April 2025

The food: I’m not one of those people who likes to watch the same movie or read the same book again and again. Likewise, I’m not interested in eating the same meal day after day. My anti-leftover attitude meant I needed to come up with a way to repurpose… The food: There’s nothing—and I mean nothing—like your grandma’s cooking. Try as she might, your mom can never perfectly replicate her mom’s recipes. There’s just something about the love our grandmas put into their food. Or at least, that was… The food: Growing up in the Midwest, far from an ocean, my exposure to seafood as a child was mostly limited to fried fish sticks. Although I grew to appreciate the flavor of fish, mollusks, and other deep-sea finds, I never considered cooking them. Crab cakes,… The food: Sometimes you just want ooey gooey, all-American chocolate chip cookies. When the craving strikes, I like to bake rather than buy because homemade tastes so much better and they are really easy to make. I created this super-simple recipe by combining several…

Whether you’ve run out of taco seasoning or simply prefer to make your own, use this simple recipe to make it. Combining a few spices you already have in the pantry will give you the perfect mixture for tacos, fajitas, burritos, quesadillas, and all of your other Mexican favorites.

This is the 50th post on Cooking With Vinyl, and this week marks the end of the blog’s fourth full month. We’re still small potatoes in the blog world, but 100-250 people visit the site every day. Wow! We’re also closing in on 1,000 Facebook fans,… The food: I’m not one of those people who likes to watch the same movie or read the same book again and again. Likewise, I’m not interested in eating the same meal day after day. My anti-leftover attitude meant I needed to come up with a way to repurpose… The food: Pulled pork is a hit-or-miss meat. When it’s good, it’s moist, flavorful, and nearly impossible to stop eating. When it’s bad, however, it’s dry, tasteless, and not worth the calories. The good news is I have an easy recipe for…

The food: Coming up with new ways to use ground beef is tough. We’ve grown bored with our regular standbys—hamburgers, tacos, meatloaf. To shake things up, I decided to try shepherd’s pie. It’s easy, fast, and includes an entire meal of protein,… The food: When it comes to protein, I prefer red meat. Unfortunately, that’s not the healthiest choice. Chicken is a smarter option, but unless it’s part of a cheesy pasta dish, I don’t really like it. I tend to overcook grilled or baked chicken out… The food: When I was little, my mom never bought granola bars. Why spend money on something you can easily make? It’s been a couple of decades, but the smell of toasting oats still takes me back to my childhood kitchen. Although I grew up with homemade granola,… The food: A lot of the food I make for this blog is the product of me wanting to learn something new. I’ve never made truffles, but I love chocolate. I mean, I really love chocolate. After some reading, I realized truffles are pretty damn simple to make. Melt… The food: Brownies are either great or awful, and most of that depends on personal taste. People who like their brownies cakey rather than gooey are probably good people, but I just don’t understand them. For my money, a brownie shouldn’t bother calling… The food: Butternut squash soup is one of my fall favorites. Sweet, spicy, thick, creamy…it’s all sorts of autumn goodness. It’s also something I never thought I could make, but thanks to this blog I decided to give it a shot. I looked up about a…