Weekly Dish

A sandwich.

And a menu.

I wish I had more to offer, but school is all-consuming at the moment. I’m hoping things will slow down soon.

The thing that makes these sandwiches special is a seasoned black bean spread that will also double as part of the enchilada filling later in the week. Sweet potato fries make a great side for these hearty sandwiches.

Ham and Black Bean Tortas

For the black beans:
4 slices bacon
2 cloves garlic
1 jalapeno pepper
1 14 1/2-ounce can black beans
1 t. cumin
1 t. chili powder
1 t. seasoned salt
Juice of 1 lime

Cook the bacon in a large skillet. When crispy, remove and set aside. Drain off all but about a teaspoon of the fat, and return the skillet to the heat. Saute the garlic and pepper over medium heat until both are tender, a few minutes. Add the beans and their liquid, and turn the heat down to medium-low. Season with cumin, chili powder, and seasoned salt. As the beans cook and the liquid reduces, mash some of the beans with the back of the spoon. The mixture should become thick and spreadable. Remove from the heat, and stir in the lime juice.

For the sandwiches:
Black bean spread
Reserved bacon
6 slices ham
Havarti cheese, sliced
1 avocado, sliced
Thick, crusty bread

For each sandwich, spread each slice of bread with a nice coating of the black bean mixture. Top with cheese, avocado, ham, and bacon. Heat the sandwich if you wish, and save the remaining black bean mixture for enchiladas, fajitas or quesadillas.

For super-easy enchiladas, mix this black bean mixture with cooked, diced chicken, and a fourth-cup of salsa; divide the filling among 6 warmed flour tortillas; roll them up and arrange them in a baking dish; top with 1/2 cup salsa mixed with 1/4 cup half-and-half or whole milk; shred cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese over the whole dish; and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

–Recipe adapted from Intercourses by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge

I made these yummy muffins for some new neighbors who moved in across the street a few weeks ago, and I’d been waiting for the right time to post about them. As soon as I heard Alanna’s idea for this month’s Sugar High Friday — Surprise Inside — I knew this recipe would do the trick.

The cake part of these muffins is buttery and dense, almost shortbread-esque, with a hint of almond. Once you take a bite, though, you get a burst of orange. A dollop of marmalade makes its way into the center of the muffin as you’re filling the muffin cups, but you’d never know it to look at these muffins from the outside once they’re baked. Which is one of the things I love about making them for other people — a real surprise!

The bittersweet tang of the marmalade plays perfectly against the buttery almond flavor of the muffins, and while these probably don’t serve as a particularly balanced nutritional breakfast, they make a delightful afternoon snack, especially with a warm cup of tea.

The best part about making them on the spur of the moment is that I usually have all of the ingredients already on hand — no trip to the store is necessary. The new neighbors must have liked them — they invited us over for drinks the next week!

Marmalade Muffins

2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 large eggs
1/2 t. almond extract
1/2 cup sliced almonds
About a half cup orange marmalade

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and melted butter. Whisk in the eggs, and then stir in the almond extract. Add the dry ingredients to the wet all at once, folding until well-combined, but being careful not to overmix.

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Fill the cups half-full with the batter. Top the batter with about a teaspoonful of marmalade. Fill the cups the rest of the way full and sprinkle with the sliced almonds.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are slightly brown. Cool before serving; the marmalade inside will be very hot!

–adapted from Muffins A-Z by Marie Simmons

This super-fast dinner was inspired by a post by Barbara at Tigers & Strawberries (who just gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl!) about using leftovers for breakfast. I read somewhere recently (and in true mid-semester fashion, can’t remember for the life of me where) that a hash is typically a meal made from leftover potatoes. Which certainly makes sense to anyone who’s every tried to make hash browns with raw potatoes: it can take forever. In light of my recent fascination with using up leftovers, the specifics of this dish were inspired by a ziploc bag full of sweet potatoes roasted the night before and a hankering for breakfast at dinner time (which strikes often, since I love breakfast food, but am not much of a morning cook).

Everything for this meal happens in one skillet, which my clean-up crew appreciates, and the salad greens give this old-fashioned high-fat breakfast more healthful clothing for dinner. I love the way the runny egg yolk becomes part of the dressing; once everything on this plate is all mixed up, each bite is packed with a zingy mixture of flavors. Next time, I’ll use spinach arugula instead of Romaine.

