Food | Gourmandistan

Topinambour-ing to you!

January 26, 2012 by Steve

We’re always trying to vary our limited winter veg choices, so we’ve been happy to see tiny bags of Jerusalem artichokes available at our currently-only-on-Saturdays local farm store. Known as sunchokes, topinambours and more, these gnarled sunflower tubers are great pan-roasted, or thin-sliced and sautéed with garlic. (Then again, just about anything is great sautéed with garlic.) Looking for another way to use the tasty tubers, Michelle discovered a tart recipe in Ottolenghi: The Cookbook and decided we could wing it […]

Categories: Cheese, Cooking, Eggs, Food, Jerusalem artichokes, Kale, Recipes, Vegetarian

Brownies, taking away the taste of failed muffins.

January 16, 2012 by Steve

Michelle was unhappy; Steve, somewhat stuffed. Several weekends of new recipes resulting in miserable muffin failures had wasted many cups of our precious frozen blueberries as well as other Gourmandistan goods. The first batch of blueberry muffins was too bland with an unpleasant, gummy texture. The second, tasty but too heavy. (Steve, like some sort of scavenger bird, picked the fruit out of the batter and baked remains before feeding Michelle’s castoffs to the chickens.) A third attempt abandoned blueberries […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Food, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Granola Opry

January 9, 2012 by Steve

There is opera, and there is “Opry.” There is granola, and there is “Granola Revisited” from Lorna Sass’ Whole Grains Every Day Every Way. We Gourmandistanis often find granola too sweet, too cinnamony or just too junked up. Carob chips are Satan’s chocolate and, being purists, we believe even Amedei chocolate would ruin a good granola (and vice versa). This granola is simple, light and still plenty sweet—especially when you ramp up the coconut ration (perhaps, for example, after discovering […]

Categories: Breakfast, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Vegetarian

A bulgur display of powder.

January 6, 2012 by Steve

This Curried Bulgur from Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything (“The first one. The yellow one, with the fat Bittman,” Michelle said) makes a nice base for a bunch of lunches. One of our household staples is a jar of curry powder, because even though we take what many consider ridiculous steps with food (Steve was recently mocked for wondering if he could make his own analog to cheap canned crescent rolls for pigs-in-blankets), we see true Indian spice prep […]

Categories: Cooking, Eggs, Food, Grains, Recipes, Vegetarian

A not-so-short hop away from Hoppin’ John

January 1, 2012 by Steve

We Gourmandistanis generally pride ourselves on maintaining a humanistic, progressive point of view, striving to reject superstition and magical thinking. However, given Steve’s totemistic use of blue clothing and fervent belief in the power of both hexing (and reverse hexing) as applied to UK basketball, we cannot say we’ve completely left superstition out of our lives. Plus, especially for Michelle, Southern traditions hold strong, and here in our wintry homeplace black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day are as expected as […]

Categories: Beans, Cooking, Food, New Year, Oysters, Recipes

A small, citrusy step away from the treacle.

December 28, 2011 by Steve

It’s almost the end of the holidays, and we’re starting to be just a bit sick of sweet. While eating our way through what remains of Michelle’s cookie cavalcade (reduced by gifts, get-togethers and Steve’s occasional late-night rustling), we started to think of slightly less sugary finishes to our meals. We make this dish only occasionally, as it requires wonderful winter citrus and restaurant-level pith removal that is beyond Steve’s skill set to meet Michelle’s standards for fresh fruit consumption. […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Grapefruit, Orange, Recipes, Vegetarian

Linzer Hearts still beating after all these years

December 17, 2011 by Steve

Michelle’s spattered and battered paperback edition of The Silver Palate Cookbook is full of notes, as during the Eighties it was one of our most-used volumes. We don’t turn to it much these days, as it seems a bit dated (Brie cheese baked in phyllo and a pound of butter, anyone?) and a bit embarrassing (why on earth did we note that baked garlic was “strange”?). But we keep the volume on our bookshelves, in large part because of these […]

Categories: Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

The agony and the apricot-y

December 10, 2011 by Michelle

Once upon a time, when much younger and much more energetic, Michelle made cookies to share with friends and family for the holidays. Of course, Michelle being who she is, these cookies were very, very good—but also took up very, very much of her time. Within a few years she was spending virtually the entire month between Thanksgiving and Christmas obsessively thinking about cookies, making cookies, packaging cookies and distributing cookies to a growing number of people, constantly trying to […]

Categories: Chocolate, Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

An “au revoir/auf wiedersehen” to apples

December 4, 2011 by Michelle

Steve has probably purchased his last batch of local apples for the year, and since he snacks on several per day (there are many, many doctors out there, after all) he’ll soon be buying what he calls “crapples” at the grocery. Michelle, however, has higher standards, and refuses to cook with the flown- and trucked-in Braeburns, Fujis or sappy-sweet HoneyCrisps that Steve brings home. While that means Tarte Tatin and apple clafoutis must wait until next fall, Michelle recently managed […]

Categories: Apples, Cooking, Food, France, Fruit Desserts, Nuts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes