At the beach last week, we had steamed crabs to celebrate Carol’s birthday. There were a few leftover crabs, which Carol picked, and I turned the picked crabmeat into a paté by adapting a recipe in an Outer Banks cookbook I found in our unit. The photo shows a 1/3 recipe (about 1 cup), based Read More …
I recently saw on chron.com a recipe for one of the signature dishes at one of Houston’s leading restaurants. “Stuffed Mushrooms Trastevere” was included in “Tony’s: The Cookbook” in 1986 although it is no longer on the menu. Their recipe is fairly easy and straightforward, but I had to change it based on the ingredients Read More …
This is an adaptation of a recipe in Salon.com for an easy dish suitable for a Super Bowl party. By using rotisserie chicken and commercial empanada doughs, there is very little work for something which is quite tasty. We used LaFe Discos Para Empanadas (available at New Grand Mart), which were very convenient and easy Read More …
Focaccia di Recco is a thin and crispy focaccia stuffed with cheese which is a specialty of the town of Recco, which is near Genoa. It is more of a snack or appetizer than a meal. This version is based on an article in Serious Eats. In Recco this would be made with a local Read More …
There are a number of different ways to use charred eggplant in a dip besides the well-known dish with tahini ( Baba Ghanoush ) . This version is adapted from an Israeli cookbook Shuk, and uses mayonnaise. It is a popular dish in Israel and is quite tasty. I had some Two-Minute Aioli on hand, Read More …
This variation of gravlax is adapted from a recipe at Epicurious.com. The promise of the recipe was that you could set up the salmon and its cure and then forget about it until it was done 3 days later. I actually let it cure for 4 days due to scheduling issues, and it worked fine Read More …
I have now twice made this easy appetizer for dinner parties with success. It comes from a book by Jacques Pepin, A Grandfather’s Lessons: In the Kitchen with Shorey, which contains simple child-friendly recipes which the famous chef made with one of his granddaughters. 8 oz. sweet Italian sausage 4 oz. hot Italian sausage 1/3 Read More …
(I used oil-packed tuna, but the original recipe calls for water-packed tuna) In 1986, Carol gave me Tapas: The Little Dishes of Spain by Penelope Casas for Christmas, and we have been cooking out of it ever since. Most recently we made a tuna ball tapas for Carol’s sister and her pescaterian husband and they Read More …
I spotted an article in a Southern magazine on Sam Talbot’s version of the Southern classic, Pimento Cheese, while staying in an historic B&B in Savannah. Here is my adaptation, which mainly consists of halving the quantities. It is an interesting sign of the internationalization of food in the US that Sam Talbot would prefer Read More …
This fish, potato, and olive oil spread is a variation on a Venetian classic Baccala Matecato and similar Italian and French spreads. The key difference is using smoked trout instead of dried cod as the fish element. This version is adapted from a recipe in Saveur. Since olive oil is a key ingredient, it is Read More …