Zosia's Reviews
780 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title 
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We Love Madeleines
By Miss Madeleine, Antonis Achilleos
Chronicle Books - 2012
The perfect Madeleine……fantastic flavour and lovely texture.
This recipe calls for a low-gluten pastry flour that ensures a tender crumb, and requires refrigeration of the batter for as long as 24 hours….something to keep in mind when planning to make these. The cookies are baked at 2 temperatures, starting with 400F. The book provides a helpful description of what should be happening to the little cake during baking (the depression in the centre eventually forms the characteristic hump).
These were a huge hit and so easy to make!
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These little cakes had a wonderful tender texture and though they didn’t taste of olive oil, they did have a distinctly different flavour.
The batter was an easy sponge cake batter that took just a few minutes to mix together but I found that the olive oil was quite difficult to incorporate into it. The recipes in this book have been contributed by different chefs/bakers/bloggers so the method varies from one recipe to another. This recipe does not call for a rest period for the batter so I baked the madeleines immediately; the cookies didn’t have the traditional hump on the top.
The directions called for greasing the pan with olive oil and then flouring it. Unfortunately, none of the cookies released on their own and had to be pried out. If ever a cookie cried out for a dusting of powdered sugar to pretty it up, this is the one! But the recipe called for a sprinkling of sea salt instead so that’s what I used. It did add an interesting dimension to the flavour of the cookie, pushing them even closer to the savoury side.
They were okay but not a recipe I’ll make again but it did teach me to stick to prepping the pan with melted butter/flour.
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Perfect little bites of sweet and nutty sponge cake. I included the optional maple extract for added maple oomph.
They baked up with a respectable hump after only a 1 hour rest period for the batter; the pecans gravitated to the bottom of the pan but the cake portion above was light and airy.
I thought I was finally getting the hang of portioning the batter but my yield was 28 (instead of 24) with the molds ¾ full.
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Loved the subtle green tea and lemon flavour of these little sponge cakes.
Unfortunately, the texture was a little rubbery. I’ll try cake flour the next time.
For a yield of 24, only half-fill the molds.
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These airy little sponge cakes pack a huge smokey, cheese-y flavour punch!
The method follows that of a typical sponge cake batter but with no sugar and all of that cheese I did have concerns about the finished texture. The concerns were groundless because these were moist with a delicate crumb. At 32 little cakes, my yield was higher than the recipe indicated.
I served them warm with this soup.
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These are fantastic little cakes with a delicate flavour to match their texture. Soft and tender when baked, they’re very fragile and must be handled with care especially while they’re still warm. I used ¼ tsp of hazelnut oil flavouring and milk instead of Frangelico liqueur which gave them a lovely perfume, and skipped the optional chocolate chips, and melted chocolate and chopped hazelnut garnish.
My yield was 36, not 24.
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Nicely spiced sponge cakes with just a hint of orange.
This recipe relies on the beaten eggs for leavening so I took special care when adding the other ingredients so the mixture wouldn’t deflate. The texture was still a little dense in the end but the madeleines stayed moist for longer than most.
My yield was 32, not 24.
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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
I think this recipe deserves a better name, unless, of course, the word “stewed” brings to mind melt-in-your-mouth deliciousness …..it doesn’t for me but that’s exactly what this dish is.
Sweet bell peppers are slowly simmered with onions, garlic and tomatoes until they’re almost silky in texture. The tomatoes dissolve and help create a sauce that has just enough acidity to balance the sweetness of the peppers.
I served it hot as a side dish but I agree with the author that it would make an excellent topping for pasta, bruschetta, polenta etc…
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A wonderful way to experience sweet summer corn.
This side dish is very quick and easy to prepare and I saved myself even more time by not blanching the cobs of corn before sautéing the kernels with the other vegetables …..it was so fresh and sweet that I didn’t want to mess with it too much. I used edamame in the dish, another time-saving measure that didn’t involve blanching and skinning, and basil instead of tarragon to garnish.
Much as my family and I love fresh corn on the cob, it’s not always a practical thing to serve at a sit-down dinner. This recipe is a great alternative…..
