Beet & Ginger Soup

I know. I've gushed about (almost) every recipe posted here. And I'm about to do it again. The cause of most of this is that I've been pretty selective with the recipes I cook from this book, with limited time and energy. I go straight for the ones work with our lifestyle and palate, the ones that are out to please. And boy, does this one please.

This is Ms. Hesser's very own recipe, one she concocted as an antidote to the rich restaurant food she was enjoying during her time as a New York Times dining critic. Yes, that's one good reason to start roasting some beets for this soup this very minute. But there are others, and I'll name a few:

1) It can be enjoyed any time of year -- just vary its serving temperature depending on it. 2) It's cheap. Beats, onions, ginger, stock, and a few other embellishments. 3) Easy. Roasting and peeling the beets is the only onerous task here. The rest is as hard as throwing things in a pot, simmering, and blending. 4) Delicious.

 Recipe on page 150

Farfalle with Leeks and Sausage Sauce

I'm surprised I haven't posted this one sooner. I make it a lot.

The book calls it Farfalle Al Porri e Salsicce, and Ms. Hesser nicely translates that for us as Farfalle with Leeks and Sausage Sauce. I don't know how the word 'sauce' made its way into the recipe name. Besides the 'sauce' not being at all saucy (at least for me anyway), 'sausage sauce' sounds odd. Doesn't it? But I'm getting off topic.

This dish. I make it often because we always have the ingredients on hand. And it's good. A few fat links of sausage, a leek, a handful of peas and parmesan, and even more pasta. What's not to love? I use frozen peas but I imagine fresh, blanched peas would be delicious -- especially this time of year. The 'sauce' is faintly sweet and very subtle so choose your sausage wisely. I just use a regular pork sausage -- you don't want anything too overpowering here.

It comes together fairly quickly too, the 'sauce' being prepared in one pan (hey, maybe that's why it's called sauce!). The pasta, after being boiled, gets tossed with the remaining ingredients -- ok, the sauce. I concede.

Recipe on page 329

Purple Plum Torte

Let's call this one Miss Popular. In the introduction to the recipe, Ms. Hesser notes that this recipe is both the most often published and the most requested recipe in the Times archives. Most. Requested. Recipe. In. The. Times. Archives. That this was even calculated is fantastic alone.

The introduction to this recipe is two times as long as the recipe itself, and it speaks directly to its simplicity (and historical significance). The batter is simple (flour, eggs, sugar, butter), which affords much opportunity to improvise once you've made the standard recipe. Toy with the sugar amounts, use different fruits, swap the cinnamon for cardamom, etc. I've made it with blueberries, as suggested in the book, with equal success. But I do prefer the plums.

Miss Popular delivers. Besides her ability to store well in freezer, the jammy pockets of plum that land in every other forkful are delightful. Make sure your plums are ripe enough that you don't have to tear out the pits. Not only is that no fun, they'll be too tart.

This one is a delight. Have fun.

Recipe on page 763

Avocado and Beet Salad with Citrus Vinaigrette

These fat wedges of avocado and beet, slicked with their snappy, sweet vinaigrette, could make me swoon for days. We don't have enough ways to consume beets around here, being beet people, and this happily filled the gap. The fullness of the avocado cuts into the beet's sweetness, and the citrus zest in the vinaigrette makes the marriage of beet and avocado even more happy.

As do many salads, this goes great with a roast chicken for dinner, or a toasted piece of whole grain bread for lunch.

Recipe on page 193

Carrot Fennel Soup

Even though my lighting makes it look like a tie-die print, it happens to be a very nice carrot fennel soup. It also happens to be the perfect weekend lunch before dinner out. Light and satisfying. The recipe calls for a good amount of orange juice, but each time I've made this (it's been many) I halve the amount. The carrots are sweet enough, so next time I might leave it out all together and just add orange zest.

