ok, nothing fancy here – just wanted to share a few recipes with you. the first is a chocolate cake, like the one i use for everything (the stout cake), but for when you don’t have beer on hand. it’s much the same in consistency, […]
it’s the dead of the winter, and the gray skies have the happy consequence of making lemon taste like sunshine. there’s nothing like eating something that you know is definitely out of season, you know? and i don’t know about you, but i don’t feel […]
those of you who know me well, know that i am not the biggest fan of nuts. i hate the way they get stuck in your teeth: not only little bits of the meat of the nut, but also flakes of skin that stick to your teeth. then you’re struggling not to look weird while trying to get stuff off your teeth, because you’re ocd and you can’t stand when there’s stuff on your teeth. suffice it to say that i do not have the best relationship with nuts.
suffice it to say that these cookies are one of the few items for which i will bear nut skins stuck to my teeth. these are deeply chocolaty from the unsweetened chocolate, with a slightly “wet” crunch from the toasted nuts (do not skip the toasting step!!!). they stay soft but are best the first two days after you make them – although magically, the nuts retain their crunch. make these: you won’t regret it! then give most of them away so you don’t eat them for breakfast and inadvertently kill your heart. (more…)
ok, ok, i know it’s been a long time. i’ve been taking care of things that needed to be taken care of, and i’m finally getting some good cooking and baking time in, these days. i’m in the process of looking for a really good […]
so i’ve been at home in carlisle for about two weeks now; my new lease doesn’t start until mid-july, and this was just the easiest thing to do logistically. it’s weird having everything packed away in boxes, though – and it proves that you really […]
this recipe is for the weekend, as it takes up a large chunk of your day, but it has a pretty high upside. this is my take on the traditional mexican stew, posole – essentially a pork and hominy stew. i had pork neck bones in the freezer, as well as some pork ribs, and it all went in. i specifically chose cuts of meat with bones, for better flavor, and it definitely paid off – this is a hearty meal, with delicious porky flavor and a bit of sweetness from the corn. in the matchup between pork neck bones and oxtails, the former are a clear winner. for a really cheap cut of meat (granted, most of it is bones), you can’t get more tender meat, with a slight slick of unctuous texture from the neck bones.
i also threw in a bunch of cabbage that was leftover from the pulled pork – i chopped it, sauteed it in bacon fat and pulsed it in the food processor to get it fine enough to go into the posole. it adds body and is healthy, too, with lots of vitamin k and c, and a good amount of dietary fiber. i left the cabbage out of the recipe, but in case you want to add it, i put in about two cups of food processed cabbage at first, then ended up adding the rest in after we’d had maybe a quarter of the stew for dinner, for a total of 1.5 small heads of cabbage. (more…)
i have fond memories of the pig ‘n’ pepper fair in westford, ma, from my childhood. my best friend’s mother ran the pepper tent, where people entered pepper products to be judged, and we helped out and ran around the fair. one of the staples […]
i made this bbq sauce to go with the pulled pork i was making last week, and along with the pork, it’s quite a winner. it’s mild in your mouth with a bit of a fiery kick at the end, and pairs well with pulled […]
this post is really about homemade samoas, a recipe that i noticed popping up on the blogs a few weeks ago. but first (first?!), a digression about that label on so many blog recipes: “recipe adapted from.” for the samoas, i used graham crackers as a base that i saw a photo of on somebody’s blog. it turns out that that person had posted the recipe as being adapted from heidi’s recipe over at 101cookbooks. i was curious, and went through the recipes side-by-side. well, readers, these recipes were exactly the same, word for word. that’s simply not ok.
for me, recipes are intellectual property just like anything else – a song, a patent, etc. i think that the community, potluck aspects to recipes on blogs and in magazines do allow for a creative commons-type usage, hence the “recipe adapted from” label that allows for “fair use” along with absolution from legal entanglement. but here’s the thing: if you adapted the recipe, it should no longer be the same recipe. yours is derivative, but it’s its own variation. and i would say that nearly all of my recipes are truly adapted – there may be one or two that i posted in my early days, when i didn’t know how to cook that well, which are less well-adapted. i’m not that stringent in my position on the ethics of adaptation, either – i fully support a wide range of degrees of adaptation. on the minimum side of the spectrum, a really good recipe that’s in tune with my tastes won’t require very many adjustments in the combination of ingredients, and sometimes a recipe doesn’t work unless you use the exact measurements as the original. in this case, i will always write my own instructions, with the notes and thoughts that i know will help me remember the recipe the next time i make it. on the maximum side of the spectrum, there are recipes that i completely retool, both in ingredients and instructions. these are recipes that are overly wordy or incorrect in their instructions, or that don’t completely accord with my own tastes of what constitutes sweet, savory, balanced. unless there’s an attribution, though, i would never post a recipe without any changes. (more…)
it’s been a couple weeks since dulce de leche v1.0, and the verdict is in. that version, as you will remember, was defined both by a beautiful color and a slightly acidic aftertaste. the basic recipe remains the same: a quart of milk, a cup […]