andrew's Reviews
174 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title | Date 
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Bouchon Bakery
By Thomas Keller, Sebastien Rouxel
Artisan - 2012
These were okay muffins, but nothing special. I'd been led by the instructions to believe they would be something out of the ordinary - they have molasses, honey, lots of butter, and rest in in the fridge overnight, which is supposed to create a 'very moist muffin' with a better crumb.
The result: an almost too dry muffin with a slightly odd taste of molasses which would be better suited to go with pumpkin muffins, perhaps. I baked them for 33 minutes (it's a low temperature bake), taking them out just when they firmed up. I didn't deviate from the instructions except to reduce the salt a little as 1 tsp of regular salt seemed like a lot.
I'll be going back to the very good blueberry muffins I make all the time from this recipe: http://www.cookbooker.com/recipe/1432/lawsuit-buttermilk-muffins
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The first time I made these I followed the recipe exactly, using a gram scale to make sure it was precise, as recommended in the book's foreword. They were almost inedible - the taste of baking soda was overwhelming; I found them too salty and too strongly tasting of cinnamon also. I baked them about half the recommended size and still found them enormous. I dumped them in the compost and tried again.
This time I reduced the baking soda to 3/4 of a teaspoon, which was more in line with other cookie recipes in the book (the TLCs the next page over have only 1/2 a teaspoon, leading me to think perhaps the 1 1/2 tsp recommended in this recipe is an error).
I also reduced the cinnamon to 3/4 of a tablespoon and reduced the kosher salt to a scant teaspoon. I also dropped the brown sugar to about 100 grams, as the weight to cup ratio in the instructions seemed off to me also. Then I baked them at my regular cookie size (a bit smaller than a golf ball - about 30 grams each) for 14 minutes. They were very good with these changes, and rivalled my best other oatmeal cookie recipes (Smitten Kitchen). I'd give them 5 stars with the adjustments.
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Website: Food.com
Simple, easy to prepare and tasty noodle salad. Very good warm or cold. I added julienned carrot, cooked the pepper a bit longer than the recipe calls for and also cooked the green onion lightly as my wife doesn't like them raw. I also found the dressing to be a lot for the amount of noodles so didn't use it all. Finally, I jazzed it up a little by adding some Thai sweet chili sauce rather than cayenne for spice.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
Echoing everyone else, these are excellent scones. I used a medium/strong cheddar (yellow/orange as I didn't have white) and the cheese flavor was fairly muted, but still delicious.
I was careful not to overmix, as the recipe says, and still had chunks of butter in the batter which melted out during cooking. Next time, I'll cut the butter in smaller pieces and see if that helps. Definitely addictive!
I also agree with the baking time suggestions - I set my timer 2 minutes less than the recipe suggests and they were almost overcooked - so next time I'll probably try 4-5 minutes under.
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Rick Bayless's Mexican Kitchen: Capturing the Vibrant flavors of a World-Class Cuisine
By Rick Bayless
Scribner - 1996
This has a lovely taste, and is definitely different than the normal dulce de leche that I make the South American way by simmering a can of condensed milk for several hours. It is definitely more time consuming, and took about an hour of standing and stirring, all told.
Be careful not to over-reduce it, however. I did the first time I made this and ended up with a very thick caramel once I'd refrigerated it. Still tasted amazing - with a creamy note that's hard to describe - but it was too thick to use in the warm cajeta pudding in the book. I'll be mixing it into ice cream when I make a batch this weekend, so it won't go to waste!
Remember that it will thicken more when it cools, so pull it off the heat before it gets to the point where you can see the bottom of the pan for a few moments after stirring it - in my case the color was still not very dark but the cajeta was already a little too thick.
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The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread
By Peter Reinhart, Ron Manville
Ten Speed Press - 2001
A great, all-purpose enriched bread recipe. This is what I use to make burger buns, using Peter's knot technique from Artisan Breads Every Day (essentially you make the dough into a 'snake' and then knot it to get a nice looking twisted bun). I always add some whole-wheat flour - 25-30% most usually, and find I go on the low side of the liquid recommendation (13 oz) as well as sometimes add a little extra flour on kneading as it's a damp dough.
If you have a warm kitchen you can start these and be ready to bake in about 3 1/2 hours, which is great for prep for a barbecue, for instance. They freeze well and I often make a batch and put most of them away for later.
