tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37000809975568175622011-07-29T01:30:54.125-04:00Or a brave attempt to declutter recipe files and what was found there.Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.comBlogger301100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-32023236193302055022010-04-17T21:39:00.000-04:002010-04-17T21:39:05.598-04:00

BLT Bucatini. Just the name sounds awesome. Maybe because "bucatini" itself is fun to say. And the recipe (from a sample issue of "Cuisine at home" magazine) brings together the main ingredients of a BLT (sort of) to make a fairly light pasta sauce. Who could resist? OK, well technically, "BLT" is a misnomer here. The recipe I was working off used spinach, probably because it was going to be

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-39714802195896838452010-04-15T09:37:00.000-04:002010-04-15T09:37:14.776-04:00

One of my favorite, never-remember-it ingredients is goat cheese. I love its creaminess and its slight tang. But when I don't have it, I forget to buy it; when I do, I forget to use it. So, I thought ahead this time and picked out a recipe that featured it: salad with raspberry-poppy seed dressing and almond-crusted goat cheese. It looked like a nice accompaniment to grilled chicken, or a way to

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-66165048930663651052010-03-22T17:30:00.001-04:002010-03-22T17:34:55.395-04:00

Generally, I don't watch cooking shows. I'm in too much trouble collecting recipes already. Oh, sure, I'll stop and watch an episode of "Good Eats" if it happens to be on opposite a "CSI: NY" episode I've already seen. I might pause in my champion channel surfing if I hear someone utter a magic phrase such as "now add the melted chocolate..." or there's an immensely appealing visual. But I never

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-92198508363997963432010-03-17T19:47:00.000-04:002010-03-17T19:47:56.486-04:00

St. Patrick's Day is one of the toughest holidays for me, culinarily-speaking. Being one-eighth Irish, we dutifully cook our corned beef (a.k.a. New England boiled dinner), although sans cabbage in deference to my cruciferous vegetable problem. That main meal poses little difficulty. The difficulty is what else to serve with it, or, rather, what to serve to two elementary-school children. For

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-48800982429971720252010-03-17T17:50:00.000-04:002010-03-17T17:50:39.224-04:00

The last couple of weeks I fell out of the habit of trying new recipes. There was a week I was sick, then a period when we needed to fall back on speedy comfort food, and so on. This week, the binder re-emerged. Actually, a new binder emerged, as I've been periodically sorting recipes by seasonal appropriateness, with a fifth binder for those recipes that really can be served any time of year.

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-32430678881504058482010-02-13T20:18:00.001-05:002010-02-13T20:20:10.416-05:00

We've been home a lot lately. We were snowed in early in the week, and roads cleared just in time for the schools' four-day President's Day weekend break. Plus, it's cold. For someone who considers herself a New Englander, I don't do cold well. On the bright side, I do hot chocolate well. Usually from a mix. Sometimes I dress it up with leftover candy canes, a dash of cinnamon or some vanilla

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-80121686903453056362010-02-13T12:33:00.002-05:002010-02-13T12:47:28.525-05:00

It's an emerging tradition in our household that we celebrate the start of the Olympics with food from the host country. This officially started in 2008, with sesame noodles to kick off the Beijing Olympics. I don't remember doing anything specific for Torino in 2006, but then again, we eat a lot of pizza and pasta so it's possible. So here it is, 2010, the Winter Games are in Vancouver, and I

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-14002571772091813932010-02-11T10:50:00.000-05:002010-02-11T10:50:24.327-05:00

Lately, I've had a craving for coffee cake. I blame this mostly on Keith, who tends to choose coffee cake as a treat at the shop where I regularly buy coffee beans. He usually lets me have a bite, and it's good. But a bite just isn't enough. Nor is it any good on a quiet morning at home, when there's just enough snow on the ground to delay school and you really want baked goods with your cup of

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-56844625319569798422010-02-01T21:56:00.000-05:002010-02-01T21:56:33.593-05:00

It happens to be that excellent time of year known as Girl Scout Cookie Time. Last week I ran into a cookie stand manned by a couple of Brownies I know, and well, a sucker for Thin Mints and her money are soon parted. I love chocolate. I love mint. I love chocolate mint, and Thin Mints, well... I have been known to eat an entire box of Thin Mints in one sitting, and I think that was the fate I

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-48065459234203876132010-01-17T20:30:00.001-05:002010-01-17T20:31:30.407-05:00

Will and I are a little like Jack Sprat and his wife: When we roast a chicken, he sticks to the leaner white meat and I go straight for the dark. I think it has more flavor and is far more tender than breast meat, and it's my favorite part of the bird. Still, I concede that the taste benefits are the result of more fat and as a result I rarely cook with chicken legs. However, I do have a

