Peckish Sister's Reviews
465 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title 
| Date | Rating | Recipe Title
World Food Greece (World Food Series)
By Susanna Tee
Thunder Bay Press (CA) - 2003
This pasta dish featuring frozen seafood cocktail was just what I had been trying to create with canned tomatoes, wine and fresh herbs. However, it just didn't not taste as delicious as it sounded. That may reflect on the frozen seafood I used, so this recipe is worth another try.
useful (2)
I was so hungry for okra and this really hit the spot. I lucky to find some nice fresh okra. You carefully trim it and then pour vinegar over it and let it sit for 30 minutes. But since it isn't covered with the vinegar, I stirred it frequently. Then it is rinsed and added to fried onions and garlic, add canned tomatoes and simmer. It said to be careful not to boil and I was trying to time it to be ready with the rest of the meal and at the specified time, it was not tender and the sauce had reduced too much, so I added more water and really boiled it and finally had the perfect dish. I only had red onion and really liked it in this dish.
useful (0)
You grind walnuts and garlic and add it to Greek yogurt and the pan juices of the pan fried then braised chicken. This is an amazingly delicious dish. And yes as you are eating it you can see the sauce turn a light purplish color. But it does not get too dark purple if you have leftovers. Simple but flavorful.
useful (0)
Website: Wilton
Very cheesy crackers that make up quickly once you are done finely grating the 1 pound of sharp cheddar. The dough seemed stiff and dry - unusual for my climate, but worked fine. The dough strained my small plastic cookie press, but worked great in my Mom's old aluminum one. The crackers were incredibly cheesy and the other flavorings worked well. The cookie press patterns that made a flat cookie turned out very crisp, and the thicker had a creamy center. At first I thought it would be best to have them all crisp, but the variety was very nice. I found this recipe while looking for our favorite cookie recipe that I could share on cookbooker. I couldn't resist trying this recipe instead to bring to my son away at college. I think it would be a great dish to bring to a party. I used white sharp cheddar and the crackers still had a great color.
useful (1)
Website: Wilton
These are our favorite spritz cookies, very important for Christmas, Easter and Valentines Day. The secret ingredient is almond extract. The secret for well formed cookies for me is to get them extruded as quickly as possible as you shouldn't refrigerate the dough and the longer it sits the harder it is to makeperfect cookies. I used to put a lot of food cooling into the dough, but now I don't and just use colored sugar. I like my Wilton press as it makes a lot of small cookies, and has great shapes for the holidays - hearts, trees, ducks, rabbits, boys, girls, dolphins! These are also great beacuse the taste of the butter comes through.
useful (0)
Website: Wild Yeast
A great use of that semolina flour (it takes half semolina and half regular flour) left over from the Moroccan cooking challenge. This is a simple and interesting recipe. There is no leavening agent, but the dough is left to rest at several intervals. My only pasta machine is dedicated to Fimo clay, so I rolled the crackers by hand in a circle. I liked using a single piece of parchment paper for each one; it made it easy to roll out and get on and off of the pizza stone. Timing is critical. I had a few get over cooked and a few were undercooked and not quite crispy. I used the black sesame seeds she suggested for the first batch and cumin seeds for the second batch. They were both excellent. My third batch with half unhulled sesame seeds and half cumin seeds was my favorite.
useful (1)
Western National Park Lodges Cookbook
By Kathleen Bryant
Northland - 2007
We had this dish in Paradise Lodge in Mount Ranier National Park. It tasted better in the Lodge than when I cooked it. It only has eggs and vegetables, no starch for a binder. The size of the dish was not specified, so I put it in my usual loaf pan. It took much longer than specified to cook. My second mistake was to poor off "the fat" to see if that would help it cook faster, when I saw yellow going down the drain, I realized I had poured off the binder, the result was grainy, but my family really enjoyed it, especially with the sauce. When I repeat this recipe I will probably cut it in half and only use one pound of bison (high cost of bison) to feed four. I plan to cook individual meatloaves, that should help the cooking it all the way through problem.
useful (4)
The Very Best Of Recipes for Health: 250 Recipes and More from the Popular Feature on NYTimes.com
By Martha Rose Shulman
Rodale Books - 2010
This may well have been my first frittata. It seemed a good way to use up the last of that big bag of broccoli. I had all of the ingredients on hand, and with the potatoes, it seemed like it would be enough for dinner. The directions worked well and when I was afraid to cook it any longer on the top of the stove (fearing overcooking), I transferred it to the broiler and it finished cooking the top nicely. As you can see from the photos, I couldn’t resist dumping the last of the leftover shredded cheddar cheese from a Boy Scout trip and then adding some of her (also leftover) cooked salsa. We all enjoyed it and the leftovers were great for lunch the next day.
