Zosia's Profile

From: Toronto, ON

Joined: October 19th, 2011

Silk Chocolate Cream Pie with Pecan Crust from The Dahlia Bakery Cookbook: Sweetness in Seattle

This is a showstopper of a pie with rather sophisticated flavours - intense chocolate filling with salty, crunchy crust. Can't say I cared much for the crust on its own but it was a great foil, both texturally... read more >

recipe reviews (781)
book reviews (23)
useful review votes (669)

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Zosia's Reviews

14 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 14Sort by: Title | Date | Rating

The Essential New York Times Cookbook: Classic Recipes for a New Century

By Amanda Hesser
W. W. Norton & Company - 2010

I’ve missed this dish! It’s been over 25 years since my husband and I enjoyed a variation of it in a rather chichi restaurant, never thinking it would be so easy to replicate at home. It was good then and it’s still good now.

I made the recipe as written except that my goat rounds were smaller and bread slices larger so I served 2 per person. Also, I used the thyme infused olive oil from the goat cheese marinade to toast the bread instead of melted butter.

I’m not surprised the family enjoyed this….warm goat cheese, toasted garlic bread and peppery arugula salad are components that always work together.

useful (2)  

My Mother’s Day started well with these delicious waffles made by vegetarian daughter for breakfast.

Most of the batter ingredients were mixed the night before with just the egg and melted butter added before cooking. They smelled wonderfully yeast-y while cooking and the yeast added a slightly nutty flavour to the waffle.

The waffles were light, airy and crisp, though in our waffle iron, they took over 4 minutes to become that. The cook assured me that she followed the recipe – she’s been known to take a few liberties when she cooks – except that she used 1% milk (it’s all we had) and didn’t grease our non-stick waffle iron. The yield was 6 sheets of 4 square waffles each.

Served with this orange smoothie, they were a very nice start to the day.

useful (0)  

This is a surprisingly fuss-free yet effective way to cook basmati rice – no pre-soaking, no sautéing to coat each grain with fat – just combine the rinsed rice with the liquid and cook! It was perfectly cooked in the time stated, mildly sweet but a little bland. Enter the fresh (grated) ginger, added to the rice after it’s cooked and providing a huge punch of flavour.

A really pleasant surprise from a recipe I wasn’t expecting much from.

useful (2)  

This was tasty…..garlic, lightly sautéed greens, a squeeze of lemon to finish….. what’s not to like.

However, the whole point of pan-roasting the garlic, a fairly time consuming step, was lost on me (and my family), since none of us ate the cloves of garlic that were apparently like candy. Without that element, this dish wasn’t particularly special.

Some additional notes: I used only 2 Tbsp oil and probably could have gotten away with less; 1 large head escarole feeds 2-3, not 6, people.

useful (0)  

Fantastic little cakes with great texture and zingy flavours.

The fresh salmon is cubed rather than minced, which accounts for the texture, and flavoured with kaffir lime, ginger and wasabi. My wasabi paste was well past the “best before” date so I added minced hot red chili pepper instead and salt to taste. As the recipe indicates, the patties cook very quickly, so to avoid overcooking them, I cooked them 1 at a time at the start, eventually working my way up to 3.

Served with the dipping sauce, each bite was a perfect balance of hot, sweet, sour and salty.

useful (0)  

Banana and orange make a great flavour combination and they came together nicely in this refreshing smoothie. Vegetarian daughter made this for my Mother’s Day breakfast and said it was very easy as the ingredients (banana, juice etc) were basic and didn’t require much prep work.

She thought it was sweet enough without the honey, but in the interest of following the recipe – which she doesn’t always do – she added 1 tsp. I agreed with her….1 tbsp would have been too much and I’m sure it would have been good without any at all. The orange flavour was a little weak…replacing the milk with more juice would fix that.

useful (0)  

Asian-ish is how this dish is described because, despite some common Asian pantry ingredients used in both the marinade and the salad dressing, their flavours were subtle.

I used sirloin steak since that’s the cut I had, and the meat was juicy and flavourful after marinating 24 hours. The salad was crunchy and bright tasting but would have tasted like most slaws with vinaigrette dressing were it not for the basil, which set it apart from the rest. I used a little less salt and a little more lime juice to make this zingy side dish.

