How To Cook Like Your Grandmother
A Guide to Cooking with Real Food the Way Your Grandma Used to
This came from a sandwich my wife had when she went for tea with our daughters and her mother. She described it to me -- and by the way, yes she tells me how great the food was when she comes back from tea ... and no I still don't want to go to tea -- and told me how amazing it was. I though I could figure it out, and here it is: Baked Asiago crisps for your sandwich. … [Read more...]
Depending on who you ask, kaiser rolls have to have poppy seeds, or sesame seeds, or be dusted with cornmeal. You need a special stamp just for making the cuts in the top, or you need to do the cuts with scissors and twist the dough just so. Well if you ask me, the way I did them here looks just fine, and tastes even better. (And by the way, poppy seeds? Doesn't that make them poppy seed rolls? I'm just sayin'.) … [Read more...]
Gnocchi is a tough one. Starting with how to pronounce it: NYO-kee, like the "ny" sound from "canyon" but with a long "o" sound after. Then is the texture: light and fluffy in the mouth, but settles really heavy in the stomach if you eat too much. (My father-in-law -- both parents Italian immigrants -- said when he was growing up they called gnocchi "sinkers".) The secret, I've decided, is to remember that they are, after all, mostly potatoes. Would you eat a plate full of mashed potatoes as … [Read more...]
I've gone to a few Valentine's dinner parties where each couple brought a dish with a Valentine's theme. After eating, we'd vote for best taste and best in theme. These deconstructed connoli won for best in theme the year I brought them. They're dead simple to make -- as long as you don't try to make your own pizzelles, and that one's not on my agenda for a while now. (Though really, it's just like doing waffles but with a smaller press. I just don't have one.) Okay, enough rambling, here's … [Read more...]
My father-in-law, Lou, finally got a stand mixer for Christmas, and doesn't have to borrow mine when he wants to make something any more. So the first thing he decided to do is start making bread. I brought him over the recipe for crusty Italian bread and he went to town. But of course he can't just do plain Italian bread like I did. He has to do garlic breadsticks. Which I'm totally cool with, because I was staying for dinner. … [Read more...]
