| This versatile recipe calls for peas, gives brief technical advice (a bit of butter or EVOO), and a menu of fragrant additions from which you can select. I chose orange zest, and then spotted my bottle of dried shallots, so gave it a dash of that, as well. When it first started cooking, I was afraid it was a bad combination, but in the end it was pretty good.
I imagine that this recipe could be better - by using different additions, or paying better attention to cooking time (my woops). I highly recommend this as a simple way to cook peas, and a method that offers great flexibility. |
| Great balance of flavors - sweet strawberries, bitter greens, and sour vinegar. I have been shy about using arugula. Its assertive flavor, though, was perfect in this combination.
Note we also made the variation, with goat cheese. Beautiful visually (with or without goat cheese) and this is something I could eat regularly. |
| This recipe includes coconut - and that banana coconut combination is a winner. However, it was difficult to get this cooked all the way through, and the instructions (to allow some crumb on the toothpick) was too vague.
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| More of a set of guidelines, this "recipe" considers several approaches to cooking whole beets. In the typical Bittman style, the pros and cons of the different approaches were given. Because I was roasting beets so I could marinade them for a salad (reviewed here, instead of wrapping with foil, I roasted them together in a pyrex pan.
The time range for my different beet sizes was very close, and by baking them together, I could easily test and remove individuals as they became soft to a knife. |
| Surprisingly good flavor for a relatively quick dish!
A sauce prepared from a can of diced tomatoes and a couple onions (well chopped in the food processor) is spiced with Garam Marsala, salt and pepper. Tofu and peas are added, then coconut milk.
We served this over brown rice. The peas gave a bright sweet note in a nice slightly spicy tomato sauce.
Took me about 40 minutes - not too bad for a week night. |
| Concentrated tomato flavor - and really easy!
The end result of this recipe is very similar to the roasted cherry tomatoes I reviewed last week. However, it is much quicker. These took about 8 minutes, in contrast to the 2 hours last week. Spread over fresh bread - its amazing. They should also be great frozen, to bring a bit of summer when we are waist deep in snow.
Note also that this recipe offers many variations, including using different herbs, larger tomatoes (which are slice), and a version with Parmesan cheese. |
| A simple, rustic, dish that made a light and satisfying meal. This dish takes relatively little hand-on time, and it had a nice flavor, especially with extra black pepper. |
| I had fine bulgur on hand, and this was one of the only recipes (other than kibbeh) that calls for fine. Its interesting in that you add vermicelli to the mix. The flavor is largely governed by the flavor of your onions and your broth. Mine was OK, but I thought it needed additional seasoning.
The real plus, though, is that this dish is almost entirely hands off. After sauteing the onion, you let it simmer (bulgur vermicelli and broth added), and then let it sit. That gives the cook time to attend to the other parts of the meal that require last-minute attention. |
| Simple, sweet, dark, and delicious!
This is the recipe that taught me how to make perfect, deep dark and sweet caramelized onions.
The key here is to be patient (it takes an hour), and to start off with just onion, and let the heat drive much of the water off of them. Only later do you add olive oil and salt.
Caramelized onions are great on so many dishes - sandwiches, burgers, but in my family, we love these on pizza, paired with goat cheese.
Don't hesitate to follow thie recipe - I don't see how it could possibly be improved. |
| This was a nice change of pace, but it didn't do anything to enhance our perfectly ripe tomatoes. In the notes above the recipe, Mark Bittman says this is a good way to prepare winter grape tomatoes. I recommend saving this recipe for those (relatively tasteless morsels) and save your seasonal peak tomatoes for something better. |
| Cinnamon rolls were requested for Christmas by 13 daughter. Because we had a party the night before, we didn't get started until morning. Nevertheless, 3 1/2 hours later, we were chowing down on some delicious, light flaky buns with rich cinnamon flavor.
This recipe is a variation that uses Bittman's Rich Golden Bread. The bread is rich, with butter, eggs, and whole milk. It came together easily in the food processor. The dough is rolled into a rectangle, a sugar-cinnamon mixture is sprinkled on top, and moistened with water. I think other versions I've made used a layer of butter on the dough, but this worked just fine.
