Category

Appetizers

  • Easy Homemade Potato Chips

    Easy Homemade Potato Chips

    I’m so mad at myself. I figured out how to make homemade potato chips in such an easy, head-smackingly simple way, I’m going to make them all the time and gain a million pounds. It all started when I thought about the shallow-frying technique I used to make pita chips and tortilla chips; why wouldn’t…

  • Perfect Deviled Eggs

    Perfect Deviled Eggs

    Any time I’ve ever made deviled eggs, I’ve basically spooned a gloppy mayo-yolk mixture into floppy egg whites and masked the ugliness with either smoked paprika (see here) or weird garnishes (see my Deviled Eggs Three Ways). The problem was always that filling: never stiff enough to pipe, always wet enough to spoon. This time…

  • Heavenly Hummus with Homemade Pita Chips

    Heavenly Hummus with Homemade Pita Chips

    One thing that I like about cooking is that even if think you know a recipe, there’s always a better version lurking around the corner. It’s always possible to make something better. So, for example, homemade hummus: I’ve been making it for a while. Generally, I just strain a can of chickpeas (reserving the liquid),…

  • Killer Homemade Nachos

    Killer Homemade Nachos

    On Saturday morning, I woke up with a throbbing headache, totally dehydrated and desperate for coffee. That’s always the sign of a successful Friday night (ours involved seeing “Blue Jasmine” so you know it was wild). A few hours later, feeling better, I was craving some greasy food to accompany my viewing of “It’s Complicated”…

  • Oven-Broiled Eggplant Dip

    Oven-Broiled Eggplant Dip

    Remember that time I made a stovetop-charred eggplant dip (aka baba ganoush)? Really? You don’t remember that? Because that was like a week or two ago. You really ought to have your memory checked. Anyhoo, I realize that many of you may have been intimidated by the idea of stovetop charring. “Put an eggplant on…

  • Stovetop Charred Baba Ganoush

    Stovetop Charred Baba Ganoush

    Sometimes you don’t want to cook, you just want to play with fire. I bet many chefs would admit as much (see: guys and grilling, for example). The other day, still on the hunt for our next apartment (a tedious hunt, by the way) I found myself, in a trance, wandering into my kitchen, turning…

  • Spring Pea Purée with Preserved Lemon

    Spring Pea Purée with Preserved Lemon

    Spring peas require patience. You have to take the time to go to the farmer’s market to find them and then you have to remove them from their pods. If you have a lazy afternoon ahead and you want to sit on your front porch rocking in a chair and chatting with neighbors, by all…

  • Bagna Cauda (The Butter Garlic Anchovy Sauce of Your Dreams)

    Bagna Cauda (The Butter Garlic Anchovy Sauce of Your Dreams)

    When a significant other goes out of town, most people use that opportunity to watch bad movies, to pig out on ice cream, and to spread out gratuitously in bed while sleeping. Me? I make risky foods. No, I don’t mean risky in a danger sense–I’m not eating supermarket ground beef tartar–I mean in a…

  • Chicken Liver Toast & The Secret To A Good Chicken Salad

    Chicken Liver Toast & The Secret To A Good Chicken Salad

    For as long as I’ve been roasting chickens (and I roast chickens all the time) I’ve been throwing away the liver that comes stuffed inside, along with the giblets, because–well–I don’t know: am I supposed to cook and eat that thing? Well, yes. I mean not all the time. But they don’t put it in…

  • Hushpuppies (A Recipe)

    Hushpuppies (A Recipe)

    I have a distinct memory of a spring day in New York, back when I lived in Park Slope, at Brooklyn Fish Camp. Craig and I were sitting outside at a picnic table with benches and under that warm blue sky, the first of its kind after a harsh winter, a waitress presented us with…