From the recipe archive, for St. Patrick's Day, enjoy! ~Elise

Last year for St. Patrick's Day, my friend Suzanne had me over for dinner with her family and served the tastiest corned beef and cabbage dish. Usually we prepare corned beef and cabbage boiled, but Suzanne had baked her corned beef in the oven, slathered with sweet hot honey mustard, and sautéed her cabbage with onions on the stove top until they were nice and caramelized. I begged her to show me how she did it and recently we spent the day cooking together, making corned beef and cabbage both ways - oven baked and boiled. We did a taste test with the whole family that evening and the baked version won, hands down. Here I present to you both the baked and the boiled recipe versions.

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It seems like every culture with a coastline has their version of a seafood stew. The French have bouillabaise, the Portuguese bacalhoada, New England "chowdah" and San Francisco cioppino. In Brazil, they make moqueca (pronounced "mo-KEH-kah"), a stew made with fish, onions, garlic, tomatoes, cilantro, and in the northern state of Bahia, coconut milk. My first encounter with moqueca was a salmon version of the stew prepared by Brazilian blogger Fernanda of Chucrute com Salsicha. So good! We love making fish stew, but had never thought to use a base of coconut milk. Since then, every Brazilian I've met, when the conversation turns to food (as it invariably does), their eyes light up at the mention of moqueca.

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One of the things I love about making soda bread is that it is just so darn easy. With yeast breads you have to proof the yeast, knead the dough, let the dough rise, etc. But with soda breads, there's no proofing, kneading, or waiting. In fact, because the leavening comes from mixing the base of the baking soda with the acid in the buttermilk (remember those fascinating-at-the-time childhood experiments of sprinkling vinegar onto baking soda?), you pretty much pop it in the oven as soon as you put the dough together. The trick is to use a light hand, just work the dough barely enough to bring it together. It looks like a sheep-doggy shaggy mess, but it bakes up beautifully—lightly browned and crusty on the outside, while soft and tender on the inside.

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Overheard at the market, "I'm a breast girl." "Really? I'm definitely a thigh girl," pause..."dark meat, so much more flavor." Had to laugh, I'm so so so much a thigh girl myself. Here is the secret to fabulous lemon chicken - use bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (or legs, but thighs are easier to eat). Lemon is acidic and greatly benefits from the balance of the stronger flavor of the dark meat in thighs and legs, and the fat from the chicken skin. You don't have to eat the skin (my father doesn't, he gives them to me, score!), but cook with them on for the flavor.

What we most love about this recipe is that it is a classic American lemon chicken recipe without being too lemony. In other words, it doesn't make your lips pucker, it has just the right amount of lemon flavor to it.

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For those of you out there who cannot fathom even the idea of beets, fine. Truly, I'm a-okay with it. That only means there is more of this beet hummus for me. I ate this entire batch, save one teaspoon that my mother caught just in time, before it was all finished off. (In this family, you snooze, you lose.) Seriously, if you like beets, and you like hummus, you'll love this beet hummus. The ingredients are beets, tahini, garlic, lemon, cumin, and salt and pepper. Use as a pretty topping for cucumber rounds, scoop some up with pita triangles or celery ribs, or just dive in, like oink-oink here, with a spoon, and eat it up before anyone knows what they're missing. Many thanks to neighbor, pastry chef, and friend Evie Lieb, for sharing this terrific recipe with us.

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