The Bitten Word

Stovetop Chicken Pie

Southern Living (February 2011)

Maybe you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.

But should you judge a recipe by its ingredients?

We frequently do, although we try not to. 

As we select recipes to try, we're always trying to keep an open mind, regardless of the recipe's ingredients or techniques. 

And so it was with this Stovetop Chicken Pie from Southern Living. It's part of a regular "Momma's Way versus Your Way" feature, in which the magazine offers both a classic dish and an updated version.

In this case, the classic dish is a traditional double-crust chicken pot pie, which looks truly phenomenal. The updated version -- the one we tried-- is made on the stovetop (sans crust), and then, to save time in the kitchen, is spooned over biscuits. 

So does it work? And what exactly gave us pause about the ingredients?

Our 10 Favorite Food Magazine Recipes of the Past Year

                                      

Here at the beginning of a new year, we've been thinking a lot about the past 12 months of The Bitten Word, and about the dishes that we really loved.  

So we made a list of our 10 Favorite Food Magazine Recipes of the Past Year. And that exercise was a complete failure, because we just couldn't narrow it down to 10!

So after we cut out as many as we could stomach, there are 13 dishes on the list. We hope you'll forgive us.  

We were surprised to find that once our list was made, nearly all of the magazines we cover were represented.  Fine Cooking, Bon Appétit, Everyday Food and Cook's Illustrated each had two recipes on the list.  Southern Living, Martha Stewart Living, Cook's Country, Food Network and Saveur each had one recipe each. Surprisingly, Food & Wine isn't on the list, even though we really liked several dishes we made from their pages.

Making this list also reminded us that we learned some fun new words this year, including sformato, larding, and affogato. More on those in the list below. 

So here they are, Our 10, uh, we can't possibbly choose only 10, so 13 Favorite Food Magazine Recipes of 2010 (in the order that we cooked them): 

• Crispy Potato Roast from Everyday Food: "We don't want to overstate how good this Crispy Potato Roast is...but it will forever and irreversibly alter your life." 

• Indoor Pulled Pork from Cook's Illustrated: "This pulled pork tastes like it came from the best, divey-est Memphis BBQ shack." 

• Cajun Red Beans and Rice from Cook's Illustrated: "The beans are soft and creamy, while the andouille sausage is spicy and hands-down amazing."

• Korean Fried Chicken from Saveur:  "Spicy and sweet with the promise of a crispy, crackly skin? We were sold! ...This fried chicken is absolutely one of the best things we've made in a very long time."

Read the rest after the jump!

Flourless Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies

Southern Living (December 2010)

The two of us have a lot in common when it comes to food. We have similar tastes, we're both willing to eat just about anything, and we have a penchant for selecting the exact same dishes on a restaurant menu (if only that was a game show, we'd be shoe-ins!). 

In fact, the places where our palates differ are few, and mostly center around dill (Clay doesn't hate it but isn't a huge fan) and mushrooms (Zach's still trying to get on board). 

But the one thing we agree on more strongly than anything else? 

It's an undying, passionate love for the combination of chocolate and peanut butter.  Chocolate and peanut butter together is our weakness, our craving, our happy place we'd visit over and over and over again.

We've made plenty of dishes featuring this combo here on the blog.  At the bottom of this post, you can see a list of our four favorite PB-and-chocolate recipes. 

So when we got on a little cookie-making kick last week, starting with Snow-Capped Macaroons, Southern Living had our number with their recipe for Flourless Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Potato Gratin with Rosemary Crust

Southern Living (December 2010)

The holidays call for show-stopper dishes.

We're thinking big beef tenderloins, glorious fresh-baked breads and towering cakes: the kinds of dishes that are brought out to the dining room "with quiet pride," as Nigella would say, to be met with oohs and ahhs.

What we're not thinking when we think about show-stoppers? 

Potatoes. 

We whip them, we bake them, we smash them. Sometimes, we arrange them all funny in a pan and bake them till their crispy, which is wonderful, but still isn't quite a show-stopper.

Well, get ready to see potatoes in a whole new light, because this Potato Gratin with Rosemary Crust is one of our new favorite dishes.

Thanksgiving 2010: Send Us Your Photos!

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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Thanksgiving 2010: What the Food Magazines Are Recommending

A Bitten Word Round-Up of 175 Recipes from 10 Leading Food Magazines

As we said yesterday, we've got tons of great Thanksgiving dishes to share with you. But before we get to our Thanksgiving parade of recipes, we wanted to post our annual round-up of all the T-Day recipes from all the food magazines we receive.

Last year, we said that if we were to assign a trend to the 2009 Thanksgiving issues, it would be about simplicity.  

