Browsing all posts in "Cooking".
Asparagus and Cauliflower Gougère with a Beet and Grapefruit Salad
Friday night I decided to try something new. I didn’t really know what at first, but as I was flipping through my Vegetarian cookbook, I came across a recipe for a mushroom and cauliflower gougère. I didn’t have any mushrooms, but I did have some asparagus, so I decided to try my own version of [...]
New Baking Adventure: Rye Pretzels
On Monday, my friend Laura sent me a recipe for Rye Pretzels she saw on NYTimes.com, and I knew immediately that I wanted to try it out — I even had all the ingredients on hand! It took me a whole two days to get around to it, and I’m glad I decided to try [...]
How to Make Chocolate Drop Cookies
A few weeks ago, we invited friends over for dinner on very short notice. I had enough food in my fridge and pantry — I just needed to figure out what to make. I put together a salad with grapefruit, avocado and a shallot-citrus vinaigrette, and I pulled some little puff pastries out of the [...]
Making Butternut Squash Gnocchi
A few weeks ago I decided to try making gnocchi. I’d been thinking about doing it for a while, ever since I read about a traditional potato gnocchi recipe, but I was worried it would be a huge failure. Gnocchi are easy to mess up — too much flour makes them heavy, not enough flour [...]
Chocolate Mousse from the ‘Alien’ Cookbook
“Oh, look Mummy! CHOCOLATE MOUSSE!”
I got a cookbook called “Debbie Learns to Cook” when I was quite young. It’s a combination storybook and cookbook with some rather funny illustrations of a family with rather large, alien-like foreheads. So of course, what did we call this book while I was growing up, but The Alien Cookbook. [...]
Simple and Delicious Latkes and Applesauce
It’s Hanukkah! And that means it’s latke time. Those tasty, greasy potato pancakes come in a variety of styles. My personal preference is to keep them thin and somewhat crispy. That’s why I like recipes that leave the potatoes simply grated and don’t have much or any flour. The recipe I’ve been using for a [...]
Simple and Festive-Looking Holiday Appetizer: Pea Pesto Crostini
A few weeks ago, I was watching Giada at Home on the Food Network and Giada made a super simple and pretty looking recipe — Pea Pesto Crostini. I decided to make it when we had a friend over for drinks and it was a hit, and then I made it again this past weekend [...]
An Anniversary Dinner: Soup, a Savory Pie and Chocolate Almond Cake
November 3, Evan and I celebrated our third anniversary. It seems that each year before this one, November 3 has been a hectic day full of lots changes. On our first anniversary, I moved out to Budapest. Evan was already there, and I was joining him to live there for a couple of months before [...]
Making Home Made Orange-Date Rolls
Last week I got some dates in my LOVE Delivery box. I don’t really like dates plain very much, so I wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. Then, over the weekend, I started thumbing through the bread recipes in How to Cook Everything and came across a recipe for orange date [...]
The Secret to Getting Nooks and Crannies in English Muffins
The first two times I made english muffins, I thought they were delicious but I missed the nooks and crannies that you get with fork-split muffins that toast up nice and crispy and catch lots of butter and jam.
I also missed the little crunch of cornmeal that most store-bought english muffins had, so I decided [...]
Making Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread
I’ve been intrigued by all the Irish soda bread recipes I’ve seen in my cookbooks. Each book seems to have one, and they always look relatively quick and simple — especially because the bread is made with baking soda and baking powder as the leavening agent, not yeast, so it doesn’t need time to rise. [...]
Polenta Torta and More from The New Vegetarian Epicure
I don’t have many cookbooks, but the few I have are reliably wonderful. One of my favorites that I really should cook from more is The New Vegetarian Epicure by Anna Thomas. First, I love how the book is arranged — seasonally by meals. That means that I can find something that uses what’s fresh, [...]
Simple and Delicious Lemon Dill Tofu Filets with Avocado Salsa
Wednesday night, I decided to make a quick tofu dinner. I don’t cook with tofu too often — maybe once a month — and I typically just make some sort of stir fry. But I had bought fresh dill and lemons at the market, and I had some green beans, tomatoes and lettuce from my [...]
Making Whole Wheat Pita Bread
This week, I decided to make pita bread from a recipe in Paul Gayler’s Burgers cookbook. I used to buy it a lot, but haven’t had it in a while, and I had some halloumi and other ingredients that seemed like they would work well in a pita sandwich. I decided to make them with [...]
Potato-Stuffed Indian Flatbread with Parsley Tzatziki
Last week’s bread-making adventure was inspired by the abundance of potatoes I had. I got some in my first LOVE Delivery veggie box, and then I got more in the second, so I figured I needed to do something with them. Looking through How to Cook Everything, I came across this recipe for potato-stuffed Indian [...]