There are people who eat to live and there are people who live to eat. I’m pretty sure that since I could consume solid food, I’ve belonged squarely in the latter category. There are also some recipes we make because we have to: chicken soup because a loved one has the flu, chocolate chip cookies because we promised we’d bring a treat into the office for a colleague’s birthday. This asparagus and prosciutto tart is a recipe we make because…
Black Bean and Avocado Quesadillas
Cooking for One or Two, Recipes, Worknight Dinners April 15, 2014
Remember how I once said that cooking in a new kitchen is like having a new boyfriend? It takes some time to get used to new idiosyncrasies and quirks, to decide what you can live with and what you might want to work on changing. Well, if there was one thing I could change about my kitchen (besides making it bigger, an oven that fully opens and a dishwasher) I would give it a window. When I turn the oven…
Chocolate ganache is a rich chocolate sauce that can be a filling or a frosting. It’s perfect for everything from truffles to cakes to chocolate brownies. Although no one does chocolate ganache quite like a French patisserie, it is also quite simple to make at home. Ganache, which looks and tastes as elegant as it sounds, is made by the simple process of introducing finely chopped chocolate to very warm cream, waiting a few minutes for the chocolate to melt, and then stirring…
Chicken Parmigiana Baked Ziti
Cooking for a Crowd, Recipes, Weekend Cooking, Worknight Dinners April 15, 2014
It was after 27 years of faithfully and enthusiastically eating pasta before I realized that “Baked Ziti” and “Baked Mostaccioli” were essentially the same thing. There are two different shaped noodles, but at the end of the day, it’s basically some type of tomato or meat sauce baked with cheese and tube shaped pasta. Even though Baked Mostaccioli is probably more authentic on the grounds of it being more complicated to spell and pronounce, Baked Ziti has a certain ring to it…