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Everyday Food (March 2008)
Everyday Food continues to be an excellent resource for quick and delicious meals. The recipes are easy, call for few ingredients, and are extremely accessible to cooks of all skill-levels.
When the March issue arrived, we were eager to try the cover recipe, Fresh Angel-Hair Pasta with Bacon and Peas. Finding ourselves in need of a quick dinner on a weekday night, we gave it a whirl.
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Cook's Illustrated (March/April 2008)
I must confess that I had never heard of Chicken Saltimbocca before seeing this recipe in Cook's. But what's not to like about prosciutto-covered chicken in a lemon butter sauce? We had picked the recipe out as one that we'd like to cook, and with our friends Sarah and Erica coming over for a Wednesday night dinner and a little Project Runway, it seemed like a good time to try this recipe.
Cooking for friends can be tricky -- you're never quite sure what some people eat, and we tend to try new recipes when friends come over, which can make for exciting results or hilariously bad meals. We once had friends over and decided to try our hand at making pasta for the first time. You've never seen fatter or chewier fettuccine.
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Gourmet (March 2008)
These profiteroles made a finale délicieux for our recent French bistro meal.
We're big fans of the Barefoot Contessa, so we already knew the dark secret about profiteroles: They're really impressive, but they're actually relatively easy to make. At least twice now, we've seen the episode where Contessy makes them for Jeffrey while recreating dishes from their Parisian vacation. Contessy makes cooking many of her dishes look so effortless that it's easy to see her make something like profiteroles and then finish the episode thinking, "I could do that -- and be friends with every gay in East Hampton, too!"
The profiteroles are on on this month's Gourmet cover, being drenched in a chocolate sauce. It's saliva-inducing! They're gorgeous and both elegant and messy, making them the perfect dessert for our bistro dinner.
Continue reading "Profiteroles With Coffee Ice Cream and Chocolate Sauce" »
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Gourmet (March 2008)
Our favorite restaurant in D.C. is a French bistro. It's way too noisy and always too crowded, and the servers' gruff, no-frills attitudes sometimes border on rudeness.
And we love the place so much that we don't even need to look at the menus anymore.
Partly, that's because we tend to return to the same meal again and again -- a carafe of the house red wine and steak frites with béarnaise.
So we were really excited to see Gourmet's March tribute to all things bistro. And we couldn't wait to try making steak frites at home.
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Bon Appétit (February 2008)
Maybe this isn't something you hear every day, but we love prunes. We keep them in the pantry at all times and I almost always have a container of them in my desk at work. They're amazingly good for you and make a fantastic snack.
So when we saw the recipe for chicken in a shallot, prune and Armagnac sauce, it was a no brainer that we would be making it.
The recipe calls for a 4-pound cut-up free-range chicken. We had a chicken on hand, but had never before cut one up prior to cooking it. A quick consultation with Mr. Bittman provided a diagram and easy instructions, and after a considerable amount of hacking, we had a cut-up chicken, albeit with some stray pieces of bone here and there.
Continue reading "Chicken with Shallots, Prunes, and Armagnac" »
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Bon Appétit (February 2008)
We've had this blog for a little while now. Isn't it about time for a disaster?
Well, say hello to this Banana Cream Pie!
Okay, okay. It wasn't a disaster. The end result actually tasted quite heavenly. But the crust we made -- oh, the crust! -- turned out to be kind of a joke.
And we can't really blame the recipe. What follows, kids, is a lesson in what happens when you make too many substitutions.
Continue reading "Banana Cream Pie with Whole Grain Chocolate Crust" »
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Bon Appétit (February 2008)
We are absolute fanatics when it comes to short ribs. We started cooking them last winter after reading about them in Bill Buford's Heat, and they instantly became one of our favorite things to cook. With the right marinade, they're positively mouth-watering, and braising them for a few hours makes the meat literally fall off the bone.
Our go-to has been Dave Lieberman's Hoisin Beer Short Ribs, in part because his recipe eschews a marinade, making it relatively faster to make than some others.
But there were two reasons we wanted to try this recipe from Bon Appétit, and they're both in the title -- the coffee and the bison.
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Everyday Food (January/February 2008)
Sometimes we can be guilty of the if-it's-not-chocolate-then-it-can't-be-dessert mindset. So we wouldn't normally gravitate to a vanilla pudding. But something about this one from Everyday Food seemed enticing. And making it was a cinch. Thanks to some vanilla beans we received as a Christmas gift this year, we didn't even have to go shopping for any of the ingredients.
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Martha Stewart Living (March 2008)
We're big fans of roasted vegetables, especially in the winter. They're easy to prepare, good for you, and make excellent side dishes. In fact, this winter, we have roasted Brussels sprouts or cauliflower on an almost weekly basis. Our friends -- many of whom we have inducted into the Brussels sprouts or cauliflower fan club -- are likely tiring of our obsession with these two vegetables, which have become our go-to sides for almost any meal.
We've long loved asparagus, but often have mixed results when cooking it. Whether overdone, underdone, woody or bland, it's as often a hit as a miss, except when roasted. Roasted asparagus, though a distant third to sprouts and cauliflower, could compete for our vegetable affections.
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Everyday Food (March 2008)
Cabbage has never been one of my favorite vegetables. With an aversion to sauerkraut and childhood memories of stewed cabbage that had been cooked for hours until it was unrecognizable as a vegetable, cabbage has not been a staple in our kitchen. Everyday Food's Sweet and Sour Cabbage Wedges may change that.
With cabbage left over from making Tuscan Bean Stew with Sausage and Cabbage, it was the perfect time to try this new recipe. The technique is simple: sauteed cabbage wedges simmered briefly in a mixture of vinegar and sugar. The resulting cabbage is -- as advertised -- sweet and sour, a perfect blend of both tastes.
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