Adventures in Eclectic Home Cooking
Posted in Recipes on Dec 8th, 2011
**So it’s not a pie in the usual sense, but baklava is pastry stuffed with nuts, sweet syrup, and butter. The pie spirit is there. And really, who would complain about getting baklava?** Growing up I never knew that there was more than one kind of baklava. The sticky, crispy, little diamonds with pistachio and [...]
Posted in Recipes on Nov 25th, 2011
Pumpkin pie is a classic Thanksgiving pie, but there’s no reason you can’t have it all year round. During the fall, I usually get tasty pumpkins and squashes on sale, and then I bake and puree the flesh so that I can freeze it and use it all year long. Canned pumpkin is also generally [...]
Posted in Recipes on Nov 23rd, 2011
The first pie in the parade is pecan. This pie screams Thanksgiving to me, even more than pumpkin pie. Growing up, I remember there always being a pecan pie on the Thanksgiving dessert table. It was probably especially popular in kosher households because it’s an easy pie to make pareve, or non-dairy, so you can [...]
My thoughts have been drifting over to Paris quite a bit lately. I think it’s the travel bug that’s been itching in me all winter. This year also marks five years since I studied there. I spent a good part of this afternoon following Google street view around my old Paris haunts, amazed at how [...]
Posted in Food Features on Mar 12th, 2011
I’m sure you’ll think I’m crazy, but I just couldn’t resist. After seeing Deb from Smitten Kitchen’s Whole Wheat Goldfish crackers I couldn’t not try them. I also happened to have everything I needed on hand, including a block of ultra orange cheddar that had exactly 6 oz left. I had never made crackers before [...]
Posted in Food Features, Recipes, Technique on Feb 21st, 2010
What do you do when you become to busy to cook consistently? Hopefully, you have the foresight to stock your freezer with reheatable home cooked items. Happily I did manage to have a sense that things were going to get hectic around here and I was able to pack the freezer with these tasty little [...]
Posted in Food Features, Recipes, Technique on Jan 4th, 2010
Half sour pickles, sometimes called “new pickles”, weren’t my favorite growing up. They were overlooked in the quest for the most lip-puckering sour garlic pickles. As my taste buds matured, however, I came to appreciate the more delicate saltiness of a good half sour pickle. From what I’ve noticed, half sours are made from very [...]
Posted in Food Features, Pondering on Dec 16th, 2009
About six weeks ago, we were gifted a so-called “Amish Cinnamon Bread” yeast starter in a zip-top bag that came along with a somewhat cryptic-sounding recipe. Due to my affinity for baking, I decided to take charge of the project. After waiting ten days and “mushing” the bag everyday, it eventually yielded what it promised [...]
Posted in Guilty Pleasures, Recipes on Dec 11th, 2009
I had a terrible craving for eggs this week. Not just any eggs though. I wanted deviled eggs… and a lot of them. A normal person would take that as a sign and just make them – I mean, why mess with a perfect thing, right? Not me. I’m far too lazy for that. To [...]
Posted in Food Features, Recipes, Technique on Dec 5th, 2009
Of the three kinds of cucumber pickles I experimented with since the summer, the most successful were the “bread and butter” pickles. Because of their sweetness, these usually aren’t on my crave list. When I think of bread and butter pickles, I think of almost-neon manufactured, sickly sweet, acidic spears that seem to last indefinitely [...]