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This recipe comes together quickly in the food processor and requires just a few minutes of kneading afterwards.
I didn’t have stone-ground whole wheat flour so just used regular whole wheat flour in its place. The dough was very easy to shape as it wasn’t very elastic. I was using a recipe that called for the pizza crust to be fully baked before toppings were applied…that took 12 min at 450F to achieve a nicely browned, crispy crust.
I haven’t been very successful at making food processor dough, and unfortunately, this one was no exception……the flavour was quite good but I did find that, though it was crispy, it was also a little tough and it dried out easily. I’ll try the recipe again with my stand mixer.
Sept 1:
Made the dough in a stand mixer....no discernible difference. However, baking the dough with toppings on it made a huge difference in texture: it was crisp, yet chewy (in a good, bread-like way) and didn't dry out at all.
I've increased my rating to 3.
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Very nice combination of flavours and textures baked on this pizza crust.
The toppings start with a base layer of sautéed mushrooms. Once the crust is partially baked, the goat cheese and walnuts are added and the baking is completed. The final layer is a dressed arugula salad. Next time, I’ll use more strongly flavoured mushrooms as the white cultivated variety got lost among the stronger flavours of the other ingredients.
The experience was very much like eating a salad on a pizza crust…..a little messy for finger food, so best served with knife and fork.
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Peppers prepared 2 ways, garlic, basil and classic Italian cheeses made up the delicious topping for this pizza.
I used a fresh red pepper instead of green as that’s what I had, a little buffalo mozzarella as well as regular, and this pizza crust.
The topping wasn’t very heavy but it was very flavourful….....nobody missed the usual tomato sauce/cheese/pepperoni toppings that I use on pizzas.
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Mango + grilled fish = delicious.
The simple salsa, made primarily of mango with a little bit of heat from a chile and some crunch provided by jicama complemented the fish very nicely. It was quick to put together and with the fish taking just a few minutes to cook, the dish was done in less than 30 minutes.
Very nice combination that I’ll make again.
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Sometimes it’s the simplest things that are best – bananas and milk come together to make a cool, creamy concoction with a milkshake-like consistency and a pure banana flavour.
I sliced the bananas before freezing to make the blending easier and skipped the honey….the smoothie was sweet enough without it.
It’s no different from eating a banana with a glass of milk, but it’s certainly a lot more fun!
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A lightly spiced tomato-based soup that makes use of very basic pantry items.
The recipe calls for a hot curry powder, which I used, but the quantity is small relative to the amount of soup the recipe makes so the flavour was not very bold. Curry is a new flavour to some of the people I was serving the soup to, so I left it as is but this would be easy to adjust to suit personal taste. The addition of cumin and coriander gave the soup a more complex flavour.
I pureed about ¾ of the batch – it had a very nice consistency, thick but still soup-like, with a little texture. The flavour improved on the second day.
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I don’t think I’ve ever cooked anything in my microwave but the promise of a 14-minute polenta certainly made me want to try. It worked!
There was no mention of the type/power of the microwave that was used in developing this recipe so I approached the cooking times with caution – glad I did because the polenta was done in 10 minutes.
The resulting polenta was not as creamy as stovetop (but I may have overcooked it by a minute or so) and I think it would have benefited from being stirred earlier in the process, or perhaps just more vigorously, as it ended up with a few lumps in it. I intended to chill it and grill it so these things weren’t too important to me. I added some grated parmesan and fresh thyme to it before chilling and served the grilled polenta with this mushroom dish.
Really very good for a 10 minute time investment.
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The mushroom is front and centre in this ragu that’s flavoured with tomatoes, onions and garlic. The flavour was quite nice but it did need a little help.
The author gives you the option of using canned tomatoes; I chose to use fresh and that may have contributed to this recipe’s downfall. The tomatoes started to disintegrate after 20 minutes of simmering, so I didn’t cook them for the additional 10 minutes….perhaps canned would have fared better. Also, my tomatoes weren’t very acidic so I added a squeeze of lemon. Using stock instead of water or a splash of white wine would have improved the flavour of this dish even more.
