Believe it or not, we eat well during Passover. We don’t even miss bread. It’s only a week! If you can’t go eight days without eating a bagel, there’s probably something wrong with you (not that we don’t love bagels, clearly).
Our secret to delicious Passover dining is using matzah only for what it is intended (read: forgoing desserts that replace flour with matzah meal) and experimenting with sweets that can be enjoyed all year long, but just happen to be kosher for Passover. Continue reading
I had too many pears this week, and I just couldn’t figure out what to do with them. Then I remembered that I had some pie crust in the freezer and decided to make Ina Garten’s apple tart. I made a few changes, the most noticeable one the fruit I used, but I also realized that the recipe for tart dough was not hers, but the one from The Art and Soul of Baking. It was kind of crumbly (maybe because it was pareve), but still tasted great. Next time I’ll try Ina’s. Continue reading
When Ricky gave me a package of phyllo dough that he had defrosted and forgot to use, I brought it over to my sister’s house so we could make baklava together.
Every year we make the same hamentaschen recipe. Not because it’s the only one we know, but because it’s really the best. I can’t say I know where this recipe came from, all I know is that it has been photocopied many times, and the instructions are cut off on the side of the page. We’ve been able to figure out what to do. Oh, and the original recipe calls for margarine – yuck! We use butter instead. Continue reading
You didn’t think I was going to throw away all those biscotti crumbs, did you?
I know cookies and cream ice cream is typically made with oreo-like cookies, but this cookies and cream is much better than any you’ll find in a store. With creamy gelato and crunchy biscotti, you can’t get any better.
Gelato is Italian ice cream and is pretty similar to the ice cream we eat around here. It is typically slow churned and therefore less airy than ice cream and has less fat (cream) compared to the amount of milk. It’s really very good. This recipe yields a very rich egg-y custard. If you’re not into that, choose another vanilla ice cream recipe. I happen to think this is awesome. Continue reading
I like making candy. I never really thought marshmallows were candy until I made them, but now I know they are. Making them involves cooking sugar and corn syrup to the “soft ball” stage, and anything that involves cooking sugar and using a thermometer is candy to me. The result is just very different than some candies we’re used to!
At first I thought making these would be hard. Plus I’ve never used gelatin before, but making marshmallows is surprisingly easy and very fast (except for the 4-hour waiting time while they set). Try it at your own risk – you’ll want to make them all the time. My favorite way to eat them is in hot chocolate. You can also add them to your ice cream, melt them on top of brownies, or make s’mores…the possibilities are endless. Did I mention they taste better than store bought ones? Continue reading
Whenever I see granola at the supermarket, I think about mixing up the flavors to make the ultimate combination. Maybe I want cranberries and not raisins, or coconut and almond. Well, by making my own granola I can make my own flavors, and I can save money, too. Make two trays worth of granola and freeze half of it.
Although we found this recipe in a cookbook and properly cited it, we chose to take it down. We plan to share with you a new and equally delicious recipe for biscotti in the near future, so stay tuned! In the meantime, please enjoy our lovely photographs of the process. If you have any questions regarding this subject, feel free to email us or leave a comment.
I love biscotti, especially this biscotti. They sell them all over New York, but I’m always too cheap to buy it. So when my aunt gave me the recipe from one of the Lottie’s Kitchen cookbooks, I hung it up on the fridge, ready to bake it. Well, it took a few months to finally get started. Biscotti baking is a whole day activity, really. Especially if you only have two available baking sheets. Make sure you have enough time to make the dough, bake it off once, then cut them and bake them in batches. It took me about five hours, including clean up (well, I was working on a few other things at the same time and don’t have a dishwasher). Continue reading
We love making ice cream, and have been making it for years (though you can’t really tell from this blog!) It’s pretty easy, and the results are delicious! Much better than anything you can get at the supermarket. You can also experiment with all kinds of flavors, which is how I got to pumpkin. Though pumpkin season is over, the idea of pumpkin ice cream really got to me, and when I realized I still had a can of pumpkin in my pantry, I decided that this would be the perfect flavor to share with you.
If you have a food processor, making pie crust is very easy. If not, it’s a little more difficult (but still not so hard). I have tried many different recipes, but prefer the ones that don’t use shortening (or lard, of course!), so when I found an all butter crust in The Art and Soul of Baking, I became hooked. I don’t use it all the time, but it’s definitely a page that I turn to often.