I don’t think a little cooking technique and olive oil is going to “undiet” this infamous Cabbage Diet Soup. Mine tastes good, like a slimmed down minestrone. This is just how I made it. You can add any green, non-starchy veggies to this and it will still be low calorie.
I make meat chips from cured meats like salami, prosciutto, pancetta, etc., to nibble on or dip in fondue or queso. You can crumble tem on otherwise healthy dishes like salads and granola… just kidding. Perfect for gluten-free and paleo diets as well as for meat freaks.
When Jay, the Verizon tech (and ex-chef), was fixing my internet, he described these Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter-Coconut-Honey-Caramel Balls as part of his Thanksgiving menu. I thought, “I’m totally stealing that idea.” They will forever be known as Jay’s Sweets.
This simple dish of coconut whipped sweet potatoes is vegan, but you would never know because it’s delicious. Perfect as a side dish for Thanksgiving or any fall-winter meal.
A dense chocolate flan covered with chocolate sprinkles and served with crème anglaise. From Brazil, it resembles the famous Brigadeiros chocolate candy balls.
This is my mom’s Cheese, Onion & Tomato Pie based on the Savory Cheese and Onion Pie in “The Vegetarian Epicure” by Anna Thomas published in 1972. All my life, we’ve called it Cheese, Onion & Tomato Pie, but after I reached out to Anna Thomas and asked permission to publish this recipe, I looked it up and see that she has another recipe called Cheese & Tomato Pie in her book, The Vegetarian Epicure, Book Two. This is not that recipe although that one looks good too. My mom uses a frozen 9” pie crust for the pie, but the original recipe calls for a 10” shortcrust pastry. My mom adds Parmesan cheese to the recipe as well.
For your gluten-free holiday entertaining try Fall Fowl Balls. They’re little turkey meatballs studded with apples, cheddar cheese and rolled in nuts for a light and tasty autumn appetizer! Turkey meat tends to be dry. I add sautéed veggies, grated cheddar and diced dried apples to the turkey meat to give it a nice texture and fall herbs to give a cozy bite.
The rich and sweet flavor of caramelized onions comes from cooking them slow in olive oil, salt, pepper and their own juices until they’re a rich, golden brown. You can flavor them by using various liquids to deglaze the cooking pan and-or sweeteners to change the taste and sugar levels. When I’m making Whole 30 compliant, caramelized onions I only use olive oil and water or stock to deglaze the onion pan and no sugar of any kind.
A Whole 30 and gluten free compliant pie with a potato crust, pork carnitas, caramelized onions, roasted tomatoes, and eggs. My idea was to take the ingredients of pork taco and make it into a pie or quiche with a layered potato crust.
A sugar-free refreshing summer beverage made from watermelon, lime, mint and chia seeds. I was looking into sugar free beverages that one can have on the Whole 30 food plan. My boyfriend is on it until October 8th.
“Hey, nice looking slaw!” When was the last time someone called your coleslaw pretty? Behold, a stunning red coleslaw studded with dried cherries and topped with pistachio dust.
A recipe for a southern potato salad with eggs, sweet relish, mustard, red peppers, celery, carrots, red onions, parsley and more. It resembles confetti.
My Jewish ancestors on my mom’s side CHEER when I make chopped liver. It’s funny, my Jamaican, paternal grandfather worked in a Jewish hotel, so he was partial to chopped liver as well. For my paternal grandmother, no trip to Zabar’s was complete without picking up some chopped liver with the good rye bread, the one with the seeds.
Pudim Molotov is a gluten-free Portuguese dessert with an egg white flan base that’s often served with a caramel sauce. I put a Japanese spin on my version.The link to egg white flan recipe I used and my additional ingredients are below.
Remember when you simply threw the canned chickpeas in the food processor to make hummus. Those were the good, easy days. Now you must slip the skins off each chickpea or die of hummus shame because it’s not smooth enough. This is my work around and you can totally grab a can of chickpeas and slip off the skins, one at a time…
Miang Kana means “many bites”. It’s a street food from Thailand where you combine ingredients in a leaf and eat them together for a flavor explosion. It’s a fun dish for a summer party or BBQ!
Inspired by cevapcici, a skinless, grilled sausage that originated in the Balkan states. I first had them in Australia and have never seen them in New York. Perhaps I will start a trend?
St. Patrick’s Day inspired Shepherd’s Pie Stuffed Mushrooms: mushroom caps stuffed with a hearty shepherd’s pie filling, topped with mashed potatoes and Irish cheddar cheese. St. Paddy’s Day is not really one of my celebrated holidays. I’m not one to run out and make a bunch of green-colored food or drink green beer (shuddering), but this dish is a great gluten free dish or appetizer any day..
Talk about flexible! This mushroom, zucchini and fennel dish can be served as a salsa, bruschetta or cecina topping, quesadilla filling or a side dish.
A recipe for a simple savory crêpe made from chickpea flour, water, olive oil, salt and pepper. You can serve it with any kind of dip, tartare, salsa, curry, salad, etc or just nibble it on it’s own.
