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Watch the newest video in the Pantry Secrets playlist, Oven Roasted Tomatoes
New post up at the new home; I’m having domain name problems. Like the previous posting, this one accompanies a demonstration video.
Updated post on Garlic Confit with a video demonstration!
Peppermint Bark A simple recipe for Peppermint Bark with a live demonstration! Ginger-Molasses Cookies Chewy and delicious Ginger-Molasses Cookies. New Home? What’s this about a new home, you ask? Well, I’m moving my blog to a new host on a new platform. If you’ve been dropping in now and then, continue to do so, [...]
Interested in making a fine chocolate mousse? Get the recipe here, then watch the demo, recorded live at Google+.
The holiday season is upon us and that means cookies, candies, and more. Caramels are a classic favorite food gift even though most recipes call for corn syrup and require multiple steps. Wouldn’t it be nice to make caramels with honey and brown sugar instead of corn syrup, and in one step in a single [...]
Chewy and crunchy, sweet and tangy, snickerdoodles are a popular cookie for a very good reason: they taste great. No one-note cookies, they are complex, buttery, and redolent of cinnamon. Snickerdoodles are also quite forgiving, making them an excellent choice for young cookie bakers. Last Christmas I had the joy of helping my young granddaughter make [...]
Some things are so good they can only be described as outrageous. If you love vanilla and butter, you’ll agree that with two types of vanilla, these shortbread cookies are Outrageously Vanilla. Not only are the cookies outrageously good, the dough is multi-use, serving quite well for tarts and bars. You’ll want to use the [...]
Nothing beats a good Oatmeal-Raisin Cookie, at least according to some folks. They may not be my absolute favorite cookies, but I do like them, especially when they’re chewy and moist. Here’s how I like to make them. The recipe that comes on boxes of oats is just fine, except it’s a larger batch than [...]
A mug of hot soup on a crisp Fall day is a true delight. When the soup is made from scratch in just a few minutes from four ingredients found in the pantry and refrigerator, it’s even better. Okay, maybe I cheated a bit. The tomatoes were pre-strained, boxed Italian tomatoes. And the roasted red [...]
At least once a week, sometimes more often, I do a stir-fry of some sort for dinner; usually two or three dishes get stir-fried for one meal. If I’m pressed for time, I’ll use a store-bought sauce and a bag of pre-cut veggies. When I can, I’ll prep the veggies myself, and if I have [...]
A few months from now, just in time for Tet, I’ll be visiting Southeast Asia for a month. Most of my time will be in Vietnam, but a trip to visit Angkor Wat in Cambodia is a certainty. In preparation for this adventure, I’m spending more time looking at, cooking, and eating foods with Southeast [...]
If you’re making a Mexican or Southwest feast, you’ll want to make some Queso Fresco, or fresh cheese. If, on the other hand, you’re indulging your desire for a bit of Indian cuisine, maybe a tikka masala, you’ll want Paneer. In either case, you’re making the same cheese. If you’ve never made cheese before, this [...]
Braising is a magical technique that will turn a tough cut of meat into a mouth-watering, fork-tender taste treat. Just as importantly, it’s simple and not at all time sensitive. You’ll need a pan that is fairly deep—deeper than the thickness of the meat you’re braising—and wide enough to allow all the meat to be [...]
As Spring arrives, our bodies begin to crave more fresh fruits and vegetables. Here is a simple salad that addresses those cravings. Asparagus is one of Spring’s most popular vegetables—it makes an excellent addition to a salad whether raw or blanched and shocked. Strawberries are often thought of as sweet, yet they are actually rather [...]
Here’s a simple skillet supper that can be made vegan by leaving out the sausage and cheese. Begin with a soffritto of onions, red bell peppers, and carrots; sauté in extra virgin olive oil until lightly browned. Read details about soffritto in a post from the Fall of 2010. To the soffritto, add Italian sausage, [...]
Spring has been early in Western North Carolina and summer approaches. Time to start thinking of whole-meal salads that do not require cooking. Recently I composed this salad and thought it would be a good inspiration for the hot days of summer. The most important ingredients in the salad are tuna and white beans. I [...]
Tom Ka Gai is the classic Thai Chicken Coconut soup. It’s both quick and easy to make. There are two or three ingredients you might not be familiar with that are common to Thai cooking and used in this soup. Galangal is a rhyzome similar to ginger, but with a more medicinal taste; if you [...]
