A few years ago, a friend was cleaning out her old magazine collection and gave me a stack of ones she thought I might like. I'm not a magazine hoarder, actually, so I just quickly flipped through the pages and then got rid of them. All except for the one page I tore out of a Martha Stewart Living issue with a recipe for a baked risotto tart. What?? I needed a baked risotto tart in my life immediately.
I've been starting to plan a Mother's Day menu and thinking about beverages. It's going to be brunch so a little something with a kick would be appropriate, not to mention fun. But I also need a low octane version for anybody who wants to keep it non-alcoholic. And I want it cool and refreshing because, spring, so I should probably start with some kind of fruit. Decisions, decisions.
Why is it that we seem to put in a lot effort to create great appetizers when we're having company but not so much just for ourselves and our families? Personally, when I'm prepping dinner alone I tend to snack on some of the vegetables I'll be serving and I'm likely to grab a tub of hummus from the fridge to dip them in. And when I'm not alone, my kitchen sometimes becomes a free for all as hands grab for various bits of food while I'm prepping. Clearly there needs to be some kind of appetizer situation even during regular dinners.
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Minute® Rice.
It's time for another installment of OMG it's already 6:00 o'clock and I'm exhausted and starving and I have no idea what we're having for dinner. This happens at my house on a monthly, weekly, daily...oh, let's just say it happens a whole lot.
Did you know that April is National Grilled Cheese Month? I'm sure I celebrate this holiday way more often than just one month a year but I'm going to roll with it. Because there are very few things more comforting than toasted bread with piles of gooey cheese, right?
Hi friends! This is the little monthly recap of my foodie adventures elsewhere on the web. Below is a tasty savory tart, with a Mexican flair, that I created for the folks at Cacique as well as the recipes I made for my The Spruce Eats column. Enjoy!
I'm on cherry blossom watch these days and it's so close. The tulip leaves are already up and the little flower heads are starting to peak through in some of the flower beds. Since I live in Manhattan these aren't in my own garden but this city has planters basically every few feet on the sidewalks and we're awash in blooms every spring. And from my window I have a view of the block down to the river and it's lined with trees that will soon be picture perfect. My camera is on standby. In the meantime, I'm cooking up a storm with lots of great things planned for April. But first, a quick look back a very delicious March. Enjoy!
I'm pretty sure I've mentioned before that there are certain food words that make me happy. Words like dumpling and biscuit, for example, make me stop to look. Cornmeal does that for me, too. I do love traditional cornbread but I'm also intrigued with adding cornmeal into non traditional foods, like cake. Today though, I'm going to combine two of my favorite words into these cornmeal biscuits.
I held out a good long time. I passed up the spiralizers and continued happily slicing and julienning my vegetables. I told myself I did not really need one and went merrily on my way. But, the thoughts kept creeping back into my head of all the fun things I could do if I had one. And then came the email from my friends at OXO. I've worked with them a long time and love their tools...and they just came out with a spiralizer, they said...and would I like to try it, they said. Down the rabbit hole I fell.
Thank you to Hunt's tomatoes for sponsoring this recipe.
I was having another one of those "what's for dinner" days. I ran through a bunch of options in my head and either they didn't really appeal to me or they required too many ingredients I didn't currently have in the house. Most of the time, when that happens, I end up with a breakfast for dinner kind of plan.
The first day of spring arrived, along with cold temperatures and wet snow. Hmm. It was so warm last week. Never mind because this is just the last bit of winter's protest at leaving. The tulips are coming up and the temperatures will rise next week. Let's celebrate.
I know spring is right around the corner because the market is full of lovely asparagus. And now my refrigerator is as well. There's no way I can pass up these green beauties. Of course they're great on the grill and that's a summer pleasure for sure. But I actually like them crisp and raw.
We're kind of in that in-between period, weather wise, right now. Warmer days but chilly nights. The tulip buds are starting to pop out of the ground and spring is trying to make an appearance. Every day I scan the trees for signs of cherry blossoms but they're not ready yet. Must be the chilly evenings. And so I felt like making a warming soup but not one that would be overly heavy. And 'almost spring' kind of soup.
