hipcook's Reviews
260 recipes reviewed. Showing 51 to 100Sort by: Book Title | Date | Rating | Recipe Title 
Website: Fitocracy
Sweet potato, brown sugar, and cinnamon... what's not to like? It's a classic flavor combination and a lot less work than sweet potato pie.
However, mine also turned out dry. Not unpleasantly so - just a consistency I associate with roasted vegetables, not dessert. Part of the problem may have been that I microwaved the sweet potatoes. Boiling or steaming may have left more moisture in them. But then they're sauteed and baked, so maybe not. I was tempted to add a liquid (maybe orange juice, maybe bourbon) to get a syrup started. I also cheated and used panko instead of fresh bread crumbs; that would have left a bit of moisture too.
Everything came together when my wife pointed out that it needed a scoop of ice cream. (Ben & Jerry's Peach Cobbler, to be precise.) There's the moisture, and a contrasting texture and temperature. Of course, you won't get that kind of advice when you get recipes from a fitness site...
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The Bob's Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers
By Loren Bouchard, Bob's Burgers, Cole Bowden
Universe - 2016
Nice enough burger. (I used arugula instead of spinach, which was fine.) The instruction to reduce the lemon juice and red wine vinegar with the burgers is odd; it keeps the burgers from browning and the sauce gets lost. I wonder if it wouldn't be better mixed in with the greens.
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Website: The Food Network
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."
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Website: The Food Network
A terrific cabbage treatment, easy to whip together and finding the balance between bringing out the sweetness of the vegetable without turning it into mush. However, I do think Alton's definition of a "small" head of cabbage must be smaller than mine... I sometimes end up feeling the cabbage didn't get enough dressing.
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The New Chesapeake Kitchen
By John Shields, David W. Harp
Johns Hopkins University Press - 2018
Excellent shortcakes. Just the right amount of sweetness while still having a good bit of biscuit texture to them. I let the dough get too wet and it was hard to work with, but that's just something to watch for next time.
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New English Kitchen: Changing the Way You Shop, Cook and Eat
By Rose Prince
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2005
Very nice way to use up the end of a roast, sweet and savory. It's easy enough to be a weeknight dinner, especially if you let the food processor handle the chopping and mincing. I think I went too heavy on the mashed potatoes, but it was awfully good... maybe it's served differently in the UK than in the US.
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Cookwise: The Secrets of Cooking Revealed
By Shirley O. Corriher
William Morrow Cookbooks - 1997
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.
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BakeWise: The Hows and Whys of Successful Baking with Over 200 Magnificent Recipes
By Shirley O. Corriher
Scribner - 2008
Shirley does it again! The texture on this gingerbread cake is about as perfect as I can imagine - moist and springy, chewy without being tough. It's dead easy and quick to make. Spice-wise, it is indeed "serious stuff" - my 5-year-old finds it "funny tasting." I was using blackstrap molasses and I'm glad I ran a little short; I think that flavor might have gotten excessive for my taste.
I'm tempted to play with sauce or icing options on this one, but the right play might be to stay simple and go with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
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The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors
By Jeff Smith
Avon - 1992
Pretty solid recipe. I might like a little more advice on good seasonings to add to the sausage. The technique of flouring the hard-boiled eggs to make the sausage stick to them better is genius and I don't know why every recipe doesn't include this trick. We also found that, if you don't want to deal with deep-frying, it's perfectly acceptable to use enough oil to get about halfway up the Scotch egg, and flip them at about 4-5 minutes.
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The Cookbook for Kids (Williams-Sonoma): Great Recipes for Kids Who Love to Cook
By Lisa Atwood
Weldon Owen - 2011
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).
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Essential Pepin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food
By Jacques Pepin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2011
Another entry in my collection of "Pepin recipes which look more complicated than they are." This would be a great vegetable for when company comes over... it looks classy but requires only a hair more time and attention than boiled green beans.
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The Great Sandwich Book
By Anita Borghese
Rawson Associates Publishers - 1978
On the one hand, you've pretty much got the whole recipe right there in the title. It's not like it's groundbreaking cuisine here.