I always do the egg wash and sesame seed sprinkle.
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The Best Recipes in the World
By Mark Bittman
Broadway - 2005
My wife loved this, and my 9-year-old gobbled it up (without chicken though, as she's not much of a meat eater). It has an unusual flavour with the addition of half a vanilla bean - really out of the ordinary if you've not experienced the use of what in the West are spices commonly used in sweet dishes being used in savoury dishes. With nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger plus raisins, it really does have a holiday sort of feel about it.
I would have added more heat, and when I served it I mixed in a little harissa paste, which was just perfect and brought it up to 4 stars in my view.
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This is quite a good recipe, reminiscent of Bittman's tagine with chickpeas. It's a variation on Bulgur Pilaf with Meat. I cooked it exactly as written and it made a hearty vegetarian main dish. The cinnamon spicing is characteristic of this sort of dish, and gives it an interesting flavour. If I was cooking for adults I'd likely add a little spice to give this another layer of complexity, but this was for a meal including some kids, so I kept it heat-free.
I have a feeling it will improve after a night in the fridge. I'll probably make this every so often, as the family liked it, though it wasn't quite flavourful enough to make 4 stars.
Edit: I just upped this to 4 stars, as it definitely goes up a notch after a day of storage. I gave some to a friend who raved about it. As for myself, I'm still stirring in a little harissa for some heat, and definitely liking this one more.
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How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman
Wiley - 2008
I would have never thought of cooking greens with tahini, but this works very well. It's a simple recipe - sautee some garlic and then add your greens (kale in this case) a little stock and some tahini. Finish with a squirt of lemon juice and you have a very tasty side dish. Other variations on the recipe include peanut butter, which at first I thought bizzare, but considering how similar tahini is, makes some sense now.
I ended up using more stock than the recipe suggested - it seemed to vanish quickly.
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Everyday Food
(December, 2003)
A very tasty Eggplant Parmigiana variation, with the eggplant baked first in the oven before the whole thing is baked in sauce and cheese. It does take some time, however - minimum of 90 minutes and closer to 2 hours.
The eggplant rounds are extremely tasty out of the oven and I'm tempted to try this again in a deconstructed form, as you lose the crunchy, chewy texture once it's all smothered in cheese. I would put a round on a plate, a dollop of sauce, some cheese and then broil it quickly to melt the cheese.
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Plenty: Vibrant Recipes from London's Ottolenghi
By Yotam Ottolenghi, Jonathan Lovekin
Chronicle Books - 2011
Very rich and tasty. The flavour of the leeks and mustard, the broccoli and the cheese go very well together. From a flavour standpoint, this is a very good recipe, though the recipe itself has a few issues.
First, I'm not convinced puff pastry is the ideal pastry for blind baking, which you do first before putting the contents of the pie inside. The pastry puffed up a great deal (which it's supposed to do, of course), and although it fell somewhat after it cooled, it was still fairly thick compared to a regular tart crust.
Secondly, the proportions seemed a llittle off - he calls for 2 broccoli heads at 1.5 lbs total, but my two heads were about 1/2 lb and this was enough to fill my tart with almost a cup of broccoli left over. Perhaps he's weighing with the stalks still on?
It calls for 7 oz of Gorgonzola, but after I'd put about 3 or 4 oz on, it seemed to me to be more than enough cheese, especially considering there's 3/4 cup of heavy cream in there already. Not that I'm fat-phobic like the letter writer he refers to in his headnotes, but it just seemed like enough, and it certainly tasted like enough.
Anyway, the combination of leeks, mustard, cream and broccoli with a blue cheese is lovely, and I'll definitely be getting inspiration for this for future recipes.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
As the other reviewers have said, these are nice, simple to make oatmeal raisin cookies. I like them with a bit of kosher salt to make them taste a little more 'adult', and I made the recipe as written.
Update: I've also made these with chocolate chips and walnuts and they're excellent.
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Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press - 2010
This is a good snacking cake if you like dates. I'm a big fan and bought a box of medjool dates recently so went looking through my cookbooks for something sweet to make with them. This is quite a simple recipe - two cups of chopped dates and a cup of toasted walnuts, baked in a simple cake batter with a hint of anise. It is dense enough to pass as a bar rather than a cake and I'm not sure why it's called a torte in the recipe, other than its denseness and nut content. Still, definitely tasty.
