Slow Cooker Apple Cake

Since aquiring (thanks next door neighbours who left their place in a stinky shambles, but also left a lot of free stuff for the rest of the building) a round 6 quart cooker I’m able to try out some cake/dessert recipes that I’ve wanted to try – the only pan I have that will fit…

Sprouting Chickpeas (a.ka. Garbanzo Beans)

Americans call them Garbanzo beans, we seem to call them chickpeas – really I think it has more to do with the predominant international cooking influence in your given area.  Garbanzo is what they are referred to in Mexican cooking, but we seem to have way more Middle Eastern cuisine here on the east coast…

Make-Ahead Freezer Pizza Dough

I’ve been wanting to try this for a while – pizza dough you can make in a large batch in the food processor (or stand mixer with dough hook if you are lucky enough to have one!) then store in the freezer until you want it.  Supposedly you make the yeast dough, do one rise,…

Chapatis

To begin with, I am sure these are really nothing like “authentic” Indian chapatis, but we enjoyed “my version.” I read several recipes on the internet, most calling for whole wheat flour or an Indian flour called “Atta” which according to the Cook’s Thesaurus is “a blend of wheat and malted barley flours.”  Might be…

Homemade Stock or Broth

Believe me, I’ve read all about the “proper” way to make stock and broth, from Escoffier, to Careme to Rombauer’s “The Joy of Cooking” (which some of my friends and family have referred to as my bible).  But this is the way I’ve been doing it in the last few years – it is my…

Cook’s Illustrated Braised Winter Greens

My mom bought a bunch of Kale and since we were having dinner at her house (this is why the photos look much nicer than they are in my tiny icky kitchen!), we decided to try out this recipe from the  Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook which I recently picked up (with some difficulty – it is…

Sad Carrots Made Happy, and Other Roasted Vegetables

I’ve been reading through the massive Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook which I got from the library recently, and trying out various recipes.   They have such precise methods for how to cook things, and such interesting and well-tested reasons for doing so that it is always fun to see how their recipe work out. I’m sure they…

Cook’s Illustrated Oven Homefries

I saw this recipe on one of my favourite cooking blogs, Kitchen Simplicity.  They mentioned that they’d found the recipe from Cook’s Illustrated, which always has interesting explanations of why to use a certain technique, so I checked out the original recipe. True to form, I was mystified by Cook’s Illustrated’s inclusion of  baking soda…

Clean-Out-The-Fridge Slow-Cooker Coconut Curry

This type of slow-cooker curry is one I often make to use up sad-looking vegetables in my fridge.  I also had this odd coconut product – It was in a vacuum plastic bag, and was pretty much solid – quite solid actually – like butter in the fridge.  I normally use a can of coconut…

Homemade Rice-a-Roni

I always loved rice-a-roni as a kid, but when I became aware of chemical additives, food dyes, and that fact that paying 3$ a box for something which contained food that cost less than 50 cents didn’t make sense or fit my budget, I gave up on it.  Then one day while reading through a…