In my rather brief stint as a kale eater, I’ve learned one very important fact about this greeny, leafy vegetable: Kale is a divisive little food. It seems like one of those love-it-or-hate-it things. You love it for its vitamins and overall good-for-you-ness but wish it tasted more like lettuce or spinach than it’s noticeably…
It’s the lazy (wo)man’s risotto: Creamy orzo
There’s a lot of new-recipe trying going on at our place these days. With everything from desserts to soups to entrees, my pre-grocery-shopping routine usually involves a good hour of cookbook and computer diving to the find a slew of new dishes we can take for a test drive. Some are great, some are so-so,…
Project NYT: Mark Bittman’s Real Ranch Dressing
Five or so years ago, I was having a conversation with my brother about salad dressing nationality when I made the observation that our U.S.A.-made salads were in need of a little patriotism. Italy, France and Russia all have dressings bearing their names. “What about America?” I wondered out loud. “Why isn’t there an American…
Project NYT: Garden minestrone
There are some recipes that will confuse you from the very beginning. They’ll ask you to cook something on low when medium seems more logical. They’ll call for slicing and not dicing, when you know in your gut that the vegetables will never lose their crunch in a 20-minute cook time. They’ll give you strict…
Good things take time: Butternut squash risotto
Few acts in the kitchen can make an amateur cook feel quite as accomplished as the successful preparation of homemade risotto. For a single dish, you get to chop, grate, season and sauté before spending 30-plus minutes standing over the stove while tending to your impending masterpiece. Yes, it’s more labor intensive than spaghetti or…
Project NYT: What’s up, Butternut?
Around our house (and probably a lot of yours, too), winter weather means soup weather. Fortunately, considering the piles of cold and snowiness we’ve been hit with this season, there’s no shortage of classics to pull out or new recipes to try. Whether it’s time-tested favorites like tomato or chicken noodle or new spins like…
Project NYT: Rollin’ in dough
For the past few years, my heart for pizza has been divided between two great loves: Shakespeare’s Pizza, the No. 1 college hangout here in Columbia (seriously, just ask Good Morning America) and Monetti’s Pizzeria Ristorante, a little Italian restaurant in my hometown of Warrensburg. One’s classic American fare, done right with fresh ingredients, and…
Project NYT: Lentil ginger soup
Our snow day proved to be filled with all sorts of warm and cozy yesterday, with the snow day muffins starting the morning on a high note in all their cinnamon glory, followed by an evening of om-nom-nom-inducing soup that warmed us from the inside out. Nothing beats snow days and cozy nights. We should…
Secrets don’t make salads
Have you heard the story about the lady who, while shopping at Neiman Marcus in Dallas with her daughter, stopped into the café for a few chocolate chip cookies? According to the story, she loved the cookies so much, she asked for the recipe, to which the waitress replied, “Only two-fifty.” The woman agreed and…
Project NYT: Tomato Soup I
For the past six months, Jared and I have been in search of a delicious homemade tomato soup. It sounds simple enough, right? Beyond the tomatoes, milk, salt and pepper, it didn’t seem like there could be much to the basic recipe. Of course, I’d spent at least a decade making tomato soup from a…