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I love to cook. I think I love to cook more than I love to eat sometimes.

I am not a trained chef but I grew up cooking for my family since I was eight. My parents worked and didn’t come home until 8:30 PM so it was up to me to put the dinner on the table. I started with simple dishes and then as I got older, I experimented with a variety of foods.

Cooking is like composing a musical score or painting a canvas. I love the way individual ingredients make harmony together. I love the way colors of different ingredients work together to make a beautiful painting. I love the way spices compliment each other to bring out the best in each other.

I cook with whole ingredients. I don’t use processed, altered, boxed, artificial or otherwise components in my food. I try to use organic ingredients as much as possible. I try to eat local seasonal foods. I love supporting my local farmers.

Cooking from scratch takes effort but the end result is incomparable to anything that comes in a box.

I hope you enjoy this collection of recipes. Remember to use organic ingredients when you can and check out this important list of foods you should buy organic and others you don’ have to.

If you try a recipe, let me know how it turned out. Also, let me know if my direction wasn’t too clear.

Thanks for trying out my recipes!

xo
Karen

Day 21: 24 Days of Green Christmas – Caramels as Edible Gifts

I was going to include this Apple Cider Caramels recipe in last weekend’s baking post but I didn’t get a chance to take photos. And good thing I rushed to take these today because they were being gobbled up preeeet…ty fast. I usually make Chocolate Butterscotch Peanut Toffee as holiday gifts. But I wanted to try something different this year for an edible gift. And being that there’s apple cider (fruit) [...]

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Day 18: 24 Days of Green Christmas – Easy as a Sweet Potato Pie

I wish life was as easy as a pie…..a sweet potate pie, to be specific. But life is not that simple but this pie is. And since we are baking this weekend, I wanted to share this adapted recipe from Joy the Baker. I didn’t want to use canned evaporated milk so I substituted with whipping cream and adjusted the sugar content. And you can use conventional sweet potatoes, unlike [...]

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Day 17: 24 Days of Green Christmas – NY Times Chocolate Chip Cookies

I was looking for a recipe on the internet. And you know how that goes. I meander through various food blogs, drool and gawk at scrumptious food photos. Then, from there, I click the links on the blog to ‘other’ food blogs and pretty soon, I forget what recipe I was looking for in the first place. But I end up with a newly found delectable treat and I am [...]

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Day 14: 24 Days of Green Christmas – Edible Gift Ideas

Before I talk about my favorite type of gifts to receive, give – food – I have to tell you about an interesting phenomenon that’s been happening on my blog for about ten days…..no, it’s not the “24 Days of Green Christmas Crafts”…although it is a phenomenal series! Beginning of December, Fox News published an article titled, “7 foods you should never eat” from Prevention magazine – an article I posted [...]

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Day 9: 24 Days of Christmas – Chicken or Turkey or Mushroom Pot Pie

With all the crafting and blogging, I am always short on time for real dinner lately. But this life saver of a “Dinner in One Pot” meal is my all time favorite. Of course, I don’t eat meat anymore so I’ll scoop out a bowl before I add the meat and finish it off, while standing over the stove. But what’s really really great about this dish is that you [...]

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The BEST Salmon (Fish) Cakes Recipe

Salmon is our favorite fish to cook when we are in the mood for seafood. My husband, the Accidental Recycler (AR), is from the Northwest and when I married him, he brought with him, his mother’s Steamed Ginger Salmon recipe, like a dowry. I gave him Kimchi in return. I’ve had the freshest salmon from one of his neighbors who’d returned from a “Salmon Run“, the day before. It was fresh [...]

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Vegan Sour Cream and Onion Kale Chips Recipe

There is a first time for everything. Well, for most things. I would never try Foie Gras or Shark Fin Soup. And I’m not sure if I’ll be trying Durian fruit any time soon either. But Kale Chips? Oh my! Why did I wait so long to try this? And vegan sour cream with cashew nuts? Ditto. I read a recipe for Sour Cream and Onion Kale Chips from “THRIVE [...]

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“Hot Damn!” Sauce Recipe and Weekend Round Up

What a week, eh? First there was the 5.8 earthquake (that I didn’t feel at all) and then, I go away on vacation and Irene barrels through the region. I tell ya, I can’t leave you alone without all hell breaking lose! But seriously, it has been two weeks since I posted my usual Weekend Round Up so I thought I’d tell you where I’ve been for the last two [...]

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The Best Peach Cobbler Recipe

If you are a peach, you live a lonely life. You can’t hug or touch your boyfriend or girlfriend. You can’t be on the top or on the bottom…(take your mind out of the gutter.) You have to sit alone, away from your buddies. Otherwise, you get bruised, mushy, soft, and will face a sudden death. It’s true. I didn’t know it at first, so I piled them in a [...]

