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 …
I enjoy cooking. I don’t find it to be either a chore or an obligation. And because I enjoy cooking, cookbooks and kitchen tools make successful gifts and presents. I’ve gotten carving knives, gourmet olive oils and vinegars, and blog- and New Orleans- themed cookbooks from friends and family. On my 30th birthday, Caitlin made me a doughnut cake, with the additional gift of the doughnut cake pans that helped to bake that cake.
More recently, I received a tagine, …
In many ways, a recipe is like a fingerprint. While the basic curves and contours are always the same, each has an identity of its own. From the portions and ingredients down to the size of the dice and the speed of the whisk, there is always some level of inherent uniqueness to any one recipe. This individuality may not always be apparent at first-glance – a finger-tip is, after all, a finger-tip – but look close enough and you will find it.
Jambalaya, a New Orleans classic, is particularly well-suited to this individuality. The basic structure of jambalaya centers around the “trinity” — celery, onion, and peppers. Rice is almost essential,…
Cooking presents two ways in which to experiment. You can experiment with ingredients, and you can experiment with cooking methods.
Chicken, as I’ve noted, can get boring very quickly. You can bake it, roast it, fry it, and grill it, but in the end, chicken still tends to taste like – well, chicken.
Then I noticed beer-can chicken, and the method looked so easy, but so much fun. And it was. Positioning …
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…