Charles

Whole-Wheat Homemade Pizza

March 9, 2013 by Charles 1 Comment

Pizza is the ultimate convenience food. There is the restaurant pizza, ready in minutes, delivered to your table, warm and sliced. There is the delivery pizza, delivered to your doorstep with the push of a few buttons. In the freezer section, there are countless versions of the frozen variety, ready to be brought home and baked or microwaved in a manner of minutes. There are even pre-made pizza doughs and pizza crusts, leaving the harried home chef with some room for creativity and imagination.

To be sure, we’ve tried each and every one …

Almond-Raisin and Chocolate-Nutella Rugelach

February 5, 2013 by Charles 3 Comments

Rugelach was always one of those desserts that I wanted to try to make. For whatever reason, there seemed to be some mystery to it, some complexity locked within its spiral shape. At the bakery or deli, I always peered through the glass cases with equal parts wonder and admiration. How did they get that perfect spiral shape? How did they get the filling so evenly distributed?

In bakeries with rugelach, I always felt tempted to try one. What was an ordinary, cookie or brownie, when there was rugelach. What was a simple circle or square when there was a dough-filled spiral? Indeed, each bakery…

Pineapple-Coconut-Banana Upside-Down Cake

December 23, 2012 by Charles 1 Comment

I was a little skeptical about this recipe when I first saw it. Flaked coconut is often a miss for me. The same is true of canned pineapple. But the convenience of each is undeniable, particularly in the dead of winter, when the idea of finding a beautiful, ripe Pineapple at the local Giant seems utterly fantastic. But on the strength of the Cooking Light name, I decided to give this recipe a fair chance.

In the course of cooking and posting recipes on my blog,…

Beef Tacos

December 16, 2012 by Charles Leave a Comment

Caitlin and I have been watching Breaking Bad recently, a show whose plot-lines and premise may be as addicting as the “blue stuff” that plays such a critical role in the show. Over the last few weeks, we’ve watched episode after episode, pinned to the couch or nestled in bed, watching Jesse and Walter navigate a world of dirty money, secret drops, federal agents, and violent cartels. As one episode ends, we have increasingly found ourselves reaching for the next, swapping Netflix disks with such speed that we often find it necessary to download an episode or two from iTunes, unable to wait for the return mailer.

While the show has certainly taken over some of our evenings,…

Pumpkin Roulade with Ginger Buttercream

October 13, 2012 by Charles 3 Comments

The idea of making a roulade seemed, at first glance, somewhat intimidating. There was the rolling, then unrolling, and finally, the re-rolling. The instructions seemed intricate and the cake seemed delicate. Visions of a cake suddenly collapsing and crumbling under its own weight flashed before me, wiping away my mixing and baking efforts in a moment.

But then I stopped, and remembered that this was not the first time that I faced what seemed to be an insurmountable cooking hurdle. There had, after all, been many intimidating cooking projects before this one. I had made flan, caramelizing sugar. I had made oat bread, coaxing the yeast. I had made spanakopita, …