Notes about Recipes in this book

• Peanut noodles with slaw

  • milgwimper on September 09, 2018

    Simple and good for a weeknight meal. Didn't add the hot sauce as there were people who couldn't eat it. Other than that it was fast, tasty, and simple to put together. It will be added to the rotations.

• Spiced nuts

  • Aggie92 on May 17, 2017

    Can't stop eating these! If you love sweet and spicy, make it now. Substituted pecans for the cashew nuts.

  • peaceoutdesign on January 18, 2022

    Easy and fast way to carmelize.

• Spice-rubbed Texas brisket from the oven

  • TippyCanoe on November 12, 2014

    Delicious, easy spice rub for the meat and fantastic barbecue sauce.

• Back-in-Habana grilled ham and cheese

  • TrishaCP on November 14, 2016

    Good way to jazz up a basic ham and cheese.

• Fish and chips with fried pickles

  • twoyolks on November 15, 2016

    The fish was really good. This produced a nice, light but crisp batter that complimented the fish without overpowering it. The potatoes were rather limp and unexciting. The fried dill pickles were okay (I've had better). The sauce was mostly mayonnaise with a little bit of flavoring.

• Chicken and gravy, for Aunt Ginny

  • twoyolks on December 11, 2020

    A little bland but in a good, comforting way.

• The pickled cucumbers I bring everywhere

  • twoyolks on September 08, 2021

    These were very good pickles and very fast to make. I used kirby cucumbers and they seemed to work fine.

  • stockholm28 on January 19, 2015

    These pickles are a wonderful accompaniment to meatballs. They need to be made at least 4 hours in advance; I'd recommend making them the day before.

  • Rinshin on January 22, 2015

    These are almost like Japanese cucumber sunomono and instead of adding wakame and sesame seeds normally found in sunomono, allspice and bay leaf is added here. He calls for white vinegar but I could not resist and used my own kombu cider vinegar for umami kick. Very tasty and goes great with Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes, peas with thyme, and ligonberry preserve.

• Buttermilk biscuits

  • twoyolks on December 11, 2020

    I made these for the "Chicken and gravy" which called for sugar to be included in them. They were weirdly sweet.

• Soha chicken jollof rice

  • meggan on June 13, 2016

    There was something missing from this recipe- the chicken did not take up any of the flavors and ended being dryish and plain. I would rather have just eaten the rice.

• Crab fried rice

  • meggan on May 12, 2017

    We found this delicious. I used peeky-toe crab and Chinese pork sausages because that's what I had but next time I would like to try the duck as I believe they won't overwhelm the crab as much. Yum

• Quinoa with broccoli, cauliflower and toasted coconut

  • meggan on June 08, 2016

    This is was good - I will use the method of cooking quinoa in coconut milk in the future. You can really add any veg to this melange.

• K-town noodles

  • meggan on June 13, 2016

    I used dark soy which was a mistake. The sauce was too much and the whole thing tasted kind of weird.

• Orange-fennel salad

  • chawkins on August 09, 2017

    We like this a lot. I was leery of the sliced raw garlic and the garlic powder used, but in the end, the presence of either were hardly noticeable. The addition of grounded fennel seeds definitely enhanced the anise flavor of the fennel bulb. It was a great salad even with my substitution of shredded romaine for the frisée.

• Hannah's shrimp tacos

  • Yildiz100 on January 04, 2018

    Pretty good but a little unnecessarily fussy. We didn't see the need for mixing the lettuce lime mixture with the cheese. We thought that combo was just a bit too weird so we left the cheese on the side. (Not everyone wants cheese with their seafood anyway!) Also, would not mix the avocado into the shrimp mixture again in the future. Also note, 12 shrimp is not much, even if they are large. Add more!

• Delish fish sticks with tartar sauce

  • Yildiz100 on December 29, 2017

    I wasn't wild about the flavor of the miso and soy that the fish is coated in before the egg, flour, and panko. It had a mild, odd fragrance after cooking and merging with the rest of the coating and there were bits that were extremely salty. That said, the the coating was very nice texture wise and I wonder if it would be the same without the miso and soy layer. The tartar sauce is very thin from the addition of the lemon, so the cornichons and capers just sink, so if you want to eat those, you have to spoon the sauce on to your fish. Dipping won't do. That said, it was a very tasty. Lighter and fresher than tartar usually is.

