Featured Recipe
Chilled Two-Melon Soup with Balsamic Marinated Strawberries and Sour Cream
1 small very ripe cantaloupe, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped (about 6 cups) 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice or to taste 1/2 very ripe honeydew melon, peeled, seeded, and coarsely chopped (about 6 cups) 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice or to taste 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh mint, plus several…
Three Citrus Flan
1 lime 1 orange 1/2 cup plus 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar 1 cup whole milk 1 cup heavy cream 1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise 2 large eggs 2 large egg yolks Pinch table saltRemove the rinds from the lemon, lime, and orange and cut away the bitter white…
Esther’s Chicken Fricassee
Esther Adler, my mother-in-law, gave birth to three sons in less than three years (yikes!) and a daughter three years later. All four kids had hearty appetites, and all four turned out to be fairly strapping individuals. I’ll confess that I’ve often wondered how in the world she managed to…
Indonesian-Style Chicken with Spicy Peanut Sauce
Chicken thighs should be more popular. The meat is much more flavorful than the white meat and almost always cooks up moist, which is not something you can say of chicken breast meat. Yes, the thigh is slightly more caloric than the breast, but I prefer it anyway. This is…
Berry Rice Pudding
I love rice pudding, as does the husband, but I am certainly not going to make it from scratch on a weeknight. However, there is a good chance you have leftover rice every so often from a take-out meal, and this would be a very tasty way to recycle it.…
Grilled Salmon, Arugula & Grilled Corn Salad, Sweet Pea & Avocado Crostini
Makes 4 servings Suggested Accompaniment Serve with a Chardonnay Ingredients Four 6-ounce boneless, skinless filets of salmon seasoned with extra virgin olive oil to coat and a liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper Sweet Pea Hummus (recipe below) Crostini (recipe below) 2 ears of fresh corn shucked, grilled and cut…
Cream Biscuits
This is a recipe I developed while working in the Gourmet magazine test kitchen. It is so easy and versatile that I use it as the basis for any biscuit-related recipe I make. See Apricot Scones (p 302) and Biscuit Sticky Buns (p 303) in Sara Moulton Cooks at Home,…
Miniature Goat Cheese Cakes
These are great make-ahead hors d’oeuvres because they reheat so beautifully. They require mini-muffin tins (also known as gem tins), and if you don’t already own some, you may want to buy them. They’re really a worthwhile investment. Suddenly everything you used to make big you will think about making…
Chicken Piccata
Although none of us wants to devote more than 45 minutes or so to getting dinner on the table during the workweek, we still want to eat well. In Sara Moulton Cooks at Home, I included “ four quick chicken recipes” that all start with the same easy prep and…
Baked Orzo and Cheese
I can’t tell you how hard I tried when the kids were little to come up with a homemade macaroni and cheese that they would choose to eat over that stuff in the box. They just weren’t interested. But now that they are older and have traveled a little bit,…
Roasted Butternut Squash Lasagne
This is a delicious alternative to the classic meat-and-tomato-sauce lasagne. The squash comes on surprisingly big; roasting it caramelizes it and concentrates its flavor. I made a relatively light “cream sauce”—half milk/half chicken broth—because the two cheeses contribute a ton of richness. The big news here is that you don’t…
Onion Soup Omelets
Makes six 3-egg omelets For the onion filling: 2 tablespoons unsalted butter 4 to 5 medium onions, about 2 pounds, halved crosswise and very thinly sliced 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves 1 1/2 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade 1/4 cup red wine Kosher salt and freshly ground black…
Mexican-style Street Corn
Grilled corn slathered with mayo and coated in grated cheese is a well-loved staple of Mexican street fare. Several years ago Gourmet magazine ran a recipe for this tradition using shredded cotija, a crumbly aged-cured Mexican cheese. At the time, it occurred to me that it might be a hit…
Fried Green Tomato Sandwich with Goat Cheese
Makes 4 servings Hands-on time: about 30 minutes Total preparation time: 30 minutes 3 large green tomatoes (10 to 12 ounces each) Kosher salt Quick Herb Sauce (recipe follows) 1/2 large sweet onion 8 ounces soft goat cheese Freshly milled black pepper 1/3 cup yellow cornmeal 2 tablespoons extra virgin…
Crispy Buffalo Chicken Salad and Slaw
One of my favorite dishes is Buffalo chicken wings, that irresistible combination of deep fried chicken wings tossed in hot sauce with a side of blue cheese dipping sauce and celery sticks. I’m also crazy about veal Milanese—veal dipped in egg and Parmesan breadcrumbs and then sautéed—especially when it’s topped…
Penne with Slow Roasted Cherry Tomatoes and Goat Cheese
Any excuse to eat ripe tomatoes in season is a good one, but the best reason to check out this delicious vegetarian recipe is that it gives you the chance to sample and support some of the wonderful artisanal cheeses—including homemade fresh goat cheese—now being produced all over the U.S.…
Blueberry Pot Stickers
I have always been a huge fan of the Chinese dumplings known as pot stickers. They’re wonton wrappers filled with pork or shrimp, crisped up in a pan, steamed, re-crisped, then served with a dipping sauce. Yum! Thinking about pot stickers recently, it occurred to me that if you swapped…
Creamy Lime Corn Soup with Cumin Salted Tortilla Strips
Here is a luxuriously thick soup that is very low in calories, especially if you leave out the tortilla chips. You really boost the corn flavor by adding cobs to the broth. Indeed, anytime you have leftover cobs kicking around, especially at the end of the summer, you might want…
Spring Soup with Bread Dumplings
photo by Jamie Tiampo First things first: This is a spring soup. It’s meant to be made when asparagus and fava beans are in season. Just because you can find these items in the supermarket in November, when they have been flown in from the other half of the world,…
Andrea’s Berry Crumble
This delicious dessert was contributed by Andrea Hagan who helped with the testing of Sara Moulton Cooks at Home. A native Seattleite, Andrea was 11 years old when she toured England as a member of the Northwest Girls Choir. Choir members bunked with local citizens in the towns they visited…
Creamy Butterscotch Pudding Cake
When I was a kid and we visited Cambridge, my parents used to take me to an old-fashioned ice cream parlor in Harvard Square. They served a butterscotch sundae made of coffee ice cream, hot butterscotch sauce, and whipped cream. Boy it was good! This pudding cake reminds me…
Asparagus and Goat Cheese Souffléed Omelet
Photo by Jessica Leibowitz This is a cross between an omelet and a soufflé and doesn’t take too much work as long as you have electric beaters. Make sure you beat your egg whites just to soft peaks; otherwise they won’t fold properly into the egg yolk base. Any leftover…
Matzo Brei with Creamed Spinach and Crispy Onions
I didn’t know about matzo brie, that wonderful breakfast dish consisting of matzo and beaten eggs cooked in a lot of butter, until I started dating my now-husband (who is Jewish) in the mid-seventies. His mom, Esther, made it for me and I thought it was absolutely delicious. I always…
Quick Sautéed Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Pancetta and Balsamic Vinegar
Photo by Jessica Leibowitz When I first started doing “Cooking Live” in 1996, Sue Fenniger and Mary Sue Milliken were co-hosting the Food Network’s “Two Hot Tamales.” I had been a fan of these talented chefs ever since I ate at one of their restaurants in the late eighties,…