Notes about Recipes in this book

• Slow-roasted chicken parts with shallot-garlic pan sauce

  • EdM on July 18, 2016

    Legs can take 5 or 10 minutes longer than breasts. Check temperature.

  • Bob.NH on October 11, 2015

    Lots of work. The sauce is delicious.

• Roasted mushrooms with Parmesan and pine nuts

  • EdM on July 09, 2016

    1. Shiitakes shrink a lot. 2. Works for large quantity - cut roasting time by 20 minutes for half recipe.

• Drunken beans

  • twoyolks on February 09, 2015

    My beans were older and took considerably longer to cook. The predominant flavor was just of the beans, which was good, but the rest of the steps didn't really seem to add a lot of flavor. The cooked bacon added a weird crunchy texture to the beans.

• Braised halibut with leeks and mustard

  • wittwoman on December 27, 2015

    Halibut is very expensive. We've used frozen cod, but it's not as thick. So sauce ends up seeming richer and more buttery in comparison.

• Root vegetable gratin

  • wittwoman on December 27, 2015

    Takes a while to prep vegetables, but assembly is a snap. Flavor is cleaner and brighter than scalloped potatoes -- not as rich. Could probably cook longer than recipe says.

• Sautéed cabbage with parsley and lemon

  • louie734 on March 18, 2015

    A very good side to corned beef sandwiches for a nontraditional corned-beef-&-cabbage dinner. I used a bit of cider vinegar instead of lemon, riffing off their red cabbage variation. Note that CI seems to find VERY small 'small heads' of green cabbage - 1 1/2 pounds was half of a regular sized head. We'll make this again!

• Sautéed cabbage with fennel and garlic

  • FatsyRoller on February 06, 2023

    Really good. I was a bit heavy-handed with the red chile pepper which was a mistake -- stick to 1/4 tsp as written. Be generous with the lemon to give it the shot of acid it needs. Cooked the cabbage covered for about 7 or 8 minutes to get it wilted down adequately. Served with roasted chicken and next time would serve with pork.

• Raspberry charlotte

  • Piebaker on February 26, 2017

    Delicious and beautiful with an amazing texture. Dirties a LOT of dishes as the recipe says, but really worth it. Next time will increase the vanilla in the cake a bit.

• Sautéed Swiss chard with garlic

  • twoyolks on August 22, 2015

    The lemon flavor was way too strong.

• Sautéed Swiss chard with pancetta and caramelized shallots

  • twoyolks on November 06, 2015

    This brought out the earthiness of the Swiss chard but did nothing to help cut the earthiness. We didn't eat very much of this.

  • ashallen on December 12, 2019

    Very flavorful and rich. I really like the flavor of Swiss chard and found that there was enough pancetta and shallots in the recipe that the dish ended up tasting quite meaty. I prefer to use about half the original quantities of both so that the chard flavor comes through more clearly. Recipe says to use a non-stick pan but there's enough oil in the dish that it's been fine in a heavy-gauge pan without non-stick. Recipe says to add salt at the end but I've always found it to be salty enough already - Swiss chard always tastes a bit salty to me anyways! [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine.]

• Provençal vegetable soup (Soupe au pistou)

  • Rinshin on June 07, 2015

    This soup came out excellent. Although the instruction says not to make pistou no more than 4 hours before being used, it is perfectly fine 24 hours later. I used my own vegetable stock which consisted of vegetable scraps and kombu. Also added cut up Parmesan rind for taste and texture. My non-vegetarian and vegetarian guests proclaimed it was the best soup they have ever ate. I think it's quite close to it. Hard to believe the taste can be so wonderful without the animal or seafood protein addition.

• Farro salad with asparagus, sugar snap peas, and tomatoes

  • Rinshin on June 14, 2015

    This was ok, but I think it would taste much better with more vegetables and dressing added. The taste was quite bland and needed the kick of aromatics and citrus. First time I've tasted farro and I thought it was fine in salads like this but I don't think it should overpower all other ingredients.