• Hot spiced wine

  • Yildiz100 on November 19, 2017

    Excellent. Perfect Swedish glogg. I love the technique of first infusing the vodka with the spices. This worked so much better than just adding them to the pot. I only had 5 hours for the spices to infuse and that was plenty. I now feel motivated to make infused liquers to keep in the house. The only downside was this used a lot of almonds and raisins and it felt like they were wasted. I would reduce by half next time and see how the flavor turns out. I reduced the sugar to just over a half (1/2 cup plus 2 tbspoons for full recipe.) And this was plenty for us, though for guests I would make it a bit sweeter. Not sure if I would go up to the full cup called for though.

• Sweet potato gnocchi

  • Yildiz100 on December 10, 2017

    I wanted to love these but they were just ok. Since they're made with raw shredded sweet potatoes (which I did shred quite finely, as directed) they were nowhere near holding together as a dough with one egg, one yolk, and half a cup of flour. It was still like dry shreds of sweet potato that just fell apart. I needed to add most of the leftover egg white and additional flour to get it to hold together. Not sure how much more flour it ended up being, maybe quarter a cup. When it was time to slice I found it was very difficult because the dough is soft but inside you have raw potato shreds that you have to saw through, so the gnocchi end up messy and squashed. After cooking the mouthfeel was weird too. You could still taste the shreds as a separate part of the dough, they didn't really integrate. I think he probably based this recipe on the Swedish dish palt, which is also made of a dough with raw potato shreds, but I think regular potatoes dissolve into the dough more readily.

  • Yildiz100 on December 10, 2017

     Sauce was ok but I couldn't detect the almond flavor or texture, making me regret using (and washing) my food processor for the 2nd time for this dish.  If I make a sweet potato gnocchi again, it will be a recipe that uses cooked sweet potatoes.

• Sometimes I'm a vegetarian potato-spinach pie

  • Yildiz100 on January 05, 2018

    This took much longer to make than expected. It was a full three hours before dinner was on the table. Washing the spinach alone took 20 minutes. Partially due to my spinach being gritty and needing very thorough washing, partially because it required 7 separate batches in my salad spinner to wash 2 lbs of spinach. Also the cooking times and temps were off. After 35 minutes at 350 when it should have been done nothing had happened at all. Turned it up to 400 and it needed an additional 25 minutes. Flavor was nice but mint could have been left out and the potato was dry. Could be good with some alterations but I think I'd be better off trying some other versions of spinach pie first.

• Helga Jönsson's roast chicken

  • Julia28 on September 11, 2020

    This chicken was gorgeous. So much flavour. I brined it overnight and used thyme instead of rosemary because that's what I had on hand. This will be going into the regular rotation. Definitely serve with something to absorb all the delicious sauces. Smashed potatoes or bread would both work.

  • raybun on May 03, 2017

    Amazing recipe! The 3 hr brine in orange juice & the fragrant rosemary orange turmeric butter kept the chicken super moist & flavourful. Served with Diana Henry's roast sweet potatoes with chili sauce from Simple. Excellent combo!

  • bwhip on March 21, 2017

    One of our favorites. I've made this several times, and it's my favorite roast chicken recipe. The flavor is amazing, especially with the wonderful gravy. I made the vinaigrette the first time I cooked this, but found it unnecessary, so I've left it out the few times since. The carrots cooked with the bird are a treat as well.

• Red shrimp and spicy grits

  • clkandel on February 21, 2021

    Flavors blend so nicely. The grits have so much flavor I think the sausage is really optional.

• I love carrots soup

  • clkandel on November 05, 2022

    So I took some liberties making this soup, but believe I kept the overall flavor profile. I did not have kaffir lime leaves or lemon grass, so I used the zest of 1 lime and 1 lemon and some dried mint. I used a full can of lite coconut milk and broth in place of the water. I did not have carrot juice, so just used 1 lb of peeled, chopped carrots - cooked for the 20 minutes and then blended smooth. I did not have orange juice, so used 1/2 Tbsp of Grand Marnier instead. I hate when people change a bunch of stuff and then rate recipes, but even with these changes, the flavor profile still came through. This soup is different and delicious.

