Notes about Recipes in this book

• Light and fluffy pancakes

  • okmosa on April 08, 2018

    This pancake batter looked very promising. Whipping the egg whites with the buttermilk made the batter very fluffy. Instead of mixing the egg yolks with the melted butter, I mixed the yolks into the buttermilk mixture then added the melted butter before mixing into the dry ingredients. Still very fluffy. However, when they cooked, they did not stay so fluffy. These pancakes were good, but not as fluffy as I expected.

• Beef stew with bacon, mushrooms, and pearl onions

  • ashallen on October 12, 2019

    Good beef stew. Flavor profile is basically a simplified version of Julia Child's Boeuf Bourguignon - similar ingredients, but flavors aren't as deeply developed or complex as either the JC recipe or the "Modern Beef Burgundy" recipe that Cook's Ill. initially published in 2013 (one of my favorites!). This recipe's less involved than the JC recipe, however, which is nice. [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine/Cook's Ill. Cookbook.]

• Linguine with walnut, garlic, and herb sauce

  • ashallen on September 06, 2019

    We love this pasta and have made it many times. As written, the recipe makes a light, elegant pasta with a nubbly texture from the walnuts. Wonderful combination of flavors that's strong on walnut. The basic recipe handles modifications very well. Over the years we've "intensified" it by adding an extra 1/4 c walnuts and grinding the walnuts finely in the food processor (gives the sauce a much creamier texture), doubling the parmesan, bumping up the parsley to 1/2 c, using anywhere from 1/2-2 c basil, and using anywhere from no garlic up to amount called for in the recipe. This approach makes a stickier sauce that we like better on a chunky pasta (e.g. fusilli) vs. strand pastas. Excellent as-is or with diced fresh tomato mixed in. [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine.]