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This Cardamom and Honey-Glazed Chicken recipe is from that book with some minor adjustments. I don’t usually think of cardamom as a spice for chicken, but the result is fragrant and delicious! The issue of cooking with honey, whether for savory or sweet dishes, is that honey burns at high temperatures. It will help the chicken brown quickly, but you have to watch it carefully or it will burn. Place marinade and chicken in a large bowl, coat chicken with marinade....

Clever of whatever ad agency came up with that campaign to feature two king carnivores talking about carne asada, which translates literally as “beef grilled”. What is Carne Asada? Carne asada is the thinly sliced, grilled beef served so often in tacos and burritos. You can also serve it straight up, with rice and beans on the side. Although almost any cut of beef can be butterflied into thin sheets for the carne asada, typically you make it with either flank steak or skirt steak....

That’s why when a friend introduced me to the idea to make a mock couscous out of cauliflower (an idea she got from Chef Eric Ripert), my ears perked up. Cauliflower couscous? Why not? Of course nothing beats true, steamed to perfection, durum wheat couscous. But for those of us avoiding wheat, cauliflower couscous is a tasty and practical solution. Making cauliflower couscous couldn’t be easier. You just grind up fresh cauliflower florets in a food processor until they resemble couscous....

Done well, ceviche means fish with a perfectly firm but tender texture, a bright citrus taste, and a pure fish flavor that you might associate with the freshest sashimi. I just got back from an amazing trip to Costa Rica where I ate ceviche literally every single day. I ate it at a couple of high end restaurants as well as at countless bars and roadside sodas (family-run restaurants). My favorite meal was in a little bar in the tiny surfer village of Estarillos Oeste....

Tips for Making Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza Dough The dough is layered with butter, rolled and fitted into a cake pan. The high-sided crust makes room for a substantial amount of filling. To create its buttery flavor and light crust you laminate the dough and give it an extra rise. Laminate means to create alternate thin layers of butter and dough (think croissants or puff pastry.) While those pastries require folding, rolling, and folding again a few times over, in this simplified version, all you do is spread a layer of softened, room temperature butter over the dough and roll it into a cylinder, creating layers....

This year I planted a bunch of seed in October, when the scorching Sacramento summer weather cooled down, and the plants have been thriving for months! As the cilantro gets more mature, the stems thicken and the leaves get much bigger, signaling “pre-bolt” and a good time to make cilantro pesto. Unlike basil pesto, this pesto requires no Parmesan or garlic. The complementary flavors are red onion and serrano chile instead....

Vinegar allows you to make a soda with fruit, without it being cloyingly sweet. With this cucumber mint soda, first you make a simple syrup with water, sugar, and vinegar. Then you infuse the vinegar simple syrup with fresh mint leaves. To make the soda, you pour the syrup over ice and chopped cucumber and add seltzer water. Easy! If you are not familiar with shrubs, the whole vinegar concept can seem a bit unusual....

Never fear. Homemade pies aren’t just for those people who were born with the domestic gene. After making this graham cracker crust, you will be able to start your very own new club called “Look, Ma, I Made a Pie!” Video: How to Make a Graham Cracker Crust This graham cracker crust is buttery, crunchy, and a cinch to make. This recipe is your first lesson on Day One of Pie School....

Bánh Mì: Layer by Layer A bánh mì is a cold sandwich with unique flavors and textures. Here is a layer-by-layer breakdown: Traditionally, a Vietnamese baguette is used. Compared to French baguettes, it has rice flour, and the dough is kneaded with more force and speed, leading to smaller loaves that are lighter on the inside and crispier on the outside. Unless you live near a Vietnamese market or bakery, they may be difficult to find....

When I was a kid my parents would get a couple cartons at a time, which they still had to ration, because I, like my 5 siblings, could easily drink a carton apiece. These days I make my own eggnog, and sadly must submit again to rationing, self-imposed this time, for the sake of my not-so-girlish-anymore figure. A reader suggested that eggnog would make a good ice cream, and once that idea lodged in my brain it never let go until the ice cream was made....

