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When I see a big, gorgeous, head of red cabbage like the one that was in our CSA box a couple of weeks ago, my first thought is slaw. I just checked, and I’ve posted about slaw almost as many times as I’ve posted about scones, but here’s one more that’s very worth considering for Memorial Day weekend or any summer party. It’s from Plenty, and the recipe is also available online. Like most things f
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned the big bake sale that was being planned to raise funds for recovery efforts in West, Texas. I’m thrilled to report that it was a huge success, and we’re all so thankful to everyone who came out for the sale and made donations online. The total raised was over $19,000! As planned, I baked more of the Chocolate Chip and Cherry Scones, and I wanted to bring a secon
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been cooking from the new Malouf book, New Middle Eastern Food, of which I received a review copy. This is a beauty of a cookbook. You might say it’s a coffee table cookbook, but that doesn’t mean the recipes are very difficult or overly complicated. This latest book brings together the authors’ favorite dishes from all their earlier books with some updates and a
When I look at recipes for cakes, I make mental notes like “this one would be great for a birthday,” or “this is the cake for a spring party,” or “I have to remember this one during the holidays.” But, with the new book from Gesine Bullock-Prado, I was making all those usual mental notes and also thinking “I want to bake this cake just to see if I can do it.” The new book is Bake It Like You Mean
I had no idea how little I knew about Brazil. Obviously, I need to visit this country. Happily, I’ve learned a few new things during the Central Market Passaporte Brasil event which continues until May 7. For example, I was previously completely unfamiliar with Brazilian wine. Now, I know there’s a very active wine industry there making fantastic wines of all kinds. One of my favorites that I tast
The Austin Bakes group has a couple of big bake sale fundraisers under our belt, but because these bake sales were organized to help recovery efforts after terrible events, we all agreed we never wanted to host another one ever again. Sadly, following the tragic events of the explosion in West, Texas on April 17, we started planning the next event to bake for our fellow Texans. The bake sale is ha
I always get excited about cookbooks that include great tip and techniques. When things are explained in ways that give you choices for customizing recipes and make you understand what affect those customizations will have, it’s eye-opening. Dan Lepard’s latest book, Short and Sweet: The Best of Home Baking, is full of tips just like that. It was published in the UK in 2011, but the US version was
I realize it’s customary for food cravings to strike when you miss a particular dish, when you haven’t had the chance to taste a favorite thing for a long time, and when you can’t wait for the next opportunity to have whatever that is once again. However, even though I live smack in the middle of Austin where you can’t take too many steps in a row without tripping over another Tex-Mex restaurant,
I imagine when the day comes that I’m living on that quaint, scenic, stretch of land in rural Italy, this is the kind of thing I’ll have for lunch every day during artichoke season. And, there will be wine from nearby and olive oil from my neighbor of course. I do live a rich fantasy life. Until then, I can now get locally grown artichokes right here at home, and I’m very excited about that. The o
I was sure it was going to be a cake filled with lemon curd and topped with a toasted meringue frosting. Then, I changed my mind and considered a simple, vanilla angel food cake with strawberries on the side. And, there are two different pistachio cakes that I’ve wanted to try for ages. I have a hard time choosing when it comes to my birthday cake. In the end, my decision was made when I remembere
I’ve always liked beets, but there was a time when I got to the point of dreading one more beet at the end of the season. My thinking seems to have changed since these days I look forward to having some roasted beets in the refrigerator. I like cutting roasted beets into wedges and adding them to salads with crumbled goat cheese, and I really like adding roasted and pickled, sliced beets to sandwi
No sooner had I typed the words “there will be much, much more Simple Puff Pastry in my future” than I was already making it again. Store-bought puff pastry really might be a thing of the past in my kitchen. I had spotted this recipe for Mini Strawberry Tarte Tatins in an issue of Donna Hay Magazine last year, and the recipe is available online. I left it filed away until strawberry season rolled
