eprewitt's Profile

Ricotta is my all-time favorite. Never liked tomato sauce; it gets too sweet and sticky in the hot oven.

These are gorgeous (as is the packaging), but have a fairly unpleasant chalky/grainy texture. A bit like eating a mouthful of dirt, and it sticks in your back teeth for ages. I won't buy them again.

Tabasco (Brand) Mayonnaise, where available. No, adding Tabasco to normal mayonnaise doesn't taste the same. Frickin' delicious.

My secret ingredient, however, is buttermilk. Just a tiny splash, maybe 2 teaspoons. I swear, it makes a world of difference.

Also, I've always kept lemon pepper on hand for pretty much only using in tuna salad. Other than that, I'm open to all variations imaginable (olive oil, anchovies, wasabi, curry, pickles, capers, etc.), mainly based on my whims at the moment I'm making it.

Lightly oiled plastic wrap. Works every time.

My latest dish(es) to impress went a little something like this:
Amberjack sashimi with red grapefruit and cucumber "mignonette"
Indian-spiced cod wrapped in grape leaves
Licorice ice cream parfait, with cumin tuile and spiced caramel syrup

Pictures here</a href>. Yes, I know normal people do not cook like this.

Hoppy and bitter? Sign me up! Hope I can find it.

Too many to list, but here's a start:

Aviaton cocktail: just delicious, especially with homemade brandied cherries
Empanadas: taught by a good friend from Honduras, amazing and surprisingly easy
Roasted butternut squash and chickpea salad: from Orangette, flavors are gorgeous together
Best pretzels ever: recipe here</a href>

Looking forward to the next month!

I also have two large (2 inch) 3-ring binders, only for recipes that I've made. They're meticulously organized (one has entrées and desserts, the other has everything else from breads to soups to drinks to miscellany, and all meticulously sub-categorized). Recipes I've saved but haven't made are categorized into hanging files according to the same organizational scheme. If anyone's REALLY curious, I can let you know what the sub-categories are, but it's probably very uninteresting.

In the binders, I use photo pages (the kind where you peel the clear plastic off of the sticky backing), which work perfectly for clipped recipes. Printed recipes get hole-punched and stuck (unprotected) behind those pages in the appropriate category. When I use those paper recipes, I slide them into plastic sheet protectors. I'd done that for years, but they actually taught us that trick when I went to culinary school.

This perhaps makes me sound much more A-type than I really am, but there would be NO WAY to keep up with all my saved recipes otherwise! My closet might be a wreck, but I know where to keep my priorities straight.

I made them! I saw a package just like that in a wine store, and figured I could have a go at making them after seeing the ingredient list. Here's the link</a href> if you'd care to see.

I haven't actually tried the store-bought kind (shameful, I know), but if they're anything like the ones I made, I won't be able to stop buying them. Your description is spot-on; the sugar and the anise are just perfect with the fruity olive oil.

Made this tonight, and my jalapeños were not messing around. Really good, but it took an effort to get through!