If you love a Negroni, you’ll be smitten by this Negroni panna cotta.
Have you ever wanted to drink your cocktail — and eat it, too?
You most certainly can with this playful “Negroni Panna Cotta.”
Made with gin, Campari, and vermouth just like the classic Italian cocktail, this is one panna cotta you’ll want to reserve only for grown-ups.
The recipe is from “Bar Menu” (Running Press, 2022), of which I received a review copy.
The book is by Andre Darlington, a food and beverage writer based in Philadelphia and North Carolina.
While a few specialty cocktail recipes are included, this is really a collection of recipes for food that pairs with various mixed drinks — from light bites to more substantial noshes to even desserts.
Ta-da — the finished macarons I made with the Food La La kit.
Imagine learning to bake fanciful French macarons in the comfort of your own kitchen with guidance from an expert who happens to bear more than a passing resemblance to none other than Anna Kendrick.
You can — with the French Macaron Kit by Food La La. The San Francisco culinary business was founded by Lindsay Kinder, whose disarming charm, self-deprecation, and pony-tailed, petite presence will indeed remind you of that Hollywood star.
After toiling for five years in a corporate job selling insurance, she chucked it all to go live in France. There, she spent months studying cooking and baking, and of course, eating a lot of macarons.
It inspired her to launch her first product, the macaron kit. At $97, it’s as festive as a party in a box, with shiny black and rose-gold colored bags that hold nearly everything you need to make about two dozen macarons. You just have to add your own butter, eggs and splash of milk or cream.
The kit comes in great packaging.
The kit is complete with pre-measured dry mixes to make the macaron and buttercream filling, along with piping bags, gel food coloring, dazzling sprinkles, edible metallic paint plus a paint brush, a handy macaron template to guide your piping onto the baking sheet, and even a couple of snazzy gift boxes if you can part with your macarons after you’ve decorated them.
Canned artichoke hearts get revived in a glorious way in this simple recipe.
We interrupt this program for a nifty little side dish recipe.
It’s one that’s highly worthy of your attention because it utterly transforms frozen or canned artichoke hearts into an easy side dish sure to impress.
What I especially love is that the slightly off-putting tinny and acidic taste of plain canned artichoke hearts is vanquished in this method, leaving them as vibrant as fresh ones in season but without all the prepping usually involved.
“Roasted Artichokes with Fennel and Tarragon” is from “Vegan Cooking for Two,” of which I received a review copy.
The cookbook by America’s Test Kitchen includes more than 200 recipes handily scaled for plant-based households of two. They feature hearty grains, proteins such as tofu and tempeh, beans galore, plant-based ground meat, and plant-based cheeses.
There’s everything from “Garlic and Herb Burgers with Beet Tzatziki” (made with plant-based ground meat), “Charred Cabbage Salad with Torn Tofu and Plaintain Chips,” and “Creamy Cashew Mac and Cheese” to “Meaty Zoodles with Mango and Garam Masala” (made with plant-based ground meat, plant-based yogurt, and zucchini noodles), and “Individual Lemon-Poppy Seed Cakes” (made with plant-based butter and plant-based egg).
By now, we all know how to waffle stuffing or mashed potatoes to crisp up and give new life to leftover sides, especially the day after Thanksgiving.
But “Crispy Potato Waffles” are novel, because they get their start with raw russets, meaning you can skip the step of making mashed potatoes altogether.
I think it results in waffles that taste even more potato-y, too.
The recipe is from the unique “Homage” (Chronicle Books, 2022), of which I received a review copy. It’s by Chris Scott, a “Top Chef” finalist and New York-based chef who’s the owner of Butterfunk Biscuit.
Scott recounts his family’s journey over seven generations, from his great-great-grandmother who was enslaved in Virginia in the mid-1800s to his great-grandmother who migrated to Pennsylvania after the Emancipation Proclamation, and his grandmother Nan who instilled in him a sense of discipline and an unbridled passion for cooking, to finally to his own upbringing in Pennsylvania Amish country and eventual ascendant culinary career in New York.
Like deep-fried bacon — without actually deep-frying.
This is probably one of the shortest — and easiest — recipes around.
And definitely one of the most delectable.
If you are a bacon fan, this method will blow your mind, as it results in the crunchiest bacon that will decidedly up your morning breakfast or BLT game.
“Joe’s Famous ‘Fried’ Bacon” is a recipe from “Food52 Simply Genius” (Ten Speed Press, 2022), of which I received a review copy.
This handy-dandy cookbook is by Kristen Miglore, a founding editor of Food52, the online portal for recipes and culinary content.
Food52 cookbooks are usually thematic, and this one is no different, centering on genius tricks, tips or methods to make cooking easier, quicker or more scrumptious.
