recipes
Maria Robledo
Valentine’s Day is one week away so we thought we’d start thinking about it now, rather than our usual last minute scramble. Chocolate is, of course, the classic valentine, so we’ve rounded up our very best chocolate desserts and gifts, all homemade, all easy to make. Here are our recommendations, with annotations:
Essential Chocolate Cake for Improvising…an elegant cake that is as easy to make as a pan of brownies
Chocolate Malted Pudding… intensely chocolate pudding with an undercurrent of malt
Homemade ‘Peanut Butter Cups’…crunchy peanut butter sandwiched between bought chocolate disks
Dark Chocolate Cakelets with Aromatic Pepper and…cupcake as grownup cakelet, subtly spiked with bacon
Homemade Chocolates for Improvising… a foolproof method for making sheets of fine chocolate spiked with unusual flavors and textures, like curry powder and sea salt; Marcona almonds and pimenton de la Vera; dried cherries and lavender…
Alt-Malted Milks Balls well, really, slabs of fine chocolate laced with malted milk
02.07.11 |
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in celebrations, family + friends, food, gifts, recipes |
Here’s a first look at the new cover of The Improvisational Cook, Sally’s award-winning cookbook; it will be released in paperback on February 8th. It’s shows you the way ‘in’ to cooking improvisationally, more freely and with what’s on hand. Find out more about the book and look inside here, sample an improvised riff on Roasted Pears on Harper Collins’ blog here, or pre-order on Amazon.
01.11.11 |
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in food, gifts, inspiration books + zines, learn, recipes, resources |
Jane Mount
We were wandering around 20×200, gallerist Jen Bekman‘s site of limited edition work for sale and stumbled on this painting by artist Jane Mount, who paints people’s ideal bookshelves. Right in the center of it is Sally’s striped A New Way to Cook, among very good company. Wrote Mount:
This set is actually a “Super-Ideal” bookshelf, in a sense. It contains all the cookbooks most often included in people’s sets of favorites, plus a few of my personal favorites I couldn’t leave out.
It made us wonder: What would be on your ideal cookbook shelf? (And then there’s the question of Why? What does a good cookbook do?)
From Sally: The first book I’d put on my shelf is the cookbook that has influenced me the most: Simple French Food
by Richard Olney. Olney was a spectacularly good writer, and could describe the inner workings and logic of a dish – and it’s possibilities for improvisation – better than anyone I’ve ever read. He believed that a cook’s creativity could be unleashed by their understanding of how things worked; he was meticulous in conveying ‘the rules-’ the intricate framework of limitations’ – essential to cooking creatively and freely. In his mind cooks, like artists, need constraints to push against. If I could have one cookbook on the proverbial desert island, it would be Simple French Food; the writing is as nourishing as food.
01.03.11 |
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in art, food, gifts, kitchen, recipes, share |
Maria Robledo
About a year ago we wrote a post about all the things you could eat on, or with, potato chips. One, of course, is onion dip. In our version, it’s made with REAL onions, caramelized until brown (easy), cooled, and stirred into sour cream. It’s from Sally’s award-winning cookbook The Improvisational Cook
, which will be relaunched in paperback on February 8th. We’re reprising the recipe here because it’s the perfect New Year’s Eve-and-after accompaniment to champagne and celebration; serve with excellent potato chips (we recommend rosemary-and-olive oil). read more…
12.29.10 |
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in celebrations, cheap + great, family + friends, food, recipes, resources books + zines |
Maria Robledo
If you are in a last minute quandary about unusual and much appreciated gifts,visit public radio’s The Splendid Table where Sally talks with Lynne Rosetto Kasper about Homemade Holiday Food Gifts. All are easy-to-make and pack a big bang-for-the buck. Lemon-Scented Olive Oil with much of the flavor and a fraction of the price of classic Limonato – olive oil pressed with lemons – from Italy. Tuscan Herb Salt can be endlessly improvised upon, and with; it’s an instant seasoning for meats, poultry, vegetables, eggs, even popcorn and Bloody Marys. (And you can use it to season a crown roast of pork or even the Christmas goose.) Homemade Peanut Butter “Cups” are sublime rethinking of the known (and a perfect dessert).
Check out the Splendid Table’s website for recipes. You can listen here.
And here’s a trove a other Homemade Food Gift strategies from past posts:
homemade food gift: alt-malted milk balls
food gifts: homemade chocolates for improvising (recipe)
our homemade food gifts on ‘the splendid table’ (’09)
d-i-y food gift: prunes in armagnac (recipe)
12.22.10 |
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in cheap + great, family + friends, food, gifts, recipes, strategies |
Ellen Silverman
Although we’ve mostly exempted ourselves from the gift buying frenzy – we give money to a charity in our friends’ names and send out custom-designed e-cards to the giftees – we DO like to give something extra that will afford more tangible – even hedonistic – pleasures, that they can’t get anywhere else. That means, something homemade, and the easiest, most bang-for-the-buck d-i-y gifts we know of are food gifts. We have developed quite a repertoire over the years, from homemade chocolates to jars of Apricots in Cardamom-Scented Syrup. (December 17 on public radio’s The Splendid Table, we’ll introduce three new ones)
These boozy prunes are among our favorites. A classic of southwest France, land of confit, pâté, and foie gras, they are steeped in a syrup spiked with Armagnac, the region’s delicious brandy. Since the prunes are pitted, they release some of their sweet juices to make a thick syrup, making little sugar necessary. The prunes are so intensely flavored they can be eaten almost as a candy, to finish off a meal. The Armagnac in the syrup tends to sneak up on people, and acts as instant stress reliever.
