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I have a confession to make. I don't much care for those big globe eggplants. I have tried to like them, truly I have, but I think it's a texture thing. They just taste squishy to me. If squishy is a taste. So this last week, Hank and I have been experimenting with globe eggplants, trying to see what we could come up with that we truly liked, given the challenges of this ingredient. We've
Please welcome Hank Shaw as he takes is through the steps of grilling a whole fish, using sustainably farmed branzino. ~EliseBranzino. Sounds kinda like a the name of a 1940s prizefighter. If its ringing a bell, thats because this fish is popping up in American supermarkets for the first time. Also known as European seabass, the fish now farmed throughout the Mediterranean has been a p
Have you noticed the brightly colored bell peppers in the market lately? They're glorious. Here's a quick and easy recipe for Italian peperonata, or fried peppers, with onions, fresh plum tomatoes, garlic, and basil. This is one of those "I almost ate the whole batch" dishes, only reluctantly shared with my parents who agreed they were terrific. Peperonata recipes come in many versions; som
The trick to a good stir-fry is working with a very hot, relatively stick-free pan. I say relatively stick-free because you don't want one of those stick-free pans with the coating that peels off, but say more like a well-seasoned wok or a cast iron frying pan. Hard anodized aluminum will work too, as its surface is bonded into the pan and can take high temperature cooking. Cooking on high
Have extra basil in your garden right now? Here's a quick and easy vinaigrette dressing you can make with it that you can use not only as a salad dressing, but also as a sauce for fish, chicken, potatoes, tomatoes, or white beans. Here's an idea, use this dressing with some chopped fresh tomatoes and drained canned garbanzo beans. Presto jammo, instant basil-y bean salad. Enjoy.Continue rea
Ground turkey has to be one of my favorite meats to work with. It's lean, takes to spices well, and is relatively inexpensive. We were brainstorming ideas for something that would use ground turkey, potatoes, and onions the other day and were inspired by a classical Indian dish called "Aloo Keema", made with minced meat (most often chicken, beef, or lamb), potatoes, and Indian spices like g
Hank made this seafood bisque for us the other day and it was so outrageously good I begged him to make it again. I served some of it to a friend from Provence whose eyes lit up upon tasting it, "This is just like we have at home! 'Bisque de Fruits de Mer'". The saffron is essential, and even though I usually don't like saffron, this soup has turned me into a saffron lover. I hope you make i
The first time I heard of making pizza on a grill all I could think of was, why would anyone want to do that? Now that I've done it more than a few times I can think of several reasons. Who wants to heat up an oven to 450°F or higher on a hot summer day? If you use a grill to make pizza, you can keep the heat outside where it belongs. Grills also better mimic a wood fired oven than your c
My young friend Audrey was over today. She's 15, and she is the official summer intern of Simply Recipes. For the most part, Audrey's job has been to cook existing recipes on the site that for some reason or another I've decided need work, or need a new photo (e.g. from this to this). This arrangement has been a lot of fun for both of us as you can imagine. Cooking, eating, singing show tun
If you have friends growing zucchini, right about now they are probably delighted, bordering on desperate, to give some of it away. Especially problematic are those huge, baseball bat-sized monsters, that appear out of the blue when you've neglected to check the garden for a few days. This soup is made for such occasions. It uses lots of zucchini, it cooks up quickly, perfect for a midwee
I've been on a frozen yogurt kick lately. Not only because it's so darn easy, but also because the tanginess of the yogurt seems to just give any flavor you pair it with a big boost. It's still high season around here for blackberries, which churn up beautifully in frozen yogurt, with a little lemon zest, cardamom, and cinnamon. You can skip the spices if you want, but they do add a lovely
When it comes to the grill or barbecue, I defer to my colleague Hank, especially when it concerns meat. Here he shows us how to cook pork country ribs, slow and low. ~EliseCountry ribs. Big slabs of porky goodness cut from the shoulder of the hog. Sold boneless or bone-in, these are nothing like a rack of ribs. They are pork logs, laced with fat, and require slow, low-temperature cooking to
Please welcome Hank Shaw as he continues on his tour of barbecue sauce recipes with this Dr. Pepper BBQ sauce. ~EliseCooking with cola or root beer is common, so we figured why not cook with Dr. Pepper? Using soda as the base for a barbecue sauce does two things right off the bat: You get sugar and you get acid. You can literally make a glaze out of nothing more than soda. We went a little f
Recently I had the privilege of dining with one of my favorite food bloggers, Carol Blymire, who after cooking her way through the French Laundry cookbook and blogging about it, is tackling an even more absurdly complicated project with her blog Alinea at Home. Hank, his girlfriend Holly and I met up with Carol at Bouchon Bistro in Yountville, north of Napa. One of my favorite dishes of th
In spite of the oddly cool weather here in Sacramento, my tomatoes are growing swell. And there is nothing better to do with fresh home grown tomatoes on a summer day than have them in a cool, colorful salad. While most summer tomato salads rely on basil, this one uses fresh parsley and dried oregano, along with onions and avocados. It comes from my friend Michelle (we've known each other
Please welcome Hank Shaw, who made this Moroccan-inspired chickpea salad for us the other day. It was outstanding! ~EliseIve always been a huge fan of North African food, and Moroccan food in particular. Moroccan culture is an old culture, and the spice combinations and juxtaposition of sweet and savory are not much changed from a thousand years ago, when these flavors dominated both Europe
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