I love Cristina Ferrare’s cookbook Big Bowl of Love (Sterling Epicure)! Her way of using fresh, seasonal ingredients in simple preparations is our idea of nourishing. This salad dressing recipe is inspired by Ferrare’s Caesar dressing. It has a lovely, light texture and authentic flavor. Adjust the amount of anchovy to suit your taste. Serve this dressing over romaine lettuce with crunchy croutons.
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English cookbook author Nigel Slater reminds me a bit of Marcella Hazan. Like Hazan, Slater is adamant that he’s a cook, not a chef, and he’s a champion of simple, straightforward home cooking. The American edition of his book, Tender: A Cook and His Vegetable Patch (Ten Speed Press) came out recently, and it deserves a place in your cookbook collection. His signature unfussy approach lets the flavor of seasonal produce really shine. Roasting summer-fresh tomatoes heightens their sweetness and deepens their flavor. Slater recommends serving these as a side dish with fresh mozzarella or basmati rice. They’re equally delightful served over sliced baguette as an appetizer or light lunch.
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I wanted a more crumbly (as opposed to flakey) tart crust for the Cherry Apricot Almond Tart I make. This simple pastry dough recipe is it.
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Gravlax is a wonderfully simple way to showcase the the rich, buttery quality of wild salmon from the Copper River. Gravlax is a Swedish specialty that cures the salmon with a mixture of salt, sugar and spices. It’s a simple, no-cook technique requiring nothing more than a little prep work and time. There many of variations of gravlax. Our version uses a basic combination of granulated and brown sugars, coarse sea salt and black pepper that lets the luscious flavor and texture of the wild salmon really shine. You could customize this in any number of ways – swap black pepper for earthy white pepper, add lemon or orange rind, etc. Serve thinly sliced on multigrain crackers, garnished with chopped fresh dill and grated lemon zest. Or you could go old school and serve it with fresh bagels, cream cheese, capers and thinly sliced red onion.
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A buckle is a homey, old-school American dessert that’s a single-layer coffee cake studded with fruit. As the cake cools, it settles and “buckles.” I used raspberries here, but blueberries or blackberries would work just as well. If you happen to have our DIY Ghee on hand, use it to add deep flavor to this recipe. The buckle cake a great addition to a brunch spread or as an afternoon snack with coffee or tea.
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The barbecue of Santa Maria, Calif., is famous for delicious smoked tri-tip, and it’s always accompanied by a pot of pinquito beans. This legume, a cross between white and pinto beans, is grown only in the Santa Maria Valley. You can order them online, use standard pintos or experiment with other varieties of heirloom beans, such as Eye of Goat (which I used here) or Yellow Indian Woman. Using a pressure cooker yields tender beans that hold their shape in about a third of the usual cooking time. If you don’t have one, soak the legumes overnight and cook them in simmering water for 2 hours or until tender. Cooking time will vary, depending on the size and age of the beans. Use any leftovers to make kick-ass burritos the next day.
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This dessert has a pudding-like consistency and decadently rich flavor . . . for about 30 calories more than a serving of low-fat Oreos.
1/2 cup brandy
1 1/2 pounds cherries, pitted and halved
6 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
2 tablespoons creme fraiche
2 tablespoons butter, melted
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon powdered sugar, for dusting
In a saucepan bring the brandy and cherries to a simmer over medium heat. Remove from heat and let soak for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Preheat oven to 400.
With an electric mixer, beat together eggs and sugar at high speed for a minute and a half, until light and frothy. Turn off mixer, add in creme fraiche, butter, flour, vanilla and almond extracts and salt. Strain the brandy from the cherries into the egg mixture and blend at medium speed until all is incorporated.
Butter or spray a 10-inch baking dish and pour in mixture. Scatter cherries over the top (they will sink) and bake for 25 minutes, until batter is just turning golden and no longer jiggles.
Remove from oven and let cool slightly on a rack. Dust with powdered sugar.
Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.
Serves 12
When chicken salad comes to mind, I always think of a mayonnaise-bound concoction (not that I don’t enjoy that). But this chicken salad recipe, from Alison Lewis’s new book 400 Best Sandwich Recipes (Robert Rose) updates an old favorite with a fresh, bright-flavored, colorful spin. There’s no added salt in this recipe, because the feta and Kalamata olives add plenty of salty kick. If you don’t want to buy a whole jar of olives, look for Kalamatas that you can purchase by the pound at the supermarket salad bar, olive bar or deli case. Lewis recommends using leftover grilled chicken or rotisserie chicken. Or, to change it up, sub chopped, cooked shrimp for the poultry. Use whole wheat pita bread, if you can find it.
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If you need fast-cooking whole grains, stock your pantry with whole wheat couscous. As Maria Speck notes in her wonderful book, Ancient Grains for Modern Meals (Ten Speed Press), couscous is an anomaly. “It is neither a grain nor a pasta,” she notes, but it is eaten like a grain. You can vary the flavor of this recipe by using different types of pesto. We used our Basil-Mint Pesto here, but you also could use our Asian Pesto or Spicy Sage and Parsley Pesto, or even some from a jar. Whether it’s homemade or store-bought, use a bold pesto you really love since it adds most of the flavor to this dish. Serve with fish or chicken. “Garnish with 1/4 cup chopped toasted pistachios,” Speck suggests. “Or make it a light meal with crumbled ricotta salata, goat cheese or feta cheese and a few olives.”
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This emerald pesto is ideal when the weather starts to warm up – the mint adds a springy note while the basil offers a hint of summer to come. Stir it into Maria Speck’s Speedy Chickpea Couscous with Pesto, serve a dollop atop fish or poultry, spread it on crostini or add it to hot pasta. This pesto recipe yields a generous amount. Use whatever you need now, and freeze the leftovers in an ice-cube tray. Once it’s frozen, pop the pesto cubes out of the tray and transfer them to a heavy-duty zip-top bag and freeze up to 1 month.
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