Very nice satay marinade. I was making this for a child's birthday party, so I used approximately 7 tablespoons of brown sugar to balance the mild heat (the recipe calls for 5-6, which would have been fine for the adults). It was a big hit.

Chef John's blog and video point out that you really should use russets on this recipe, and sure enough, I think Yukon Golds were too waxy to get a good crust. That said, it's a really neat approach - potato cylinders are fried on one side to make a crust, and then braised in stock to complete cooking and add flavor. (I also suspect that the second side should get a longer fry than I gave it - but that's the side that's going to be in the braising liquid so I don't know if it matters.) It's more effort than just baking up some home fries, but I'm interested enough to try it again.

Tater tots, bacon, blue cheese, cream of mushroom soup and meat. It seems ridiculous, but everyone I've served it to enjoyed it. And what's not to like? We usually substitute ground turkey for ground beef, and up the thyme and garlic a bit.

Terrific meatballs. I'll definitely be using the technique of mixing panade with meat in the food processor, not by hand. These seemed to pay off my labor better than other meatball recipes I've tried. (The recipe also makes enough meatballs that I can get 2 or 3 meals out of it.)

The sauce is fine, but forgettable. I'll probably just open a jar in future. That may be a comment on the quality of my supermarket crushed tomatoes and tomato sauce.

These are amazing cookies. Make me rethink what a 5-star rating should mean cookies. Lie to your wife and tell her they're too burnt to eat cookies.

How to describe them? Imagine a pecan pie in truffle form. Small, chewy balls of pecans and sweetness, with the perfectly addictive balance of salt.

The only problem with the recipe is that Shirley says they're "better made several weeks ahead." I don't doubt this is true for a minute. I do doubt that there are more than 10 people on earth who could let 40 of these survive in their house for a week.

(I'll also point out that they were so good warm, crunchy on the outside and still a bit gooey in the middle, that I seriously thought about devouring the whole batch then and there, pancreas bedamned.)

Solid recipe for a basic bacon cheeseburger. I do like the burger technique in this book.

For some reason, I didn't love these kale chips. They were crispy but maybe a little too much so; seemed a little grainy as they broke up in my mouth. (Maybe early season kale is different than late season kale?) That said, they did add a nice crunchy texture to the burger.

I want to like the idea of this burger. But the directions for making chile rellenos were entirely too vague for me to follow successfully. They were greasy, the cheese leaked, it was a mess. Maybe if I learn to make a chile relleno first I'll come back to this recipe. The cumin in the burgers was a hit though.

The radish-cucumber sauce is a neat idea. I disagree with the recommendation to use a microplane grater; we wanted a slightly larger grate to give more texture. This would be a great condiment on a more flavorful burger (like a lamb burger, or something with more heat); on a standard ground beef burger it added freshness but not a lot of zing.

Good burger. Will make again. Cheese, sauteed greens, and caramelized onions combine to make a soft, succulent topping for a burger perfect for a winter's night.

Also a very forgiving concept - I used spinach instead of Swiss chard, which worked well, and American cheese instead of chevre, which played the role like a pretty good understudy. I only used half the red wine vinegar called for, because I wasn't sure how close I was to the right amount of greens; in retrospect I could have used a heavier hand. The recipe calls for serving on French rolls; a nice chewy-crunchy bread would have been better. But on a standard hamburger roll, they were still good burgers.

Cole slaw as a burger topping was OK. I like mayo on my burgers anyway, so cole slaw isn't much of a jump. Could have used some acidity - something like capers or a pickled jalapenos or a diced pickle might be interesting. The Worcestershire in the burgers got lost, though... I'd seriously increase it, or leave it out.

I was excited for the "borscht on a bun" concept of this burger. And ultimately, the beet slaw was pretty good (if underseasoned) and it was a pleasant burger topping.

