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Crescent Dragonwagon

Ronni’s Appalachian-Style Cornbread (Gluten-Free)

Ronni’s Appalachian-Style Cornbread (Gluten-Free)

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Ronni’s Appalachian-Style Cornbread (Gluten-Free) This is my favorite traditional-style Southern cornbread,  and the one my friend Ronni Lundy  grew up eating in Corbin, Kentucky. And to which she pledges allegiance!  No sugar, no flour, amen.  Ronni says, “If God had meant  cornbread to have sugar in it, he’d have called it  cake.” Here we have the apocryphal luckiness given by… Read More

Filed Under: recipes

Four-Citrus Golden Pico de Gallo with Mint

Four-Citrus Golden Pico de Gallo with Mint

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Four-Citrus Golden Pico de Gallo with Mint Instead of  the typical tomatoes, this pico uses citrus fruits – oranges, blood oranges, and pink grapefruit – to provide the juicy acidic component necessary in this dish, which is almost as much salad as it is condiment.  It provides a nice, light, refreshing balance to the other foods on the plate, and,… Read More

Filed Under: recipes Tagged With: citrus salsa, Crescent Dragonwagon's Citrus Salsa, fruit salsa, pico de gallo, salsa

CITRUS GOLDEN RING CAKE

CITRUS GOLDEN RING CAKE

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Citrus Golden Ring Cake I this cake lucky for New Years? Why yes: round foods represent for the cycles of the year and the roundness of a full life; yellow and orange because, they’re signifiers of wealth. But the inherent goodness of this rich, lemony cake, dense and moist, makes anyone who takes a bite feel lucky indeed, on the… Read More

Filed Under: recipes Tagged With: Citrus Ring Cake, foods for New Years

BRAZILIAN STYLE COLLARD GREEN SALAD

BRAZILIAN STYLE COLLARD GREEN SALAD

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Brazilian Style Collard Green Salad Raw collard greens? A  a few brief years ago it would have hardly been  comprehensible to most Americans,  especially Southerners.  But times have changed with the advent of kale salads. While many find the texture of kale objectionable –  its curliness, if it is not cut finely enough, can get caught in the throat – … Read More

Filed Under: recipes Tagged With: collard green salad

It’s your lucky day

It’s your lucky day

By Crescent Dragonwagon

To jump straight to the featured recipes, use these links: Spicy-Smoky East-West Black-Eyed Peas Brazilian-Style Collard Green Salad Extra-Moist Cheese-Black Pepper Cornbread Ronni’s Southern-Style Gluten-Free Cornbread Four-Citrus Pico de Gallo Golden Orange-Pecan Cake with a Citrus Glaze Otherwise, stay put on this page and join me for an exploration of easygoing New Years entertaining and how and why certain foods… Read More

Filed Under: Deep Feast, recipes Tagged With: Crescent dragonwagon, Crescent Dragonwagon cornbread, Crescent Dragonwagon's New Year recipes, Deep Feast for New Year's, New Years Day Brunch, Recipes, Vegetarian recipes for New Year's

YOU’RE INVITED: A NEW YEARS DAY PARTY PLAN B (AS IN BLACK-EYED PEAS)

YOU’RE INVITED: A NEW YEARS DAY PARTY PLAN B (AS IN BLACK-EYED PEAS)

By Crescent Dragonwagon

In the years since I have been an adult, I have hosted a New Year’s Day open house, in the late afternoon on the first day of the new year, probably once every three or four years. What I served at the first one, back when I was nineteen and had just moved to the small Ozarks boho Victorian arts… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon, Deep Feast, recipes Tagged With: black-eyed peas, New Years

COMFORT ME WITH APPLES… BUT MAKE THEM *BAKED* APPLES, PLEASE.

COMFORT ME WITH APPLES… BUT MAKE THEM *BAKED* APPLES, PLEASE.

By Crescent Dragonwagon

THEY COULDN’T LOOK MORE UNPREPOSSESSING. AND THEY COULDN’T BE EASIER. AND THEY COULD NOT POSSIBLY BE MORE DELICIOUS, OR MORE PERFECT FOR THIS TIME OF YEAR. MEET MY MOTHER’S BAKED APPLES. AND, IF YOU HAVE SOMEONE AT YOUR THANKSGIVING TABLE WHO IS GLUTEN- OR GRAIN-FREE, OR AVOIDING ADDED SUGAR, OR VEGAN, BUT YOU STILL WANT THEM TO BE ABLE TO… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon, Deep Feast, recipes Tagged With: apple recipes, apple varieties, Baked Apples, fall food, How to Make Baked Apples, what is a baking apple, what is a cooking apple