This recipe was very easy to make and came together quickly and we were sorry there were no leftovers…..the meat with the slaw topping would have made a great sandwich filling.

useful (1)  

With a bright lemon-thyme dressing and some typical Mediterranean ingredients, this was a delicious salad that had great texture and flavour.

I used the suggested Puy lentils, which I rinsed and picked over before cooking (a step that’s not mentioned in the recipe). No other cooking was required, just a little chopping.

The flavours were very good freshly made, but were even better the next day when the leftovers were eaten for lunch.

useful (0)  

A zesty cold tomato soup enlivened with some Moroccan spices and lemon.

Unlike some soups that are eventually served chilled, this one required minimal cooking, just a mere toasting of spices and softening of the garlic to take the edge off. I used a (680ml) bottle of passata instead of fresh tomatoes, salt to taste and only 3 cloves of garlic, which were noticeable but not overwhelming. The soup took just minutes to assemble.

It was a refreshing starter that will taste even better made with tomatoes that are at their peak.

useful (0)  

I can’t believe I haven’t made this recipe before now. I bake yeast bread on a regular basis but find the artisanal types with their starters, pre-ferments and long proofing times inconvenient. With this recipe, you get the flavour of artisanal bread without the hassle.

I used bread flour so it was quite chewy with a thin crispy crust; it had the large holes and sheen of ciabatta but tasted of sourdough.

It really was quite a respectable loaf and when the trickiest part is inverting the risen dough into the hot pot (then scraping the rest of the dough off of the tea towel), it’s worth making again though maybe with some whole wheat flour. I served it with this Pistou Soup (a recommended pairing).

July 8
Made a second loaf with 1/3 whole wheat bread flour - tasted better than the first. Also tried the recommended parchment paper trick and it worked perfectly: moving the dough to the pot was easier and the parchment was easily removed from the baked loaf (and there was no dough lost to the tea towel!)

useful (3)  

If you start with your family’s favourite sausage, this is sure to be a hit.

I used lean Italian pork sausage that’s highly seasoned so not much more was required to flavour the sauce. The sauce itself was rich and silky even with using only 1% milk. I doubled the meat in the recipe so it would meet the carnivores’ meat:pasta requirements (and my package was 500g) but kept the other ingredients the same.

The ragu was done in the time it took to boil the water and cook the pasta but you wouldn’t know how little effort went into it from the taste. Definitely something I will make again.

useful (3)  

Amanda Hesser likens this soup to a minestrone; like a minestrone, it contains lots of vegetables, some pasta and beans; unlike Italian minestrone with caramelized and slow-cooked vegetables, this soup has a relatively quick cooking time and a very fresh vegetable flavour.

The soup requires a fair bit of chopping but with the ingredients added in stages, it can be spread out over the cooking time of the soup. I made this with vegetable stock so added a Parmesan rind for extra flavour and changed the order in which some of the ingredients were added so the green beans and zucchini wouldn’t be overcooked. I added ~2 cups white beans by mistake (should have been ½ cup) and since they were beans I had cooked and frozen, there was no liquid. I compensated by adding extra stock.

I served it as suggested with the no-knead bread.

useful (1)  

I’m discovering that rhubarb is a great complement to several fruits. Apart from the classic strawberries, there are raspberries, cherries, and with this recipe, oranges.

The rhubarb is roasted with orange juice and rind, vanilla beans and some raw sugar. The dish is quick to put together and requires virtually no attention while it’s baking. The pieces become tender but retain their shape and the juice thickens to a syrup-like consistency as it cools.

Rather than the suggested crème fraîche, I served it warm with non-fat Greek yogurt. I found the piece size of the rhubarb a little awkward to eat as it was far too large for a dessert spoon - the recipe would have rated 5 stars otherwise.

I’ll have to keep this combination in mind for future projects….the orange would be a wonderful addition to a pie filling or a rhubarb cobbler/crumble.

useful (2)  

David Lebovitz’s reworked Maida Heatter recipe for popovers is a success on many levels: the ingredients are so basic, they’re likely to be found in anyone’s pantry; the batter takes less than 5 minutes to make (this time includes assembling and measuring ingredients); they do taste like cinnamon doughnuts without the frying.

I baked mine in a muffin tin greased with oil instead of butter (to avoid burning) and used only ½ the salt and ½ the melted butter and cinnamon-sugar coating.

They were light and airy with a crispy exterior and (mainly) hollow interior with a little bit of sinking in the centre, just like David’s. Delicious!

useful (3)