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Watermelon Granita Recipe and Weekend Round Up

Is it hot enough for ya? It is going to be HOT HOT HOT in NY today and tomorrow. I’m keeping myself low key and sewing a quilt for a friend’s daughter who’s leaving for college. Yeah, not exactly what I want to think about - a blanket – but after making my son’s quilt when he went to college, I thought this would be a cool gift to give [...]

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Newberry Cutting Board and Thyme Chicken Recipe

I have four cutting boards. No lie. One for garlic, onions, and herbs, etc. (Wouldn’t want my apples to smell like onions) One for fruits. (wouldn’t want my lemons to smell like roast beef) One for cooked meat. (This one came with a small stainless steel circular stand with spokes that hold the meat in place while carving.) And one for raw meat. (don’t want raw chicken to touch other [...]

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Macaroons or Macarons?

Whether you spell it ‘Macaroons’ or ‘Macarons’, these colorful Parisian, light and delectable evil heavenly pieces are too pretty to eat. But you eat them anyway. Not just one. But about a dozen. That’s why they always sell them by the dozen or per pound, which equals about 12-15 pieces. And no matter where you look, you’ll fork over upwards of $25 for them. 1. The Perennial Chef 2. Sucre [...]

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Korean Vegetable Pancake (Pa Jun)

This traditional Korean Pancake (Pa Jun) is great as a snack or as a meal (I eat it as a meal). It is versatile as you can get, and add any ingredients to the basic batter made with flour, egg, and water. You can add oyster, squid, shrimp, shredded squash, and even kimchee. Or make it just plain with scallions and slivers of carrots. I like adding shredded squash in [...]

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Cheesy Bread Recipe

When you have nothing in the fridge but some leftover Roasted Peppers, Pepper Jack Cheese, Gorgonzola, Fresh Basil and some crusty bread, you can make these delicious Cheesy Bread for lunch. Assemble them like this. Pop them in the oven at 350° for about ten minutes. And this is what you’ll get. And this is what you will pop in your mouth. What are you making for lunch today?

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Beets, Caramelized Onions and Apple Walnut Sandwich

If I told you, I had the best sandwich, ever, at a college varsity sporting event, you won’t believe me. But I did. It was so divine that I devoured it in three bites and I didn’t even have a chance to take out my phone to take a photo. Murphy’s Law; When you need a camera, you run out of battery. Fact. Film would have been the answer if [...]

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Homemade Vanilla Extract

My daughter was a baking phenom last holiday season. She made Meringue Cookies, Chocolate Cake, Cupcakes, Breads, Sugar-Free Cookies for a family friend, you name it, she baked it. So I was running to the store to restock Vanilla Extract every week! And do you know how much they cost??? I never really looked at the price tag before because I’d go through may be one little bottle a year. [...]

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Korean BBQ Beef (Kalbi) and Vegetable Marinade Recipe

I know beef is not exactly eco-friendly. And since I stopped eating meat, the one dish I do miss is Kalbi. But then, I started using this marinade for vegetables because this marinade is not just for meats but is great for vegetables too. Kalbi – short rib cut either cross section as shown in the picture or as short rib for braising. Short rib style is a signature Korean [...]

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Vegetarian Jap Chae Recipe

Jap Chae is a classic Korean dish. It is one of the most popular Korean dishes I know. Every time I take non-Korean friends out to restaurants, that’s what they want to order. Also, it’s the dish they request when they invite me for a pot luck dinner. Always. Personally, to be honest, I have a love/hate feeling towards it. Why? Because it takes so long to prepare (for me, [...]

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Homemade Butter Recipe

Emily has been wanting to make butter since last week. Don’t ask me why she had this sudden urge to make homemade butter when she shouldn’t even eat dairy but she’s been hinting, nudging, short of hanging a huge billboard in the kitchen, that she wants to make homemade butter. I think she just wanted to see liquid state turn into solid state as a scientific experiment. Yes, she’s taking [...]

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Approximate Indian Masala Chai Recipe

Do you want to start off the year right? Start with tea. Start with this tea. This sweet aromatic masala chai will make your new year whole. By itself, chai or cha is merely the generic word for “tea” in much of South Asia (also in Korea) and Masala Chai means, “spiced tea”. Masala tea has a long history that started 5000-9000 years ago in a royal court, somewhere [...]

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Chocolate Butterscotch Peanut Toffee Recipe

I did not bake this Christmas. Nope. I didn’t. Instead, I made this crunchy chewy “I’ve died and gone to heaven” Chocolate Butterscotch Peanut Toffee. Twice. I meant to bake cookies and short breads. But after I made these pieces of heaven, no one was asking for any cookies. Besides, there’s enough sugar in these suckers to keep your hair standing for hours so who needs sugar cookies? The combination [...]