The recipe follows this week’s menu (I need a new dry-erase marker; sorry if it’s hard to read!).

Sweet Potato Hash Salad

4 slices thick bacon
1 cup cooked, chopped sweet potatoes
1 T. Dijon mustard
1 T. cane syrup (honey would also work)
2 T. cider vinegar
Two platefuls of salad greens
2 eggs

Cook bacon slices in a skillet until cooked to desire crispness. Remove and drain off all but about a teaspoon of the fat. Add the sweet potatoes to the skillet, and toss gently, browning as you cook.

Meanwhile, line two plates with the salad greens.

When the potatoes are fairly evenly browned, add the mustard and syrup and stir to mix well. Add the vinegar, stirring constantly, until all ingredients are well-incorporated. Divide the sweet potato mixture between the two plates.

Return the skillet to the heat, and fry two eggs, topping each plate with one of them. Finish each plate with two slices of the reserved bacon.

To eat, mix everything on the plate together thoroughly.

You may not know that because I make way more pasta than I post about. Mostly because I keep dry pasta in the pantry for nights when dinner needs to be thoughtless and fast, throw some noodles on to boil, and top them with whatever strikes. No measuring takes place on those nights, to be sure.

I made this pasta dish several weeks ago in this fashion, and it was so good, I wanted to recreate it both so I could take the time to photograph it and share it with you and so I would remember what I did.

Some people immediately dismiss a pasta recipe if it has heavy cream in it, largely because restaurants have given cream sauces a bad rap. A plate of fettucine alfredo at a place like Olive Garden is probably at least 2 whole servings (maybe more) of pasta, and the noodles are usually swimming in a bath of butter, cream, and cheese, for a grand total of, what, at least 2 days worth of calories and fat grams? Not to mention the bread…

But who wants a bath of cream anyway, when you can add a small amount of cream to coat the noodles and soak into the vegetables, giving the dish the rich flavor you want without all of the fat? Some, yes, but not a week’s worth.

Dusting the artichokes in a bit of flour and seasoned salt and then pan-frying them in olive oil with the garlic deepens their flavor and makes them a little bit crispy on the outside, which I love, but it isn’t necessary. You can also just add them in with the olives and sundried tomatoes. I also added a grilled chicken breast because I had one leftover, but leaving it out won’t compromise the flavors in the least if you want a vegetarian dish.

Good feta cheese and high-quality olives (I like the Greek ones from the deli counter at my grocery) will make a difference, and I like the sudried tomatoes packed in oil for this, rather than rehydrating the dried ones.

Oh, and I love olives, so I use a lot; strongly flavored ones like kalamatas can overwhelm, so if you’re not a huge fan, you may want to reduce the quantity.

The best part? The sauce was ready to toss with the noodles by the time they were finished cooking, AND it tastes fabulous. My kind of meal.

Ziti with Olives, Pan-fried Artichokes, and Sundried Tomatoes

1 pound ziti
2 T. olive oil 1 14 1/2-ounce can artichoke hearts, drained
Flour
Seasoned salt
1 clove garlic, minced
1/3 cup sundried tomatoes, slivered
1/3 cup roughly chopped black olives (I like the Greek ones)
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup lowfat milk
1/3 cup feta cheese, crumbled

Put the pasta on to boil. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large, heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat. Drain the artichoke hearts and lay flat on paper towels. Dust with a bit of flour and sprinkle with seasoned salt. When the oil is hot, lay the artichokes in the skillet in a single layer, as many as will fit at once. Press down with a spatula and let them fry undisturbed for a couple of minutes. Flip them over and fry until brown on both sides. Remove that batch (if you need to do two), and repeat with the remaining artichokes. Reduce the heat to medium and add the garlic. Saute the garlic until fragrant and soft, a couple of minutes, then stir in the tomatoes, olives, and fried artichokes. Turn the heat up to medium high and add the cream. It should reduce quickly; add the milk, and stir continuously until the sauce is thickened. Stir in the feta. Drain the noodles and add them to the sauce; toss until the noodles are coated and the vegetables are evenly distributed. Serve immediately. A simple green salad with mint, lemon, and olive oil makes an excellent accompaniment.

Reheated fish is just not to my liking. The texture is all wrong, and somehow the flavors sharpen unpleasantly in the refrigerator. When I make paneed tilapia, I like to make fish cakes with the leftovers, and cakes would work well with salmon too. But because we’d grilled a whole slab of salmon, I needed something that would last more than just one meal. My guess is that reheated fish cakes wouldn’t be so appetizing either.

