corniest corn muffins

Some days, I’m pretty sure this site is turning into something of a Dorie Greenspan Fan Club. Let us review, shall we? Dorie brought one of my favorite surprise Paris treats into my very own kitchen, directed us to the most amazing chocolate cookie, ever, her deep, dark ganache tart was the kind of easy dinner party dessert that nobody complains about and just last week, her lemon sables were the ideal palette upon which I could paint my margarita cookie aspirations. Everything you might think you like about my baking, you really like about hers. Today, her latest book ushers in another recipe that I am certain will be a repeat hit (once, of course, I get over my addiction to the shiny and the new).

Recipe

barley, corn and haricot vert salad

I have an affliction of sorts; no matter how fantastic, transcendent a recipe has been or how much I’ve sung it’s praises from the high mountaintops, I almost never make it a second time. I thought I could blame this website, always pushing me forward and urging me to try new! different! shiny! things, but who am I kidding? I’ve always been this way. Though I always say I’m just looking for tried-and-true recipes to laminate, frame, and keep forever, those that will never fail you or me so that I can stop looking, it’s not true. I’m still looking. I’ll always be looking.

Recipe

chicken empanadas with chorizo

[Note: These empanadas got some fresh photos in 2020.]

Wow. I just… I mean… wow. These are so good, you’re going to kiss the cook, so be careful if her husband is in the room, okay? I don’t want to be the indirect cause of narrowed eyes or awkward silences. But first, in light of The Great Chicken Cutlet Hate-A-Thon of Aught Seven, I feel it is only right for me to add little more to this picture.

Recipe

tequila lime chicken + green onion slaw

If it’s true that the definition of stupidity is to do something over and over again and expect different results, then I am indeed guilty as charged, because I made something for dinner last night that I know I never, ever like. Somehow I believed it would be better this time, and when it wasn’t, I proceeded to take two bites and then returned to the kitchen to make myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Recipe

black bean confetti salad

Recipe

fish tacos

[Guest Post] In honor of Deb’s vacation in Playa Del Carmen, I wanted to share this recipe I learned from friends that live there for fish tacos. My first trip down there was with my BFF Victoria and about 10 guy friends. I highly recommend this arrangement: the boys would scuba dive and spear fish while we sun bathed and then the boys would bring up their catch of the day to the Mexicans at a beach front cabana cook-out place. They would turn the catch of the day into the best fish tacos I had ever had. So I made them teach me how.

Recipe

the tart marg

What seems like a million years ago, Alex and I had some friends over for a fajita party at our old 500-square foot Chelsea bungalow. Lacking an electric citrus juicer, we spent a good part of the afternoon hand-reaming the juice out of dozens of limes so that I could make a few pitchers of the margarita recipe that was printed on the Classic Cocktails paper place mat I’d stolen from Stingy Lulus the weekend before. If you like your margaritas so tart you might have to close one eye to swallow a single sip and your memories few and far between, I cannot recommend this old-school recipe enough.

Recipe

gnocchi with a grater

Do you ever feel like a kitchen incompetent? That despite what seems like The Entire Rest of the World being able to cook something flawlessly, even going so far as to boast, “This is so EASY to make!” each and every time you try it, you fail? Believe me, it’s not just you.

Recipe

potato rosemary bread

I killed a biga. I didn’t really want to get into it at the time, as I’m not exactly proud of my actions. It’s not like I didn’t know how not to destroy a pre-ferment, it’s not like I don’t like, no love ciabatta bread, yet I made it at the start of one of those weeks that seem easy-peasy from the outset but when the pace picked up, I let it linger, carelessly convinced it would wait patiently for me. It was my neglect that took its life. And yet in hindsight, now that I’m ready to own up to it, it may have also been some passive-aggressiveness on my part.