It was a little watery for a bruschetta topping, but it was wonderful served over cheesy, herbed, grilled polenta.
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I loved the idea of this as soon as I read the description and the recipe didn’t disappoint.
I made it with fruits my family likes, dried apricots, cherries and blueberries, sweetened it with honey and added chopped pistachios along with the fresh oranges just before serving. I made it the night before as the author suggested and used the microwave to heat it in the morning. The couscous fluffed up considerably during reheating. A single portion took ~45 seconds to heat in the microwave.
A great alternative to oatmeal.
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Lovely herbed baked tomatoes with a cheesy crust and potatoes to balance the intense roasted tomato flavour and add texture and substance to the dish.
Though the baking time is fairly long, prep time is minimal, especially if you don’t peel the potatoes, and the gratin can be assembled well in advance. I made the recipe in individual dishes and it made 6 generous portions. I used new Yukon Gold potatoes, which maintained their shape nicely during baking, and Roma tomatoes.
Next time, I’ll finely chop the rosemary and add it to the tomatoes with the thyme and garlic as I didn’t enjoy picking out the needles that fell off the sprig after it was baked. Also, I would add the cheese at the very end and put the gratin under the broiler to melt it…there’s such a thin layer that it was over-browned after 30 minutes of baking.
Served with a salad, this was a light yet satisfying main course.
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This is a simple, spicy tomato sauce that cooks in the time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta.
It starts with canned tomatoes flavoured with garlic, red pepper flakes and thyme. Cooked cauliflower, olives and the cooked pasta are added at the end. I don’t particularly like washing pots so instead of cooking the cauliflower separately, I cut the florets into bite-sized pieces and cooked them with the pasta during the last 3 minutes.
I’m not familiar with this triumvirate of cauliflower, tomatoes and olives but found the combination to be quite delicious. The cauliflower was bland enough to absorb the other flavours in the sauce but at the same time helped to temper the saltiness of the briny olives and the heat of the red pepper flakes while adding a little sweetness and crunchy texture.
This dish went over very well with family…apparently totally masking the flavour of cauliflower makes it much more palatable ; )!
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Wonderful, hearty soup rich with the earthy flavours of mushrooms and kale.
It involves the usual preliminary steps of chopping and sautéing onions, mushrooms and garlic but is then left to simmer slowly while the barley, and then the kale, cooks. I appreciated that Ms Shulman had us include a parmesan rind in the bouquet garni…I often forget I have them and enclosing it in the cheesecloth bundle made removal from the soup much easier.
A perfect cool weather soup.
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Delicious, versatile crêpes….tender, not too eggy with a pretty golden yellow colour.
I used light buckwheat flour, so though it added some flavour to the crêpe, it wasn’t too pronounced. I made them the night before I needed them; they separated easily the next day, even without wax/parchment paper between them and they were just as good reheated as they were freshly made. The recipe did make 12 – 8” crêpes (~1/4 cup/50ml batter each).
I served them for breakfast as Ms Shulman remembered eating them in Paris – with a cooked egg on top.
I've included links to southerncooker's review of this recipe from another of Martha's books as well as the recipe in the NYT.
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I had all of the ingredients on hand so I made this to top some greens for a nice salad.
I served this to most of the family shortly after making and we thought it a little bland, mainly because of the zucchini. However, vegetarian daughter had it a little later, after the flavours had had a chance to meld, and loved it, so perhaps that was the best way to enjoy it.
Personally, I think tomatoes, avocado, jalapeño, coriander and lime are always a winning combination so whether you add zucchini or something else to the mix, it’s always going to taste good.
I found that this salad served only 4, not 6.
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These were fabulous, mainly because of the fantastic flavour of the simmered beans that are used as both filling and topping.
To save a little time, I took a potato masher to the beans while they were simmering with the added spices instead of puréeing a portion of them. The mixture was quite dry and it didn’t seem to matter how much of the reserved cooking liquid I added, it was absorbed. I hoped that some of the liquid would be released during baking, but that wasn’t the case – the beans became even drier. It wasn’t too much of an issue as I served them with a fresh tomato-corn salsa.
