Gourmandistan

Brined roasted almonds delightfully salt up oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

October 6, 2018 by Steve

Gourmandistan has enjoyed many recipes from Joshua McFadden’s Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables, but none more than the amazingly simple “Brined and Roasted Almonds.” McFadden says he learned the technique in Rome at the American Academy. We say that wherever the idea comes from, it’s worth its weight in salt—and that salty goodness made a recent batch of oatmeal cookies really special. A jar of these crunchy, rich and satisfyingly salty almonds now has a permanent spot on […]

Categories: Baking, Cookies, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Nuts, Recipes

Savory sausage tray bakes start to take over Gourmandistan

September 16, 2018 by Steve

We’re always looking for tasty but not-too-taxing ideas for busy weekday dinners. Pizza is often an option, but recently we’ve found another use for the “pizza pans” we inherited from Steve’s Italian-American family. Especially since winter squash and apple season arrived, we’ve become quite enamored of savory tray bakes. Various starchy things and apples have been placed on a tray with excellent sausages from our local butcher, arriving at our table shortly thereafter with little mess to clean up. We […]

Categories: Apples, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Sausage, Winter squash

Possibly not concord grape jam tart puts Pop-Tarts® to shame

August 15, 2018 by Steve

We Gourmandistanis are quite the fans of Concord grapes. However, feeling it rude to shove our noses into the neatly closed boxes on offer at a farmers’ market, we failed to discover how un-aromatic some recently-purchased “Concords” were until we returned home. While the flavor of the purple globes was fine, they lacked the deep purple sheen, leathery skin and profound smell of true Concord grapes. It may be that folks around here describe every homegrown purple grape as a Concord. […]

Categories: Baking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit, Fruit Desserts, Grapes, Jams & Preserves, Pies & Tarts, Recipes

Different flours shift peaches (but not flavor) of wonderfully variable cake

July 30, 2018 by Steve

We’ve run across many variations of Nigel Slater’s recipe for “midsummer cake,” and have used it many times with all sorts of fresh fruits. In Ripe: A Cook in the Orchard (that’s Tender: Vol. II to you Brits), the cake appears with apricots and raspberries. In a 2010 article, Slater employed peaches, blueberries and orange zest. We’ve done those, as well as our own delicious variation with Concord grapes during their ever so short season. The cake is incredibly easy […]

Categories: Baking, Cake, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Peaches/Nectarines, Recipes

Blueberry crumble pie deliciously deals with juicy blueberries

July 10, 2018 by Steve

When it comes to fruit, “juicy” is usually a good thing. But we all know at times one can have too much of a good thing—and cooked blueberries are a prime example. A crisp, buttery cobbler or pie crust can be lost in an ocean of blue juice, quickly becoming a soggy mess. This crumble-pie combo does a nice job of balancing sweet blueberry ooze with crunchy crust and a crumb topping. It works equally well, if even more juicy, […]

Categories: Baking, Blueberries, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes

Managing farm share kale with a simple mess o’ greens

June 28, 2018 by Steve

As usual at this time of year, Gourmandistan can’t help buying fresh green things at farmers’ markets. We’ve enjoyed snap peas, spring onions, broccoli, asparagus and other vegetables we know we’ll only see for a few weeks. Adding the more perishable items from our weekly CSA, we’ve had many things more pressing (and beautiful) to prepare than long-keeping kale. As the kale kept coming, the bunches began to crowd out everything in our crisper compartments. We needed to do something […]

Categories: Collards, Cooking, Food, Kale, Recipes, Southern Food, Vegetables

No oven, no problem: stovetop chicken and dumplings

June 10, 2018 by Steve

Gourmandistan tries to put on a good face for guests, but recent visits have been marred by unexpected difficulties. The first was a bridge-defeating flood turning dinner guests into overnight visitors. The second was the double oven blowing an internal fuse, fortunately just as our pizzas were ready for another unlucky pair (who as it turned out were also overheated due to a dying central air conditioning unit). The days spent without AC and oven severely limited our cooking options, […]

Categories: Chicken, Cooking, Dumplings, Food, Recipes, Soups & Stews

Atlantic Beach Pie easily evokes the seashore with citrus and saltines

May 28, 2018 by Steve

We recently returned from another lovely trip with Michelle’s family to Dewees Island, South Carolina, where Michelle once again tried to eat fresh local shrimp each day. Charleston restaurants were of course happy to help, but as usual Michelle turned out several shrimp dishes herself, including shrimp and grits casserole, shrimp salad and, of course, our annual Low Country Boil. Peeling, deveining and cleaning the crustaceans is something Michelle finds especially distasteful, and we generally abstain from eating seafood away […]

Categories: Baking, Cooking, Crackers, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Fruit Desserts, Lemon, Lime, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vacation

Not Derby-Pie® ice cream notably improves on the inspiration

May 3, 2018 by Michelle

We have amply described in a previous post why we’re unable to call this dish Derby-Pie® Ice Cream (and why we always include the hyphen and the “®”). But as it is once again time for “the fastest two minutes in sports,” we were inspired to imbue the flavors of this Derby confection into ice cream. Rule Number One was simple: do not use Derby-Pie®. Not that we’re dismissing the Kerns’ creativity—after all, they were quite helpful when we wrote […]

Categories: Chocolate, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Ice cream, Kentucky Derby, Nuts, Recipes

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