...except when's the last time YOU had sauteed apples on a sausage? Because I don't think I ever have.
(The serving suggestion says to add a scrambled egg for a hearty meal. I might also suggest a glass of red wine and a Lipitor... but again, you're not using a cookbook from 1978 if a strict diet is really your top priority.)
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Website: America's Test Kitchen
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.
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Moosewood Cookbook
By Mollie Katzen
Ten Speed Press - 1992
I didn't care for this at all. The curry struck me as sandy, which I blame on the ground coconut. It was also somewhat bitter and unbalanced toward the pungent side of cloves, cumin, and cayenne. My wife thought it showed promise for further experiments (like substituting coconut milk for coconut flakes). I'd start with a new recipe... so we'll average those opinions and call it a 2.
I feel like this is a recipe which shows its age badly. One of the things that struck me is that, in 1977, you probably couldn't get decent curry paste or powder in most supermarkets. In 2011, I'm quite sure I could make curried cauliflower that's just as good or better with off-the-shelf ingredients, and I live in the sticks.
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It was only recently that I tasted borscht for the first time, and I knew I had to learn how to make it. It's fantastic comfort food; satisfying and rich, with balanced sweetness from the beets.
This recipe has the added benefit of being dead easy to make, especially if you let the food processor do the chopping like I did. (Like Queezle_Sister, I found some of the beet and carrot pieces too big at the end of cooking, so I hit it with the immersion blender to break them down a bit.)
I'll add a serving suggestion: horseradish. It adds a pleasant note of heat and a touch of acid to the soup. And don't forget a loaf of black bread.
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Website: CD Kitchen
This is a fun take on chili - relatively mildly spiced, so that the flavors of lamb and black bean shine through. I've made it with both ground lamb and stew meat; stew meat is better but, to me, it's less chili-like. (That might just mean I need to cut the stew meat smaller.) I find it benefits from significantly longer cooking than the recipe calls for to reduce the broth. In another printing (in the Washington Post ages ago), I found the suggestion that it should be garnished with lime, which is a terrific suggestion. A little acid really wakes this dish up.
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Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home
By Jeni Britton Bauer
Artisan - 2011
A very good ice cream, rich and lush. The cream and buttermilk combo gives a very interesting flavor. I'll agree with the comment that a little more strawberry flavor would be welcome. This is an ice cream which really benefits from a minute or two of thawing - the creamy texture becomes something you'd expect at an ice cream shop, and the strawberry wakes up just a bit.
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Website: Cook's Country
"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.
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Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook
By Beth Hensperger
Harvard Common Press - 2004
An easy and pleasant approach to roasted potatoes. They do turn out creamy, not fluffy or crusty. The garlic and rosemary flavors mix for a very pleasant bite.
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Cook's Illustrated
(Nov/Dec, 2004)
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".
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Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook
By Beth Hensperger
Harvard Common Press - 2004
A pretty nice approach to a roast; once again with this book, I'm glad I turned the heat from "low" to "warm" about an hour early.
The apples are interesting. We used Fujis, which are probably too sweet for this dish, though their apple blossom perfume was captured well. With a sweet apple, a little goes a long way - it's almost a dessert topping. My son picked up on the brown sugar and ginger flavors and accused us of serving him sweet potatoes instead of apples. I'd like to try it again with a properly tart apple, but even so, I'd probably scale back the sugar.
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New English Kitchen: Changing the Way You Shop, Cook and Eat
By Rose Prince
Fourth Estate Ltd - 2005
Prince calls this "in the French style", meaning roasted on a bed of vegetables which are then incorporated into the sauce. I found it very pleasant; the flavors are subtle and compliment the lamb nicely, and the meat was tender and juicy.
I suppose the style I'm more familiar with - crusted with assertive rosemary, garlic, and salt - must be the "American" style, but I do enjoy this continental take.
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Chesapeake Bay Cooking
By John Shields
Broadway - 1998
I think of thyme as pork's best friend, but this recipe shows that sage might be a close second. I found the garlic flavor was a little lost, given the effort of studding the ham with slivers. We had a smaller ham than called for (4.75 lbs) and found the 20 minutes per pound timing turned out a well-done roast - a few more minutes would have made it downright dry. A brine, or a closer eye on the roast, would have been nice.
