Cook's Illustrated (January/February 2012)
New England fish chowder. Just the mention of it evokes blustery winter evenings, salty sea air, crackling fireplaces and nubby wool sweaters.
And while it's barely dipped below 45 degrees here all winter, we thought the idea of a big steaming bowl of fish chowder sounded extremely comforting and tasty for the beginning of February.
Martha Stewart Living (January 2012)
We're on a bit of a cauliflower kick right now.
Last week we made that yummy Radicchio and Cauliflower Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs, and now here we are with this cauliflower soup.
Cauliflower abounds in the January issues of food magazines. In fact, two magazines -- Everyday Food and Bon Appétit -- are currently featuring recipes for cauliflower steaks. (Do two make a trend?)
There are plenty of reasons why the food mags turn to cauliflower in January. It's seasonal, affordable, healthful and hearty. And, oh yeah, it's extremely versatile and it tastes great.
Nothing showcases all those accolades more than this Creamy Cauliflower Soup with Greens.
A Bitten Word Recipe
We wanted to make at least one original dish for our Thanksgiving meal this year. Looking through our stash of food magazines, we noticed a definite scarcity of soups. There were only two soup recipes in all ten of our magazines.
So we decided to make up a soup!
Once we started thinking soup, we quickly started thinking chestnuts. Chestnut soup is rich and silky, and the nutty autumn flavor makes an excellent addition to a Thanksgiving menu.
But we wanted to pair it with something a little different. What could we pair it with? What would make a nice pair...? What to pair, what to pair? Hmm...pair...pairs....
Honestly, we have no idea where we came up with the idea for this soup.
Continue reading "Thanksgiving 2011: Chestnut Pear Bisque" »
Our Fakesgiving + Our Favorite Holiday Dishes
A little more than a week ago, we had Thanksgiving.
Or really, we had Fakesgiving, our annual tradition with friends and family where we pack as many seats as possible into our apartment, make a bunch of new dishes from November food magazines, and see what everyone likes and dislikes. This year, there were 13 of us. Zach's mom and sister came and helped cook the day before (we literally could not have done it without them), and we made 17 new Thanksgiving dishes.
(This year's Fakesgiving crowd, minus the two of us.)
Below, you'll see the initial list of recipes we started with: more than 250 Thanksgiving recipes from 10 magazines. To be included in the index, the recipes had to be part of the magazine's Thanksgiving coverage. So this is not meant to be comprehensive -- there are many more recipes in this month's magazines. If the recipe is hyperlinked, it is available online. If not, it's not there yet.
In preparation for this year's Thanksgiving coverage, we've also created a page of Our Favorite Holiday Recipes. There, you'll find a collection of dishes from Thanksgivings, Fakesgivings and holiday dinner parties past. We'll be updating it as we introduce new content and recipes on the site.
Enjoy the index!
Continue reading "Thanksgiving 2011 Recipe Index: What the Food Magazines Are Recommending" »
Fine Cooking (October/November 2011)
Let's face it -- a Beet Green and Bulgur Soup sounds like something you might eat on a hippie commune. We're picturing patchouli, tie-dye and conversations about the merits of firm versus silken tofu.
Well, call us hippies, because this soup is not only simple and quick to prepare, it's also unbelievably delicious.
Continue reading "Beet Green and Bulgur Soup with Poached Eggs" »
Bon Appétit (February 2011)
One of our Culinary Resolutions for this year was to de-emphasize meat as a focus of our diet. We don't have any desire to go vegetarian, but there are lots of good reasons to scale back.
To our somewhat surprise, we've actually been doing really well on this resolution, and it hasn't even been that difficult. We've been doing more all-veggie meals, and when we do eat meat, it has not been as much of the star of the plate as it used to be. (Not surprisingly, those goes nicely hand-in-hand with our other resolution to buy higher quality meat closer to the source -- when you buy a $20 chicken, you want to make it last.)
We've been trying out veggie soups, winter salads and meatless pastas. (We've even been experimenting with cooking tofu! We literally had to ask a clerk at the grocery store where the tofu was.)
But the best vegetarian dish we've tried so far this year -- hands-down -- is this Black Bean Chili with Butternut Squash.
Continue reading "Black Bean Chili with Butternut Squash " »
We're all done with our Thanksgiving posts! We really enjoyed trying all these recipes, and we've loved hearing from you about what you're planning to cook!
Now comes the fun part: Are you making a dish from a food magazine this year? We'd love to feature your dish in a round-up of reader experiences after the big day. Whether you tried something new this year or you cooked some family favorites, we'd love to see your pics! Email them to us along with your thoughts on the dish and we'll post a round-up sometime after Thursday.
Below, you'll find every dish we made this year for Thanksgiving -- click on an image to read the recipe. And remember, don't lose your head on the big day.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving! We hope it's full of love, family and really, really good food.
>> More Thanksgiving recommendations from the Bitten Word
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Bon Appétit (November 2010)
We kicked off our Thanksgiving dinner (well, after the snacks and Autumn Harvest Jello Shots), with this Celery and Pear Bisque.
When each of us was growing up, soup was never a part of the Thanksgiving menu. Maybe it's because we were both raised in the South, or maybe it's just coincidence, but soup was never part of the Turkey Day equation for either one of us.
But we've become Thanksgiving soup converts. We think it's a great way to kick of the meal. It's a lovely, warm, comforting way to start Thanksgiving dinner, and -- perhaps even more importantly -- it's a great way to start feeding your guests while you put the final touches on the rest of the dishes!
Continue reading "Thanksgiving 2010: Celery and Pear Bisque" »
Fine Cooking (December 2009/January 2010)
Last month, we had a roasted chestnut soup at a restaurant here in DC. Tasting it for the first time was an almost religious experience. Sweet, nutty and silky-smooth, the soup was just one of those foods that instantly warms your soul. We couldn't stop smiling!
A couple days later, we saw pints of chestnuts at the farmers market. We decided to grab some and see if we could replicate that heavenly bowl of soup. By a stroke of luck, we came home, opened our December/January issue of Fine Cooking, and found this recipe for Chestnut Soup with Crisp Prosciutto.
Several days after that, DC got its first snow of the season. For eight hours on a chilly Saturday, fat wet flakes fell silently outside the windows.
Could there be any better day for this soup? We would literally have chestnuts roasting...okay, not on an open fire (our landlord wouldn't like that). But we were excited about the smell of roasting chestnuts wafting through our house while we gazed at the Christmas tree and the falling snow.
The universe, it seemed, was telling us to make this soup.
But the universe had some tricks up its sleeve.
Gourmet (November 2009)
Thumbing through the final issue of Gourmet [moment of silence], we were blown away by one of the first photos we saw, which was of this Scarlet Carrot Soup. Deeply red and topped by fried carrot strips, we knew it would make a dramatic start to any Thanksgiving meal.
But why is the soup so red? Is it a special variety of carrots? Food coloring? Code Red Mountain Dew?
