Fresh from The Lemonade Cookbook: Chinese-style Braised Duck Legs

Whole duck legs are braised with orange, ginger, lemongrass, cilantro and garlic in this dish adapted from The Lemonade Cookbook. Recipe below.

WE OCCASIONALLY GET OFFERS TO REVIEW COOKBOOKS. Often, we say yes. But sometimes, the cookbooks can be a little too, well, niche for our tastes. Did you know there are multiple jello shot cookbooks?

So when we were asked to review The Lemonade Cookbook, you can imagine our first response. Turns out, though, that lemonade isn’t the key ingredient in the book’s recipes. It’s the name of a popular chain of modern cafeterias in Southern California with an emphasis on simple preparations, bold flavors and imaginative dishes with an inventive global taste. This sounded like a cookbook we needed to see. Continue reading “Fresh from The Lemonade Cookbook: Chinese-style Braised Duck Legs” →

Radical hospitality, nurturing comfort: Italian Chicken Stew

Chicken, potatoes, artichoke hearts, olives and capers create a hearty, rustic Italian stew. The recipe is adapted from Hedgebrook Cookbook: Celebrating Radical Hospitality. You could win your own copy of this cookbook. Recipe and contest details below.

One of the pleasures of writing Blue Kitchen is the opportunities we get to review cookbooks. We love food and we love the written word. Cookbooks give us both. The latest volume to come across our desk celebrates a place that has helped support the written word for 25 years now.

Hedgebrook is a writing retreat on Whidbey Island in Washington state, 48 acres with a farmhouse and six cabins. Since 1988, those cabins have been home to an impressive list of women writers, including Eve Ensler, Jane Hamilton, Carolyn Forché and Gloria Steinem, all enjoying what Hedgebrook calls “radical hospitality.” Continue reading “Radical hospitality, nurturing comfort: Italian Chicken Stew” →

Flavor, smoke and a little fire: Grilled Sriracha Apricot Chicken

A basting sauce of Sriracha, apricot preserves, hot chili sauce, rice vinegar and fish sauce gives grilled chicken a tangy, slightly spicy kick. Recipe below.

LOOKING OVER MY MOST RECENT POSTS, I realized I’d done two vegetarian dishes, a peach-centric roundup of mostly vegetarian and/or fruititarian dishes and last week’s boozitarian cocktail. It was time to get meaty again. Continue reading “Flavor, smoke and a little fire: Grilled Sriracha Apricot Chicken” →

Deconstructed Chicken Pot Pie, inspired by a comfort-inspired hotel lunch

Herbed biscuits stand in for pie crust in this deconstructed chicken pot pie. Herbes de Provence, garlic and wine give the American classic a French accent. Recipe below.

I recently had lunch at Dine, the restaurant of the Crowne Plaza Chicago Metro hotel. I wasn’t there because of my food writing credentials. Marion’s sister Lena works in the travel industry. The hotel had invited her to lunch; I was her plus one.

Historically, hotel restaurants have offered safe, if less than inspired meals to weary business travelers and wary tourists afraid to play restaurant roulette in a strange city. That’s beginning to change, though. Increasingly, hotels are bringing in new chefs and inviting them to play with their food. Continue reading “Deconstructed Chicken Pot Pie, inspired by a comfort-inspired hotel lunch” →

Coq au Riesling: the other famous French chicken

An Alsatian take on classic coq au vin, Coq au Riesling combines chicken, lardons, shallots, mushrooms and dry Riesling wine in a braise that’s even better the next day. Recipe below.

WE SOMETIMES THINK OF NATIONAL CUISINES IN MONOLITHIC TERMS. “How about Chinese tonight?” “Nah, I’m in the mood for Italian.” But countries large and small are made up of regions, each with their own distinct cuisines. So you get classic Northern Italian dishes and Southern Italian dishes. North Indian and South Indian. And Chicago restaurateur Tony Hu has built a career of highlighting regional Chinese cuisines, with individual restaurants serving the foods of Szechaun, Hunan, Beijing, Shanghai, Yunnan… Continue reading “Coq au Riesling: the other famous French chicken” →

Duck and Andouille Sausage Gumbo: Comfort food with a Creole/Cajun kick

Just in time for Mardi Gras, Duck and Andouille Sausage Gumbo combines onion, celery, bell peppers, garlic and plenty of seasonings to make big flavored comfort food. If you can’t find duck legs, substitute chicken. Recipe below.