I wasn’t sure of the purpose of combining the tomato sauce for the tortilla dip with oil so I omitted it. After the first one disintegrated, I found that lowering the heat on the sauce to med-low gave me a little more control over softening each tortilla.
This is the most time consuming recipe I’ve come across so far in this cookbook; it does take planning, especially if you’re cooking your own beans, but it can be made in stages in advance and it’s certainly well worth the effort.
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A delicious and versatile sauce made with roasted peppers and tomatoes and thickened with toasted bread and ground almonds.
The ingredient preparation is a little fiddly but once the roasting and toasting is out of the way, everything is simply blended together. The author warns that the raw garlic in the sauce becomes more pungent over time so, since I was making enough to serve at 2 meals, I roasted the garlic with the red pepper to make it more mellow.
A few options are given regarding the spices…I went with red pepper flakes and smoked paprika. As a result, the sauce was smoky, sweet and tangy with a little bit of heat.
It was delicious with grilled chicken and fish but I think it would be great as a spread on a burger/sandwich or just on a slice of toasted crusty bread.
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This is an excellent way to prepare chard, not only because the Asian flavourings complement the vegetable so well, but because the cooking method addresses the different cooking times of the stem and leaves.
The leaves are briefly steamed until wilted, cooled then squeezed dry before being added to the diced, stir fried stems.
I used regular chard and the optional soy sauce to increase the Asian feel of the dish. A drizzle of sesame oil would also have been a nice addition.
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Delicious and light tasting and also fairly quick to put together.
The broth is gently flavoured with the dry mushrooms and scallions; I added some soy sauce as I was making this with vegetable stock instead of kombu dashi stock. I used frozen peas - ~1 cup – and added some fresh shiitake as well.
The gentle poaching of the salmon worked beautifully…the fish was moist and added flavour to and was flavoured by the broth. I cooked the soba noodles separately as per the instructions on the preceding page, but frankly, this method took longer than if I had just followed the package directions and it yielded the same results.
It was a very satisfying meal but being rather short on veggies, I didn’t think it was as balanced as it could have been. I’ll have to rectify that next time.
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This tangy lime-juice based vinaigrette would probably be seasoned just right for a tossed green salad if made as per the recipe. However, I used it in a cabbage-daikon radish-carrot slaw and found that some of the dressing flavours, especially the ginger, were a little too muted. I added more directly to the salad to correct this and it tasted fine.
I made it with canola oil though it can be made with part buttermilk.
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Previously reviewed here.
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Very delicious, owing in part to starting with these simmered beans. They're excellent on their own so adding some toasted cumin and chili powder, and concentrating the flavour by cooking off the liquid takes them to another level.
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Vegetarian Times
(, 2013)
I made these twice, the first time following the recipe, the second time with just a few changes that resulted in something edible.
Both the recipe name and the magazine photograph are very misleading as this recipe is for a savoury lentil-walnut pancake (that is far too sweet), not a burger. I didn’t have gluten free pancake mix so just used flour the first time and used these lentils instead of canned. Neither my vegetarian daughter nor I liked them and even the dog that eats everything turned his nose up at them!
For the second batch, I added only 1 small carrot, reduced the amount of marinara sauce and used dry breadcrumbs instead of flour/pancake mix. With just those few changes, the mixture could be shaped into patties and fried after a good chill in the fridge. The texture was a little soft but they were tasty and held up quite well with typical burger toppings and a toasted bun.
The rating is for the recipe as written; I'd give my version 3 1/2 stars.
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Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
By Deborah Madison
Broadway - 1997
This is a delicious way to use fresh artichokes. They’re combined with onion, sweet peppers, chickpeas and traditional Moroccan add-ins of saffron, Harissa, preserved lemon and olives, simmered and served with couscous.
