Luxurious rice pudding tastes divine and makes you feel good all over. But achieving a rich creaminess can be tricky. Baking can take hours, and the rice can even toughen. Thanks to the miraculous time-defying Pressure Cooker (or Instant Pot), this recipephany takes raw rice from zero to supreme creaminess in less than 15 minutes. Evaporated milk (milk that’s been concentrated by cooking it down) adds thickness plus a hint of caramelization. This slight nuttiness joins hands with the vanilla and cinnamon (rice pudding is a great delivery system for both) to create ahhh-inspiring yumminess. While you might think of rice pudding as the fluffy slippers of desserts, it has some hipness. When our…
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Bay Area Scientists Develop Breakthrough “Alternative Chocolate Cake”
I’m thrilled and proud to post this news story I found online featuring the research of my favorite PhDs, my daughter and son-in-law. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ Bay Area scientists have developed a recipe for an “alternative chocolate cake” free of gluten, fat, sugar, and animal products, fulfilling a dream of those seeking a dessert they can serve to all guests. The breakthrough is reported in the April issue of the journal Nature Gastronomy. Chemists, gastronomists and celebrity chefs alike herald it as the most significant advance in food science since the fat substitute Olestra was approved by the FDA in 1996. Those who have eaten the cake, however, question its palatability. In the paper, co-authors Claire…
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Butternut Squash Roasted Whole: The best one-ingredient dish ever
This is more than a recipephany; it’s a revelation. It comes from Raegan Sales, the Veggie Whisperer. To capture the deep flavor of butternut squash, roast it whole at 400 degrees for about an hour until it yields when you stab it with a fork. Cool a little, then cut it in half, remove the seeds and peel off the paper-thin skin (unless you are like me and consume that, too). The juice is like maple syrup, so save it to spoon over or mash into the squash. Eat as is or use in other dishes. The squash is so sweet and velvety it tastes like it has been injected with butter and caramelized…
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Caramelized Tofu Triangles: Simple Make-Ahead Appetizer
Caramel-lacquered tofu triangles hit all the sweet, savory and salty notes that put guests in a good mood. The dark, shiny syrup sinks into the chewy triangles, so you can eat them with your fingers if you like. Since they keep well in the fridge, you can make them way ahead and bring them out any time, as you would a wedge of brie. They travel well, too. Carry them to a holiday party in a Ziploc bag and free yourself from having to retrieve your plate (or help with the clean-up) when it’s time for goodbyes. My daughter-in-law Raegan has made these for brunch, proving that they are as versatile as an eggy…
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Cocoa Date-Nut Truffles: A Sweet Deception
Deep dark chocolate truffles with flecks of walnut and hazelnut feel so much like a naughty indulgence that you’ll catch yourself stealing them when nobody’s looking. But why? They are entirely fruit and nuts, without any added sugar or cream. These wholesome concoctions play such a trick on our confection detectors that this recipephany may be more appropriate for April Fool’s Day than Valentine’s Day. The idea for these truffles came from my sister-in-law Sheila. A few years ago she brought us some soft and creamy Medjool dates and a recipe for turning them into no-bake vegan brownies. We mixed up a batch, rolled them into balls and called them “Cocoa Medjools.” I’ve embellished…
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Spinach Cooked with Onions (Mughlai Saag) from the ‘Godmother of Indian Cooking’
As we approach the Oscars, I propose a new category of Lifetime Achievement Award: “Best Actor & Cookbook Author.” The recipient would be an award-winning star of motion pictures as well as a best-selling cookbook author with James Beard honors. And, naturally, she or he would be a host of popular cooking shows. And the winner is: Madhur Jaffrey. I had no inkling of Jaffrey’s double life when my friend Wendy gave me her authoritative Indian Cooking cookbook 30 years ago. I had never even heard of her. But Wendy was a fan. She had just come back from living in Amsterdam, where she had watched Jaffrey’s BBC cooking show, and had picked up…
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Double Chocolate Sorbet (Without an Ice Cream Machine)
I’ve been itching to make rapturously fudgy Double Chocolate Sorbet ever since our friends Adam and Pam served it on their porch four years ago. But who’s kidding whom? I don’t have a modern ice cream machine, and I’m not about to get one. That’s because my husband lives by Newton’s Third Law of Stuff: For every impulse to buy something, there must be an equal and opposite impetus to get rid of something. Every new kitchen gadget kicks out an old one. I recite this mantra for self-control, especially when fantasizing over the King Arthur Flour Kitchen Porn Catalog. Ah, that perky little Cuisinart ice cream machine would be my passport to homemade…
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Jimmy Bruic’s Banana Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
I wish to publicly thank Ellis Island for my Irish surname. Having walked the breathtaking landscape of my faux homeland, I will increasingly claim this island as my own. Actually, my kids are a quarter Irish, thanks to my husband’s great-grandparents who came from the Dingle Peninsula. So according to a Scientific American article (I’m not making this up), “Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains,” I may be part Irish after all! And why shouldn’t I claim Irish food as my heritage? Smoked salmon, for which my brain has a unique receptor, appears in convenience stores, for goodness sake. I breakfasted on sweet, freshly smoked kippers, a royal relative of the canned…
