Notes about Recipes in this book

• Chocolate-peanut butter crunch bars

  • bwhip on May 23, 2020

    These are pretty great. Chocolate, peanut butter, crunch - what's not to like? The recipe makes a huge batch, so I cut it in half, which perfectly works with a 9" x 13" pan. I couldn't find the cookie type called for, but the recipe said that Rice Krispies work just fine, so I used those. They are really tasty, and not at all difficult to make.

• Chicken schwarma with garlic toum

  • clcorbi on September 05, 2017

    I sort of went off the rails with the instructions a bit, but the result was really delicious, so no complaints. I didn't have a baking sheet tall enough to braise chicken thighs in, and it was also very hot in my kitchen, so I braised them in a pot on the stovetop instead of using the oven. I consulted several schwarma spice recipes online before freestyling my own using paprika, coriander, cumin, black pepper, chile powder, cinnamon and allspice. I used 1.5T of salt. I was also out of cooking wine so I braised the thighs in chicken stock and added a splash of white wine vinegar. After about an hour of braising, the chicken thighs were super luscious and shreddable. We loved the meat! I followed the directions for the toum as written, and neither of us were big fans of it. I have had better garlicky yogurt sauces that call for less oil and also take less effort to make, so I doubt I'd repeat that part. But these wraps were still awesome. I would repeat the recipe with my changes.

• Peanut butter and curry cookies

  • clcorbi on August 30, 2017

    I became very intrigued by the idea of these cookies and had to try them. I used a natural pb from TJ's and a packaged garam masala mix. I think I also decreased the garam masala ever so slightly because I got nervous about adding a full 2T. I got sort of discouraged when I tasted the dough, because my boyfriend and I both agreed it was weird. Fortunately, the curry flavor really mellowed out after baking, and I sort of like the result! I don't think I'll be making these cookies all the time, but I'm happy I tried them. They have a very crumbly, rich texture--almost like a thicker shortbread. This is probably from all the butter. The garam masala comes through but isn't overpowering (although to reiterate, I didn't use the full 2T). An interesting cookie for sure.

• Kitchn

  Although some of these recipes come across as fancy...these are all meals that we can be confident of duplicating at home. ...much more forgiving & adaptable than your average restaurant reproduction.

  Full review