Tips & Tricks for Tastier Vegetables Working with vegetables seems easy. It’s not. What it is, though, is simple. Keep a few things in mind and dishes like my vegetable barigoule become easier and tastier. • • • Add layers of flavors and texture when cooking vegetables. Peas are delicious. Why not smear a large bowl… Read More →
How to Buy & Store Asparagus Look for tight tips and small leaves on the side of the stalk that cling to its body. The cut end should be moist, not frayed, browned or dry. Spears should be smooth, not wrinkled. Storing asparagus is simple: keep them standing in a few inches of water in… Read More →
Green Chile Chili By Andrew Zimmern There are a hundred ways to make chili, but this is one of my favorites. I could eat roasted Hatch chiles on anything—on burgers New Mexico-style, in salsa, and especially in chili alongside pork shoulder, poblanos and white beans. And yes, go through the extra steps of roasting the… Read More →
Dishes to Make This Winter Winter in Minnesota. End of story. If you live in a climate that’s impacted by bitter arctic air, you need cold weather comfort food recipes in your repertoire. Recipes that’ll warm you from the inside out; dishes that I consider “food with a hug.” Hearty and delicious, here are 12 ways to get through… Read More →
One back-pocket recipe that can save any breakfast, lunch, or dinner. By Alana Chernila Special birthday breakfast on a school morning when we have to get out at 7:00 a.m.? Popovers. A soup pulled from the freezer that’s not quite as delicious as I remember it? Serve with popovers. Friends coming over with picky kids?… Read More →
Easy Sausage and Peppers By Andrew Zimmern This amazing sausage and pepper tagine can be served with toast as a sandwich, over pasta, with risotto or on its own. You can also replace the cherry tomatoes with 8 cups crushed tomatoes, then simmer in the oven covered for an hour to make a superb sausage… Read More →
Chilled Potato & Leek Soup By Andrew Zimmern What can I say, I love chilled soups in the summer and always have a pitcher of gazpacho or vichyssoise on hand for snacking. This recipe is a classic, smooth-and-creamy potato-leek soup that works well as an appetizer or main course on a hot summer night.
Grilled “Chicken of the Sea” with Dried Shrimp Salsa By Andrew Zimmern In Cuba for the last 50 years, serving lobster was illegal in restaurants or home kitchens taking in guests. Locals found a way around the law by calling them chicken of the sea on menus.
Esquites & Yellow Tomato Gazpacho By Tara O’Brady You’re most likely familiar with elote, slathered grilled corn on the cob in a mixture of mayonnaise, chile powder, lime, salt, and cheese that is popular in Mexico. One summer dinner when we had more than the expected number at the table and not enough cobs for… Read More →
Lamb Meatballs in Warm Yogurt Sauce By Janet Fletcher A gem of a recipe from the Eastern Mediterranean kitchen, these succulent meatballs bathe in a sauce that will have you scraping the bowl. I have seen similar recipes for whole lamb shanks or chunks of shoulder, but meatballs cook more quickly. They are browned first,… Read More →
Mom’s Brisket By Michelle Bernstein Well… I added the ketchup, but the rest is basically Mom’s. I’ve been eating this all my life, and it’s never once been dry or tough. The trick is, that you cook it, cool it, slice it, and then reheat it in its own gravy when it’s time to eat.… Read More →
Baked Egg Boats By Teri Lyn Fisher & Jenny Park These baked egg boats were born out of our dual love for baked eggs and for soup served in a bread bowl. Why not combine the two concepts and bake a savory quiche in a hollowed-out baguette? Serve these boats for a terrific breakfast or… Read More →
Roasted Leg of Lamb with Tart Pickled Cherries By Andrew Zimmern Lamb is perfect set against the tartness of cherries. There is no better time of year than now to be eating young lamb legs. About 10 years ago, I watched Jamie Oliver do a demo where he used his oven rack to cook his… Read More →
Kotulk Daw By Andrew Zimmern Last year, I had the privilege to take part in a Kurdish meal of epic proportions in Nashville. The star of the 25-course meal was these dumplings. Kotulk Daw is made of three parts: The dumpling dough, the meat stuffing, and the soup (which at the end is really a… Read More →
One of the World’s Most Luxurious Dishes By Andrew Zimmern Billi Bi is considered one of the world’s classic dishes and its complex flavors and rich, luxurious texture back that reputation up. Unlike its famous siblings in the hall-of-fame food world, this soup is fast, easy and inexpensive—a real stunner at the dinner table too.… Read More →
Oxtail with Bread Dumplings This is a rich and hearty dish – the juices from the oxtail make the gravy unique and if there is any left after your dinner on day one, you can certainly make a soup the following day when the richness will have done that wonderful ‘next day’ thing. Recipe from Gubbeen… Read More →
