morsels & sauces

Oh, people, this dish is just a fancy way to say "Chicken with Mushrooms" (and cream).  Forestière means "of the forest" or "in the forest manner." Or in a more vernacular manner, "This has got mushrooms in it." And there is no one I would rather trust with chicken and mushrooms than food writer and journalist Diana Henry . From  her traditional English pea soup to a Japanese-inspired chicken  and her warm duck salad , Henry has been a hit on this here blog. In part because of her commitment to a wide range of flavors and the other part because of her gentle peroration on the foods she loves, I just cannot get enough of her work. Lucky for me, she has a plethora of cookbooks.  This recipe comes from her cookbook,  A Bird in Hand , a book entirely devoted to the bird. Because we eat so much chicken ( according to this website , the US meat and poultry industry processed 38.4 billion pounds of chicken in 2015), ...

Okay, people.  This salad hardly needs a recipe. The title of the salad pretty much says it all. But I am still handing this one over to you because of what  Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich (chefs and cookbook writers extraordinaire) do to the goat cheese. They mix it with heavy cream.   Yes,  more  dairy. And in doing so, they get to create these little clouds of cheesiness goodness that when added to the sweet figs, the acidic lemon, the crisp lettuce, the crunchy pistachios, and the thick honey--well, this salad becomes much, much more than the sum of its parts.  My mouth is watering now as I type this. Perfect for a crisp autumn day, this salad makes a satisfying lunch or a sweet starter to a great meal. These figs are part of the plethora of fruit that one of the parents at my school has been bringing to the faculty lounge. From pears to plums, from apples to figs, we are luxuriating in the plenty of the orchards...

Black bean soup doesn't get the accolades it deserves. This unassuming little soup does what it needs to do--warm the bones on a fall afternoon--and then you go about your business. Little fanfare. Lots of flavor. Black bean soup can take as long as you would like: with dried black beans, this is a two-day affair. However, with canned black beans, you can have a quick cook. Further, black bean soup is naturally vegan (although, I wouldn't blame you if you threw some bacon in with the sofrito; truly I wouldn't!). Finally, you can spice it up any way you like it (did someone say fire-roasted tomatoes, ancho chile powder). Yet, for this particular recipe, I went with simple, traditional, and Cuban. No chiles beyond the requisite jalapeno. No fire-roasted tomatoes. Just beans, sofrito, stock, oregano, and lime crema. Recently, I received  ¡Cuba!: Recipes and Stories from the Cuban Kitchen   in the mail, and what a gorgeous little cookbook...

As promised here are these sweet little scones from  Miette .  I have written about my delight in Miette ( see here ), and so it was a no-brainer when I needed to whip up a vehicle for Strawberry Vanilla Jam. And these did not disappoint. Shall we explore the history of the scone, you and I? There's a lot of information out there about the scone. As in a lot, so let's see if I can round some of it up. The scone was originally a Scottish quick bread made with oats and then griddle-fried. The scone distinguishes itself as not utilizing yeast, as one might expect from other tea pastries, such as a tea cakes or sweet buns. Instead, this well-leavened pastry uses baking powder to achieve its heights. However, baking powder is a relatively recent invention, so scones probably soared using buttermilk as a boost. Now don't get all confused about "high" and "low" or "afternoon" tea. Americans (and their representative tea rooms) lik...