Pumpkin Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce

by | 1 Comment

pumpkin ravioli with sage brown butter sauce

I like to cook with real pumpkin when it’s in season. About once every year I get my hands on a pumpkin, and after roasting the seeds, I cook with the flesh. Usually I make chocolate-chip pumpkin bread. This year, I decided to try a recipe I saw a lot of online: pumpkin ravioli with sage brown butter sauce.

Does anyone serve dairy for Thanksgiving? Instead of (or in addition to) a traditional pumpkin pie, this would be a great seasonal recipe for anyone whose menu wasn’t filled with turkey and meat. Try this for a vegetarian (or your unkosher) Thanksgiving feast!

After pureeing and flavoring the pumpkin for the inside of the ravioli, I made my own dough to wrap it in, and rolled it out by hand. I only got about as far as 20 raviolis before I broke my rolling pin. I suggest using a pasta maker or the pasta Kitchenaid attachment. I have neither, so I went out and bought some wonton wrappers the next day (for less than $3) to form the rest of my raviolis, which I threw into the freezer to save for another day.

Continue reading …

Skillet Corn Bread

by | 5 Comments

IMG_3375

I’ve made corn bread and corn muffins before, but with my new cast iron skillet obsession, I knew I had to make some in there. The skillet is meat, so I had to find a recipe that I could make pareve.

I decided on a recipe with buttermilk and used rice dream with a drop of vinegar in it. The buttermilk you buy in the store isn’t real buttermilk, anyway, so why not just acidify some milk substitute? (This is real buttermilk.)

Continue reading …

Chicken and Matzo Ball Soup

by | 8 Comments

serve with rice

Matzo ball soup is a traditional Jewish food, usually served in chicken broth. Using the soup broth to form the matzo balls give them an extra rich flavor. Chicken soup has a reputation of having healing properties and it’s also a regular Friday night dinner dish. Every family has its own way of making it, and there are even variations within each family.

Continue reading …

Roasted Mushroom Pizza With Fried Egg

by | 3 Comments

IMG_3363

I love pizza. I love making it at home, I love little mini ones, and I love pizza store pizza. Sometimes, homemade pizza needs a little twist. Tomato sauce and muenster cheese can get boring. When I saw Aida Mollenkamp make pizza with roasted mushrooms and an EGG on top, I knew I had to try it.

I made it once before, on one pizza dough, and with only one egg. That was definitely not enough – of course if two people are eating the pie they’ll fight over that lone egg. So this time I made the pizza I split the same amount of mushrooms over two pies, and put three eggs on one pie, and two on the other. The result? Well, aside from absolute deliciousness, it was a perfect meal for a busy/lazy day. I didn’t even to make a side dish that night. If you’re not lazy like I am, a nice big salad would be delicious with this. Continue reading …

Surprise Carrot Cake

by | 1 Comment

I never knew that I liked carrot cake. Before making this one, I don’t even think I’d ever tried carrot cake. Why would I want to put vegetables in my cake, anyway? Well, vegetables make delicious desserts – trust me!

This carrot cake was a surprise for two reasons: I baked it for a surprise party, and I didn’t have time to add any carrot-like decorations on the top, so it was impossible to know what kind of cake it was from the white-frosted exterior. Surprise!

carrot

The cake was a big hit, and I don’t think everyone would have eaten it just to make me feel good about my baking skills; I genuinely think it was delicious. The recipe is from AllRecipes.com, and since I don’t like baking with nuts, I left out the pecans.

Continue reading …

Chicken with Potatoes and Tomatoes

by | 1 Comment

I used to watch Jamie Oliver when he was The Naked Chef on the Food Network, but only watched his new show, Jamie at Home, once. In that episode he made game pigeon, which did not really look appetizing to me. I never tried any of his recipes, but admired his use of homegrown (or local/seasonal) ingredients. When I read this article last week, I knew I had to take a look at his new cookbook, Jamie at Home. While browsing through it at the book store, I saw a lot of unkosher recipes, and some graphic pictures of dead hanging rabbits and other animals. I did find a few recipes that looked delicious and very easy, and decided to give a chicken recipe a shot at home.

IMG_3345

I actually got the recipe from the food network site (it’s the same as the one in the book), and changed it a bit (or a lot) to make it a little easier. Maybe I’ll try the original one next time…

Continue reading …

Apple Cranberry Crisp

by | 1 Comment

IMG_3752

apple crisp

It’s cranberry season! That means I get to buy bags and bags of cranberries and bake lots of desserts with some and freeze the others (you can keep them in the freezer for about a year – just throw the bag in the freezer and that’s it!).

Well, when I added too much sugar to an apple crumble recipe, I knew that adding the recently bought cranberries would be perfect to save the dessert from being too sweet. With that addition, it occurred to me that this is a great fall dessert!

IMG_3746

apples

Continue reading …

The World’s Best Pancakes

by | 7 Comments

Everyone knows that brunch is the best meal of the week. On Sundays I like to stay in bed late, and eat a real breakfast that nobody has time for during the week. So when the headline, “The world’s best pancake recipe” showed up in my Google Reader one morning, I bookmarked it and knew that I would be eating the most delicious buttermilk pancakes for brunch the next Sunday.

buttermilk pancakes

The only ingredient that I had to buy before I made these was buttermilk. The writer of the original post suggests using the best ingredients you could find, especially real buttermilk; apparently grocery stores sell impostors. Since I live in Manhattan, I easily found the real stuff, but if you live elsewhere, I’m sure it’s well worth it to search for it.

Continue reading …

Meringues Chantilly with Roasted Berries

by | Leave a comment

m

As you probably figured out by now, I really like Ina Garten. I watch her on the Food Network all the time and own one of her cookbooks, Barefoot Contessa at Home. Every time I look through it, I bookmark more recipes to try. The day after I put a post it on her pavlova with mixed berries recipe, I watched the episode where she made meringues chantilly with roasted berries. I liked the idea of everyone having his or her own serving. I also liked the fact that the berries would be roasted instead of just fresh, especially because the raspberries I had were frozen (yep, from the same batch as the raspberry jam). I also found some packaged strawberries in the freezer, my dad probably bought those when they were on sale.

swirling

These were surprisingly easy to make, probably because I used the Kitchen Aid stand mixer. The hardest part was the shaping, but after one or two even that got easier. I didn’t have a pastry bag (uni-tasker!) or a star tip, but I did have a zip top bag and some scissors, and that worked almost as well. Continue reading …

Bizir, or Toasted Pumpkin Seeds

by | 2 Comments

Bizir is the Arabic name for toasted pumpkin seeds. I’m not sure what the correct English spelling is; it can just as easily be bizid or bizit. There isn’t really a letter in the English language to substitute for the sound I’m trying to make, but it’s pretty much a combination of those three.

IMG_5056

Anyway, bizir is something I grew up watching people around me eating. As a kid, it’s impossible to crack open the shell to leave an intact inside, so sometimes I would get frustrated and eat the whole thing (not a good idea). But now I’ve gotten the hang of it, and it’s a light and fun snack. My family often pairs bizir with dessert and after-dinner tea, but it can just as easily be a watching TV snack on its own.

Continue reading …