Friends, hello! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you've had your fill of pie and punch. We've been living on the leftovers morning, noon, and night over here at my sister's house. My mom made a double batch of Alice Waters Potato Gratin to satisfy our leftover needs, and I've made the rolls twice more since Thanksgiving. With English Premier League on the tube all morning long, it's been glorious. I hope you all are well! Up on the blog, I've rounded up some gift ideas...
10 days ago • 1 min read
Friends, hello! How are you? This week I made a video of Sister Pie's Salted Maple Pie, which is one of my favorite Thanksgiving pies, but which a number of people have had trouble with over the years. Some found the custard separated during the baking; others found the custard to be too much for their 9-inch plate. I've updated the recipe with new photos and, as of this morning, a new video, which I hope will help with the issues, which I think might come down simply to whisking thoroughly...
18 days ago • 2 min read
A few weeks ago, while checking out at the grocery store, I impulsively purchased a holiday-bread themed magazine. What caught my attention was a homemade "take-and-bake" roll recipe. It called for baking the rolls at a very low temperature, 300ÂşF, just until the rolls reached an internal temperature of 175ÂşF; then cooling and freezing. When you were ready to bake, you simply popped that pan in the oven. As one of the most frequently asked questions I receive this time of year is "How can I...
25 days ago • 2 min read
You're making your pie dough! Go on, grab your butter. I'll wait for you. We're doing it together. Right now. I promise you it's easy. And it will feel so good tucking these rounds into your freezer, and crossing off that to-do! Foolproof Pie Dough Correction! Last week, I shared a recipe and method for making a double batch of the peasant bread. Many of you noticed that the flour amount was wrong: it should be 8 cups of flour (I had written 4). The updated recipe/method can be found here: 2x...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
I bought my turkeys! And made my bread for the stuffing! And stashed them both in the freezer. Friends, I never do these sorts of things, but I've decided: This is the year. This is the year we are going to be so organized that when Thanksgiving morning arrives, we're going to be bored — we're going to be sitting around with our crosswords, twiddling our thumbs, sipping our punch, wondering what else we could do: meal prep for the following week? Well, we can dream anyway. Last week, I shared...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Friends, A few weeks ago I pulled up a Google doc I had made last December, roughly a week after Thanksgiving, with my notes from the occasion. Here they are: Turkey was delicious. It was done in 1 hr. 50 minutes. Gravy wasn’t very thick when first making it, but it thickened right up on Thanksgiving. Loved the roasted turkey stock, Gourmet’s old recipe, used it in everything: potatoes, stuffing, gravy. Mixed pie fillings on Tuesday. Parbaked the crusts on Wednesday morning. Baked the pies...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Friends, Earlier this week I made a pot of this roasted butternut squash and garlic soup. It's a very simple recipe calling for mostly three ingredients —butternut squash, garlic, and stock — and what I love about the recipe is this: in the time it takes for the squash and garlic to roast in the oven, the stock — the vegetable stock — can materialize stovetop. If you've never made vegetable stock, I think you will be so pleased by the process and result: It's made with scraps! It's full of...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
... Friends, it's both 🎉 (If you are confused (hi mom 👋), here is some context: "the dress".) I spent yesterday afternoon sitting on a metal bleacher watching a high school soccer game surrounded by parents wearing heated vests, pulled-up hoodies, and hats. It was sunny but breezy, quintessential fall weather, and by the time the game ended, I was chilled to the bone. I returned home, cranked up the oven, chopped up some cauliflower, and pulled out two spices I rely on a lot this time of...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Friends, A few months ago I opened Joe Yonan’s latest book, Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking, and was immediately struck by a recipe for romesco sauce. It called for placing all of the essential components — peppers, tomatoes, unpeeled garlic, stale bread, and almonds — on a sheet pan, roasting them all together; then puréeing them with smoked paprika, vinegar, and olive oil. If you’ve made romesco sauce before, you know it often calls for roasting and peeling peppers first, a step...
2 months ago • 2 min read