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Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1992
This is a hearty borscht, heavier on the cabbage and potato than some variations. I have made this a few times and agree that it improves the recipe to use an immersion blender or similar to make it more of a puree. I also find I can hardly taste the recommended 1-2 Tbsp of cider vinegar and have to double it to give it that borscht tang I like.
I sliced the beets quite thin but still had to cook them for longer than 30 minutes, and just cooked the soup longer to make sure they were soft after putting them in.
After blending, it's very thick and you can easily add another cup or more of water to thin it.
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Ad Hoc at Home
By Thomas Keller
Artisan - 2009
These didn't work out for me quite as well as everyone else. They were nice, but I may have been overcautious. The recipe makes lots of references to not overmixing the butter and flour, and I ended up undermixing, I think. I did have to do some extra fiddling when I'd patted the dough out on the counter as it started falling apart when I tried to cut it.
This is mostly my technique, though, not the recipe. I did find, however, that like some of Keller's recipes, this was a little too salty for me. The recipe calls for over a tablespoon of kosher salt, which is quite a lot for a batch of biscuits. Were I to make these again I'd try cutting this in half and see how they went.
I did half the recipe and got 8 biscuits using my cookie-cutter.
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The Pie and Pastry Bible
By Rose Levy Beranbaum
Scribner - 1998
I had to make this after reading the glowing reviews, and I was not disappointed. I made the recipe almost exactly (to the gram) following the directions, with only one change (see below).
As usual, Rose provides incredible detail, and although it takes more time than whipping up a standard pumpkin pie, the result is more than worth it.
I used gingersnaps (Anna's brand) for the crust, with pecans. My mother-in-law told me this was the best pie she'd ever had.
Note: my one change was that I heated the egg whites for the chiffon, using the 'new safe meringue' technique worked out by Alice Medrich, but using the quantities here rather than the ones in the technique I linked to, and not bothering with the cream of tartar.
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Website: Epicurious
This is a deceptively simple recipe, but the completed pie is greater than the sum of its parts. The tartness of the rhubarb and the sweet / tart flavour of the raspberries are softened by the pear. Then there's some orange peel and cinnamon to round it out. It's incredibly delicious.
The recipe calls for store-bought crusts, but of course it's easy to substitute your favourite recipe. The only thing that's an issue is that these three ingredients are never in season at the same time. What I do is freeze rhubarb in the spring, raspberries in the summer and then when pears are in season in the fall, out come the pies!
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
I'll just add my hurrahs to this recipe. These are very, very good cookies. I've done them with fleur de sel and the little nuggets of saltiness are just perfect. I imagine kosher salt would work just as well.
I was extra careful not to overmix them and they ended up tender and crumbly. They didn't look too much like Deb's smooth versions on Smitten Kitchen, however - mine are fissured and cracked. Taste trumps all though.
I did one batch on parchment and one batch on Silpat and preferred the parchment ones. I find that buttery cookies on Silpat have a tendency to spread out more and sometimes get too thin and burned at the edges.
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The Perfect Scoop: Ice Creams, Sorbets, Granitas, and Sweet Accessories
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press,U.S. - 2007
These are the mix-in for the Maple Walnut Ice Cream. Very simple, just walnuts toasted and then cooked in maple syrup, but sooo delicious!
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Superb maple walnut ice cream. Compared to a commercial version, it seems more 'grown up'. Of course, it uses 3/4 cup of maple syrup in the ice cream and another 1/2 cup in the walnut mix, and I'm pretty sure that commercial ice creams couldn't afford all that expensive syrup.
Luckily we had enough in the house to indulge, and it's worth it. Do not skip on the wet walnuts, which you mix in at the end. They're simply walnuts which have been toasted and then plunged into boiling maple syrup and allowed to cool, but they elevate the recipe from a 4 star to a 5 star in my opinion.
You could also do a conventional sugared walnut, and I"m sure it wouldn't suffer.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
Very good indeed. I'm particularly impressed by how light in texture they seemed. Perhaps it is partly our peanut butter (it was from a new jar of natural pb, and it seemed fairly runny), but also the creaming of the butter and peanut butter at room temperature has something to do with it, I think.
