Several years ago, my wife and I visited the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. While there, I picked up a cookbook that highlighted the area’s desserts. I was very surprised to see how many of them used douglas fir – yes, the Christmas tree – as a flavor. So apparently it’s edible and can [...]
Got leftover eggnog from a Christmas party? Use it for these cupcakes!
Eggnog Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups (7.5 oz) all-purpose flour 1 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp table salt 1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg 8 TB unsalted butter (room temperature) 1 cup (7 oz) granulated sugar 2 large eggs (at room temperature) 1/2 cup [...]
I can’t say enough what a difference it makes to grind your own meat when making hamburgers, meatloaf, meatballs, chili, or anything else that requires ground meat. I use the KitchenAid Grinder Attachment since I already own a KitchenAid Stand Mixer and it does a great job. It’s also easy to clean since it [...]
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Since my sister and her family recently moved to North Carolina, my mother and my littlest sister drove up there for Easter. My mom and I usually make the traditional Italian Easter pies on Holy Saturday and serve them up on Easter Sunday. We were fortunate to be invited to a friend’s house to celebrate [...]
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This isn’t authentic Italian lasagna. It’s authentically Italian-American. It’s meaty, cheesy, saucy, and good. It’s lasagna like my mother and grandmother make — comfort food to the highest degree. It’s also easy. This could all be put together inside of an hour (and then baked for an hour).
1 package Barilla no-boil lasagna sheets 2 [...]
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I’ve blogged about chocolate cake before (a loooong time ago), but the recipe requires a good amount of cake-making technique, mainly due to the creaming of the butter & sugar. I’ve witnessed plenty of people do this improperly (usually they don’t let it go long enough), so I decided to re-vamp the [...]
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Interesting graph of the twitter trends relating to corned beef vs. cabbage for the last week:
I have no idea why there could have been a divergent spike in cabbage tweets on Sunday and Wednesday nights. Any ideas?
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At about 7:00 this morning, I pulled the briskets out of the brine and rinsed them per Ruhlman’s instructions. I sprinkled each of them with another tablespoon of The Spice House’s corned beef spice mix (mustard seeds, Moroccan coriander, Jamaican allspice, Zanzibar cloves, Turkish bay leaves, Indian dill seed, [...]
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With assists from Michael Ruhlman and The Spice House, I began curing a brisket this past Saturday for St. Patrick’s Day on Thursday. I used Ruhlman’s recipe, which calls for corning spices and curing salt (a.k.a. [...]
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Just to recap, I followed the advice of Russ Parsons (Food Editor of the LA Times) and dry-brined the turkey. The process began on Monday afternoon with the application of 3 TB kosher salt (Morton’s) to a 16 lb. fresh, free-range turkey. Double-wrapped in plastic bags (no leaky turkeys here), it was [...]
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