COOL IT: BEST-EVER CUCUMBER & GREEN GRAPE SOUP

COOL IT: BEST-EVER CUCUMBER & GREEN GRAPE SOUP

By Crescent Dragonwagon

WHAT? A WEEK OF 90 DEGREE DAYS BEFORE WE EVEN HIT SUMMER SOLSTICE? ARRRRGGGH! OKAY, THAT DOES IT: IT’S EARLY IN THE SEASON FOR ME DO MY ANNUAL POST OF MY BLISSFULLY CHILL CUCUMBER-GREEN GRAPE SOUP RECIPE, BUT, HAVING JUST MADE THE FIRST GALLON OF WHAT WILL BE MANY GALLONS BETWEEN NOW AND FALL… I MUST. IT’S EASY TO MAKE,… Read More

Filed Under: Deep Feast, recipes Tagged With: Arkansas, chilled soups, cucumber, cukes, Fayetteville, gardening, soup

PERFECT HEIGHT-OF-SUMMER VEGETABLE RECIPES THE-TIME-IS-JUST-RIGHT-FOR: PANDEMIC PANTRY PLEASURES

PERFECT HEIGHT-OF-SUMMER VEGETABLE RECIPES THE-TIME-IS-JUST-RIGHT-FOR: PANDEMIC PANTRY PLEASURES

By Crescent Dragonwagon

— a pandemic pantry post — 8 WAYS TO DELIGHT IN SUMMER & FALL’S FRUITS AND VEGETABLES; YES, EVEN (ESPECIALLY) NOW I have been thinking a lot this year about something Annie Dillard wrote: “How we live our days is how we live our lives.” For reasons you know as well as I do, these, the days of 2020, have… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon, #pandemicpantry, Deep Feast, recipes, self-understanding, personal growth Tagged With: best way to cook okra, cooking, culinary writing, eating locally, fallfood, gardening, green tomato mincemeat, okra, summerfood, upside-down cake, vegetarian, winter squash

OVEN-BAKED POLENTA (RECIPE ONLY)

OVEN-BAKED POLENTA (RECIPE ONLY)

By Crescent Dragonwagon

To learn the whole story on this revolutionary method of cooking Oven-baked Polenta, go here. If you just want the recipe, you’re in the right place. Ingredients: spray oil, or butter, vegan butter, or olive oil, for greasing pan (plus optional addition later) 4 to 5 1/2 cups water (less water gives you a thicker finished polenta, more a thinner;… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon, #pandemicpantry, recipes Tagged With: cupboard, grits, oven-baked polenta, pantry, polenta

TANZANIAN BLACK-EYED PEA & COCONUT SOUP WITH BANANAS

TANZANIAN BLACK-EYED PEA & COCONUT SOUP WITH BANANAS

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Spicy-hot, featuring dimensional multiple layers of flavor, this creamy coconut milk-enriched potage will almost certainly join your family’s list of regularly repeated favorites (unless your family numbers a majority of straight salt-and-pepper only, meat-and-potatoes eater with no tolerance for envelope-pushing). Even with reduced-fat coconut milk, its richness comes through clearly, mitigating and blending the spices and peppers. I’ll admit that… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon, #pandemicpantry, recipes Tagged With: black-eyed peas, black-eyes, curry, main-dish soups, Tanzanian, vegan. vegetarian

SPICY-SMOKY EAST-WEST BLACK-EYED PEAS

SPICY-SMOKY EAST-WEST BLACK-EYED PEAS

By Crescent Dragonwagon

Because I am vegetarian, these black-eyes, untraditionally, don’t have ham or bacon in them. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t recall fondly the smoky savor and fatty richness that these ingredients add to such beans; so, I just set out to find a non-animal way to get there. What makes these smoky? A mixture of chipotle peppers and toasted… Read More

Filed Under: #DinnerwithDragonwagon, #pandemicpantry, recipes Tagged With: beans, black-eyed peas, black-eyes

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Read Aloud with Crescent and Mark

NOT A LITTLE MONKEY, by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrted by Michelle Chessaree

"So, the little girl climbed into the big waste-basket and waited." ' Oh no,' said her mother, ' we don't want to throw you away.'"There are many ways to express love and the need for attention. Here, a busy mother and her just-a-bit naughty little girl tease each other affectionately — the little girl making her point without even uttering a word.That's today's story time — read aloud by the author's daughter at Crescent Dragonwagon's Writing, Cooking, & Workshops, with Mark Graff's "text support" and discussion."Just right for two-to-fours, the humor of this true-to-life story of a mischievous little girl who blocks her mother's attempts to clean house will elicit giggles from the lollipop set." Kirkus Reviews

Posted by Crescent Dragonwagon's Writing, Cooking, & Workshops on Thursday, June 4, 2020

Read Aloud with Crescent

Read Aloud with Crescent

The Washington Post on Crescent’s Lentil Soup Recipe

The Washington Post on Crescent’s Lentil Soup Recipe

Greek Lentil Soup with Spinach and Lemon, photograph by Tom McCorkle, Washington Post

Bean By Bean Cookbooks

#DeepFeast Recipes

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Until Just Moistened

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