appetizers
21
Sep 09

Roasted Beet, Orange and Goat Cheese Napoleon

This appetizer takes very little work, but despite it’s simplicity it oozes with class and elegance. It would be ideal for a dinner party because it can be put together ahead of time. But it’s also an easy way to add a bit of unexpected restaurant flare to a weeknight dinner. If you don’t have the energy to layer everything, I’m guessing that it would be equally delicious mixed together and served as a salad.


This dish was an experiment, and I was a bit hesitant to taste the results, even though they looked particularly beautiful. But roasted beets are highly underrated, and the pairing of their sweet earthy flavor with creamy goat cheese and bright, fresh orange is remarkable.


Recipe after the jump…

sandwiches
16
Sep 09

Smoked Gouda and Apple Grilled Cheese

Apples and cheese are a classic combination, but you haven’t truly experienced it until you’ve eaten this sandwich. The melted, smoky-yet-salty cheese. The sweet, warm-but-still-crisp apples. All between two slices of hearty bread and fresh off the pan with beautiful, golden-brown grill marks. It fills a void in your life that you never knew you had.

This sandwich is simple and rustic, but it’s also elegant and unique. Smoked gouda isn’t an average cheese. Unlike standard Cheddars and pre-sliced American cheese, smoked gouda is subtle and nuanced. Melting it highlights every intricacy and allows them to shine.


Not to mention the apples. You don’t need Fuji apples, but make sure to use something crisp, because the sandwich relies heavily on the variety of textures you get when you bite into it. First, you have the crunchy grilled outside, followed by the chewy inside of the bread. Then the oozing, melted cheese. Fresh, crisp apples play beautifully against these textures, leaving you to enjoy the contrasts bite after bite.

Recipe after the jump…

soups
14
Sep 09

Chicken Soup

Chicken soup is not the most photogenic food. It stands humbly in the sidelines while fancier, flashier foods steal the limelight. But when you’re sick, nothing is quite as comforting as a steaming bowl of homemade chicken soup.


Flu season is approaching (as some of us are finding out first-hand), and it’s already looking like it’s going to be a bad one. In about the time it takes to heat up a can of Campbell’s, you can do all the prep work for your very own homemade soup. After that, the soup practically makes itself with no work. It freezes beautifully, so it’s easy to have on hand. Make it while you’re healthy, and pull it out when you need it most.
Recipe after the jump…

tips
10
Sep 09

Tip: Cutting Hot Peppers? Break out the vodka.

Did you know that ethanol will dissolve capsaicin, the spicy chemical in peppers? Next time you slice a habanero, wash your hands in a small bowl of cheap vodka (or other hard liquor of your choice) for a minute to get rid of the spice, and you won’t have to worry about touching your eyes.

sauces
09
Sep 09

I Thought it was Cocktail Sauce

Sometimes, you think you’re making one thing, and you actually end up making quite another. Mistakes are responsible for classic foods like chocolate chip cookies, cheese, and potato chips. And that’s kind of what happened with this sauce. See, I love, love, love shrimp cocktail. And when I saw a variation for a Caribbean-style cocktail sauce in the Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook, I knew I’d found something special.


And it turns out, I had found something special. And it even passes for a cocktail sauce, kind of (but if I’m being honest, not really). But this baby’s real strength is as a dip for chips. It’s not as substantial as salsa or guacamole. But it packs such a flavor punch that even a little bit goes a long way.

Brown sugar tames the spice of jalapeno, and the bright, sour-yet-sweet flavor of freshly juiced limes shines through. Garlic and ginger are at their finest, playing backup among other strong flavors, rounding out the sauce, bringing it all together.

This sauce would also be great served over chicken or freshly grilled meat, or mixed into rice. It would add a fresh and unique kick to tacos if you drizzled it over the top. And it is great with shrimp (especially if you put a shrimp on a tortilla chip and dip the whole thing). It’s not shrimp cocktail, but whatever it is, it’s a great recipe for that.