This is my original recipe. When I decided to try to make chutney from the grapes a few years ago there were no recipes for grape chutney online. The recipe changes slightly each year and this one made about 8 quarts of chutney. I had to start it in two pots and I cooked it down to one. I call it Brooklyn Purple.
Some days mashed potatoes seem like too much work. You can save a step by roasting and slicing the potatoes for a lazy turkey shepherds pie and topping it with cheese.
A classic vanilla custard that’s used as a filling for éclairs, doughnuts, pies, cakes, parfaits, etc. I also mix it with stabilized whipped cream for desserts like Merveilleux, Heavenly Pie and my Crêpe Terrine Cake.
I found about Merveilleux after the bakery Aux Merveilleux de Fred opened in New York City. I checked them out, tasted one, decided they could be better and made them for Easter dessert.
Caramelized Millet Puffs make a fast, crunchy garnish for any desserts or to add to cereal, trail mix and more. They taste very reminiscent of the breakfast cereal Suga Pops.
Everyone has their go-to pie crust recipe, this is mine. I don’t know if it’s fool-proof because I’ve never given it to a fool to make. I think that people take making pie crust way too seriously. The most important this is to not be afraid of it. You dough should be mottled with bits of butter that are large enough so you see streaks and blobs in it. If you can’t see the butter, you’ve overmixed the dough. Before that happens stop cutting in the butter.
The words healthy and fried do not always go together, but delicious and fried usually do. These healthier-than-meat 10 Veggie Egg Rolls nail fried and delicious! Use any combo of veggies you like that combine to make six cups of filling.
There is something so satisfying about making your own gravlax. It’s easy, but looks like you sweated over it. I added fresh beets to the curing mixture to give even more dazzle!
These lemongrass spiced beef rolls were a favorite hors d’oeuvre we served when I was freelance catering cook in Melbourne, Australia. The kitchen was near Little Saigon, so we would buy these in rather than make them.
This is a lovely salad that I originally had in Montreal, at the Dominion Square Tavern, in the dead of winter in 2012. It’s a long way from New York so I had to make my own version.
I adore the combination of coconut and lemon. I added coconut flour and substituted coconut oil for some of the butter for flavor. I added rice flour to give it the texture of a Scottish shortbread.
If you want a fast, only slightly tricky, candy recipe that will guarantee yours and the people you may or may not share it with’s GLEE, this Salted Chocolate Cappuccino Buttercrunch Toffee is it!
This recipe is a winner. Dal Vegetable Soup is healthy, easy-to-make, inexpensive, gluten-free and vegan. With all that going for it, it should taste like dirt, but it’s mighty tasty too!
Fresh ginger is one of my favorite flavors and dry ginger is one of my least. So I never make gingerbread. This past holiday season I had a windfall of fruits leftover from a chocolate fountain holiday party. So I whipped up a new chutney with all the flavors of gingerbread except the dreaded dry ginger. I substituted fresh ginger and it was FABULOUS!
Originally a cross between a cabbage and turnip, the humble rutabaga is silky and elegant pureed with cream in this simple, yet addictive recipe. I often wonder why I only make them for Thanksgiving? They definitely taste like a special occasion.
I bought this hilarious “Praise The Lard” t-shirt from Prather Meats at the Ferry Building in San Francisco (you can’t buy them online, but if you go there grab one—it’s a conversation piece), but I’ve never used it much for cooking. Strange for a gal who worships at the Church Of Pork Fat…
We were at a Cherry Grove Farm in New Jersey, last month and they had leaf lard so I bought some and rendered lard for the first time this month. This recipe is for an old fashioned lard pie crust. It makes three single crust or one double crust and a single crust. There’s no point to making only one pie crust. if you don’t need the extra ones, freeze them.
This simple recipe is a sparkling alternative to whipped cream. I serve it with my Cupboard Harvest Pie. It goes well with rich fruit filled pies and hand pies, but could totally work with a sweet potato or squash pie.
I tasted a similar sauce at a press party for a national hot sauce festival and fell in love with it. Use this Curried Roasted Carrot Habanero Hot Sauce to add a spark to any meat, poultry or fish preparation, toss it with potatoes or mix it through some Greek yogurt for a delicious dip.
There’s nothing like the smell of browned butter and I’ve been making this recipe ever since I was a catering cook in Australia at Black Tie Catering.They were always a highlight of our petit fours and cookie platters. I prefer them with a tart dried fruit, but you could use fresh berries, stone fruit slices, baby figs, anything you like
I live around the corner from Paisano’s Meat Market on Smith Street in Brooklyn. They sell Italian sausage meat which is a fatty, spiced ground pork mixture studded with fennel seeds. You could pretty much mix anything into it and it would be AMAZING. When I was researching my International Men With Balls Brunch I came across this popular dish that’s often made with Bisquick. Mine have a much higher ratio of I made gluten free sausage and cheddar balls.
