How can you resist a name like Naughty Bars? I found these a few months ago in the Penzey’s Spices catalog. I ripped it out and stuffed it in a cupboard and came across it during some New Year’s cleaning.
The organizing resolution soon became the downfall of the ‘eat less sugar’ resolution, as I immediately abandoned my cleaning project and made a batch of these.
I oomphed up the recipe a bit with browned butter, dark brown sugar, more salt and vanilla. These bars come together super-fast, and are another essentially a blondie. (Which is fantastic, since Bon Appetite proclaimed brownies to be ‘out’ and blondies to be ‘in’ for 2013–kind of strange, but I’m game.) Continue Reading »
Think of it as sophisticated orange cream soda. The vivid sunset of blood orange juice paired with the intoxicating aroma of vanilla beans in a simple syrup that is as beautiful as it is delicious. Add it to seltzer for soda, or bubbly for a showstopping champagne cocktail.
Blood oranges are in season for a few months each winter–a mutation of the common sweet orange with added scarlet pigment from anthocyanins, they are typically sweet with a faint tart raspberry note. You can use them interchangeably with oranges in any recipe, especially those where it’s bright hue is highlighted. Continue Reading »
Uplands Cheese Company, out of Dodgeville, WI is the result of two families and farms harmonizing–coming together to do something unique and special amid today’s giant factory farms. The Gingrich’s and the Patenaude’s house a dairy farm and creamery on Pleasant Ridge in the striking, undulating driftless region of Wisconsin.
The two types of cheeses produced here are exceptional, and this has as much to do with the talent of the cheesemakers as it does with the flavorful pastured milk that is used to make it.
The farmers have carefully bred their cows to produce milk that is tailored to their champion cheese, Pleasant Ridge Reserve (my all time favorite.) Produced in the summer when the cows are exclusively pastured.
As the lightening bugs fade and the leaves begin their transition from green to gold, the cows also transition from fresh grass and legumes to rich, dry hay. It is at this point that the milk’s flavor changes, and a new cheese is produced–Rush Creek Reserve.
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Before the barrage of holiday cookie recipes envelope me in a flurry of flour and a shower of sugar, I thought I’d sneak in one full-of-fiber snack.
A good bran muffin can be hard to find. Whole wheat flour and bran in the wrong muffin, can be dense, dry and tasteless. In the right hands, it can be a treat. Whose hands are better known for working magic into bread and pastry dough than Nancy Silverton, baker extraordinaire?
I love muffins for their versatility and simplicity. This particular muffin recipe has a few additional steps, but they are worth it for the flavor they bring. This recipe is a little sweet from the pureed dates and brown sugar, and have a light and chewy texture from the toasted oat bran and old fashioned oats. Continue Reading »
Are you ready? Either you have a menu planned and are gearing up for a huge grocery store trip, or you have your bags packed with elastic-waist pants to go visit relatives. Either way, a case of wine is definitely in order.
I’m still browsing magazines, cookbooks and Leite’s Culinaria for some knock-out recipes. My parents are coming for a visit, so I’m working with a toddler who refuses to eat vegetables (unless you’re serving carrots and convince him he’s a bunny) and my dad, who is vegan.
My current plan is to still do turkey (I’ll be using this recipe again) and a sausage-based dressing, but accompany that with lots of veggies, a caramelized-onion butternut squash casserole, olive oil mashed potatoes and a vegan pumpkin pie.
For those of you who are not vegan, here’s my family’s cornbread sausage dressing. My mom clipped it out of the Omaha World Herald years and years ago. I love the tradition of clipping and saving newspaper recipes (and I’m so honored to be a part of it.) Continue Reading »