useful (0)
I was very drawn to this unusual recipe with tomatillos and green pumpkins seeds. When I dry roasted the pumpkin seeds only one popped and then they continued to brown. However once I removed them from the heat they continued to pop and crackle for a long time. This looked like kiwi in the food processor (which I used instead of the recommended blender) with the dark bits of pumpkin seed contrasting against the lighter green of the tomatillo. I ended with tiny particles in the slightly chunky sauce; it was not smooth, but we loved it. I also left out 2 important ingredients, cilantro and Serrano chili. But it was a visual appealing and nice topping for grilled salmon. It was almost seamless, the flavor of the salmon and green pipian seemed really close and I had to keep checking to see if I had the sauce on my salmon. I would like to try it again when I do have cilantro.
useful (0)
A carefully fried sunny-side up egg on a corn tortilla with cooked salsa and I used Feta cheese. I had no cilantro, so used chives as a garnish. This was quite different from what I call Huevos Rancheros - scrambled eggs and salsa in a flour tortilla. This was fun to make from ingredients that I had on hand in the refrigerator, and was appreciated.
useful (0)
This is Huevos Rancheros with a layer of black beans between the corn tortilla and the egg. It brings back great memories of being in Cancun 25 years ago with my family and having a version of this quite frequently while we tried to figure out what was in it. I think there it had a flour tortilla and often the addition of canned peas. This is almost as good. My sister nicknamed it Mutilated Eggs as we had a hard time pronouncing its real name.
useful (0)
A great quick meal from ingredients you are likely to have on hand. I used white corn tortillas, canned black beans, her cooked salsa and grated cheddar cheese. It is easy to either expand or reduce the number of servings you make. I would have prefered to make it in the skillet, but I needed speed, so made it in less thna 5 minutes in the microwave. A nice emergency dinner.
useful (0)
We enjoyed this for breakfast though it did feel strange to taste sweet couscous. I made this rather quickly in the morning, micorwaving the couscous twice. I used brown sugar in the boiling water. I added the orange blossom water even though I am not usually a fan and did not mind it here. I used raisins in the couscous and topped it with the oranges, dates and pomegranite arils. Rather than cutting the oranges over the couscous, I quickly peeled and sectioned them by hand, cut the sections into bite-sized pieces and made up for the lack of dripping juice while cutting by splashing some orange juice on top. The pomegranite arils are what made this spectacular for me. However, I don't see myself making this on a regular basis. But it would be nice as a special treat when pomegranites and oranges are in season.
useful (0)
I could not resist making this recipe with fresh kale from my CSA. I used a mix of very aromatic dried mushrooms and fresh baby bella mushrooms. I love barley and this soup sounded, smelled and looked great. It was not spectacular and seems to be missing something. We did try the thicker leftovers as a pilaf with fish.
useful (0)
This did not seem so different from our usual sauteed summer squash recipe. I used half summer squash and half zucchini. But I like that the squash was in 1/4" dice, not our usual diagonal rounds. The onion was also a nice addition. Instead of the red pepper, I added a Cubanelle pepper that I don't always know what to do with from the CSA. For herbs I looked at the herbed cheese variation and decided to add dried marjorum. This was fragrant, delicious and perfectly cooked. There are two variations and the summer succotach with black beans also sounds intriguing.
useful (0)
There was a fair amount of chopping involved. I loved the interesting mix of zuchinni, corn, bell bepper, onion and toasted cumin seeds. I could have used more of the cumin, but the flavor was good. I baked it in my 2 quart pyrex dish and it baked perfectly. I was suprised and impressed that the other two members of the family finished off this 6 serving size dish and there were no leftovers for lunch the next day.
useful (0)
The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two
By Anna Thomas
Knopf - 1978
I had slender carrots and the recipe seemed to be going OK, except the glaze just did not seem to be thick enough to coat the carrots as directed. So I kept on cooking and eventually I had nicely coated carrots. The portion sizes seemed small and that was because the carrots had actually shrunk. They did not turn mushy, but were concentrated in flavor with a weird texture. I wonder if I added the brown sugar mixture too soon, I thought all of the water had evaporated. This would have tasted better if the carrots had not shriveled.
