This colorful salad is a luscious addition to brunches, or showcased on a buffet table. Guests who have lukewarm attitudes towards fruit salad my find themselves coming back for seconds! Switch up the ingredients to align with the season. In the summer when stone fruit is at its best, include some plums, or apricots, or nectarines. Plums are divine. In…
Produce
Skillet-toasted cheese bread is super delicious with this perky salad. I found this salad recipe from PBS television star Lidia Bastianich’s newsletter. Bastianich, restauranteur, and cookbook author, pairs a salad of radicchio, endive, apple, and pecorino cheese with skillet-toasted cheese toasts. I’ve modified her recipe to add Bibb lettuce to the mix and reduce the amount of radicchio and endive….
Candied Pecans are scrumptious tossed into green salad or eaten out of hand as an oh-so-tasty snack. They are be utilized in everything from green beans to adorning a big slab of chocolate cake. SOME prefer using the oven, but I like the stovetop method to candy them, either in a wok or large deep skillet. The method takes just…
To some it may be pureed vegetable soup. But in my home, we fondly refer to it as garbazh — gar-bazh soup (sounds like garage with a “B” in the middle). Pronounced in a haughty French accent, somehow the negative connotation of garbage never enters our minds. Instead, the image of luscious, smooth soup, rich in vegetables pops into our…
Dukka (also spelled “dukkah”) is an Egyptian specialty that is blend of spices, roasted nuts and toasted sesame seeds. One way to serve it is to combine the blend with good olive oil and dip bread or grilled pita into it. When eating it this way, I like to include a good dollop of yogurt as well. Dukka makes a…
Pasta’s starchy backbone provides a welcome partner for fresh green vegetables. Bon Appetit magazine came up with this tasty pairing of pasta and chard. Fresh chilies, with or without their fiery seeds, add a flash of excitement, along with the unexpected crunchy bite of panko sautéed with thinly sliced garlic. Finely chopped anchovies add a pleasing umami edge. Chefs use…
Rapini’s bold, no-snooze flavor profile boasts a pleasing bitterness that can be tamed with creamy pasta, or grains augmented with caramelized onions and garlic. With stalks more slender than found on broccoli, rapini is topped with spiky, jagged-edged leaves and bundles of compact buds. This recipe uses a tasty brown rice blend. There are several brands in the marketplace, such…
There’s no way to calculate the impact Julia Child had on generations of American cooks. For me, she provided a turning point in my culinary education. I cooked my way through her first book in my early 20’s, splattering the pages willy-nilly with sauce drips, softened butter or melted chocolate. “Mastering the Art of French Cooking ( Volume One)” was…