Lately, I’ve been thinking about how much the local food scene in Austin has changed over the years. Many years ago, I visited the lone, quiet, little farmers’ market on Wednesdays in the parking lot of the old Whole Foods. That was way before Whole Foods moved into the current flagship location with the corporate headquarters upstairs. It was just a handful of us who showed up for the market whic
This year, for a sweet breakfast bread for Easter, I turned to tradition, sort of. I had made hot cross buns once before, but that first time I didn’t choose well among recipes. That was a few years ago when I set out to make proper hot cross buns as they were originally intended to be made. The dough wasn’t particularly sweet or rich; there weren’t very many currants in the buns; and the flavor a
I realize this just looks like a spinach salad, but there’s a lot more going on in there. For one, it was intended as a quinoa and spinach salad, and I did use the entire suggested amount of quinoa, but I had a lovely bunch of spinach and wanted to use every bit of it rather than only a couple of handfuls. So, the extra spinach is hiding a lot of the red quinoa. But, that’s not all. There are also
I think that no matter how much bread I bake, I’ll always get a little nervous about it. You never know how much it will rise or how long it will take to rise or how it will look when you cut into the finished loaf. It makes bread baking exciting. Yes, waiting for hours for dough to rise is exciting! I said it. This is another loaf from Bread: A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes. It’s made wi
I’ve wanted to try making samosas for years. Those crispy, little nuggets full of fluffy, mashed potato, maybe some peas, and spices are a favorite of mine. I always have at least one with whatever else I order at Indian restaurants, but I’d never worked up the courage to make them at home. Then, I saw this version with chickpeas, carrots, and some minced green chile in the filling and the accompa
Kurt may not agree with this assessment, but I don’t think I have very many baking pans. I don’t have every possible size for cakes or tarts, and I really only have a few pans that are for specific things like madeleines or snowman-shaped cupcakes. Of course, I want every baking pan I ever see, and I imagine I’ll use all of them enough to justify them taking up storage space, but only very occasio
Some people get earworms, songs stuck in their head, and can’t think of any other music because of that tune that won’t go away. I have this issue with recipes instead of music. Is that a recipeworm, foodworm, brainworm? I don’t think I like any of those names for the condition. I’ll keep working on that. This soup was one of those recipes that took up residence in my head and wasn’t going to lea
I have two questions for you. Have you ever made a “quick” puff pastry? And, have you made homemade gianduia, also known as homemade nutella? I can now highly recommend you try both. At some point a few years ago, I wrote off the possibility of “quick” puff pastry. I had tried a couple of different recipes and ended up with pie crust each time. There were no puffy layers as seen in “real” puff pas
I realized the other day that I categorize cooking in a few different ways in my head. There’s the day-to-day cooking that can be done on autopilot. And, there’s cooking from a recipe when I just need to check quantities but otherwise pretty much know what to do when. Then, there’s the exciting stuff that makes me think “now I’m really cooking.” Making sauces falls squarely in that last category.
I’ve mentioned my to-try stack of recipes, but there’s actually more than one stack. There’s the physical stack of pages cut from magazines, there’s also a list of links I keep in Evernote, and there’s a board of recipes to try on Pinterest. It’s a little crazy to have to look in three places for ideas I know I put somewhere as a reminder to myself, but I usually eventually find what I’m looking f
I spend a lot of time shopping for food, and I love making little discoveries along the way. I have a pretty good mental catalog of what to buy where in Austin, but I still occasionally turn up hidden treasures at grocery stores. Recently, H-E-B sent me a gift basket full of things just like this. It was a basket of samples of some of their Primo Picks described as one-of-a kind goods from around
As I put together the Marinated Cauliflower, Olive, and Caper Salad, it reminded me a lot of the kind of olive salad that’s usually on a muffuletta. The only problem for me with a standard muffuletta is that it’s usually filled with several varieties of salami and ham which all fall into the red meat category that I avoid. So, I thought, why not build a vegetarian muffuletta? I skipped the meat an
At the tail end of cauliflower season, I’ve had enough of bubbly, gooey gratins. With spring just around the corner, I wanted to use what might be the last of our local cauliflower for something with more zip. I found a marinated cauliflower salad from Bon Appetit’s November 2003 issue, and that was just the inspiration I needed. Of course, I made a few changes by including carrots, switching up t
