One of the fun perks about my job is that I test recipes all the time, recipes for cooking classes and for demos. Last night I made Colcannon, a traditional Irish dish made with mashed potatoes, cabbage, and leeks. I’d never made it before but I love cabbage and potatoes together so I knew this would be a winner, and it was. Very comforting and hearty. I had some leftover corned beef and served that with it and it all tasted wonderful. I looked for a recipe online and several called for huge amounts of butter, up to 2 whole sticks of butter. No way was I going to use that much butter, and I finally found a nice recipe at one of my favorite food websites, Martha Stewart. We are tweaking the selection of recipes for our cookbook and this is one that may be in it.

Making this last night just made me appreciate home-cooked food and how good it feels to make something delicious and healthy from fresh, organic ingredients. It is so satisfying to eat this way, although I know it can be difficult for some people who have to work a lot. But it sure is worth the effort to make the time to cook from scratch and use great, local, preferably organic foods, (preferably from Oryana but there are other local sources too). A tried and true way to eat more home-cooked meals is to make a lot of something and then eat it for a couple days. Or to make something, like a roasted chicken, and then make things like quesadillas, burritos, or chicken salad from the leftover meat. I recently got a slow-cooker cookbook, the first cookbook I purchased in years, and can’t wait to try some of the recipes.

Do you have a favorite dish that you make over and over? I’d love to know what readers’ favorite dishes are. Please post a comment and let us know what your tried and true dishes are.