Posted in Ingredients, Recipes, tagged appetizer, caviar, chips and dip, Christmas, decadent, easy, holiday food, hours d'ouvres, starter, Thanksgiving on 11/16/2009 | 1 Comment »
Sounds fancy, right? But this dip is a cinch to put together and makes a nice hors d’oeuvres with some champagne or prosecco before a holiday dinner. It plays off the classic combination of caviar and crème fraîche, swapping out the traditional blini base for root vegetable chips. Salty, creamy, slightly decadent…what’s not to like?
Although there [...]
Posted in Ingredients, Recipes, tagged easy, fried, italian, main dish, panko, quino cakes, quinoa, vegetarian on 11/08/2009 | Leave a Comment »
The other night, while my husband made a delicious roast pork loin, I was in charge of cooking the side dish. I followed the German instructions on my package of quinoa (which called for too much water and cooking time) and ended up with a soggy, risotto-like pot of mush. So much for stereotypes about [...]
Posted in Recipes, tagged apple cake, apple coffee cake, baked, blog envy, breakfast, dessert, easy, Jewish apple cake, mom's apple cake, recipe failures, Smitten Kitchen, tea bread on 10/28/2009 | 4 Comments »
This lovely cake comes from Smitten Kitchen, a very famous food blog with beautiful photos and recipes that sometimes work. I approached this recipe with a fair dose of skepticism (not to mention, blog envy) and about 2 lbs. of apples. And I’m so glad I did. After a few recent baking failures (including this week’s [...]
Posted in Recipes, tagged easy, low fat, main dish, potato, soup, stew, vegetarian on 10/26/2009 | 1 Comment »
Image via The Big Blend
Cool weather just screams out for hearty, homey food, don’t you think? The weather dropped a good 15 or 20 degrees (Fahrenheit…have to specify now!) this past month in Berlin, and I’ve been craving comfort food. This chunky, creamy potato soup fits the bill without being a total fat-bomb. [...]
Posted in Foodstuff, Ingredients, Recipes, tagged almond, cake, coffee cake, damson, dessert, easy, Ina Gartin, Italian prune plum, Nachtisch, plum cake tatin, plum pudding, tarte tatin on 10/01/2009 | 5 Comments »
For most of August and September, Germany was awash in adorable Italian prune plums, known to Brits as “damsons” and to Germans as Zwetschke (or Zwetschge, depending). Don’t you just want to pinch their chubby cheeks?
Roughly half to two-thirds the size of regular red plums, these purple beaut’s were selling for 1.99/kilo (2.2 lbs.) at the [...]
Posted in Foodstuff, Ingredients, Recipes, tagged chicken, creole, easy, jambalaya, New Orleans, one-pot meals, rice, sausage, shrimp, trinity, turkey kielbasa, Zattarains on 06/01/2009 | Leave a Comment »
You know those nights when you stumble home after a long day’s work, wearily open the fridge, and nearly cry from exhaustion and lack of inspiration? The nights you’d call for takeout, but feel embarassed because the person taking orders can recognize your voice? Those cereal-for-dinner nights?
Me?
I’ve had a few of those lately. My husband [...]
Posted in Ingredients, Recipes, tagged easy, fennel, italian, Italian sausage, main, noodles, pasta on 04/13/2009 | 3 Comments »
I’ll be the first to admit: this is not the most photogenic dish to ever appear on Culinspiration. But although it’s not much to look at, this sauce is so good it had me pestering my friends Rachel and Julius for the recipe for weeks. Weeks! I couldn’t get the perfect melding of flavors out of [...]
Posted in Recipes, tagged culinary inspiration, easy, haricot vert, lemon pepper, roasted green beans, side dish, Trader Joe's, veggies on 02/10/2009 | Leave a Comment »
This is one of those dishes where the total is greater than the sum of its parts. It’s so impossibly simple, I feel silly even offering a recipe. But these roasted green beans are too good to miss. Broiling them under high, direct heat imparts a toasty, almost french-fryesque flavor. I hope you’ll give them a try.
Posted in Recipes, tagged Asparagus, blender, easy, fish, French, Hollandaise, sauce on 01/10/2009 | Leave a Comment »
Have you ever aimed for Hollandaise sauce, but ended up with scrambled eggs or an oily mess? Meet your new best friend:
Photo courtesy of Buy.com
Here is a really simple recipe for making creamy, non-separating, non-curdling Hollandaise sauce—one that doesn’t require a double broiler, egg tempering, or exhaustive whisking. What an improvement. Now, I realize it’s [...]
Posted in Recipes, tagged baked, custard, dessert, easy, pumpkin on 01/05/2009 | 1 Comment »
Full disclosure: I’m not a big bread pudding fan. It’s usually so…heavy…bready…and bland (sorry, BP-lovers!). Give me a chocolate mousse or a strawberry tart any day. But this recipe, a riff on the recipe from Smitten Kitchen, is the exception to the rule. It satisfies the part of me that loves pumpkin pie custard and rich, [...]