The prunes are sublime as is or with a little creme fraiche…served over vanilla and coffee ice cream…and as an ingredient in pear, apple, or quince tarts. Since they last indefinitely, you can keep them on hand for impromtu desserts. We make them in big batches, read more…
12.08.10 |
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in family + friends, food, gifts, how-to, recipes, share, strategies |
Beatriz da Costa
This unusual cranberry conserve is immensely satisfying, tart and sweet, with a chunky texture from an abundance of nuts and raisins. It’s adapted from a recipe by Mrs. Fannie Wought of Cullom, Illinois that was published many years ago in the wonderful, out-of-print-but-findable Mennonite Community Cookbook
by Mary Emma Showalter. The conserve is delicious with roast turkey, chicken and pork, even cheddar cheese. I like it best on its own, eaten with a spoon as a midnight snack. Around the holidays, I make big batches of this conserve and pack it into jars to give as gifts. (It will keep for up to a month in a covered container in the refrigerator.)
This conserve will seem even more of a miracle when you read – or listen to – this NPR segment on the health protective properties of cranberries. read more…
11.22.10 |
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There are many wonderful things in the latest issue of Canal House Cooking. The self-published cookbook by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton are like a grown-up’s kids-book, with photos, illustrations, writing and recipes that will take you away from wherever you are, and into a very magic (and attainable) world. There are also treasures you won’t find anywhere else, like Gabrielle Hamilton’s essay about Christmas Eve (she’s Melissa’s sister and chef of Prune in NYC), and Melissa’s drawing (in pastel?) of a ham. Frank Stitt‘s primer on Grower Champagnes – artisanal champagnes made by small producers whose name is on the label – is a revelation. But our favorite bit of all was this excerpt from Melissa’s and Christopher’s forward “An Open Door Policy”… read more…
11.09.10 |
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Maria Robledo
“I keep drinking malted milk, trying to drive my blues away…”
–Robert Johnson, Delta Blues Guitar Legend,1937
Although malted milk powder has been a staple in my pantry for many years, I didn’t actually know what it was until recently. I was making a batch of chocolate malted pudding and suddenly wondered what this homely, delicious stuff was that I had taken for granted for so long. I stopped midway and Googled it.
While I listened to Robert Johnson sing “Malted Milk” on YouTube (click here to listen while you read), I learned that malt powder was developed by William and James Horlick in Racine Wisconsin in 1873. It’s made from dried milk, wheat flour and malted barley – barley seeds that are that are soaked, sprouted, dried and ground, a process that converts their starch into uniquely flavored “malty” sugars. Originally promoted as a drink for invalids and children, malt powder began to appeal to other tastes and needs. Admiral Richard E. Byrd took it on an Antarctic expedition and eventually, it became a popular drink at soda fountains. After the Horlick brothers had the brilliant idea of combining malt powder with chocolate, it became an iconic American flavor, in chocolate-malted shakes and malted-milk balls. (Check out our Alt-Malted Milk Ball recipe.)
Years ago, when I started monkeying around with classic chocolate pudding, adding malted milk powder seemed like a perfect embellishment. read more…
10.28.10 |
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in family + friends, food, kids, recipes |
All through the summer, I make a weekly trip on my bike to the Union Square Green Market. I always stop at Keith Stewart’s stand to buy his amazing garlic, tomatoes, lettuces and herbs. Just about every week, there are new offerings, so that I can gauge the progression of the season well into fall, when cool weather vegetables like celery root and potatoes determine my cooking. Lately, I’ve been making Root Vegetable Crema a velvety pureed soup that can be made with an endlessly variable mix of root vegetables such as potatoes, parsnips, celery root and leeks. It makes a fine simple supper or satisfying first course for a dinner party. read more…
10.15.10 |
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Christopher Hirscheimer + Melissa Hamilton
A bumper crop of summer vegetables, fruits and herbs might well take us into early October this year, and there is no more inspiring guide for enjoying it than Canal House Cooking Volume N°4
. The indie cookbook series’ beautiful hardcover ‘Farm Markets & Gardens’ issue delves deeply into tomatoes, potatoes, herbs, the grill and cocktails, to name a few. The evocative writing, photographs and drawings are so charming, the book will work find for armchair cooks as well. The recipes tend to be unfussy, to-the-point, and delicious, like Tomatoes Take a Warm Oil Bath, which has the look of a children’s story about it. read more…
08.15.10 |
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Maria Robledo
Years ago, I learned a wonderfully simple method for making a rustic freeform fruit tarts modeled after French galettes, whose charm lies in their rustic imperfection. The recipe involves little more than rolling flaky pie dough into a rough free-form round, piling cut-and-sugared fruits into the middle, and folding the dough up around it. It is the quickest method I know of creating a delectable fresh fruit pastry – about 20 minutes once you make the dough – akin to a pie but without the bother. Made with lush summer fruits like apricots, peaches, nectarines, plums and berries, it is the perfect summer house dessert. read more…
08.12.10 |
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Maria Robledo
We saw some fresh figs in the market the other day and were reminded of the simplest of dishes: prosciutto – ham that’s been carefully dry-cured for 8 to 24 months – and lush, gently-perfumed fruit like figs, melons, peaches, apricots or plumcots in summer…comice pears, fresh or roasted, in fall. We love this classic combo for breakfast, midnight supper, lone-lazy-dog supper, light lunch, and of course, appetizer.
There is a secret to a marriage of only two or three ingredients like this: that they be at their best. The fruit should be truly ripe and fragrant. The prosciutto should be of fine quality and sliced to order – NOT pre-sliced who-knows-when? and sealed in plastic packages which seem to suffocate its flavors and cause its creamy texture to turn rubbery. This means planning ahead a bit in order to have an ingredient so delicious and complete it requires hardly any effort at to serve or eat. Once you understand how prosciutto works, you can make it work for you. Here’s what you need to know… read more…
07.27.10 |
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