The Bitten Word

Warm Coconut Rice Pudding

Cooking Light (January/February 2012)

Rice pudding is easy to forget about. It's sort of a sleeper dessert. If it were an Oscar contender, it'd be The Artist. If it were a character on Downton Abbey, it'd be Edith, the middle daughter. (Yes, we're watching. And we're obsessed.) If it were a Beatle, it'd be George. (Obviously, if Ringo were a dessert he'd be something more like this.)

Rice pudding is Jan Brady.

Which, of course, isn't fair. Rice pudding is warm and comforting, and it's easy to make. Scented with cinnamon and other spices, it's the perfect treat on a chilly winter night.

And this recipe from Cooking Light has us sitting up and taking notice. More than two years ago, we asked ourselves why we weren't eating more rice pudding. But, well, we keep forgetting about it. Not any more. This rice pudding may just be our new favorite winter dessert.  

Thanksgiving 2011 Recipe Index: What the Food Magazines Are Recommending

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! 

Thanksgiving 2011 Trends in Food Magazines: Pies, Pecans, Ginger and Green Beans

Thanksgiving is coming! Thanksgiving is coming!

And we're ready. We've scoured the magazines, tested recipes, and we're eager talk turkey, recommend dishes, and answer any Thanksgiving-related questions you might have.

We're kicking off our Thanksgiving coverage by looking at the trends in this year's crop of magazines. As in previous years, we've indexed every single one of the November Thanksgiving recipes from the magazines in our rotation. We'll share that list with you on Monday. There are some really exciting (and bizarre) dishes among the more than 250 recipes.

But today we're going to talk about trends. 

As we pored through this year's Thanksgiving features, some clear trends emerged. To illustrate many of the trends in this year's T-Day recipes, we created word clouds, like the one above, which illustrate how frequently certain words popped up. You can click on all the word clouds to enlarge them, so you can take a closer look. 

What's the general theme for this year? Well, for a lot of our magazines, the theme seemed to be, "Thanksgiving 2011: We're Just Not That Into You." Food & Wine and Saveur seem rather light on their coverage. Even Martha Stewart Living, which we would sort of hold up as the grande dame of Thanksgiving entertaining, seemed scaled back. (We hasten to add that we're not saying that's a bad thing -- Lord knows there are plenty of great autumn recipes out there that don't involve sweet potatoes or cranberry sauce.)

But there was one magazine that blew us away this year. You guys know we tend not to single out particular magazines or issues as favorites, but this must be said: Bon Appétit BROUGHT IT this Thanksgiving. Buh-ROUGHT. IT. From its "Feast from the East" feature, which showcased marvelous ideas for an Asian-inspired Thanksgiving, to the "Down South" feature on a Louisiana Cajun Thanksgiving feast, we were enthralled. Four turkeys, a host of awesome side dishes, and drool-worthy desserts (we need that Grape-and-Apple Pie) -- the November 2011 Bon Appétit is a pleasure. Even if you're set on your Thanksgiving menu, consider picking up a copy just for fun.

Anyway, trends.

As you can see from the word cloud above, the usual suspects are, well, the usual suspects. So here's a word cloud showing all the recipe words, minus "turkey," "gravy," "cranberry," "stuffing," "potatoes," "dressing" and "roasted" (a.k.a. the saddest Thanksgiving ever):

Soy and Cola-Braised Pork Shoulder

Cooking Light (October 2011)

If you follow us on Twitter, you know we just got back from a weekend in Memphis.

We were there to celebrate the wedding of Zach's best friend from college, Whitney. We had a marvelous time! Also? Every single meal we ate included pulled pork barbecue. Yes, even the breakfast omelet. (Oh, and that fried chicken doesn't count -- that was merely a snack.)

We're not complaining. We love Memphis BBQ, and pulled pork in particular: slow-braised so it's meltingly tender, and slathered in a smoky-sweet sauce. Actually, in Memphis, the sauce tilts decidedly toward sweet.

If Memphis pulled pork took a semester abroad in China, it just might come back as this Soy and Cola-Braised Pork Shoulder. With subtle Asian accents (soy, ginger, hoisin sauce), this is a little like BBQ by way of Beijing.

Contest Winners + Things That Have Caught Our Fancy

Big thanks to everyone who entered this month's contest. We loved hearing your comments about the covers!  While most people praised either the Martha Stewart Living short rib potpies, the Saveur roast beef or the Bon Appétit pork loin, we were surprised to see how much you guys loved the Whole Living cover. Dozens of you were enticed by that roasted veggie salad. 