So I made salad instead. The combination of salmon, dill, red onion, and capers is a common one, and I added a simple yogurt dressing flavored with lemon and feta cheese. The first night, I served the salad on toasted whole grain bread with rosemary potatoes on the side. For lunch the next day, the salmon salad sat atop a bed of spinach, dressed in a touch of lemon juice and olive oil. Both preparations worked well, and the best part is, once you have leftover salmon, little effort is required to make at least two meals.
Salmon Salad

Juice of 1 lemon
1/4 cup fresh dill, minced plus extra for garnish
*1/2 cup plain yogurt (I used nonfat)
2 ounces feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 t. Kosher salt
Leftover salmon (I used about a pound)
1/4 small red onion, minced
2 T. capers, drained

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the lemon juice, dill, yogurt, feta, and salt. Pulse a few times until well combined. In a large bowl, break up the salmon into chunks. Add the red onion and capers and toss to mix. Add dresssing and mix until the salad is moist enough for your liking. Serve on toasted whole grain bread or mound on a bed of spinach. This recipe made enough for 2 dinner-sized portions and at least 4  lunch portions.

*Note: If you want a thicker dressing, mayonnaise would probably work in place of the yogurt.

I am late coming to this party, but food bloggers have been busy compiling lists of the 5 foods they would most recommend for everyone to try at least once in a lifetime, at the behest of Melissa at The Traveler’s Lunchbox. Sweet Claire of Cooking Is Medicine invited me to participate weeks ago, and I am just now getting around to it. Narrowing down my list of favorite foods to only five was quite a challenge, so I tried to pick things that were local to my little corner of the world (after all, to try all of the things on Melissa’s ever-growing list, travel must be part of the equation; why not add southern Louisiana to your list of places to visit?)
1. Fresh, raw oysters

Raw oysters will always remind me of my dad, who taught me to eat them. His method? First, mix up a big batch of cocktail sauce (ketchup, horseradish, fresh lemon juice, and salt), then cut a few lemons into wedges. Spread a saltine cracker with the cocktail sauce, top with an oyster and a squeeze of lemon, and slurp. This still remains my favorite way to enjoy these slippery little delights.

2. Fresh figs

My love affair with fresh figs has been no secret on this site, but the surprising thing about the comments I received on those posts was just how many people have never tried fresh figs. I guess because they are so delicate and can’t travel very far, they aren’t accessible to many people. And, most of the time they aren’t sold in grocery stores. But, please, for me, if you ever find yourself near a fig tree when its fruit are ripe, pluck one off and see what I mean for yourself. Or, if you feel the need to travel on down here to Louisiana about the middle of July, I’ll take you to Mr. Buddy Miller’s stand at the Red Stick Market on Saturday morning, and you can take home as many figs as you can carry.

3. Real southern fried chicken

Fried chicken is so ubiquitous now, I’m sure you can get it most anywhere. For me, a southern girl at heart, real southern fried chicken means chicken fried by a real southerner (or someone taught by a real southerner), soaked in buttermilk, and coated with the right mixture of flour and spices, served with homemade biscuits, mashed potatoes, and cream gravy, made from the chicken drippings. A meal like this one says Sunday dinner at home in Mississippi, and I wish everyone could have a taste of that at least once.

4. Crab cakes made with fresh lump crabmeat

I know I am terribly fortunate to live in a place that grants me access to such wonderful produce and Gulf-fresh seafood. Crab meat picked from fresh crabs tastes sweeter and more decadent than the meat from any other seafaring creature, in my opinion, and my very favorite way to enjoy it is packed into a cake, diluted with as few other ingredients as possible, and fried.

5. Boiled Louisiana crawfish (and the corn and potatoes too!)

A Louisiana crawfish boil is an experience everyone should have once in his or her lifetime. Lucky for me, I was born in to the tradition, and have feasted on mudbugs for as long as I can remember. From March to June, crawfish boils are how people celebrate most anything around here, from a baby’s baptism to a sunny Friday afternoon. Standing around a picnic table, peeling crawfish, and consuming mass quantities of the flavorful red meat, super-spicy corn and potatoes and cold beer with people you love (and some you don’t know) is a time-honored tradition that Louisianans love to share (so head on down here and pull up a bench!)

