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.
Around My French Table: Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good
I wanted to make this recipe anyway but then on Friday night I was driving through some inexplicably bad traffic (honestly, does no one remember 1982 when were legally granted to ability to turn RIGHT ON RED???) when suddently, I heard Michele Norris’ voice on…
Off Topic: Pan-Seared Scallops with Brown Butter Lemon Sauce
I feel like I owe you some fish. I was hoping you wouldn’t noticed that I don’t make it often. I blame growing up in the Midwest in the 60s and 70s where fish, with few exceptions, came in the form of frozen sticks upholstered in bread crumbs from some…
The Next Book: Baked Explorations
By popular demand (well, three votes to be accurate, but they were enthusiastic) I’ve chosen Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented as my next review book. What looks good? What doesn’t. Double-Chocolate Loaf with Peanut Butter Cream…
Off Topic: Risotto
Earlier this year (May, 2010) Cook’s Illustrated featured a recipe for “Almost Hands-Free Risotto.” Got my attention. I’d been tinkering with risotto and had some success but hadn’t yet found the perfect recipe. The game-changer in…
Off Topic: Stir-Fried Thai-Style Beef with Chiles and Shallots
This is one of our favorite stir-fry dishes and if I can only convey one thing to you about this recipe it is this: do NOT fear the fish sauce. Believe me, I’m as adverse to the stuff, in its undiluted form, as anyone. When I’m pouring it out I…
Around My French Table: Souffle
A true rite of passage: I made my first souffle. And I see the world differently now. Mostly because I measure time in terms of how much of it will elapse between souffles. Souffle needs to fire its PR agency. It has allowed itself to be placed, in popular…
Off Topic: Cream of Tomato Soup
Like you and your parents and Andy Warhol, I grew up on Campbell’s Tomato Soup and it will always hold a special place in my heart (and that place is with its fist firmly around my arteries). But after finding this Cook’s Illustrated recipe for Ultimate…
Around My French Table: A Complete Dinner
You know a cookbook is good when you have to tell yourself to stop cooking from it and move on to another project. But before I do, let me tell you about the entire meal I made from this book and and the friends I served it to. First, meet Mo and Colin: …
Around My French Table: Marie-Helene’s Apple Cake
Don’t you just love saying “Marie Helene” with a heavy French accent? It’s almost as good as “bouche de noel,” or “”mise en place” or “recherche du temps perdue.” This is such a simple,…
Around My French Table: Cafe Salle Pleyel Hamburgers
As you may recall, hamburgers are one of the very few things I need to be happy. And I typically don’t like “fancy” burgers. I suspect it must be powerfully tempting to mess with the basics, especially if you’re a restaurateur and want…
Around My French Table: Hachis Parmentier
Every now and then you find a recipe that speaks to you on an entirely different level. A recipe that you think about long after you’ve eaten it. A recipe that, should it transmorgify into human form, would give your spouse a serious run for his or her money. …
Perfect One-Dish Dinners: Cassoulet-Style Italian Sausages and White Beans
Please sit down because I have something very important to say to you: you must make this dish as soon as humanly possible. Are you at work? Feign illness and leave immediately. Don’t like beans? Get over it. Why do I feel so strongly about this recipe? …
Off Topic: Fetuccine with Prosciutto and Cream Sauce
I defy you to find a bad sauce in Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. Go ahead, try, I’ll wait right here. And most of the ones I’ve tried are shockingly simple and quick. This one will make you particularly happy. Mind you, I didn’t say…
Around My French Table: Spicy Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup
One of the reasons I was intrigued by this book is that Dorie promises to bring us contemporary recipes from France — what real French people are cooking today. Not surprisingly, Vietnamese food is common and she says that this soup is ubiquitous. This soup is…
Around My French Table: Beatrix’s Red Kuri Soup
The 80-degree temps seem to be over and I no longer feel foolish making things like hearty soups. I hate being seasonally out of sync so this is quite a relief. Dorie says that this is a beloved soup in France. Traditionally made with a Red Kuri squash which is also…
Off Topic: Root Vegetable Cobbler
I don’t know what I was thinking but I scheduled several warm, substantial dinners during a week when the temps were consistently above 80 degrees (I guess I was thinking “It’s October”). Nevertheless, we’re heading into warm,…
Off Topic: An Easy and Versatile Left-Over Solution
One of my favorite cookbooks for weeknight meals is Best 30-Minute Recipes from America’s Test Kitchen. In the chapter entitled “Starting with Leftovers” I discovered the brilliance of the Tostada. To give you the short-cut, spray some corn…
Around My French Table: Gerard’s Mustard Tart
I admit that the thought of a “mustard tart” did not make me drool. I like mustard but in very small doses. It seems to be a big flavor bully and makes everything you put it in taste like mustard. But I am participating in “French Fridays with Dorie,…
Off Topic: Chicken Canzanese
This is one of my favorite recent recipes from Cook’s Illustrated and one of its most talented (former) employees, Kenji Alt. The familiarity and simplicity of the ingredients belie how incredibly scrumptious this dish is. It’s elegant enough to serve at…
The Next Book: Around My French Table, by Dorie Greenspan
If you look at the top of this page you will see one of Dorie Greenspan’s books, Baking: From My Home to Yours, in the book shelf. I bought that book on the recommendation of people I trusted and it quickly became one of my favorites (try the “World…
Review: Perfect One-Dish Dinners
Buy. This. Book. Why? Because I think it will give you some nifty tricks and deceptively simple morsels to serve to friends or family. Because the recipes are recognizable favorites, stripped, for the most part, of their processed components, and yet still…
Perfect One-Dish Dinners: Mixed Greens with Shredded Carrots and Dried Cranberries
This salad was part of the Chicken Potpie menu and complemented it perfectly. What with the apples in the potpie and the cranberries in this salad it had a nice note of Fall running through the whole meal. I absolutely LOVE salad and could eat it for dinner every…
Perfect One-Dish Dinners: Coq au Vin Blanc with Spring Vegetables
One of the reasons I made this dish is that Pam Anderson’s daughter, Maggy, said it was one of her favorites from the book. And I can see why. But can I just ask: when did pearl onions become an endangered species? I went to three stores and could not find them…
Perfect One-Dish Dinners: Creamless Chocolate Mousse
Pam says that the whipped cream traditionally used in mousse dulls the flavor of the chocolate and I have to believe she’s right because this mousse tastes like a truffle. The vanilla ice cream on the side is meant to compensate for the cream not being in the…