• Hot Brussels sprouts slaw

  • clkandel on February 17, 2021

    Nice dish. My Brussels sprouts were thoroughly cooked using the suggested times. I would add more ginger as I didn't think that flavor came through.

  • Rinshin on July 22, 2017

    Very good with a hint of ginger and apple perfuming the brussels sprouts. Mine came out more nicely browned brussels sprouts with 8 min cooking which I liked better. Did not use the food processor to thinly slice the sprouts and instead just used a knife since I was making 1/3 recipe. Less cleaning for me.

• Pickled cabbage

  • clkandel on February 17, 2021

    Great pickle brine. In addition to cabbage, I've pickled carrots and turnips. They are all flavorful with just a slight touch of heat.

• Carrot-apple mashed potatoes

  • stockholm28 on January 19, 2015

    This is good, but as written you need to use at least 3 pots ... one to saute onions, one to boil potatoes, and a third to boil carrots and apples. I did like the dish with the meatballs, but not sure it was worth the extra effort. I'd be happy with plain potatoes or plain mashed potatoes.

• Buttermilk sorbet

  • stockholm28 on April 25, 2015

    I tried this recipe because I wanted to use up buttermilk. On the day i made it, I thought it was going to be a disaster. It uses a lot of sugar to make a syrup that ends up as thick as Karo once it cools. After mixing the syrup to the buttermilk and taking it out of the ice cream maker, it was still like thick soup. However, on day 2, it was perfect consistency. This was good, but I wanted more ginger and cardamom flavor. It was more lemon buttermilk.

• Helga's meatballs and gravy with carrot-apple mashed potatoes

  • stockholm28 on January 19, 2015

    This was delicious, but as written you end up with a lot of pots and pans to clean. The meatballs are the same as the Aquavit recipe except in this version you cook the meatballs on a grill pan and make the gravy in a separate pan. In the Aquavit version, you fry the meatballs in butter and then make the gravy in the same pan. While I liked the mash, it was a lot more work than the simple potatoes that I usually make as a side to meatballs.

• Spicy and sweet popcorn

  • stockholm28 on December 07, 2014

    As he says, this is addictive. I love the brown sugar with the salt and peppers. The first time I made it, I thought there was a bit too much cinnamon and I found it a little too spicy hot from the cayenne. I've since played around with the spices, cutting back on the cinnamon and cayenne, adding some aleppo, and substituting smoked paprika for regular.

• Mac and cheese and greens

  • Rinshin on January 01, 2015

    I did change some ingredients in this recipe but the idea was followed. Used regular milk instead of coconut milk, Japanese green called mizuna in place of collard greens, did not add nutmeg, added sodium citrate (ie Modernist version), and skipped on topping totally. Baked at 400 F for 40 min instead of broiling for shorter time. Outstanding taste and texture. It's a keeper with some changes.

• Bacon biscuits with jalapeño scrambled eggs and grilled corn

  • Rinshin on January 24, 2015

    Not my favorite biscuits using buttermilk. Had to use 1/3 C plus 1 T more buttermilk to the mixture. Even with the addition, it was still a little dry to handle. I also found the taste too salty for me. The taste of blue cheese was not there after baking. Still my favorite biscuit recipe is from Cook's Illustrated.

• Dill-spiced salmon

  • jbny on June 11, 2023

    Delicious! This is one of our favorite salmon recipes. The crispy skin is a bonus. We like salmon done medium, so I reduce the initial cooking time by a minute or so.

• Oatmeal-cherry cookies

  • mcparson on June 08, 2020

    Excellent! These were a huge hit with the whole family, from little kid to adult. Soft and chewy in the middle, crunchy on the edges. Great flavor--don't skimp on the garam masala. FYI: We ended up with about 32 2-3" cookies, far fewer than the recipe indicated. We used coconut oil (unrefined) in place of butter, which added another layer of flavor and a really nice texture. Also, flattened cookies gently with a spoon before baking.

• Market-fresh corn bread

  • dgiles on May 20, 2021

    Used 1/8 tsp each allspice and red pepper flakes instead of curry and ginger. I wasn't sure about cornbread in a loaf pan (I'm an iron skillet, bacon drippings and no sugar in the cornbread person), but this was great. I did cut the sugar back to 1/2 TBS. Made a beautiful loaf.

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