(Almost) Wood-Fired Pizza In Your Kitchen!
There are couple of barriers to achieving a wood-fired pizza at home. The two big ones are getting a suitable facsimile of a pizza oven, and getting a decent dough in the right shape at the right place at the right time. I’m happy to say that I’ve worked out a few methods that I...
Roasted Red Plum & Thyme Jam
I did a double take at the farmer’s market this weekend– were those this year’s apples? And grapes- already?!? If labor day and the start of school were not enough to let me know summer is on its way out, those apples sure were. I was instantly overcome with the urge stuff myself with stone...
Turmeric Ginger Beer
Ginger beer originated sometime around the year 2000. It first started popping up in health food stores and then quickly spread to more mainstream food purveyors. Oh, wait. That’s how I learned about ginger beer, not how it was created. The real story behind ginger beer is much longer and more interesting. Ginger beers are...
Lacy Chocolate Dessert Bowls
Because chocolate is such a precious ingredient, I always want to make the most of it. And sometimes that means making a dramatic presentation with a small quantity of chocolate. I wanted to make a pretty, delicate chocolate container that was not too difficult (or time consuming) to make and did not require special equipment....
Olive Oil Granola
Premium granola makers seem to be popping up like morels after a spring rain. And these fancy-pants granolas do have some benefits to tout. Interesting flavor combinations and top-notch ingredients make granolas in this style simultaneously decadent, wholesome and satisfying. But a small bag of bakery-style granola can set you back six or seven bucks–...
Pumpkin Taffy
Happy Halloween, everyone! Now let’s all make our own candy! Homemade candy can be a fun, interactive alternative to the ubiquitous processed, artificial sweets. While most candy making is not particularly kid-friendly (think dangerous, boiling sugars and the most impossibly messy ingredient of all: melted chocolate). Taffy is a happy exception. Once the tricky boiling...
Homemade Veggie Burgers
Veggie burgers don’t always have to be seen as a second-rate meat substitute; at their best they have a wholesome, not-too-filling-but-still-satisfying vegetable-y goodness. From a culinary perspective, veggie burgers are just a savory vegetable croquette topped with all of the delicious trimmings of a burger. The freezer section of your local grocery probably has its...
Oatmeal Sandwich Bread
To be perfectly honest, I am really more of an artisanal bread person. I swoon over a chewy yet crisp ciabatta, or a thick slice from a rustic boule. But I’m no bread elitist. I am not blind to the pleasures of American-style sandwich bread. It’s soft, moist even crumb is perfect for toasting, and...
Blood Orange Marmalade
Marmalade is much easier to make than most people presume (particularly made in small batches like this one). There are plenty of recipes dedicated to making jams and jellies with low sugar content. This is not one of those recipes. Marmalade is traditionally a sugar preserve — so I make no apologies about the sugar...
Whole Wheat Crackers
I enjoy all of the little– shall we say– particularities of working with pastry doughs. They must be carefully handled. (As one of my dear pastry instructors would say “like children: gentle, but firm.”) They must rest, chilled, for the appropriate amount of time, allowing the gluten to relax. Then they must be cut and...
Homemade Vanilla Extract
If you read the “ingredients” section in any book with a pastry chef’s name on the front, you will likely find a discussion of that chef’s preferred vanilla bean, complete with a discussion of its unique and superior qualities. Now let me first state that there is a marked difference between vanilla beans from different...
Candied Citrus Peel
I first candied citrus peels when I was living in Florence. In fact, I’m not sure that I had even heard of candied citrus peel before. I was amazed to find out that the pithy, spongy white part of the rind could be miraculously transformed into something far better than edible…. I would even say...
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