Eat Clean. Live Loud. Melissa Joulwan is a badass. A retired Texas Rollergirl, Mel J has a serious thing for friendly competition, the band Social Disortion and cooking up a storm. In 2008, she launched her blog, Clothes Make the Girl, which kinda started out as a lifestyle/style site and eventually became one of the… Read More →
Bacony, Buttery & Briny Almejas By Andrew Zimmern This is one of my favorite clam recipes, the more Spanish version of clams casino. I think of it as the most likely progenitor of that steak house and country club classic. I never heard of this as a Spanish dish until I started reading Penelope Casas’s… Read More →
Congratulations JBF Award Winners! I had a fantastic weekend at the James Beard Foundation Awards in NYC, the nation’s most prestigious awards ceremony honoring professionals in the food and beverage biz. Winners of the Foundation’s annual Book, Broadcast, and Journalism Awards were presented on May 2, at Gotham Hall in New York City, during a… Read More →
Congrats to the Nominees! Yesterday, the James Beard Foundation announced the finalists for the 2014 JBF awards. Congratulations to all of the nominees, what a talented pool of culinary greatness. If you didn’t catch the nominee announcement, the full list is below. The winners for the Book, Broadcast and Journalism Awards will be announced at… Read More →
Irish Country Cooking By Rory O’Connell Watercress, while peppery when eaten raw, becomes sweet and aromatic when lightly cooked. If you go foraging for wild watercress, it is essential to ensure you have found a clean source. The top leaf on sprigs of watercress is always the biggest, whereas the top leaf on wild celery, which often… Read More →
A Battle-Tested Classic By Andrew Zimmern This was all I ever wanted to eat growing up and I still crave it more than I care to admit. This Eastern European cabbage soup is really more of a schi than a borscht, but why quibble over names? In America in the ’60s, unless you were Russian, this… Read More →
Japanese Soul Cooking When you think of Japanese food, staples from your local sushi bar might come to mind. But that’s just one itty-bitty fragment of Japan’s culinary traditions. Tadashi Ono, a chef and New York-based author, and Harris Salat, food writer and owner of Ganso in Brooklyn, have set out to give Japanese comfort food… Read More →
This Year’s Required Reading There have been too many wonderful cookbooks published in 2013 to mention, but here are 25 of my favorite. No matter what type of cook you consider yourself to be, these are cookbooks that should be in your library. From recipes for simple weeknight meals to authentic Asian dishes and impress-your-guests… Read More →
Italian Farmhouse Cooking By Andrew Zimmern Every cook wants to know how to make this superb zuppa verde, and the reason is its simplicity. As in all Italian food, simplicity trumps all. A mixture of greens is great in the recipe, but if you just use escarole, so be it. I first had soup like… Read More →
Kings of Dude Food As chef/owners of the widely acclaimed restaurants Animal and the seafood-centric Son of a Gun, Jon Shook & Vinny Dotolo are anchors of the Los Angeles food scene. These rockstar chefs turned successful restaurateurs also recently opened Trois Mec with pop-up king Ludo Lefebvre, plus another project in the works. Dotolo… Read More →
Try These at Your Next Tailgate Everyone has a go-to meal that fits right into the hearty, crowd-pleasing football food category. Some rely on hot wings and fall comfort-classics like chili and stew, others may boldly roast a whole steer head to make killer barbacoa tacos or light a kerosene-soaked fire for a fish boil. From… Read More →
Preserving Eastern European Heritage Kramarczuk’s Sausage Company is an iconic Twin Cities restaurant and deli, serving Eastern European sausages and comfort classics for more than 50 years. The Kramarczuk family’s story is an ultimate immigrant success story. Wasyl and Anna Kramarczuk moved to the United States to escape war-torn Europe in 1949. In the 50s,… Read More →
Advocate for Healthy Kids Already an accomplished cookbook author and entrepreneur, Sally Sampson decided she wanted to address obesity by inspiring kids to cook and eat real food. In 2010, she launched ChopChop, a nonprofit quarterly magazine that features nutritious recipes, as well as food-related fun facts and games, and in 2013 ChopChop was named Publication of… Read More →
A Classic Chilled Soup By Andrew Zimmern I add Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco and fresh herbs to this gazpacho, giving extra layers of flavor to the classic summer soup. This gazpacho recipe is popular in my house, during the warm weather months I always have a pitcher of this addictive soup on hand in the fridge.… Read More →
