Notes about Recipes in this book

• Banana walnut muffins

  • mfto on May 30, 2011

    Perhaps I shouldn't rate these because I am not a great baker. My husband really liked these and he is not a muffin fan. In my pans I got 20 muffins rather than 12. I put pizza stone to heat with oven and then placed filled pans on the stone. Don't know if this made any difference but they were nicely browned.

• Apple pie with crystallized ginger

  • mfto on May 30, 2011

    The crystallized ginger makes this pie special. But I now only use their 2010 pie dough recipe that uses vodka.

• Apricot almond muffins

  • hillsboroks on February 10, 2020

    Even though I had to substitute sour cream for yogurt and dried tart cherries for the apricots these muffins were wonderful. I sprinkled the tops with Demerara sugar as well as sliced almonds which added a nice bit of crunch to the tops. I really loved the flavor of the almond paste versus almond extract. It was just more subtle but also richer. I will make these again with the yogurt to compare.

• Creamy dill cucumber salad

  • hillsboroks on August 06, 2020

    The pre-salting really works to keep the cucumbers from making your dressing watery. The sour cream and dill flavor with the crunchy cucumbers is fantastic. I used 1 tablespoon kosher salt to salt the cucumbers and per the recipe did not rinse the salt off before adding the dressing. Even with no added salt in the dressing it was still a bit saltier than I like. Next time I would rinse the salt off a bit and pat the slices dry first. I used finely sliced green onions instead of red onions and they were wonderful. I also subbed dried dill for fresh dill but it was still delicious.

• Master recipe for quiche Lorraine

  • Rinshin on January 23, 2016

    Did not make the pastry. Used rolled Pillsbury Farms pastry for ease. Added about 1/3 C steamed spinach chopped. Loved the silkiness of the custard. Using 2 egg yolks along with 2 eggs did turn this custard both rich and light at the same time. I may like this one more than Julia's version. Will be repeating.

• Braised celery

  • ashallen on December 22, 2020

    This recipe is fine, but I'm thinking I'm not a fan of braised celery. My celery was really fresh and aromatic and so I initially thought it'd do great in this dish. Unfortunately it was also fibrous/not very tender and had a bitter edge in its flavor which didn't go away during braising. Even though the ribs' outer fibers get peeled away, the fibers on the ribs' inner sides are still there. Because my celery wasn't very tender, it made for some unpleasantly stringy bites. I could hunt down more tender celery, but I didn't love the flavors in this dish enough to feel like making it again. Note that the recipe says it serves four - those servings are very generous at ~6 oz/3 large ribs per person.

• Vanilla semifreddo with almonds and amaretti

  • ashallen on August 17, 2019

    Delicious! I used finely ground toasted hazelnuts instead of almonds and hazelnut biscotti instead of amaretti. Hazelnut flavor was solid but not intense. I loved the cookie bits and would probably use even more next time. Texture fell somewhere between fluffy ice cream and whipped cream. Unlike homemade ice cream, it took a bit of time to start melting once plated - so cool!! It kept very well in the freezer (tightly wrapped) over several weeks and was easy to slice even when fully frozen. [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine/Cook's Ill. Cookbook.]

• Master recipe for vegetable lasagne with tomato sauce

  • ashallen on November 07, 2019

    I made a spinach+mushroom version of this lasagne a couple of times - the first time it was OK, though not super, and the second time it definitely seemed overly bland and a bit watery. It's good to remove as much water as possible from the veggies before using! If I were to make it again, I'd try cooking down the tomato sauce more to intensify its flavor and reducing the lasagna noodles to 12 vs. 15. More herbs would help too. But I think I might just try another recipe instead of tweaking this one... [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine.]

• Lemon poppy seed muffins

  • ashallen on December 07, 2020

    These are delicious muffins with big, lightly crusty muffin-tops and a moist, tender, fluffy interior. Definitely more like cake than bread. Lemon flavor was very good - the lemon syrup brushed on the muffins after baking was a big (if slightly sticky) boost. The tops were crunchiest the day the muffins were made, softening after storage, but these otherwise kept very well over a few days. Recipe says to bake *all* of the batter in a standard 12-cup muffin tin. After loading up my tin as much as I dared, I had enough leftover batter to make 3 additional muffins in a second tin. Even with that adjustment, some batter oozed over the full 12-cup tin's edges during baking, so next time I'll try making 18 muffins in 2 tins. The muffin-tops in the full tin merged into one giant muffin-top and had to be cut apart, so the muffin-tops were square. Removed from oven once centers were in 205-208F range and tops were nicely browned - worked well.

• Lemon blueberry muffins

  • ashallen on September 09, 2019

    Good muffins with good flavor and a tender (but not overly tender) texture. Be careful not to underbake - they tend towards gumminess if underbaked - particularly when using frozen blueberries (which is most of the time for me). I've found that splitting the batter for the 12 muffins between two standard 12-muffin pans helps them bake better - more thorough and even. [Cross-post Annual Edition/Magazine/Cook's Ill. Cookbook.]

• Thick and creamy potato latkes

  • ashallen on May 13, 2022

    These were wonderful. Although the recipe title says "thick and creamy," mine thinned out towards the edges and got awesomely crispy-crunchy (though the middle was creamy). I like my potato pancakes to be brown and crisp so I ended up cooking these a bit longer than specified in the recipe. I really enjoyed the onion flavors but my husband, who's less of an onion fan, would have preferred less. As noted in recipe, leftovers froze and reheated from frozen very well.

• Master recipe for classic apple pie

  • ashallen on November 23, 2019

    As the recipe title says, this is a classic apple pie. Delicious and very pretty with a tender and flaky crust. I missed the extra-buttery flavor of an all-butter crust but my husband really liked the more tender texture of this butter+shortening crust. The apples cook down *a lot* - it might look like they won't fit when they're uncooked, but persevere and squeeze them in for a well-filled pie once baked. [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine/Cook's Ill. Cookbook.]