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…
Read Moremidnight snack: homemade peanut butter cups
After 10 pm, I am driven by a sweet-tooth so fierce, I never keep actual sweets like ice cream or cookies on hand; I’m afraid of what would happen. Then I find myself foraging through the cupboard, looking for something that will satisfy my craving. When I stumbled on the milk chocolate disks I usually use for…
Read MoreWild Green Butters of Spring: Ramp, Nettle, Spring Onion
One of the best ways to capture the flavors of ramps, nettles and spring onions is to blend them into good butter that you can eat on all manner of foods and freeze to have on hand. Here are two methods.
Read MoreDry-Brined Butterflied Turkey: A Short Roast to Perfection
The combined techniques of dry-brining and spatchcocking (butterflying) makes for a quick-cooking turkey with moist tender flesh, crisp skin, and a good deal less than the usual anxiety.
Read MoreTo Maximize Ramps, Make Ramp Butter
We’ll be heading to the wild ramp supper in West Virginia this weekend to celebrate one of the first wild foods of spring. On the way, we’re stopping to see a friend who may not be able to go to the supper. We’re packing a frozen block of ramp butter in our bag to leave with him in case. It’s one of the best ways we know to make the most of a small amount of ramps,
Read Morebest-ever holiday cookie recipe: ethereal brown sugar butter cookies with many variations
With the holidays soon upon us, I thought I’d post one of my very best cookie recipes. Or perhaps I should say cookie dough recipes: in addition to being able to fashion it into all sorts of cookie shapes and flavors, it also makes a great bake-ahead tart crust. Fleur de Sel Cookies, Earl Grey…
Read Moreour favorite homemade food gifts to d-i-y
We switched over to homemade food gifts for the holidays many, many years ago, and each year we find ourselves in the kitchen with the same tried-and-true recipes. But the repetition doesn’t come from a laziness or a lack of inspiration—over the years we’ve found that our friends and family look forward to these gifts,…
Read Morehow to make ramp or spring onion butter (recipe)
It is high season for ramps, the pungent wild leeks that grow throughout the Appalachian and Catskill mountains. Ellen Silverman sent us photos of the sublime ramp butter she was given by a friend, with an utterly simple recipe that will keep you in ramp heaven for days. She wrote this in her email: “Cyd…
Read Morecanal house cooking vol 6: crax & butter for dinner!!!
One of the reasons that we so look forward to the latest issue of Canal House Cooking, the ongoing cookbook series by Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton, is that the recipes resonate so deeply with the way we live. In other words, they completely cut the $#*!@, providing us with ideas and recipes that are of…
Read Morefood gifts: homemade chocolates for improvising (recipe)
Shards of chocolate embedded with surprising flavors and crunchy elements make terrific gifts for much less $ than pricey “artisan-made’ chocolates. Here’s an easy, step-by-step method – and a couple of tricks – for making unfussy homemade chocolates: a thin sheet of fine chocolate into which you’ve embedded surprising and delicious elements, like chopped Marcona…
Read Moreserious butter (if you can’t buy it, make it)
When in a weakened state from anxiety, an impending cold or working too hard, I take solace in butter. I stand at the kitchen counter and eat shavings of cold butter on toast, or even crackers, with a few grains of sea salt. Good butter is like a perfect cheese to me but better at…
Read MoreShiny Mud Dumplings, Pies + Other Favorite Spring Recipes
(Video link here.) Friday is the day we usually publish a recipe, hoping that it will prove a delicious weekend activity for our readers. While we recommend your checking out the menu and recipe links for the birthday dinner we’ll be cooking for a friend (at bottom), we can think of no better Spring activity than making…
Read MoreIrish Brown Bread and Scones, in Quick Time
I love the pleasures of warm, just-out-of-the-oven breads but I don’t have much time to spend baking. My have-my-cake-and-eat-it-too strategy is to make a savory quick bread leavened without yeast and needing no rising time; I mix the batter in minutes and bake it immediately. Then I eat it warm, slathered with good butter. One of the…
Read MoreNilla Wafer Phases of the Moon…Party?
In Yummy Moon, artist Yona Lee uses 450 partially eaten Nilla Wafers to depict the different phases of the Moon. She turned one of the most ordinary of commercial cookies into…something rather beautiful and cosmic.
Read MoreOde to Eggs (Let Me Count the Ways…)
Although a lot of people complain about the price of eggs, we think they are a bargain. One or two can still make a mighty meal for under two bucks. And there are ENDLESS ways to cook treat them. To spark egg possibility-thinking, we reprise our edit of Renee Schettler Rossi’s “All Hail the Mighty Egg” that appeared in in Leite’s Culinaria some years ago: inspired ideas fueled by memory, passion and hunger.
Read MoreSandro’s Lemon Pasta Is Fast and Comforting
When I am feeling low, I often make NYC chef Sandro Fioriti’s lovely Pasta al Limone, It take no time or odd ingredients to make and is both comforting and divine.
Read MoreKey Lime or Lemon Hand Pies for Desperate Times
Wondering how could I quickly create the effect of great key lime (or lemon) pie without actually making a whole pie, I devised this delectable stripped-down hand pie, made of a few readily-available ingredients. Fast comfort for desperate times.
Read MoreCracked Coriander is the New Pepper
For years I’ve kept a small tin of toasted cracked coriander seeds in my spice drawer to use as an emergency flavor enhancer. Its slightly lemony-orangy-herbal flavor and pleasing crackle provides the perfect little alt-note on all sorts of unexpected foods.
Read MoreSecrets of a Divine Egg Salad Sandwich from Harlem’s Premiere Caterer
Although I cooked professionally for decades, I somehow never got how great an egg salad sandwich could be I tasted Amuse Bouche’s AND learned their secrets…
Read MoreA Guide to Eating As Many Flowers as Possible
“One of my life’s quests has been to eat as many flowers as possible” wrote Dina Falconi in her wonderful book. Then she showed us how…
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