We made a couple of tweaks - brown sugar only (we're out of white) and chocolate chunks rather than chocolate and peanut butter chips. Otherwise, exactly as written and it made a very good cookie. I might cut back a little on the sugar in future, but that's it. Hello to our new peanut butter cookie recipe!
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Website: Martha Stewart
This is our go-to pumpkin pie recipe for all fall/winter holidays. It's a nice mixture of spices, a good ratio of egg to pumpkin to condensed milk, and I always get compliments on the flavor of it. It's not hard to make (one bowl) and I often cheat and use a frozen pie crust if I'm in a hurry.
I do find that with a frozen crust, even a deep dish one, I have some filling left over. I make several ramekins full of it, bake them for 25 minutes or so, and my daughters prefer them to the pie itself.
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Website: Smitten Kitchen
I was looking for a quick apple dessert, saw the reviews of this one and decided to give it a shot. This came together quick quickly - it only took a few minutes to make the pastry and then when it chilled in the fridge I peeled and cored apples. I weighed out two pounds, but was left with 2 1/2 apples after I filled my tart dish, so next time I'll cut back on the fruit a bit. I also used Gravensteins, which I'd bought from a local farm, forgetting that they're better for sauce - so the filling ended up rather squishy. Still, very nice flavour and a nice presentation.
If you like your apple desserts sweet rather than tart, I'd mix a bit more sugar in with the slices before assembling it. I like a bit of tartness, though, so I was fine with a couple of tablespoons of sugar on top. It also took less than an hour to cook - more like 45 minutes.
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Website: Dinner With Julie
This was a 3 1/2 - not quite very good, but better than 3 stars. It's a simple version of Aloo Gobi (cauliflower and potatoes) which substitutes sweet potatoes for the regular potatoes. It definitely makes for a sweeter curry because of this. It contains chili powder, which doesn't seem totally Indian; but then chili powder is just ground chilis, so I guess it's close enough!
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Authentic Indian Cooking
By Madhuri Anand
Anand Enterprises - 2004
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Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen
By Heidi Swanson
Ten Speed Press - 2011
They tasted great, but I did have some problems with these, and I think that if I didn't have a good idea of why there were problems, I'd have given them a 3.
The issue is that she uses Greek-style yogurt as well as butter in these biscuits, but also suggests using regular plain yogurt. I had homemade yogurt which was a little runny, and the resulting dough, used with exactly her measurements, was extremely sticky. Since she doesn't suggest how sticky the dough should be (something I really appreciate in Peter Reinhart's bread recipes) I forged ahead despite my misgivings and ended up with scones that were more like modest buns - they didn't have the laminated layers that look so lovely in the recipe photo.
Doing this again I would cut back on the yogurt, or add more flour and work to get a dough which was tacky but not overly sticky. Then I would be able to pat / roll it out in such a way that the butter would be flattened and layers would be formed by the folding the recipe specifies.
That all said, I did really like the tangy taste of these, and the mixture of whole wheat and AP flour also added a taste and texture I liked a lot.
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The Pie and Pastry Bible
By Rose Levy Beranbaum
Scribner - 1998
This is a very nice pate sucree recipe, with Rose's customary detailed directions and exact measurements. Easy to make, and hard to mess up. I skipped the step where you pour it into a freezer bag to knead it and just dumped it onto a large piece of plastic wrap; it came together quickly after that.
I put it in the freezer for 10 to 15 minutes after putting it into the tart shell I was using, then blind baked it with weights for a bit shy of her recommended time.
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This got raves as the dessert at a recent BBQ. I made it as written in the recipe (with one exception) with her Sweet Cookie Tart Crust, Pastry Cream and fresh blueberries and raspberries.
I made the pastry cream, but didn't add the whipped cream as recommended, so it was heavier than in the regular recipe. It was thick but not quite thick enough to prevent it from oozing out when I started cutting the tart. Maybe it would have worked better with the whipped cream as it would have been lighter and possibly a bit stiffer (if that's not a contradiction).
Anyway, though a bit messy, it was delicious, and we ate it all up.
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Latin Grilling: Recipes to Share, from Patagonian Asado to Yucatecan Barbecue and More
By Lourdes Castro
Ten Speed Press - 2011
This is a superb and exotic (at least for this Canadian) way to prepare chicken on the grill, and makes for great presentation for a party as well as a delicious meal anytime.