What lovely, lovely weather! Winter appears to have cleared out of here in a big hurry and suddenly we have sunshine and 65 degrees with the possibility of 70 degrees later in the week. Oh, the dog and I enjoyed a good long walk yesterday and I was craving a sparkly, lemony drink to celebrate.
I seem to have an odd relationship with cabbage. Whenever I cook with it, I remember how much I like it and it conjures up happy childhood memories of my mother's amazing stuffed cabbage rolls and her favorite sweet and sour red cabbage. But when it's not specifically on my shopping list I walk right past it at the market. Oh, I do often pick up it's cousin, the Brussels sprout, but the large heads of cabbage don't go into my cart.
Hi friends! This is the little monthly recap of my foodie adventures elsewhere on the web. Below is a delectable brunch cake I created for the folks at Cacique as well as the recipes I made for my About.com Food column. Enjoy!
February is a fun month in that it contains both Valentine's Day and National Drink Wine Day. It also contains snow and freezing temperatures but that just meant we spent more time indoors eating the Valentine's desserts and drinking the wine. We should probably start thinking about eating some salad, huh? But first let's take a look back at the deliciousness of February. Enjoy!
Years ago, I was in England with my family. We stayed in London but spent a few days driving around the gorgeous countryside and eating in the quaintest, most adorable inns you can imagine. It was my first exposure to traditional English foods and to some of the best names of dishes ever! How can you even resist ordering a dish called bubble and squeak? Fortunately it was totally delicious.
For years I would watch British cooking shows and hear about beef and Stilton pies but the concept didn't resonate with me. Oh, the part about putting beef inside pastry sounded just fine because that's basically a pot pie. But I was stuck on the cheese. Sharp cheddar, sure, but Stilton seemed more like something I should serve with crackers and wine? I kept it in the back of my mind, though.
March is almost here and that means St. Patrick's Day is almost here and that means it's my annual excuse to make Irish soda bread. So what if I'm not Irish, I LOVE soda bread! Yes, I could make it year round, of course, but...um...maybe I love it a little too much to do that.
Did you know that February is American Heart Month? Sure, we've indulged a bit with some Valentine's desserts but I actually look for ways to incorporate more heart healthy options most of the time. The big New Year's resolutions are fine and there is something empowering about new beginnings. But in the long run, I've always found that small changes along the way make the biggest impact.
Happy National Drink Wine Day. Yes, of course that's a holiday and one that's well worth celebrating. Admittedly, some of us celebrate it quite a bit more than once a year. I like wine, all sorts, but I especially like bubbly wine. A number of years ago I was dining at a restaurant owned by a chef friend and he sent over some complimentary Prosecco. Until then I'd only ever had champagne but I was instantly in love and Prosecco became my go-to bubbly wine beverage. And since I'm just as big a fan of cocktails, I often mix the two. It's a double celebration!
One trend that I've really enjoyed is how much more approachable wines have become and how easy it is to pick up a truly delicious bottle, sparkly or otherwise, for not much money. Add to that the new apps and wine delivery services and it's a new and wonderful world, where even the web names are changing.
I remember when .com was the only way to be but now, where there used to be limited choices, there is a lot of variety with "not-com" domain name endings. My friends at Name.Kitchen specialize in the new "not-coms" and I love seeing the selection. There are hundreds of options including .photography, .guru, .fitness, .agency, .coffee and, of course, .wine and .vin.
Wine is a massive global industry but one that's had to evolve to today's world. Snooty restaurants with esoteric wine lists and a sommelier to guide you still exist but it's hardly the lion's share of the wine drinking public. The consumer demographics have changed and the industry has had to adapt. That means some of the biggest wine growing regions and brands have adopted new social media and digital platforms to spread their messages and get the enthusiastic community talking and exchanging information.
Fun, sure but, more importantly, they're meaningful and creative, a great way to engage with the people who love wine. Personally, I loved visiting sites like sherry.wine, port.wine and prosecco.wine site because they're packed with information about my favorite bubbly beverage and that helps me to understand what to buy and what to look for.
So check out some of them and enjoy reading all about your favorite foods and drinks. But first, pour some wine or my wine/cocktail combo and celebrate. Cheers!
Recipe for a vodka and Prosecco cocktail flavored with cherry preserves, vanilla and lemon.
