How could I not make something with my name literally written all over it. These rolls were such a huge hit at my house. The recipe makes quite a few so we froze some but even those did not last long. I thought they could have benefited from just a tad...
I love this cornbread. I love that Miss Sara acknowledges that, although it is near blasephemy in the South, she thinks adding a touch of sugar to cornbread is a good thing. I love that the coarse salt and pepper are sprinkled on the top, adding a nice crunch and...
We should all make more succotash. Especially in the summer. And this is a great place to start. I must acknowledge, however, the less-than-appetizing color of the butter beans. Those perky tomatoes and corn and basil are doing their best but they're no match to...
How's this for a bone-headed move? I made this amazing, amazing pulled pork, packed everything up for a beautiful night of music under the stars in the heart of one of the world's greatest cities... ...only to realize when we arrived that I had forgotten...THE BBQ...
They look good, don't they? Too bad you can't eat them. Because they're made of FIRE. I rarely make ribs because my husband half-heartedly but stubbornly insists he doesn't like them. But once in a while I prevail and this was, after all, in the interest of art and...
More culinary discovery for me. I think I had heard of Hoppin' John before but wasn't sure if it was something you ate or the unfortunate side effect of something you ate. Of course now I know that this is one of those dishes that appears, in some form, in many many...
There are many recipes like this out there (including "Cheez-it-ish Crackers" in Around My French Table) and I'm a sucker for every one of them. I'd rather eat a bowlful of these than candy. I'd also knock down a creme brulee to get to a baguette. Salty over sweet...
One of the reasons I wanted to explore this cookbook was to introduce myself to dishes that I'd heard about, and been intrigued by, but had never made. Fried green tomatoes was near the top of that list. My one and only point of reference for this dish was the...
Shall we start with a beverage? How about one that is quintessentially Southern? Of course sweet tea is not unique to the South. We drink it here in the frozen bits of the US. We even sweeten it. They serve it at McDonald's for crying out loud -- how much more...
So we all know that the world's reaction was to a cookbook by Gwyenth Paltrow, star of stage and screen (large and small), hopelessly blond and thin, child of bi-coastal privilege and mother of what I think we're all just assuming are children (think about what a good...
The real title of this recipe is Macaroni & Cheese (A Few Ways) but I only made one so...full disclosure. Here's a funny thing: I have never, ever, in my life had Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. I don't know how that could be since I ate every other kind of processed...
The next time life hands you lemons and about 12 minutes to cook dinner, remember the first of these two recipes. When life says "you know what? I can't even give you the lemons today" then you'll need recipe #2. Both can be made in the time it takes the pasta to...
I'm categorizing these two recipes together because 1. they're both very simple and 2. good as they are, they are only marginally "recipes" in my mind. First, Arugula Salad: Nothing more than toasted slices of baguette with cheese and sun-dried tomatoes on them with...
I'm going to make a bold statement here so stop reading if you don't like your beliefs challenged: Pancakes are hard to make. Everybody makes them, or has made them, and yet it's taken me an awfully long time to perfect mine. Making a souffle was much easier...
This is very serviceable frittata but not the best one I've ever made. I prefer the thicker, heartier versions I've made before use 12 eggs vs. the 6 in this recipe. I have come to truly love and appreciate frittatas. It's like a great, big, easy omelet that can...
Right here is a perfect example of what I like this cookbook so much: this is turkey breakfast sausage and it will take you about 5 minutes to make. It's ground turkey plus some herbs and spices (fennel, herbs de provence, sage), and a little maple syrup just to add...
Do not let the word "salad" lull you into thinking this is a quick dish. Or low-fat. It will require as much of you as any other type of main dish but it is well worth the effort. There's so much to like here: crisp-roasted chicken thighs, fresh...
Why? For one thing, this book kept popping up on lists. Good lists. Lists I trust. First NPR's "Best Simple, Summery Cookbooks" of 2011. Then in the New York Times Book Review's summer round up of of books. Also swaying me: her previous cookbooks are...
As highly profitable as this site is, my team of therapists say I should go to a "regular" job every day just to maintain my mental equilibrium. It keeps me grounded and in touch with my fellow humans. It gives me a place to wear my little outfits, as well as a...
If you had told me 2 hours ago that I could love a cookie without butter, or sugar, or chocolate, or butter, I would have taken you by the hand and, in a pitying tone, explained how you can't have cookies without butter. How cookies were invented, essentially, as a...
It's like my husband's two favorite dishes -- fish & chips and tacos -- got married. And after making these, I am never getting rid of that man! These are really fantastic. The beer batter is wonderful and easy and even though I did not make all of the...
One afternoon I spent 135 hours making homemade veggie burgers. It was a recipe from the July 2005 of Cook's Illustrated and it was a long day's journey into night, I'll say that much. You know what a fan I am of Cook's but this recipe involved cooking lentils,...
Damn, she even makes good french toast. Her value added elements: coarse sugar (I used some demerara sugar that someone -- was it you Mary Jenner? -- brought me from Hawaii) and real vanilla seeds scraped from a bean. The sugar adds a really nice crunch. In my...
Ok, this is getting scary. It's beginning to look like Gwyneth Paltrow is a very talented cook. How could this be? Even if you think she can't act or sing she has successful careers doing both of those things, despite your opinion. To find out she knows her way...
Ok skeptics, haters and nay-sayers, prepare to question your reality. This is an incredibly delicious soup. One of the best soups I've made all year. A soup for the ages. First you should really make Gwyneth's vegetable stock (pg. 36) because it's easy and...
