The Cooks Hangout

My intention was to bring a little baggie of these snappy, chocolate-stuffed sandwich cookies on the plane to Philadelphia last week. Unfortunately, I ran out of time (having clean clothes trumped having cookies this time around) and had to wait until after my trip to bake them off. That being said, they are an effective travel tool, perfect for establishing goodwill with the stranger(s) sitting next to you. The poppy-flecked, brown sugar dough has a mellow sweetness, and it is my feeling that the butter browns just enough in the oven to bring the flavors together full circle. The chocolate functions as binding bridge between two wafer-thin coins.

How many times have you gone out, purchased a big, bushy bouquet of cilantro, torn off a small handful to use in whatever creation you were focused on at that moment, then shoved the rest of the cilantro into some neglected corner of your refrigerator? Yeah, me too. It happens more often than I would like to admit. I brought a particularly vibrant, dare I say perky, bunch of cilantro home the other day and promised myself to use it. All of it. This zesty, cilantro-centric soba noodle bowl features a hefty dose of the green stuff, pan-toasted tofu, and plenty of vegetables.

A bean salad will be as ordinary or extraordinary as the beans you start with. There's nothing wrong with using canned beans, but if good quality dried beans are parked just next door (and you get more beans for the money), it might be time to trade up. Trust me, it's like going from driving a Hyundai to a BMW. This salad features pretty Pebble beans alongside thinner-skinned Mayacoba and a few black lentils, all splashed with a brightly-flavored ginger-curry vinaigrette. You can certainly play around with the types of beans you use, I had two types of beans cooked up, and some black lentils in the freezer. With a minimal amount of chopping and a touch of whisking the salad came together in just a few minutes.

About a month ago I sent an email to my friend Gwen. I asked her to let me know the next time she was heading down to Chile. She works for the Huneeus family at Quintessa in Napa. They also own Veramonte in the Casablanca Valley just a short drive outside of Santiago Chile, and she travels there often. She replied immediately that a trip was in the works - she was in the process of booking her flight. The plan was to meet up with her friend Mai (who is Chilean and also works at Quintessa), head over to Mendoza (a wine region just a short hop over the Andes in Argentina), and then back to Santiago for a couple days of work/meetings. I asked if I could tag along, they said no problem, we tacked a few days in Buenos Aires onto the tail end of the adventure, and I started packing. It was an exciting whirlwind of a trip and I returned with a notebook full of notes, stories, and recipe ideas that I look forward to weaving into the site over the coming months.

I'm sure everyone has a favorite part when preparing a casual dinner whether it'd be for close friends or family. Certainly, having them over, spending quality time with them and an evening filled with plenty of laughter is what it's all about. But besides? What triggers your happy buttons before enjoying their company? How about setting the table, or the cooking part itself? All very valid thoughts, but for me personally it's clearly the decision process about what I want to serve to my guests that night. Involving a lot of skimming through cookbooks, recipe journals and pondering over my choices.

I rarely cook mixed grains because I feel compelled to cook type each grain in a separate pot - a pot for barley, one for rice, another for millet, etc. No one around here looks forward to doing the resulting dishes. It's bad enough scrubbing one rice pot, let alone a collective. Each grain cooks for a different amount of time, hence the need for all those pots - or that's what I thought. Today's recipe is a simple, single pot approach to mixed grains inspired by the following reader email, a grandmother of four...

I had the real thing in Austria, and I don't think it was any better than this. Serve it with buttered noodles. Continue Reading »

COLD CUSTARD MADE WITH RENNET. MRS. IRA UHLER.

Use a piece of rennet about the size of a half dollar. Take two

quarts of good sweet milk, and warm it to the heat of new milk; Continue Reading »