I do not care for cereal. Cereal is boring. It’s what you eat on grumpy, hurried mornings when you can’t think of or don’t have time for anything else. It’s pale brown and lumpy, and poured out of a pasteboard box. If you don’t eat it fast enough, it gets soggy in its cold milk…
Homemade Ricotta Cheese
I made cheese! I always thought this was a complex process – and still have no doubt that this is true for hard cheeses – but this homemade ricotta was a snap. Better yet, it was delicious! I found it in the “Appetizers” chapter of Best American Recipes 2005 – 2006. They cookbook suggested mixing…
Perfect Buttermilk Pancakes
In Berkeley, California, there is a diner called Bette’s. Bette’s Oceanview Diner, in fact, though it is nowhere near the ocean. Perhaps there is a story there, though it’s not on the “All About Bette’s” page of their website. In any case, Bette’s is beloved, and not just by me. It’s a classic place –…
Elsie’s Gingerbread
This is the first gingerbread I ever made, and still the best I’ve had. It’s rich and spicy and soft and moist, with the unusual touch of a bit of streusel on top (which takes no extra effort, as it’s just a bit of the dry ingredients before the wet are added). Gingerbread is one…
Haluski (Polish Egg Noodles with Cabbage)
So, what do you do when the cupboard is bare? When, for instance, your fresh vegetable drawer is down to one lonely head of cabbage and an onion? I look for a pasta dish. I always have pounds and pounds of pasta in the house, and it is amazing the meals you can turn out…
Kerala-Style Egg Curry
I love Indian food, and it leaped straight to mind when I decided to focus on vegetarian cooking. One of my favorite quick meals is a simple Indian chicken curry with tomatoes and yogurt, so it’s probably unsurprising that this recipe jumped out at me from the pages of Celia Brooks Brown’s “Party Food for…
Forging ahead with flatbread
I love flatbread. Naan, pita (soft fresh ones, not those kangaroo breads at the grocery store), parathas, roti… you name it. A few weeks ago I had dinner with friends at a new restaurant in town, Lucia. The entrees were very nice, but the appetizers eclipsed them. And the thing that really stuck in my…
The bento lifestyle
A year or so ago, after a long time working at home, I got a job that required monthly attendance at lunchtime staff meetings. Inevitably I would fail to plan ahead, and wind up rushing into McDonald’s to grab lunch for the meeting. I wasn’t fond of this situation. And I had always wanted a…
Winter Citrus Salad
It’s mid-winter, and let’s face it, even the Co-op and the CSA can’t provide much excitement in the produce department. The season provides plenty of two things: greens and citrus. I used some greens in yesterday’s Ghanaian Peanut Stew, but I still had a bunch of oranges and grapefruit in the bottom of my CSA…
Ghanaian Peanut Stew
I love African peanut stew. Its rich, complex flavors belie its simplicity of preparation. For years I’ve made a version with whole chicken thighs, from Mark Bittman’s The Best Recipes in the World. However, as I continue with my vegetarian weeks, that obviously wouldn’t do. (Interestingly, as soon as I decided to go all-veg for…