The Bitten Word

Crisp and Lemony Go-To Salad + Everyday Food Returns

Everyday Food (March 2013)

Our friends Regi and Kate came over for dinner this past weekend. We spent a lot of time trying to decide what to make -- it had been a while since we'd seen them, and we wanted to serve something interesting. We decided on a fairly elaborate and decadent entree -- coming soon to a blog near you! -- so we wanted something light to kick off the meal. 

We went simple, choosing this Crisp and Lemony Go-To Salad from the March issue of Everyday Food. More about the salad in a moment, but first: Everyday Food is alive!

Or alive-ish. 

After publishing the final regular issue in December and promising to come back as an occasional supplement to Martha Stewart Living, Everyday Food hit mailboxes this month for Living subscribers. (We're not sure if you get it if you purchase Living on newsstands -- we're assuming no.) 

The magazine is noticeably different, mostly in that it's thinner. Most previous issues were around 150 pages -- this is 30 pages filled with 25 or so recipes. The recipe content is very similar to before -- dressed up versions of basic recipes appropriate for any night of the week. There are roast chickens and cookies and casseroles -- it's a nice collection of recipes, even if there aren't many of them. 

 

Peppermint-Meringue Brownie Cake

Everyday Food (December 2012)

This is our kind of holiday dessert: chocolate, vaguely impressive looking, but also a bit imperfect.

This Peppermint-Meringue Brownie Cake is a home run on all three of those counts. 

The chocolate, well, that's self-explanatory. The bottom half of this cake is a fudgy, rich brownie base. We'll wager that will be a hit with most of you, unless brownies have somehow done you wrong in a past life (if so, you have our condolences).

Vaguely impressive? It is, isn't it? Doesn't it look complicated? Like we spent hours toiling away at this cake? Like we needed some special skill to pull it off? We definitely didn't. (We did, however, need an electric mixer. So we suppose our superpower is "owns a mixer.") 

But this cake is also imperfect, in the very best way possible. The holidays, while lovely, can also be tough. There's a lot going on. Families are messy. You, dear Bitten, need not also arrive at the dinner table with "perfect" dishes. We don't subscribe to "perfect" -- imperfect is the name of our game. And here's why it applies to this cake. 

Chili-Lime Roasted Butternut Salad

Everyday Food (December 2012)

"I need a great side dish that's easy and will feed a crowd, but something that'll still impress people."

We've heard that question dozens of times, and we usually give the same answer: Fajita sweet potatoes. They're phenomenal, and phenomenally easy. In fact, we just made some again this past weekend.

The spicy-sweet combo that makes those Fajita Sweet Potatoes so great is the same thing at work in this yummy salad from Everyday Food. (And no we're not ready to talk about how this is the last monthly issue, so let's just pretend eveything's fine and the same as always and we'll deal with that another day.)

Thanksgiving 2012: Apple-Date Betty

Everyday Food (November 2012)

Here are the main ingredients for this Apple-Date Betty: bread, butter, sugar, apples, dates and spices. 

That list should produce a spectacular dessert, one that's homey and flavorful, the equivalent of a big autumn bear hug.

So how can you have this many great ingredients and not produce a stellar Thanksgiving dessert? 

We're not exactly certain, but we have some ideas for how to fix it. 

Things We Hate to Hear: Changes at Everyday Food

The first time that Clay ever cooked a substantial meal for Zach, he made a recipe from Everyday Food.

It was a chicken and peanut stew of some sort and -- no fault of the magazine -- it was truly awful. Too many substitutions and shortcuts had resulted in a thick, gloopy stew. And even worse, Zach had a friend visiting. Everyone politely picked at the dish, but no one enjoyed eating it.

Everyday Food was, in fact, the first food magazine that Clay ever purchased, right at the end of college, when he had a kitchen for the first time. He subscribed shortly after, and we've been getting it and enjoying it ever since. 

In fact, because it's so straightforward, we find ourselves recommending Everyday Food to readers more than any other magazine. Not because it's "better," necessarily. Just because it's the absolute perfect food magazine for someone who's just getting started in the kitchen. If you're just beginning to cook, Everyday Food is like an excellent monthly primer to build up a wonderful repertoire of basic, delicious recipes. 

So we were more than a little sad to read that Martha Stewart announced last week that it's restructuring the content of Everyday Food (and Whole Living). For Everyday Food, this means that the magazine will go from being a standalone monthly to a supplement that's packaged with Martha Stewart Living five times a year. 

And according to the original press release, "Beginning in 2013, more Everyday Food content will be available online at www.marthastewart.com/everydayfood, on the Everyday Food YouTube channel and via the popular daily video newsletter, Everyday Food with Sarah Carey." That digital content has been great so far. (We mentioned the Sarah Carey videos earlier this year.) 

But still, the news feels like a punch in the gut. We love that little magazine! Its simple, stripped-down recipes are dependable and usually delicious. We're really going to miss that bright little magazine in our mailbox each month.

If you don't already have one (or two, or three), get yourself a subscription to a food magazine. Heck, while you're there, get one for your dad, your aunt, your pediatrician and everyone else in your life who needs and wants to do more cooking. Because we're really not in the mood to lose another food magazine this year. 