useful (1)
This very rich sauce with cream, butter and parmesan cheese, cooked up just as the directions said, and richly coated the fettuccine noodles. We used just under the amount of Parmesan cheese called for, anymore would have been too salty, and were glad that we added no salt to either the sauce or the pasta water. The only off note was the parsley garnish, I should have tasted it; it was harsh and felt like thistle tips going down. It is the best Fettuccine Alfredo recipe we have cooked so far.
useful (1)
The onions and tomatoes would have dominated this stew if it were not for the whole mushrooms. The larger ones made it a little difficult to eat gracefully. I used 1 lb of button, and 1 /2 lb of baby Bella mushrooms. The chopped green olives added at the end gave some nice contrast both visually and to the taste. As noted, a good bread served with this is essential. I used the Greek sesame bread from the first Vegetarian Epicure book.
useful (0)
These had just the right amount of sweetness from the honey. I had all of the ingredients on hand – milk, whole wheat and rye flours, cornmeal and rolled oats. The muffins turned out moist and very dense, a plain whole grain muffin.
useful (0)
A delicious 100% whole wheat flour recipe that rose to make 3 light textured loaves. I was interested that she changed her herb mix from the recipe in the first book (that I did not make). The smells coming from the dough (yes I actually made this recipe the right way and did not try to jam it into my bread machine) from first adding the sautéed onion garlic and herb mixture throughout the baking process were tantalizing. I only have two loaf pans and often use a medium sized sauce pan for bread, so used that for the third loaf and it turned out the most photogenic.
useful (0)
Vegetarian Epicure
By Anna Thomas
Vintage - 1972
This dark hearty bread tastes very similar to Boston brown bread, but does not steam for hours. This is very satisfying for bread made with no fat or eggs. Do not use Greek yogurt; I did and I could not mix in all of the flour, nor could I “pour” the batter. I added water two TBLS at a time until it made a batter I could stir. This hearty quick bread has no eggs! The rolled oats gave it an interesting texture without adding nuts. I do not think it would have turned out as well with quick oats. Follow her advice to eat it with cream cheese on it; it is a nice contrast to the sourness of the rye, yogurt and molasses.
useful (1)
These were very easy to make cottage cheese dumplings. I could have used more direction on how stiff a batter to make and what size to make the dumplings. Since only 3 were to cook at one time, I used large spoonfuls of batter. When one of the first three did not float up by the time the other two were done, I found out it was stuck to the bottom! Perhaps it was melted cottage cheese, but quite a few of the dumplings needed to be gently separated from the bottom. They came out very firm; a small portion was raw in the middle, but I probably did not time those as well. I followed the recipe with the buttered bread crumb topping and it was very delicious.
useful (1)
A curry as visually appealing as it was satisfying. My children like cauliflower. With all the spices and the lovely yellow color it assumed during cooking, I was able to eat it and like it as well. The only change I made was to only use one very large cauliflower instead of two medium and the proportions seemed fine.
useful (1)
These Swiss, Romano and ricotta cheese individual soufflés cooked quickly. If you like those flavors and brandy, you may like these strong flavored ramequins. The texture was also very grainy and like cornmeal.
useful (0)
This apple cake could use more precise directions. Three quarters of a cup of sugar is needed, 2/3 for the batter, the remainder for the top. I would rather have measured the 2/3 of a cup of sugar and then measure tablespoons or teaspoons of sugar for the topping. It did not say, so I did not peel the apple, but it would have been better if I had. Since my apples were so large, I should have cut the apple into eighths instead of quarters. The spices only go on the top of the cake with some sugar and are critical for the overall flavor of the cake, so some idea of how much of each of the cloves, nutmeg and allspice to add would have been helpful. As these spices can dominate, I went with a large pinch of each. The color of the topping sugar with these spices looked “weak”, but turned out perfect for my taste. There are so many choices in apple desserts that this one just did not stand out and I will not make it again. One advantage of it is that you should have all of the ingredients on hand, and it does not contain expensive ingredients like nuts.
useful (0)
This plain white loaf of sesame studded bread brought back my days of cruising around Greece and eating bread like this. It made a large beautiful loaf. The egg yolk was going on so thickly that I thinned it with a few drops of water, but wondered as many of the sesame seeds came off while cutting the bread if more would have stuck on with undiluted egg yolk. It was a little too plain for my taste and probably will not be repeated.
