While there is no rule book on how to put together a cheese plate this post should help give you a bit of guidance on how to best prepare an interesting and flavorful selection of cheeses for your next social event. Selecting Cheese for a Cheese Board Any cheese plate should have diversity to it in terms of style, selection, appearance, and flavor. There are any number of ways you can go about this....
It was July, when lobsters are in season, and we had a huge pot of them for our gang. Aunt Judy then explained that one makes lobster bisque from the leftover shells. I still recall my astonishment. How could something so delicious come from boiled shells? While New England has its summer lobster season, we in Northern California have our winter Dungeness crab season. In anticipation of making stock for seafood bisques and stews, I have been collecting our leftover shells from each crab feast and freezing them....
Here’s what to know about which type of salt to use, how much salt is needed, and how early the steak needs to be seasoned to reach its full potential. You’ll be seasoning like a pro in no time! The Type of Salt, and How Much to Use If you’re seasoning a steak for the grill, put away the table salt and grab kosher salt or coarse sea salt! The larger granules in these salts dissolve slower and make it less likely that the meat will be too salty....
Stock your fridge, freezer, and pantry ahead of time and you’ve left yourself plenty of time to return to the store for last minute items you may have forgotten. A Month to Three Weeks Out Order the turkey: Whether you’re buying a heritage bird or a Butterball, make sure to place your order up to a month in advance. Even though plenty of people will tell you this isn’t their favorite part of the meal or that they don’t eat turkey, we all know it’s the main event!...
Pine Nut Fast Facts You might be surprised to learn that pine nuts aren’t a nut at all, but an edible seed from pine trees. Here are a few other tidbits that are worth knowing about this mighty little nut: They are notably oily, so it’s important to store them in the refrigerator or freezer to extend their shelf life.The natural fats in the nuts means you don’t have to oil the pan when you toast them....
Huevos Rancheros Ingredients: Eggs, Salsa, Tortillas When you cut into them, the egg yolks mix in with everything—the salsa, tortillas. So good! You can also make the eggs scrambled instead of sunny side up. In that case, the dish is known as Huevos a la Mexicana. Either way, salsa with eggs and tortillas makes a wonderful breakfast. One benefit of being raised in California by a mother with Mexican heritage is that we grew up eating and loving Mexican food....
The size (and frequency) of my batches seems to have become larger and larger as the summer has progressed. At first, I was just drinking one or two glasses in the morning. And then another glass in the afternoon started to seem perfectly reasonable. When I switched from water glasses to pint glasses, I knew I was in trouble. I take a fairly simple, uncomplicated approach to my iced chai—minimum effort for maximum payout....
My Favorite Lemon Pound Cake This lemon cake is basically a regular pound cake recipe with a few additions to increase the flavor and soften the crumb. For this recipe, I added an extra egg yolk and sour cream, and replaced the all-purpose flour with bread flour to give more structure to the loaf and get a better rise. Bread flour has more protein than all-purpose flour. The protein in the eggs and the flour create the structure for the loaf and combat the weight of sugar and butter....
These lemon scones have a crusty exterior and they’re tender and flaky on the inside. They are rich and buttery but balanced by the bright and floral lemon. The dough is loaded with lemon zest and after baking, the golden crusts are drizzled with a zingy lemon glaze. You Only Need One Bowl for These Lemon Scones! Scones are generally quick and easy to make, and this recipe is no different....
Pancakes are one of those foods that actually reheats to the same quality (and some might argue better) than the original if you use the right method. Read on and learn how to bring those cold fridge pancakes back to life. The Method to Avoid: The Microwave Okay. Let’s get this one out of the way first and foremost. Yes, you can technically microwave pancakes in that they will get hot and you can smear butter on them and pour syrup on them....
In fact, this fish spatula from Winco ($7) is my favorite spatula to use for almost everything! The things that make a fish spatula so special – the slightly flexible head, the thin, angled edge, the hefty handle – make it the best tool not only for flipping delicate fish, but also for sliding under pancakes, cookies, fritters, omelets, basically anything you need to lift off a pan! The triangular head is wide enough to hold a bunch of vegetables or a burger without some of it breaking off the side (unlike some of my other spatulas), and the slots mean excess oil gets left behind....
Like our readers, we found ourselves in the kitchen for much of 2020. We stocked our cupboards with simple ingredients to sustain ourselves and our families. Like you, we baked Banana Bread and No-Knead Bread. We cooked our way through major holidays, birthdays, and special events. Below are the recipes that we turned to time and again throughout 2020 to sustain ourselves and our loved ones, some new this year and some old favorites....
Perhaps because if stored in a cool place, they’ll last several months, well into winter. Butternut squash is the queen of winter squashes. The taste is so good, and so consistent, that from what I understand, most “canned pumpkin” that we use to make pumpkin pie is actually made with a variety of pumpkin more akin to the butternut squash than to the pumpkins we use for jack-o-lanterns. Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce The ever fabulous Garrett came over recently with a pint of roasted butternut squash purée and a mission to create a pasta sauce with it — a butternut squash pasta sauce....
I think you could even say the combination of peanut butter, chocolate, and bananas together are a little bit “extra.” This bread is packed with ingredients that make great pairings, but when combined as a trio? Well, they kind of make for the ultimate banana bread. The resulting quick bread is rich with peanut butter and banana flavor, bits of semi-sweet chocolate, and a dense but not heavy crumb....
I nabbed this recipe from my friend Heidi H’s recipe collection one day because it looked intriguing. What a keeper! Lots of flavor and in the time it takes you to cook the rice, the dish will be done. Once you have some nice browning, you can stir and cook the pork until all pieces are cooked through and no longer pink. Drain off any fat in excess of a tablespoon....
As a Cuban by way of Panama and now New York City, my childhood Thanksgivings with my mother and older sister were always a mix of my Latin and American upbringing. In addition to jiggly canned cranberry sauce which was more ceremonial than edible and green bean casserole (an American dish I adore), we had congri (rice with black beans), mojo (roasted pork), and pulpeta. Pulpeta is a fried Cuban meatloaf — but it’s also so much more than that....
The fennel and orange slices add brightness to the chicken thighs, which are themselves rubbed with garlic and herbs. However, before we go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room—not everyone is a fan of fennel’s flavors of licorice and anise. Don’t Fear the Fennel Yes, licorice can be overwhelming at times, but the taste of fresh fennel isn’t nearly as strong and unpalatable as in the dark candies you used to get from your grandma....
My cooking philosophy is to use fresh, seasonal ingredients and alter them as little as possible so that its flavor shines through. This recipe does just that—it celebrates in-season eggplant by cooking it simply and with few ingredients and not a lot of oil. To Salt or Not to Salt Eggplants Eggplants are notorious for soaking up cooking oil due to their sponge-like texture. So the question is whether or not to salt them—a technique that draws out the moisture and renders the eggplant less sponge-like....
That corner of the garden becomes my grazing spot, the fresh spring peas and snow peas never quite make it to the kitchen. I’m too busy munching on them while I weed. So it’s off to the market for snow peas in the spring. Here’s a quick and easy dish, a classic Chinese restaurant-style stir-fry with shrimp, snow peas, ginger, and garlic. Enjoy! 2 teaspoons cornstarch (or potato starch) 1 tablespoon Shaoxing Chinese cooking wine or dry sherry 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt...
