Karina's Kicked Up Colcannon Recipe

An Irish classic- colcannon. Mashed potatoes with a twist.

Kicked Up Colcannon

Traditional colcannon is an Irish potato recipe thick with cream and sticks of butter. If served for the Celtic New Year, a bowl of colcannon might include a lucky coin hidden in its pillowy depths; the charmed recipient- if she didn't break a tooth on it- kept the buried treasure for a New Year's worth of kind fortune. 

My version of colcannon is anything but traditional. I'm an Ashkenazi-Scot-Irish Polish shiksa zen Jungian humanist by way of the Siberian Ice Maiden, after all (this is how I found out, with a 23andMe DNA test; my maternal haplotype is A8). So you know I had to change it up a bit. It had to be spiked with the flavors I crave. 

Flavors that love snuggling up to potatoes.

Because when it comes to this windy, stormy almost-spring-but-not-quite time of year nothing beats a good potato recipe.              

It's in my blood. On all sides of my eclectic lineage there is a love of potatoes. And not just a flirtatious fling kinda love. Abiding love. The real deal. The kind of love that conjures the crispy Potato Latke and the tender knish, the golden browned Shepherd's Pie and the bonfire baked jacket potato. The kind of love that is sensible and hands-on practical and pairs the most beloved of tubers with cabbage and onion. 

And dreams up a gem like colcannon.

I am blessed on all sides with maternal traditions that share an appetite for potatoes- and simple comfort food.

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Karina's Irish Beef Stew

Beef Stew. Who knew?

This recipe is a surprise- even to me. Beef stew? You wouldn't expect a life-long Vegetarian Goddess to create and fall in love with an Irish beef stew recipe, but that is precisely what happened this weekend. 

Shocking? 

Tell me about it.

Just when you think you've got your life all figured out, and your tastes and preferences arranged in a tidy packet of self-identification and veggie piety- all Hades breaks loose. Celiac. Food allergies. Broken hip.

Suddenly, your food-world view is quite literally flipped on its leafy little head.

So, after my orthopedic surgeon's instructions to "eat lots of animal protein" to support the healing of my hip fracture, my husband and I decided to try our collective hands at making our very first Irish beef stew together.

The first beef stew of our marriage.

And what did I do as I spooned the first taste into my hesitant, quivering lips? Gentle Reader, I swooned like a virgin in a bodice ripper. I sighed. I grew faint with pleasure. I slurped. Oh my! I murmured through one spoonful after another. Wow, said my partner in crime. This is mighty damn tasty.

You could have knocked us over with a feather.

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Gluten-Free Fudgy Brownie Cupcakes

Fudgy Brownie Cupcake Love

Lately we've been experimenting with baking brownies in a cupcake tin. Just for a change-up. We felt like tweaking again. We're using Baker's chocolate now (semi-sweet and unsweetened). And we're favoring hazelnut flour. We boosted the baking soda a tad. When they bake they rise and fall and crack like little flourless chocolate cakes.

What's not to love?


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Kale Soup with Spicy Chicken Sausage and Sweet Potato

Comfort Food for a Dark

and Gnarly Winter

Back in New England, it's been one long gnarly Winter. The word wicked does not even begin to cover it. Epic... might be a start. Massive... might be an understatement. The snow, you see, is record breaking. One might even say, insane. It's enough to make a big dog weep.

In (previously) typical fashion, one might be tempted to throw up one's hands in defeat and shout, Let the carb cravings begin! But I might actually be in the mood to defy such cravings, yipping and gnawing inside my belly like so many tiny, quivering chihuahuas. Tugging my attention to mocha frosted vanilla cupcakes. Banana bread. Chocolate chip cookies.

I might actually choose, instead, to grab a big pot. And start a batch of hearty, soul mending soup.

And living- as we did for three decades- on Cape Cod, you might guess I rustled up some classic clam chowdah. Or lobstah bisque. Nope. Instead, my inspiration comes via Wellfleet village. A gluten-free, cooking lighter take on a New England Portuguese mainstay. Kale soup. With andouille.

It's the perfect, spicy soup to brave this stuff called SNOW.

And in the meantime, string up some fairy lights. Gather some candles. And know I'm counting with you- the lengthening days till Spring.

That'd be 33.

Or 231 in dog years.


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Gluten-Free Chocolate Recipe Love

Celebrate love with these fabulous gluten-free chocolate recipes.

I've said it before. Chocolate is love. And any excuse to celebrate love (or chocolate) is high on my priority list. Here are some of my hand-picked favorite gluten-free chocolate recipes for Valentine's Day- or any day you feel like celebrating love.

Which, in my corner of the world, ought to be every day.

Cacao! conquers all.

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Gluten-Free Chocolate Muffins

Rise and Shine, Campers

Happy Groundhog Day! 

Today's post is short and sweet and all about muffins. Not just any old muffins, either. Gluten-free chocolate muffins. Because as any gluten-free goddess knows, chocolate makes breakfast better.


Especially with six more weeks of Winter looming.

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