But the poor rating is because the recipe isn't specific enough. How large is a large beet? How big is this head of cabbage that I'm supposed to use 1/4th of? 1 or 2 large carrots... well, which is it? I ended up with enough to top 10 burgers easily, but the recipe claims to make 4. This is going to take more experimenting to find the right proportions of ingredients. I suppose the lesson is that slaw is not a science and you should use the amount you want, and be glad for leftovers.

Fresh buttermilk cheese is a wonderful thing - a very slight bit of effort for an appetizer which always impresses. I've tended to serve fresh cheese on the sweet side, but this goes spicy with ginger, jalapeno, and pepper. It was a big hit as both a dip and a topping for chili. We liked it with more ginger than originally called for.

Basically a blackened steak recipe, made in bite-size portions. This was a hit in my house, though we found using a commercial Cajun seasoning and slightly less meat than called for led to being significantly over-salted. I'll be more moderate next time. The garlic butter at the end was a good touch.

We served them like little lettuce wraps, just putting each bite inside some spring-mix size lettuce leaves. They'd be nice on a flatbread or in a tortilla too, or maybe atop some rice.

The recipe I use for my "old family recipe" fried chicken. Shhhh... don't tell anyone! Although with some crowds, I up the garlic and hot sauce in the marinade, it's just about perfect - flavorful, with a serious, crispy crust. It looks darker than the Colonel's - you might even think it's overcooked - but don't worry, it's delicious. This is the recipe that taught me I like making fried chicken just as much as eating it.

A relatively simple and very rich recipe for oyster stew; it's our family "go-to" recipe. Feeds a crowd - I frequently find myself scaling it down. I need to remember to use a light hand with the cayenne pepper; its lingering heat becomes overpowering easily.

Growing up, when my parents went out for the night, we'd often get Stouffer's escalloped apples as a dinner treat. This recipe doesn't have the same thick, syrupy sauce as the frozen one, but it does feed that same memory for me.

It's a more grownup recipe - there's no sugar added past the apples and cider, but if you pick sweet apples, that's plenty. I could have a lot of fun playing with the size of the apple slices; a thin slice might be "like a spiced apple sauce" as described; I used rather thick chunks of apple (one chunk to the bite) to a heartier effect.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly, substituting about a pound of smoked Polish sausage, a pound of gator, and a pound of crawfish tails, for the 4 and a half pounds of meat otherwise called for. (I also used 1/3rd of the hot sauce, so my 3 year old would eat it.) I think it did miss the flavor of the ham, frankly. But the sauce is excellent, hearty and heady with herbs and spice. Definitely will keep experimenting with this as a base.

Really, this is a 5 for the pie filling, which is delightfully reminiscent of a New Orleans praline. Nuts, butter, and of course sugar, but not that cloying gelled filling which so many pecan pies have. (A friend suggests this may only be because it hadn't been refrigerated between baking and serving, and she could be right.) But a 3 for the oil-based pastry crust, which shrank surprisingly during the blind bake and was a little thicker on the bottom than we expected.

Terrific recipe. Should go into my frequent rotation. I didn't let my roux go quite long enough, and I would have liked a little more of that deep dark flavor, but I bring this up because even with a roux that was more milk chocolate-colored than brick, it was in the right neighborhood. The flour on the chicken also lightens the roux and adds thickening - I found it took ~7 cups of stock, not 6, to get the desired consistency and even then it got gloppy when cold.

Similarly, I think there's room to be more aggressive in the seasonings. As written it was fine, but I noticed people adding hot sauce and salt and black pepper at the table. Again, that depends on a lot - the stock, the degree to which you season the chicken, personal preference.

It's a yogurt parfait; it's as good as your yogurt and berries are. But it's also a dish my kid can put together entirely on his own, and experiment a little with plating artistically. So points for that.

(Don't tell Williams-Sonoma, but we found that my highball glasses are just about the perfect size for a yogurt parfait.)