On the menu this week: nothing quite as adventurous or special as those 5 favorites, but food for a busy life instead.

Links:

• Mushroom Risotto
• Kalyn’s Marinated Pepper Salad (with goat cheese instead of Parmesan and no garbanzos)

My good friend Katherine, who has two small children, said to me the other day, “Hey, I have a great idea for your blog.” I saw David smirk in the background because he says that exact thing to me often, only his ideas are usually quickly dismissed (rarely do they have anything to do with food, at least in any realistic sense, and most often, he’s just trying to be a wise guy. A big surprise, I’m sure, to any of you who caught his carbonara recipe.) He was waiting to see if I responded similarly to my friend.

But Katherine’s suggestion was genuine. She said she’d love to see more recipes that are quick and easy that can also provide for two meals. I’d gotten into the habit of cooking that way in the fall and winter last year — slowly roasting vegetables that could morph into side dish, soup, or pasta sauce; cooking two chickens at once for main dish, stock, chicken salad, and a curry or quesadilla. But summer demands a different kitchen ethic: both because our schedule was a bit more lax and because turning the oven on for more than 20 minutes at a time is out of the question, dinner was usually a one-shot deal. Quick, perhaps, but rarely any leftovers.

But as the weather cools slightly and the days become busier, I find myself, perhaps inspired by Katherine’s suggestion, trying to plan more carefully and think ahead, getting more mileage out of the effort I put into particular dishes.

This salmon is a good example. It isn’t difficult or labor-intensive, but because I cook a whole slab at once, it makes a fabulous main dish one night, and then will crumble up into a yummy salad later in the week, enough for another supper and at least a couple of lunches. On the first night, I slathered it with fresh basil pesto, grilled it, and topped it with a silky tomato-cream sauce and fresh basil. Grilled corn and baby eggplants rounded out the plate.

Look for the salad recipe later on, and don’t forget to grill a few extra ears of corn too. It’s another great leftover food.

Grilled Pesto Salmon with Tomato Cream Sauce

1 whole slab salmon (about 1 1/2 - 2 lbs), or 4 6-ounce steaks
1/2 cup basil pesto
Kosher salt and cracked pepper
2 T. butter
1/2 small onion, chopped (about 1/3 cup)
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 medium tomato, diced
1/4 cup white wine
1 T. heavy cream
Basil leaves, for garnish

Prepare the grill. Rub the salmon on both sides with the pesto (depending on how thick you make your pesto, you may need to add a bit of olive oil); you should have a nice, thin coating of oil and herbs. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Grill the salmon, skin side up, until it’s just translucent in the center (it took ours about 4-6 minutes per side).

Meanwhile, saute the onion and garlic in butter over medium-low heat until soft. Add the tomatoes, and stir to heat. Sprinkle with salt. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and pour in the wine. Stir, cooking for a few minutes, until the vegetables have absorbed some of the wine; stir in the cream. Turn the heat down to low, and keep covered until the salmon is ready.

To serve, cut the salmon into 4 equal portions (if whole), and reserve 2 for salad later in the week. Top the steaks with the tomato sauce and fresh basil leaves.

–Recipe adapted from Come On In! by the Junior League of Jackson, MS 

Quick and easy is the theme of our weekly menus these days. The problem, of course, with posting a menu board full of quick and easy meals is that most likely, I’m throwing these meals together in a hurry, not thinking about exactly how much of this or that I’m using, and sometimes not even stopping long enough to photograph said meal (gasp!) Which makes the part where I communicate to you how to make fast, easy food rather difficult.

But I’m trying to do better. David’s carbonara was a step in the right direction (of course it helped that I wasn’t actually cooking that meal, so I could document what was happening).

One thing that works for me is to make a large batch of something or the other on Saturday or Sunday and then use it in different ways throughout the week. For instance, last week I made a big batch of ratatouille, a lovely stew of end-of-summer vegetables, using this recipe from the beautiful blog La Tartine Gourmande. One night we had it over spaghetti, topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese; later on in the week, I spread a thick layer of the ratatouille on top of a pizza crust and finished with slices of fresh mozzarella cheese. Both variations were delicious, and because the ratatouille was already made, each meal came together in a snap. See, it was even still light enough for us to eat outdoors:

And, even better, it’s actually gotten below 80 degrees in the evenings, so being outdoors is bearable; pleasant even. I hope the weather is cooling off where you are too!