Waiting for the cut rolls to rise was close to torture, but the wait was well rewarded. DH and I found the unfrosted rolls to be perfect, but a bit of white frosting elevated this for the kids. I would not hesitate to make this recipe again. |
| I love custardy comfort food, and instant tapioca (recipe on the box) is one of my standbys. This recipe also uses instant tapioca, but oh - it is so much more! A good dose of lemon zest, an additional egg, and the extra step of beating the whites elevates this to the stratosphere.
The recipe calls for a mixture of lemon, orange, and lime zest - and I'm sure that would make it even better. But with just the humble lemon zest is still awesome.
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| Excellent coconut flavor.
This recipe is a variation on the Olive Oil Cake (p. 852). The cook is instructed to replace the olive oil with coconut oil, and to replace the orange juice with a coconut milk + coconut mixture. Otherwise, proceed as written.
This leads to a problem, because the coconut oil is a solid at room temperature (in contrast to the liquid olive oil), and the coconut milk is also more viscous than orange juice. You are instructed make a batter with the oil, coconut milk, egg yolks, sugar, flour, baking powder, and fold in beaten egg whites. However, as written, the batter turns out to be the consistency of very thick library paste --- way too thick to fold in the egg whites.
I added about another 1/2 C of coconut milk. It was still very thick, but I did manage to fold in the whites (not without difficulty).
Nevertheless, the cake turned out well! Surprisingly light and moist. Watch the time carefully, for us, it was done before the top was browned.
This cake is sweet enough to not need a frosting, but I am going to keep my eyes out for a coconut milk-based glaze. |
| English cucumbers, peeled, sliced, and seeded, enrobed in a sour cream-lemon juice-paprika sauce. These tasted fine, but they were really ugly - imagine a red-pink sour cream sauce - over cuke chunks. Yes, chunks. Not pretty. It did have a nice flavor and crunch, through.
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| This produced a fairly light gnocchi, and very bland. I couldn't really taste the eggplant, which seemed a shame. Most were boiled, but we also oven roasted some. The roasted ones had better flavor, but of course also extra fat calories.
Probably not worth making a second time. |
| A decent waffle recipe, accompanied by many variations.
We used yogurt thinned with milk in place of the buttermilk (suggested by Bittman), and we were out of all purpose flour, so I substituted whole wheat pastry flour.
These were OK, the flour choice made them heavier than we prefer. |
| A very decent pancake. Like many recipes in this cookbook, it is accompanied by a large number of possible variations. We varied the recipe slightly by substituting yogurt for some of the milk. They were light (without separating eggs), and cooked very nicely. |
| I can never remember the right egg/milk ratio for french toast. This recipe uses 2 eggs and 1 C milk. I prepared it with the addition of vanilla (but not cinnamon or sugar)) and used older peasant-style bread. It turned out perfect, crispy outside, etc.
What I especially like about this recipe (and most recipes in this cookbook) is that several interesting variations are suggested at the end. I just made the standard recipe, but am intrigued by the offered variations. |
| A perfect hard-cooked egg peels easily and has a perfect yellow yolk. Unfortunately, this recipe only scored on one of these - the yolk looked fine but the shell takes huge chunks of egg white with it.
This recipe has you put eggs into cool water, bring them to a boil, turn off the heat, cover the pan, and time (9 minutes). We then followed Bittman's advice, and plunged the eggs into an ice water bath.
Why did this fail us? For one thing, its not that clear cut when to turn the water off - when it starts boiling, or when it comes to a roiling boil? Alternatively, its failure could be related to our altitude. We live at close to 6000 ft, and boiling water is 6˚C lower than at sea level.
Next easter, I'll try an alternative method. |
| This recipe involves beating egg whites separately, and then folding them into the yolk-flour-etc batter. The recipe states that the product is a cross between a pancake and a soufflé, and Mark Bittman was right. We learned that we didn't really care for a soufflé-like pancake. The instructions specify incomplete mixing in of the egg whites. Our first couple pans full had big streaks of egg whites, and this was not popular. We did a better job of folding them in for the rest of the batch. These were not so fluffy, and were considered either on par with, or only slightly better, than our usual Krusteaz Buttermilk Pancake Mix. |
| Like most Bittman recipes, this mashed potato recipe includes the basic technique, advise about potato varieties, mashing or ricing, and then it offers a range of variations. I thawed a bag of last summer's pesto, used red-skinned new potatoes (unpeeled), nonfat milk, and a lot of pesto. This resulted in a wonderfully flavored slightly green (with bits of red skin) potato. |
| I prepared this recipe, using the suggestion of adding blueberries and corn meal. It was amazing. The cornmeal gave an indescribable crunchy counterpoint to the sweet juiciness of the blueberry.