Dead simple, but a pretty pleasant summer dessert. I might do a large chop instead of a slice next time; as the bananas cook they can become a little chewy (especially if they're not perfectly ripe yet).

Reasonably good cure. I used it on ribs and found it a bit too salty for my taste, but my family thought it was fine. Nothing revelatory here, but for a cure, that's not a bad thing.

"Crash Hot Potatoes" from the Pioneer Woman Cooks website are a standing favorite in my house. This recipe puts a massive amount of salt into the boiling water for the potatoes and brushes them with malt vinegar before and after roasting, evoking the flavors of a good salt-and-vinegar potato chip. And suddenly, one of my favorite potato preparations becomes my absolute favorite, hands down, undisputed King of Potatoes.

As usual, I cheated - it's just so much faster to microwave the potatoes and boil them, and salt before they go into the oven. I probably need a heavier hand with the salt. I also used gold potatoes instead of red (because I prefer them), and cider vinegar instead of malt (because it's what I had). Malt vinegar probably would be better.

A pretty nice, basic technique for brining and roasting turkey. After a couple of years of trying to infuse the turkey with various flavors of fruits, spices, and bacon, a straightforward turkey-tasting-turkey was a nice return to roots.

I do think they estimate too little time for cooking the bird, or they assume it's a lot closer to room temp than mine was when it went in the oven. The important thing to remember is, brining is designed to make the bird tolerant of being "overcooked".

We participated in the testing phase for this dish, and it was an interesting take. The flavors are definitely lighter and more distinct than the beef stroganoff of my past... it's a classier, more refined dish. It bears almost no resemblance to stroganoff a la college cafeteria, that's for sure!

Or, put another way, if you _like_ stew-like beef stroganoff, this isn't it. I do prefer a heartier approach, and I already have an easy recipe for that from the Fagor pressure cooker manual, so while this is a good and pretty easy recipe, it won't be going in my personal heavy rotation.

There's not a lot to this recipe - get thick-cut pork chops, brine them, cook on a 2-level fire. I found the timing a little short, but I was cooking on a windy day at about 60 degrees F, so my grill was cooler than it will be in July.

But it's a 5-star recipe for me, because these pork chops were every bit as good as any I've had in a restaurant. Tender and juicy with a nice smoky flavor (and a hint of the BBQ rub I used for a spice). I'm always afraid that pork on the grill will either be shoe leather or burnt on the outside, raw in the middle, but with this technique, I see how some of my summer nights will shape up.

This is a very refined, light and custardy sweet potato pie. It has good sweet potato flavor, with a strong hit of bourbon and an eggy-milky sweetness which reminds me of egg nog. I'm partial to the rustic, dense version of sweet potato pie, but this uptown version is definitely a recipe I'll make again. A friend suggested it was lacking pecans, and we agree - a layer at the bottom of the pie would be a fantastic surprise.

(Disclaimer: this is not a review of the pie crust, because I used store-bought.)

Every year, at Christmas or Thanksgiving, my wife says "we could make glazed carrots" and I say "we don't have a glazed carrots recipe" (meaning "I don't really like cooked carrots.") And she says "yes we do, the Cook's Illustrated one" and I say "I have no memory of what you're talking about." And then we make this one, and the strong hit of ginger balances the rosemary really well and gives needed complexity to its restrained sweetness.

And I say "you were right, honey, these are really good."

And she smiles, knowing I'll forget about them before next year.

A good example of the double-cooking method of mashing potatoes. It's never let me down, and it's easy enough to mess with the recipe if you want to.

This is my absolute favorite party recipe. It's invariably a hit, and it has a classy French name and comes from a famous chef. Little does anyone suspect that the whole recipe is "throw all the dairy in your fridge into the food processor, with a splash of wine and some garlic." Voila, cheese dip - simple and bulletproof.

The recipe will change slightly every time you make it, based on the combination of cheese you have on hand. If it seems too sharp, you can add butter or sour cream to gain sweetness without sharpness. And someday, I will remember that my food processor takes ages to break down a solid brick of old Parmesan cheese, and anything that hard should be grated first.

