and thyme pesto: For the last few weeks, I have used my blog to post articles about the foundational sauces of California Cuisine. I started this exploration with mayonnaise. For my first few posts, I shared such sauces as roasted red bell pepper aioli, tartar sauce, honey-pecan prawns and even …

Hello and welcome back to The Stone Soup Cook–I’m glad you’re here! Last weekend, my best girlfriend and I headed to the beach for a girls’ weekend. It was hot–90* in Carmel-by-the-Sea, which–trust me–is unheard of, especially in the month of March, which should be cool and cloudy. Instead, we had bright sunshine, hot sand and cold waves! But it was gorgeous and we talked and talked and we walked and walked and we ate …