Quiche is a wonderful thing: it’s easy to make with ingredients at hand and it can be served at room temperature. It’s an ideal dish for a brunch when company is coming, except for one little problem: one of your guests has a gluten allergy. Here’s a simple solution so tasty that I may never [...]
Whatever the season, there’s always a good reason to make a spicy soup, and this Spicy Black Bean Soup finished with rum is an excellent choice. Before I tell you about the soup, however, I have a confession. I use canned beans…a lot. Yes, I can make bean soups from dried beans, and sometimes that’s [...]
Recently I bought some ginger ale so that whiskey and soda could be consumed. But I mistakenly bought some good stuff, Red Rock Golden Ginger Ale, and while it’s delightfully gingery with a strong peppery finish, it really wouldn’t go well with Jameson’s. The bottle sat in the refrigerator, unloved, until I wanted something to [...]
For me, there is no better quick salad than one of baby spinach, sliced almonds, and orange segments. I prefer to use Clementines or blood oranges when they’re in season. To dress the salad, I make a vinaigrette of three parts blood orange extra-virgin olive oil and one part balsamic vinegar plus some sea salt [...]
No matter what anyone says, don’t let them berate you for not making a “traditional” Italian Wedding Soup, because there is no tradition, it really isn’t Italian, and it has nothing to do with weddings. It is, however, a deliciously quick soup. Start with two quarts or liters of chicken stock—if you don’t have any [...]
Off we go! The jolly ride that is Stumptown Savoury is running once more. Thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to let me know you missed me. I missed you as well. Let’s get caught up first. When last your intrepid hero wrote, I had moved to Asheville, North Carolina. I’m [...]
Over the past year, my life has changed in numerous ways. One thing that hasn’t changed is my passion for food. Every day I strive to make things both delicious and healthful, and to share them. Five days a week I bake bread. But I’ve come to realize something important. I miss writing this blog, [...]
I sometimes write poetry. No, it isn’t food-related, but have a poem anyway. all my gods are mountain gods all my gods are mountain gods resting gently on pinkstained aeries watching snow leopard cub chase eagle shadow standing guard over solitary sleepers and outside my dharma cave in silence of snow newfallen ancestors weave whispers [...]
Wow, it’s August already! I keep hoping to get back to blog-cooking, but at the end of the day, I’m just too tired. For example, last Saturday I baked 213 traditional French baguettes, more than 100 ciabatta, plus ten or so other breads in quantities up to two dozen. That after making two kinds of [...]
Good food starts with good seed. Obvious, isn’t it? Yet in America, at least, it can be difficult to find good seed, by which I mean non-hybridized and open-pollinated seed, preferably organic. You know, the only kind of seed that existed a century ago. The sort of seed that Monsanto wants to eliminate, if not [...]
As you may well imagine, I’ve eaten a few times since moving to Asheville. Here are my thoughts on three of the places I’ve eaten recently. Posana Café Posana Café proudly identifies itself as North Carolina’s first Certified Green Restaurant. They’ve gone through the steps necessary for 3 Star certification by the Green Restaurant Association, [...]
Sometimes life goes more or less according to plan. Plans, however, often get tossed out the window. I would like to have remained in Tennessee, and worked the small plot of land I was on into a mature forest garden. But there is no living food culture (deep-fried is not a culture) in Northeast Tennessee–at least [...]
Hey, just want to let everyone know I’m still here. I just got a little tired of making bread almost every day and decided to take a short break. Speaking of bread, has anyone started a sourdough mother? If there are any questions about that or anything else on my site, please ask.
That lovely boule is a Pain de Provence. There are lots of recipes out there for making Pain de Provence, but I didn’t use any of them. Instead, I played around with the Baker’s Percentage of a standard lean dough. If you aren’t sure what a Baker’s Percentage is, read my previous post. Here’s the [...]
If there is one arcane art in baking, it’s understanding and using the Baker’s Percentage. Once you’ve grasped the fundamentals, the whole world of baking seems simpler. At its core, the Baker’s Percentage is the ratio of ingredients expressed in a relationship to flour. The first thing to remember is that flour is always 100%. [...]
At its most fundamental level, bread is a magical mixture of flour, water, salt, and yeast. The one ingredient in that short list that causes fear is yeast. There are four forms of yeast available to the average baker: fresh, instant, active dry, and wild. Fresh yeast is the most difficult to find unless you’re [...]
A Crude Awakening It took me awhile, but I finally managed to watch this documentary and I must say I really shouldn’t have waited. Peak oil is an important topic, particularly because we are nearing if not already beyond Hibbert’s Peak, the point at which oil production begins to decline because there just isn’t enough. [...]
