When the pandemic changed our world, I no longer could shoot close-up-and-unmasked with chefs in my home kitchen. So I changed my approach to filming videos. For the time being I’m flying solo, cooking up some of my favorite recipes garnered from my decades of work in the food world. Favorites – recipes that feel like best friends. I’ll start…
In my book, an apple-cider donut is one of the best bets in the bakery box, both in flavor (apple and spices) and texture (crunch, crunch of sugar-salt-cinnamon-nutmeg coating). This loaf cake captures those lovely traits. The apple note comes from reducing apple cider to intensify the sweet-tart beauty; it’s used in the batter, atop the cake just out of…
Snagged from Food & Wine magazine (August 2020), this delicious cheesecake teams a traditional graham cracker crust with a luscious cheesecake topped with a sweetened sour cream topping. The scrumptious crown on top is a mixture of fresh blueberries and sugar, cooked just long enough to dissolve the sugar and have the berries start to release a little purple-blue juice….
The soft flesh of a ripe mango is an alluring blend of pineapple and tree-ripened peach, but it’s sweeter and more exotic. The scent is enticing too, a blend of pine forest and tropical jungle. No wonder it is the most widely consumed fruit in the world. Roast pork and fresh mango are a luscious combination. In this dish, pork…
Thank you Chef Jamie Oliver. I’m a longtime fan of potato salads napped with vinaigrette. But Oliver’s concoction is over-the-moon delicious, teaming crisp spuds with a topping of crunchy vegetables adrift in an oil-less vinegar “pickle” concoction. ‘Such a creative and appealing combination of tastes and textures, as well as contrasting temperatures. It’s a whole new take on conventional potato…
This recipe is a perfect example of food that excites more than one area of the palate. It blends the cool sweetness of melon with sour lime and hot chili syrup. Any ripe, firm-fleshed melon will work work here. Once the chili syrup is made, this dish can be thrown together just before serving. “Fire and Ice” CantaloupeYield: 8 servings1/3…
Thank you, Carole Bloom. These Chocolate-Caramel Shortbread Bars are one of my all-time favorite bar cookies. The recipe is from Bloom’s book, “Caramels” (Gibbs Smith, $24.99). These delicate, very full-flavored bars bring together all my favorites. The dark brown sugar used to make the shortbread provides a richer taste than traditional shortbread that is made with white sugar. But it…
The sauce under the bird is divine. I wish you could see it in this photo! But, it is snuggling with other really good stuff. Trust me, it’s under there! I adore the flavors in this chicken dish. Herbs and olives, capers and anchovies team up to create chicken and its surrounding sauce with addictive deliciousness. And chicken thighs bought…