Vegetables
Grilled Pizza
Making your own pizza dough is not the fuss you may think. In Italy pizza is served in individual size portions and fills an 8-inch plate. The crust is crispy and the toppings are exactly what you want! Don’t be afraid of the yeast. Kids will love watching the dough rise and punching it down. …
Read moreEriko’s Simmered Eggplant
This is a classic Japanese home style preparation for eggplant. The dish is served hot or cold. The eggplants are first scored and then soaked in water to remove some of the natural bitterness and then patted dry. They are then sautéed in oil and a bit of sugar to form a sweet crust. Eriko’s …
Read moreAquacotta – “Cooked Water”
Somewhere between a soup and a savory bread pudding lies aquacotta “cooked water”- a traditional peasant dish from Tuscany that uses stale bread, tomatoes, onions and whatever vegetables are available. Its name reflects its origins– lean times for farmers. When things were better, perhaps each member of the family would add an egg atop the …
Read moreBaby bok choy
Boston Globe, May 14, 2008 Baby bok choy Serves 4 Baby bok choy, steamed with slivers of fresh garlic and plenty of ginger, is ready in about 10 minutes and produces a flavorful dish of mini green bundles. The small greens are often used in Chinese dishes as a bed for tofu or scallops, but …
Read moreCaponata
Boston Globe, March 26, 2008 Caponata Makes about 2 cups Caponata is the sweet, sour, and salty Sicilian eggplant appetizer that looks like a relish and often comes as one of the tastes in an antipasti course. The dish begins with sauteed eggplant cubes, which lend their deep purple color to the mixture, and is …
Read moreCrudite Platter with Spicy Miso Dip
Boston Globe, November 7, 2007 If you’re hosting or contributing to a party and looking for an appetizer, a crudite platter is always welcome. For years, Americans had a mundane approach to this French tradition by dipping veggie sticks such as carrots and celery into ordinary mayonnaise-based sauces. Raw broccoli and asparagus spears joined the …
Read moreSPRINGTIME IN SICILYIn the markets of Palermo, vendors share deliciously imprecise recipes
PALERMO, Italy — Nestled among the faded gray and peeling concrete buildings, some still cratered by World War II bombings, sits one of the liveliest markets in Sicily. Bright red and blue awnings cover hundreds of stalls in the colorful Ballarò, the most extensive of many markets in this charming, chaotic city. I traverse the …
Read moreFiddleheads are the season’s star shoots
LEXINGTON — Deep green, earthy spirals wound as tight as coils, fiddleheads burst into the spring produce bin for a few weeks. They’re shoots, and they’re at their best when tightly coiled. They grow into graceful ostrich ferns — but alas, the pretty ferns are no longer edible. Fiddleheads’ spiral shape gives rise to their …
Read moreWhite Asparagus
Right about now the Germans are going gaga over white asparagus– it is “spargel” (asparagus) season. Actually it is white asparagus season in many European countries. Many of us only know the limp white spears we see in jars or cans; they are fine on a salad, but the fresh ones, while a bit expensive, …
Read moreEasy peanut sauce will perk up a salad, appetizer, or entreeIt’s great as a base for meat, vegetables, tofu
Burlington’s Elsa Tian is a lively lady of 70 and a superb, instinctive cook. Elsa and her husband, Jan, immigrated to the United States 38 years ago from Jakarta, Indonesia. Elsa loves to share her cooking with friends. One day last month, she dropped off some of her wonderful peanut sauce, and over the next …
Read moreA little bit of everything goes a long way
Don’t pity the poor antipasto according to Lynne Rosetto Kaspar, author of “The Italian Country Table” (Scribner), even though its origins are in peasant cuisine, many of the dishes, developed from leftovers, have now become antipasti, often translated as appetizers. The word “appetizer,” however, barely does justice to the long list of antipasti at restaurants …
Read moreKorean scallion pancakes a savory comfort food
Kyong Ok Lim pokes her head out the door of her shop, New York Oriental in Cambridge, and looks up at the darkening sky. She says it’s on days like these that Korean families wish for scallion pancakes. Rain or shine, however, on Saturdays Lim is in the kitchen in the back of the shop …
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Bento:Build a Better Lunch
Debra Samuels, bestselling author, food writer and cooking instructor, wants to give the American lunchbox a makeover. In the chapter on “bento,” the traditional Japanese lunch box, in her upcoming book, My Japanese Table, Debra encourages the use of color, texture and taste to create healthier and more visually appealing meals.
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