Monthly Archives: June 2011

On the way home from Michigan today, we passed a farmstand that had U-Pick Cherries. Since cherries are probably my all-time favorite fruit, and I’ve never picked them before, we had to stop. Not only did they have the regular kind (Bing, I suppose?), but they also had the golden Rainier cherries and tart cherries, … Continue reading »

I love me some delicious Indian food, and it’s one of my favorite things to cook because the spices, aromas and textures are so different from the normal American fare. Depending on what you cook, it’s also often pretty healthy.  Last weekend, we grabbed a big bunch of spinach from the farmers market and wanted … Continue reading »

Probably one of my favorite pizzas, and really easy to make. Roast chicken from the grocery store is much better than bland boneless, skinless breasts. Just shred it with two forks and toss with a bit of barbeque sauce. Toss your dough, spread a thin layer of BBQ sauce on it, add some mozzarella cheese, … Continue reading »

I’ve never been very impressed by instant oatmeal. It always just seems to be oatmeal dust, robbed of any nutritional value by tons of processing and loads of overbearing flavors, mostly sugar. The only reason it has survived this long is that it’s quick and easy — pour some water into a bowl, add instant … Continue reading »

My wife and I went to Argentina a few weeks ago for our honeymoon. They’re known for their beef — Argentines supposedly eat the most beef per capita of any nation in the world (Wikipedia says 122lbs/person/year!), and there’s good reason. One of our favorite parts of the trip was an excursion to an estancia (ranch) where … Continue reading »

Like tomatoes and apples, asparagus is one of those foods that is incomparably better from a farmstand in spring than from a supermarket in winter. The variety (thick, thin, green, purple, greenish purple), abundance, sweetness and tenderness are far better when you can get some grown locally in May or June. It’s one of the … Continue reading »

Kaddo Bourani (photo by Habeas Brulee) When I lived in Boston, there was an awesome Afghan restaurant called Helmand on the Cambridge side of the river. The first time I went was with a group, and the guy in charge took care of getting us some good entrees to pass around. Everything was awesome, but … Continue reading »

If you’re a cast iron fanatic like me (and if you got here through Reddit, I know you are), you know how hard it can be to clean the baked-on bits from the bottom of the pan after searing a steak or sauteeing some vegetables. Kosher salt, oil and some sturdy cotton flour sack dish towels can go … Continue reading »

Rosemary-infused olive oil is super-quick way to add great flavor to pizza dough, bread or potatoes. I used it instead of regular olive oil the last time I made Mark Bittman’s Pizza Dough (which, by the way, is a must-make), and the results were fantastic. I made the infusion in basically the same way I make garlic … Continue reading »

If you’ve been cooking and sprinkling regular grocery store-bought cinnamon on your oatmeal since you were a kid, do yourself a favor and find some “True” Ceylon cinnamon. It’s lighter in color than what most Americans are used to (which is actually Cassia, a separate bark) and has a much more subtle, mellow flavor with less “spice”. … Continue reading »