It's a fairly standard procedure, sauteeing the sliced fennel bulb in butter, adding the sliced carrots and garlic shortly afterwards. Simmer in water (I've used chicken stock) and orange juice for about 20 minutes and then either puree or roughly mash with the back of a wooden spoon. Add requisite dollop of sour cream. So right on so many levels.

Recipe on page 151

Chocolate Dump-It Cake

I'd like to say the reason only half of the cake is showing is for composition. Truth is, half of the cake was still stuck in the pan. (I was too light on the butter and flour during pan preparation, I suppose.)

But all that doesn't matter because the cake tastes good. Even while forking it out of said pan. And even if it's name contains 'Dump-It'. So good, in fact, my un-sweet-toothed husband nearly lick his plate clean. That's high praise. I discovered this cake just before my husband's birthday, and it was convenient that Ms. Hesser described it has her family's go-to birthday cake.

On top of being delicious, it's simple and the ingredients are likely already in your kitchen. The batter comes together in one saucepan, adding ingredient after ingredient. The icing recipe deserves a post in itself. A 1:1 ratio of melted bittersweet chocolate chips and sour cream, it's perfectly sweet and tangy.

One of the best recipes I've come across in this book yet.

Recipe on page 781

Golden Winter Puree

If the hit of ginger in this puree won't warm your bones, you'll need to check your pulse. I used fresh, grated ginger instead of ground ginger and I'm glad I did. The puree hovers on the sweet side -- consisting of carrots, rutabaga, and pear. The soft heat of fresh ginger rounds the puree out nicely, as does the slip of heavy cream. We had ours with braised short ribs. 

Recipe on page 235

Salted Caramel Chocolate Tart

This tart is so good, so rich, so salty sweet -- it might make you sweat. A tiny sliver will do, my friends. There are 3 components: the chocolate dough, the caramel filling, and the chocolate glaze. And I admit I took a full Saturday afternoon to do it. (While piddling with smaller, non-essential tasks during the waiting periods.) But a grand prize awaits for you. Since it's rich it will last a while (with 2 people, like here), and on that last slice, a week or so later -- everything will seem worth it. We kept ours in the refrigerator when we weren't indulging ourselves.

As a bit of history, Ms. Hesser explains that this tart made its creator (Claudia Fleming) famous and sparked the salt-in-desserts craze that we all know and love.

Recipe on page 847

Barley Risotto

I'd been curious about barley risotto ever since Nigella Lawson presented it as her no-stir, lazy version of the classic dish. The version in Big Red is as simple as Nigella claims hers to be. It having barley as an alternative as rice obviously gives it a firmer texture, but it's all the more interesting this way. We had ours with pork chops and a cabbage slaw. 

Recipe on page 327

English Gingersnaps

Confession: I have 9 posts in my queue to publish for this blog. All have photos, titles, and recipe page numbers. But they're waiting for words. I clearly can cook faster than I can (or have time to) write. So, what's a girl to do? Since the purpose of this space is to share enthusiasm for the breadth of recipes in The Big Red Book -- I'm going to do it in a way that works for me.

Going forward, I will just be posting recipe names, page numbers, photos, and at most a single paragraph about each recipe. It will be brief, but it'll give me more breathing room to showcase the fantastic selection in The Book and hopefully inspire you to reach for one of your own cookbooks, even if it isn't Big Red.

Now, regarding the English Gingersnaps. Although they pack a nice ginger punch, they were more cakey than I'd like. I'll leave them in the oven longer next time. I also couldn't stop thinking about my grandmother's peanut butter cookies that she crosshatched with a fork like this recipe suggests to do (see above photo). Next time, I'll leave these cookies un-hatched -- but that's just personal.

That said, they give your house the perfect aroma to put up the Christmas tree and holiday lights. And that's exactly what I did.