• Peri peri grilled chicken

  • twoyolks on February 25, 2017

    The marinade for the chicken adds a lot of flavor and is rather spicy. I don't think the cooking times are at all accurate so I grilled the chicken as I normally do. The marinade doesn't have a tendency to burn so cook it over direct heat carefully.

• 100 percent whole-wheat pancakes

  • mjperkins on April 03, 2016

    Tasty and easy to make. Can sub plain yogurt for buttermilk

  • ashallen on September 15, 2019

    We make these pancakes all the time in our house. They have a flavor and a light, moist texture that doesn't shout "whole wheat." Some people in my house prefer a lighter whole wheat flavor - using white whole wheat flour and/or substituting unbleached all purpose flour for up to half the whole wheat flour works very well for that. [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine.]

• Italian sausage with grapes and balsamic vinegar

  • rmardel on August 18, 2015

    The sausages themselves were excellent. The dish as a whole was good but nothing special.

• Modern succotash with fennel and scallions

  • loehmichen on June 28, 2015

    Corn and fennel combination is delicious. I served the cannelini beans on the side, as I did not care for how the beans looked combined with the corn-not enough color added a little fresh thyme to the corn and garnished with fresh orange segments

• Israeli couscous with lemon, mint, peas, feta, and pickled shallots

  • wittwoman on December 27, 2015

    Great texture combo.

  • loehmichen on June 19, 2015

    6/ 17/15. Excellent "Summer" salad recipe. I added diced orange segments and garnished with fried shallots.

• Spanish braised chicken with sherry and saffron (Pollo en pepitoria)

  • twoyolks on October 31, 2016

    The sauce for the chicken reminds me of an odd version of a Thai curry. My chicken got a bit overcooked but was still good.

• Sautéed summer squash with parsley and garlic

  • Bob.NH on October 04, 2015

    I added some fresh corn kernels to the mix and it worked well.

• Avocado-feta spread

  • debkellie on August 13, 2016

    This makes a lovely stand-alone dip, using a good quality Persian feta!

• Chocolate-caramel layer cake

  • debkellie on August 24, 2015

    Absolutely divine - moist, flavoursome & surprisingly not overly sweet. And it was easy to make! What more do you need for a midweek morning tea cake?!

  • twoyolks on December 07, 2015

    This was one of the easier layer cakes I've made. The cake itself was moist but didn't have a ton of chocolate flavor. The caramel was a bit too intense in comparison to the cake.

• Best ground beef chili

  • JKDLady on November 02, 2015

    This was a very heavy dish. All of us agreed that it would be good on nachos, but as for eating it alone, it wasn't our favorite.

  • ashallen on October 06, 2019

    This chili was OK, but I won't make it again because I have another ground beef+bean chili recipe that I've been making for many years now and prefer to this one. I found the ground meat to have an odd soft/mushy texture and subdued browning flavors. I'm guessing this was from the baking soda treatment for the beef which I accidentally did for 60-90 minutes instead of the 20 minutes specified in the recipe - so the odd texture/flavor might have been the result of too much baking soda contact time. The sauce has more chili versus tomato flavor than some other chilies I've tried. [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine.]

• Sweet potato soup

  • wittwoman on October 22, 2015

    The amount of flavor coaxed out of so few, basic ingredients blew our minds. Sub Greek yogurt for the sour cream. Good with crisped pita bread half dusted with salt and pepper.

  • twoyolks on October 29, 2015

    This had a lot of good flavor but I would've liked the flavor to be a bit deeper. It was particularly good with the sour cream-maple syrup mixture.

• Miso-marinated salmon

  • wkhull on December 24, 2022

    I was unable to get the beautiful lacquered even dark brown via my broiler. Wish I had pan seared instead. Good taste, but a little salty. Tasted great with a huge pile of braised greens. (Nov/Dec page 18)