My husband has been so supportive since I’ve been in school. He’s indulged my study-break cooking frenzies, patiently cleaning up my messes and dutifully tasting every test recipe; he’s done an awful lot of laundry and cleaning of the bathroom; and he  rarely every complains. The job I’ve been reluctant to give up, of course, is the making of our dinners. David is completely competent and capable in the kitchen, so it isn’t that I don’t trust him to do it (though he gladly would), it’s just that for me, somehow, making dinner every night is the one chore that keeps me sane, that helps me to feel like a normal person whose life is not completely chaotic. It brings order to an otherwise out-of-control schedule.

But some nights I just don’t have it in me. And now that David is a full-time student too, our schedule has become even more unorthodox. Dinner, for example, on Wednesday nights is served promptly at 10 p.m., when David gets home from class. For the nights when I have so much to do before the morning that I can’t think how to fit in cooking dinner too, rather than turn to take-out (which we try hard not to do), I turn over the kitchen to David.

He has a couple of standard classic recipes that are his specialties, and I’m hoping to introduce you to most of them, one at a time. You’ve already become acquainted with his famous roast chicken. Number 2 on the list of his favorite things to make is carbonara. He first learned to make it in Italy (which he will tell you about in a moment), and he’s been fixing this hearty comfort food for me almost as long as I’ve known him.

Most people who make carbonara feel pretty strongly about their way of doing it, and David is no exception. But if you’re stuck in the kitchen at 5:30 without any clue about what to make for dinner, and you happen to have eggs, bacon, noodles, and some Parmesan cheese, this meal comes together in less than half an hour. Low-calorie, it is not, but what it lacks in nutritional value, it makes up for in taste. Certainly, we would not eat a meal like this every night (and usually when we plan on carbonara, I try to limit the fat content of the rest of our meals), but for nights when we’re busy and we need sustenance, this hits the spot.

Here are David’s unedited instructions. I quote word-for-word from the cook:
1. Boil water. Insert 1 pound noodles. (Note from Jennifer: Usually, we use the traditional fettucine, but this night we only had rigatoni, and we actually prefer it. The ridges hold the eggy sauce quite nicely.)

2. Get out: 3 eggs, bacon, Parmesan cheese.

3. In a bowl, whisk 3 eggs with 1/4 cup cream (or whole milk) and salt and pepper. Not tons of salt–the bacon and cheese are also salty. But pepper: use as much pepper as your wife will let you get away with.

4. Cook some bacon. If you like a lot of bacon, cook a lot. If you’re trying to be healthier, or you don’t like a lot of bacon, not so much. Completely up to you. (Note from Jennifer: chances are, if you’re trying to be healthy, you aren’t making carbonara. But who knows?)

5. Grate fresh Parmesan. A lot. You can never have enough. Not-fresh Parmesan is a Republican plot to make us all lazy and compliant. Have you seen Kraft’s political platform?

6. Think about Italy while you grate the cheese and wait for the noodles and bacon to cook. If you like, I will tell you the story of how I learned to make this. I once went to Italy with a group of artists. We had carbonara at this fabulous restaurant, and as we were lamenting the fact that you can’t get carbonara like that anywhere in Mississippi (because we were all from Mississippi), a member of our party — Father Canonici, a lovely old priest with deep Italian roots — shared this recipe with us. You know, the one I’m giving to you now in such specific detail. What can I say, I didn’t write it down, and my memory is fuzzy. What I do know is that you should never, ever put peas in carbonara.

7. Weird how this is so good with no garlic. (Note from Jennifer: I don’t know what this has to do with anything, but I was instructed to take it down. Remember: not my words!)
8. Make sure the bacon is cooked to a nice crispy texture. I don’t really like crispy bacon (a common source of contention at our house), but it works with the carbonara to keep things from getting all clumpy.

9. Keep a close eye on the noodles; you don’t want them overdone.

10. Drain the noodles.

11. Dump the noodles back into the pot.

12. Pour the egg-cream mixture on top of the still-hot noodles. Now, this is the important part. You want to mix it up so that the heat of the noodles will start to firm up the eggs a bit before returning the pot to the burner. You do this for two reasons: 1. You want the noodles to get nicely coated before the eggs get too done. 2. It will be easier to clean the pot when you’re done because there won’t be as much egg stuck to the bottom of the pan. This was learned the hard way.

