Cooking Techniques and Kitchen Gadgets

As in a good movie with scenes of tears, laughs, and tasteful delights, your venture with onions will boast the same sentiments. Vidalia, Spanish, yellow, white and red - onions can and should be your flavor backbones in the kitchen.

Thinly sliced in a salad, fried in rings, sweated and sweetened, or adding zing to a burger or hotdog, these powerhouse bulbs have flavored meals and dishes for centuries. No other vegetable brings tears to my eyes as these subterranean roots do…I digress.

Synonymous with onion across the Deep South and country is the Vidalia – a sweet, crisp member of the genus Allium. Soil conditions in that part of South Georgia create an anomaly for these surprisingly sweet onions to grow and flourish. Yet, even if you and your garden are not in the legislatively approved section of Georgia to produce quote Vidalias unquote, growing onions and other members of their family in your home garden is easy and quite rewarding.

From the LA Times

I've just discovered the magic of fresh bread crumbs. You might say it's about time, after 30 years of cooking. But I would remind you that I said the "magic" of fresh bread crumbs, not the "utility."

Everyone knows about using bread crumbs for coating a schnitzel or any other fried, baked or broiled thing. Or stuffing a bird or whole fish. Or scattering across the top of a gratin or tian before browning. I've even used them as toppings for fruit desserts, like a less-sweet version of a crisp.

But what I'd never really realized was the true potential of bread crumbs, how instead of being bland character actors toiling in the background, they can actually become the stars of a dish, or at least a very impressive second lead.

Top steamed or braised vegetables with some carefully toasted bread crumbs and the dish is transformed by the infusion of crunch and that golden brown flavor.

Read article...

I'm a cheater, in the kitchen anyway. While I may not be a fan of mac and cheese from a box, I positively love using gourmet specialty products. What kinds of products? Jams, mustards, chutney, tapenade, Chinese sauces, so many things! Two of my favorite secret weapons are in the freezer--phyllo dough and puff pastry.

You could easily write a book on all the things you can make out of phyllo dough and puff pastry. I suggest the title "How to Succeed in Baking Without Really Trying". Once you learn how to handle them, the possibilities are endless. They even turn something mundane into something special. For example you could make a stew into an elegant pot pie. You could turn a fruit compote into pastries. You could make fancy little appetizers to serve hot from the oven. How fancy? I suggest little napoleons or tartlets. It's really easy.

A few weeks ago I had a lot of goat cheese languishing in the fridge. I had promised my friend Alison I would develop some recipes for her fabulous chutney and it dawned on me that using puff pastry I could make a delicious pastry with nothing more than goat cheese, puff pastry and chutney. 

So folks are embracing “Meatless Mondays” – from L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (maybe he’s also embracing meatless policies) to celebrity chef Mario Battali (who might consider some meal-less mondays – I know, I know, who am I to talk), but what about “Meatless Mostdays?” That’s what’s getting embraced around my house,

Chalk it up to my trying to “live off our land” or to me being too tired to go to the market, we’ve been eating eggs, not meat, for dinner. To make the eggs-seem-special-for-dinner, I have been serving them poached. Poached eggs are fancier than fried eggs – the delicate cooking results in tender whites and creamy, pudding-like yolks. I’ve served poached eggs with salad, croutons and bacon, poached eggs on root vegetable hash, poached eggs and Serrano jamon on toast with grilled green onion, arugula and Romesco sauce, poached eggs on whole wheat pasta with whole wheat bread crumbs and Swiss chard. (Yes, I know – there is bacon and Spanish ham in these dishes--so maybe Mostly Meatless Mostdays? – Is that better?)