For some reason, whenever we use ricotta around here, it always seems we have a little leftover. Rarely is the whole container is completely used up. But, happily, this phenomenon led me to this recipe which is so tasty, I buy ricotta now just to bake it up.
Read MoreThis recipe is great in so many ways. It uses up very ripe bananas (a nice switch up from banana bread), requires few ingredients that are almost always on hand, and is delicious.
Read MoreEver since writing this post our first year up and running, I’ve begun to bake Irish soda bread beyond the annual St. Patrick’s day. It is too good not to enjoy more times of the year! Plus, it is so quick and easy. We are a bread with every meal (basically) family, so soda bread is a great one to fall back on.
Read MoreI’ve loved these cookies for years. Though only five ingredients (six with the chocolate), they are interesting and addictive. They just happen to be gluten and milk free. I sometimes add spices like cinnamon to them to vary them up. They are thin, crisp, and almost melt-in-your-mouth.
Read MoreWhen I first heard of hamburger buddy, I was skeptical. The name doesn’t sell it very well, calling to mind boxes of prepackaged, minimal assembly required meals. Convenient, sure, but not something I usually go for at the store. Though the recipe doesn’t explicitly say so, I’m positive this is supposed to be the homemade version of Hamburger Helper.
Read MoreThese English muffins are so vastly different from our sourdough English muffins, both in terms of flavor, texture, method, and time. Our sourdough English muffins are bready and made in the traditional way of a yeasted bread - risen, shaped, proofed, cooked - and in order to develop the sourdough flavor, all of it done over the course of 12-24 hours. These whole wheat English muffins, on the other hand, are soft and wheaty, and the dough is almost more of a batter that gets scooped onto a griddle, flipped, and finished off in the oven - all in a wonderfully short 2 hours. They aren’t perfect circles and they look pretty rustic but they are undeniably yummy. You can get up a little early and make these for a same-day late breakfast or brunch. Kind of magical if you ask me!
Read MoreThis is one of those sides that are perfect for lightening and brightening a heavier meal, that is interesting and tasty, but requires minimal ingredients and almost no time. Simple, but perfect, especially in warmer weather.
Read MoreI came up with the idea for this recipe after making chipotle sour cream to go along with baked bean & cheese burritos. The sauce was so good, I just wanted more of it. Then I remembered beef stroganoff, which is essentially beef coated with sour cream. If I just added chipotle to the sour cream, I’d have exactly what I was hankering after, right?
Read MoreI love breakfast, but 90% of the time I don’t eat it. On the weekends we’ll cook up a big breakfast...sausage, bacon, potatos, eggs, pancakes, waffles, crepes... But that’s when we have the time to make and enjoy it.
Tomato soup and grilled cheese: it’s an American staple. Probably because it’s fast, and it’s satisfying.
The thing is, as a grown adult cooking for my family, I discovered that many cans and cartons of tomato soup are chock full of sugars. On the other hand, a lot of homemade recipes, although fresh and delicious, take time to make, and don’t yield that ultra smooth brilliant soup you get from a can.
Read MoreI think most of the country has a few more weeks until warm weather, so I’m offering this deep hearty soup as a small comfort in the long lingering winter. This soup was everything I wanted it to be on the cold and rainy day I made it: warm and comforting, creamy smooth, flavorful and filling. The roasted garlic and fennel give it depth and the beans give it substance so that with a slice of bread and a hearty salad you’ve got a very satisfying meal. I served it with salty crisped salami which highlighted the mellow sweetness of the fennel and garlic. I don’t think kids should always be a standard of a successful dish but when they gobble down a bowl of soup and ask for leftovers the next day I think it’s safe to say it’s a keeper.
Ingredients:
12 cloves garlic
2 bulbs fennel, sliced 1/2 inch think, fronds cut off and reserved
olive oil and butter
1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, peeled and chopped
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 bay leaf
2 cans (about 3.5 cups) white beans (either cannellini or Great Northern)
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
optional garnish: crisped pancetta, bacon, or salami and fennel fronds
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 400. Coat the fennel slices and unpeeled garlic cloves in a couple glugs of olive oil. Lay out on a sheet pan and roast for 30 minutes, or until soft and just beginning to brown on the edges. Remove from oven and set aside. When cool enough to handle, roughly chop up the fennel and peel the garlic cloves (you can basically just squeeze the cloves right out of the skin.)
Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil and 2 tbsp butter over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot, and celery and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, 5-8 minutes. Add the chopped fennel and garlic and cook for a minute or two more. Add the broth, beans, and bay leaf and simmer for 10-15 minutes. Remove the bay leaf and blitz the soup with an immersion blender, or in batches in a standing blender. Return to the pot and stir in the cream. Salt and pepper to taste. If desired, serve with a swirl of cream, a sprinkle of crisped bacon, pancetta, or salami and the reserved fennel fronds.
I don’t know how authentic “Indonesian” this recipe is—I don’t even know where we got this recipe—but in our family it has gone by the name “Indonesian Chicken,” sometimes “Peanut Butter Chicken,” for years.
Read MoreWe recently moved from Florida to Colorado, where my husband is originally from. In fact, we moved back to the same city where he grew up—into the same house he lived from when he was 6 weeks old to 18 years and heading off to college.
That’s right. We’ve moved in with his parents while we work on getting a new venture off the ground.
Read MoreCornbread is close to my heart. I have so many memories of going to Boston Market, hashing out an absurd amount of cornbread for myself. I’m sure I wished I was allowed to eat a whole meal of it (but then, also a meal of mashed potatoes too….). And while I haven’t been in a Boston Market for years, cornbread has remained a great love. And for me, when I say cornbread I mean soft, moist, and sweet (i.e. Northern style) cornbread.
Read MoreYou notice I don’t say “best” or “magic” or “the only recipe you need” blueberry muffins. Because these aren’t. In fact, there are so many blueberry muffin recipes out there, I was debating even to post these. But, they come from a much beloved family cookbook that has pages falling out and is missing its back cover. And, these are good. Really good.
Read MoreI love frittatas. They seem fancy, even though they are easy to whip together, taking just a little longer than regular fried or scrambled eggs. They make a great breakfast, but are more than suitable for lunch or dinner too. They are economical, easily vegetarian or milk free, and, best of all, adaptable to whatever you have on hand.
Read MoreUsually I just make my popcorn salty, but every now and then I want it to be more like a dessert. Like a chocolate dessert. I love kettle corn, so I thought, could I just add some cocoa powder? I tried, it worked, and this became a snack/dessert that satisfies me on so many counts. It's got the sweet/salty combo, it's crunchy, and it's chocolatey. It kind of reminds me of the chocolate rice cakes I used to eat when I was a kid.
Read MoreLet me share a bread recipe with you. It is incredibly simple but so delicious. It's the perfect recipe to use to introduce new bakers to bread because it's so straightforward, unfussy, and reliable. It produces a loaf of bread like those soft, light-as-air baguettes that you see at grocery supermarkets, but it's BETTER because it's fresh and homemade. And it takes just 2 hours start to finish!
Once, a long, long time ago, I embarked on a project called Vintage Recipes. Remember? You probably don't, and that's OK because it sure looks like I didn't either. But I'm finally getting a start! I'm looking forward to finding some unexpected winners.
What's my idea for this project? First step, to interpret and flesh out the recipes. Some of them are very bare bones with obscure ingredients and directions. I figure I'll follow the recipe with only minimal, if any, adjustments; then, if it seems to hold promise, I'll gradually fine tune it into a recipe I'll save forever.
Up first: Blitz Kuchen. Lightning cake. Sounds like my kind of thing. From just a glance at the ingredients I knew not to expect anything wild and crazy, but simple and basic often produce classic, winning results (like my favorite scone and sugar cookie recipes).
Read MoreWith St. Patrick's day coming up, I wanted to try out some new Irish soda bread recipes. My standby has been Simply Recipes', but a couple new ones caught my eye. Why not bake a few and compare? So that's what I did.
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