A not-too-sweet anytime treat: Blueberry Sour Cream Cake

Blueberries and sour cream are the basis of this modestly sweet cake a dessert, a breakfast treat, a mid-day pick-me-up. Recipe below.

WE ARE STILL BEING VERY CAUTIOUS THESE DAYS. We are not flying. We are not going into our offices. We are only going into shops and the library and other public places when they are relatively empty. We aren’t going to bars at all, which is so sad. But we are still seeing people, with great care, as we wait out what looks to be a multi-year pandemic. Meaning we still want to have some treats on hand, just in case. Thus this simple bundt cake. Continue reading “A not-too-sweet anytime treat: Blueberry Sour Cream Cake” →

Happy, safe Thanksgiving

THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING is not the time to post a new recipe. You either already know what you’re preparing or someone is cooking for you. Either way, we don’t need to give you a reason to run out shopping for more ingredients. We spotted this window the other night, wandering around downtown Chicago with our older daughter, who was in town for a brief visit. While it looks like a mysterious popup restaurant, it is actually part of a now vacant Walgreens. But it does describe how we’ll be celebrating the holiday and the weekend with our younger daughter and her boyfriend, and Marion’s sister. Even if it’s not the usual big, boisterous tableful of everyone at once, we’re thankful to be able to get together with family in batches.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We hope food + drinks with those you love is part of your plan too.

Authenticish maybe, genuinely delicious: Portuguese-style Beef Stew

Beef stew meat, Portuguese chouriço, bell peppers, paprika and potatoes drive the comforting flavor of this hearty stew. Recipe below.

PORTUGAL POPPED UP ON OUR CULINARY RADAR innocently enough. Not finding anything new we wanted to watch on TV one night, we settled into something old. We had already binge-watched Somebody Feed Phil about a year ago, and Netflix offered it up to us again. The first episode they served up was Lisbon, Portugal. Continue reading “Authenticish maybe, genuinely delicious: Portuguese-style Beef Stew” →

Fifteen years and still cooking.

BLUE KITCHEN TURNED 15 LAST WEEKEND. Yep, we first posted on November 6, 2006. Not sure what the traditional gift for the 15th anniversary is, but we’re giving ourselves the week off. We’ll be back next week with a new recipe (we’re pretty sure). Oh, and the New Perfection above? It’s the kerosene cook stove on the Logsdon Sand and Gravel Co. towboat we saw at the National Mississippi River Museum & Aquarium in Dubuque, Iowa, a few weeks ago. The stern wheeler towboat was built in 1940. The stove is probably the same vintage—they were made from 1907 up to the 1950s. Who knows how many meals it must have cooked for the crew that took this boat up and down the Mississippi.

Seeing stuff like this is just one of the things that keeps us interested in food—making it, eating it, thinking and talking about it. And writing about it here, even after 15 years. See you next week.

A one-pan meal you’ll put on repeat: Roasted Chicken, Potatoes and Green Beans

Chicken thighs are started on the stovetop, then finished in the oven with potatoes and green beans. Recipe below.

WE HAVE NOW COOKED THIS MEAL three times in less than a month. Not trying to tweak the recipe as we sometimes do here, but simply because we wanted to eat it again. Of course, being one-pan easy to make didn’t hurt its chances of being put on repeat. Continue reading “A one-pan meal you’ll put on repeat: Roasted Chicken, Potatoes and Green Beans” →

Salt-crusted outside, creamy inside: Syracuse Salt Potatoes

These boiled potatoes are a traditional favorite in Central New York. Recipe below.

THREE SIMPLE INGREDIENTS: POTATOES, SALT, BUTTER. Four if you get fancy and add parsley. Syracuse salt potatoes are one of those beloved regional dishes, so much so that the grocery stores around Syracuse sell kits—essentially bags of potatoes with a bag of salt inside. Having made these delicious potatoes a couple of times now (without a kit), they’re going to become a favorite in the region of our house. Continue reading “Salt-crusted outside, creamy inside: Syracuse Salt Potatoes” →

Notes from the road again, sort of.

WE ARE ON (AND OFF) THE ROAD RIGHT NOW. We took a week off for not exactly a long road trip, not exactly a staycation. More kind of a nearcation—a series of little adventures in a three-state radius. Visiting a daughter, seeing some museums, riding the world’s steepest funicular (the Fenelon Place Elevator in Dubuque, Iowa). And doing a little antiquing. We saw this kitchen string dispenser in Dyersville, Iowa. My grandmother had one of these on her kitchen wall; if she’d ever kept string in her chef, it was before I met him.

And while we cooked and photographed two dishes that will appear here shortly, we just didn’t have the bandwidth to write about them. Please stop by next week for a recipe. And maybe a story or two from downstate Illinois.

Simple, authentic, delicious: Burmese Green Tomato Salad (kayan chin thi thoke)

Green tomatoes, and some kind of pepper and onion are at the heart of this crisp, tart, easy-to-make traditional Burmese salad. Recipe below.

IT’S OCTOBER. THE DAYS ARE GETTING SHORTER, the nights crisp (well, sometimes). The bees are fewer in number and acting kind of drowsy. But the tomato plants, ever cheerful, are still optimistically generating loads of tomatoes. Continue reading “Simple, authentic, delicious: Burmese Green Tomato Salad (kayan chin thi thoke)” →

A vegetarian spin on a Southern classic: Gruyere Grits with Roasted Broccoli

Stone-ground grits are loaded with gruyere, butter and cream, and topped with roasted broccoli instead of shrimp. Recipe below.

I’VE BEEN ON A BROCCOLI TEAR LATELY, looking for new or at least newish ways to fix this old dependable. The other day, I happened to run across a recipe for pasta with a sauce loaded with gruyere, and with steamed broccoli mixed in at the last. As we say at our house, that was not without interest, but somehow the pasta side of this seemed overwhelming. That was when I opened the fridge door and saw the bag of Geechie Boy Mill white grits I’d ordered a little while back, just sitting on the door waiting patiently. Continue reading “A vegetarian spin on a Southern classic: Gruyere Grits with Roasted Broccoli” →

The umami trick you should definitely have up your sleeve

Six recipes show how anchovies or anchovy paste can quietly up the umami in all kinds of dishes, from pot roast to pasta to duck.

Layered Pot Roast with Anchovies, Capers and Garlic

YES, ANCHOVIES CAN MAKE THEIR PRESENCE KNOWN, as a pizza topping, for instance. But they can also melt and disappear into a dish, delivering a delicious savoriness that salt alone cannot—and without any fishiness. Continue reading “The umami trick you should definitely have up your sleeve” →