Categories
Cakes The Book

202. Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting p.726

The recipe courtesy of The Ulterior Epicure Sometimes the stars just don’t align, and the baking Gods abandon you for a day. I’ve learned a lot about cooking and baking through this project, and I’ve gotten to a point where I rarely make the boneheaded mistakes that plagued my early experiments, but there’s always room […]

Categories
Beef, Veal, Pork, and Lamb The Book

179. Lemon Garlic Lamb Chops with Yogurt Sauce p.504

The recipe The world is clearly changing, and The Book is starting to get a little bit dated. It’s only 4 years old, but a few things have changed in that time. I mostly notice it with specialty ingredients, which The Book suggests I’ll have to get by mail-order, but that are available at my […]

Categories
Breakfast and Brunch The Book

169. Sweet and Spicy Bacon p.656

The recipe The food blog world has been swamped with recipes for caramelized bacon with a kick, so I decided that now would be a good time to see what all the fuss was about. After trying this recipe I’ve decided it’s just a gimmick, and not a worthy treatment of bacon. I get the […]

Categories
Basics The Book

161. Beef Stock p.928

The recipe I can’t escape the conclusion that I’m a food snob. I take satisfaction in looking down on packaged and processed foods, and I give people points for making meals from scratch, double points if the ingredients come from an ethically superior source, and triple points if they grew the food themselves. The ultimate […]

Categories
Pasta, Noodles, and Dumplings The Book

149. Chicken Long Rice p.247

The recipe The Book is at it again. I’m beginning to understand that when the blurb before the recipe mentions comfort food, I’m in for a boring dinner. This time it’s comfort food, Hawaiian style. I’ve just started to get to know Hawaiian food through a few of the recipes in The Book. I don’t […]

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

141. Roasted Red Pepper and Eggplant Dip p.10

The recipe I served this dip along with the tapenade from the other day, and was similarly underwhelmed. This dip had a bland, mushy flavour, that didn’t really do much for anyone. I mentioned that the tapenade was overpowering, and this helped thin it out. Unfortunately, “dilutes tapenade” is one of the better things I […]

Categories
Poultry The Book

84. Persian-Syle Chicken with Walnut, Onion, and Pomegranite Sauce (Fesenjan) p.372

No recipe for this one. This is a quick chicken stew, made with pomegranate, onions, walnuts, cinnamon, tomato, lemon juice, and molasses. That’s a lot of big bold individualistic flavours in one dish. Apparently this dish is traditionally made with duck instead of chicken. There may have been a very good reason for that. Duck […]

Categories
Hors D'Oeuvres & First Courses The Book

72. Tuna Empanaditas p.37

The recipe These bite sized party favours are built with the duct tape of the home entertaining wold: puff pastry. A filling of oil-packed tuna, pimientos, capers, and onion is added to rounds of puff pastry, which are folded into semicircles and crimped. They can be frozen at this point, and baked whenever your heart […]

Categories
The Book Vegetables

37. Swiss Chard and Chickpeas p.542

the recipe This quick stew was fine, nothing special, but fine. It’s centred around swiss chard and chickpeas, with a bit of tomato, onion, garlic, and lemon juice. It was a bit bland, and the flavours never really came together. The fibrous swiss chard and grainy chickpeas didn’t make for the most appealing texture either. […]

Categories
Poultry The Book

7. Colombian Chicken, Corn, and Potato Stew p. 370

the recipe This is a stew is thick and rich. I made it in the middle of July. What was I thinking? It may have gone something like: me: I feel like chicken. ME: But it’s hot out, and your apartment is already 35 degrees. me: Don’t people in hot countries eat chicken? ME: You’re […]