useful (0)
This turned out to be a coarse textured, very moist and delicious white bread. I tried to cut back on the overall volume of ingredients and make it in my bread machine and I did not cut it down enough. The next time I will make it just like the recipe. As it was too moist and I had added all the flour that would fit, I became inspired and added the strawberries I had dehydrated. They rehydrated enough to taste like strawberry jam in the finished bread, but completely retained their shape as they had been so hard to start with. With the dried strawberries the bread rates five stars. I will definitely make this again.
useful (1)
This was a simple soup to make, though I had not realized when I started it that it had to cook for three hours. I was surprised at how the tomato paste gave it a rich fresh tomato taste. I had to add water at the end as it had really cooked down too much. It was nicely different than the usual lentil soup.
useful (1)
The yellow squash reduced the proportion of brown rice in the filling of these stuffed grape leaves. The tomato sauce on the dark green leaves was very pretty. The filling had a less complex flavor of herbs than the Moosewood’s version, but contained more vegetables. The family was split in which of the two recipes they preferred.
useful (0)
The mashed potatoes and cheddar cheese in this recipe gave it more substance than the usual soufflé. The chives added lovely flecks of green to the golden orange soufflé. I had to cook it longer, but I used a narrow, tall dish. It tasted delicious, and the next day the warmed leftovers tasted almost as good as fresh out of the oven, surprising for a soufflé.
useful (1)
Traditional Ukrainian Cookery ~ 1982 Thirteenth Edition
By Savella Stechishin
Trident Press, Ltd - 1982
Yes, even if you do not like beets (like myself), you will love this soup. The first ingredient is soup meat with bone, this is the most essential ingredient to give the soup personality. We usually use the Thanksgiving turkey carcass, but I have made it very sucessfully with lamb, smoked turkey and goose. We leave out the carrot as we think it makes the soup too sweet; we also leave out the tomatoes as we think the flavor is wrong. A whole head of cabbage is good. We fight over adding potato and string beans, I like the complexity it adds. The cabbage should be hand sliced, not overprocessed in the food processor. The critical part at the end is to have the soup hot enough so that when you add enough sour cream to your bowl to turn it a dark pink, it will still be warm enough to eat. Chopped dill added at the very last is not an option to make this very delicious.
useful (2)
This is a delicious spice and dried fruit cake that needs to be aged one week for the flavor to be fully delevoped and also to not taste as dry. I substitute whatever dried fruits and nuts I have on hand where necessary and use a lighter honey rather than the recommended buckwheat honey. It is very nice to have at christmas and particularly appreciated by European palates that do not like the sweeter American desserts.
useful (1)
This traditional Christmas Eve dish consists of whole wheat berries and I use half pearl barley. One cup of each grain before cooking will be enough to feed the entire church. Boiling, straining and grinding the poppy seed is an awful chore that will leave you finding poppy seeds in weird places for a long time, so I recommend that you use instead a can of poppy seed filling. Instead of the diluted honey syrup called for, use lots of full strength honey just before serving. A common mistake is to add the honey too early and it draws water out of the wheat, making it tough and the syrup unpleasantly running. A chopped mix of nuts on hand is best served on the side. Before serving add a few whole nuts in a decorative pattern. With the new emphasis on eating whole grains, I think this very different dish would make excellent breakfast fare and should be made more than once a year.
useful (0)
This rich bread is traditional for Easter, but also for greeting visitors. It makes a huge batch. I make half a batch to bake one large loaf which turns out beautifully if you bake it in your dutch oven. I don't use the tradional coffee can, but use other smaller pots with high sides for smaller loaves. For my bread machine, I make one third the recipe. As the whole recipe takes 6 eggs, these recipe reductions work well. This basic recipe does not have dried fruit, but I add 2 cups to the whole recipe; yellow raisens are the tradition. I cannot tolerate sulfur dioxide used in yellow raisens, so I substitute craisens which are delicious and to make a statement that I am not using regular (black) raisens in error. The next time I make this for a special occasion I intend to use dried cherries.
