Gougere: Just call it a cheese puff
Roughly translated, pˆate is French for “paste” and refers to various doughs, batters and pastries. The word is easily confused with its more accented derivative— pˆaté—which means “pie” and originally designated a savory mixture of ground meat or vegetables baked in a crust. (Updated: 10/28/09 8:06 AM )
Chinese pork puffs, faster than take-out
Feel like Chinese tonight? This dinner is faster and less expensive than take-out. Crisp, stir-fried pork served in little lettuce puffs with scallions and cucumber takes only minutes in a wok. The meat should be crisp on the outside and tender inside. The secret is to make sure your wok or skillet is very hot before adding the meat and to add the meat a few pieces at a time. (Updated: 10/28/09 8:08 AM )
Elements /One ingredient, one dish
The more familiar white-fleshed potato is a member of the same vegetable family, nightshade, as eggplant and tomatoes. (Updated: 10/28/09 8:06 AM )
Chicken dishes make fast work of midweek
Family Sunday Serve the family baked ham today. Alongside, add sweet potato-leek casserole (see recipe). Serve with green beans, mixed green salad and whole-wheat rolls. Enjoy a piece of apple pie for dessert. (Updated: 10/28/09 7:40 AM )
Pie de resistance from a crust master
Ruth Hall is not surprised when people ask for the secret to her pie crust. Her flour-dusted fingers shape about 7,000 pies a year at Becker Farms in Gasport, working four days a week with two skilled helpers. Her thumb scallops the edge of each raspberry, peach, blueberry and apple pie to seal in the juices. Over 40 years, customers have taken home more than 200,000 of Hall's flaky-topped confections, enhancing Thanksgiving celebrations and Sunday dinners alike. (Updated: 10/21/09 8:16 AM )
7-Day Menu Planner: Start with Chicken With Casera Sauce
Family Sunday Make Cornmeal Chicken with Casera Sauce (see recipe below) for a special family day meal. Serve it with everyone’s favorite, Mashed Potatoes. Add steamed Zucchini, deli Coleslaw and Dinner Rolls. Buy a Lemon Meringue Pie for dessert (Updated: 10/21/09 8:06 AM )
Cloudy? There’s still a chance for hot dogs
On a sunny summer afternoon, while shoppers and office workers on break crowd M&T Plaza in downtown Buffalo, selling hot dogs for a living looks like a pretty sweet gig. (Updated: 10/21/09 8:18 AM )
Halloween creeps into kitchen
Murky, dark and swampy isn’t a description often applied to good food. Except around Halloween, of course, when the swampier the better. And in her holiday specialty magazine, “Martha Stewart Halloween Spirited Celebrations,” Stewart delivers frights and flavor. (Updated: 10/21/09 6:55 AM )
A quick chicken dinner before trick-or-treating
The trouble with dinner on Halloween is you need to compete with gobs and gobs of candy. (Updated: 10/21/09 6:55 AM )
Celeriac spruces up potatoes
Also known as celery root or knob celery, celeriac is a spherical root with rough brown skin, a dense, cream-colored interior, and thin curly shoots that make it look like it’s having a bad hair day. It tastes like a cross between celery and parsley, with a subtle tang. (Updated: 10/21/09 6:55 AM )
Vegan cooking branches out into the mainstream
There’s a food trend simmering, but if you want to give it a try, you’ll have to revise your grocery list. Meat, poultry, fish? Out. Milk, cheese, eggs, dairy of any kind? Gone. Oh yes, and that bear-shaped container of honey in your cabinet? History. (Updated: 10/21/09 6:55 AM )
Roasted, salted and out of your gourd
Halloween season is a time for horrifying stories. So, have you heard the one about the kids who braved touching pumpkin guts to carve their jack o' lanterns — only to throw the insides away? (Updated: 10/14/09 9:25 AM )
Humble oats finally gain some respect
A late bloomer in the development of grains, oats were first cultivated probably around 1000 B. C. Gourmands of classical times were not impressed and dismissed them as animal fodder. The Romans took oats to Britain, however, where they were greeted with more respect. Oats tolerate moist, cool climates, and Scots in particular became enthusiastic oat-eaters. Oats are integral to national dishes like oatcakes and haggis, and legends abound linking Scottish brawn and business acumen to their consumption of oats. (Updated: 10/14/09 6:52 AM )
Dips to lift tailgate meals
Dips are tailgate mainstays. And there’s good reason: they can be made ahead and require little effort. Dips are crowd-pleasing communal appetizers (just don’t double dip) and the ones partygoers zero in on. (Updated: 10/14/09 9:22 AM )
Sirloin serves as topping to quick chili
When football games fill the weekend TV schedule and grocery checkout lanes are clogged with orders of beer and chips, it feels good to make a pot of chili. This one employs the technique of flavoring and cooking the meat separately, then adding it as a substantial topping. Serve with baked flour tortilla triangles or corn bread and a full-bodied, malty beer. The recipe, which serves four, is adapted from “The Everything Soup, Stew & Chili Cookbook,” by Belinda Hulin. (Updated: 10/14/09 6:52 AM )
