Recipes and food adventures with Adam Roberts

  • Bucatini with Swiss Chard, Raisins, and Parmesan

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    Bucatini with Swiss Chard, Raisins, and Parmesan

    Sometimes sharing a recipe is like playing a game of telephone. Take, for example, this recipe for Bucatini with Swiss Chard, Raisins, and Parmesan. It’s based on a recipe that I saw on Nigella Lawson’s website; but it turns out that she got the recipe from Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons. I’m sure Nigella changed the…

  • Sweet and Sour Tofu with Corn and Tomatoes

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    Sweet and Sour Tofu with Corn and Tomatoes

    I’m old enough to remember when “tofu” used to be a dirty word; like in an eighties movie where the bad guy in a bandana says about the hero, “He probably eats tofu.”

  • Smoky Eggplant Dip

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    Smoky Eggplant Dip

    The best recipes are both simple and effective. The least amount of steps for the most amount of impact? That’s my idea of a good recipe.This recipe is inspired by a recipe from Paul Kahan’s cookbook, Cooking for Good Times. Paul Kahan is the chef at The Publican in Chicago and I know his name…

  • Stone Fruit Party Pie

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    Stone Fruit Party Pie

    September is the perfect month to learn how to bake a pie. If you’ve never made one before, you’re still straddling two seasons: summer fruit tastes best in September and then, as the weather cools, you’ll transition into making apple pies, pumpkin pies, pecan pies, etc. So if your first few crusts are disasters, you’ll…

  • Roasted Halibut with Burst Cherry Tomatoes and Salsa Verde

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    Roasted Halibut with Burst Cherry Tomatoes and Salsa Verde

    When I’m cooking for a group, fish is probably the last thing I’ll usually make. Unlike chili or a stew or a sheet pan pizza, fish is fussy: overcook it, and you’ve ruined it. Plus fish is expensive: if you’re cooking for six people and you buy six salmon filets, you’re out at least fifty…

  • Gina DePalma’s Obsessive Ricotta Cheesecake

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    Gina DePalma’s Obsessive Ricotta Cheesecake

    Can you channel a spirit with a recipe? That’s how it feels every time I open Gina DePalma’s Dolce Italiano, the authoritative Italian dessert cookbook that my friend Gina wrote before she died of ovarian cancer in 2016. For a dinner party this weekend, I made her Obsessive Ricotta Cheesecake. It’s funny because I convinced…

  • Mixed Berry Pie

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    Mixed Berry Pie

    Generally I try to avoid neighborhood message boards / Facebook Groups because half the time people post things like “there’s a man with a machete standing outside the bodega” or “packs of wild dogs are roaming the streets.” Occasionally, though, someone will post something that’s not terrifying. Such was the case the other day when…

  • Sugar Snap Peas and Asparagus with Hand-Pounded Pesto

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    Sugar Snap Peas and Asparagus with Hand-Pounded Pesto

    When you spend twelve years in L.A., it’s easy to forget what real spring feels like. I say “real spring” because the spring that you get in L.A. is ersatz spring… nothing really died in the winter, so nothing really comes back. It never got that cold, it never snowed, you never stepped into an…

  • Roasted Fennel with Sardines and Toasted Garlic Breadcrumbs

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    Roasted Fennel with Sardines and Toasted Garlic Breadcrumbs

    Moses saw a burning bush and I saw a roasted fennel. Yes, a vision came to me last night when I came home from Union Market with the ingredients to make Spaghetti con Le Sarde, a Southern Italian pasta dish with sardines, fennel, fennel seeds, raisins soaked in wine, and toasted breadcrumbs. Only: when I…

  • Blueberry Streusel Sour Cream Coffee Cake

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    Blueberry Streusel Sour Cream Coffee Cake

    We hosted a brunch here last weekend. The original plan was just to offer bagels and cream cheese (four different kinds!) and smoked salmon with red onions and sliced tomatoes and capers and coffee made to order. That seemed like enough but then I asked myself,”What else would you want there if this were at…