The other good thing is that the recipe is fairly low fat, and its quick baking. Try it! |
| Celery very simply prepared - started on the stove top and then moved to the oven with some liquid. Bittman suggests making sure the celery is very tender - and the very tenderest of the pieces I tasted had a distinct sweet flavor. Be generous with the pepper!
I only gave this a 3 because, well, its celery. Nothing awe-inspiring, but it is a very decent cooked vegetable, and one I will certainly make again. |
| Crunchy breadsticks with a good Parmesan flavor.
As a bonus, these were also easy to make. Early in the morning the dough came together in the food processor just as described. A quick 1 hour rise, and then the dough went into the refrigerator for the work day. Ten hours later, I let it warm up for about an hour, rolled it out, and baked it. A few tips - its easy to slice into thin breadsticks with a pizza cutter, and easier to brush with olive oil and sprinkle salt before slicing.
If you are looking for thick bready bread sticks, this is not your recipe. But if you want a good crunch, these are delectable. 13 daughter says "these are really satisfying - with a good bread, cheese, and salt flavor." They are addictive - the pile of 70 breadsticks were reduced to almost nothing.
In standard Bittman style, there are many variations -- one to suit about any taste.
I prepared these to go with a blended squash soup. |
| This is a very nice reminder of how to saute bok choy. What I liked was Bittman's advice to cook the stem segments long enough to allow them to soften. Too often I find myself doing such a quick sauté that the vegetables are way under-cooked.
This basic recipe is followed by some variation that look delicious, and it is amenable to endless variation. |
| Beautiful crunchy salad - and it tasted great.
Lovely small beets from my CSA, cabbage from the CSA, and shallots from my garden!
This salad has you shred your beets and shallots in the food processor, mix in a mustard-vinegar-olive oil dressing, and to that, finely chopped cabbage and orange is added.
The beets really carry the day here, they are the predominant color and flavor. But I liked the small bits of sweetness from the orange. |
| Not sure how to rate this, as the beets from my garden tasted more like radishes (too much summer heat?), and I disliked the resulting sharp flavor.
I think the concept - beets plus carrots and ginger - is a good one. Next fresh sweet beets I get, I'm giving this recipe another go. |
| This was a good enough mid-week dinner. Both kids and SO liked it. It had pretty good flavor, and was filling and felt healthy.
I prepared this as directed, except I added a step of slightly burning the sauted onions. In this recipe, you saute vegetables, add a liquid, uncooked rice, and cooked chickpeas. I didn't think that there was sufficient liquid for the rice, and I almost added more. I'm glad I didn't, though, because it came out perfect. Start to finish I probably spent 45 minutes.
I will make this again, but probably following one of the several variations. |
| Wonderfully roasted Brussels sprouts! This recipe is a bit fussy - you first have to brown the halved Brussels Sprouts in a frying pan - then transfer to the oven to finish roasting. This extra effort, though, yields very nicely colored vegetables that are really cooked through. A delightful finishing touch is a bit of balsamic vinegar. The balsamic is not shown in my photograph, but it really added something. I'll definitely be making this again. |
| This is a pretty good roasted cauliflower recipe. My kids don't like raisins, though. Therefore, the family prefers roasted cauliflower with just oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. However, I like this recipe very much.
But the most important thing - roasted cauliflower is out of this world. It is nothing like steamed cauliflower (which I also love). Roasting firms up the cauliflower texture. I cannot make enough roasted cauliflower - each time I make it, it ALL gets eaten. |
| Exotic! This is another variation on Mark Bittman's tapioca pudding recipe - with rose water instead of lemon zest. I was a bit skeptical, and almost returned to my beloved Citrus Tapioca on the same page. This was interesting, delicious, and an unusual taste.
I wouldn't go out and buy rosewater just for this recipe. But if you, like me, have a bottle languishing in the back of your cupboard, then this is a good reason to dust it off and use a bit. |
| This recipe is very easy to prepare, and so is a great recipe for kids. We are also blessed with a healthy amount of saffron, so using this expensive ingredient is not a detraction. We've made these cookies many times. They produce a warm pink-orange colored cookie that smells wonderful, but looks only so-so. Their flavor is good, but their texture is nothing to write home about. Nevertheless, when we make these, they disappear very quickly.