Do you regularly read Everyday Food? Have thoughts to share on this news? Please do.

 

Thanksgiving 2012 Recipe Index: What the Food Magazines Are Recommending

Now that you're all set on the Thanksgiving trends for 2012, it's time to start planning your menu in earnest. 

As we've done for the past few years, we've gathered all the different Thanksgiving recipes from several different food magazines. This year's index features a full 239 recipes from 11 food magazines: Bon Appetit, Cook's Illustrated, Cooking Light, Everyday Food, Fine Cooking, Food & Wine, Food Network Magazine, Martha Stewart Living, Saveur, Southern Living and Whole Living. And believe us, they are absolutely packed with great ideas for Thanksgiving. 

We hosted our annual Fakesgiving this past Sunday. As you might remember, that's our yearly meal where we invite a bunch of friends to test-drive several Thanksgiving recipes. This year we had 20 friends and family to sample 19 different dishes, from a pre-dinner snack all the way through to dessert. We'll be posting about the dishes we tried over the next three weeks, in the run-up to Turkey Day.

So dig into our Thanksgiving 2012 Recipe Index! But first, we'll share a few photos from our Fakesgiving meal.

2012 Thanksgiving Trends: What's In and What's Out at the Thanksgiving Table This Year

 
It's 22 days till Thanksgiving. Do you know where your turkey is?

We're only half-joking. Yes, there are three weeks to Thanksgiving, with plenty of time to pull it all together. But if you're hosting a Thanksgiving meal this year, it's also time to start planning. 

We try to avoid getting caught up in food hype, but we can't help ourselves at Thanksgiving. We pore through the magazines. We try out a bunch of the dishes. We invite friends over for Fakesgiving (more on this year's event tomorrow). 

And each year, we're enamored with the Thanksgiving trends that we see across the spectrum of food magazines we receive. This year, we've closely studied 11 of those magazines, charting their Turkey Day recommendations. As we have in previous years, tomorrow we'll be publishing the 2012 Thanksgiving Index -- a round-up of all the dishes recommended this year by all 11 of those magazines.

But first, here's what we're seeing in this year's trends.

Wrapping up The Super Awesome Cover-to-Cover Project

The inaugural Super Awesome Cover-to-Cover Project is complete! 

More than 300 of you -- from all over the world! -- joined up to cook nearly every single recipe in six different October 2012 food magazines. We have absolutely loved reading about your adventures and seeing how the dishes turned out. We enjoyed hearing your stories and your thoughts on the recipes, and to see the photos of the finished products. 

Though it was a lot of work, we've had a lot of fun with this project, and we'll definitely do it again in the future, in this form or another. But for now, here are all six teams' write-ups. Explore their posts and get inspired!

(As for us, we'll be turning our attention to the Super Bowl of home-cooking -- Thanksgiving -- starting tomorrow. Don't miss it!)

Huge thanks to everyone who participated and to those who have been following along!

• Team Saveur
• Team Everyday Food
• Team Bon Appetit
• Team Food & Wine
• Team Martha Stewart Living
• Team Food Network Magazine

Enjoy!

-- Zach & Clay

Everyday Food Cover-to-Cover: All the Recipes in the October 2012 Issue

Part 4 of The Super Awesome Cover-to-Cover Project

Everyday Food's October cover touts "Feel Good Food," with promises of meatballs, sandwiches, and pot pies.

Sign. Us. Up.

Team Everyday Food jumped at the chance to make the dishes, enthusiastically embracing everything from Halloween food ("Slimy Bog Balls," anyone?), recipes that rely on using frozen chicken fingers as a shortcut, and some truly interesting takes on meatballs (we were eager to see the review of "Shrimp Scampi Meatballs"). 

As of the time we're publishing this post, a good portion of the recipes aren't yet online. If you want to make a dish that doesn't have a recipe linked, pick up the issue from newsstands or visit MarthaStewart.com to search for the recipe. 

Let us know which recipes most intrigue you, what you plan to make, and most of all, let's give it up for Team Everyday Food for all their hard work! 

 

SOUPS | SALADS AND SIDES  | FISH AND SHELLFISH  | MEAT AND POULTRY  | VEGETARIAN MAINS  | DESSERTS  | MISCELLANEOUS

 

Not-Fried Tomatoes

Everyday Food (September 2012)

Is it possible to simultaneously both believe in "light" cooking and not believe in "light" takes on fried foods?

We think that's where we stand. We're all for lightening a diet, and we do it all the time. Yes, we sometimes post aboout decadent dishes, but when we're not cooking for the blog, we eat a simple, sane diet: lots of vegetables and protein, healthy snacks, light breakfasts and lunches, and dinners that are calorie conscious. 

Sure, we indulge (see: yesterday's lunch at Shake Shack, preceded by really decadent dinners on both Friday night and Saturday night, not to mention a Saturday afternoon snack). But we balance that indulgence with relatively measured eating (see: low-cal lunches every day last week). 

But we totally understand the impulse and popularity of light takes on fried foods. We all want to eat whatever we want to eat. And sometimes, we want to eat what's bad for us, so we look for ways to do that without going overboard. 

The problem is, these faux-fried recipes are so rarely successful. And these Not-Fried Tomatoes fall into that category.