Kate Cooks The Books
Kate Sheehan
Like you, I have a “real” job that has nothing to do with food and a more than full-time child so I cook in my so-called free time. Fortunately for all of us, cooking is my golf and I don’t mind spending hours doing it in order to help find the cookbooks worth having.
The Next Book: Jerusalem: A Cookbook
Let’s put all the wild media speculation and crazy theories to rest and let me tell you how I pick cookbooks to review. Typically, I look for something relatively new (published within the last year or so), with enough inherent interest that I think many people…
Cook’s Country: Grilled Caesar Salad
Oh yeah, I have a blog! Sorry about that. Moving on… I’m not convinced that grilling romaine lettuce “adds a smoky char to a Caesar salad” but I love Caesar salad and any excuse to try a new one is fine by me. This one was pretty great and I…
Meatless: Polenta with Poached Eggs and Marinated Artichokes
Let’s not mince words: this was repulsive. Not one of the components worked for me and the combination of all three was a culinary train wreck. I’m willing to take 2/3 of the blame since I can never seem to get polenta right and God knows I can’t…
Cook’s Country: Crispy Fish Sticks with Tartar Sauce
I’m sure there were kids in the Midwest in the 1960s who ate all kinds of great seafood. Maybe they went “fishing” with their parents (look it up, it’s a real thing!) and ate what they caught. Or perhaps they were urban sophisticates who…
Meatless: Mini Broccoli and Pasta Casseroles
The idea of a mini casserole is certainly adorable enough but those of us who don’t live in a dollhouse might not have “six 1-1/2 cup baking dishes.” I know I don’t and, trust me, I’ve got a lot of stuff. Ramekins, yes. Madeleine pan,…
Meatless: Broccoli Rabe and Butternut Squash Pizzas with Hazelnut Dough
Let’s start out with a winner from this book. I probably have more recipes for pizza and pizza dough than any other single type of dish. I’ve got a skillet pizza dough (that uses beer as the leavener), a recipe for grilled pizza (amazing), quick pizza…
Review: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook
I’d like to think that Deb Perelman and I are a lot alike but all I can come up with to support that is that we’re both happy in the kitchen. But it’s enough, I think, to claim a connection. What does it mean to be happy in the kitchen, besides the…
Cook’s Illustrated: Chicken Parmesan
What did Cook’s Illustrated want? “A juicy cutlet that kept its crunch.” When did they want it? “Twenty years ago would have been nice but now works.” As with many popular dishes there are many bad ways to make chicken parmesan and…
Creamy Pappardelle with Leeks and Bacon
Oh just go make it, you know you want to. It’s from the February 2013 Bon Appetit and right here on Epicurious. What are you waiting for?
Hearty Spanish-Style Lentil and Chorizo Soup
What is it with the Spanish food lately? Must be the weather. Because it’s officially cold outside. Here in Chicago we’ve had some freakishly mild weather and a disconcerting lack of snow. Until this past week when we got those character-building…
Cook’s Country: Spanish Chicken Cutlets with Yogurt Sauce
This was so good despite the fact that I temporarily lost my mind and mistakenly used chicken breast halves instead of cutlets. What’s the difference? Well, a lot of cooking time, for one. Basically, a cutlet is a breast half cut in half, horizontally, making…
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Wild Rice Gratin with Kale, Caramelized Onions, and Baby Swiss
Another incredibly good, deeply satisfying vegetarian main dish from Deb. You could absolutely use regular rice, brown rice, bulgur, quinoa, whatever you have five cooked cups of on hand but I really like the wild rice part of this. I think because I so seldom make…
Cook’s Illustrated: Glazed Maple-Pecan Oatmeal Scones
Readers, I have to disabuse of something right now: living at my house is not like an endless and much less disturbing visit to the Wonka factory. Yes, wonderful things are made regularly BUT, more often than not, they are carried out the door to work or a party or…
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Heart-Stuffed Shells with Lemon Ricotta Bechamel
Sometimes I can’t believe how sexy my food looks. Damn, I’m good. And so were these. You know what they kind of tasted like? That artichoke-mayonnaise dip that everybody made for every party from 1997 through late 2000, remember that stuff? It also had…
Cook’s Country: Cheese Frenchees
(Photo by Cook’s Country/America’s Test Kitchen) At this time I’m going to have ask Michelle Obama to leave this page and, maybe, go look at amazing pictures of herself. ‘Cause she’s not going to like this. At all. Because this post is…
The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Pancetta, White Bean, and Swiss Chard Pot Pies
This is going to sound disingenuous given the picture above but I am not the kind of woman who puts hearts on things. Smiley faces, ok, yes, occasionally. Not hearts though. No judgments. But something about these cute little pot pies charmed me into unusually giddy…
The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook: Roasted Smashed Potatoes
As promised, these potatoes deliver both the fluffy interior of a baked potato and the crispy exterior of a french fry (without the deep frying). They are absolutely heavenly and will you will forget any weirdness you felt when crushing potatoes between two sheet…
Girl in the Kitchen: Asparagus Linguine with Almond Butter Crisp
This would be a fairly straightforward pasta dish — asparagus, baby arugula and olive oil — before you add the almond butter crisp. And please, take a moment to fully absorb that that concept: Almond. Butter. Crisp. It’s nuts and butter and bread…
Girl in the Kitchen: Pork and Apple Ragu with Parparadelle
One thing I’m learning very quickly about our friend Miss Stephanie Izard is that she is not about the 30-minute meal. Like most professional chefs, she loves the kitchen and gets paid to be in it all day and kind of assumes we all feel the same way. For me,…
Make this Now: Butternut Squash Galette with Gruyere
Be warned: this is a project. It probably took me three hours start to finish but it was so worth it. If you’ve ever wanted to eat pie for dinner but just could not come up with a way to justify it, I think I can help you. Make it out of vegetables. …
The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook: Nut-Crusted Chicken Breasts with Lemon and Thyme
As I’ve mentioned before, chicken breasts need a lot of help. I would almost always rather have a leg, a thigh or even a wing over a breast any day because, of course, they’re fattier and that equals better. But if you insist on white meat I think you need…
The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook: Yeasted Blueberry Waffles
If you’ve never made yeasted waffles before you really need to get on it. It’s not a dish for the spontaneous as it requires an overnight rest in the fridge but, other than that, there’s nothing standing in your way to experiencing breakfast (or in…
The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook: “The Only Tomato Sauce You’ll Ever Need”
This was a perfectly delicious tomato sauce but if I had to pick one to call “the only tomato sauce” I’ll ever need it will not be this one. That honor goes to Marcella Hazan’s brilliant sauce which is simply a 28-oz. can of whole, peeled…
Review: Sara Foster’s Southern Kitchen
There is an article in the October 31 edition of The New Yorker about Homer Sean Brock, the latest molecular gastronomy darling, and his two New Orleans restaurants. Like most of the brilliant, insightful, well-written articles in The New Yorker, I did not finish it…