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Oscars 2013: Life of Pot Pie
Suggested by Claire, based on Raegan’s mega-veggie curry pot pie, and produced with the help of Chris, Life of Pot Pie became the centerpiece of our 2013 Oscars® Red Carpet Gala last night. It was a tasty and substantial sidekick to the starring course, Dan’s sweet-and-spicy grilled Finger Lincoln Chicken (also known as Poulets Misérables) and nicely complemented Jennifer’s technicolor Beets of the Southern Wild salad. The appetizers were a tough act to follow. Lynn’s half pineapple filled with Naomi Watts-in-This-Dip was a delicious thriller that kept us guessing, a big winner with Emanuelle Pita Chips. Chris’s lavish Ham Hathaway with Hugh Monterey Jackman Cheese Quvenzhané-Quesadillas disappeared as quickly as you could say the…
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Persian Green Olive and Walnut Salad
Some think a good waiter is someone who sneaks an extra shrimp into your cocktail. Me, I prefer a waiter who gives away the chef’s secrets. I got this recipephany many years ago from a waiter at Lala Rokh on Beacon Hill, an elegant Persian restaurant near John Kerry’s townhouse on Louisburg Square. It was my Dad’s birthday, when the kids were home and my folks could still negotiate at least some of the steep walk to the door. We started with this appetizer called zaitun-e parwardeh. It mesmerized me so much that—sort of like the Men in Black’s Neuralizer—it wiped out my entire memory of the rest of the meal. Sweet, tart, salty,…
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Heather’s Cranberry Apple Pie Inspires OccuPie Brookline
A week ago, after chowing down chow foon in Chinatown, we went with our friends Heather and Will to Occupy Boston. Will led us, as he had been there before to donate goods. With tents snugged together like soap bubbles, the encampment is not so much a protest site as a tiny village. It has a library, a bike-powered generator (courtesy of MIT), a canteen, art exhibits, entertainment, derelicts, tourists (us), and dedicated activists chanting responsively in the village square. An apple from the canteen that had rolled to the foot of a tent got me thinking about Heather’s Cranberry Apple Pie. Sweet, tangy, scrumptious, and so New England. Heather gave me this recipephany…
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Sunny With a Chance of Leeks (for Potato Leek Soup)
Let’s start with the story behind this Potato Leek Soup. It began with a squintingly-bright Sunday morning we spent on the paradise of Coronado Island, San Diego, four years ago. My daughter led us on a run past the regal Hotel Del Coronado (where Marilyn Monroe sizzled in “Some Like it Hot”), past magnificent Mission-style clay-roofed homes, and along pristine, underused sidewalks. About half way around the loop, my daughter spied a bundle of plump, fresh, organic leeks demurely lying on a strip of grass beside the sidewalk. Had there been a gentle leek sunshower? My daughter picked them up. Upon closer examination, we surmised that they had more likely arrived by limo. These…
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Orange Cake-Pan Cake — more than just a flash in the pan
The “cake-pan cake” could be the Missing Link between pudding and cake. Moist almost to a fault, it has giant, intense flavor. You mix it right in the pan – in a flash. What could be easier? With no butter, eggs, milk, or sour cream, it gained popularity during the food-rationing Depression Era. It’s perfect now for vegans, folks with egg or milk allergies, or for pareve occasions. The chocolate cake-pan (or three-hole) cake has been kicking around for years. I discovered this citrus variation in the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook. What a recipephany: freedom from the cholesterol-laden orange bundt poundcake I used to make. Here is a guest-worthy dessert you can…
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Grandma Annie’s Romanian Eggplant Dip
Ever since my mother served up eggplant as “French fries” slathered in ketchup, I’ve been a sucker for its tasty squishiness. I’ve enjoyed it in Italian, French, Indian, Greek, Middle Eastern, Asian and African dishes. But Romanian? I never knew Romania has its own traditional eggplant dip (called salată de vinete or vinetta), which I learned about from Julie Schecter and her sister Laurie, two people whose values and lifestyles I most admire. Julie has generously shared their heirloom recipephany, which has few ingredients yet a strict method that caramelizes the pulp and concentrates its delicate taste. How it got here Grandma Annie emigrated in the early 1900s from Iasy, Romania. Still a teenager,…
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Vegan Banana Bread — can it be a guilty pleasure?
It goes beyond moist to practically gooey. Think banana intoxication with a nutmeg buzz and a chocolate rush. Does this come in IV form? Is it right to swoon like this at breakfast? Yet Vegan Banana Bread can’t be a guilty pleasure, can it? Raegan Sales, a talented vegetarian cook, may have created this cake-like bread for vegans, but it’s also for anyone with too many bananas and no eggs. It bakes beautifully with all non-creature ingredients. And I admit I was pleasantly surprised with Earth Balance, a delicious faux butter. Thank you, Raegan, for sharing this special recipephany. Be forewarned, though: waiting the eternal half-hour for this to cool is a primal test…
