Recipe Review

Now that we’ve got our ice cream makers churning away this month, we’re looking for fun ways to play with the results. Mochi ice cream balls have popped up everywhere from swanky restaurant dessert menus to the freezer case at Trader Joe’s.But why not make a batch of your own?

Readers, we’re going to let you in on a little secret. This stuff tastes like Pinkberry…We watched cookbook author Patricia Wells make this yogurt sorbet for Ina Garten on an episode of Barefoot Contessa and thought, “Really? That’s it?”It was one of the first things we made when we bought our ice cream maker, and we proceeded to make it again and again until we got sick of it. But this summer, we’re getting reacquainted.

Looks pretty good, right?Alas, this loaf made from Local Breads by Daniel Leader fell far short of our hopes and expectations. Read on for the whole saga…This country boule started the night before with a liquid levain, one type of preferment commonly used for sourdoughs. We used our own starter instead of making a new one following Leader’s instructions. After examining his recipe and ours, they both seemed to result in the same liquid-to-flour ratio.

I grew up in Florida and Georgia. Now I live in California, where some things related to Southern cooking are hard to find. Unripe green tomatoes for frying aren’t sold in the supermarkets; to obtain them, one has to go to the farmer’s markets and hope one of the tomato vendors has some unripe green ones, or one has to grow their own.Another thing, Californians seem confused as to what “green tomatoes” are.

Every summer, we anxiously await the arrival of squash blossoms so we can make one of our favorite dishes: fried squash blossoms.It’s a little time-consuming to prepare as you have to carefully remove the pistil from the center of the flower without ripping the delicate petals, but the work involved is worth it. I first had fried squash blossoms when I lived in Italy. In Italy, they’re usually dipped in batter and fried, and then served with salt and pepper.

James Oliver Cury has a list of the top ten weirdest recipe names he’s come across in his work at Epicurious. We agreed that some were odd; others not so much – but we’re curious about your own weird recipe names. He says: Some catch my eye because they sound so delicious. Others force a double-take thanks to the name alone. “Ugly but Good” cookies? What’s the advantage of making that?

Like an ant to the picnic, we couldn’t resist trying out another bread recipe from Daniel Leader’s book, Local Breads, this past weekend.We had such success making baguettes last time, so we thought we’d try another straight dough recipe. We decided on Ricotta Bread, a basic yeast bread–no sourdoughs or starters–enriched with milk and ricotta cheese. Yum!The dough was pretty sticky at first and difficult to work with.

Yesterday we took a “Hot or Not” vote on flag cakes (at the time we’re writing this, it’s pretty much a tie), and then we saw this smaller, round version. Just as festive, but not quite as kitschy. We vote “hot.”See another photo, without the raspberries, below…In the interest of full disclosure, our (Elizabeth’s) sister made this cake. So call us biased.

Recently we bought a package of dried fava beans and made this delicious recipe that goes back thousands of years in Egypt.Ful medammes is a dish made of fava beans marinated in lemon juice, garlic, and olive oil. The dish is a popular street food in Egypt and is traditionally served for breakfast, smeared on pita bread slices with some hard boiled eggs. It’s very flavorful and filling.Recipe:1 lb. dried fava beans3/4 clove garlic, chopped3 tbsp olive oil1/4 c. lemon juice3/4 tsp.

We had a free afternoon this past weekend and thought we’d try out the baguette recipe from Local Breads, Daniel Leader’s latest book on bread baking.Leader says that he didn’t include this recipe in his first book because he thought it was “too simple.” In putting together this book, he realized that “its accessibility accounts for its charm.”Well. We’ll see about that!

With the weather turning warmer, we find ourselves turning to lighter meals and nibbles. Healthy dips and spreads such as muhammara are finding their way onto our plates more often in recent weeks.Another benefit of dips and spreads is they can be used as a substitute for less-healthy toppings such as butter, cream, hollandaise sauces, and other high-fat sauces and accompaniments. Try using hummus in place of mayonnaise in a sandwich, or experiment with covering a grilled steak with guacamole.

Look at this! It may be the most perfect peanut butter jar ever. Instead of all those curvy unreachable corners, and a bottom that keeps the last bits of precious peanut butter away from your groping spoon, this jar has a couple of distinct advantages. Can you spot them?Designed by Sherwood Forlee, this Easy PB&J Jar has not one but TWO lids. Take the bottom lid off to scrape the peanut butter jar ultra clean.

We came across this strange yet sensible tip over at the blog Domestigeek, and we’re curious if anyone has tried it! Since you get the best and crispiest chicken skin when the chicken has been thoroughly dried, this does make sense…When we roast a chicken we usually pat it dry and then salt it and put it in the fridge, a la the Zuni method.

So, we have a new salad that we are absolutely crazed over. We ate it for dinner last weekend; we ate it for dinner last night, and, guess what? We’re eating it for lunch today! And it’s nothing special – just an old potluck chestnut. But for good reason…This salad is a simple alchemy of shaved raw cabbage, sesame seeds, scallions and roasted almonds, with a dressing of oil, rice vinegar, a little sugar, and soy sauce. That’s it! It takes five minutes to make.

We consider ourselves hearty dessert eaters. We rarely say, “Oh, I just want a bite of something sweet.” We get seconds.But this dessert from Martha Stewart, which we featured on April Fool’s Day, was so rich we almost had to lie down and unbutton our pants…And oh how silky and delicious it was.Like our popular recipe for Coffee Fluff, this Rhubarb Fool is basically a serving of heavy whipped cream — with a ribbon of sweet, puréed rhubarb running through it.