The most labour intensive part of the dish is prepping the artichokes, which also have to be pre-cooked before being added to the tagine. Once all the ingredients are combined, they’re only required to simmer 15 minutes or until the artichokes are tender. The flavour is very rich and complex despite the relatively short cooking time.
The dish is finished with a drizzle of Chermoula (page 56), a combination of fresh and dried herbs and spices, garlic, lemon juice and olive oil. The tagine is good on its own but the chermoula brightens it and makes it really special.
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This is an excellent method of preparing broccoli rabe that ensures a bright green, tender-crisp vegetable that retains just enough of its bitterness to keep it interesting.
The vegetable is trimmed, stalks are peeled (I don’t always do this) and then it’s blanched before it’s quickly sautéed in olive oil with golden garlic slices and red pepper flakes.
Easy and delicious!
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This is a very reliable and delicious way to prepare lentils. Simmered with some vegetables, aromatics and bay leaves, this is my go-to recipe for cooking this legume.
Depending on what the end use is, I often finely dice the onion and mince the garlic and leave them in after they’re cooked, or leave the carrots and celery in large pieces and remove them along with the onion, bay leaves etc.
Finished with a little red wine vinegar and olive oil, the dish is delicious served hot as a side, or chilled as a salad. The batch pictured was made with Puy lentils and was for these meatless burgers.
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Vegetable Literacy: Cooking and Gardening with Twelve Families from the Edible Plant Kingdom, with over 300 Deliciously Simple Recipes
By Deborah Madison
Ten Speed Press - 2013
This tasty salad of steamed cauliflower and celery dressed with an assertive Mustard-Caper Vinaigrette (page 132) made a delicious light meal for vegetarian daughter and a warm side dish for the rest of the family. Delicious warm or at room temperature, with or without the (cow’s milk) Havarti.
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A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking
By Marcy Goldman
Whitecap Books Ltd. - 2009
These delicate vanilla crepes filled with a creamy, tangy cheese filling are a delicious treat for a special breakfast or brunch, especially served with a fruit sauce.
The crepe batter is very basic - I made it with milk but I’d like to try it once with seltzer water to see if it lightens the texture. The crepes cooked up quickly in a non-stick pan with no additional fat. They’re not quite as flavourful as my favourite Canadian Living recipe, but they are less eggy and just as easy to work with. The recipe made 20 crepes using a 6” pan.
The dry cottage cheese/farmer’s cheese filling becomes creamy with the addition of sour cream (I used reduced fat) and is slightly sweet, yet tangy.
Once all are cooked, the crepes are then filled, folded and rolled. At this point in the recipe, the directions come to an end and you’re left with rolled cheese blintzes with uncooked egg yolk in the filling! In the intro to the recipe, the author mentions that these are traditionally fried and served with sour cream but no instructions are supplied. I chose to bake them instead (covered in foil at 350Ffor 20 minutes). I think this is a huge oversight in the recipe and if I hadn’t made something like this before, I wouldn’t necessarily have known to do this.
Despite this omission, these are really very good and can easily be made in advance and refrigerated or even frozen.
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An easy-to-make sweet that stores well and is great for gift-giving.
It starts with a simple caramel of butter and brown sugar that's brought to a boil and cooked briefly before being poured over a layer of unsalted matzoh crackers. It’s then baked and, while still warm, sprinkled with chocolate pieces which are spread once melted. Once cooled, the crackers are broken apart.
The author says that the original recipe used saltines with unsalted tops. Personally, I thought it could have used a pinch of salt…perhaps next time I’ll add it to the caramel before baking. I also thought that the proportion of chocolate to caramel was off….I would have preferred twice as much chocolate to balance the sweet caramel. But that’s just me…..everyone else loved them the way they were. After all, it is called caramel crunch, so the caramel should be the star!
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I thought this was another bubka/babka-type cake with a cinnamon-walnut filling when I first read the recipe but I was wrong….instead it resembles the “strudel”- type cakes one sees in Eastern European bakeries, usually filled with poppyseeds, but there the resemblance ends; this one is moist, very flavourful and very delicious.
