This week I explore the world of the slow cooker on Wine and Dine Walla Walla, with Braised Chicken and Scarlet Runner Beans. This chicken makes my mouth water just thinking about it.
And I promise to post some Kitchen Illiterate content later this week: I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies that I have to share!
Continue reading Wine and Dine Walla Walla: Braised Chicken with Scarlet Runner Beans
In all of my experimentation with pizza-making, I’ve focused almost exclusively on the dough and the toppings. I worked endlessly to find the best dough recipe, and topped that dough with every kind of topping I could imagine. But when I wanted a traditional tomato-sauced pizza, I usually contented myself with buying a jar of pizza sauce from the market and calling it a day. Well, now that I’ve got my dough recipe pretty much down (I usually go for either Smitten Kitchen’s Really Simple Dough, or, if I want to bank some away in the freezer for the future, Peter Reinhart’s neo-Neapolitan dough from American Pie), I figured it was time to nail a recipe for homemade sauce. The good news? The sauce is WAYYYYY easier than the dough.
Continue reading Fresh, Easy Pizza Sauce
My first year of college I wasn’t quite ready to leave the comforting embrace of my small hippie college town. Unfortunately, I found it a little bit tricky to find a job in that town. I graduated during the last serious plunge in the employment rate, in 2001, and it was not a good time to be a newly graduated Lit major, I can tell you that. I ended up working in various coffee shops and restaurants before I finally landed that first desk job, and while I was certainly extremely poor and had to defer payment of my student loans for too, too long, I wouldn’t exchange the experience for anything. I met great people, I had a lot of fun, learned to carry multiple cups of coffee at once, and I discovered what remains to this day my favorite breakfast: The Mike’s Mess from Zachary’s, in Santa Cruz, California. This year, I decided I need to try to make it myself.
Continue reading Laura’s Mike’s Mess
I always thought of beef stroganoff as airline food, or cafeteria food. Something gloppy and lukewarm served in large buffet trays by people in uniforms. But a few years ago my dear friend Crystal requested that I make beef stroganoff for her birthday dinner, and I realized just how wrong I’d been. When done right, beef stroganoff is rich and tangy and elegant and it really makes me want to cook meat more often. Lately I’ve been craving it something fierce, so last night I decided to make it again. And I was practically swooning into my bowl, it was so delicious. If you, too, would like to swoon over dinner, give this a try.
Continue reading Beef Stroganoff
Dinner was originally supposed to be Roasted Pepper Tacos, from a recipe I’ve had tagged to try for months. But it has been 172 degrees here in Walla Walla all week, and the last thing I wanted to do was turn on my oven to roast peppers. And I know that grilling is supposed to be great for hot weather, but grilling the peppers would have required I stand outside for more than 30 seconds, not to mention in front of a fire, not to mention building said fire would have taken For. Ever. All that to say that my Roasted Pepper Tacos turned into Sauteed Pepper Tacos. But you know what? I think they were even better than Roasted.
Continue reading Saucy, Spicy Pepper Tacos
It’s finally spring in New England, though we are still about a month away from farmer’s market produce. I’m only four days away from finishing grad school, and miraculously, am actually finished with all my finals—I had to finish early because we had a trip to take: I’m in Los Angeles for my good friend Kim’s wedding! It’s already been a great party, and the wedding itself is this evening, at a ranch in Malibu.
I kind of forgot that eating in Southern California tends to take place in chain restaurants more often than not. We went to the San Fernando Valley’s “restaurant row” last night, which consisted of The Cheesecake Factory, El Torito, Fuddrucker’s, Quizno’s, and P.F. Chang’s. That’s about all there is in walking distance of our hotel. We did get room service for breakfast this morning, which is certainly never the best food, but I love having someone bring a tray of covered plates to my room and being able to eat breakfast on a fluffy, white King-sized bed.
Continue reading Soy-glazed Red Snapper with Spring Vegetables and Roasted Potatoes
Thank god things finally cooled off a little in this hellhole we call Boston. I wasn’t about to turn the oven on this week, and I had an eggplant in the fridge, patiently waiting to be put to good use. And I was deadset on making eggplant parmesan. “Why,” you might ask, “in the heated hot humidity of August, does a girl want to make eggplant parm?” Well I have no good answer to that question, but it got in my head and I couldn’t shake it out. And finally, today, with nary a trace of damp stickiness in the air, today was my day. Or the eggplant’s day, rather.
I gotta tell you, people, this was glorious. I never made eggplant parmesan before and I rocked its pants off. I wish I wasn’t the only person around these parts who eats eggplant, but hey, more for me. The tomato sauce was light and just the right amount of tang and sweet, the eggplant didn’t mush up at all, the seasonings were just right and the copious gloopy beautiful mounds of melted cheese…oh, that is bliss, my friends. Heavenly cheesy bliss.