While it’s simple enough to use a roux-based sauce to make a cheesy cream sauce for pasta, sometimes it’s easier to just toss a creamy, easily melted cheese directly into the hot pasta. Especially when you stumble upon a cream cheese made with goat’s milk. (Admittedly, I’m a huge fan of goat’s-milk and sheep’s-milk cheeses.) [...]
Although “sweet” and “savory” have become separate worlds in today’s American restaurants and home kitchens, in many cultures they’re freely combined: Thai salads with papaya and beef, the Hawaiian penchant for cooking pineapple with pork, Polynesian dishes featuring mango and shrimp. Even European cooks used to blur the sweet/savory boundaries at will. (Hence the tradition [...]
Continue reading about Enjoying Hot Dogs in a Medieval Kind of Way
Carbonara is a classic Italian dish that’s surprisingly easy to make … assuming, that is, that you start with top-notch bacon and eggs. There are several pluses to top-notch bacon: it tastes savory and rich rather than greasy and tough, you only need one strip per person, and top-notch bacon won’t splatter all over your [...]
Natural peanut butter is one of my favorite foods. Not only does it taste so good that it’s addictive, it transcends sandwiches and chocolate cups to create lusciously creamy soups, sauces, and sautées. PB is also easy enough to make yourself: just put 1 cup of unsalted peanuts, 1 tablespoon unrefined peanut oil, and a [...]
Continue reading about Taking Peanut Butter Past the Sandwich
Marinated mushrooms: those tasty fungi at the end of grocery-store olive bars that pretty much everyone ignores. I must have passed by the garlicky little suckers a dozen times before I even registered their presence. Once I tried them, though, I knew they’d be delicious in a wide variety of dishes … not to mention [...]
When I was kid, the very concept of fish in tins was appalling. Then I got older and realized that a can is no different than a tin and that many delicious tuna sandwiches had gone from a metal container — albeit round, not rectangular — to my plate. I always loved my mom’s Caesar [...]
Continue reading about Welcoming a New Ingredient into the Kitchen: Sardines!
Nothing proclaims “SUMMER!” like a simple tomato and herb pasta. Basil is a perennial favorite herb to use, of course, along with thyme and oregano. Dill is another. This year, though, I decided to plant a new herb in my garden: lemon verbena. As its name suggests, it’s quite lemony! Its softly fragrant leaves are [...]
Good bacon goes with everything — I have a sneaking suspicion that bacon ice cream would be a hit. (Especially if you paired the bacon with pecans.) When I say “good” bacon, I’m referring to bacon from pastured hogs that snort and snuffle about on an actual farm. You can find this kind of bacon [...]
Crunchy lettuce is great…but so is wilted lettuce! Lettuces with a faint bitterness/pepperiness to them — arugula, watercress, frisée — are especially good complements to savory dishes. Plus, because they wilt so quickly, they’re a snap to toss into a sautée or stir-fry at the last minute. Just the heat coming from the pan and [...]
The arugula piles up sometimes, doesn’t it? (Especially now that we’re getting into lettuce-growing season.) Even if you don’t have a lettuce garden, I bet you’ve stared down a half-full container of baby greens and wondered what to do with it. Salads are great, but no dish can tickle your gastronomic fancy 100% of the [...]
