Category

Recipes

  • Berry Blasted Oatmeal

    Berry Blasted Oatmeal

    There are two kinds of childhoods to have in America: the one where you’re allowed to have sugar cereal and the one where you’re not. I’m the product of the former sort of childhood and Craig’s the product of the latter. If scientists were to study us to see how my consumption of Lucky Charms,…

  • Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Tahini Chocolate Chip Cookies

    I know I’m late to the party with this one (the party being the “put tahini into your desserts” party) but I’ve also not been blogging for two years, so cut me some slack! The truth is, during my blogging hiatus, I was much more likely to make recipes that I’d already made before than…

  • A Most Excellent Breakfast Taco

    A Most Excellent Breakfast Taco

    One reoccurring theme you’ll discover on Amateur Gourmet 2.0 is that I watch a lot of PBS cooking shows. I learned how to make a daiquiri watching Simply Ming, and then, watching Rick Bayless’s show, I learned how to make a most excellent breakfast taco. If Ned Flanders became human and grew obsessed with Mexico,…

  • Pappa al Pomodoro (Or: How To Eat Tomato Sauce and Bread For Dinner)

    Pappa al Pomodoro (Or: How To Eat Tomato Sauce and Bread For Dinner)

    I’ve been really into tomatoes this summer. Every Sunday I’ve been going to the Atwater Village Farmer’s Market, buying some juicy heirlooms, and using them in sandwiches, salads, tomato baths, you get the idea. You might think that now that August is over, tomato season is on the way out… but you’d be wrong! Most…

  • Spaghetti with Crispy Chickpeas and Preserved Lemon

    Spaghetti with Crispy Chickpeas and Preserved Lemon

    Tom Colicchio’s always like “you didn’t develop any flavor” on Top Chef and most people are probably like “what’s he talking about?” My quick answer is: “He’s talking about making things brown.” Generally speaking, when you’re cooking something, you want it to turn brown (or, to use a prettier word, you want it to “caramelize.”)…

  • Raspberry Ricotta Cake

    Raspberry Ricotta Cake

    You’ve heard of one-pot meals, but have you heard of one-cake desserts? That’s not a thing, but it should be. Here’s the idea: instead of an elaborate cake that you have to frost or decorate or slice in half, a one-cake dessert is one where a batter goes into a cake pan, the pan goes…

  • Wham-Bam Cauliflower Gratin

    Wham-Bam Cauliflower Gratin

    Nothing sets me off like sanctimoniousness; that holier-than-thou, self-righteous, sermon-on-the-mount style of food writing. Often the sentiments are well-intentioned but everything is done so humorlessly, it’s hard for the average person to connect. And so it goes with vegetables. The general take, these days, seems to be that we should eat less dead bodies and…

  • Chicken Under A Brick (Or A Cast Iron Skillet)

    Chicken Under A Brick (Or A Cast Iron Skillet)

    Scared you, didn’t I? Well I didn’t mean to. It’s funny how many people read my last post and assumed I was ending my blog. That’s not what I said! I just said that my blog was no longer my primary source of income; in many ways, it’s a liberating state of affairs. It means…

  • Kale Pesto Pitza

    Kale Pesto Pitza

    When I went to college at Emory 3,000 years ago, there used to be a spot in Emory Village called Cedar Tree that sold “pitzas.” It was basically a piece of toasted pita bread topped with pizza-like toppings and the surprising thing was that it was really, really good. A dinner at Cedar Tree was…

  • Chickened Vegetable Soup

    Chickened Vegetable Soup

    Let us all acknowledge the truth about roast chicken: it’s not about the chicken, it’s about the vegetables. That truth dawned on me long ago when I used to line a roasting pan with red potatoes sliced in half, all surrounding a well-seasoned chicken; the rendered chicken fat would coat the potatoes, they’d get all…