The yeast dough is enriched with butter, sugar, eggs and sour cream and is made somewhat like pastry, with the cold butter cut into the flour. The yeast and wet ingredients are added to this and kneaded. The resulting dough reminds me of brioche in texture - very easy to work with especially after an overnight rest in the fridge. I made ½ the recipe and it produced a large “loaf” that easily served 20.
Really wonderful with an afternoon cup of coffee.
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Chocolate and honey come together to make this moist cake with complex flavours that include chocolate and honey of course, but also a little caramel, a touch of cinnamon and a hint of coffee.
All you need is 2 bowls, some baking staples and a spoon to produce this tasty, oil-based cake. Extracting it from the ungreased tube pan is the trickiest part but the more I bake with Marcy Goldman – she certainly likes her tube pans : ) - the better I get at it. Next time I’ll omit the chocolate garnish as that made removal more difficult; a chocolate glaze could be used instead though the cake doesn’t really need it.
This turned out to be far more delicious than I had anticipated as I’m not a huge fan of honey cake. It’s a great choice for a crowd as it’s large and thin slices hold up well. It provided a nice bit of chocolate at the end of a large meal.
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Fantastic fluffy doughnuts dusted with powdered sugar.
Unlike some that rely on their toppings to taste good, these beignets, enriched with sugar and butter and flavoured with vanilla, were delicious on their own. The dough was very easy to make and work with and required only 1 hour for fermentation. Once the doughnuts were cut from the rolled dough, they were fried after only a short rest….no need to proof.
These were light and airy and just a little too easy to eat……fortunately, I had lots of takers!
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Tender chocolate-y cookies with that characteristic cream cheese tang.
A traditional cream cheese cookie dough is transformed into chocolate with the addition of a little cocoa powder. The author warns that the dough is sticky and that was true when first made but once chilled, it was quite easy to work with as long as the work surface was lightly dusted with flour (make sure to brush the flour from the underside of the dough before shaping the crescents as it’s very visible on the chocolate dough).
The filling recipe provided used nutella (or a similar product) for an extra chocolate-y treat but the alternative of cherry preserves for a black forest flavour was suggested also. I made a batch of each, sprinkling the cherry filled cookies with a little powdered sugar.
These are fantastic little cookies that are quite easy to make and not too sweet; they would make an excellent addition to any holiday cookie tray.
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This was a fantastic challah, enriched with whole eggs, oil and sugar, that was very easy to make…..no sponges or preferments required and fermentation and proofing times of an hour or less.
The recipe made quite a bit of dough and the book gives several options for shaping it. I chose to make 2 loaves and in hindsight, should have made 3 as the dough rose tremendously in the oven to create huge loaves that were a little difficult to slice.
The crumb was very light and velvety and the bread wasn’t too rich or sweet. Next to this healthy whole wheat challah, this is my favourite challah recipe.
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Latkes made with pre-cooked potatoes? Different but still delicious.
The first step of the recipe involved parboiling red-skinned potatoes. The cooking instructions were very detailed and resulted in potatoes that weren’t quite cooked all the way, were very easy to shred and maintained their shape during the mixing of the batter and frying. The batter itself included more eggs than usual, seasoning and a token spoonful of flour.
The purpose of pre-cooking the potatoes was to reduce the frying time, and that it did. I was able to get through the rather large batch of batter in a relatively short time and the latkes turned out as promised, with crispy edges and tender centres. They reheated beautifully.
They had a little bit of a boiled potato flavour and texture (in the centre) and for this reason, I prefer latkes made from raw potatoes. But judging by how quickly they were devoured, I suspect no one else noticed or cared!
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Delicious crisp, golden cookies that hold a filling of your choice. The cookie has a neutral flavour that allows the filling to shine.
I found the amount of dough the recipe makes a little daunting until I read the author’s notes on the “Hamantaschen production line” which give excellent advice about making both dough and fillings ahead and storing them in workable sized portions. So, I made the full batch of dough and froze half.
The dough is quite unusual…..a cross between a sugar cookie dough and a thick, coffee cake batter when it’s first made and though it firms up after refrigeration, it remains rather soft and pliable. Regardless, it’s very easy to work with and requires very little flour to prevent sticking during rolling.
