This is a tale of two culinary possibilities: turning a classic pasta dish into a pizza of sorts and how to save your summer tomato surplus without having to resort to canning. I’m all for canning, mind you, but it’s a lot easier to throw something into a bag than can it. The fact that [...]
Happy New Year, everybody! I thought I’d start off 2012 by breaking an established culinary tradition: pizza toppings. Don’t get me wrong — I love mushroom and (pastured) pepperoni as much as the next guy — but I also enjoy venturing into off-the-spun-dough territory. I first had Thunfisch (tuna fish) pizza in Germany and have [...]
Here’s a truth that’s inconvenient for the dinner-in-a-sack industry but is great for the rest of us: fast food doesn’t have to be junk food. You’ve probably already got a lot of tasty quick meals loitering about in your kitchen, from canned beans that can be made into hearty salads to canned squash or pumpkin [...]
Got some green tomatoes still clinging to the vine? Or maybe you’re like me and you’ve got a bag of them sitting in your kitchen. Now that we’re firmly in fall, we can only pluck the last of what’s in our gardens and hope that whatever still needs to ripen ripens indoors. In my case, [...]
The best part about roasted vegetables isn’t the fact that they’re ridiculously easy to make. It isn’t even the fact that they taste so good that avowed vegetable haters have just as much of a penchant for roasted vegetables as vegetarians do. No, the best thing about roasted vegetables is that leftover roasted veggies can [...]
The concept of stacking various foods and seasonings atop a flat, fairly resilient piece of bread is such a good idea that most culinary traditions do it. Some breads are flatter and rounder than others, and some are more flexible than others — burritos are tidy, bread-bound packages, too — but if you’re willing to [...]
It isn’t quite a pizza, although it has the toppings of one. It isn’t quite a fritatta, although it has the eggy-ness of one. Maybe it’s best to just think of an egg-based “pizza” as a whole different dish…and if you don’t feel like making dough, don’t have any on hand, or are looking for [...]
One day a pot of simmered and marinated vegetables, the next day a cold gazpacho soup, then finally a luscious pizza topping…it’s just a few days in the life of a leftover. It’s like kitchen magic! Remember the Moroccan caponata? I’d made such a big batch that I wound up freezing a bowl of it. [...]
Others may disagree, but to me, pizza has three basic components: a base, toppings (including sauce), and cheese. This leaves a lot of room for creative interpretation…and also means that you always have pizza makings in your fridge! The next time you get the urge for something hot and stringy, why not try inventing a [...]
In honor of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d write about hearts. Specifically, artichoke hearts. From a visual standpoint, no other vegetable is as intriguing and layered as a fresh artichoke–not even onions have more layers. Artichokes also possess an unusual, almost-sweet taste, one that hovers at the edge of your tongue and challenges you to [...]