Recipe after the jump

breakfast / desserts
02
Sep 09

Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

People say that money can’t buy love, but nobody ever says that cinnamon rolls can’t. And I think you might agree with me that bartering these cinnamon rolls in exchange for love might in fact be a pretty even trade. See, cinnamon rolls are happiness in food form. Most people have fond childhood memories involving the wafting smell of sweet cinnamon waking them up in the morning, whether it was a surprise snow day, a random weekend, or Christmas morning. So eating a cinnamon roll is not just about enjoying the big, delicious, warm, rich, soft, buttery, oozy, sweet, cinnamon-filled treat that practically melts away in your mouth, it’s about reliving the best parts of childhood for a moment or two.

A while back, I found this recipe from the Pioneer Woman (one of my many food blog addictions). The amount of butter in the recipe soared past sinful without so much as a passing glance, galloped easily past gluttonous, and went straight to Oh-Dear-God-In-Heaven-This-Must-Be-A-Mistake. We’re talking 8 sticks of butter just for the filling.

But they looked so incredibly delicious that I just had to make them. As it turns out, I ended up cutting the butter in half, but it wasn’t for health reasons (would anyone ever consider cinnamon buns to be healthy?), it was just because after a certain amount, the butter started to pour off the sides of the dough, all over the counter, and threatened to overflow onto the floor, so I decided to stop. The only other major change comes from the fact that I am a firm believer that cinnamon rolls are best when topped with warm cream cheese icing, so I substituted it for the PW’s coffee-maple icing.



I admit, the recipe is long, rather time consuming, and a bit messy. But the outcome of all the work? In a word: happiness. What starts off as luscious ecstasy in the first bite slowly transforms into pure giddy joy as you remember how perfect it was being a little kid. You eat the rest and let the sugar high take hold. It’s odd, but you can’t resist smiling. And that’s when you know it was absolutely, 100% worth the effort.


Recipe after the jump…

main courses / sides
31
Aug 09

Quinoa Salad with Mango and Mint

I must be perfectly honest when talking about quinoa (which, to the best of my knowledge is pronounced “keen-wa”): I usually find it pretty boring. I first heard of the stuff about two years ago, and everyone who had eaten it waxed philosophic about its wonders. First of all, it’s a grass, not a grain, but please don’t ask me what the difference is, because I couldn’t tell you to save my life. The only significance this has for me is that it’s kosher for Passover, which seemed like a big plus for a time when rice, pasta, and bread are pretty much off the menu. It’s also high in protein, which makes it a healthy, complete meal with just a few tweaks.

However, even in my grain-deprived Passover state, I was really quite underwhelmed by quinoa. It was mediocre at best, somewhat bitter, and otherwise not particularly flavorful. Somewhat disappointed, I decided that I would probably never make it again.

I lived quinoa-free until a couple weeks ago, when a coworker brought in a salad made with quinoa and tomatoes for a group lunch. It looked light and fresh and summery, and I was tempted enough to try it. Having had such mediocre experience with quinoa, I was surprised to find that it was actually incredibly delicious; the juicy tomato contrasted beautifully with slightly toothy quinoa, and the runoff from the tomatoes created a light dressing for the entire salad. She threw in a few herbs for good measure, and called it a day.

This experience got me thinking about what else could be done with quinoa, and I decided to put together this salad, which is merely a variation on the one she made. I substituted mango for the tomato, and used mint to bring out a cool, refreshing feeling. For a dressing, I mixed vinegar and brown sugar to get a sweet-and-sour kick with a little complexity. Whether made savory with tomatoes or sweet with mango, this salad made me understand why people fell in love with quinoa.

Recipe after the jump…

main courses
25
Aug 09

Lemon Chicken

Last Monday, my wallet was stolen. After being emptied of cash and credit cards, it was returned a couple days later, but my grocery shopping days were over until I could get my hands on some money. Experienced bloggers probably have an arsenal of unpublished posts ready to go in case of a crisis like this. But the whole blogging thing is pretty new for me, so I was caught off guard. Now that I have money again, it’s bye bye frozen leftovers, and hello freshly cooked homemade meals. You have no idea just how excited I am.