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-16396508657358214772010-01-08T22:33:00.000-05:002010-01-08T22:33:16.381-05:00

Alex is now 6. There aren't enough Legos in the world to please him, birthday cards that play the "Star Wars" theme delight him endlessly, and he wanted to celebrate with a plain chocolate cake. Six years old and adept at torturing his mother. Basic chocolate cake is my Achilles heel; I seem to be incapable of making it. I have many recipes for more sophisticated versions: flourless,

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-49599702090160315972010-01-05T17:04:00.000-05:002010-01-05T17:04:20.259-05:00

Will pulled a package of chicken breasts out of the freezer and asked, "Do you want to find something to do with these, or should I?" Now, he was heading out the door to work and I had planned a very busy day of being a lazy ragamuffin, so thinking about dinner wasn't real high on either of our lists. But I took it as a recipe challenge, and agreed to find something. Being lazy, I didn't want to

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-45182770226361415122010-01-03T14:41:00.000-05:002010-01-03T14:41:54.045-05:00

First confession: Christmas was not the first time I made sugo di carne. That came about two months ago, when I had my hands full with work stuff and no time to blog and the camera has been on the fritz anyway so there weren't any photos anyhow. Second confession: It is foolish of me to think that a holiday week allows me more time to write. Or that I can update a blog at someone else's house,

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-79366952256778130722009-12-06T12:38:00.000-05:002009-12-06T12:38:46.295-05:00

I'm no genius chef, but I'm also not all that bad at roasting turkeys. We usually buy our Thanksgiving bird from a nearby farm, then I shove a mixture of butter and herbs under the skin and roast the thing in accordance with a recipe that has proven fairly reliable over the last decade. We complement it with the typical Thanksgiving dishes that we began preparing three days earlier and the result

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-85718944015792636512009-10-18T21:49:00.000-04:002009-10-18T21:49:09.915-04:00

Have I mentioned that we have too much stuff in this house? And that one chunk of that too much stuff is a rambling recipe collection? This weekend, I took a stab at winnowing that down. I lugged into the family room a stack of roughly 40 dog-eared cooking magazines, all published in fall or winter months, and proceeded to go through and rip out every recipe that either Will or I had ever

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-3858564951636019302009-10-18T21:23:00.000-04:002009-10-18T21:23:13.726-04:00

Mmm. Molasses cookies. One of my favorite things about fall is cooking with warmer spices, like cloves and cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. One of my favorite things to make with them is molasses cookies. To some extent, I am on a quest for the perfect molasses cookie. My freshman year of college, I had a roommate who worked with a woman who made wonderful molasses cookies, soft and chewy with

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-1479433319860222852009-10-10T17:43:00.000-04:002009-10-10T17:43:13.702-04:00

One of the reasons I got so het up about the idea of making homemade ricotta was I found a recipe for ricotta gnocchi. Said recipe was part of an article about using homemade ricotta and sure, I could have just bought a tub of cheese at the store and called it a day, but I got ambitious. Ricotta recipe one failed miserably. Ricotta recipe two turned out splendidly, and now that I had the main

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-82891869224628040032009-10-10T10:25:00.001-04:002009-10-10T10:28:01.395-04:00

Old habits die hard, really, really hard. To wit, it took me something like 23 years to make the pecan pillow recipe I clipped from Seventeen magazine way back when I was learning to cook. Then it took me another week to post about it. To be honest, it was a very busy week and I've been so exhausted I didn't watch any of the Red Sox's first two playoff games, and therefore I blame myself for

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-59468578372253132912009-10-04T11:57:00.001-04:002009-10-04T12:00:34.766-04:00

I now have four different methods of making ricotta at home. My new ambition is to not just succeed at making this stuff, but to figure out which one is the best. The version I tried this time is from Cook's Illustrated. Heat a gallon of whole milk to 185 degrees, remove from the heat, gently stir in 1/3 c. lemon juice, leave it alone for five minutes and then check to see if it separated into

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-41484112149094743882009-10-04T11:39:00.000-04:002009-10-04T11:39:40.317-04:00

I keep forgetting that I need a Bundt pan. Many years ago, when we were helping downsize somebody's kitchen on Will's side of the family, I acquired a nifty little springform pan with a Bundt insert. It was pretty cool. I could make cheesecakes, I could make Bundt cakes, and I could make a deadly flourless chocolate cake courtesy of Rose Levy Beranbaum. What else did I need? As it turned out

