Blue Cheese Dressing for a salad with romaine lettuce and dried cranberries. Blue Cheese Dressing for a salad of romaine lettuce and fresh dill. Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce in a small bowl for dipping with steak skewers (or spread on burgers with bacon—yum!). It keeps for 1-2 weeks. Store in a jar. Note to self: this is a versatile concoction.

Blue Cheese Dressing & Dipping Sauce
1 cup sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup buttermilk
6 oz crumbled Gorgonzola cheese
3 cloves minced garlic
1 1/2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp kosher salt

Gently stir by hand or pulse in small blender just to combine.

Grilled Steak Skewers & Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce
I bought steak already on the skewers, and marinated it with a small bottle of meat marinade from the market (most markets have a nice selection, I use a variety of marinades from Whole Foods). Just put the skewers in the ziploc bag with the marinade at the beginning of the day—if you think of it—or an hour before the meal, if you don’t. Serve with Blue Cheese Dipping Sauce alongside.

For menu idea click here.

You know they are my kids: they cut pizza with a scissors. I was my mother’s daughter for doing the same. My near obsession with ’scissors in the kitchen’ means the scissors in the house end up in the drawer with spatulas instead of the drawer with pencils and glue.

I adore scissors in the kitchen; I find them terribly efficient and easy to use. When I cannot get the sausage in the skillet or the tomatoes in a simmering sauce small enough, I cut them with a scissors right in the pan. Shears are quite handy for cutting fat off of chicken breasts.

Scissors cut all my herbs; I think there is less bruising than if you use a knife. So I stack basil, parsley and sage, then slice in skinny strips on top of bruschetta or into a quiche. I cut rosemary right off the stem. AND the kids love it (for more ideas see Talk of Kids): once they are big enough to handle scissors, they can cut sausage and tomatoes, basil and sage, pizza and quesadillas, puff pastry into triangles or stems off green beans.

What is your favorite kitchen tool? How do you use it? Today I wielded my scissors to cut up dried apricots to go into break pudding. So often I find scissors easier to use than knives. Try it—you might like it!

This recipe is one reason I started writing a cookbook. Offered as hostess gifts and an unexpected apertif at a dinner party, limoncella sneaks right in to take center stage: everyone wanted the recipe. You will have to wait for my cookbook, I would tease. And now, cookbook turned to blog means all of you who have waited so patiently for the infamous limoncello recipe will be so armed.

It is especially daunting—and equally impressive—to tell people it takes 80 days to make. Yes, it does, but only because it is better that way, not because it is harder to make (perhaps harder to WAIT but not harder to MAKE—big difference).

Limoncello
15 thick-skinned lemons (I buy the Costco bags)
2 bottles (750 ml each) of 100 proof Vodka (I use potato vodka)
4 1/2 cups sugar
5 cups water

Wash the lemons in hot water before you start. Remove the peel with a vegetable peeler, taking care to peel only the yellow skin, no white pith. Put peels in a large glass jar with lid, approximately 4-quarts (I bought a glass iced tea jar and it worked awesome). Add 1 bottle of Vodka and stir. Cover the jar, date it, and put it in cool, dark pantry (or the closest thing you have to a pantry). After 40 days, take out the lemon-vodka mixture. In a sauce pan set over high heat, stir the sugar and water together and boil for 5 minutes. Let the sugar syrup cool completely in the pan, about 10 minutes. Add the sugar syrup to the lemon-vodka mixture along with the second bottle of vodka. Stir well to combine. Replace the cover on the jar and note the finish date. Return it to the dark pantry/closet and store for 40 more days. At day 80, remove the limoncello from the cabinet. Strain the mixture and discard the lemon peel. Use funnel to pour into glass bottles, seal with caps or corks. Store the bottles in the pantry, but put one bottle at a time in the freezer until ready to use. Makes approximately 3 quarts.

(Note: I juice all 15 lemons, and freeze the juice in ice cube trays for future use. Alternatively, you could make a big, yummy batch of fresh squeezed lemonade)

Jars, bottles and more jars. When I first made limoncella, I went out and bought two dozen decorative bottles with corks. Plus the vodka and lemons and the price of this Gift from the Kitchen just kept climbing. The corks meant I could only store the limoncella upright, which was tricky because it is best to store the ready-to-serve bottle right in the freezer (and well, let’s face it the freezer isn’t a sure thing for upright storage).

SO I started saving bottles that had twist tops: syrup, olive oil, margarita mix, olive oil, vinegar, Sambuca, more olive oil—you get the idea. I would soak them in hot water to remove labels and use them for limoncella. I loved it! Not only was it recycling bottles, it was less expensive AND much more chic to have bottles of varying shapes, sizes and embellishments. Oh and you can write right on the bottles or attach a label and stamp the name of its contents. My latest use for these bottles is to fill them with simple syrups, such as the mint simple syrup in my Mojito recipe. The extra spot of fun? Now when I am buying olive oil, vinegar or maple syrup I take an extra look at the bottle to see what kind of potential it might hold for round 2 or 3…

And I love jam jars and/or canning jars to mix all of my salad dressings by hand (a few good shakes, no messy blender), and to store dried herbs, that extra cup of walnuts or to transport a make-ahead sauce. This summer, while watching the Soccer World Cup Final in a bar in Montana, I ordered a beer and when the bartender pulled a chilled jam jar from a little fridge to fill with beer I barely muffled my shriek of delight. The second I returned home, jam jars went into my freezer. They are now proud vessels of everything from iced coffee and tea to lemonade, margaritas and beer.

The kids will love to cook this AND eat it. Find a bag of frozen or a carton of fresh edamame (soybeans) that have been shelled.

Sauteed Edamame
1 T olive oil
2 T butter
20 Sage leaves (medium size)
1 ½ tsp kosher salt
2 cups edamame, shelled

Defrost edamame if frozen; stack sage leaves and cut into small strips. Place oil and butter in sauté pan over medium heat. When butter melts add salt and edamame. Saute for 5 minutes; add sage and saute for 2-3 more minutes. Serve immediately.

Great for Cooking w/Kids: they can stack sage and cut into small pieces with a scissors, add the salt and sage, and stir up the edamame.