I first saw Jacques Pepin do this recipe years ago on PBS - I remember it as the series with Julia Child, but perhaps it was the one with his daughter Claudine. Either way, I'm thrilled to have a copy in his cookbook.

I like this recipe because it says that sometimes, you just let the meat speak for itself. Everything doesn't need a fancy-schmancy preparation; this 5-ingredient preparation is perfectly capable of standing next to the 10-ingredient dish on the same page.

I also appreciated being introduced to savory, not an herb I'd cooked with before. I couldn't get fresh savory in our supermarket, but the dried herb tastes a little like a lot of things - a peppery note, a rosemary-like flavor, a hint of a warm herb like thyme. I want to play with that particular ingredient more.

Another simple approach from the master. Searing the chops over high heat and then allowing to finish in a barely-warm oven (instead of rest on a table) is a smart technique which should save a lot of people from leathery pork chops. Unfortunately, making this inside in a pan instead of outside on a grill, I got occasional tastes of burnt oil. I wonder if I could have avoided that by putting them on a rack in the oven instead of in the pan.

A fast, basic preparation of sweet potatoes. Pepin treats it as a side dish, but you could also imagine it as a base for something like a hash.

Not at all what I was expecting, this is a delicate European savory custard flavored with pumpkin, not a pumpkin-forward American side dish. Tasty, but IMO in need of tweaking. I'm imagining using a lot more than 15 ounces of pumpkin, and an herbal note like rosemary. (On the other hand, I used a smoked gruyere, which some people found dominating - I'll go with unsmoked next time.)

This is the recipe which convinced me I'd spent my money well on a pressure cooker. It's just as good as any coq au vin I've made, but it's ready in well under an hour instead of after a 3-hour braise. And frankly, a lot less work than some of the deconstructed "weeknight coq au vin" recipes I've seen.

One thing - don't skip that step where it says to brown the chicken before adding the wine. Or do skip it, and when your chicken comes out purple, call your geek friends and declare it "Romulan Chicken." Tell them to bring the Saurian brandy. Purple chicken tastes as good as brown, but, well... it's purple.

A serviceable recipe from the pressure cooker manual. It's a light stew, appropriate for a spring or summer dinner, with only meat and sauce. I made it with a beef flank steak instead of lamb stew meat and it worked just fine. It might benefit from an herbal note - maybe a bay leaf.

I've been reluctant to try the "roasts" in the pressure cooker cookbook - but since my favorite pork roast recipe is really a braise, I thought this one was worth a shot.

And it's well worth it. The pork came out perfectly moist and tender. The herbs added intense and complimentary flavor. I used small sweet potatoes, which came out pretty mushy but were still a hit.

If I have a quibble with the recipe, it's that it makes a very small amount of very tasty gravy (which ended up as sauce on the potatoes). I'm wondering if upping the liquid would make enough sauce for the meat.

A very nice take on the French classic. I used a round steak instead of stew meat, which broke down into a tender stew. The sauce is luscious and rich (probably because it's finished with a half-stick of butter...)

Thoroughly enjoyed this low and slow approach to lamb. The marinade gives wonderful onion, garlic, and paprika flavors to the lamb without overpowering. I wish I'd had even more rosemary sprigs on hand to smoke with - the smoke was delicious, but I think it was lost in the apple wood I used as well.

One point - the timing is for a grill-smoked leg of lamb. In my water smoker, the timing was more like 4 hours. I do expect the marinade would have become a very nice rub, but slow smoking gave me a delicate texture, rare but fully done, which was just to die for. Worth the wait.

We make this without the addition of apples; the cider provides enough of an apple taste to the bread. Very nice loaf, hearty without being overly dense.

