From ras-el-hanout to harissa to preserved lemons, Moroccan cuisine features some of the most stunning flavors on the planet. Sadly, there’s no Moroccan restaurant in my neck of the woods, but it’s easy to include some signature North African inspiration when you’re in your own kitchen. To make this batch of salsa, I blended sautéed [...]
Continue reading about Blending the Familiar with the Exotic: A Taste of North Africa
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 [...]
I have a new love: capers. I’ve been on my caper honeymoon for a week now, and it doesn’t look like the affair will be over any time soon. (A week is a long time for an inquisitive foodie who rarely makes the same thing twice.) Sure, I’ve always had a passing fancy for the [...]
Potato pancakes are good, but plantain pancakes are even better. Especially when you serve them with a matchingly tropical side like banana salsa. (Okay, I’ll admit that my main reason for including bananas in the salsa was that they had to be eaten, but necessity wound up being the mother of a tasty invention.) The [...]
Continue reading about Patty Cake, Plantain Cake (and Baby Bananas, Too!)
It’s finally arrived, folks: wild salmon season! The sustainable wild salmon fisheries up in Alaska are running at peak capacity right now, which means not only can you get fresh wild salmon — as opposed to frozen — you’ll probably have a choice of different varieties available at your local fishmonger shop. (Superior Fish had [...]
Continue reading about Featuring Two of Summer’s Stars: Strawberries & Wild Salmon
I’m a big believer in making your own sauces, dressings, and condiments — they’re usually easy to make, and it’s a lot quicker and cheaper to craft your own blend with ingredients you already have on hand than it is to go out and buy a big bottle/jar of something that’ll take you forever to [...]
Even though we think of salsa as necessarily involving tomatoes, onions, and garlic, “salsa” just means “sauce” in Spanish…which kicks the pantry cupboard doors wide open to interpretation. (There’s also the dancing kind of salsa, but I won’t even get started on that for fear of ditching my food writer’s post in favor of the [...]
Continue reading about Grapes Are Good for More Than Just Wine
I love corn. Real corn, that is, not high-fructose corn syrup, caramel color, dextrose, maltodextrin, and all the other hundreds of processed corn products in our food today. Real corn is corn on the cob and corn chips and cornmeal…and things made with those, like roasted corn and chips and salsa and Indian pudding. And, [...]
Here’s a quick idea for your next dinner party, cocktail obligation, or solo supper: sautéed shrimp with salsa. It’s very similar to Shrimp Scampi, except that instead of garlic and butter, you use salsa (either homemade or the store-bought “fresh” style). This appetizer is fast, easy, and delicious…and you could expand it into a main [...]
Saturday, January 31, 2009 Normally, I’m more of a cook and coach than a caterer, but when I was asked if I could provide some appetizers for this “Dance Away Hunger” fundraiser event in Detroit, I was happy to come up with some “cultured” finger food. The event was hosted by YA Salsa and was [...]
