If we can cook it, you can cook it!

Category: Appetizers

SWEET CORN GELATO AND A SURPRISING WAY TO SERVE IT.

SWEET CORN GELATO AND A SURPRISING WAY TO SERVE IT.

THE TWO MOST ANTICIPATED VEGETABLES OF THE SUMMER ARE HERE! Our sweet corn and the ripest, reddest tomatoes of the year!  It’s hard to know which is the most welcome but I found a very different way to enjoy them both in a wonderful appetizer. …

Rustic Shrimp Toasts

Rustic Shrimp Toasts

According to Christian David Reynoso, his version of Shrimp Toast started life as a Staff snack at Zuni Café in San Francisco. This great appetizer can also serve as a main dish which is how we served it. A lemony, garlic-y aioli is loaded with…

Smoked Salmon, Fennel and Herbed Mascarpone Tart

Smoked Salmon, Fennel and Herbed Mascarpone Tart

Some holiday discoveries are well worth making all year round. This is one of them.  It’s from Melissa Clark in The New York Times. It’s one of four recipes created for New Year’s Eve 2020. In “A Finger Food Countdown to 2021”, Melissa created two…

Cocktail Cookies from Dorie Greenspan: Goat Cheese & Chives and Tarragon Apricot

Cocktail Cookies from Dorie Greenspan: Goat Cheese & Chives and Tarragon Apricot

America’s Cookie Goddess creates the perfect nibbles for Cocktail Hour Dorie Greenspan must be considered the Goddess of Cookies.  The baking guru claims to have woken, more than once, in the middle of the night to bake a cookie she dreamed about. At least that’s…

Pan con Tomate or, as we say in Catalonia, Pa Amb Tomàquet

Pan con Tomate or, as we say in Catalonia, Pa Amb Tomàquet

ONE OF SPAIN’S MOST FAMOUS TAPAS, PAN CON TOMATE IS EASY TO MAKE After our ten-day trip through Portugal in July, it seemed a shame to be just an hour and a half by air from Barcelona and not go there—especially since Andrew had only…

Savory Roasted Tomato Tarte Tatin

Savory Roasted Tomato Tarte Tatin

        A couple of years ago, I read a very detailed recipe for a tomato Tarte Tatin in Bon Appetit. I worked with the recipe and came up with two versions of the dish. Now that Tomato season is in full swing, I revisited this…

Watermelon Blueberry and Radish Salad with Laura Chenel’s Goat Cheese Medallions

Watermelon Blueberry and Radish Salad with Laura Chenel’s Goat Cheese Medallions

Salad lovers are in sheer heaven now and will be through the rest of the summer.  The ingredients for perfect salads are everywhere. And the earliest part of the season yields the tenderest of greens. Arugula has its bite but it’s far from bitter which…

Baltimore Country Club Crab Cakes from Andrew Zimmern

Baltimore Country Club Crab Cakes from Andrew Zimmern

It’s getting close to Crab Cake season which I would define as soon as the Summer Cocktail Party Circuit gets into gear.  So any mention of a Crab Cake recipe gets my attention.  Most Crab Cakes fall far short of expectations. They are larded with…

Ottolenghi’s Mixed Mushrooms with Cinnamon and Lemon

Ottolenghi’s Mixed Mushrooms with Cinnamon and Lemon

         My passion for mushrooms only grows stronger in the fall. And I am always on the lookout for new ways to prepare my favorite fungus.  I was very excited to see a recipe that paired mushrooms I’d never even imagined combining with mushrooms—Cinnamon and…

Justin Chapple’s Red Potato and Apple Galette

Justin Chapple’s Red Potato and Apple Galette

Galettes are a cookie in French Canada and a Buckwheat Crêpe Breakfast in France…           One of my favorite posts on Facebook recently was the following: “You can’t expect everyone to love you. You are not pizza”. And neither is this fantastic concoction from Food…

Salad Days. 3 Ways to Salute Summer this Weekend: Grilled Watermelon with Feta, Balsamic and Mint, Tomato, Peach and Burrata Salad, Ina Garten’s Italian Seafood Salad

Salad Days. 3 Ways to Salute Summer this Weekend: Grilled Watermelon with Feta, Balsamic and Mint, Tomato, Peach and Burrata Salad, Ina Garten’s Italian Seafood Salad

        I don’t know how we got to the last week of August so quickly. But it’s been a wonderful summer here and every chance we’ve gotten, we’ve enjoyed great salads all made, with few exceptions, with ingredients found within five miles of our house. …