useful (0)
The name of this recipe intrigued me from the beginning. I have never met a Ukrainian who has heard of this before or who didn’t fall in love and demand the recipe after trying it. The meatball itself is formed from a meatloaf recipe which makes for the most tender and flavorful meatball ever. Everyone wants to know how to get the horseradish inside. The secret is mix it with mashed hard-cooked egg yolks, soft bread crumbs and melted butter which solidifies into a substance that is firm and can be easily molded. You have to cook them very carefully so they do not fall apart. A small amount of sour cream gravy is then made and poured over the meatballs before baking; this is so intensely flavored that it just completes the experience. My mother-in-law would not eat horseradish, yet loved this meatball. People argue about the horseradish – it isn’t there, there isn’t enough, there is too much, etc. I waited 15 years to make it a second time, and then made 4 batches in one weekend. I am not going to wait 15 years before making it again. I then tried doubling the sourcream gravy, but it did not taste quite as good, I suppose because the drippings are not as concentrated.
useful (2)
Supper Club: Chez Martha Rose
By Martha Rose Shulman
Atheneum - 1988
Indeed this is the creamiest cucumber salad. I put the cottage cheese and goat cheese in the food processor, instead of crushing the cottage cheese curds with a wooden spoon. This makes a large volume of salad particularly if you use 3 regular cucumbers. If use the one "English cucumber" I would think the volume of creamy cheese would be too much. My son did not like it probably because of the noticeable goat cheese flavor. My husband and I liked it but missed the usual addition of scallion and fresh dill. On the other hand, it would be nice to by have a cucumber salad you could make if you don’t have access to fresh dill.
useful (0)
Cumin and Cornmeal Bread
P 28 ***
This is a very dense yeast bread made only with cornmeal and whole wheat flour and a whole lot of cumin seed. I really liked it and enjoyed it toasted but although the bread itself was not dry, eating it was a dry experience. It would be great with some of her soup recipes where you throw the bread in the bowl of broth. I made the mistake of throwing this into the bread machine on the whole wheat cycle, and the bread did not seem synchronized to its cycles. I did not get the rich buttery taste she suggested that the bread had. I would definitely make this by hand the next time.
useful (0)
This was dreadful. I was glad that I was a little short on apples or the small amount of batter would have been completely eclipsed by the apples. I should have benefitted from Zosia’s experience with the plum tart and cut the apples into 16ths instead of eights. Even when cooking until some of the tops were black, some of the apples pieces were still very hard. The overwhelming taste of baking soda coated the apples. The next time I would mix all dry ingredients together before adding them to the apples. The glaze gave it a very lovely look, but the small amount of actual cake tasted very greasy.
useful (0)
Super Natural Every Day: Well-loved Recipes from My Natural Foods Kitchen
By Heidi Swanson
Ten Speed Press - 2011
These are indeed amazing, I like to try and keep a bag of them in the freezer. I prefer the walnuts over the almonds, but loved the suggestion of the dried fruit. Dates seem a little rich for hot Florida, but I love dried cherries. I threw in some dark chocolate chips with the cherries one time and they turned out a little dry, but were devoured instantly. This recipe seems to demand variation. Next I am trying dried mango! I had to have this cookbook to cook this recipe after reading Andrew's review. The only time I have had trouble with this recipe was when I absent mindedly added the sugar to the dry ingredients, instead of to the oil and maple syrup in the pot. Even though I tried to retrieve as much sugar as possible, it wasn't enough. That liquid sugar-oil is the needed liquid/binder. The result was very delicious and moist, but completely fell apart.
useful (2)
This sounded like a new way to use up those leftover overripe bananas. I needed 4 large to get the needed amount of bananas. I am glad that she mentioned how wet the dough would be, so I soldiered on and formed 24 wet mounds. The addition of popcorn sound fun, but the popped kernals "melted" in the wet dough and were indistinguishable in the finished product. Unfortunately that left a chewy exterior kernal part which was rather unpleasant. The cookies were wet tasting the first day, but the next day the dampness went into the ingredients and even the roasted peanuts were limp without any crunch. Iw ill not make this again, but perhaps it would turn out better in a drier climate.
useful (2)
This formed a dense, moist muffin. The first few bites, the millet gave a nice crunch to the texture of the muffin. Later on I got the impression that I often do eating millet that I am sitting too close to the bird cage again. The next time I make these muffins, I will follow Bert Greene’s advice that every recipe with millet is improved by toasting the millet in a cast iron skillet for about 5 minutes first. The muffin cups overflowed with filling a 12 place muffin tin. But I was using a stick free pan and they still turned out alright.
