Posted in Main dish, tagged food, kabobs, quick meals, recipes, Tuna steak on September 25, 2012| 5 Comments »
Juicy, tasty, healthy, and – best of all – quick, tuna steak kabobs don’t require an outdoor grill. Just stir together some olive oil, lime juice, and Dijon mustard for a tangy-spicy marinade and load up some kabob skewers for just a few minutes under the broiler.
Tuna steak kabobs, or use your favorite fish, is a fast go-to dinner for a busy weekday night.
Posted in Main dish, tagged Italian food, lasagna, pasta, recipes on September 18, 2012| 2 Comments »
My friend Jeremy had posted this recipe on my Recipe List page and I finally had a chance to make it when a few friends got together recently for a baby shower.
Lasagna is a perfect potluck item to bring, and although I love this Butternut Squash and Hazelnut Lasagna, I thought our get together would be a good opportunity to try out Jeremy’s recipe. (more…)
Posted in Beverage, Cookbook reviews, tagged agua fresca, beverages, cookbook review, recipe on September 10, 2012| 4 Comments »
Forget about buying the same old boring bottles of soda from the supermarket. There is a much better and creative way – with a little bit of effort – to bring a bit of sparkle to your next party. The Artisan Soda Workshop by Andrea Lynn (Ulysses Press, 2012, 127 pp.) has more than 70 recipes that will help you to make your own sodas at home using fresh fruit and the real flavors of spices and herbs.
With sections ranging from “Homemade Soda Copycats” (Natural Golden Cola Syrup, Root Beer Syrup), to “Soda Adventures with Herbs and Spices” (Sea Salt-Lime Syrup, Mango-Chile Syrup), to “Seasonal Suds” and “Agua Frescas and Shrubs” there’s a lot here to explore and enjoy.
“Soda didn’t start out as a mass-produced uniform product,” Lynn writes in the introduction to “The Artisan Soda Workshop.” “A hundred years ago, soda could be enjoyed at local shops that offered it in a wide variety of house-made options. Now, more people are looking back to the history of soda and recognizing all the possibilities; they’re applying modern ideas about food to make new and exciting soda recipes.”
While homemade sodas may seem like a chore, when one could simply twist off the cap of a mass-produced drink, there are some added benefits. Homemade sodas are made with real fruit, not artificial flavoring, and you can control the sugar levels to your preference. The syrups just need to be stirred into seltzer water, and Lynn says purchasing your own seltzermaker is worth it. (She likes www.sodastream.com.) There are also plenty of other uses for your fruit syrup, such as drizzling it over pancakes or atop big bowl of ice cream.
We had a Cowboy Chili Cookoff at work this week, and instead of trying to compete among all the other chuck-and-beans creations I decided to go another route and bring homemade soda punch. It was a good decision I think – there were 19 crockpots of chili but only two homemade sodas: Prickly Pear Agua Fresca and Sparkling Watermelon-Jalapeño Agua Fresca.
Posted in Beverage, tagged Arnold Palmer, beverage, food, iced tea, lemonade, recipe on September 7, 2012| 2 Comments »
“I’ll have an Arnold Palmer.” Do you know what I mean? Lemonade and ice tea, and somehow my current favorite beverage. Named for the legendary golfer Arnold Palmer, the drink is said to have been born in the 1960s, according to Parade magazine, when Mr. Palmer asked a waitress at a course in Palm Springs to mix lemonade into his iced tea. Another customer overheard his request, and “a Palmer” was born. It’s refreshing powers are said to be the perfect drink to revive onself after 18 holes under the sun.
“You can now find it everywhere!” said Palmer, who turns 83 on Sept. 10.
Today, the Arizona Beverage Company has a corner on the market of the half-iced-tea, half-lemonade refreshment coming in bottles of all sizes, including a 20-ounce version bearing not only the image of Arnold Palmer, but a golf ball-shaped neck. Palmer, who stormed on the golfing scene to battle Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player just as TVs became a fixture in every American living room, is said to have been a master of sports marketing.
But really, how hard is it to make your own Arnold Palmer at home? Not hard at all! You can either mix up store-bought lemonade and iced tea, or you can make it from scratch.
Here are some recipes to help you stir up your own Arnold Palmer. But no promises on improving your swing.
Posted in Baked goods, Breakfast, Travel, tagged Acadia National Park, baked good, pine needle tea, Popovers, recipes, The Jordan Pond House, travel on September 3, 2012| 4 Comments »
With the return of cooler, foggy mornings heating up the oven brings a feeling of comfort. The air was crisp at 7 a.m. when we made our way down to the kettle pond for an early morning dip. The water was warm and as the sun rose it pierced across the surface making the far shore difficult to see.
September is the month when people say, “I can feel the change, can you?” They mean that although the sun still burns off the dew by midday, a chill fills the air requiring a sweater first thing. It’s the perfect kind of moment for a mug of hot tea in one hand and a warm, buttery popover in the other.
Posted in Dessert, Food musings, tagged birthday cake, food, Julia Child on August 14, 2012| 4 Comments »
August 15 is Julia Child’s birthday and 2012 marks her 100th. I wanted to honor Julia by baking a birthday cake for her on my birthday, just a few days before on August 12, using a recipe or two from one of her many collections.
Posted in Dessert, Holiday dishes, tagged blueberries, dessert, food, Fourth of July, recipes, strawberries, trifle on July 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »
My Grandma Ruth’s birthday fell on the Fourth of July and hardly a year went by that she wasn’t presented with a sheet cake made to look like a flag with a blueberry-studded square in the upper left corner and rows of slivered strawberries marching across white frosting. Sometimes the sugary Old Glory was topped with sparklers.
Posted in Eating in season, Sauces, Uncategorized, tagged food, fruit salsa, mango, recipes, strawberries on May 29, 2012| 1 Comment »
The best thing about spring is the arrival of fresh fruit. And while I enjoy a tomato-based salsa I find that fruit salsa is a little more versatile. Now that mangoes and strawberries are both in season, it’s the perfect time to combine them into a topping for chicken or serve them with tortilla chips at a backyard barbeque.
Posted in Breakfast, Dessert, tagged food, New York City, recipes, ricotta cheese on May 25, 2012| 4 Comments »
Earlier this spring, I rediscovered ricotta cheese as a simple dessert. Similar to cottage cheese, ricotta can serve as a substantial filling for both sweet (cannolis) and savory (lasagna) dishes. But it can also stand on its own as a low-fat, high protein dish. A recent brunch order in a New York City restaurant delivered a plate full of ricotta as the main course. And it totally worked.
Posted in Soup, tagged coconut, curry, food, lilacs, soup recipes, springtime flowers, Thai on May 9, 2012| 3 Comments »
We finally have tender yellow green leaves on the trees. The witches fingers of bare branches are all wearing tiny bows of color and from a distance the lilac trees look like poofed up bichon frisés after a spin at the doggie salon.
Kitchen Report 