The birthday cake conversation has changed over the years. There was a time when I would ask Kurt what kind of cake he’d like for his birthday, and the answer was chocolate. No pondering, no pause, no prompts for suggestions. Just chocolate. In recent years, the answer hasn’t come quite so quickly. He still likes chocolate but wants to hear other ideas too. This year, I presented three options tha
Winter, and I use the term loosely, might be over here. Since I’ve put that in writing, we could still get hit with a nasty cold day or two out of nowhere, but for now, it’s already starting to feel like spring. So, before the warm weather fully settles in, I wanted to show this hearty, wintery dish. That day when I was flipping through Stir: Mixing It Up in the Italian Tradition, I came across th
You know I sometimes go a little crazy with cooking and baking with lemons. I’ve mentioned this before. It just happened again. Just recently, I made a lemon cream sauce for pasta, a few different kinds of lemon cookies, and lemon ice cream all in one weekend. Organic Meyer lemons aren’t always easy to find here but I got lucky one day, so I had a good excuse, right? You see, I do have two Meyer l
I keep a pretty close watch on new cookbooks that are published, but once in a while something slips by me. The hard cover version of The Modern Vegetarian by Maria Elia came out in 2009, and I didn’t realize what I was missing until the new paperback just appeared late last year. I received a review copy, and started making up for lost time. The book is full of pretty dishes with great flavors th
Do you know the difference between salsify and scorzonera? Actually, I wasn’t even familiar with scorzonera until I read Roots: The Definitive Compendium with more than 225 Recipes by Diane Morgan, but I love learning new things about food. I learned scorzonera, also called black salsify, is very closely botanically related to salsify, and both have long, slender roots with similar flavors while s
Last fall, I read The Man Who Changed the Way We Eat: Craig Claiborne and the American Food Renaissance after receiving a review copy and learned all about Craig Claiborne’s life. I didn’t realize that his approach to food writing was so revolutionary at the time. After studying at the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne in Switzerland, he sought out “the sublime” in cuisine, service, and dining experienc
On a day when I wanted to make dessert but didn’t want it to be an all-day project, this was the perfect cake. It’s from Sinfully Easy Delicious Desserts which is full of great desserts that don’t take all day to make. I was drawn to the idea of a quick gingerbread made with fresh ginger, and the variation suggested in the side-bar sealed the deal. That variation was to replace some of the water i
This is a Goldilocks story. I was looking for something to make for a weekend dinner that would be kind of a special meal. I had just finished reading, and cooking a few other things from, the brand new Barefoot Contessa Foolproof book. In it, there’s a Seared Scallops and Potato Celery Root Puree dish that sounded delicious. Even though the dish seemed perfectly lovely, I wanted something just sl
There was a time when I could eat the same thing for breakfast every morning, or every weekday morning anyway, for an entire year if not longer. I’d pour the same cold cereal into a bowl every Monday through Friday without any interest in mixing it up. Something happened to change my thinking on that lately. Now, I can only go for about a week with the same thing for breakfast each morning, and th
I had heard lots of good things about Hugo Ortega's Street Food of Mexico and was curious to learn more about the chef and the new book. I made my way to the Texas Book Festival on a chilly Saturday morning in late October of last year for his talk and cooking demo. He spoke about traditional Mexican home cooking as well as the variety of food offered by street vendors in different areas of Mexico
I always assumed there was a complicated secret to making sticky toffee pudding. I had never attempted it and was sure it would be messy and annoying to prepare. But, this is exactly the kind of dessert I love: a tender cake with chewy dates, a buttery toffee caramel sauce, and some whipped cream for serving. It also happens to be a classic dessert for colder weather since the cake and sauce are s
I’m a little behind schedule here since I’m just now telling you about Christmas cookies, but better late than never. I was out of town for a birthday party right before Christmas, then Christmas happened, and so this post didn’t find itself ready until today. Swirl-shaped cookies became my theme for this year. As I started looking through files of cookie recipes and books full of cookies, I remem