Recipe on page 693

Crispy Chickpeas with Ground Meat

If there's one recipe in this book that I've made more than any others, this is it. I deviate a bit from the recipe as I don't add very much liquid (always afraid it won't cook off, despite Ms. Hesser's assuring note in the header). 

My husband especially loves this. It has a masculine quality without being too heavy. We have red meat a few nights a week, and this is the most common way we get it. It's become a staple one-pot pantry dish, without feeling like one. We're always excited to have it again. You can vary the intensity of the spices depending on what you serve it with, and you could even take it to the stew-level per the recipe instructions. 

Plus, it's really easy. You just heat a large skillet, brown your ground meat, and add canned chickpeas and stir until they start browning (and popping!). Then add your spices (cumin, chile) and aforementioned liquid. Let it simmer until the liquid is cooked off. The recipe calls for 1 cup of the reserved liquid from the can of chickpeas but I usually add just 1/2 cup. 

Either way, have fun with it -- make it and eat it often! Neither is hard. 

Recipe on page 558 in The Book

Couscous Salad

Thanks to the Twitter-gods, I got virtual help with this recipe from Ms. Hesser herself. Not that I was in a real bind, but I wanted to know if she used regular or pearled couscous. Turns out either is fine; I used regular. I made it in early summer before my in-laws were about to arrive. It's always A Thing, cooking for them. They're from Eastern Europe and have relatively conservative and light palates. Despite what they say about not needing to go to such lengths to cook for them, I know they don't travel across the world to eat more boiled eggs and cabbage. A diligent search through my cookbooks lead me to this recipe, and let me tell you -- it was a pot of gold. In more ways than one.

The recipe is a combination of sweet and savory goodness. Among other things, it calls for carrots, celery, chicken stock, as well as cinnamon and dates. I left my celery and carrots on the coarse side (I was making these cookies at the same time and the oven timer was likely going off), but I wish I hadn't. Everything in this salad wants to be on the small side.

I dubbed this the 'cinnamon-scented pot of gold' in a Tweet back to Ms. Hesser, a name which she eagerly approved of. I doubled the recipe and it also solved The Other Thing, making office lunches. It'd be good any time of year, really. To round it out as an entire meal you could even add bits of poached chicken.

Recipe on Page 321 in The Book

Cafe au Lait

I'm usually an extremist when it comes to coffe. Depending on the weather, my mood, or the morning's breakfast prospects, I'll either have it black or with a generous slip of cream. Rarely milk.

I don't do lattes, but if I were to have milk with my morning java, it would most certainly be in the form of a cafe au lait. The 1:1 milk-to-coffee ratio in a cafe au lait sits fairly in the middle of my normal spectrum. The Book's recipe, if one could call it that, comes to us as a letter to the editor which suggests using France's cafe au lait habit as an antidote to our animal-heavy diets.

Give it what reason you will. I'm a cafe au lait convert.
Recipe on page 9 in The Book

Corn Griddle Cakes with Parmesan and Chives

A blasphemy in August (yep, posting this late), but I used frozen corn for these. Frozen corn, people. It's a shame, and after a week I'm only now able to sleep fully at night. But it worked. I came across this recipe before assembling a dinner of roasted fish and salad. Alas, there was no fresh corn in our possession, but at least 2 bags of frozen. I'm not one to miss an opportunity.

Despite the above Situation, these corn cakes were still out to please. They turn out to be a not-too-delicate but not-too-heavy corn cake that's perfect for late summer/early fall -- with aforementioned fish and green salad.

Recipe on Page 294 in The Book
http://www.eatyourbooks.com/library/recipes/442289/fresh-corn-griddle-cakes-with

Buckwheat Cookies

These cookies are very special. Besides offering an opportunity to dip into the bulk of buckwheat flour I've somehow accumulated, they helped me win over my father-in-law. My in-laws are Eastern European and aren't inclined towards sweet, baked goods as much as we are across the pond. But I couldn't help myself from wanting to have a warm, baked good here for them when they arrived to the States.