The apples worked very well; reviewed separately.
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The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor
By Matt Lee, Ted Lee
Clarkson Potter - 2009
Imagine the end of a summer meal in the south. You want just a little something for dessert, something comforting, reminding you of home, but nothing too heavy. Something you could savor slowly on the porch swing, maybe with a beer or cocktail.
That's what the Lee brothers have cooked up with this frozen rice pudding pop. It's a novelty act, with a texture that's not quite popsicle, not quite ice cream, and certainly no longer pudding. Eventually you realize how the cold is muting the flavors... on the 2nd or 3rd pop. But what the heck - it's hot out, and you have a treat simultaneously refreshing and satisfying.
One tip - this recipe claims to make six 4-ounce pops. I made twelve 2-ounce pops, and easily had enough for another 6. If you don't tell anyone about this and stash the leftovers in the fridge, you can have sweet cool rice porridge for breakfast.
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The New Chesapeake Kitchen
By John Shields, David W. Harp
Johns Hopkins University Press - 2018
I don't particularly like rhubarb or muffins. But it's Mother's Day and my wife and son like both those things, so I roused myself and made them. They were really quite good!
The little chunks of rhubarb provide the balance that most bakery muffins seem to lack. They're particularly good warm while the rhubarb is still hot and soft. The batter is the right amount of sweet but not too much so.
The recipe says "walnuts", but I used pecans because, well, I always prefer pecans.
The recipe says it makes 12 muffins, but in my muffin tin it makes 16. The last 4 were prettier than the first 12; maybe the batter benefits from standing a few minutes.
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Chesapeake Bay Cooking
By John Shields
Broadway - 1998
Very nice remoulade sauce. The green onion and celery add a freshness which works well.
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The German Kitchen: Traditional Recipes, Regional Favorites
By Christopher Knuth, Catherine Knuth
Interlink Pub Group - 2013
My wife called this a "very German" cake - meaning it's dense, with a tight, slightly dry crumb. Cinnamon is the dominant flavor, with chocolate and raisin notes behind it. (I'll probably back off the cinnamon and boost the cocoa next time.) Very pleasant with a little iced cream or whipped cream, and perhaps a cup of coffee.
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The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor
By Matt Lee, Ted Lee
Clarkson Potter - 2009
It's not really fair to make a dish like this right after 4 inches of snow falls. Satisfying but light, we had fun imagining what cook-out food it might go with. (We're thinking grilled chicken or shrimp.) It's light and cool, but with pleasant acidity and a hit of herbs. It worked just fine as a way to use up some leftover rice and an open can of chopped tomatoes. I'm looking forward to making it with fresh ingredients this summer.
Now all I have to do is get to the thaw.
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Website: The Food Network
Red beans and rice isn't my go-to dish when I think of Creole cuisine; that spot is held by the more complex dishes like jambalaya and gumbo. Yet every time I make this dish, I wonder why it isn't higher on my list. The brilliant mix of savory beans and gravy over sweet white rice always feeds my soul as well as the more opulent dishes do. Alton Brown's recipe brings the flavor in at just about 2 hours of cooking, assuming you've already put in the 3 days necessary to pickle the pork. (And if you haven't... well you should, but I won't tell anybody if you substitute a nice link of andouille or the like.)
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Website: About.com: Thai Food
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.
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The New Chesapeake Kitchen
By John Shields, David W. Harp
Johns Hopkins University Press - 2018
Most of my ratatouille recipes are built in a skillet or pot. In this one, the vegetables are roasted first and then covered with tomato sauce. The result is that the eggplants, peppers and zucchini hold their shape and individual flavors better.
We just ate it as a side dish; serving over pasta or rice would also be nice.
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Website: The Food Network
Turns out I do like quinoa, if you cook it in enough half-and-half and cheese. Alton's right; this is squarely in comfort food territory.
This serves up a lot like the old classic broccoli and rice casserole, but I find the flavor and consistency closer to a terrific dish of cheese grits. I left out the mushrooms, because my kid wouldn't eat them, but I should have added some extra broccoli to balance the casserole a little better. I found a little tiny bit of hot sauce at the table brightened it up a bit.
