Rosemary-lemon chicken, cheese plate with homemade crackers and jams, and tres leches cake
November 29, 2010
beets, brussels sprouts, chicken, condensed milk, crackers, cucumbers, evaporated milk, goat cheese, gorgonzola, lemons, mushrooms, parrano, poppyseeds, potatoes, rosemary, sesame seeds, stilton
[caption id="attachment_946" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Lemon chicken in the top of the oven, and sprouts roasting below. "][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_947" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="From right to left: parrano, stilton with lemon peel, gorgonzola, and a goat cheese with pepper. Accompaniments of homemade crackers, beet jam, and cucumber jelly."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_945" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="I didn't know this is how brussels sprouts grow!"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_948" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The roasted sprouts."][/caption]
I recently had a couple of friends over for a Sunday night dinner.
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Antipasti, pizza and snow pudding
November 28, 2010
anchovies, artichokes, basil, bread, capers, cheese, custard, gelatin, mozzarella, onions, parsley, peppers, pizza, strawberry, tomatoes
[caption id="attachment_921" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Pizza!"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_918" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Anchovies!"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_919" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Quartered artichokes. You can see the purple and fuzzy "choke" part in the picture."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_920" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The antipasti dish. The anchovy mixture is on the right, buried under onions."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_922" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Strawberry pudding and basil custard."][/caption]
I have been wanting to make pizza at home, from scratch, for a very long time. So when I happened to watch the Cooking Channel the other day and catch a pizza being made from scratch in a home oven, I figured this was my opportunity.
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Rabelais' quarter hour
October 26, 2010
rabelais
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="265" caption="François ("Frank") Rabelais."][/caption]
I recently finished reading a wonderful cooking classic, “The Physiology of Taste: Meditations on Transcendental Gastronomy”. It’s by Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, one of the famous historical gastronomes, and the originator of the phrase “you are what you eat” as far as I can tell.
There are many things I like about this book, and here are 2:
One is that it concerns cooking, and has lots of little bits of lore (did you know that the French dinde, “turkey”, comes from coq d’inde, “Indian chicken”?
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Hillbilly Gatorade
October 19, 2010
barbeque, barbeque sauce, beer, miller high life, pickles
[caption id="attachment_927" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Hillbilly Gatorade."][/caption]
Just a quick entry here on a drink I recently enjoyed over at Percy Street Barbeque.
It’s called the Hillbilly Gatorade - Miller High Life, pickle juice, and barbeque sauce. Generally, if I see something on a menu that looks interesting, I have trouble not ordering it. Sometimes this works out, sometimes it doesn’t.
This drink was really, really good. It was kind of like drinking a burger and beer combo, since the pickle juice and barbeque sauce give you the “burger” taste really strongly - picture the flavor sensation, leaving the burger texture aside, naturally.
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Philly farm tour
October 17, 2010
beets, farms, philadelphia
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="218" caption="A typical scene on the tour."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_913" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="A more typical scene on the tour."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_915" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Cows, less than 20 minutes from Center City."][/caption]
In late September, we went on the Philly Urban Farm Tour. This was a 15-mile bike ride to check out former vacant lots, parking lots and Superfund sites.
Which had all been turned into incredible, productive farms. (I’ve included a couple photos from the trip with this entry, and you can check out the full gallery here).
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Apple tarte tatin, lamb stew and stuffed peppers
October 12, 2010
apples, breadcrumbs, corn, ice cream, lamb, leeks, peppers, potatoes, stew
[caption id="attachment_892" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Lamb stew with some leeks, potatoes and Trader Joe's jalapeno bread. Not at all seasonal!"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_893" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="This pepper is stuffed with cheese, corn, scallions and tomatoes."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_894" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Tarte tatin with some homemade vanilla ice cream."][/caption]
This entry is about a meal that I made in September, but didn’t get around to writing about, until now. Basically I wanted to take another shot at a tarte tatin, and I thought it might be interesting to try a lamb stew as well.
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Understanding flour
September 26, 2010
amylopectin, amylose, flour, gluten
[caption id="attachment_901" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Will Ferrell trying to woo a baker. From the movie "Stranger than Fiction"."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_902" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Totally radical starch molecules. (See Wikipedia articles for image source)."][/caption]
A few years ago, I heard Alton Brown make a comment that has stuck in my head ever since. “A starch high in amylopectin,” he said, “will not create a gel that is quite as thick as amylose, but it will tolerate temperatures well below freezing.
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Dinner for seven
September 18, 2010
beets, carrots, celery, corn, ginger, onions, risotto, scallions, short ribs, tomatoes, vegetable stock
[caption id="attachment_899" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Roasted tomatoes stuffed with scallions and corn."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_898" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Risotto on the simmer."][/caption]
In late August I had the wonderful opportunity to make dinner for seven! I invited several of my classmates over so we could all get to know each other and finish up a class project.
I made things I’ve made before: carrot soup, stuffed tomatoes, braised celery, braised short ribs and beet risotto.
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Radish risotto, chicken paillard, cardamom carrots
September 12, 2010
avocadoes, cardamom, carrots, chicken, corn, paillard, radishes, rice, risotto
[caption id="attachment_896" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The dish. You can see the radish risotto (the julienned radishes are just visible) in the back. For some reason, I put the chicken beneath the avocado slices, so you can't see it as well. Next time, I will serve about half as much avocado, or maybe turn it into some kind of salsa."][/caption]
For a single-course dinner a couple weeks ago, I made the following: chicken paillards, carrots roasted with cardamom, and radish risotto.
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Borscht, scallops and succotash, and gingerbread trifle
September 6, 2010
beets, blackberries, borscht, corn, cucumber, dill, gingerbread, lemon curd, lemons, lima beans, scallops, sour cream, tomatoes, whipped cream, zucchini
[caption id="attachment_868" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Building the trifle. I have put down the first layer of gingerbread cubes in the bowl on the right, which will be covered with the lemon curd mixture and blackberry sauce on the left, then more gingerbread..."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_869" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="The mostly complete trifle."][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_870" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Borscht. Check out that color!"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_871" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Succotash and scallops."][/caption]
Very soon after having moved to Philadelphia, I made the following meal: borscht, scallops with succotash, and gingerbread trifle.
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