Claire is my mother’s friend, a lovely woman in her 80s, recently widowed, who brought my mom these fabulous cookies for a book club gathering. I couldn’t figure out what was in them that made them taste so good. I recognized some chocolate and a few nuts, but what was the rest? For the Best Toffee Cookies, Use Heath Bars Praise be to mom who delivered Claire’s recipe a few days later....
Beneath the surface, however, there’s a lot happening! Understanding the techniques needed to create creme brulee will help make your next batch a success. Video: How to Make Creme Brulée What Is Crème Brûlée? At its most basic, creme brulee is a creamy, pudding-like, baked custard with a brittle top of melted sugar that cracks when you gently tap it with a spoon. The custard is made with heavy cream, eggs, sugar, and vanilla....
Instant Pot Mac and Cheese This Instant Pot Mac and Cheese recipe is the quickest, easiest dinner that your whole family will love. It tastes a THOUSAND times better than boxed mac and cheese because it is made with real food (I don’t even want to know what that powdered “cheese” is made out of). This homemade mac and cheese only takes five ingredients to make and you probably already have them all on hand....
There was a time when I would’ve said, “Never use pre-chopped garlic.” That time was before I made 3 meals a day, 7 days a week for a family of four, for more than a decade and counting. And also pre-Covid when my dad came by for dinner 4 times a week, and lunch, I would cook for him too. (Dad’s fine by the way, just social distancing.) Fresh garlic, like any whole, raw ingredient in the kitchen, is less expensive than prepared counterparts, more environmentally friendly (no containers, no processing), and provides more opportunities in the kitchen....
It’s for those days when you hit every red light, when you’re on the phone all day trying to fix a situation that should never have become broken in the first place, when every attempt at anything gets thwarted somehow, and all you want to do is crawl back into bed, pull the covers over your head, and go back to dreamland with the ponies, kittens, and rainbows (where hopefully they won’t be chasing you in some twisted, scary movie, kitten-turned psycho-kitty, kind of way)....
The story of my first Thanksgiving away from home is one I tell with pride. Sure, we all have epic disasters in the kitchen and Thanksgiving horror stories to tell, but mine is epic. The dinner was a wreck: the cornbread burned, the turkey was frozen inside, the green bean casserole was served as a soup, the bacon for the stuffing caught fire, I forgot to add sugar to the cranberry sauce, and my roommate exploded a pie in an aluminum pie plate in the microwave....
My parents moved to the United States from Taiwan back in the 1960s. My mom escaped her small conservative town in Asia by graduating top of class in high school, going to the best university in Taiwan, and then attending grad school in the United States in upstate New York. This is where she met my father. It was a radical shift for both of them—going from a small tropical island that most American folks had never heard of—to the cold East Coast of the United States....
When it comes to cooking quinoa, and all of the delicious ways it can be used, we have a lot of catching up to do! Quinoa is high in protein and completely gluten-free. You can make a pilaf with it, or use it for stuffing, or just eat it plain. I stumbled upon a recipe for “Quinoa con Queso”, or quinoa with fresh farmers cheese, in Culinaria: The United States: A Culinary Discovery, and have since found many other variations online....
You can order them online, or when in season (in Winter), find them at a farmer’s market in areas that grow them. Here in California, once in a while you’ll find one in a neighbor’s yard. Citrus trees were often grafted onto Seville orange rootstock, and sometimes in a hard freeze, the bitter orange rootstock takes over the tree. Where to Find Seville Oranges When I first started making seville orange marmalade, it was with the oranges from a neighbor’s tree that had done just that....
I have always considered beef tenderloin a “high stress” meal and given it a wide berth. This is an expensive cut of meat—it’s not one that you want to mess up by trusting an untrustworthy recipe or forgetting to set a timer. Add to this, roast beef tenderloin most often appears on menus around the holidays. I’ve never quite been able to overcome the terrifying possibility of ruining both a wage-devouring cut of meat and Christmas dinner....
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Chocolate is good anytime, anywhere, but chocolate recipes feel especially on point when the weather turns colder. Hot chocolate! Hot cocoa! Chocolate banana bread! Chocolate brownies! Double chocolate cupcakes! Someone stop me, please, before I share this list of 14 more decadent chocolate recipes. (Too late.) To make all the chocolate things, you need to have some chocolate (bars or chips) or cocoa on hand. But what kind? Quality, flavor, and meltability can all vary from brand to brand, so I queried my fellow team members for their favorite go-to brands for cocoa, baking chocolate, and chocolate chips....
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It’s the ultimate weekend brunch drink. It’s also a famous hangover cure, though the benefits are due mostly to electrolyte replenishment coming from the liquid, salt, and natural sugar in the main ingredients—tomato juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce. The vodka? My guess is drinking more vodka isn’t going to help anyone’s hangover much. Though who knows? The Bloody Mary is one of my favorite drinks of all time, though usually I limit the vodka to one ounce (I’m a lightweight, don’t judge!...
This Bacon Cheese Ball, stuffed with cranberries and almonds is one of my favorite holiday appetizers. What is more festive than a creamy cheese ball at a holiday party? The red cranberries and green sprinkling from the cilantro really make this cheese ball stand out. Not only is it colorful, it is filled with flavors and textures that blend beautifully together. I love appetizers that are savory and sweet, and the cheese, smoky bacon, and roasted almonds are complemented perfectly by the slightly sweet and tart dried cranberry pieces....
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Though most well-known for serving French dip sandwiches, Maison Pickle’s pull-apart bread is equally delicious. My favorite variation features the soft rolls slathered with garlic parmesan butter, still warm from the oven. It is a rich, comforting appetizer ideal for sharing with friends and family. After leaving the city and moving to Cambridge, Massachusetts, I found myself craving these buttery rolls on the regular. So, naturally, I decided to create my own version inspired by the original....
Monster Cookies are a favorite around our house, and quite possibly my favorite cookie of all time. They’re the perfect cookie to serve after school with a tall glass of milk, or when you’re in charge of soccer team snacks. We call them “Monster Cookies” for three reasons: 1) This recipe makes a MONSTROUS amount of cookies.2) The cookies themselves are HUGE.3) They are a monster mash-up of EVERYTHING! Oats, peanut butter, M&M’s and, of course, chocolate chips....
