I’ve spent the past couple of years searching for the perfect blueberry muffin recipe. It couldn’t be too sweet, too dense, too cake-like, not sweet enough, and it had to be interesting. By interesting I mean that there has to be some quality that has you coming back for more. How I missed this recipe before, especially when it comes up on the first page of a google search, is beyond me. But the important thing is that I’ve found it now, and I’m never letting it go.
Categories: Breakfast · Dessert · Vegetarian
Tagged: blueberries, muffins
Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme. The French name sounds so much prettier, does it not? After wandering around the Internet a bit this week, I saw Deb’s creation of Coq au Vin over at Smitten Kitchen. I’ve been wanting to make that dish for awhile now, but for this particular occasion, I was looking for more of a one pot wonder.
Off the shelf came Julia, and I started looking through the chapter of casserole-roasted chicken and settled on Poulet en Cocotte Bonne Femme. I had my hesitations, however. You see, I’m not all that crazy about bacon. I know some people consider that blasphemy, but I stand by my words. (I did Atkins for a year and ate enough bacon to cover a lifetime, ok?) Bacon had probably held me back from trying more of Julia’s recipes (including the coq au vin), but that’s all changed now.
The woman had a way with food, that’s for sure. Or maybe it’s the “boil the bacon” technique, which is supposed to remove some of the smoky/salty taste. I enjoyed the more delicate hint of bacon, but if you want to be hit over the head with bacon flavor, you may want to skip the boiling step. If that doesn’t change your mind, there’s always the look of simmering bacon. It’s absolutely disgusting, and if I didn’t place 100% trust in Julia, I likely would have given up at this point and just roasted the chicken.
Categories: Gluten Free · Main Course
Tagged: bacon, chicken, potatoes
I’m always trying to figure out ways to make vegetables more interesting. Before today, I thought I only liked cauliflower in its raw state. When cooked, to me it was mushy and smelled like a gym sock.
I reminded myself that the roasting process brings out sweeter flavors in vegetables, and can change a food from so-so to delicious. And if other vegetables can taste absolutely sublime when roasted, perhaps cauliflower could too.
Categories: Gluten Free · Low-Carb · Side Dish · Vegetarian
Tagged: Vegetables
I became intrigued by Red Velvet Cake after watching an episode of Throwdown (one of Bobby Flay’s shows) a couple of years back. This was right around the time I was plotting to take out Sprinkles with my own cupcakes, so intrigue soon turned into borderline obsession.
I made red velvet cake a few times over the past couple of years, mostly when the color matched the holiday. At the time, I was set on using butter in my cupcakes, and I sought out recipes for red velvet cake that used butter, rather than oil. Over and over again, I was not all that happy with the results (too dense, a little dry).
A couple of things happened over the past two weeks that had me rethinking the butter thing. First, I watched an old episode of Good Eats that talked about chiffon cupcakes, and how the original recipe came from someone looking for a lighter-textured cupcake…which was achieved by using oil, not butter. Second, I decided to test-drive Terri Wahl’s recipe from the Throwdown episode. Finally, I was reminded of my red velvet fascincation when I saw Nicole’s recipe for red velvet cupcakes on Pinch My Salt, and I decided to revisit this dessert. Terri’s recipe reviews were mixed; some thought the cupcakes were overly greasy, others said the cupcake papers absorbed excess oil just fine. I decided to take my chances, and oh my, am I glad that I did!
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Fettucine Alfredo is one of those dishes that is very simple to make, yet it doesn’t always turn out quite the way I want it to. So I decided to follow a recipe.
What a mistake!
There are apparently people out there who do enjoy lemon cream pasta (which is what this dish tasted like), but I am not one of them. At first I wasn’t sure how this recipe could garner 4 stars, but then I thought back to some other ratings I’ve seen on Food Network’s website. Let’s see, a number of people have given a recipe five stars without ever having made it (because it looked good!), others completely change the recipe and like the results (five stars for the chef’s version!), and I’m pretty sure at some point someone gave the recipe five stars because they liked her hair that day.
Categories: Main Course · Quick Meal · Vegetarian
Tagged: Cheese, lemon, pasta
Can you remember the last time you had a dessert so good, you wanted to lick the dish? I can, because it happened tonight. I had a fridge full of Meyer lemons, and I knew I needed to do something with them quickly. I’d been thinking about making lemon mousse for awhile now, but I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to do with it. And then raspberries popped into my head. If I could just find some nice raspberries, that’s all this dish would need.
As luck would have it, I was able to get both golden raspberries and red raspberries. Could this be fate?
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Categories: Dessert
Tagged: lemon, raspberries
Last night, I had a lovely dinner planned. It would be simple, fast, and delicious, a toned-down version of another dish I love. It’s one of those dishes that has few ingredients, but they all just blend so well together…the sum of the components is so far superior to the individual ingredients.
So what happened, you ask? Well, allow me to back up a step. I was out of town this weekend, and I didn’t restock my kitchen when I got back. I thought the food I had remaining from last week would still be fine…but it wasn’t. I came home to moldy grape tomatoes and spotted basil. ONE leaf of basil looked good yet, so I tore off that leaf and thought about what I could do with it, given what I had to work with.
Categories: Appetizer · Quick Meal · Vegetarian
Tagged: Cheese, pesto, pita, Pizza
I have a confession: this was a freezer meal. You see, I’ve been really wanting to make Anne Burrell’s Bolognese again (and boy, do I have a story to go with that dish – stay tuned), but I had some meat & mushroom sauce in my freezer that I really had to use first. This is another one of my very own recipes that isn’t really a recipe, it’s just something that I cook. However, the last time I made it, I happened to write down exactly what I did.
And, it freezes beautifully, so when you have a night like I did last night, where you simply don’t want to cook (there’s that dishes thing again) but know you should, you can whip up a meal in minutes.
Categories: Main Course
Tagged: pasta
If you keep a stash of cheese and crackers or good bread in your house, you will always have an easy lunch or dinner option. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a meal consist of cheese, whole grain crackers or bread, and some fruit or a salad. When it’s dinner, I’ll throw in a glass of wine.
Today, I really, really wanted salt. Needed salt. Usually I’m a sugar kind of girl, but about once every month or two the salt craving hits me over the head. I’ve found it’s easiest to simply indulge it right away, before it’s done too much damage: think going through the drive-thru for some fries or picking up fish and chips for dinner. Yes, cheese and crackers seems like a much safer option.
Categories: Appetizer · Quick Meal · Salad · Vegetarian
Tagged: Cheese, Crackers, Vegetables
About three years ago, I decided I would come up with a cupcake to rival Candace Nelson’s. There were a couple of problems with this plan. First, I’d never actually had a Sprinkles cupcake. Second, I certainly wasn’t what you would call a cupcake master; up to that point, every cupcake I’d made had come from a mix (shameful, I know).
Nevertheless, I set out on my cupcake journey. I’ve made many, many cupcakes during that time. Some I’ve been happy with, some, not so much. There’s a balance needed between fluffy cake and moistness, and I discovered it’s not always the easiest to achieve.
