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Kent
Last night I threw a clambake party for some friends – sort of an end of the summer bash with a feast of seafood. In all actuality, the guys were here to help me with a foil packet clambake recipe I was working on… I needed taste testers. The party was a success as my friends devoured the results with everyone completely satisfied with the mixture of clams, prawns, lobster, linguiça, corn, and potatoes slathered in seasoned butter, aromatics, and fresh herbs. Here are the pictures – compliments of one of the guests! A deconstructed Caprese Salad Clambake Close-up Dessert – compliments of one of the guests (and Metropolitan Market) Yalumba Antique Tawny and Brown Butter Pear Tart. I hope to post the recipe at…
Today’s post is not a meal for one, but a party dessert that is certain to please. This cheesecake really rocks, but the topping wins the day. Most of the time I bring a main dish to these parties, but this time I decided to switch things around and bring a dessert. This cheesecake is a variant of the German käsekuchen which uses quark – an ingredient hard to find here in the states. So after doing some research and seeing several suggestions on what to use as a substitute, I opted for sour cream and ricotta cheese. And the results were impressive. The cheesecake won rave reviews but the smoked cherry topping was the overall star. Slightly sweet, slightly smoky and intensely cherry flavored…
Tonight’s cocktail is one of the standards – a basis for many other cocktails and quite frankly I believe is often overlooked. Well, I think it is high time to get this beauty back into the public eye! This drink is simple to make and when made with a great tasting whiskey, the results are sublime. There is not much more to say about this cocktail, so let’s kick off this weekend! Save Print Whiskey Sour Prep time: 5 mins Total time: 5 mins Serves: 1 Ingredients 2 parts whiskey 1 part lemon juice 1 part simple syrup lemon wedge for garnish cherry for garnish Instructions Chill a rocks glass by filling with ice or placing in the freezer for…
Tonight’s dinner is a quick and tasty dish – easy to prepare and enjoy. In this recipe, I used the Parmesan and Black Pepper fresh ravioli from Buitoni which I think worked perfectly. The rest of the ingredients are just fresh sage leaves, garlic, unsalted butter, and grape tomatoes. I also added a bit of diced prosciutto and red pepper flakes to my version, which is optional but highly recommended. This dish comes together quickly with the ravioli taking a mere 7 minutes and the rest taking less than 15 minutes. Quick, easy and tasty… here’s a dish that works for a busy weeknight or a busy weekend. That alone must be the reason this dish is so popular on restaurant menus! Save…
Wow, can you believe it has been one year and 255 posts since I began this blog? Happy 1 year anniversary to me! Summer weather is still here in the Pacific Northwest, so tonight I want to bring you another dish from the grill. Teriyaki Beef is actually an easy dish to make – cube up some ingredients, make a sauce, marinate the beef, assemble the skewers, and then grill. Since the dish is meat and vegetables on a stick, just add a simple starch like white rice and you are good to go for a complete meal. I used sirloin steak cut into cubes for this rendition to get that grilled steak experience with this dish. The rest is just fresh vegetables and a wonderful sauce; enhanced…
Happy Friday everyone! Tonight’s cocktail is perfect for this wonderful Summer evening – the Palmetto. Typically this drink is made with white rum and dry vermouth… and from what my research found, the resulting drink is barely drinkable. Well, we can’t have that here on Cooking-4-One, can we? So I opted to follow the research and use an aged rum and sweet vermouth. The resulting rum variation of a Manhattan works nicely and I even give it a nice little tweak. I would have thought adding sweet vermouth to a sweet liquor like rum would end in disaster, but it doesn’t… especially with my special ingredient, Galliano Ristretto. For this cocktail, I would use a rum you enjoy…
Last night I made an experimental macaroni and cheese that I just have to share with you. This recipe’s creation was based on what I had available. The adage ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ seems to apply here and I believe this scenario happens to everyone that cooks at some point. The key element here is the cheese sauce. I substituted sour cream and water for the milk and used creamy havarti and fontina cheeses. For seasonings, I added herbs de provence along with ground mustard and white pepper. This combination produced a creamy, slightly sour, slightly nutty and subtly herbal cheese sauce – unique and delicious. Topped with browned panko crumbs and baked until bubbly, this is a macaroni and cheese you…
Here is another Italian restaurant staple – pasta puttanseca. This dish’s claim to fame is its pungency and how that relates to its origin – i.e. puttanesca meaning ‘from the prostitutes’ or ‘in the style of the prostitutes’. It is rumored that the dish was favored by Italian prostitutes to keep their clients from trying to kiss them. A girl’s got to have some boundaries right? Well upon further research, it seems there is little written documentation about this dish prior to the middle of the 20th century. Which means pasta puttanesca may have been a simple dish made only at home and not seen as restaurant fare (or fare an upstanding diner would want to be seen eating…
There are several recipes for this cocktail floating around the web, basically divided into two styles – include orange liqueur or not. The real keys to this negroni-like cocktail are in the style of gin used. This cocktail calls for Old Tom gin – a slightly sweeter variation. I find the difference between Old Tom and Dry gin as being more floral and subtly herbaceous compared to the juniper forward dry gins that have staunch herbal notes to hold up to the ‘pine’ flavor of juniper. Based on that description of Old Tom gin, I tested this cocktail first with Citadelle gin and I really liked it. So I sought out a true Old Tom gin and tested it again. The results: wonderful, simply wonderful…
Have you ever just had appetizers for dinner? You know what I am talking about. Those evenings you are out with a group, maybe it started as a happy hour meet-up, and with the drinks you order some appetizers, some others order some and it becomes a shared meal. After sampling and maybe even ordering more, you just don’t feel like eating a full meal. Tonight was that night for me, except I was at home. I just wanted a few appetizers for dinner, especially a tapenade with some fresh from the bakery bread. Of course, tapenade does not a meal make, so I added a mini Caprese salad and some sliced dry salami and soppressata. Hey… I used what I had available and…