You marinate chicken breasts in an achiote marinade, made up of annato seeds, garlic, cumin, oregano, vinegar and orange juice among other things (including a tablespoon of black pepper). Then wrap them in banana leaves with some red onion and chopped tomato. 25 minutes or so on a hot grill and you have this delightful charred package to unwrap - inside is an incredibly tender and juicy chicken breast, perfectly cooked.
It's a little work to source annato seeds and banana leaves, but once you have them you can do this multiple times as the seeds keep and the leaves freeze very well.
The flavour is distinctive, not overpowering, and a little exotic. Very nice indeed, and my favourite recipe so far from this book.
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Rose's Heavenly Cakes
By Rose Levy Beranbaum
Wiley - 2009
I'm including this review for those of you who are not quite as expert in cake making as the previous reviewer (lovely photo by the way!), or who don't have all the tools recommended in the recipe.
I have a silver springform pan, but no cake strips and no cake nail either, but I forged ahead and the cake still turned out to be delicious and it didn't suffer too much for not having the nail or the strip. It was light and fluffy and had a lovely orange flavour. I didn't frost it and we just had it as the dessert for a nice lunch.
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Peter Reinhart's Artisan Breads Every Day
By Peter Reinhart
Ten Speed Press - 2009
These worked out perfectly for me - and they are now my official go-to summer bun recipe. I tried several other enriched dough recipes from other sources, and then finally turned to Peter in frustration with the results, and was delighted to get just what I was looking for.
These are soft, tasty, and perfect for small sandwiches and burgers. They're not quite as fluffy as restaurant burger buns maybe, but they hold up well. I used them with pulled pork and they were excellent.
The overnight fermentation gives more flavour than the quick recipes (though his quick recipe from BBA is also quite good). I added 50% whole wheat with no issues; still light and airy. I did the knotted buns, and after a few odd ones, got the hang of it - they impressed the heck out of my dinner guests the first time I did them.
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Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press - 2010
A very credible gingersnap. Not that these deviate very far from the standard gingersnap cookie, but he does have a few nice touches. As well as cinnamon, ginger and cloves, there is a good teaspoon and a half of ground black pepper.
David used this in his (fabulous) ginger cake, to good effect, and it is similar here, giving an extra zing to the cookies - you don't taste it at first, then there's a little kick after a few moments. Nice!
Also, the recipe suggests it makes 60 cookies, but I got 48, which is a change for a North American cookie recipe (usually it's the reverse). Perhaps his time in Paris is affecting his portion sizes?
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Ad Hoc at Home
By Thomas Keller
Artisan - 2009
This was good, but it wasn't remarkable, unlike many of the other recipes in the book. The biscuit topping seemed less thick than the pictures in the book and the biscuits spread out until they covered almost the entire top; they tasted fine but I think I would have preferred them to be a little less all-enveloping. I also found it not quite sweet enough (this may depend on your particular blueberries).
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Everyday Food
(, 2007)
This is a great little cake recipe - it makes a one-layer, fairly dense, rich and chocolatey cake which is not unlike a brownie in texture (or ingredients). Containing a full 1/2 pound of chocolate in the cake, plus another 1/4 in the icing, it is not for the faint of heart.
We use this as a general-purpose special occasion cake, especially for adult birthdays. Oddly enough, I've never made it with the peppermint extract - the closest I've come is a little orange essence sometimes. Otherwise I just make the ganache icing straight.
It can take a while for the icing to stiffen, so it's not for last-minute icing.
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Website: Canadian Living
This is a great recipe, and very convenient - you can fry up the onions and make the sauce and then pop the pork in the slow cooker for 8 hours or so while you're off at work. Then you just have to reduce the sauce and pull the pork.
I've made it with and without hot peppers, and I prefer it spicy, but listen to your own tastes on this one. It's not terribly Mexican if you don't put in jalapenos and use cilantro when you serve it, and we often just do this as regular pulled pork on soft buns with coleslaw.
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How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman
Wiley - 2008
I was quite pleased with how these turned out, and the recipe (like many in this book) has enough variations to serve as a source of future veggie burger explorations. I ended up making these with a little more of the bean-cooking liquid that I should have, and may have pureed them a little too long - they were a little less chunky than I think the recipe specifies - but they had a good flavor and they cooked up quite nicely.
