Category Archives: Obsessions

This Week’s Spontaneous Sauce – Spicy Peanut Slaw Dressing

By | Books, Entertaining, Ingredients, Obsessions, People, Sauces, Seasonal | No Comments

The Seahawks ended their season on Sunday so our game day gatherings have come to an end. It was a fine finale. In addition to being an intense playoff match, it was Jeff’s birthday celebration. Of course, I obsessed about the food for far too long. I even asked for suggestions on Facebook. I wanted a special menu that catered to Jeff’s tastes, but was still suitable for eating in front of the big screen. Jeff’s birthday menus are always challenging. By mid-January we are sated with formal feasting and special event fare.  Now that we are doing the football thing, many of our favorite comfort foods have come and gone. It’s not quite time to usher in our Heart-Healthier February tradition. The trouble is that Jeff is a really nice guy who is perfectly happy with almost everything. My suggestions tend to be met with “Sure, that sounds good”. Ugh. “Perfectly happy” isn’t good…

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This Week’s Spontaneous Sauce – Cilantro Curry Dressing

By | Books, Ingredients, Local, Obsessions, Sauces, Seasonal | No Comments

It’s a brand new year. Like most people, I’m starting 2016 with the whispered mantra “I can do better”. I didn’t write much this month. I rationalized my procrastination by calling it a seasonal hiatus, but in truth I just didn’t think my holiday dishes were cutting edge or artful enough to make public. Instead of polishing up recipes for elegant gingerbread demi glace or cranberry quince relish, I made merry with friends and family, ate too many cookies, whipped up easy mid-week meals, and felt slightly ashamed that my concoctions would never be considered those of a “Sauce Master”. (That title change will forever get under my skin.) In 2016 I can do better, and the place to start is by crawling out of the food blogger’s pit of despair and stop confusing “better” with “more complicated”. I wrote my book to teach home cooks that the “right” way…

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This Week’s Spontaneous Sauce – Shallot and Cream Sherry Beurre Blanc

By | Dishes, Entertaining, Obsessions, Sauces, Seasonal | No Comments

Today’s cooks are clearly eager to learn about fresh, seasonal, and healthy sauces, but over the past few weeks I have been reminded that people still LOVE butter sauces. I rarely make them but this weekend we had a birthday celebration for my friend, Mark, so I decided to splurge. Mark and another dear friend, Kris, grew up in families with Scandinavian roots. When they get together around the holidays, they often share buttery tales: Mom spread butter on her chocolate cake, Grandma refused her buffet plate of lutefisk until the fish and potatoes were visibly swimming in it, entire cubes of butter were the norm just unwrapped and plopped on the top of steaming green vegetables. I’m sure my mish-mash of European ancestors were also butter lovers, but Mom and Dad were partial to green vegetables seasoned with vinegar or soy sauce. I felt almost giddy when I decided, at…

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This Week’s Spontaneous Sauce – Chanterelle and Bacon Pasta Sauce

By | Ingredients, Obsessions, Sauces, Seasonal | No Comments

It was Thanksgiving week,  so every time I opened the fridge in search of dinner inspiration I was faced with a wall of ingredients slated for other events. Things were a bit crazy. There were a lot of gravy-centric interviews on radio and TV. I can’t actually remember what I threw together for spontaneous midweek dinners – except for this magnificent chanterelle and bacon sauce. I had restocked my stash of chanterelle mushrooms last weekend because they were just too pretty and cheap to pass up. ($10.99 a pound I think. I’ve seen them for a lot less, but not this year.) Then I forgot about them. When I discovered them tucked away in their brown paper bag, I was thrilled. I grew up hunting chanterelles. Mom and Dad kitted us out in hiking boots, raincoat, compass, safety whistle, and our own special “mushroom knife” with a belt holster. We broke into…

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Chimichurri

By | Adventures, Cooking Outdoors, Obsessions, Sauces, Travels | No Comments

We just returned from a 12 day vacation in Argentina, so it seems only natural to be pondering chimichurri right now.  I suppose the place to start is to explain that, while I’m an admittedly obsessive cook, I’m not an especially obsessive food tourist. Before I travel I do a fair amount of research and make mental lists of the local foods I want to try, then I do my best to fit them into my trip. I rarely do it the other way around. In Argentina, chimichurri topped my “must try” list but I never sought out the “best” or most authentic samples. I didn’t organize afternoons of chopping or grilling with locals either, but that’s not going to stop me from forevermore making sweeping, “expert” generalizations about “real” chimichurri. I was served a few bowls of the stuff in the right country. I figure that counts for something. If you…

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This Week’s Spontaneous Sauce – Cider and Sage Pan Sauce

By | Dishes, Ingredients, Local, Obsessions, Sauces, Seasonal | No Comments

I’ve always loved cider. Squat brown bottles of Canadian cider were always tucked in among the beer during our summer vacations. I drank more pints in London pubs than I probably should have. Over the years I turned my back on cider and my eyes wandered to our sexy local craft beers, but I’m thrilled that good, local ciders are back and demanding attention. They are far too good to forsake. I’m searing a lot these days – testing out temperatures and surfaces, but I’m not yet ready to lock in recipes until I can explain what is going on in the pans. That means I’ve got good pan residue that I can spontaneously deglaze with whatever is handy. Cider has been handy, apples are handy and I have a giant shrub of purple sage that is always calling out for attention. No doubt this recipe will be tested and improved…

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This Week’s Spontaneous Sauce – “Almost Aardvark” Chile Sauce

By | Obsessions | No Comments

Hooray! Chile season is here! We are big fans of chiles and chile sauces. So much so that there is an entire chapter devoted to them in Mastering Sauces. Tabasco is practically a religion for Jeff. Sriracha is always at hand – both homemade and the rooster variety. Tapatio is served with every taco. Homemade Chinese Chile Oil, Korean chiles (gochugaru and gochugang), extra hot Indian ground chiles, whole dried New Mexican, ancho, chipotles…oh dear, it might be best not to count. The quantities, varieties, and prices now available at the farmer’s market make fresh chiles almost impossible to pass up. Last Sunday, when the market opened, I dashed straight to the Tonnemaker’s Farm stand in search of just the right peppers to make this year’s batch of Homemade Sriracha Sauce (page 302). For sriracha you need peppers that are both hot and slightly fleshy. Cleaning several pounds of tiny hot chiles…

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