Category

Recipes

  • That Time I Made Savory Oatmeal and It Was Kind of Weird But I Ate It Anyway

    That Time I Made Savory Oatmeal and It Was Kind of Weird But I Ate It Anyway

    When I first heard about savory oatmeal, I felt confused. Onions in oatmeal? Is that even possible? What planet are we on? I grew up eating oatmeal out of little packets, the kind you tear open, pour some water on and stick in the microwave. My preferred flavor was maple brown sugar, but occasionally I’d…

  • Salad niçoise

    Salad niçoise

    I almost titled this post Salad Not-çoise because my starting point, with the recipe, was David Lebovitz’s blog post where he beautifully describes a salad–an authentic Niçoise–that is nothing like the one I ended up making. In fact, David might be horrified by the one I made, especially since he quotes Jacques Médecin, the authority…

  • Easy Weeknight String Beans

    Easy Weeknight String Beans

    The name of the game on a weeknight, as far as I’m concerned, is “big results, minimum effort.” Recipes that meet that criteria are few and far between, but when you hit on one (like the roasted broccoli, for example) you’ll never forget it. Meet your new string bean side. You won’t need your old…

  • Curried Lentil Soup

    Curried Lentil Soup

    I’m not a religious person except when it comes to the healing power of chicken soup. At the first sniffle of a new cold, I’m usually plopping a raw chicken into a pot with root vegetables and parsley and dill; or, more recently, doctoring homemade chicken broth with ginger, soy sauce, and chile paste. Last…

  • Breakfast Risotto

    Breakfast Risotto

    Is there any dish with more rules attached to it than risotto? Watch any episode of Top Chef where someone tries to make it, and you’re bound to see someone packing their knives and going home. There are rules about the kind of rice you use (Arborio vs. Carnaroli), what kind of stock you use…

  • Rib-Eye Steak with Sauce Béarnaise

    Rib-Eye Steak with Sauce Béarnaise

    A few months ago, when I first conceived of Sauce Week, I set out to make a dinner for myself that promised to be so outrageously decadent, I’d have to close my blinds before eating the first forkful. The premise was pretty basic–steak and potatoes–with one key difference. I was going to drench the whole…

  • Lemony Greens on Garlicky Beans

    Lemony Greens on Garlicky Beans

    Trader Joe’s has always been a mystery to me. People love the place, they start to cheer when one opens up in their neighborhood, but I’ve always been stumped by what to buy there. I’ve done well with trail mix (because it tastes more like candy), and it’s nice to get a decent bottle of…

  • Cold-Killing Chicken Soup with Ginger, Chili Paste and Soy Sauce

    Cold-Killing Chicken Soup with Ginger, Chili Paste and Soy Sauce

    The first time that I made a really good chicken soup (documented here), it felt like I’d translated an ancient Jewish text–the Dead Soup Scrolls–and that the resulting soup was irrefutable, everlasting, not-to-be-tampered with. Then, over time, I began to realize that the recipe, which is really just a formula for a very concentrated chicken…

  • Scrambled Eggs with Lamb, Onions, and Feta

    Scrambled Eggs with Lamb, Onions, and Feta

    Sorry for the slow posting this week, folks; we had to take a California Driver’s Test yesterday and, based on everything we’d heard, we had to really study for it (a very smart friend, who shall remain nameless, failed the first time he took it). As we went into the written exam, Craig said: “Whoever…

  • Lamb Burgers and Greek Salad

    Lamb Burgers and Greek Salad

    My cooking life has been a weird one. Most people start out making things like burgers and mac and cheese; me, I started with braises and roasts and only now (almost ten years later) have I started getting comfortable making the stuff that most people make at the beginning of their cooking careers. Burgers are…