13. Once the eggs have begun to stick to the noodles, return the pot to a low heat. Stir gently and constantly (keep in mind: the more you stir, the less scrubbing you’ll have to do after dinner).

14. Now is the time to sneak in more pepper when your wife isn’t looking.

15. Crumble the bacon. We do it with kitchen scissors because the bacon is still very hot.

16. After cooking and stirring for 5 minutes or so, add the cheese. You don’t want to add the cheese too early, or it will get lost.

17. Keep stirring. Check to make sure you aren’t getting cheese clumps all over your spoon.

18. Finally, now everything will start to come together and you can add the bacon at last.

19. Adding the bacon is sort of like when you’re making muffins and you don’t want to overmix your wet and dry ingredients. Fold gently. If you mix too much, it will all end up on the bottom.

20. Serve immediately.

21. When you’ve served up what you plan to eat tonight, immediately put the leftovers in a different container so you can start soaking the pot. Believe me, you’ll be glad later.

22. Talk about Italy while you eat.

There you have it, David’s words on carbonara. Enjoy!

I promise another recipe and food-related post is coming soon, but until then, here’s some reading to keep you busy. Blog Day is a day where bloggers share with their readers blogs they’ve recently discovered. Although I’m a day late, I did want to tell you about some of my favorite reads, all relatively new to me.

First, the foodies:

Although you may think her topic is about as far away from the kind of cooking I do, Susan at Fatfree Vegan Kitchen and I actually have a lot in common. We sort of traded places — I moved from Jackson, MS, to southern Louisiana, and Susan moved from southern Louisiana to Jackson. And, we both love figs (although I’m sorry to report that figs don’t appear as readily available in Susan’s new locale; if you know of a place where she can find them, please head to her site and leave her a comment!) Mostly, though, Susan’s dedication to being creative with super-healthy ingredients is really inspiring; she can take a plain, old garden eggplant, and turn it into a myriad of delicacies. Even if you aren’t a vegan or fatfree, you’re bound to find some ideas in her kitchen.

Another southerner I’ve enjoyed reading is Kate at Pie in the Sky. A recent college grad, Kate is a self-described “Georgia peach in the Big Apple.” Her recipes often represent her southern culinary heritage, but with a sophisticated city-girl twist, like her most recent post on Macaroni and Cheese with Brie and Rosemary. She also sometimes writes about food ethics and politics, which I always find informative and well-written. Plus, she makes the best mojito around.

Third on my foodie list (and then I’ll move on to other areas, as I’m supposed to), is Julie at A Mingling of Tastes. I first ran across Julie’s blog by doing a search for other bloggers writing about figs, when I came across her lovely post about three ways she’d used my favorite end-of-summer treats. She’s only been at the blogging thing for a few months, but already, I’ve found much inspiration from her concoctions. Keep up the good work, Julie!

For my last two on this list of 5, I’ve chosen areas of interest, rather than specific blogs. The fashion world has always been fascinating to me, but, perhaps a bit out of my price range. Two of my favorite daily reads are trying to bridge the gap from girl-next-door-without-a-huge-wardrobe-budget and runway fashion: the Frugal Fashionista features photos of celebrities (also a good way to get a quick daily celebrity fix!), and then tells you where you can duplicate their look for less. The Budget Fashionista keeps you up to date on online sales and highlights current trends that you can find for not much money. Both fashionistas have a keen eye for detail and some great tips for dressing well for less.

If you’re into design, you have to check out Inhabitat. This site is one of David’s favorites, and it has quickly become one of mine too. Especially of note is their feature, Pre-Fab Fridays, where they highlight fascinating architectural creations, all pre-fabricated. I love to scroll through the images and imagine myself in some clean, modern space with lots of light and empty space. And lastly, if you have ever dreamed of travelling through Italy, if you are into good art, or you simply like to admire beautiful writing or photographs, stroll on over to Jenny Vorwaller’s blog, True Nature. I first found Jenny through my friend Rorie, and I have to limit the amount of time I spend there, or I could while away my day living vicariously through her Italian escapades. Aaahh, Italy.

It’s so hard to narrow down my choices to only 5 (which I guess I haven’t really done), but if you find yourself with time on your hands, grab and cup of tea or coffee and set about exploring the intricate web of blogs out there. You’re bound to find some that interest you; I hope these will get you started!

And, I promise recipes and food-related posts are coming soon…