Apps and Sides

Blueberry Bran Muffins

July 29, 2015 by Charles 2 Comments

How I have been remiss! It used to be that an Ina recipe landed on my blog almost every other month. There was her spanakopita and her cheese straws. There was her panko-crusted salmon with french lentils and her maple-roasted winter squash. Every dish, it seemed, was a winner.

And with six of her cookbooks sitting on my shelf, each neatly arranged according to the spine’s color, there was no shortage of recipes at my disposal. There were even two recent books — Make it Ahead and Foolproof: Recipes You Can Trust — that, horror of horrors, I had not yet acquired.

I was desperately falling behind on my Ina testing.

Fortunately, the St. Louis County Public Library …

Stuffed Zucchini Boats

July 10, 2015 by Charles Leave a Comment

I am not a huge meat-eater, and red meat is particularly rare. Though I still do enjoy the occasional burger and roasted chicken. Caitlin is almost exclusively vegetarian. So the hunt is often on for a new twist on vegetarian cooking.

I came across this recipe while flipping through our copy of the Vegetarian Times (that, by the way, is not a sentence we’re likely to hear around town). The potato chips offer a fun and crunchy twist on the standard stuff vegetable recipe.

With our CSA in full swing, these zucchini boats …

Homemade Pizza with 00 Flour

July 5, 2015 by Charles 1 Comment

I had never heard of 00 flour when I first bought it. My regular grocery store had never heard of it. Even Whole Foods seemed unfamiliar with it.

Finally, after searching The Hill, Saint Louis’s Italian neighborhood, I found a grocer who carried this Italian flour. Having tried it, I’m glad I did; it makes an extraordinary pizza crust.

As Saveur notes, 00 flour is ideal for pizza crust because it is finely ground and because it has a lower gluten content than other flours. In Italy, flour is graded from 1 to 0 to 00, with 1 describing a rough grind and 00 describing the finest grind.

Gluten is the natural protein that remains when starch is removed from wheat grains. It creates the elasticity you feel when biting…

Parker House Rolls

June 27, 2015 by Charles 4 Comments

I don’t love the magazine Food & Wine. I signed up for a subscription by cashing in some airline miles due to expire. At the time, I was willing to try six months of content at no cost.

The food in the magazine looks great. It’s exquisitely staged and photographed on glossy magazine paper. The colors pop while the copy rolls along. But there’s just something about the magazine that I don’t love. Between the advertisements for exotic cruises and high-priced jewelry, the magazine gives the impression that none of its subscribers actually cook the recipes – that the subscribers have people for that kind of stuff. Food & Wine’s recipes look great to try – but they also look like, at least most of the time, that the recipes are tried only after they are cooked by the wait staff.

In my mind, the average Food & Wine subscriber is not the apron-wearing, oil-splashed, cooking type, …

Magically Moist Almond Cake

May 15, 2015 by Charles Leave a Comment

It’s funny. Of all the cookbooks, blogs, and cooking shows, sometimes the best recipe is on the box, staring right at you.

In my last post, I vowed to use my cookbooks more often. Well, here I am, extolling the recipe on the Bob’s Red Mill package. In fairness, though, as recipe-testing goes, a company’s own recipe must undergo a fairly thorough testing procedure.

A cookbook may have dozens, if not hundreds, of recipes. Product packaging will have one or two recipes in which to tout …

Chicken Enchiladas with Red Chili Sauce

April 27, 2015 by Charles Leave a Comment

I have a resolution of sorts. We have all of these cookbooks around the house. Cookbooks on grilling and baking. Italian, Greek, and French cookbooks. New Orleans and Sante Fe cookbooks. And nearly every cookbook written by Ina Garten. And yet, more often than not, when I look for a recipe, my first instinct is to look online.

My resolution is to break that habit, even if ever so slightly. It seems only logical. Recipes online are often unreliable and hard to reproduce. Even my own recipes …

Cranberry-Chocolate Biscotti

March 1, 2015 by Charles 1 Comment

One of the problems of having a food blog is – quite obviously – making sure that you have food to photograph. This problem is particularly acute when making dinner or when otherwise cooking at night. Photography at night is a no-win situation. There is no natural light, leaving only the harsh glow of the incandescents. When it comes to dinner, there is the option of photographing on long exposures while the meal grows cold, or simply hoping for presentable leftovers. When it comes to other recipes, the challenge is saving enough for a future daytime photograph.

And that’s the rub here. I made these chocolate-cranberry biscotti …

Sesame Tofu Stir-Fry with Brown Rice and Carrot-Wasabi Soup

January 31, 2015 by Charles 2 Comments

It’s funny. Some of the easiest things to make can sometimes be the hardest. Case in point: rice. People have been cooking rice for thousands of years. It is a staple crop and a foundation for meals for hundreds of millions of people around the world. And damned if I can only make it well once out of every two tries.

I mean, I could always get a rice cooker, that could gauge the temperature and weight of the rice, and take all the chance out of my hands. But I already have so many kitchen appliances. And I only make rice so often.

Instead, I just stick to my saucepan…

New Orleans Pralines

January 15, 2015 by Charles 2 Comments

I will admit that my recipe headline is a bit redundant. When I think of Pralines I only think of New Orleans. I can imagine no other city evoked by these confections. It may, of course, be my own bias, having grown up in New Orleans, and having passed Aunt Sally’s Praline Shop in the French Quarter countless times.

A few weeks ago, Caitlin and some of her fellow bridesmaids hosted a bridal shower. The bride-to-be was one of Caitlin’s childhood friends and the groom-to-be was another New Orleans boy (we make such good husbands). With that in mind, the food and drinks for the evening were to have a Maryland (for her) and New Orleans (for him) theme.

Among other items, I volunteered to make pralines for our guests. At first, we had thought about ordering the pralines, but that seemed expensive, not to mention the threat of breakage. So we transitioned to the plan that had me making several dozen pralines.

And several dozen I made. My first batch was a complete and total failure. I…

Soba Noodles with Shiitake Mushrooms and Tofu

November 10, 2014 by Charles Leave a Comment

Until recently, I had never heard of Soba noodles. Not once. When I first heard them mentioned, I ran into the grocery store and emerged with some form of lo mein noodles. The second time, replete with the knowledge that they were closer to whole wheat spaghetti, than chinese noodles, I came back with, well, whole wheat spaghetti, unable to locate the soba noodles.

Finally, I decided to no longer leave it up to chance. I walked into the grocery store – our neighborhood Schnucks no less — and asked whether they carried Soba noodles. Within a few seconds, a store employee had brought me exactly what I wanted – a clear package with Japanese characters adorning the label. This was it. I had found the elusive noodle.

In this case, Schnucks carried these Yamaimo Soba Noodles in their Asian aisle. I had never seen …