I'm going to be live blogging a little experiment. I was talking to my internet gay boyfriend a couple days ago about how much we both love the custard in the clafouti I wrote about in my previous post. We think it would be a great idea to make just the custard. I'll make a few changes to the recipe. To start:

1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp. fresh orange ( Read more... )

Anyone who's eaten my food knows I'm not a complicated cook. I like simple food done well, and by simple, I don't mean a professional chef's idea of the word, which can include a multitude of ingredients, many of them hard to find. I mean beef stew (I put St. Julia's boeuf bourguigon recipe in the simple category. It's just beef stew with lots of ( Read more... )

Ever since I discovered Jim Lahey's recipe for no-knead bread, I've been messing around with it. First I started kneading it a little, because it seems unnatural to make bread without at least a minute or two of kneading. I also added sugar to it for a while, but the bread stuck to the pan. When my oven done broke down, I made bread on the grill. ( Read more... )

We're just going to pretend that I've spent the past year perfecting my cooking and baking skills. We won't be discussing that it's been sheer laziness that's kept me from writing lately ( Read more... )

There are a few changes in the format for Top Chef Masters. Instead of everyone competing together, there will be six eliminations rounds with four chefs each. The chefs who win the elimination rounds will move on to the champions round, which will run for four weeks. The chefs are competing for charity, and whoever takes the championship will win ( Read more... )

Unless you're one of my internet-only friends, or you're married to me, you probably don't know how much I love reality television. I watch some of the better reality shows - America's Next Top Model, American Idol; and some of the worst, which I won't be naming because I'm not giving you any more fodder to make fun of me. Now that we have Bravo on ( Read more... )

Damn, has it really been two months since I last posted? I've been cooking and baking as usual. I guess I'm not feeling to inspired lately.

Anyway, I had a birthday party for Joe yesterday, and I broke my #1 rule of entertaining. Never use a recipe for a party until it's been tested at least twice. I didn't break it just once yesterday, I broke it ( Read more... )

One other thing I discovered recently ( Read more... )

Here are a few things I've learned recently:

I've known for a while now that freezing ginger is the best way to keep it fresh. What I didn't know is that it's just as easy to peel when it's frozen and much easier to grate. Unfrozen ginger sticks to the microplane; frozen, it grates as easily as parmegiano reggiano.

I no longer have a pastry cutter, ( Read more... )

I let the puff pastry sit in the refrigerator for 24 hours, and spent the afternoon trying to decide what to do with. Sweet or savory? Sweet, for sure. Chocolate, fruit or sugar? I decided I wanted palmieres, but they're such a pain in the ass to make. Then  I realized (yet another "duh" moment in my cooking/baking life) that I could do whatever I ( Read more... )