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-26569299978935243382009-09-29T21:53:00.000-04:002009-09-29T21:53:51.319-04:00

Whether it's what's on sale or the result of trying to pick hearty fall dishes, lately I seem to have pulled a lot of recipes involving canned tomatoes. I'm kicking myself a bit, because my tomato plants seem to be giving one last hurrah and last week I got several fresh fruits off the vine. But we used them right away -- as we should have, really, and they were good -- and here I am making

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-1538404070888413292009-09-26T17:25:00.001-04:002009-09-26T17:25:41.294-04:00

While sorting recipes Sunday afternoon, I came across one for homemade ricotta. It was ridiculously easy: Heat a lot of milk, add some lemon juice, heat some more, skim out and drain the curds, voila! Then, while trying to recall what I did with a particular homemade yogurt recipe, I found a different set of directions for homemade ricotta, this time using buttermilk. And I found another one in

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-86585982122497449552009-09-23T15:28:00.000-04:002009-09-23T15:28:58.367-04:00

Thorough disclaimer: I did not cook this recipe. I got stuck in traffic (read: had to stop and buy coffee beans) and my husband got home well before me, so he kindly consented to make the dinner I had planned. I had picked a penne with bacon, tomato and cheese sauce, largely because it looked like it could be made in 25 minutes, give or take a few. It did take a fairly short time, making it good

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-53766196712441188952009-09-21T20:30:00.000-04:002009-09-21T20:30:51.800-04:00

As part of my recipe-weeding effort, I'm trying to get in the habit of planning out each week's menus and matching dishes to whatever is on sale at the grocery store and the feasibility of cooking on busy school nights. This turns out to be harder than I would have figured. To wit: Chuck roast was on sale this week. If I have a recipe that involves chuck roast, it's lost in the black hole that I

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-67478498107058169892009-09-18T21:11:00.000-04:002009-09-18T21:11:37.085-04:00

One of the many differences between my husband and myself is he is a much more flexible cook than I am. He can come home from work and throw something together; when I try to do that, the answer more likely than not is pasta, probably with a quick-and-dirty alfredo sauce. He can make up dinners without a recipe; I have to know in advance exactly what I'm making and that I have the ingredients

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-77487888309436209882009-09-17T22:25:00.001-04:002009-09-17T22:36:48.432-04:00

One of the challenges of my attack on my recipe collection is working around the family schedule. Two working adults, two busy school-aged boys -- thousands of families have the same problem. Sometimes I break down and dinner looks like this: This usually happens on Wednesdays, when soccer practice starts the same time I would otherwise be telling the boys to set the table. I'm not proud, but

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-7606288700654234992009-09-15T19:30:00.005-04:002009-09-15T20:41:29.455-04:00

That was the summer of 1987 – when my siblings called me “bossy,” and it didn’t occur to me to mind. That was before Windows 2.0, before Nirvana cut their first album, when I actually looked forward to high school, and I thought I’d never find a guy, period. That was the summer of “Dirty Dancing.” I was not planning on cooking anything new today. For that matter, I wasn’t planning on cooking at

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-43602086681223028582009-09-15T19:29:00.002-04:002009-09-15T19:29:45.654-04:00

The recipe is pretty simple: Beat two sticks of butter, 1 cup sugar, two eggs, 1 tsp. vanilla and ½ tsp. of coconut extract. I don’t have coconut extract, so I substituted almond. When mixture is light and fluffy, add 3 cups flour, ½ tsp. baking soda and 1 tsp. salt, which you mixed in a separate bowl. Beat until smooth. Spoon out 1 cup of dough and chill it in the fridge. Add red food coloring

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-61747536061217887232009-09-14T19:50:00.000-04:002009-09-14T19:50:01.255-04:00

    Skirt steak is on sale this week. I happened to find an recipe for skirt steak with balsamic sauce in one of my binders. Even better, the recipe came with side dishes: roast grape tomatoes and Parmesan polenta. It was a plan.    When my 5-year-old asked what we were having for dinner, I sent my Italian ancestors spinning in their graves by telling him it would be steak and Italian grits.

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3700080997556817562.post-20363794342340626072009-09-14T12:57:00.002-04:002009-09-14T13:27:15.637-04:00

   I have a recipe for something called pecan pillows, essentially pecans and brown sugar wrapped in crescent roll dough and baked for 20 minutes. I've had this recipe since 1986. I've never tried it.    The pecan pillows recipe is in an aged photo album, along with about two dozen other recipes and sundry makeup tips clipped from Seventeen magazine during my three-year subscription. Some

Leahhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07261508479195674383noreply@blogger.com2