If, like me, you always seem to end up with more winter squash than you actually want, this is a pretty neat approach. I took some liberties with the recipe, and can report it works pretty well as a technique. Specifically I used tasso instead of ham, which worked wonderfully and points me to the idea that any strongly-flavored meat might work well. And I used supermarket cheddar which I suspect did not work as well as the specified Gruyere. I'm not sure whether the answer is better Cheddar or sticking with the recipe.

I also used a mix of smaller butternut, acorn, and delicata squash, because that's what I had on hand and quite frankly I can only barely tell the difference. Delicata is probably too delicate for the scoop-and-stuff procedure; I broke too much skin on one half and ended up just peeling it.

Personally, I think that re-stuffing the shells is fiddly, annoying work, and I'm tempted to do it as a casserole in future. In the shell is a pretty plating, though.

This is a remarkably simple technique for a delicious fiery pepper puree. You can make it with green hot peppers (poblanos and jalepenos are more available to me than fresnos); the color gets muted but the flavor is still delightful. I'm considering draining my next batch in cheesecloth to get a pastier consistency, but honestly, the looser texture is fine with me.

A hearty dish which comes together with a lot less work and time than I thought it would. It's almost a 4-star recipe, but I'm dinging it a bit because the gravy didn't thicken in the oven as much as I thought it would. (It's my fault, though, that I gave the sauce more time in the oven and the chops got tough.) I didn't have a Vidalia onion, so I used one medium-size white onion. The flavor worked, but it would have been more "smothered" if I'd gone for 2 onions.

I'm in favor of anything that makes me break out the pressure cooker. This is a pretty quick approach to the classic dish, although I suspect getting the dumplings the right size is just a matter of repetition.

One of my go-to desserts for parties. It's tremendously easy to make, and to make ahead. It takes well to virtually any flavor that goes with chocolate - the recipe calls for coffee liqueur, but straight coffee, hazelnut liqueur, and berry schnapps all work well. Plus, the tofu is 100% hidden, so there are wonderful elements of a prank in it. Bring it to a barbecue or other festival of cooked meat, just to watch your friends' faces.

The taste on this was fantastic - peanut butter and jelly plus a glass of warm, vanilla-scented milk, all at once.

But the pudding didn't come out right for me, I think because "half a loaf of challah" isn't a very clear measurement. I definitely should have added bread; I got something loose, more like pudding than bread. I also suspect I should have chosen a more rustic loaf of bread; the dense, soft loaf I used pretty much disintegrated at serving.

Alton, you know you're my boy. There are terra cotta tiles in my over because of you. I eat barbecued tofu because of you. But, my friend, sometimes you just gotta rein it in.

Like this steak recipe. I mean, it's broiled steak! The point is simplicity. And here you go telling me to move the dang oven racks after 10 minutes of cooking. Not the steaks, the racks! I don't know what dinnertime looks like in your house, but in mine, it doesn't involve messing with hot oven racks.

Maybe I'm overreacting. But let's try a little less "mad" in your "mad genius."

We call this kind of recipe "refrigerator Velcro" - make it once to get the flavor profile, then in the future use the basic recipe as a background for cleaning leftover meat and veggies out of the fridge.

It's not exceptional or authentic, but it is tasty and quick, and it turned a dish I thought was restaurants-only into something I can pull off for a quick weeknight meal. That counts for something.

Interesting take on cole slaw, with cauliflower playing the part of cabbage, and a flavor profile that's close to tabbouleh with its mint and parsley. I suspect it's a little overly salty, although that diminishes as the vegetables purge and the salt works its way more evenly through the dish.

It is important to break the cauliflower into reasonably small florets - I didn't, and ended up with slices of cauliflower which were a little bigger than I wanted. They broke up by hand easily enough, but it was a step I wouldn't have needed if I'd done a better job of coring and breaking up.

I also substituted pecans for pine nuts, because, frankly, I'm not crazy about pine nuts. My wife pointed out that almonds would fit the dish better, and she's right.