Finally a Good Turkey Burger

For those of us, who don’t eat beef or are trying to cut back, a good turkey burger is the holy grail. A burger made from ground turkey seems like a good idea, in theory. In practice, though, it is often quite similar to eating a flavorless hockey puck.
The problem with most turkey burgers is [...]

Homemade Pizza Is Easy — Really

Dear Mark Bittman, I have to apologize for having doubted you and not believing that it really is as easy as you say it is to make your own pizza dough. For a long time I have resisted because I believed that making all doughs is difficult. But I finally broke down and tried your [...]

Fresh-from-the-Garden Minestrone

This minestrone recipe is designed to take advantage of whatever is growing fresh in your garden right now. While you may want to stick to the combination of root vegetable, squash, beans and greens, substitutions can and should be made depending on what’s available. What makes this soup really tasty is the “garnish” of bacon, [...]

A Milder All-Purpose Pesto: Spinach-Walnut Pesto

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I actually made this pesto last fall with the last of the basil, but I froze it in ice cube trays and have found many uses for it since. Since this recipe replaces half the basil with spinach, it has a milder taste and can be used in greater quantities than classic pesto. [...]

Mashing Vegetables Beyond Potatoes

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Lately, I have been experimenting with mashing a wider range of vegetables than the standard potato. And why not? The baby loves mashes, even when he’s turning his nose up at vegetables in general. For adults, they are comfort food. Everyone’s happy.
What is the difference between a mash and a puree? Generally, purees [...]

Baked Beans for President’s Day

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I don’t make baked beans too much. To tell the truth, it’s not one of my favorite dishes. But a lot of people love them, especially on patriotic holidays, like President’s Day, and I always think something is much better homemade than out of a can. Here is a fairly simple, vegetarian baked [...]

How to Make Applesauce

Applesauce is really easy to make. I didn’t realize how easy until I got a food mill. A food mill is a bowl-shaped gadget with a hand crank; you fit a disk with holes in it into the bottom of the food mill and use the crank to force cooked food through the holes. Depending [...]

Hoppin’ John

Despite saying that I wasn’t going to eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day this year, I broke down and made the traditional Southern dish of hoppin’ john. (I skipped the collards, though.) And I have to say, it was fantastic. As a bonus, I’ll have good luck this year due to eating black-eyed peas.
I [...]

Adding Flavor to Quick Soups: Minestrone con Pesto

As I said in a recent post, I have been experimenting with building flavor in long-cooking soups by making my own broths, sauteing components separately and then cooking them together for a long time to really marry the flavors. This worked really well when I made a Wild Mushroom Soup for Thanksgiving. But what if [...]

Skillet Cornbread: A Better Way to Make Cornbread

I am a big fan of cornbread. This is a bread that’s hard for even anti-bakers like me to mess up. It comes together quickly, it can usually be made with whatever’s on hand (as long as you have cornmeal, and why don’t you?), and it’s appropriate for any meal or even a snack.
I usually [...]