aj12754's Reviews
16 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 16Sort by: Title 
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Website: New York Times - Dining and Wine
www.nytimes.com/pages/dining/index.html
For me ... too much acid in the dressing. The ratio seems to be about 1/2 -- I prefer more 1/3. It is not really a creamy dressing in spite of the buttermilk. Very runny ... but the fresh herbs are nice. It's like a pretty acidic basil vinaigrette.
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I love cabbage and was excited to see the article on chefs who love cabbage in last Wednesday's New York Times. Printed this off -- read the list of ingredients -- had some concerns (that much ketchup? that much sugar? that much tomato paste??) -- forged on anyway, making a half-recipe.
And three hours later, I managed to finish less than 1/2 a bowl of this incredibly sweet soup. Really not a success in our house.
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This was disappointing -- and I love both creamed mushrooms and caramelized onions. Too much going on for me and I really didn't enjoy the addition of marsala to the onions. My husband liked it somewhat better than I did, but even he said it was a bit of an odd mix.
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Loved these ... and so easy to do. Even tastier with a bit of the New York Times Tomato Jam recipe from a few years back. (Both are Mark Bittman recipes). Maybe a smidgen more salt would be good.
Served with a tomato and red lentil soup. Can't wait to do a pepper jack version to serve with beef chili or black bean soup.
10/11/10 -- Made with pepper jack and these were even better. This recipe is a definite keeper.
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All a recipe has to do to woo me is hold out the promise of roasted red peppers and goat cheese and I am there.
These were my first crepes -- and definitely not my last. The batter could not have been easier and with a crepe-experienced cook by my side, the crepe-making technique turned out to be easier to manage than I would have thought possible.
The filling -- a tomato/garlic/onion/red pepper sauce with thyme and basil topped with goat cheese -- was excellent.
Fun to make, fun to eat. Great for brunch or a light lunch. Looking forward to many more crepes -- sweet and savory-- in my future.
Link above is to the filling. Link for the crepes is below.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/health/nutrition/14recipehealth.html
P.S. Just noticed Queezle_Sister's review of this recipe and realized .... when I posted this I forgot to mention that I was making these kind of last minute and I used jarred red peppers and they worked very well ... and it was a real time saver (sorry!).
Also, I don't know if anyone else does this, but a few years ago -- based on a tip in a tomato soup recipe in the Great American Food without Fuss cookbook -- I started adding a smidgen (maybe 1/8 tsp) of baking soda to tomato soups and sauces as a base to counteract the acid rather than adding a bit of sugar as I used to do. I don't notice any change to the tomato flavor and I like it better than a sweetened tomato sauce.
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I seem never to have a bad experience with David Tanis recipes. This recipe appeared in last week's food section along with an article about the banner summer it's been for NJ tomatoes.
The soup could not be easier -- 3 pounds of chopped tomatoes along with some garlic, EVOO, sherry vinegar, and salt and pepper. Let it sit for awhile 15-60 minutes, then put it in a blender or food processor, then through a food mill. If you like your soups chunkier or if you wanted to use this over pasta, you could skip the food mill step. Tanis has you chill the soup, over ice or in the fridge, but we served it at room temperature and it was delicious. A day later I had the leftover soup thoroughly chilled and equally delicious.
About 30 minutes before serving, you make a mix of diced red or yellow or orange peppers (one cup total) with half a cup of diced onion -- add some sherry vinegar and EVOO and salt and pepper to taste and let it sit for a bit.
The recipe then has you place the mixture on toasted bread rubbed with garlic, top with sliced avocado and sprinkle with chopped parsley and chives. Then set the bruschetta in the soup and serve.
We made a few modifications, mostly in the serving rather than the prep.
Soupereasy and I used closer to 4 rather than 3 pounds of tomatoes, a mix of heirloom tomatoes and cherry tomatoes.
Also, we thought the sliced avocado would be cumbersome and messy to eat so we added diced avocado to the pepper-onion mixture before serving. Once the bruschetta was in the soup, we appreciated the prettiness of the dish but it was not that easy to eat. So we took bruschetta out and placed it on a side plate. In either location, it was delicious.
I am planning to serve this again next week for a lunch guest and I think I will, per Soupereasy's suggestion, serve the soup in a wine glass so it can be sipped, with the bruschetta on the side. I'd also like to try this as an appetizer, with the soup in an expresso cup and the pepper topping on a crostini.
I know I'll try variations involving cilantro, and one with balsamic vinegar and basil. A few years back I made Thomas Keller's gazpacho -- I can't remember what cookbook -- and this compares very favorably with that one. A good recipe for summer entertaining.
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Great sandwich -- great flavors. What could be bad about a dish that combines good bread, steak, lettuce, tomato, roasted red peppers (I used piquillo peppers), bacon or pancetta (I used pancetta), charred onions, and an egg topped with a fresh and full of flavor chimichurri salsa? It's a little sloppy to eat and you may need a knife and fork along the way, but really delicious.