This year, that trend seems even more extreme. This year's food mags are all trumpeting "simple," "easy," "foolproof," "no-time," "Thanksgiving 101" recipes.

Still, we did find a handful of really innovative dishes -- notably, in Food & Wine's "East by Northeast" Thanksgiving spread, which features an Asian-American meal that incorporates Eastern flavors and traditional Thanksgiving dishes. We also lusted after Martha Stewart Living's "Land of Plenty" feature, which showcased a farm-to-table Thanksgiving dinner at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. It's the Thanksgiving we most wanted to attend (maybe because it started off with Hudson Baby Bourbon Whiskey?).

We noticed a few micro-trends this year, too. Despite the beautiful slices of pie that adorn the cover of Martha Stewart Living, it's cakes that seem really popular this year. And especially pumpkin layer cakes -- three different magazines feature one this year.

Other ingredients that are big this year? Pomegranates are everywhere. As is fennel. Both of those are nice ways to add a new flavor into standard Thanksgiving dishes.

What's out? Corn, believe it or not. Other than cornbread stuffings and a couple of soups from Saveur, there's only one dish in all these food magazines that includes corn (Food & Wine's Creamed Haricot Vert and Corn Casserole).

Which ingredients stood out the most this year? Using Wordle.net, we created a couple of interesting word clouds that display the different ingredients in all these recipes according to how often they appear.

Here's a word cloud showing every prominent ingredient:

And here's one where we omitted all the usual suspects (turkey, stuffing, etc.):

Anyway, onto the master index!

Fig-Glazed Burgers with Red Onion Jam

Southern Living (July 2010)

As we've noted several times before, we're always on the lookout for a great new spin on grilled burgers.

So we were extremely excited to see these Fig-Glazed Burgers with Red Onion Jam in the current issue of Southern Living. The promise of a tart onion jam touched with a hint of sweetness from the fig preserves, topped off with creamy, smooth Muenster cheese seemed like the perfect topping for a smoky grilled hamburger.

We did make one error, though, that nudged these burgers slightly toward the "Dessert" category.

Grilled Chicken With White Barbecue Sauce

Southern Living (May 2010)

In Zach's small hometown of Tullahoma, TN, there's a deli called Daddy Billy's. Originally opened as a grocery store in 1893, the spot eventually evolved into a take-away sandwich shop. Today, it's more of a restaurant and bar, with live music on the weekends and cold beer in the courtyard out back. But you can still get a great sandwich there.

Several years ago, some friends of Zach's family purchased Daddy Billy's and started catering private events in addition to running the place. They began serving something that quickly became a signature item: white barbecue sauce.

We'd love to say the white barbecue sauce was a re-discovered recipe from the original grocery store, a relic from a dusty old recipe card found tucked away in a desk. But the fact is that the provenance of white barbecue sauce is well known. It was invented (or at least popularized) by Big Bob Gibson BBQ in Decatur, AL.

Regardless of its origins, there's a reason a white barbecue sauce could easily become a signature menu item. It's absolutely delicious -- cool, peppery, tangy and a whole new taste for your grill.

Kentucky Mimosas

Southern Living (March 2010)

As you may know, Clay is from Kentucky. And there's one aspect of Kentucky life that's always really intrigued us: the Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels. And by "intrigued us," we mean that we've been dying to become Colonels for several years. The organization is a social group that has granted the title of "Kentucky Colonel" since 1813. Here's how the society describes itself on its Web site:

Many people think of the Kentucky Colonels as a group of people that enjoys the good life, has an enviable social calendar and, during Kentucky Derby week, consumes mint juleps as if they were iced tea.  Well, that’s us! 

With a description like that, who wouldn't want to be a Colonel?

You're definitely familiar with the most famous colonel, but there have been lots of famous Kentucky Colonels through the years.

Anyway, as we said, we've always thought it would be fun to be Kentucky Colonels ourselves. So this past Christmas, as a surprise to Clay, Zach nominated him to become a member (nominees have to be sponsored by an existing Colonel, so Zach enlisted the help of our friend Ed).

Meanwhile, Clay was secretly working with a different friend to nominate Zach into the Order!  It was all very "Gift of the Magi," minus extreme haircuts or trips to the pawn shop. When the certificates arrived, we had a good laugh -- we'd each thought it would be the perfect surprise gift for Christmas.

At any rate, we're now both card-carrying Kentucky Colonels! 

So yesterday, the first really gorgeous Sunday we've had so far this year, we decided the sunny morning called for drinks, Kentucky-style. So we made up a batch of these Kentucky Mimosas.