The list of restaurants I’d like to visit in Brooklyn keeps growing, and I just added one more to it. Saltie is a sandwich shop that specializes in putting classic combinations of things that might not have been thought of as sandwiches before between pieces of bread. They rely on local and seasonal ingredients and make their breads, mayonnaise, vinaigrettes, pickles, yogurt, sweets, and soups fro
I’m a big believer that homemade is always best. The flavor is always far better than anything packaged, and I like being able to choose each ingredient myself. In fact, I almost never buy packaged snacks because of all those things on the ingredients lists that I’d rather avoid. So, I was immediately drawn to the new book from Lara Ferroni Real Snacks: Make Your Favorite Childhood Treats Without
I thought I knew chiles. I certainly use several different varieties in my cooking in fresh, dried, roasted, and pickled states. But, when we were in Spain in October, I encountered a type of chile I’d never tasted or even seen at home before and quickly realized I wouldn’t be able to live without it. In the Basque region, these chiles are called guindillas, and elsewhere they’re sometimes called
I’m always looking for an excuse to bake cookies. Isn’t everyone? With the new book The Daily Cookie, you’re given 365 reasons to do just that. And, those reasons don’t need to be big events. That’s the fun of the book. I received a copy for review. The book, written by Anna Ginsberg, includes a different cookie recipe for each day of the year to correspond with either a holiday or anniversary or
There are plenty of challenges for a restaurant to source all of its food locally in a place like Austin where we have 80 degree December days when the farmers’ markets are bursting with great produce. So, imagine what it must be like to rely on local ingredients at a restaurant in Sweden where winter is long and dark and summer is brief. And yet, that challenge is just what makes Faviken Magasine
This is a great time of year to add another dip to your repertoire, especially a warm dip with cheese scattered on top that turns golden as it bakes. And, this is one of the simplest out there. Rather than mixing the primary ingredients with mayonnaise or sour cream as is customary, this dip is made up of pureed, roasted fennel and garlic. There are only four ingredients in this dip if you don’t c
After holding tryouts for Thanksgiving dessert, I of course ended up going in a completely different direction than any of the contestants. Let me explain how this happened. Kurt claims to not have much of a sweet tooth, but there are three similar sweets that he really likes. Those are Boston cream pie, eclairs, and profiteroles. I’d made the first two at different times in the past, but I’d neve
Picking up a book and taking a trip around the world without even leaving the couch is a lovely thing. That’s what Naomi Duguid’s books offer. They’re always filled with photography of everyday life, beautiful scenery, and inviting food that makes virtual travel all the more real. Her latest is Burma: Rivers of Flavor of which I received a review copy. The fresh, bright flavors of the food with in
What's better than a cocktail on Thanksgiving Day? A pitcher full of cocktails. Sangria is the perfect solution, and this one is well-suited to the season. I saw this in the October issue of Food and Wine. Since it’s lower in alcohol than some other cocktails, you can sip a glass or two while cooking all kinds of things and not lose track of your oven timing. It’s made with hard apple cider,
I’m enjoying this concept of tryouts for Thanksgiving dessert. Why didn’t I think of this years ago? It’s a perfect excuse to sample several desserts, test the recipes, and eventually make a decision for our menu. Today’s contestant hails from the LA Times. I believe I stumbled upon it two years ago when it was part of a slideshow of Thanksgiving dishes, but it was originally published in the pape
It’s that time of year. I can’t look at a pumpkin recipe and just go on about my day. I have to stop and try almost everything I see that’s made with pumpkin. It can’t be helped. The other day I happened upon a slideshow of pumpkin recipes on the Martha site, and when I saw these Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins, I could not resist. I had some pumpkin puree on hand after making the Pumpkin Roulade, so the
I’ve always been a picky eater. When I was little, I could not abide onions in my food especially in spaghetti sauce. It’s probably the primary reason I learned to cook. Spaghetti sauce was one of the very first things I ever made by myself. From there, learning to make lasagna with homemade sauce was an easy jump, and stuffed shells were the same as lasagna only the cheese filling is spooned into
You might be thinking “ciabatta, so what?” But wait, this is big news around here. For the longest time, I had a ciabatta issue. It was my bread nemesis. I could not make good ciabatta to save my life. I tried several different recipes, repeated the attempts, and had flat, boring loaf after loaf with no airy, holey structure to be found. I would sulk and avoid wet doughs all together for weeks, an