My 8-year-old gobbled hers up and my wife and I agreed that we'd try them again. Though these are definitely frying pan burgers - they would disintegrate on a grill.
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Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours
By Kim Boyce, Quentin Bacon, Nancy Silverton, Amy Scattergood
Stewart, Tabori & Chang - 2010
Phenomenal cookies. Like the other reviewers have said, these are fantastic. The whole wheat doesn't make them dense, and adds a slightly nutty flavor which goes very well with the chocolate and butter. I rank these right at the top of my chocolate chip cookie chart, easily equal to the NYTimes recipe or Thomas Keller's cookies from Ad Hoc at Home.
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I went the whole way and used heavy cream, though only made a half portion of the waffles. They were very good indeed, though I think they definitely would be just as good with buttermilk as the previous reviewer did them. You can taste the cream, I think, and they are a little richer than the usual buttermilk waffles I make. Nice for a special occasion.
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Website: New York Times - Dining and Wine
www.nytimes.com/pages/dining/index.html
Simple recipe for slightly buttery, light burger buns. Although they're called brioche, with only 2 1/2 tablespoons of butter, and one egg, they're not really in the league of real brioche - more of an enriched dough.
However, they are quite nice, though perhaps a little dry, and made a good holder for some cheeseburgers for dinner. I made them in about 3 1/2 hours, with rising included.
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Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen
By Heidi Swanson
Ten Speed Press - 2011
A good basic curry recipe, useful for all sorts of vegetables. I found it a little underspiced, however, compared to some of her other recipes, and in future would add a bit more curry paste. It's also not as complex or innovative as some of the other recipes in the book, hence my 3 stars.
I used red potatoes, red pepper and cauliflower as my vegetables rather than the zucchini and asparagus she suggests (she does say it's her 'refrigerator curry' for leftover veggies, so I felt this followed in the spirit of the thing.
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How to Cook Everything: 2,000 Simple Recipes for Great Food
By Mark Bittman
Wiley - 2008
A simple, excellent waffle batter with Bittman's usual list of variations you can use to create pretty much any type of waffle experience you want. I made the straightforward version substituting half whole-wheat flour for the white, and they cooked up beautifully in my new waffle iron.
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Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen
By Heidi Swanson
Ten Speed Press - 2011
As long as you have the ingredients at hand (squash, white miso, curry paste, tofu, kale, cilantro...) this is a simple and fast dish which makes a very tasty supper. I made it tonight and served it with some chapatis and it was very good indeed - spicy, but not too spicy, and the roasted vegetables went very nicely with the miso, lemon, oil and Thai curry dressing.
I didn't have a delicata squash but used some cubed butternut squash, which was nice, but it did start to disintegrate a little. Another dish I'll be making again.
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I was very pleasantly surprised by this recipe. Not that I didn't expect it to be tasty, but it was almost completely different tasting than I'd expected from looking at the ingredients. Although there's no peanuts in it, it had a slightly nutty, peanut flavour, possibly from the mixture of coconut oil, soy, sugar and tempeh. Everything about it was bursting with flavor - spice from the red pepper flakes and the black pepper, little gingery explosions, a note of caramelized cauliflower, and the mellow taste of the slowly cooked onion and garlic.
I will be making this again, and soon. It may say 'serves four' but my wife and I gobbled it up, with barely enough rescued from the skillet for my lunch tomorrow.
Recommendations: use coconut oil if at all possible, as the flavor contributes mightily to the final product, and don't be afraid to really crank the heat for the last couple of minutes to brown the cauliflower and tempeh. I added a little more water just to help at the end, as suggested in the recipe.
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Website: Epicurious
I came across this recipe on Smitten Kitchen, where Deb used it as a side dish for her Chana Masala. Cauliflower and potatoes are classic together with this sort of spicing, and the recipe didn't disappoint. I didn't have any ginger or jalapeno at the time, but it was still very tasty.
One thing though - the potato and cauliflower come out of the oven nice and crispy, then you put them in the frying pan with onions and spices and a bit of water and they get rather soft and soggy. Next time I may just cook them a little longer and then mix everything together just before serving and see how it comes out.
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Website: 101 Cookbooks
I made these last night after seeing the previous review and being intriguted by the idea of baking a giant cookie in a skillet. My daughters were too!
