Peckish Sister's Profile

From: Central, FL USA

Joined: December 11th, 2010

About me: I have always liked to cook, particularly breads, fruits, vegetables, vegetarian, poultry and lamb dishes. After marriage we cooked together progressively more difficult dishes with him doing the meat, grilling and frying, and I did the "dough" and the same type of things I had before. After children we started cooking more simply. After discovering the cause of my frequent migraines was an evolving long list of chemicals and odd ingredients, I began getting back to cooking from basic ingredients, and found I could be well again. I also try to cooking from what I can get in season at the ever present fruit and vegetable stands.

Favorite cookbook: America's Test Kitchen / Cooks Illustrated Books


Latest review:

May 20th, 2020

Manchester Stew from Skinny Instant Pot & Slow Cooker Cookbook

I switched up the vegetables and canned beans to reflect what I had on hand. It was my very first use of the Insta pot and I was skeptical of the 3 minute cooking time since I had increased the amounts... read more >


recipe reviews (465)
book reviews (18)
useful review votes (420)

Peckish Sister's Reviews


Search Reviews:

8 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 8Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

The Best Vegetarian Recipes: From Greens to Grains, from Soups to Salads: 200 Bold Flavored Recipes

By Martha R. Shulman
William Morrow Cookbooks - 2001

20th September 2012

Apple Clafoutis : page 284

This was my first introduction to a clafoutis and the recipe sure made it sound like a boring desert. This was also my first cooking with the stash of vanilla beans bought for a previous challenge. This was outstanding and continued to call to me from the recesses of the refrigerator. I liked it better than the pear and cherry versions which I tried after this one. The vanilla really stood out in this clafoutis version. I used pink lady apples which do not brown immediately so I skipped the step of soaking the cut apples in lemon and water with no ill effects. This is a great, but simple dessert which holds well.

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20th September 2012 (edited: 20th September 2012)

Arugula, Pear and Walnut Salad : page 39

This was an incredible salad. My pears are either too hard or too soft, but these pears were at the perfect stage of ripeness. I was afraid that the pears would brown, but they held up well. The richness of the nuts, sweetness of the pear, creamy contrast of the gaot cheese, tartness of the dressing and roar of the arugula was amazing. This would be a nice special salad for company.

useful (1)  


20th September 2012

Pasta with Fresh Tomatoes, Capers and Olives : page 214

I thought this was similar to a pasta dish I throw together without a recipe until I followed this recipe to the letter. It has a great complexity of flavors. I would not have thrown in so many salty olives of my own accord, but there were enough fresh tomatoes to compensate. We do prefer it with angel hair pasta and a little parmesan on top. This is a great quick fresh pasta dish to throw together at the last minute with ingredients that you probably have on hand.

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16th October 2012

Free-Form Apple Tart (Apple Galette) : page 288

I had a very similar experience to QS. I tried a new kind of apple, SweeTango. Very good for eating and cooking, both sweet and tart at the same time. The fragrance of the cooking apples was amazing. When I was ready to stop cooking the apples I had some juice in the bottom of the pan that I reduced to a syrup after taking the apples out. We also tried to eat it up warm. The galette was quite hard and not that flavorful.

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20th September 2012

Pasta with Cherry Tomatoes, Feta and Herbs : page 214

This is great pasta to throw together in a hurry with ingredients you might have on hand. I loved the saltiness of the feta cheese with the tomatoes in this recipe. It is a very simple recipe and might not be something I would make if I had tons of time. But for a quick light dinner, it was very nice.

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22nd September 2012

Tomato, feta and arugula salad : page 41

This was very good and I am always looking for an excuse to eat Arugula. The strong flavors of the feta, vinaigrette and the arugula went very well together. I used small tomatoes, which formed small wedges when cut. Even so, I would prefer the tomatoes more in smaller bite-sized chunks rather than the specified wedges.

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14th October 2012 (edited: 14th October 2012)

Cumin Vinaigrette : page 27

This was a nice vinaigrette, although a little too heavy on the oil for me. I see that she has two versions of this recipe and this is the one without yogurt. I made it just as the recipe specified with pre-ground cumin. I was expecting more punch from the cumin. I think it would be great with freshly toasted cumin seed ground up in a mortar and pestle.

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14th October 2012

Dessert Galette Pastry : page 286

Although the other reviews of this recipe from her other cookbooks were not too good, I still wanted to try another yeast galette pastry recipe. The dough was so dry that I could not add all of the specified flour. That never happens to me in humid Florida. The recipe should have been enough for two galettes, but I could barely roll out the full recipe to the correct size. It made a nice enough galette, but without egg wash and sugar, was not particularly pretty. It also didn't taste particularly great. I made the apple galette, and we ate it soon enough that it did not get soggy.

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