If we can cook it, you can cook it!

Year: 2012

Nathalie Dupree’s Mississippi Caviar from "Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking"

Nathalie Dupree’s Mississippi Caviar from "Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking"

         Of this year’s cookbooks, “Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking” by Nathalie Dupree and Cynthia Graubert (Gibbs Smith 2012) is at the top of every list of the year’s best.  I’ve already shared the story of my sideways connection to Ms. Dupree in an…

Butternut Squash and Bacon Bread Pudding

Butternut Squash and Bacon Bread Pudding

         Last October, when I was out in California visiting my son Alex’s family, I picked up a freebie publication called California Home Design.  In it was an article about a wine making family in Healdsburg who, with the help of local chef, put together…

Baked Eggs with Tomato Sauce, Spinach and Mascarpone

Baked Eggs with Tomato Sauce, Spinach and Mascarpone

There’s something rewarding about having the time to make a really exceptional breakfast. Hopefully, the rush of the last few days before Christmas will yield way to a day off, a time to admire your gifts and sit back and enjoy life. And to enjoy…

Christmas Baking: Homemade Oreos and Homemade Fig Newtons’ from Joanne Chang

The incomparable Joanne Chang Christmas Baking is as much a part of the holiday as decorating the tree or singing songs of Christmas.  And if you have children, it’s great fun to get them into the kitchen and bake a few cookies.  This year, the…

Sticky Chinese Pork Stir-Fry and it’s Low Fat too!

         At the risk of sounding like a broken record, the stir-fry is the savior of every harried home cook.  When you have to get dinner on the table in as short a time as possible, a stir-fry’s hard to beat.  It’s all a matter…

CHICKEN, SAUSAGES AND SAGE: ONE DISH COOKING AT ITS BEST.

CHICKEN, SAUSAGES AND SAGE: ONE DISH COOKING AT ITS BEST.

         The bones for this recipe came from a famous English cook and television personality who shall remain nameless.  It’s not that I don’t devour the prose in the cookbooks the chef’s written.  It’s beautiful and seductive.  But when it comes to the recipes I’ve…

Crystal Shrimp with Ginger, Sweet Peas and Scallions

         No matter how gray a day it’s been, coming home to a dinner of beautifully pink and gold shrimp paired with sweet peas, fresh scallions and ginger medallions is a visual treat.  The simple salting and rinsing of the raw shrimp gives them a…

Raspberry Pistachio Cheesecake from John Barricelli of the SoNo Baking Company

Raspberry Pistachio Cheesecake from John Barricelli of the SoNo Baking Company

            Just before Thanksgiving, Andrew heard from a friend from his college days requesting a dessert recipe using raspberries.  Well it took all of two minutes to remember a spectacular cheesecake he made earlier in the season.  But why it has…

Skillet Lemon Chicken with Spinach and Fingerling Potatoes and Spinach from Nathalie Dupree’s "Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking"

Skillet Lemon Chicken with Spinach and Fingerling Potatoes and Spinach from Nathalie Dupree’s "Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking"

         Nathalie Dupree has just published “Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking” (Gibbs Smith 2012), an immense compendium of Southern cuisine, which runs 720 pages and contains some 650 recipes. Amazingly, Nathalie writes in her introduction that 300 pages and 100 photographs never saw…

Make-Ahead Meatballs for Beef Stroganoff

Make-Ahead Meatballs for Beef Stroganoff

        I don’t think it constitutes a trend but two of my food magazines published recipes for basically the same dish this month.  The magazines in question hardly rival Gourmet.  “Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food” is geared to the home cook and one who…

The Perfect Pound Cake courtesy of Michael’s Mother Lorraine

The Perfect Pound Cake courtesy of Michael’s Mother Lorraine

         Our friend Michael of The Bridgehampton Florist, comes from a family of home bakers whose cakes are consistently the best things we’ve ever tasted.  We’ve featured the most famous, “Beatty’s Chocolate Cake” https://chewingthefat.us.com/2010/07/beattys-chocolate-cake.htmlwhich made its print debut in Ina Garten’s “Back…

A Tale of Three Soups: Jim’s Hurricane Survival Soup, Alice Waters’ Spicy Cauliflower Soup and Cousin Bar’s Pear and Parsnip Soup

A Tale of Three Soups: Jim’s Hurricane Survival Soup, Alice Waters’ Spicy Cauliflower Soup and Cousin Bar’s Pear and Parsnip Soup

Alice Waters’ Spicy Cauliflower Soup Above Cousin Bar’s Pear and Parsnip Soup with Red Pepper Puree          This morning I got an email from an old friend and devoted reader of Chewing the Fat.  He lives in Weehawken, NJ, which is one of the areas…

Baked Penne with Sausage, Mozzarella and Tomatoes from the Galley of Gillian Duffy

         There are certain recipes I obsess over.  I have folder marked “Re-Visit” and in it there must be at least five recipes for baked pasta dishes.  They all are fundamentally the same.  The pasta is cooked and then a sauce is mixed into it,…

The surprising story of Fried Green Tomatoes and Martha Stewart’s recipe for Not Fried Green Tomatoes

            I love a little side of history when I am serving up a dish with roots as deep as Fried Green Tomatoes.  With the exception of grits and hominy, what’s more southern than this all-over crunchy firm tomato that’s been battered into a deep-fried…