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Very nice flavor even though I had to play with the amounts of ingredients a bit to make a smaller amount, since I didn't need a cup and a half of a dressing that "is best used shortly after making it."
I did have some of the optional lemon-scented olive oil on hand and I agree with the writer of the recipe (Martha Rose Shulman) that it really adds something special to the dressing.
I used this on a simple salad of mixed lettuces but I'd also like to try it with other salads, and I also plan to try the buttermilk variation (I used yogurt this time).
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This is a delicious and healthy alternative to mushroom risotto. It takes longer to make and has more of an al dente texture, but doesn't require the hovering that risotto does.
Very straightforward prep -- soak farro and dried mushrooms (separately) for 30 minutes in hot water. That half hour is plenty of time to finish the remaining prep (chop an onion, some garlic, and rosemary) and to heat up some chicken or vegetable broth. Once the onion,garlic, and rosemary are sauteed, the farro is added, then some white wine, and finally the broth as well as the soaking liquid from the mushrooms. Simmer for a little less than an hour -- plenty of time to get most of the clean-up done and sit down with some cheese, crackers and a glass of wine before dinner.
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This is a David Tanis (City Kitchen) recipe and very much in line with the Tanis preference for simple prep with fresh ingredients. Summer tomatoes at their peak are briefly simmered with chopped garlic and shallots (I used fennel instead because I prefer it to shallots with fish), then spooned into a baking dish (I used individual serving size), topped with raw shrimp, sprinkled with feta, and about 1/4 tsp. dried oregano per serving, then baked for 10-12 minutes in a 400 degree oven. Before serving, top with chopped mint. We really liked the balance of flavors in this dish, especially the hit of oregano.
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Very healthy -- but not very interesting. I have made a much better version of this dish, but can't remember where I found the recipe. It was either in an Italian cooking magazine or it was a Lidia Bastianich recipe. I don't think the types of pasta recommended here work very well (fusilli, bowties, or orecchiette which is what I used). It felt like a very heavy meal.
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One of the NY Times "Recipes for Health".
Another recipe I loved the sound of (what's not to like about caramelized onions, Swiss Chard and ricotta cheese?) -- but the whole is definitely less than the sum of the parts. This pizza needed something to bump up the flavor -- I added the salt and pepper that the recipe neglects to mention, but it was still lacking something. The recipe did call for garlic (2 cloves) but I didn't get much garlic flavor in the finished dish. Just ho-hum ... there are really delicious and healthy recipes out there. This isn't one of them.
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Although this takes closer to 2 hours to cook than the 1 hour indicated by the recipe, you end up with a flavorful and rich meat sauce that has a real Italian feel to it. I added some dried basil and oregano to the mirepoix and wasn't sorry to have done so. I also chopped some parsley and let my guests decide if they wanted it or not. I did, and was glad I did. Adds flavor but also some color to a bland looking dish.
This is an easy to do-ahead sauce for winter entertaining. Because the sauce is so rich, a salad with some citrus is a nice contrast. Also, because the sauce has so much flavor, an Italian red rather than one of the "big" California reds is a good choice.
The recipe calls for ground beef and sweet Italian sausage and that's what I used. Hot could be used instead, or you could do a mix if you like more heat.
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This salad didn't work all that well for me -- although it was pretty. Several strong flavors that didn't come together in my opinion. This is a Melissa Clark recipe and I usually love what she comes up with.
The bitterness of the watercress was not balanced with any sweetness -- the dressing (sherry vinegar and EVOO) was tart, the cheese is pretty assertive, and the toasted walnuts didn't really add anything.
I made this with a friend and we both agreed that the sweeter Honey Vinaigrette (from Ad Hoc at Home) -- which we tried on a small portion of the salad after not caring for the sherry vinaigrette -- improved the balance of the salad a lot. And maybe candied pecans would have been better than the toasted walnuts.
Even so, I am not sure I liked this enough to revisit it.
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This was disappointing. Very easy to execute with very clear directions for making the tomato water and searing the fish. But -- at the end of the day -- boring. The tomato flavor I was looking forward was just not there. I used ripe plum tomatoes and I suspect this would have been better with beefsteak or heirloom tomatoes. But I am underwhelmed enough not to have much interest in trying again.
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Two of my favorite ingredients (chickpeas and chard) in one place -- a hearty healthy vegetarian main-dish soup. With every bite, you can feel virtuous because there are so many good-for-you ingredients in every spoonful.
Although the recipe calls for the chard stems to be trimmed and tossed, I (as I usually do) chopped up the stems (and since I was using rainbow chard, the stems were beautiful ... scarlet, orange and bright yellow) and added them to the onions, carrots and celery I was sauteing. The stems added both flavor and visual appeal.
The recipe also called for tomato paste which I used this time, but next time I will replace with a can of diced tomatoes because I found that I missed having tomatoes in my minestrone.
This recipe calls for canned chickpeas and is a very doable weeknight meal.
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