Ingredients
2 oz. Vodka
2 oz. Cherry preserves
2 oz. Lemon juice
1 Teaspoon vanilla (paste is best)
6 oz. Prosecco or more to fill the glass
Instructions
Add the vodka, cherry preserves, lemon juice and vanilla to a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice, shake well and strain into chilled cocktail glasses or champagne coupes. Top with the Prosecco and garnish with a wedge of lemon, if desired.
Thank you to Hunt's tomatoes for sponsoring this recipe.
So, the weekly gatherings of football fans and/or fans of the food at gatherings (that would be me) is over now that whichever team you were rooting for either won or lost the Superbowl. And, no, I have no opinion on this because I was watching the Puppy Bowl in the other room. But, seriously, the gatherings have certainly not ended because it's award show season. So much more fun to watch with a group.
Marzipan has always held a special place in my heart. When I was a little girl, my German born father would take me to a part of the city that had many German stores, including an incredible shop called The Elk Candy Company. Their specialty was little marzipan figurines or bonbons made with cake, chocolate and marzipan and I always chose the cutest one. And sometimes, even when we didn't go there, my father would come home from work and there would be a little marzipan candy in his pocket for me as a surprise.
Hi friends! This is the little monthly recap of my foodie adventures elsewhere on the web. Below are the recipes I created for my The Spruce Eats food column. I hope you'll come visit me there. Enjoy!
Is it just me or did January disappear so quickly? Seriously, I feel like I blinked and it was gone. All that shiny new year stuff got lost in the post holiday, back to the daily grind business. That's not to say that any of my plans for this year aren't still being worked on. Just that the newness of it has worn off. And it's back to being a typical winter in New York with cold and snow. I don't love that part but it gives me a chance to concentrate on work and on creating some amazing recipes. Whatever else January was, it was delicious. So let's take a quick look back before we dive into a chocolate-fest for Valentine's Day. Enjoy!
Let's talk about couple dining situations. Are you the type that doesn't mind eating off each other's plates and even forks? Or are you the type that, if your partner comes near your food, will stab him or her with the fork? It's these types of intimate situations that need to be made clear right up front if you have any hope of making it as a couple and not ending up in the emergency room with a fork stuck in your hand.
Sure, Valentine's Day is associated with chocolate and I'm fine with that. But sometimes I wonder if I should make a non chocolate dessert and save the chocolates for my favorite box of decadent truffles. But if I'm replacing chocolate, there probably needs to be peanut butter. And if I'm not pairing the PB with chocolate then my choice is my other favorite flavor, banana. Peanut butter and banana is awesome.
I feel strongly about crust. Maybe not as strongly as about political and social issues but crust is definitely important and way more fun. Crust should be more than a delivery vehicle for filling. It should be worth eating on it's own, too. OK, that's my crust manifesto. Now let's talk about ways to make that sort of crust happen and also include a seriously kick ass filling because Valentine's Day is coming and it needs to be delicious.
More than two feet. That's how much snow we got in New York over the weekend. It's not our worst storm but it's up there in the record books although it's a bit late in the season for us. At least it hit on a weekend so that the grounding of flights and suspension or ground traffic wasn't as bad. And we did know it was coming so most of us stocked up for a comfy couple of days of cooking, eating, movie watching and puppy snuggling. Eh, let it snow.
Excuse me but, whoever turned winter on, can you please dial it back a little? Single digit temperatures are a bit extreme when I'm trying to walk the dog. Or walk anywhere. Or breathe. At least there's plenty of cooking and recipe testing going on these days because it's nice and warm in my kitchen.
I know I've been going on about healthy new year cooking lately but the fact is that grains are a large part of my diet all year long. I have an entire shelf filled with canisters containing a wide variety of them and I love experimenting with new ways to use them. Farro is a favorite and, therefore, in frequent rotation.
What's that sound? Oh, it's the sound of friends and family calling, emailing and texting, wanting to know when to show up to eat snacks and watch the big game. Now, they do know what time the game is on so they really just want to make sure you'll be providing a sufficient amount of snacks. Uh huh.
Thank you to Hunt's tomatoes for sponsoring this recipe.