It bakes into lovely, crunchy, vanilla-flavoured cookies that don’t go soggy even with a moist fruit filling. I filled half with this blueberry filling, and half with nutella.
Mar 22
Made another Nutella-filled batch, this time with the optional egg wash. Cookies had a shiny, golden-coloured finish....much prettier than the first batch. Definitely won't skip that step next time.
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This is a tasty jam-like filling, thickened with corn starch, that tastes of the fresh fruit. Even though I started with frozen berries, it took only minutes to make.
I thought it was a little too sweet so I'll reduce the sugar next time but I'm not certain how to fix the problem of some liquid separating out during cooling and subsequent refrigeration. I used only the thick, fruity part to fill these cookies, leaving the liquid behind and that worked fine as the cookies weren't soggy and the baked filling was still moist.
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A Taste of Canada
By Rose Murray
Whitecap Books Ltd. - 2010
This recipe produced succulent pork chops with a sweet-tart glaze; the juicy apples with the smoky flavour were bonus.
The marinade of apple and lemon juices, cider vinegar and oil was very quick to put together. I had fresh thyme on hand so used that instead of dried. I had to adjust my cooking method as it was too cold and wet to grill outside; I used a grill pan to sear the chops and apple quarters, then finished them in the oven.
The glaze, made from the boiled marinade, had just enough honey added to counter the sharpness of the lemon. It went very well with the pork without overwhelming it.
Delicious and easy dish but special enough for company.
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I’ve never used an electric mixer to make mashed potatoes before…..if I’d known how fluffy and creamy they’d be, I would have been hauling out that appliance to do it long before now! Of course, the sour cream, cream cheese and butter in the mash may have contributed to this texture as well ;)
The potato-parsnip-garlic mash, though very flavourful, was also quite sweet; the tanginess of the sour cream and cream cheese helped to counter this. I imagine buttermilk would have the same effect. I might use that next time.
The mash had a beautiful creamy texture and a slightly sweet, nutty flavour though I do wish the garlic flavour were stronger. Overall, I thought this was an excellent end-use for parsnips.
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Excellent brightly coloured and flavoured salad that can be made hours ahead.
The tangy-sweet dressing is a very simple oil-white vinegar blend that’s seasoned with sugar and paprika, the latter of which I could have done without as it didn’t contribute any flavour to the salad, just a peculiar pink-orange hue! The toasted sunflower seeds added a nice crunch and nutty flavour.
The recipe says it serves 8 but I found it barely served 6. Family really liked this so I will definitely make it again.
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Oh my, these were good! Sweet, gooey filling in a crispy pastry shell.
The filling had the standard ingredients for butter tarts with pecans added, and came together quickly. It was less egg and butter-rich and a little sweeter than other recipes I’ve made but with the high proportion of pastry to filling, the finished tart wasn’t too sweet.
I loved the use of phyllo in this application; it not only reduced the time spent making them (it took ~30 minutes including baking time) but also elevated these tarts to a company-worthy dessert.
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Macaroni baked with chopped tomatoes, Asiago, provolone and Canadian sharp cheddar……..this version was a big but welcome departure from the usual creamy mac ‘n’ cheese.
The dish was very easy to put together as the only pre-cooked component was the pasta. It was tossed with canned chopped tomatoes, grated/cubed cheese and seasonings. I omitted the Worcestershire sauce so vegetarian daughter could eat it and increased the hot sauce.
The last step before baking is to pour a milk/egg mixture over the pasta/cheese. I had concerns that this would curdle during baking….well founded concerns as it turns out because that’s exactly what happened! Next time, instead of trying to thicken the mixture with this “custard”, I’ll use drained chopped tomatoes so the mixture is not quite as liquidy.
Apart from the little cooked egg bits – not very pretty – this dish was fantastic. It was zesty, just as the name implies, and despite all of the cheese, tasted much lighter than the creamy version. Flavour deserves 5 stars but I can’t overlook the curdled custard.
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