It makes a ton and is perfectly suited for a main course, but it would be quite at home as a side dish as well. It might make my Thanksgiving table.
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These were fine, but nothing to write home about. I had trouble with the extra moisture from the pumpkin throwing the cook time off; my first batch was definitely underdone and even the more done ones were more moist than fluffy. I found them undersweetened, although maybe that's intentional because they were about right with syrup and candied pumpkin seeds.
The recipe also makes an enormous batch, so I'll be finding out how well they reheat.
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Essential Pepin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food
By Jacques Pepin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2011
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.)
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Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook
By Beth Hensperger
Harvard Common Press - 2004
I adore paprikash - stewed chicken in a rich and creamy sauce spiced with paprika. This slow-cooker approach is a winner. I used 2 chicken leg quarters instead of the poussins called for, and it worked just fine. The meat was tender, almost falling off the bone, and the sauce was pleasant.
Looking at my previous favorite recipe (from the Frugal Gourmet: Immigrant Ancestors book), I think I'd increase the shallots in this recipe next time. I also got a reminder that this is a dish where you should use the freshest paprika you can find - I used the end of a can of indeterminate age and it was a little lacking in flavor. (The amount called for - 3 teaspoons - looks right; I'm sure this was about my spice cabinet.)
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Website: The Food Network
A nice approach to comfort food. Hearty and rich, but simple and appropriate for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Saves well.
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Alton Brown's Gear For Your Kitchen
By Alton Brown
Stewart, Tabori & Chang - 2008
A pretty good take on the classic. Warm, smooth, and refined. I found it needed salt; that probably depends on how much is already in the stock you use.
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Not Your Mother's Slow Cooker Cookbook
By Beth Hensperger
Harvard Common Press - 2004
I wonder if my slow cooker's "low" setting is higher than this cookbook expects. At 4 hours, this looked ready to eat, and at 5, the sauce was broken and the meat slightly dry. The herb flavor was nice; I reduced the amounts by about half because I was using dried herbs, not fresh, but next time I'd use more.
I'll definitely be coming back to this recipe, to try and work out the timing.
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This is a light and simple stew, appropriate for a spring meal. It's pleasant, but we found it lacking depth. The pork cooked nicely, and the apples and onions were fine, but the broth was downright watery. I imagine that either adding a cup of chicken stock, to make it a soup instead of a stew, or cutting half a cup or so of cider, to concentrate the flavors, would help. A handful of dried fruit might play well with the pork and apples, or I might do a riff on Julia Child's spring lamb stew and add green beans. So, as I keep saying with this book, the recipe is so-so but it's an intriguing base for future experiments.
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The Lee Bros. Simple Fresh Southern: Knockout Dishes with Down-Home Flavor
By Matt Lee, Ted Lee
Clarkson Potter - 2009
I only made the mushroom chutney; the chops look like a pretty basic preparation so there seems like no reason to doubt it. I really enjoyed the chutney, although I find the prunes are really the dominant flavor, with the earthiness of the mushrooms a distant second. It would be an excellent compliment for pork or chicken (or maybe even fish) - unfortunately, I served it with beef, and the flavors seemed to fight. I'm wondering if cutting the prunes way, way back would let the mushrooms and beef pairing work better.
One warning - the recipe says to use a 12" skillet, and I tried this in my 10", and just barely did everything fit. I also needed to cook it a lot longer than the recipe says to get the sauce to reduce. Seriously, use a 12" or bigger pan.
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Essential Pepin: More Than 700 All-Time Favorites from My Life in Food
By Jacques Pepin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2011
Hash is comfort food; it turns stretching the meat or using up the leftovers from an act of necessity to an act of love. Pepin hits that note just fine with this recipe.
That said, I found this recipe under-spiced. It wanted more Worcestershire sauce, and for my taste, more Tabasco. Of course, this will vary depending on how the pork roast was prepared. (I also suspect that I'd prefer the more mild flavors if I'd had it for breakfast instead of dinner.)
