what jen does

Life, home, and a little travel

Author: JEF

  • chicken tagine with apricots and pistachios
    recipes

    chicken tagine with apricots and pistachios

    Probably about 6 years ago, I made my first chicken tagine. I’ve always reflected positively on that meal. The flavors of a tagine are just incredible – and really all without my favorite sins of salt, butter, or cheese. I tore out this chicken tagine recipe from Real Simple relatively recently and got around to…

  • clodagh bread
    recipes

    clodagh bread

    For like the last 10+ years I’ve made Irish Soda bread each year for St Patrick’s Day. I’ve really pared back the baking in recent years – but there were some years that I shipped out 8 or so loaves. This year I think I only have 4 loaves on my list – and one…

  • peanut butter quinoa banana bread
    recipes

    peanut butter quinoa banana bread

    I think sometimes when people think of banana bread – they get this visions of a dense banana loaf with nuts. While that isn’t a terrible thing by any standard, it’s always nice to try something different. Let’s give banana bread a refresh. Maybe it’ll be the new scone? Probably not. I was home sick…

  • cauliflower asparagus chowder
    recipes

    cauliflower asparagus chowder

    One of the best parts about living in the North End was being close to Haymarket. While the produce was not always amazing, being able to buy bargain priced vegetables was amazing – especially for soup. Appearance does not matter when you are putting blending that right up. Soup tends to be a really affordable…

  • snowy february

    snowy february

    I remember riding the train home one January night and seeing this tweet from my favorite weather man suggesting that February could be a very snowy month. Shortly after that it feels like it started snowing and barely stopped. It wasn’t quite like the winter of 2015 – but for the past two weeks it…

  • red velvet morning buns
    recipes

    red velvet morning buns

    I’ve had a range of “Valentine’s Day” experiences in my life. There was the elementary school obligatory valentine’s cards for everyone. The classic college boyfriend (who lasted for two weeks) who gave me roses. The time I was dating someone new I cared about… who didn’t want to celebrate because a combination of “work” and…

  • Jerk chicken with mango avocado salsa
    recipes

    Jerk chicken with mango avocado salsa

    Eating healthy? So complex. I’ve never really watched what I ate all that much because I’ve always been just active enough that it hasn’t been critical. Yes, it’s always advisable to not eat chicken fingers every Friday night but when I was walking 5 miles a day to and from work… I could do what…

  • 2016 tomato recap

    2016 tomato recap

    I have been meaning to get this post out pretty much since last October – and if we are being really honest maybe even August. Peak tomato season. But, here we are in February and I’m beginning to think about the garden for this year. When I would talk to people about my garden last…

  • chocolate almond banana bread
    recipes

    chocolate almond banana bread

    We’ve had a couple snow days this week – and apparently in the coming week too. Snow days mean many things like cozy clothes and binge marathons on tv. But if it’s a work day, you don’t get to binge tv … and need to compensate with other things. I chose to compensate with this…

  • Ina Garten’s cake
    recipes

    Ina Garten’s cake

    I keep calling this the “Ina cake” but it could also be called by its actual name – Devil’s Food cake. But honestly, I’m always going to call it in the Ina cake because it’s from Ina Garten’s latest cookbook that I got for Christmas. I made this cake on a weekday for my mom’s…