Before we get to this month's winners, we want to highlight a few items from recent magazines that we enjoyed. 

Bourbon is our favorite spirit, so we are enamored with Saveur's current feature on bourbons and whiskeys in their October issue. It's practically a crash course in whiskeys, with tasting notes for more than 20 varieties. Needless to say, we were very thirsty after reading it. The piece -- titled "Whiskey Rebellion" -- isn't online, but as an accompaniment to the article Saveur.com has an excellent gallery of 8 whiskey cocktails.   

The same issue has a feature on fermentation that we also loved. There are recipes for everything from Spiced Red Wine Vinegar to Fermented Beets. The photos are amazing, but the thing we loved about the feature was an two-page spread called "The World of Fermentation." It highlights 30 fermented products from around the globe. Some of them are staples -- soy sauce, raw unfiltered apple cider vinegar, cultured butter. Others are foreign but familiar, like Marmite. But it's the products we've never heard of that really got us curious, like Kefir, an "effervescent milk drink from Central Asia...bubbly with yeast," and black garlic, which we've been reading a lot about lately. Have you cooked with it?

Saveur's Fermented Beets with Orange and Ginger

In Cooking Light, check out the Halloween Treat Picker, a great chart that divides candies on an axis of Sugar versus Saturated Fat, so that it highlights those items that have Less Fat & More Sugar (Nerds -- the candy, not an accusation), More Fat & More Sugar (Reese's Peanut Butter Cups), and on and on in any combination. We're not big candy eaters, but we thought this was a great Halloween tie-in.  

This same issue of Cooking Light features their annual Taste Test Awards. We love reading about taste tests in Cook's Illustrated, but few other magazines seem to do them. The two winners we're most excited to try are Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Steel Cut Oats and the Whole Foods 365-brand Aged Balsamic Vinegar. You can explore the categories and some of the winners online. 

And lastly, there's a new food magazine of which we've become aware over the last few months. It's Chop Chop Magazine, which is focused on cooking with kids. Randomly, we both received an issue through our day jobs, and thought it was adorable. It features kids cooking and sharing their favorite recipes. If you have kids, it's definitely worth checking out.  

And now -- who won this month's giveaway?

Eat This Now! 6 Dishes to Make Before the End of Summer

Kids, we've got a little bit of bad news: Summer is nearly over.

But you've still got a little time! Meteorologically speaking, you've got 23 days. And even if you count Labor Day as the end of summer, you still have the better part of a week.

One good use of these waning days? Cook up a favorite summer dish!

We scrolled through our recipe index to round up 6 Summer Dishes that you should definitely make before fall. They're some of our all-time favorites!

 

Raw Corn and Zucchini Salad: This salad is simple, fresh and bursting with flavor. It's the taste of summer in a single bite!

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet and Spicy Fried Peach Pies: There's literally not a single word in the name of this dish that we don't love.

 

 

 

 

Pan-Roasted Corn and Okra: Just four ingredients: corn, okra, oil and salt. It doesn't get simpler, or tastier.

 

 

 

 

 

Best BBQ Chicken with Simple Barbecue Sauce: This is one of the most popular posts we've ever had on The Bitten Word, and for good reason. This dish is a knockout!

 

 

 

Basil-Blackberry Crumble: A crumble is just about the most perfect summer dessert you can find. We've made dozens of variations of this recipe over the past three years. Pick your favorite summer fruit, and get to crumblin'! 

 

 

 

Burgers with Blue Cheese Mayonnaise and Sherry Vidalia Onions: This is probably our favorite burger we've ever made. Sweet, smoky and tangy all in one bite!

 

 

 

 

As for us, we're heading to the beach for a loooong Labor Day week with a houseful of friends. We've got sunscreen, a stack of unread magazines and a bag full of books. We'll do some cooking, and we just may have a cocktail or two.

We'll see you in a week -- it's going to be a fantastic autumn! 

 

 

 

 

Burgers with Blue Cheese Mayo and Sherry Vidalia Onions

Cooking Light (June 2011)

Ever since we made the Umami Burgers with Port and Stilton, we've had a hankering for another hamburger. Those umami burgers were good, but they left us wanting more. 

We needed a real, honest-to-goodness, amazing burger. We're talking the kind that's packed with flavor, prepared on the grill, and piled high with delicious toppings. The kind of burger where the first bite makes makes you open your eyes wide with joy.

Well, we found it with these Burgers with Blue Cheese Mayo and Sherry Vidalia Onions.