It's cold and dark and all I really want to do is curl up in bed, snuggle with my dog, watch movies and eat comfort food. But it's January and I'm trying to undo some of the comfort food eating from over the holidays. So, what's a woman to do? Actually, this is a pretty easy one for me because lighter comfort food is my specialty. I got this.
You all know I'm the crumb cake queen, right? I love crumb topping so much that I also just bake it separately sometimes and toss it into parfaits and puddings...and my mouth. After all, it's the best part! But it might not exactly be on the list of New Year's resolution, OMG even my stretchy pants are tight, approved foods. So depressing. Too depressing, actually, so I did something about it.
Happy New Year! Did you start whatever resolutions you made right on January 1st? Or did you admit that there was little chance of anything changing on a weekend and wait until this morning like I did? Very sensible. Because on Friday there was still leftover champagne in my fridge...and cookies...and a serious mac and cheese craving...and a Downton Abbey marathon all weekend long. So unless my resolutions included lying on the sofa, eating cookies and watching TV, it just wasn't going to happen. But now it's Monday and my unofficial official start to the new year.
Hi friends! This is the little monthly recap of my foodie adventures elsewhere on the web. Below are the recipes I created for my The Spruce Eats food column. I hope you'll come visit me there. Enjoy!
And so another year ends. For me, 2015 was mixed. It saw my hard work start to pay off professionally, gave me the ability to work with some amazing people and it's been enormously rewarding. But it was also marred by enough world tragedies, hate and intolerance to last a lifetime. And I lost a friend this year, a fact I still can't quite reconcile myself to.
Joan Hayes, whose ultra popular blog Chocolate, Chocolate and More, was very dear to me. We chatted almost daily, we got each other through some very difficult personal times, were each other's business sounding boards and we gabbed about the things that girlfriends gab about. She passed away suddenly and unexpectedly at the end of October, at the age of 49, and there's an empty space in my heart and in my days now. I miss you, my friend. You made my life sweeter.
It's getting to be almost that time again when we break out the champagne. I actually quite like using it in cocktails although any sparkling wine works the same way. When a drink calls for fizz, why settle for flavorless soda when this adds so much more. So even though it's traditional to drink champagne straight on New Year's Eve, I like creating a special cocktail.
With all the holiday baking going on around here lately I've been neglecting my holiday cocktail brainstorming. But now that all my cakes and cookies and gingerbread creations are done I set my mind to creating something special for holiday guests.
The holiday baking has been in full swing around here for what seems like weeks now. And it's been mostly gingerbread and other ginger and cinnamon spiced delights. I love those holiday flavors but, um, after the umpteenth spiced cake and gingerbread men cookies were baked and packed up for gifts, I was kind of a little over it. Time to switch it up and use some of those fun holiday candies in something.
I have a couple of things I wanted to talk to you about today. One is this fancy looking appetizer with the fancy sounding name which is actually so simple to make. The other is the importance of milk.
Hi friends! This is the little monthly recap of my foodie adventures elsewhere. Here you'll find the recipes I created for my column on The Spruce Eats as well as some great cocktail and gingerbread round-ups from my other writings around the web. Enjoy!
So, did I ever mention my slight obsession with housewares? Part of it is being a food photographer, of course, but I like them even apart from that. Some women browse in the shoe department but I'm over in the kitchen department eyeing a new casserole dish. Add to that my fondness not just for cocktails but for barware and it can get to be an expensive habit. I've found a decent number of "treasures" in dusty old thrift shops and flea markets but those are hit or miss. The fact is that when I know what I need, I shop at the restaurant supply stores.
Thank you to Hunt's tomatoes for sponsoring this recipe.
I love having guests and throwing parties but it can get to be hectic and a bit overwhelming around the holidays. For as much as I try to plan ahead and enjoy putting together menus, sometimes I find myself panicking a little because time got away from me and I didn't get to do my shopping. So my survival guide for holiday entertaining is to keep some basic staples in the house at all time.
My mother's annual Chanukah latke party was the highlight of my year when I was growing up. Friends and neighbors would come over, help her hand grate mountains of potatoes and then wait while the intoxicating aroma of golden fried latkes filled the house. We ate till we dropped. These oven baked, muffin tin latkes are not meant to be a substitute, just a lighter alternative to be eaten more frequently. Their aroma is still heavenly and they're completely delicious. Enjoy!