It is a stiff dough, and best to work with a stand mixer paddle attachment if you have one. I found that I underbaked it a little and had to pop it back in the oven to make sure the center had set - with such a thick cookie you do have to watch out for this. Especially since with whole wheat flour it will look fairly brown before it's actually done.
Also, make sure your skillet is clean! I use our deep cast iron skillet for bacon and onions and usually just give it a rinse before putting it away. Luckily I checked and made sure it was as minimally bacony and oniony before making this!
Update - I have since made the original recipe just as regular sized cookies, and I prefer it. The large one was good, and might be fun for a party, but regular cookies are just so conveniently sized (and you can freeze them, etc).
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Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours
By Dorie Greenspan, Alan Richardson
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2010
I made this for brunch this morning, taking into account aj's notes from the previous review. I made sure there were lots of chives, skipped the walnuts, measured the cheese by weight to be sure I was putting enough in, and for good measure added some left over caramelized onions (about 1/3 cup). I also mixed the cheese up a little, adding 1 ounce of gruyere and 1 of parmesan I wanted to use up from the fridge.
The result was quite cheesy, nice and savory and went very well with our brunch. Even though I used a lot of chives, it could easily have had more - without the onions it might have been missing flavor - in the recipe she suggests scallions as an alternative, and I'm sure they'd be nice too. Also I found that adding the sharper cheeses intensified the flavour. I'll definitely be making this again.
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This is a simple, interesting and quite tasty dessert. Essentially, it's a Cream of Wheat cake, with a flavour and texture somewhat like a cross between a flan and rice pudding. It's moist and eggy. If you like either of those, I'll guarantee you'll like this.
It's quite simple to make, and fairly quick - after you make the Cream of Wheat following the package directions, you stir in sugar and vanilla, then beaten eggs and vanilla when it's cooled. Caramel in a pot quickly and then on the bottom of the cake pan with the batter on top.
It doesn't keep very well (maybe a day at most), and mine was a bit less firm and had less caramel than the picture in the book, but it was a hit, and I could easily see doing it again.
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Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen
By Heidi Swanson
Ten Speed Press - 2011
This is a simple and quick soda bread recipe, with about 60% rye, the rest being white flour. You can, as Heidi writes, whip it together and have fresh bread cooling on your counter in about an hour.
However, you do have to like the particular taste of soda bread. I don't mind it, but I don't love it. My kids didn't like it at all, and they usually love all breads. My wife, however, thought it was great. So, your mileage will vary. I've tried to review this to reflect this varied level of opinion in our household.
I do like the way she cuts it before baking - almost through, in 8 pieces, so that it bakes up lovely and crusty. Also note, it was quite sticky and not easy to knead - I was a little concerned it wouldn't work out, but it turned out just fine.
If I did this again, I'd consider adding something to contrast the baking soda flavour - maybe caraway seeds.
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These are truly excellent. I was a little skeptical at first, thinking that they'd end up fairly dry, but no - they're just right. They were just as good two and even three days after I made them. The best way to describe them would be as a cross between granola bars and muffins.
I was lucky to have all the ingredients on hand - my personal interests and shopping whims seem to be aligning more and more with Heidi's focus on whole, natural ingredients. Be warned though, to do these properly you'll need a few things that most people don't stock regularly: spelt flour (you can substitute whole wheat), cane sugar and extra virgin coconut oil.
The only tweaks I'd contemplate when I make these again (and I had to restrain myself from making them again immediately today when we finished the last one) would be adding some dried fruit for a little burst of extra flavour. I intend to experiment with dried apple, apricot, and currants in the future.
Update: I've been making these with lightly toasted, chopped almonds now instead of walnuts, and adding chopped dates, and I'm really loving the result.
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A very tasty, simple granola variation. It's fairly straightforward - toasted oats with some nuts and a sweetener. She brings it up a notch with a couple of things - unsweetened coconut and currants - and sweetens it with maple syrup. Orange zest is the final tweak.
Be careful with the cooking time though - I let this one go until it was as brown as I thought it should be, then it cooked a little more on the tray when I took it out, and it turned out I'd overdone it - the currants were fossilized and the coconut was a bit burnt!
Update: I did this again and cooked it until it was nicely tanned but not dark brown. I put the currants in halfway through and they were better, but still a bit dried out. I'm going to take onepotkitchen's advice and put them in right at the end next time. I also did them with almonds and liked that very much.
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