Friends, hello! This week, the pumpkin muffin experiments ended when I made a batch with a mix of baking soda and baking powder, and the muffins emerged from the oven with beautifully domed tops and a nicely golden hue without a trace of a metallic taste. They tasted heavenly, perfectly spiced and pumpkin-y with the loveliest texture. As noted last week, the pumpkin muffin experiments began last month when my two youngest kids wanted to bake, and I suggested we make pumpkin bread but in...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Hello from Long Island, Friends 👋 I'm here with my 12-year-old for a hockey tournament, and my only goal for the long weekend is to eat as many great bagels as I can. All suggestions are welcome! This week, I had hoped to share two recipes I unintentionally found myself working on: pumpkin muffins and yeasted pumpkin bread. A few weeks ago, on one of the September school holidays, my two youngest kids wanted to bake, so I suggested we make pumpkin bread but in muffin form. The muffins turned...
15 days ago • 2 min read
Friends, hello. A few weeks ago, my daughter and I had lunch at GB Eats in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. I ordered the breakfast salad, a bowl of arugula, roasted sweet potatoes, crumbled bacon, and avocado dressed with a lemon vinaigrette and topped with two poached eggs. It was heavenly — so fresh tasting — and made me wonder why breakfast salads aren't more of a thing? Maybe they are and I haven't noticed, but with every completely satisfying bite, I found myself thinking: I could eat...
22 days ago • 2 min read
... pan pizza season! Last Sunday we all returned home late after a weekend of being in different directions in multiple states for various activities. The fridge was mostly bare except for a round of grandma pizza dough I had made earlier in the week. It looked slightly past prime, but I gave it a go, turning it out onto a buttered and oiled sheet pan, letting it rest briefly, then stretching and topping it simply: I had some homemade tomato "butter" on hand (from this recipe) and pepperoni....
29 days ago • 2 min read
Friends hello, We may be two days away from the official start of fall, but we are still many weeks away from the end of tomato season. If you mentally have not moved on to apple and squash season — I'm trying! —here's one more recipe to add to your must-make-before-it's-too-late recipe list: one-pot baked ziti. You'll need 1.5 pounds of cherry tomatoes, some garlic, olive oil, and any tubular, ziti-like dried pasta you like — I have been really liking mezzi rigatoni (which I use in this...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Friends hello, When I first saw variations of cinnamon-sugar focaccia circling through my social media feeds, I thought: Why?! Can't we keep focaccia as it is, oily, salty, and rosemary-flecked, perfect just the way it is? I felt grumpy watching the videos of bubbly dough being brushed and dimpled with cinnamon-sugar butter baths and drizzled with milky glazes. When I received comments with questions about how I might adapt this focaccia recipe into a cinnamon roll, I would reply: Don't know!...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Friends hello, Last week, one of you (hi Lauri 👋) emailed me sharing a solution to the overdone-at-the-edges-but-needs-more-time-in-the-middle problem that arises when baking crackers, specifically these sourdough discard crackers: Crediting a Cooking Light cracker recipe from years ago, Lauri wrote: "After rolling, scoring, and seasoning, I’ve been sliding the parchment onto upside-down sheet pans and baking them at 325. It works fabulously!!" I tried the method immediately as I had a vat of...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Friends hello, Earlier this summer, I shared a recipe for this charred cherry tomato salsa. It was something I started making this time last year, when the local sun golds abounded everywhere, from my little co-op two blocks away, to all the farmers' markets, to friends' gardens. But by the time I got photos and a recipe together, sun gold season was nearly over, and everyone, I feared, had moved on to butternut squash, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts. So I waited to share the recipe till...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
As noted a few newsletters ago, recently my daughter and I dined at a local restaurant whose menu featured eggplant meatballs with Hazan tomato sauce and housemade ricotta. I ordered them, loved them, and began experimenting with various recipes in the days that followed. One method called for sautéing diced eggplant, skin and all, before puréing the flesh with seasonings and binders; another called for roasting the eggplant whole before doing the same. One method called for pan-frying the...
2 months ago • 1 min read