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Cioppino Recipe for feeling ‘Bah Humbug’

Christmas is one week away. This is when I should be settling down at night with a glass of spiked egg nog and watching “It’s a Wonderful Life”, having finished with decorating the tree, having done with wrapping all the gifts, and knowing our smiling mugs in Christmas cards delighted our family and friends yet another year. But I am not. I’m not even half way there yet. In fact, [...]

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Post-Thanksgiving Recap and Turkey Enchilada Casserole Recipe

So, how did it go? Your Thanksgiving dinner, that is. Did your guests “woooo’d” and “ahhhhh’d” at your fabulously delectable dishes? Did they wobble outta your house after saying “Uncle!”? For me, it was very special because Andrew came home for Thanksgiving from college, after being away from home for the first time for three months. Emily and I worked on making his favorite as well as some of ours. [...]

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Home Made Granola Recipe

So it begins……requests for snacks. Portable ones, preferably, since he’s ‘on-the-go’, all day on campus. Gone are the days when my college age boy can just stumble into the kitchen at 2 AM or any time, for that matter, absentmindedly open the fridge, stand there, longing for that perfect snack to jump out and satiate his ravenous appetite. Nope. No more. Now, he has to wrestle with vending machines in [...]

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Korean Kimchi Recipe Demystified

Koreans are among the leanest and healthiest people on the planet…says MSN Health. I don’t know about that but I do believe kimchi has something to do with our health, good or bad. For those who never watched M*A*S*H*, Kimchi is a fermented pickled cabbage from Korea. Wow weee! What’s that smell??? Kimchi is to a Korean as ketchup is to an American. You can eat a meal without it, [...]

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Seaweed (Wakame) Salad Recipe

It has been sweltering, smoldering, hot, humid, and yucky pooh! The weather has been acting like a baby with diaper rash! Cranky! And so am I, frankly. But even though it’s hot, we have to eat, right? But what? The last thing I want to do is to be in the kitchen using heat to cook or grill in this outdoor heat. I can’t tell whether this weather is making [...]

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Vegan Wonton Recipe

I had nothing – n.o.t.h.i.n.g. – to cook for dinner tonight. I’m sure you had one ‘those’ days. C’mon. Fess up. I know you did. Saturdays are usually, “cook-whatever-is-left-in-the-fridge” day and I literally had: a package of wonton skins, tofu, scallions, cheese, eggs, soy milk, and some wilting greens. So, what did I do? I gathered up the ingredients and thought, “Hmmmm……I can stuff them all up into the wonton [...]

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Grilled Veggie Quesadilla Recipe

I had a great Earth Day, how about you? I attended my little sprouts; I “talked” to them, checked on them, and made sure they weren’t in shock after being transplanted outside yesterday. They are fine. Even the cilantro, parsley and thyme that I bought in pots are doing really well. I think I’m going to have a great planting season! I also went to the library to pick up [...]

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Dairy and Egg Free Vegan Pretzel Recipe

We are putting wheat back to our diet. But that’s it. We are still dairy and egg-free….among other things. Emily was d-y-i-n-g to have some baked goodies but most recipes contain dairy or eggs. She found this recipe that has no dairy or eggs and was so thrilled to bake these scrumptious pretzels last Saturday …… before we lost electricity. Again. Since some of you were salivating when I posted [...]

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Korean Style Tofu Recipe

We love tofu. I know I know…..you can’t eat too much soy. Over 90% of soy is genetically modified so eating organic is a must. But when we do eat tofu, we eat un-adulterated tofu. We don’t eat tofurkey or tofu burger or tempeh. We eat silken tofu cold, Japanese style (Hiyayako) with Bonito flakes (shaved dried fish flakes), scallions, and soy sauce. I make Chinese style “Mapo Tofu” with [...]

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Wheat-free, Egg-free Fried Rice Recipe

One of our favorite scrape-off-the-left-over-upcycled foods is Fried Rice. I used to have a bag of frozen shrimp and frozen green peas in the freezer for just in case I had one of those, “there’s nothing to cook”, days. Well, I had one of those days yesterday. But since we can’t have soy sauce (wheat) or shrimp (shell-fish), I had to improvise. And improvising in the kitchen is what I’m [...]

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Wheat-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, red meat-free White Chili Recipe

This is a beginning of a second week of the elimination diet for my kids. They’ve been on this diet for 14 days for Emily and 8 days for Andrew. They are dying for a juicy steak and mashed potato with butter. Lots of butter. Or a big plate of spaghetti and meatball. And most of all, Clementine Oranges. Well, those dishes weren’t on the menu at Chez Karen. Instead, [...]

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Apple Hill Cake

I don’t think I posted a recipe on ecokaren before. But I wanted to share this recipe with you because I just made this cake today with Honey Crisp apples that my mom gave us and it was goodelicious – a word my daughter made up. We couldn’t possibly eat all these apples so I decided to make this cake and “use up” some apples. (I ended up using only [...]

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