When I threw this book out as a possibility on my Facebook page I was stunned at the visceral reaction many people had. "Anybody but Gwyneth!" for example. Or "I just want to smash her face into her own vegetable paella" (ok, I made that one up but I think it...
I can't tell you how hopeful I was when I picked up this book. I've always heard enthusiastic praise of Patricia Wells and feel a profound spiritual kinship for anyone who is living my dream of running away to Paris. I am also a huge advocate of salad for dinner...
I was not wowed by this dish but I think it has potential. The instructions tell you to slice the zucchini as thinly as possible but you will realize that how thin you slice them will (duh) influence the number of slices you end up with. I had it in my head that this...
What can you say about a book that contains more than 1000 recipes? That it is comprehensive and exciting and a bit overwhelming? That the passion of the editor/author is apparent in every page? That it could use some pictures? You've probably heard by now that...
I adore tuna and I would eat it once a week if it weren't $549/lb. Expensive fish makes me nervous. Plus I'm a native Midwesterner so cooking fish well comes about as naturally as surfing. But I love it so I keep trying to perfect my skills. This recipe...
As any Italian or Italian-cooking snob will tell you, Pasta a la Vodka is not authentic in any way. Even though it was, allegedly, created in Italy, it was only embraced by us ignorant Olive-Garden perpetrators. But love it we do and there are a few really good...
I originally tagged this post as "Indian" but when I searched for "biryani" on Wikipedia I realized that calling it Indian is about as accurate as calling rice Chinese. Biryani has been adapted by many countries and all the variations sound delicious (although I'd...
I'm going to need you to go out and make this immediately. And while you're at it, you might as well corner the market on cashews because this could become your go-to dish of the summer. I mean, think about it: your smearing chicken with cashews. It doesn't get much...
Nice, right? I think I just invented potato porn. Not to stereotype myself but I am, in fact, Irish and I do, undoubtedly, love potatoes in all forms. I think real mashed potatoes were the first thing I ever learned to make. Even my mother, who has made not cooking...
So the husband says, and I quote, "This is the best guacamole I've ever had." And the man eats a lot of guacamole. "Obsession" would not be too strong a word for his relationship with guacamole. It is good. I love onions that have been grilled, caramelized, reduced,...
This is a really handy little number to have in your repertoire. The brine is started at least the night before and then the chicken just roasts, mostly unattended, for 1 hour and 15 minutes. As I was eating it, it occurred to me that this is really fried chicken...
It's recipes like this that make me wonder why anyone would buy a jar of congealed hydrogenated oil, corn syrup, and stabilizers calling itself "Alfredo sauce." This is almost as easy as opening that jar. This recipe was featured in an article by Craig Claiborne from...
I chose both of these recipes because I wanted to make two things and didn't have a lot of time. And, as you may remember, the word "maple" almost always stops me in my tracks. So let's start there. What a hit these were. Even my young friend Jane, who...
This is, by far, the weirdest stir-fry dish I have ever made or heard of. Part of the reason I decided to make it was because it was so intriguing in its improbability. Had the normally sane and rational Mark Bittman taken leave of his senses? Was the date on this...
There's something really fun and somewhat risky about making a recipe from 1875. How do you even translate something that was probably made on a wood-burning stove to modern-day equipment? And didn't people have very different tastes back then? I mean, they ate a...
Or as it's formally known: The Best Spinach Dip with Chipotle and Lime (from Melissa Clark, 2007). This was delicious. It is a pretty standard spinach dip but, as the name suggests, chipotle peppers, cilantro and lime make it special. It's quite easy; everything...
So again I find myself with a recipe that I want to shout about from the rooftops. I already ambushed my neighbor on her way to her car, now it's viral time. Hesser rightly points out that this dish became too popular for its own good in the 1990s. It started out on...
Well this is awkward. Not only did it take some digging to find this recipe in The New York Times archives but I can't find "Jean Yves Legarve" (if that is his real name) anywhere in the Google-verse. I even had a heck of a time finding Michele Evans who wrote the...
This was a great dish with wonderful flavor. Even the husband liked it a lot, despite the fact that it's all dark meat. Also I think I've found a new favorite spice: smoked paprika. Smokey, as you might expect, and complex. Best of all, McCormick makes it so they had...
It's hard to start off a cookbook with a disappointing dish. And this one sounded so promising: layers of thinly-pounded beef, potatoes and onions, laced with butter and cream and baked in water bath for a couple of hours. How could that go wrong? And it's not so...
What a formidable task Amanda Hesser set for herself: a comprehensive review of 150+ years of New York Times recipes. Good thing she had no idea what she was getting into. As she says herself: "Had I known then that it would take six years and entail more than...
Let me start by telling you I love and adore this cake. I want to get that out of the way because I'm going to quibble with the nomenclature and I don't want my digression to in any way obscure my main point. Which is: YUM! First of all, "snack"? That's a nice...
I knew I was in trouble with these cookies when I couldn't stop eating the dough scraps. The story behind them is the author's obsession with Delta Airline's Biscoff cookies. I can't remember the last time I flew Delta and the notion of an airline giving out cookies...
I know, right? Shall we just look at them for a while? I think a wise diet plan is to not eat any doughnuts you don't make yourself. And then don't make any doughnuts. Seriously though, when people ask me why I'm not fat, part of the reason is that because I have...
How is it that I'd never tried Nutella before making these scones? I really can't figure that out. Anyway, it's lovely stuff, although kind of like eating straight frosting so don't be misled by the "made with skim milk" statement on the label into thinking you've...
Mmmmmmwahhh! I added about 1 tsp of lemon to bump the flavors up a bit. Thank you for posting this…