In yet another stunning narrative of my life thus far, not a week after I finally got around to getting a subscription to that bastion of American food magazines, Gourmet, did I get an email notifying me of its imminent demise. By demise I mean that they’re no longer printing it, in case you did not know. I cried every day until my two and only issues arrived, and then I went shopping. You might think this would be a segue into a recipe from Gourmet, but as it has substituted the remaining issues in my subscription over to Bon Appétit (which I subscribed to anyway the same time as Gourmet), I felt it was appropriate to start with Bon Appétit as well.
Continue reading ‘Glazed Salmon, Basmati and Broccolini’
Once upon a time, my brain rewired itself overnight to make me want to learn how to cook, and cook well. One of the first dishes I made after that epiphany was a braised short rib dish – this one, in fact – and to this day, despite the mistakes I made while cooking it, it remains possibly the most delicious meal to grace my kitchen. So when I was scouting cookbooks at a local library branch last week, imagine my excitement to see the very book that recipe was culled from on the shelf: Sunday Suppers at Lucques.
The photographs are beautiful, far outclassing anything I’ve accomplished to date.The variety is impressive and it’s categorized by season, so you know if you’ll be able to find the produce the recipe will call for. That said, there are a number of ingredients used that, if not difficult to locate, are expensive to purchase – saffron and fleur de sel, as an example – that can be intimidating. For someone like me who is not much of a seafood eater, it seems to be a heavyweight item on the menus, but it all sounds so good that frankly I’m reconsidering my stance.
This particular recipe appealed on several levels – first, it contains pig and I am very, very fond of cooked pig. Second, it sounded relatively easy and had a new vegetable (that I was ultimately too cheap to purchase) to try as a side dish. Finally, the use of fresh herbs appealed to me. The end result did not disappoint and will, in fact, be made again soon.
Continue reading ‘Herb-roasted Pork Loin with Green Beans and Spring Onions’
A good garlicky chicken pizza is a thing of beauty. Something about the marriage of flavors just…works, you know? All that fresh garlic, sautéed in butter and thrown into a béchamel, it’s just lovely. There’s still a novelty to me, too, in using fresh garlic since I never touched one until I moved in with Warren years ago. Why use fresh when there’s garlic salt and garlic powder? That’s the Midwest for you. (not knocking it, I have both in my cupboard)
Continue reading ‘Garlic Flatbread Pizza’
I decided to walk on the wild side and reinvent the classic mashed potatoes and gravy side dish as an entree, and surprisingly, it works. Not only that, but I managed to put my newly learned pasta making skills to the test.
Continue reading ‘Potato Ravioli in Beef Velouté’
from our fine friends at Food Network Magazine.
Also known as lemony fish with greens and taters, which is why I do not work in marketing. The actual recipe calls for escarole, but after going to 5 grocery stores in search of it, I made do with curly endive – escarole is endive though a different and supposedly less bitter variety. I read that radicchio is virtually indistinguishable from escarole in taste but I had this awful fear that the red color of it would bleed onto the fish and that just did not sound appealing to me at all. Anyway.
Continue reading ‘Tilapia with Endive and Lemon-Pepper Oil’