One way I think this recipe could be improved is to do less beating of the saffron. You are instructed to beat them first with the oil, and again after you add eggs. For me, this results in the threads being broken apart. An improvement is to use only a small amount of saffron in the beginning, and add more at the end. If you do this, you can occasionally see the dark red threads, which turns a dull-appearing cookie into something with a more interesting or mysterious look. |
| So very easy - sautéed onions and peppers, add cooked rice (cook to brown), then soy sauce and sesame oil. Yes, it is really that simple.
Kids LOVED it. I wish I'd thought to add fresh ginger.
Of course this recipe is followed by more complicated and more more interesting sounding recipes. |
| This recipe involves crumbling feta into sherry vinegar or lemon juice, mixing in spices and olive oil. This breaks the feta into small pieces, and as Mark Bittman points out, it allows it to coat the spinach leaves very well.
We didn't have any sherry vinegar, so used the recommended alternative - lemon juice. Unfortunately, the salad was so sour, 3/4 of us could not eat it.
I like the conceptual approach, but this recipe requires some serious tweaking. |
| Great concept, but a flawed recipe.
The tomatoes were still crunchy at the end, and the cake's top was over-done while the middle not cooked through.
The first problem (crunchy fruit) could easily be corrected by cooking the tomatoes in the butter and brown sugar for 10 or 15 minutes before adding the cake batter. And I think if there was less batter, it might cook more evenly.
This recipe was one of several upside-down cake variations - and these others might work out better than this tomato variation. |
| This recipe is produced beautiful orange-flecked biscuits. They didn't have much sweet potato flavor, but they were very tender. In general, though, they were less flaky than the standard biscuits. They were good, but not outstanding. |
| A good dish to take to a pot luck! We prepared this for a Hanukkah party. I cooked brown short-grain rice in my pressure cooker, and then followed the basic instructions - I used extra red bell pepper, added an English cucumber, but skipped the fresh parsley (didn't have any). I prepared a vinaigrette with shallots and sherry vinegar, which worked well.
In the standard Bittman style, there are not only 2 additional recipe variations described right after this recipe, but also a two page table with 12 more variations on the next two pages. I love rice salads, and I bet all the recipes are great. |
| Tomato flavor, cornmeal-containing cobbler topping, and melted sharp cheddar on top. So flavorful!
This might be the best of the variations we've tried. Look at the links tab to see the reviews of some of the other versions.
The joy of this recipe is that preparation is easy, and the flavor just knocks my socks off. |
| Amazing flavor - the taste of summer on your fork - and better than any sweet cobbler I've ever tasted. And it turns out to be one of Mark Bittman's favorite recipes, too.
It didn't hurt that we have a great tomato crop, and could use peak ripeness tomatoes (mostly romas, some other heirloom varieties thrown in for fun). The tomatoes are quartered, and tossed with some corn starch, salt, and pepper. Larger tomatoes were cut into smaller pieces. I used a healthy dose of pepper, and am glad. I also was worried that it might be bland, and so added about 1/4 C fresh basil. It probably would have been just as good without.
The topping was easily prepared in a food processor. Flour, corn meal, butter, baking powder, b. soda, salt, an egg, and buttermilk. The instructions say it should come together as a ball, and if it doesn't, to add more flour. Ours didn't, we added another 1T flour, and it was still in a wet mess on the bottom of the food processor. We just went ahead, and it turned out great.
Like most recipes in this cookbook, there are many variations. Because we had fresh sweetcorn, I made the variation where you mix fresh corn with the cornmeal. It amped up the corn is a very good way.
I would gladly eat this most every day of tomato season. |
| Great tomato flavor, and a decent topping.
This is a variation on a recipe I previously reviewed and loved. This one was almost as good. We added about 1/2 C fresh basil to the cobbler topping. We didn't like it quite as well as the version with corn, and the version with cheese.
A great thing about these recipes - no need to peel the tomatoes, and I didn't even seed them. Such excellent tomato flavor. |
| This recipe is very tasty. I loved this recipe. I only got to taste it once before I added it to a sandwich. it was tremendously good. It was easy and I think that I will be making this again every time that I want mayonnaise. I never liked mayo before I tried this but this recipe called for mayo so I made this. |
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