In the introduction to this recipe, Ms. Hesser suggests that these cookies taste like wet stone -- in a good way. She's right -- they do. And yes -- in the best possible way. The recipe uses a 1:1 ratio of white to buckwheat flour -- a bit more aggressive than most baked-good recipes with buckwheat flour. The 1:1 ratio makes for an interesting, but still pleasant, sweet grain flavor.

The first time I made them was when my then soon-to-be in-laws came for our wedding last September. My father in-law swooned immediately. These being especially good with tea only helped matters along. I made them this summer on their most-recent visit and he was equally smitten. I'm now aware of an unspoken request for their future visits. I'll gladly oblige.

Recipe on page 702 in The Book

Roasted Salmon with Herb Vinaigrette

Salmon and vinaigrette is a winning combination. Living in the Pacific Northwest means having fish on the table at least 2-3 times per week, so I was thrilled to find a simple alternative to our usual olive oil drizzle, salt sprinkle, and lemon squeeze. (in that order) 

Roasting fish is my method of choice, which was indication No. 1 that this recipe and I would get along. Indication No. 2 was mustard; I love it. This sprightly vinaigrette helps the roasted fish come out of its slumber and sing. The herbs (I used a combination of fresh and dried) and mustard make it truly special. It's what sets it apart from my usual drizzle, sprinkle, squeeze routine noted above.  

The recipe in The Book makes a large quantity of vinaigrette and suggests slicing potatoes to roast underneath the salmon. I nearly quartered the vinaigrette recipe it for our smaller piece of fish and made the recipe sans potatoes. 

Recipe on page 430 in The Book

Also available on The New York times Web site, here.

David Eyre Pancake

It should be no surprise that the David Eyre Pancake was the second recipe I decided to include here. It's a classic - a pancake with a pedigree (and its own Wikipedia page). With a long history, read about it here and here, it's likely been many things to many people. To us, it's our light indulgence on the weekend. Light because there's only 1/2 cup of flour; indulgent as there's 4 tablespoons of butter. 

It's the perfect type of pancake for technophiles that sit most of the day and burn 0 calories, but demand tasty food. It's buttery and crisp in all the right places. I've been known to dallop greek yogurt and drizzle raspberry jam on mine -- but it's divine on its own too. We've had it for breakfast only, but it could make a lovely dessert with an indulgent accompaniment. 

See Amanda's video here.

Al Forno's Roasted Asparagus

We are way past asparagus season and this recipe will likely be of very little use to many of you, but it's not why I'm posting. I'm posting it because asparagus, without trying to sound too poetic, signals the beginning of a new season. This blog and recipe have been on the back burner since this spring, for various reasons, and I've decided to hit 'Publish' and let it start growing.

I had several concerns: 1) Could I publish the recipes? No -- checked with Amanda on that one. She and the publisher have good reason and I'll gladly comply. 2) Would I have time? No -- but you've heard the schpeal before, "Make time for what you love." 3) Could I still write? After completing journalism school, I got a corporate gig at Amazon. Not a job that requires flexing the writing muscle. 4) Could I do The Big Red Book (which I truly love!) justice? Not sure, but here's to trying.

I hit 'Publish' because the are more reasons to do so than not. So, here we are and here we go. As I mentioned, I made the recipe for Al Forno's Roasted Asparagus back in May. She's a beauty. It was our gold standard recipe for asparagus for the better part of June too. Not only did this one make my husband an asparagus-lover, but he inquired about how to cook it in the event I'm not home. (!!) It also made our apartment fire alarm go off.  READ: 500 degree oven.

The recipe is a breeze. Clean and snap the ends of your asparagus. Dry them off, drizzle some olive oil over them in a roasting pan. Add salt, toss. Into the blazing heat they go, where the magic happens. Roast until tender. The tips are sure to crisp slightly, which is a lovely thing to behold.

Recipe on page 233 in The Book