When I’m in the supermarket checkout line, I often look longingly at the Cook’s Illustrated in the magazine racks. The magazine always looks so informative and helpful. The sleek black and white drawings, the hands-on, practical tips, and the absence of advertisements. But at $5.95, it always gives me that moment of pause.
So I was particularly excited Continue reading
Gingerbread pancakes are the perfect treat on a cold Winter weekend morning, when there’s nothing better than curling up on the couch, drinking your hot coffee, and folding over sections of the Sunday paper.
Caitlin and I grated some fresh ginger for these pancakes. For a little extra touch, you can add some Confectioners’ sugar and top with a piece of pickled ginger.
And if you do decide to brave the cold, well at least Continue reading
In the cold winter months, nothing beats a hearty molasses cookie. These cookies are comparable to ginger snaps, but are a little more crunchy, with a hint of molasses. I took the recipe Continue reading
I’ve been feeling a little blue lately.
After making the blue cheese souffle, I wanted to find another recipe for the pungent cheese. With a crisp Fall day on hand, and several pumpkins beckoning, I decided to throw some pumpkin slices on the grill. I marinated the pumpkin slices with ginger, olive oil, salt, and pepper, and then tossed them on the grill. A few grill marks later, I combined the hot gourds with blue cheese and the salad regulars, for a real American salad.
Indeed, pumpkins are one of the continent’s oldest crops, having been first cultivated thousands of years ago by Native American tribes. During the colonial era, the tribes routinely prepared Continue reading
Pumpkin isn’t just a scary face anymore.
Carving pumpkins seem to dominate the Fall season, their faces appearing on plastic buckets and billboards, their representatives occupying porch steps and window sills. When we think of pumpkin patches and Halloween, we have carving pumpkins in mind. And that’s sad. Pumpkins have become one of the few vegetables – if not the only one – that has been turned from a food into a decorative device to be discarded. Etching and cutting a design into a vegetable should not be intuitive.
Instead, we should look away from the beasts and monsters, and turn our sights towards sweeter pursuits. Pie pumpkins, unlike the carving pumpkins, are Continue reading
Nothing says Fall like the bright orange and reds that surround the season.
The glow of flickering candles set in hollowed-out pumpkins. Crimson leaves swept aside by an errant football. Classroom displays of construction-paper cornucopias and scissor-cut turkey feathers. A scarecrow, straw tumbling from his furrowed brow, as he patrols a lonely field. Thoughts of the harvest and a Thanksgiving meal.
What evokes Fall for you? Continue reading
Angelo Brocato’s Italian Ice Cream Parlor is an unassuming place, sandwiched between an Asian restaurant unsure about its own ethnicity, and a sports bar with saloon doors for an entrance. On one corner of the street sits a warehouse, with stacks of rolled carpet piled high in all directions; on the other corner rests Junque Antiques, the building itself looking several birthdays older than its wares.
Parking for Angelo Brocato’s is limited to an empty gravel-filled lot, or whatever spaces are available at 45-degree angles on the wide sidewalk on the river side of North Carrolton Avenue. The parlor itself occupies a one-story storefront in the mid-city neighborhood of New Orleans, a safe distance from the reverie of the French Quarter. Inside, the store displays the black-and-white portrait of its founder, and the wire-rimmed chairs, apothecary jars, and Continue reading
After I made the curried couscous, I thought it would make a great base on which to lay an entrée. Always eager to fire up the grill in our courtyard, I decided on tuna steaks. As luck would have it, the colors and flavors of each worked well together.
I cooked the tuna for four minutes on each side, with the grill cover up. The steak cooked through but without being tough or overdone. If your preference Continue reading
As I’ve mentioned previously, chicken salad is one of my lunch-time staples. Almost without fail, Sunday nights are devoted to preparing my tried-and-true chicken salad for the work week ahead. That said, everyone can use some amount of variety. So, in the spirit of variety, I decided to try a different type of chicken salad. My sense of lunch-time adventure obviously knows no bounds.
This recipe, like the other chicken salad, comes together very quickly, and is perfect served cold. But unlike the other recipe, this Asian version has a little more punch to it Continue reading
Tagged Asian, Asparagus, Chicken, Ginger, Ina Garten, Salad, Vegetables
Sometimes you just need a warm cookie. Yesterday was one of those days.
Looking through my Cooking Light cookbook, I found a recipe with all the ingredients already on hand. This recipe does require an hour or two of down-time, so be prepared Continue reading
