How about a new side dish that brings plenty of flavor to the table while being easy to prepare? This tasty side dish pairs with many main dishes and uses that much maligned vegetable nearly everyone hates from childhood, but enjoys as an adult and is available just about year round. The quick preparation is a bonus and is versatile with key substitutions. Don’t have diced prosciutto? Use bacon. No shallots? Substitute white, red or yellow onions or even scallions. You can use bacon drippings instead of butter to increase the smoky bacon flavor…
Let’s celebrate tonight’s happy hour with a century old cocktail that seems like a riff on the venerable Manhattan, but truly stands on its own. This combination of rye whiskey and sherry with a splash of orange/cognac liqueur creates a uniquely complex set of flavors. Depending on the type of sherry used, this cocktail could range from a slightly biting dry to a silky smoky sweetness. Unfortunately, all I had on hand was a cream sherry – a notoriously sweet sherry – and the resulting drink was indeed sugar forward but…
Lately I have been cooking several different side dish staples using sous vide and I thought it was time to start sharing them with you. I know it may seem boring and a bit redundant to write about cooking rice, but trust me this is great information for cooking small amounts of rice perfectly while helping you minimize waste or to help you from over indulging! The first of these posts (except for the Mashed Potato for One post I wrote at this time last year) is cooking white rice for one. I’ll admit…
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Of course, this week’s menu will include Thanksgiving and I am getting a treat. Two of my brothers are coming over and we will be preparing a feast. Both of my brother’s have serious kitchen skills so this dinner will be nothing short of amazing. I nicknamed my younger brother ‘Iron Chef’ many years ago based on his fearlessness in preparing new dishes. He will deep fry the turkey after it has had a nice long soak in his top secret brine. Last year’s turkey…
Wow, this week has been a whirlwind. Between meetings and meet-ups, chores, recipe development and experimentation, and other tasks, I am ready to slow down and catch my breath. What better way to relax than with a new Happy Hour tipple – the Embarcadero. The Embarcadero cocktail is a variant of the Manhattan with amaro replacing the Angostura bitters. I was not able to find much more about this cocktail other than it is based on a recipe on Liquor.com from the renowned mixologist Claire Sprouse (@clairesprouse). I love researching the back story to…
Last Summer, I featured Brazil’s national cocktail – the caipirinha – which is made from cachaça, sugar and lime. I recently encountered this cachaça based drink (which one resource claimed is Brazil’s original cocktail or coquetel in Portuguese) – primarily a smooth blend of cachaça and sweet vermouth. Roughly rabo de galo translates into ‘rooster’s tail’ or ‘cock’s tail’, appropriate for a simple tipple. After reading the description of the rabo de galo, I just had to try it. With some…
Tonight’s pasta dish is another one of those staples found in most Italian restaurants and has about as many differing recipes. I based my recipe on the America’s Test Kitchen version which uses three types of pepper to give this sauce its signature kick. According to my research, ‘arrabbiata’ is used to describe the spiciness of this dish, claiming it to be ‘angry’. Now I did not want the dish to be so hot and intense that all the other aspects of the dish are lost. I desired…