Last week I bought the new, revised edition of How to Cook Everything. I had actually forgotten there was a revision until I ordered it – I just think that once your paperback copy of a book has fallen into three or more pieces, it’s time to invest in the hardcover. I was reading the…
Overnight Brown-Sugar French Toast
A couple of years ago, my friend Dianne hosted a brunch. I think it was on New Year’s Day. In any case, there was a lot of delicious food there, but what everyone kept coming back to was a big pan of gooey, decadent brown-sugar-topped French toast. Happily, our hostess declared it easy-peasy and photocopied…
Nigella’s Coconut and Cherry Banana Muffins
Perhaps my most exciting holiday present this year was The Flavor Bible, a cookbook with no recipes. It’s more of a reference guide. The book is an alphabetical list of various ingredients (bananas, cardamom) and flavor profiles or cooking styles (Spanish cuisine, grilled dishes). Under each ingredient or style is a list of flavors that…
Basil Ice Cream with Tomato Jam
I must thank my nephew Joseph and his new bride Melanie for this recipe; if their lovely wedding luncheon had not included a beautiful dessert of basil whipped cream over blackberries, I would never have thought of it. I’m not entirely sure which component I decided to make first, but once I thought of the…
Tomato Jam
This recipe, from reliable Mark Bittman, is a treasure. Easy to make and simply delicious, it’s a great recipe to have in your arsenal in the summer, when tomatoes are piling up and you need something new and exciting to do with them. The batch I just made used up a windfall of free tomatoes…
Very Strawberry Frozen Yogurt
The strawberries just called to me. They seduced me with their incredible fragrance and forced me to bring them home. And then what was I to do? A little surfing found me this recipe, in the archives of David Lebovitz’s blog. I had once made an almond cake from his recipe, and it was divine,…
Sichuan Hot-and-Numbing (Ma La) Cucumber Salad
Following my great success with Fuschia Dunlop’s second cookbook, Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook: Recipes from Hunan Province, I decided to go back to her first book, Land of Plenty, on Sichuan food. I love cucumber salads and am always on the lookout for a new one. (The old salt-sugar-chile-vinegar one pales after a few hundred variations.)…
Potato and Sunchoke Gratin with Leeks
This light, elegant gratin is perfect for spring. The oven-baked gratin form acknowledges still-chilly spring evenings; the delicate flavor of leeks and sunchokes evokes visions of the first green shoots of spring. Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, are the tubers of a flower that looks like a small sunflower. They are dug in the…
Butter-Braised Radishes
Early spring can be a frustrating time in the kitchen. There’s a warm breeze and the world seems to be exploding with new life, but the produce aisle is full of the same old root and cruciferous vegetables you’ve been eating all winter. What’s a cook to do? Last week, I turned to radishes. A…
Quick Eats: Creamy Banana Oatmeal
Before I started this blog, I did not believe I was obsessed with breakfast. Now I’m starting to wonder. Maybe I should see a therapist. I’ve tended to be on the fence about oatmeal. I liked it okay, but only with an abundance of cream and brown sugar, which made me feel that I was…