A traditional cozy warm drink for winter. Ingredients: A bottle of red wine — to your taste, but not expensive — or replace this with a quart of traditional apple cider, or home-brewed hard cider. An orange. A handful of fresh cranberries, blackberries, or similar if available (optional garnish). Mulling spices: you can use an off-the-shelf
[I rarely serve mushrooms on their own, but this preparation is worth making an exception for. — Matthew] Start with at least a pound of mushrooms, remembering that they will shrink substantially when cooked. Any common type of fresh mushroom can be used; most recently I used a mix of cremini, portobello, and shiitakes. Cut
Roasting is an easy way to prepare any of the stalky brassica varieties, including broccoli, cauliflower, broccoflower, broccolini, and so forth. Preheat an oven to 400° or so. Prepare a baking sheet or shallow metal roasting pan. (Optionally lining it with foil or parchment simplifies cleanup.) Cut the brassicas into florets. (Broccolini stalks are so
Heat a knob of butter in a skillet on medium-high heat. Slice and sauté a large purple onion and a large handful of fresh chili peppers along with their seeds (washing your hands afterwards). When those are soft, clear a space in the middle of the pan and add a whole head’s worth of garlic
I am definitely not a master of East Asian cuisines, but anyone can steam up some red bean buns and pan-fry a few dumplings, at which point it helps to have a little dipping sauce to dunk ’em in. Here are the proportions Piglet has been using recently: 6 Tbps soy sauce 4 Tbps seasoned
This was the surprise winner of this year’s Christmas baking: a dense cookie with a rich flavor, suitable for dunking in coffee or nibbling with your after-dinner adult beverage. Adapted from Joy of Cooking. In a double boiler, over simmering water, mix 2/3 c honey, 1 c sugar, and 2 oz butter. When combined, thoroughly
I wish I had known twenty years ago that we could have home-made focaccia as often as we wanted and with just fifteen minutes of effort. Start by making a basic no-knead bread dough: this step takes less than ten minutes. In a large bowl, mix three cups of all-purpose flour, a teaspoon and a
I tried to bake bread one or two times in my twenties, failed horribly, and then didn’t try again for twenty years. I might have waited another decade if it wasn’t for the disruption of the Covid lockdown, when getting a fifty pound bag of flour delivered seemed like a more sensible choice than going
Like all of the “ethnic” foods I cook, this dish doesn’t make any claims to being particularly “authentic,” but it is tasty and filling. Once you learn the technique, you can ring changes on it with different fillings and varieties of sauces. See also the recipe for Enchilasagna, which uses the same kinds of ingredients but
While I personally prefer a Cheddar Pasta with loads of vegetables cooked into the sauce, my son likes his mac & cheese closer to the modern American style. To make this style of sauce, you need one unusual ingredient, sodium citrate, a type of salt which acts as an emulsifier. It’s available at Amazon, with $10 getting