useful (0)
Website: Spark Recipes
I usually do the mental math to make a small batch of dough in my bread machine for Easter, but decided to find a real recipe. This one is from a healthy website. My main problem with this recipe is that I had to add about 2/3 cup of flour to make a still soft, but manageable dough. Instead of the traditional coffee cans, I put one batch in a large, but tall cooking pot and split the second batch and place in two small, but tall baking pots to make 2 small and one large loaf. In one batch I substituted dried cherries and pecans, and this made the best Paska I have ever eaten. In the other batch I used half raisins and half craisens. This bread machine doesn't have a good way to alert me to add additional ingredients and it is important to not add the dried fruit and or nuts to soon, so I dumped mine in after the mixing was over and had to knead them in before shaping into loaves.
useful (1)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
This was so quick to whip up, it made an excellent meal on a night when you do not think you have time to cook. The critical part is taking the time to cook each one perfectly so it is very hot inside and crisp outside. I substituted whole wheat tortillas, They would have been even better if we had had the cilantro on hand, but have that taste delight to look forward to the next time we make it. Be sure you scoop the slaw carefully; apparently the person who got the last one made by pouring the slaw out got an overdose of lime juice. Incredibly delicious and the meat was not missed!
useful (3)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
I was looking for something special to whip up for breakfast. This looked a little intensive, but encouraged by AHJ12475’s review I plunged in. Without a stand mixer (Yes, I think this is finally on my wish list), it took me 1 hour of prep time and she had good directions on how to do it by hand. But I must admit, as I peeled, cut and dried the apples, grated the cheddar (I used orange) and shaped these coffee-shop worthy giant scones (the rolling pin abandoned as I lovingly patted these into the right shape). I was shocked that this recipe only made 6 scones! We enjoyed these by themselves so we could savor their buttery tenderness, concentrated apple flavor and bits of sharp cheddar. Although white cheddar was called for, the orange cheddar color enhanced the golden color of the scones. The sugar topping did not clash with the cheese but added some welcome extra sweetness.
useful (2)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
The fresh sweet corn flavor really predominates this creamy spoon bread. If you like creamed corn (which I hate), this dish will probably make you swoon. I made it in a nine inch square pan (one of the options) instead of a soufflé dish and it was done in the suggested time and came out very nice with lots of the crispy bits against the side of the pan. This delicious dish is easily a half day project (even with all her labor saving steps). I poured the hot cornmeal mixture into another bowl to speed the cooling process as suggested, but even that step took longer than stated even with frequent mixing. Because of the time needed to make this dish, I will probably not attempt it again.
useful (2)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
This pie bursting with fresh tomato and corn and a contrasting crispy flaky crust tasted delicious. The smell of the fresh corn was noticeable while baking. I did skin and seed the tomatoes throwing in a third as my tomatoes were only medium large. I still had trouble with a watery bottom; parts of the bottom crust seemed to have dissolved. One possible solution would be to sprinkle flour with the tomatoes and corn, but that might take away from the freshness of the tomatoes and corn and hide somewhat the lovely bursts of flavor from the cheddar and lemon mayonnaise. I would probably opt to roll the top crust thicker and skip the bottom crust altogether.
useful (2)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
The first bite was so sweet in a great onion way. The dish was savory and the large amount of curry powder did not dominate. Cooking the lentils with the lid on solved my usual problem of cardboard-like lentils. It will definitely be my lentil stew go-to recipe in the future. I used a can of diced tomatoes to take out the food processing stepand substituted Balsamic for red wine vinegar to brighten it at the end.
useful (1)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
This was a great fruity dessert and would be perfect in the autumn. I enjoyed cooking with a whole vanilla bean and filling the kitchen with its aroma. I did not care for the sand-like consistency of the topping; I would have liked it better if it had stuck together into clumps. I used Bartlett pears (my favorite) and had German pear brandy on hand, but substituted pecans for the almonds. I made 4 individual crisps (instead of 6) and they turned out perfectly, even baking just right in the allotted time! Each of the 4 was really 2 servings however.
useful (0)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
If you are hungry for cooked tomatoes and eggs, this is good as part of a meal. A grapefruit spoon made quick work of removing the tomato innards. The pesto was interesting, visually appealing and the flavor was OK. I added a few cilantro leaves in with the parsley. I like that you can whip up a batch of pesto without having a great amount of basil on hand. I would like to try it with substituting basil for the parsley – an economical version of the classic. My tomatoes had nice flat bottoms and I had no fear of them tipping over. But I tried her suggestion of taking a sliver off the bottom of one tomato, and the juices that came out burned and that tomato deflated a little and I did not like that result. This is a great dish to use up large tomatoes. I liked this dish just fine, but probably will not make it again.
useful (0)