If you find yourself with more figs than you can handle, then turn them into fig preserves. The sweet, jammy preserves get a lift from fresh lemon and orange, which also help thicken it. For a soft herbal note, toss in a sprig of rosemary. These preserves only require a few ingredients and will keep for months in the fridge or longer when canned. It’s wonderful served with cheese, or use it anywhere you would a fruit jam....

My dad must have sauerkraut juice running through his veins by this time, given how often he eats it. But this recipe, adapted from a 25-year old McCalls recipe, really is worth reporting. It’s sort of a paprikash version (sour cream and paprika) of hot dogs with sauerkraut. It’s easy to make, cooks up in little more than half an hour, and wonderfully flavorful. Use your favorite hot dog, frankfurter, mild German sausage, or even tofu-dog if that’s your preference....

To this day, nothing feels more like Christmas to me than the warm spices found in gingerbread. That’s why I channeled those flavors into a recipe for Gingerbread Pancakes topped with buttery caramelized pears perfect for Christmas brunch (another one of my favorite traditions). A heaping stack of pancakes is a glorious thing. These beauties get a jolly lift by infusing a buttermilk batter with sweet and sticky molasses along with ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and vanilla....

While these carrot dogs are great for a party, they are just as suited for a weekday lunch. In fact, I’m probably more likely to have carrots on hand than hot dogs. Slather Your Carrot Dogs With BBQ Mustard Paste What makes these more than just a “grilled carrot” is the use of a mustard paste. The paste, a combination of yellow and Dijon mustard, includes the BBQ mainstays of garlic, paprika, and cumin....

To serve, you want to slather them with some sort of vinaigrette—olive oil to keep them from tasting too dry, and an acid like lime juice or lemon juice to balance the sweetness of the sweet potatoes. We played around a bit with this recipe, after thinking we had “discovered” the wonderful combination of lime, cilantro, and sweet potatoes, only to find out many others have made a similar discovery....

In fact, I’ll do almost anything to stay out of the stores during the holidays. My friends all know that they will receive a gift, but that gift will come from my kitchen. Homemade Hot Cocoa Mix Is the Perfect Gift Now I’ve been given some doozies in the past from friends similarly inclined to edible gift-giving. So, I try to make gifts of food that will appeal to as many people as possible....

While one might stray towards the pre-mixed drinks aisle when prepping drinks for a crowd, I’d like to offer up an alternative to those preservative-laden, electric-hued mixes: make your own Homemade Margarita Mix. Cocktails are not one-size-fits-all when it comes to alcohol content. Here, I’ve created a classic margarita mix: sweet, tart, and flavorful, without the addition of the tequila. The mix, however, does contain some alcohol from the orange liqueur (although I’m offering an alternative for that below), so please remember to designate this classic mix as “adults only” even before the addition of tequila....

So my pathway to moderation is just to not buy the things that I shouldn’t be eating all the time. Or I will eat them all the time. (Here’s the point where I blame my parents, you know, the ones who never fed us enough growing up; of course, when I mention this to them, you can practically see the indignation steaming out of their ears.) Ingredients for Homemade Tortilla Chips Back to danger....

And while I’m the first to dig into a bowl of chowder festooned with meaty clams in their shells, I also make space in my pantry for the canned variety. Bottom line: there’s room for both in your repertoire. What’s in a Can of Clams? The canned clams you’ll find on supermarket shelves are either minced, chopped, or whole baby clams. Other clam products you may discover include smoked clams and bottled or canned clam juice....

Video: How to Grill the Best Steak Grilling the Best Steak I wanted a juicy steak with a nice crust that was big enough to slice and serve family style, and that had a little finesse. While cooking, I basted the steak in an herbed butter sauce. The sauce added a fresh, light flavor that balanced the richness of the meat. In the end, I had a steak everyone raved about, and that felt special but not overly fussy....