Lately I’ve been having a lot of fun with bread, especially recreating familiar breads but using wild yeast starter, or sourdough starter, as the primary leavening. Le Gibassier was so tasty it didn’t last nearly long enough, so I was “forced” to make another breakfast bread. I thought raisin bread sounded like a winner, especially [...]
A new year, and the gardening season has begun. We’ve had a bit of a warm spell, and Average Last Frost date is fast approaching, so the urge to get started on the garden was more than I could resist. Not that I wanted to. I pulled the cover off the overwintering bed to reveal [...]
Dark, rich coffee, a bit of fresh fruit, and Le Gibassier still warm from the oven. Ah, morning in Provençal. There are a few things you’ll need to have on hand if you want to make this. Candied orange peel is a must. If you don’t have any on hand, make some by simmering orange [...]
When I first started as a pastry chef, I was handed a recipe for a chocolate-hazelnut torte and told to fix it. Not just make it, but make it special. I think I succeeded, and apparently so did the judges at the very first Taste of Ashland (Oregon), who awarded this torte a first for [...]
The January 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Astheroshe of the blog accro. She chose to challenge everyone to make a Biscuit Joconde Imprime to wrap around an Entremets dessert. An entremet is a layered dessert wrapped in a Bisuit Joconde Imprime. The Biscuit Joconde Imprime is itself, in two parts, a Joconde Sponge [...]
There are times when only chocolate and roses will suffice; Valentine’s Day is often one of those times. With décor chocolate, also known as modeling chocolate and sometimes chocolate plastic, you can have chocolate roses. I first learned how to make décor chocolate from a chef who’d learned from someone who learned from Roland Mesnier, White [...]
Having a good basic quick bread recipe in your repertoire makes life easy when you want to use up some bananas or zucchini, or find yourself hosting a brunch, or just want something tasty while you watch the snowstorm blowing outside your window. Michael Ruhlman’s Basic Quick Bread/Muffin Ratio from his book Ratio: The Simple Codes [...]
With all the snow blowing around outside, I feel a need for biscuits. Just plain old buttermilk biscuits, flaky and buttery and begging for some of the raspberry jam I made last summer while still in Oregon. Buttermilk Biscuits 5½ oz (1 scant cup) all-purpose flour 3½ oz (1 scant cup) pastry flour 2 teaspoons [...]
Capelli d’Angelo in Brodo is a classic soup, its peasant origins clear. Bring some broth to a boil, add Angel Hair pasta, cook until just done, let rest, and serve with a generous grating of Parmigiano-Reggiano. It’s the thing to make when your pantry is down to a few bones, a bit of flour, and [...]
I love making scones. When you know that while working as a pastry chef I made scones by the gross on Sundays, and made as many as 150 dozen on Mothers’ Day, you might be surprised that I still love making them. But I do, because then I get to eat them. Here’s a good, [...]
Brioche–memories of Paris and fear of failure, well mixed. But no longer. I lucked into a copy of Ciril Hitz’s book Baking Artisan Pastries and Breads, watched the included DVD, and now I have no more fear of failure. With brioche, that is. Classic Brioche as modified from Ciril Hitz, Baking Artisan Pastries and Breads [...]
I really enjoy good food, but I don’t necessarily want to spend all day every day slaving over a hot stove. Having a Ragù di Peperoni e Pomodori sitting in the refrigerator means I can have the flavor of hours of cooking in just a few minutes. Ragù di Peperoni e Pomodori ½ cup extra [...]
Back in the 80′s I was Pastry Chef at The Winchester Inn in Ashland, Oregon. Among my duties was soupmaking, and over the years I worked there I must have made more than a thousand pots of soup, including several hundred batches of a deceptively simple soup called Cultivator. I may not have remembered the [...]
Recently I attended a Holiday Meal event at an upscale restaurant that started with a Forest Mushroom Soup. Or so they claimed. It was a tan-colored insipid broth with a few bits vaguely recognizable as “mushroom” floating in it. I put away my business cards so no one would ask me for an opinion. Here’s what [...]
Christmas morning, fresh snow on the ground. Is there a better time for hot chocolate? I think not. Here’s what I made this Christmas morning while admiring the fresh snow. Hot Chocolate ½ cup half-and-half 1½ cups whole milk, ½ cup reserved 2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder ½ teaspoon Mexican vanilla extract ¼ teaspoon ground [...]
