Notes about Recipes in this book

• Multipurpose butter cookie dough

  • ashallen on August 31, 2019

    My husband loves these classic butter cookies - I've made them many, many, many times. Excellent butter flavor and crisp. Unlike some other thinly rolled cookies, these are sturdy enough to pack well and survive road trips intact. They maintain their shape very well during baking, staying flat and keeping any details along their edges. I've had better luck browning them evenly in my oven by using insulated cookies sheets vs. single layer sheets. Even if they overbrown, however, their flavor's still delicious! [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine.]

• Pureed carrot soup with nutmeg (Master recipe for pureed vegetable soup)

  • ashallen on December 02, 2019

    This is a great soup - easy to make, smooth texture, and a great combination of flavors. I've tried just about all the variations specified in the recipe (e.g, using white wine vs. sherry, shallots and/or leeks vs. onion) and they've all been good. Making a half-batch works fine. [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine.]

• Pureed butternut squash soup with ginger

  • ashallen on December 01, 2019

    This is a solid butternut squash soup. Fresh ginger instead of ground ginger might have been nice in this recipe. Cook's Illustrated magazine subsequently published a new recipe in 2011 which I like even better than this one, however. I love butternut squash/milk-cream combinations in desserts, but in soups it seems to blunt the squash's flavor for me. The 2011 recipe uses chicken or vegetable stock instead of dairy. [Cross-post for Annual Edition/Magazine.]