We mentioned on Friday that we were planning on cooking this recipe from Epicurious: Chinese Broccoli With Sausage And Polenta. We made this on Saturday and we and our dinner companion were quite enraptured.It’s a very basic and easy one-bowl meal, though, and we were surprised at how quickly it came together. You just cook polenta, stirring occasionally, then fry up some smoked, spicy sausage and some bitter greens and pile them on top of the deliciously creamy polenta.

These might look like Easter eggs, but actually they’re a traditional treat for Passover. We asked NYC caterer and culinary consultant Sierra Spingarn to share the family recipe for Huevos Haminados.Since observant Jews refrain from doing work on the Sabbath, they employ techniques for slow-cooked foods that can be started Friday afternoon, and still be hot on their table. This year, as Passover begins on Saturday night, these techniques will come in especially handy.

Remember Magic Shell, that thin chocolate sauce that you pour over ice cream? It “magically” hardens in a matter of seconds into a waxy layer of hard chocolate. It’s junk food, and we love it. We don’t love the trans-fats and mysterious ingredients, though, so it’s a good thing you can easily make it yourself…Jocelyn at Brownie Points explains how just melted chocolate and coconut oil together make Magic Shell, DIY-version.

Our favorite April Fools Day food tricks are more nice than naughty – the classic idea of serving foods that look like other foods. You’ve probably seen the meatloaf “iced” with mashed potatoes to look like a cake. Maybe you’ve even seen mashed potatoes and gravy in a parfait glass, mounded up to look like a butterscotch sundae.This year, we were looking for a new trick to truly fool our favorite people. Did we fool you?

At the Alemany Farmer’s Market right now we’re seeing a lot of cardoons in season. Cardoons are closely related to – and taste very much like – artichokes. Why is this vegetable not well-known, then?Cardoons are high-maintenance vegetables. They look like very large hearts of celery, but have thorns in the stalks, so handle with care. The stalks are not solid like celery, and are semi-hollow and stringy.

One of the things we like most about our friends over at Serious Eats is their unfailing eye for a delicious photo. This one above, of Ham, Brie, and Apple French Toast Panini from Serious Eats’ Cook the Book expedition through Panini Express looks so good that we want to go make one now. But then, how can you really go wrong with ham, brie, and brioche?More Serious Eats below, including another great photo of croissant innards, heart-shaped cucumbers, knorks, and caramel popcorn cupcakes.

We’re packing for a flight tomorrow, and of course that packing includes a snack to make the hours in the air more palatable. Inspired by Saveur’s March theme of butter, we washed some radishes, spooned some artisanal butter into a disposable container, and bagged up a bit of sea salt.Tomorrow, just when the flight seems intolerable, we’ll take a bite of peppery radish, slather on some cooling butter and add a little extra crunch with the salt.

Photo by Allen of Eating Out LoudWe love spaetzle and we often make our airy, tender Ricotta Spaetzle for dinner. We’ve never thought of them as breakfast food, but now we suddenly do…Spaetzle are tiny German dumplings – not much more than flour, eggs, and water. They can be made orzo-tiny by pushing the batter through a ricer or special spaetzle-maker. Or they can be made, as we prefer them, by pushing thumb-sized lumps of batter off the end of a teaspoon.

Since coffee is our big thing this week, we reached back into the archives over at Serious Eats to see what our friends there had to say about coffee. We found good stuff – it looks like they need their java jolt too. Our favorite find was this cup, labeled the “Ultimate Coffee Cup” by its creator… • Artist David Piers created this cup to meet his criteria for the perfect, ultimate coffee cup.

Remember the big to-do over Jessica Seinfeld’s new cookbook, Deceptively Delicious? She sneaks pureed carrots, spinach and broccoli into foods that kids will eat, like mac and cheese and meatballs. The approach was wildly controversial, judging from the comments on our original post.We asked if anyone had actually tried it, and Darlene from my burning kitchen wrote us to say that she had. What did she think of Seinfeld’s vegetable concoctions?

Our friend Michael of Herbivoracious (and of that splendid spicy chickpea stew) tells us, to our surprise, that bacon salt is both vegetarian and vegan! To demonstrate, he makes a vegan Farro with Collard Greens and Bacon Salt.More thoughts below…Like Michael we try to avoid artificial seasonings, but if any of you are going vegan for the New Year (permanently or temporarily) and need a way to ease off that meaty diet of the holidays, this might be helpful.

Let’s stand up for the baby pattypan. The baby pattypan has its own unique crown shape and an olive-oil like flavor that cries out for attention. While baby pattypans can work in recipes created for zucchini or yellow summer squash, we’ve been hunting all summer for recipes that were created just for the little pattypans. Isn’t it a shame to slice them up when their shape is so perfect on the plate? Until this weekend, we hadn’t had much luck in our recipe hunt.

One of our favorite dessert party tricks is phyllo cups. You can buy those little phyllo cups, pre-shaped and crimped, out of the freezer at the grocery store. But you can get far more out of a regular package of phyllo, and it doesn’t take long to make cups in the size you want. Once baked these can be filled easily and creatively with all sorts of good things – raspberries and cream, chocolate mousse, whipped blue cheese with bacon crumbles.