Every few days, it dawns on me that I haven’t exactly been eating my greens. I don’t have any particular aversion to vegetables – especially the orange ones (see my pumpkin and sweet potato posts!). But for whatever reason, green vegetables often get overlooked. Whenever I realize my oversight, …
One of my favorite things about cooking is getting to experiment. In the kitchen, there are so many different mechanisms with which to experiment and try something new. You can play with the type of ingredients and their amount. You can alter the cooking time and the cooking temperature. Or you can change the medium in which you cook – be it a grill, an oven, or a stove top.
Today I got to test something new.
One of my favorite side dishes…
Making the perfect cookie is not a two-hour affair. It’s not even a twelve- or twenty-four hour event. According to a collection of New York City’s top bakers, the best chocolate chip cookie doesn’t emerge until thirty-six hours after its ingredients have been carefully assembled. The long hydration period allows the slow-moving eggs to work themselves into the dough for the perfect flavor. These top chefs also recommended using a chocolate chip with a high cocoa percent (at least 60%), a healthy dose of sea salt (at least a teaspoon), and a good chunk of dough (to get a six-inch cookie).
On top of these suggestions, I like …
Popovers are a fickle lot. Sometimes they don’t pop. Sometimes they explode. And sometimes, they simply refuse to come out of their cups. According to one article, chefs at Neiman Marcus spent five weeks perfecting their popover recipe, experimenting with nearly a dozen variations before arriving at their now-famous recipe. Popovers, they felt, were worth perfecting.
I couldn’t agree more. Growing up, …
Bruschetta (broo-SKET-uh), as you might suspect, is an Italian dish. It does not refer to the topping, however, but to the grilled bread. The word itself owes its origins to the 13th Century word “brusare,” which referred to the act of passing a flame over the keel of a boat to aid in waterproofing. A few centuries later, the word evolved to the Latin word “bruscare,” and came to mean to toast.
All of which is to say that bruschetta …
When I first started cooking, the first effort was just that – a rough, initial effort to make something edible. If things went awry, it was helpful to have ingredients in reserve. So I got in the habit of stockpiling my cooking ammunition. If a recipe called for a cup of something combustible, I tried to have an extra cup (or two) on hand.
But as my learning curve has progressed,…
Sunday pancakes are a bit of a family tradition. I can remember Dad yelling “PANCAKES” and all of us rubbing the sleep out of our eyes, and running down the stairs to plates full of warm, stacked pancakes. The first one down could usually claim the Sunday comics, and first dibs on the syrup. Brothers being brothers, we also competed to see who could out-eat the others. Fortunately, I think Dad usually ran out of batter.
Last week, a co-worker brought in a pumpkin pie – a real pumpkin pie, she noted. Not one of those …
Making your own pumpkin puree is fun and relatively simple. Two pumpkins will give you enough puree to last you through the winter, and is infinitely better than anything out of an orange can. To make the puree, be sure and choose a pie pumpkin; a carving pumpkin will not work! Pie pumpkins – unlike their carving cousins – are smaller …
Like any good American, I often buy things I don’t necessarily need. And I’m particularly susceptible to this urge when I’m around kitchen gadgets. Exhibit 1 would be my recently purchased 10- to 12-cup Bundt pan. Fortunately, the Food Network came to my rescue.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved sweet potatoes. In grade school, our class was putting together a cook book, and we were all asked to bring in our favorite recipe. All the kids brought in recipes for typical kid fare: grilled cheese, ice cream sundaes, macaroni and cheese – normal kid stuff. My recipe involved a root vegetable: sweet potato pie.
After typing ‘Bundt Pan”…
As near-eastern dishes go, baba ghanoush is the quiet sibling to the more popular hummus. Both recipes revolve around a similar mix of ingredients, and both dishes are all-but ubiquitous in your pita-bread establishments. And yet, for whatever reason, hummus always seems to get top-billing. It practically co-starred with Adam Sandler in You Don’t Mess with the Zohan.