I had trouble getting mine to brown, even going a little longer on the time than stated. Perhaps my "medium" heat wasn't high enough. I wonder, though, if I over-worked the potatoes and caused them to steam more than saute, or if this is a problem with the thin slices of potato called for.
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The Frugal Gourmet on Our Immigrant Ancestors
By Jeff Smith
Avon - 1992
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The Bob's Burgers Burger Book: Real Recipes for Joke Burgers
By Loren Bouchard, Bob's Burgers, Cole Bowden
Universe - 2016
It's a neat take on a Thanksgiving burger - turkey, cranberry sauce, and blue cheese for some creaminess and spice. The apple I used added some generic sweetness but got lost; I wish I'd had a firm green apple on hand as called for. (Maybe I diced it too small to add any texture.) I made them slider-size; the recipe made 9 small burgers. Paying for a good blue cheese was worth it.
I thought they were only OK, creative in concept but still kind of bland. My family, however, enjoyed them a lot, so I may experiment some more to try and kick up the flavor and texture just a bit.
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Cooking from the Heart: 100 Great American Chefs Share Recipes They Cherish
By Michael J. Rosen, Richard Russo (Foreword)
Broadway - 2003
This was a big hit in my house! I had to do a fair bit of improvising due to the lack of ingredients like tamarind sauce and plum vinegar at my local mega-mart, but the overall flavor worked as a not-too-thick barbecue sauce with a distinct fruity note. It was good on ribs, but I bet it would be terrific with poultry (or a larger cut of pork).
I'm still trying to decide what I think about the fact that this is a sauce which requires a lot of ingredients and a lot of chopping. It makes a lot of sauce - I'll probably make it in a pot, not a pan, next time - so perhaps the work pays off in volume.
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Website: Lidia's Italy
A fantastic dish for spring or early summer, this is a dish that's hearty without being heavy. It's a dish of little bites... a bit of salt from the pancetta, cubes of sweet potato which retain their shape, and a hit of freshness from the vinegary capers.
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I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking
By Alton Brown
Stewart, Tabori & Chang - 2004
There is one compliment which I prize higher than any other for my cooking: "as good as my grandma's."
This recipe got me that compliment. And from a Texan who doesn't normally eat upside-down cake because his grandma's spoiled him for all others.
The cake is both airy and chewy, the sugar syrup is rich but not sickly, the fruit holds up. If you've never had a fresh upside-down cake (like me, who'd mostly had it in cafeterias or from supermarkets), it's a revelation.
Warning: step 1 is, essentially, "make caramel." This can become a black and useless mess easily, and there's nothing you can do but throw it out, wipe out the pan, and start over. But that's part of learning, and it's about timing, not anything hard to do - you just have to watch the sugar and move quickly when it looks like time.
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I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking
By Alton Brown
Stewart, Tabori and Chang - 2002
Rice cooking is one of my great struggles - I seem to have either wet mushy stuff or a burnt layer at the bottom pretty frequently. But Alton's approach to pilaf is darn near bulletproof, including the facts that it's flavorful, and saves well in the fridge.
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Website: The Food Network
A recipe for the creole staple, pickled pork is an excellent addition of meat, heat, and acidity for dishes like red beans and rice. This is a quick brine to put together, and then a long pickle in the fridge. It also makes enough that you will probably use only part of the recipe, and freeze the rest... leading, in my house, to a happy discovery some months later as you dig around looking for something else.
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I'm Just Here for More Food: Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking
By Alton Brown
Stewart, Tabori & Chang - 2004
I know 2 or 3 people, plus myself, who've tried this recipe and, as near as we can tell, it's just broken. The dough comes out wet, almost soupy, and makes something like a biscuit-flavored muffin top. It doesn't hold its shape and it spreads out tremendously in the oven, gaining almost no height. It's a pleasant enough bread (especially if you're partial to crumbly biscuits instead of flaky), but it sure ain't no biscuit. At the end of the day, turn to page 138 and make the biscuits according to that beautiful bulletproof White Lily recipe (which is the same as the one on the sack of flour).
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This is the recipe from the While Lily flour bag, and it's darn near bulletproof. Why would you bother with anything else?
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