Just before my wallet was stolen, I was planning on making chicken picatta for dinner. But over the course of a pasta-filled week, my craving for yet another Italian dinner has temporarily evaporated. Lemon chicken channels the essence of chicken picatta, but strips the classic of its rich butter sauce in favor of a clean, bright tang that is absolutely mouthwatering. As the chicken cooks, some of the sugars in the lemon juice begin to caramelize, adding a complex and slightly sweet note to an otherwise simple dish.

Contributing to my willingness to make food that requires the use of a stove is my recent purchase of an air conditioner, which I swore mere days ago that I would not buy because I didn’t want to pay the electricity bills, only to come home to the hottest, most humid night of trying to sleep yet this summer. Thankfully, my resolve quickly dissolved, and suddenly using the stove has become a real possibility. This was the perfect simple yet exciting summer meal to get me out of the frozen food doldrums.

It feels good to be back.

Recipe after the jump…

breakfast
15
Aug 09

Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes

I swear I’m not on a buttermilk kick lately, I just have a lot leftover from when I had to buy a quart just to use 3 tablespoons for blue cheese dressing.


As much as I’ve had trouble using up buttermilk, this pancake recipe might just be perfect enough for me to go out and buy it again. I’ve had buttermilk pancakes before, but not like this. They’re thinner than most, and because of the reaction between the slightly acidic buttermilk and baking soda/baking powder (think of 2nd grade science experiments with vinegar and baking soda), they come out impossibly light and airy. Warm, juicy blueberries pop in your mouth just as the pancake melts away into nothingness. These pancakes are not sweet, but you can increase the sugar if that’s your style. Whatever you put on them, be it maple syrup, butter, or (God forbid) Aunt Jemima, these pancakes will shine through with their own complex, utterly delicious flavor.

Make sure not to mix the batter too much, and let it sit for about 5 minutes before you start cooking the pancakes to make sure they get their lighter-than-air texture.

Recipe after the jump…

sauces
13
Aug 09

The Dipping Debate

People tend to divide into two camps when it comes to dipping sauces. Those who oppose dipping wonder why anyone would bother eating something if they are only going to use an overpowering sauce to completely mask its flavor. Those in favor love the fact that dipping sauce adds excitement to even the simplest of dishes. I fall squarely in the second camp, with a couple of caveats:

  1. I always make sure to eat some bites with sauce and some without. I want to taste my food, but I like the variety that the sauce provides.
  2. I never smother my food in sauce. Dipping sauces are strong, and a little goes a long way. Besides, the best things to dip are crispy, and overdoing it on the sauce just totally kills the crunch.

With nearly a quart of buttermilk leftover from making homemade blue cheese dressing, I decided to test out the whole brining chicken in buttermilk thing that supposedly makes southern fried chicken so juicy. In order to do this, you just stick chicken in buttermilk and let it sit in the fridge for a day or so. It’s so easy that I successfully completed this step in an intensely mindless state, after working 13 hours straight starting at 3am. All you have to do the next day is take the chicken out and cook it however you like. The theory is that the buttermilk makes the meat juicy and tender when it’s cooked. It actually works quite well.


I opted to just make oven baked chicken fingers (coat the brined chicken tenders in panko bread crumbs, spray them with olive oil and bake at 375-400 until cooked), which are an otherwise boring meal, no matter how interesting buttermilk may be. I recruited the help of 4 easy dipping sauces that take almost no work to make and bring plain chicken to new heights. For a bit of a smoky flavor, I made a mexican style dip with store bought fajita seasoning. Then, I made my own honey mustard (which is literally just honey and mustard, but beats the store bought stuff by a mile). After that, I tried an amazingly simple apricot sauce, and lastly an Indian curry dip with red onions. These sauces are all about contrast: two are creamy and spicy, two are sweet and tangy. None of them took more than 2 minutes to throw together.



Recipes after the jump…

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