Tag Archives: butter

Slow-Cooker Caramalized Onions.

Holy crap, we have a lot of onions. Our wonderful CSA “Tomato Mountain Farm”:http://tomatomountain.com/ recently had several weeks of us getting several onions in the batch. While onions last awhile, I’m told that spring onions really don’t last as long. And I couldn’t use them up fast enough.

Enter my friends Mark & Susan. See, Mark & Susan also purchased a share of Tomato Mountain Farm’s CSA. So they’re in eggplants & onions up to their ears too.

Mark is, rumor has it, an awesome cook for himself & his lovely Susan. I’m always envious as Susan often talks about what good things Mark has made recently. And recently she mentioned goat-cheese eggplant rolls (I haven’t had a chance to try these) and slow-cooker caramelized onions.… Continue reading →

Cherry Almond Butter Cookies

Welcome to the inaugural post of what is guaranteed to be the smallest recipe category of MetaCookbook: “Wedding Recipes”.

It will be the smallest recipe category for two reasons:
# It’s necessarily time limited. The wedding in question is in October, and it’s May now.

# I’m not expecting to cook everything for our wedding. Most of the recipes for what we eat will probably not show up here.

Most of what I’ll post in this category will be cookies. So, I hope you all have a sweet tooth.

Growing up, I can’t remember a time that I didn’t know my father & mother had an “Italian Cookie Cake” as part of their wedding festivities. I even have a very vague recollection of seeing a single photo of their cookie cake.… Continue reading →

[80] Mushroom Stroganoff with Pasta

Cover of The Complete Book of Italian Cooking, edited by Anne Hildyard

This is the only recipe out of this book I’d ever made before this challenge. I’ve held onto these books (this one and the similar looking cookie cookbook) out of a deep affection for the people who gave them to me more than out of a feeling that they’re fantastic cookbooks.

You know what, though? They’re growing on me as cookbooks as well. The cookie book has had a few good ones and some poor ones. The previous recipe on this blog from here was stellar, and this stroganoff recipe was even better than I remembered it being.

So, so good.

I don’t tend to think of stroganoff as an Italian dish. If someone asked me to guess, I’d guess German. I don’t actually know that either one of those perceptions is in any way correct, but there you have it.… Continue reading →

[76] Mashed Baked Potatoes

How to Cook Everything, Revised Edition by Mark Bittman

This is the second to last recipe that counted for this challenge from Thanksgiving. It’s also the second of two that I failed to remember to take photos. My apologies.

Now, with that out of the way, let’s talk about why I did a slightly different recipe than Mr. Bittman’s traditional mashed potato recipe. I had two reasons, both very simple. First, because I was convinced (erroneously, it turns out) I had already made mashed potatoes (version 1) for this site. Obviously part of this challenge is to get me to spread my wings in the kitchen, so minimizing repeats is important. It’s also important if I ever want to buy another cookbook again in my whole forever life. Secondly, and even more basely, I picked this recipe because Bittman says that baking the potatoes, rather than boiling them, dries them out and allows them to soak up even more milk and butter.… Continue reading →

[42] Béchamel

How to Cook Everything, Revised Edition by Mark Bittman

I can’t lie, I only made this recipe because I wanted lasagne and Bittman’s lasagne recipe called for it. Admittedly, I was also pretty thrilled to knock out three recipes in one go.

This does smell pretty good while cooking, I have to say. Also practicing my roux skills is always nice, since keeping it lump free is a big pain.

h2. Ingredients

2 tbsp butter or extra-virgin olive oil (I used butter. No surprises here.)
2 tbsp all-purpose flour

1 – 1.5 c milk

Salt and freshly ground pepper (Omitted.)

h2. Instructions

Melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium-low heat (if using oil, heat until hot). Once melted/hot, turn the heat to low and use a whisk to incorporate the flour into the fat.… Continue reading →