Month: February 2021

A vegan tortilla soup recipe with mushrooms, black beans and your favorite toppings

By Amanda M. Rye 1 year ago

The broth, meanwhile, is the backbone, and it should be deeply flavored and a little smoky.

Garza’s one-pot recipe, from his new book “The 30-Day Vegan Meal Plan for Beginners,” gets that flavor from a little adobo sauce from canned chipotles that you blend into the base of tomatoes and aromatic vegetables. You brown mushrooms in the same pot with spices, then simmer them in the broth before stirring in some corn, cilantro and lime juice shortly before serving. The recipe is such a breeze to put together, it surprised me that it resulted in such complex flavors. I made one addition — a can’s worth of black beans for protein.

Given that I’ve been trying to cook more low-sodium dishes for my husband lately, I also followed one of Garza’s suggested alternatives, to pan-fry corn tortillas instead of using store-bought chips. It adds only 10 minutes to

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26 Black History Month Recipes

By Amanda M. Rye 1 year ago

Welcome to Selfmade Finance School, our new money series with Block Advisors to help small business owners with their tax, bookkeeping, and payroll needs year-round. This week, we answer one of the most common tax season Q’s of all… do you really need an accountant?

There are certain things that I do not do for myself. I don’t color my own hair. I don’t inject my own Botox. I don’t do my own taxes. I should probably just end things right here and go unload the dishwasher but I am not known for my brevity. So here are more reasons why you should consider hiring someone to help you with your taxes this year:

2020 Was Really Weird

If you are a business owner, you know how insane 2020 was. With the pandemic came the CARES Act and the lending programs — PPP, EIDL … all the letters. And

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Cheesecake Oreo Cubes Recipe and Photos

By Amanda M. Rye 1 year ago

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As someone who firmly believes that the creme — not the cookie — is the best part of the Oreo, I was so excited to try this recipe for Oreo cheesecake bars, and I am very happy to share that it did not disappoint! These bars taste exactly like I imagine a Triple Stuf Oreo Cheesecakester would’ve tasted. (In case you don’t remember Oreo Cakesters, they were the soft Oreos discontinued in 2012 and also the snack of my childhood.) They’re the perfect thing to make when you’re dreaming about those Philadelphia Cheesecake With Oreo Cubes that people were talking about last year that are currently only available in South Korea. While I’m bummed I can’t get my hands on them, everything is always better when it’s homemade, right?

This recipe requires 24 Oreos, or exactly half of a family-size package. That might seem like a lot at first,

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Ferrara: The Italian town with Renaissance food on the menu

By Amanda M. Rye 1 year ago
(CNN) — The signs of the Renaissance are everywhere in Italy.

Grand piazzas and palazzos. Metal-spiked doors. Looming archways. And, of course, all that ever-present art in the churches and galleries.

But in one city, you also get a taste of the Renaissance every time you enter a restaurant.

Ferrara, in the northern region of Emilia Romagna, was once home to the Estense court, or House of Este, which ruled the city from the 13th to the 18th centuries.

The court, on the bank of the River Po, was one of the most formidable cultural powers during the Renaissance. Writers including Boiardo, Ariosto and Torquato Tasso were employed by the court, and artists such as Bellini, Mantegna and Piero della Francesco worked for the Este family in their domineering, moat-surrounded castle in the center of town.

Their works have survived the centuries — but so have those of Cristoforo

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