For the last two Thanksgivings I have thrown down 11-course extravaganzas (links here and here; menu for second link here) which took days to make and hours to eat. This time around, we were to have the meal in Vermont, and I just couldn’t deal with having to bring lots of components and more than a few tools, gadgets, and plates to do it there. So I just did a straight-up all-on-the-plate at once dinner,…
Category: Sweets
The party will be on Saturday, but today was the actual day. So I planned a simple meal of his favorites, and yet which also allowed me to refine my favorite variations on a couple of standards. He loves lasagna (he used to call it “Za-zagna” when he was little, and the name stuck). Since I’m still tinkering with my version, I gave it another whirl that took full advantage of the season’s bounty. The…
Q: What’s better than 40,000 filthy hippies in the Nevada desert? A: A raspberry mocha custard tart with a red wine glaze. Don’t believe me? Check this out: Now, if you haven’t yet, please go here, find “Cookblog,” (currently at #3) and bestow upon me some hats. Allow me to suggest five as a nice round number. Your appreciation will make a difference, and I thank you for it. As I said, the family went…
We arrived carrying as much garden as we could (this picture doesn’t include any of the huge bags of salad and other greens): My Uncle gave me an old Canon DSLR body, so I messed around with it (using his lens) a little. I ordered a lens of my own, and it was waiting for me when I got home, so the pictures on this blog should now regularly rise above the “execrable” level. Note…
Growing up, the two main holidays in my family were Passover and Thanksgiving; it was not a coincidence that both center around a meal. These days, since we observe nothing in particular, Sunday was better for us and our guests so that’s when the meal happened. I do have sentimental attachments to the Seder, but only the people- not to the tedium and all the rules. My Grandmother used to make a mean leg of…
I don’t really have it in me to blog about the steak- realizing that by even saying this I’m making it sound like it’s going to be exciting or something, which it likely will not be- so I’ll continue to jump around in time like some too-clever-by-half pomo filmmaker and give you the dessert from a couple of days ago, when friends came bearing some of the takeout Pakistani food from the rednecky mini-mart near…
I have not been feeling it in the kitchen- and by extension, here- at all lately; it’s pretty much the norm when I have momentum in the studio (and I have a lot right now.) So on Saturday I ground gears pretty badly trying to get from studio mind to kitchen mind in time to make dinner for Liz and Duncan. It all came together, which was kind of a surprise given the haphazard approach…
Back in June, I discovered that if you make a spinach pie sort of concoction but roll it up like a cigar (spliffakopita in Greek) you can avoid sogginess and have the whole exterior flaky and crisp. In order to avoid redundancy, here is the link to the post documenting this momentous discovery. It’s important enough to repeat that the addition of chopped broccoli really does take it to another level. We still had some…
We kept it very simple this year, with no travel and no guests. It’s a pretty nice way to do it, actually, especially given the weather-related mayhem all over the place. Yesterday Milo and I walked into town to see Santa arrive, and then came home in time for me to finish dinner. Sous-vide is genius for this, because I was able to leave the meat in the bath while we were out with no…
On Monday, Christine expressed a hankering for pot pie, and we had the chicken wings that I used to make broth still in the fridge, so it seemed like a good idea. I made crust, and pulled the meat off the wings, and sautéed onion, garlic, radish, yellow beet, and sweet potato, dusted all with flour and added the rest of the tom kha gai from the day before. I let it simmer for a…