You can’t really go wrong with a cookbook from America’s Test Kitchen. Even if their personal preferences aren’t quite identical to yours, the recipes are practally fail-safe and they are very, very well thought out. One of my current – or perhaps I should say “still” as the book has been around for a couple of years - ATK favorites is Here in America’s Test Kitchen because ... Read More »
The other day I was perusing the champagne selection at my local market, trying to decide not only which bottle to buy, but to figure out what dessert I should serve with it for New Year’s. I couldn’t decide on either count when it struck me: why not put champagne into the dessert? From that point, it didn’t take long for me to pick out ... Read More »
Tis the season for meyer lemons, one of my favorite citrus fruits to use in the kitchen. The lemons are actually a hybrid fruit, a combination of mandarins and traditional lemons. They have been cultivated for years, though they have dramatically risen in the public awareness over the past couple of years. The popularity is due to a unique property of these lemons: they have ... Read More »
Traditional pie and tart crusts are great, no doubt about it. They’re tasty and work with just about every kind of tart filling you might imagine. But as much as I like them (and like making them), I also like variety and always have an eye out for alternative crusts that will work well with particular tarts. This crust is a sugar cookie crust. ... Read More »
Brown Edge Butter Wafers are pretty much exactly what they sound like: thin cookies with brown edges and a white center. They’re not made with browned butter or anything unusual like that. The color around the edge actually comes from the caramelization of butter and sugar in the oven – and these cookies have quite a lot of butter in them. The dough is very ... Read More »
Panettone is a sweet yeast bread that originated in Milan, Italy. Served most often at Christmas, though it is also baked for other occasions, the tender bread is baked as a tall round (either a cylinder or an octagon) and filled with things like raisins, candied citrus and nuts. Sometimes the bread is spiked with a bit of rum or another liquour, or else the ... Read More »
Hearty and hot foods, from roasts and stews to soup, are definitely the order of the day during the winter. They warm us up and give us enough energy to fight the cold when we have to go outdoors. Of course, here in Southern California the cold that I’m fighting is nowhere near the cold elsewhere in the country, so I like to mix in ... Read More »
For just about every holiday, there are some flavors that just seem to naturally fit right into the overall feel of the season. Christmas in particular has a lot of flavors associated with it, as families often stick with the same traditional foods year after year. Cranberry Orange bread is a staple not only for my family, but for lots and lots of the people ... Read More »
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