I FREQUENTLY EMAIL MYSELF FOOD IDEAS when I come across them, as inspiration for future posts here. Often, these emails will include a link to the article or restaurant review or whatever got me thinking about cooking something. Not so with the email whose subject line read “duck gumbo?” The entire contents of the email read “try some.” Continue reading “Duck and Andouille Sausage Gumbo: Comfort food with a Creole/Cajun kick” →

Sweet, savory, quick, delicious: Sweet Potato Sage Pasta with Chicken

A handful of fresh ingredients—sweet potato, sage, onion, garlic and chicken—make a sweet/savory pasta dish that’s weeknight quick. Recipe below.

With holiday excesses behind us, it’s good to get back to quick, simple, everyday cooking. This dish is one of my favorite examples of that kind of cooking, in that involves fresh ingredients, using up leftovers and unexpected synapses firing.

One thing I’ve noticed in writing about food for the past five years or so is that it makes me think about food, a lot. Sometimes it seems that everything I see or read or hear or smell or taste has the potential to inspire some cooking idea. Continue reading “Sweet, savory, quick, delicious: Sweet Potato Sage Pasta with Chicken” →

The delicious root of the matter: Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables

Roasting chicken, sweet potatoes, parsnips, onions, garlic and rosemary together melds flavors beautifully in this one-pan meal. Recipe below.

This time of year brings a certain amount of angst for those trying to eat locally, seasonally and sustainably. Pickings are getting slim at farmers markets, especially here in the Midwest. The land is hunkering down for a long, cold winter, and summer’s produce bounty is receding in the rear view mirror. So what do we eat?

To answer this question, we need to look back to a time when eating locally, seasonally and sustainably was just called eating. For most of our grandparents (and certainly our great-grandparents), if the fruits and vegetables they ate didn’t come from their own gardens, they came from family farms not far from where they lived. To have produce to eat when the snows came, they would do a couple of things. Continue reading “The delicious root of the matter: Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables” →

Two great cooking methods, one delicious dish: Braised/Roasted Duck Legs with Vegetables

Braised/Roasted Duck Legs with Vegetables combines rustic, one-pan cooking with a few elegant ingredients for a simple, delicious fall dinner. Recipe below.

Two things led to this week’s recipe. First, fall is officially here. That makes me officially very happy; it’s my favorite season of the year for many reasons, none of them having to do with football or season premieres.

One place I enjoy fall the most is in the kitchen. Braising and roasting various meats (usually surrounded with various aromatics, vegetables and herbs) or making stews and soups are some of my favorite ways to cook. And they produce some of my favorite things to eat. Which brings me to the second thing. Continue reading “Two great cooking methods, one delicious dish: Braised/Roasted Duck Legs with Vegetables” →

Sweet meets tart and savory: Grilled Chicken with Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar Sauce

Grilled chicken breasts get a flavor boost with a simple, jam-based sauce. Recipe below.

I read somewhere recently that chicken growers are having trouble marketing chicken parts that aren’t skinless, boneless breasts. And it’s not because chicken breasts are more convenient to cook, or that chicken thighs and legs are more fatty than breast meat. It’s that skinless, boneless chicken breasts don’t have bones and therefore seem less like they came from an animal and are therefore somehow less icky.

Seriously? If you’re going to eat meat, own up to it. You can pretend all you want, but that boneless, skinless bit of animal protein was just as much a part of a living chicken as a bone-in thigh or drumstick.

If you’re not ready to give up eating meat (I know I’m not), but you want to feel better about doing so, there are a number of things you can do. Continue reading “Sweet meets tart and savory: Grilled Chicken with Strawberry Balsamic Vinegar Sauce” →