We cut them up and then toss them to the curb uneaten, we use them as home decor, we even make containers and musical instruments out of them…but we don’t eat very many of them. I’m talking about squash. Poor, overlooked squash. It’s relatively easy to prepare — assuming that you have a sharp and [...]
As much as I love seafood, I don’t often have the chance to make crawfish — it can be difficult to find, and if it’s still in the shell, it can be difficult to clean. But last week I finally thought to browse through the frozen section of my local seafood market to see if [...]
When I was a kid, I couldn’t stand cabbage — it tasted like old shoes and smelled even worse when it was cooking. But lately I’ve started using cabbage in my dishes, and I’m realizing that the whole trick to enjoying cabbage is to cook it gently. When you do, it retains its pleasing crunch [...]
Continue reading about Creamy Winter Chowder & Crunchy Winter Cabbage
Lots of ingredients can make a soup great, but I recently realized that adding toasted nuts as a garnish makes almost any soup even greater. Sliced almonds are particularly good candidates for toasting since they’re uniformly slim and crunchy. And because almonds are less oily than other nuts, dry-toasting them in a pan means you [...]
Continue reading about Pairing Creamy Soups with Toasted Nuts
Celery root–or celeriac, as it’s sometimes called–is a type of celery cultivated specifically for its root. Though the stalk is edible and tastes a bit like the celery we’re accustomed to, the true appeal of celeriac lies underground. Due to its irregular surface, the knotted, knobbly root can be a bit tricky to peel, but [...]
Mirepoix is a French culinary term for three basic vegetables (carrots, celery, and onions) that are chopped or diced and then used as the base to create sauces and soups/stocks. (The Spanish version is sofrito–it includes onion, garlic, and red pepper.) In this case, I added mushrooms, red pepper, tomato sauce and herbs to create [...]
