Recipe for homemade buttered pecan ice cream, old-fashioned and delicious. Plus, to pair with the ice cream, a simple recipe for Meringue Cookies, sweet and studded with pecans. Plus, an introduction to native Missouri pecans, smaller and sweeter than pecans from other regions. It’s time for the Show-Me State to show off its culinary gold: fingertip-tiny, syrup-sweet, native Missouri pecans. Missouri is the northernmost reach of pecan country. Our shorter season and colder climate produce nuts that are smaller, sweeter and richer than the southern brethren. The trees grow alongside fields and rivers, mostly in farm country near Brunswick, 50 crow-miles northwest of Columbia, and Nevada, 90 miles south of Kansas City. Many trees are 200 years old. These days, farm entrepreneurs plant groves. “For the grandchildren,” they laugh, since trees don’t produce nuts for 15 or 20 years. Tree by tree, the nuts are painstakingly harvested in November. Missouri pecans are Show-Me s...

Fresh salmon marinated in sweet-salty maple-syrup and soy sauce, then dusted with pepper and baked. Simple enough for a weeknight, special enough for company. ~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~ COMPLIMENTS! "Our dinner was extra-special, thanks to you!" ~ Manisha "Wowwwwwwww. Talk about easy and really good." ~ Lesley BEST RECIPES! Maple-Glazed Salmon Made the List! Best Recipes of 2006 Every week, another story emerges about the miracles worked by salmon. If the claims are to be believed, it’s the cancer-curing, figure-fending, wrinkle-ravaging, memory-mothering, clock-stopping, energy-saving, chocolate-tasting (okay, not that last one) food of the decade. Whether the claims prove true hardly matters since salmon is so readily available, tastes so great and gets to the table so fast. My recipe box includes a dozen great ways to cook salmon but this maple syrup-glazed treatment trumps them all. It’s a reincarnation of the French-classic...

Tired of coleslaws more mayonnaise than salad? Instead, this is a slightly unusual, colorful slaw, full of crunchy vegetables, lightly dressed in an Asian-style peanut and ginger dressing. Holy Slaw! is perfect for a crowd, perfect for summer gatherings, perfect for outdoor events and a great favorite at church potlucks! Do I hear a hallelujah?! Real Food, Fresh and Healthy. Crowd Favorite. Not just vegan, Vegan Done Real . Naturally Gluten Free. ~ Skip Straight to the Recipe ~ Nothing Like a Party with Great Food. At a party last summer, I filled my plate, then headed outside. With congestion in the doorway, the Incomings and the Outgoings were making conversation. An Incoming appraised my plate, then offered, "That salad's GREAT." I looked up, wondering how in heaven this perfect stranger knew to compliment the salad I'd brought. Seeing my surprise, he asked, "Did you make it?" He hadn't known, he just liked the Holy Slaw! Nothing Lik...