Inspired by my garden, I created a salad where green, unripened tomatoes contrast three ways with their vine ripened counterparts: color, flavor and texture. It’s a great way to use up extra homegrown herbs as well.
When I was a kid this was a truly exotic recipe. Who eats bananas for dinner? CRAZY! It’s the perfect accompaniment to a savory curry and vegans and vegetarians can enjoy it too!
I used stabilized whipped cream and opposed to unstable whipped cream in any recipe where I need the whipped cream to be molded or piped, hold it’s shape, not to weep or to stabilize another ingredient like lemon curd, as in my Heavenly Pie.
Freshly made crêpes cakes seem like the uppity cousins of pancakes, but it’s almost a ruse since they are so easy. They’re thin and elegant like a fashionable French socialite and promiscuous in their ability to easily go with so many sweet and savory dishes.
Making your own elderflower syrup is a BREEZE! Mix it with seltzer and lime for a delish beverage. You could throw some vodka or tequila in that too! If you don’t have an elderberry tree, find the flowers by foraging or friend with one.
Elderflowers add honey and lychee floral notes to traditional lemon curd. I make my elderflower syrup with oranges and lemon so it’s delicate, but complex. I rolled it in the crêpes and drizzled in on the whipped cream for my elderflower lemon crêpeterrine cake recipe.
My lemon curd goes POW! It’s a delicious balance of sweet and tart for making tarts, filling cookies and cakes and crêpes, adding to parfaits and more. Or you could just eat it on toast!
I created this recipe when I lived in Australia and introduced it to the audience during my first U.S. show “Say Cheese: a tongue-titillating tasting of artisan cheeses, wines and the songs they inspire” as a condiment to have with the cheese platter.
How do you say crowd pleaser? Your guests will hoover this dip. It reminds me a little of Boursin, but with a whole lot more roasted garlicky goodness.
I added some spunk to a classic appetizer that no one would have considered whether or not was gluten free back in the 60’s, but it is. I leave a few of them crackling free so the vegetarians can enjoy an old favorite.
This is a delicious spin on potato pancakes is perfect for Passover! I wanted it to be extra crunchy, so I added crisped rice to the coating. I was curious to see how this would work out and it did so “CRUNCH-i-liciously”!
Bacon Fried Rice is my favorite breakfast dish, but I could also eat it for lunch, dinner, afternoon snack, or even dessert. Clearly, it may seem that I have a problem. I say, “There’s no problem unless there’s no more bacon or rice in the world.”
A light, tangy vinaigrette made from yuzu vinegar, fresh lime and raw, local honey. Yuzu is an incredibly aromatic, tart citrus fruit that looks like a small grapefruit and tastes like the love-child of a mandarin and a grapefruit and lemon. If I’m putting this dressing on something that’s rich like smoked duck breast and sweet like mango I like to add a little bit of Yuzu kosho to the dressing to give it a little bite; it’s a spicy yuzu-and-chili condiment that you can find in a Japanese grocery or online. Yuzu vinaigrette is frequently made with yuzu juice, but I was gifted some O yuzu rice vinegar, so I made this recipe. I see now that it’s not that common. Feel free to substitute yuzu juice and rice vinegar for the yuzu vinegar.
While this Smoked Duck Breast, Mango & Avocado Salad sounds pretty fancy, it’s only because smoked duck breast makes even the most pedestrian dish sound uppity. Say: Smoked Duck Breast, Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich—see? It adds instant class. In addition to raising the social strata of any dish, smoked duck breast is a quick fix for any dish. Yes, I’m calling Smoked Duck Breast Oatmeal—trend-spotting!
You can use any hearty greens to make this dish, but my Grandma always used collards, turnip and mustard greens in whatever combination she could find them.
You need a lot of greens to make collards since they cook down to nothing. As a former slave food, collards used to be very cheap to buy and make. When I took over making them, Grandma would ask how much they cost. When I told her she would be horrified and tell me stories of how they were a nickel a pound in her day.
She was also a stickler for not using the stems. “Stemmy” greens were a sign of being cheap or low-class. When greens were cheap, maybe you could afford to throw out the stems, but these days they’re not. I find if you don’t use the stems you have to buy a lot more greens. I strip off the leaves and chiffonade the stems. I cook them for a long time so they’re nice and tender.
There are no proportions for the ingredients in this recipe, only the technique. I figure on six to ten wings per person. I always make extra since we can usually eat a ton of these and even if we can’t finish them, we are very happy to eat them the next day. Make a sticky sauce and consider giving them a wee sprinkle of a little something crunchy when they come out of the oven like garlic chips, sesame seeds, bacon bits, and so forth (more ideas below).
No one ever asks if I’m making Grandma’s Rice, a buttery, cheesy rice pilaf studded with green olives, for Thanksgiving because it’s the law. I always make a lot so there’s leftovers. It was my Grandma’s tradition that she not only stuffed her guests, but they got food to take home for the next day. I won’t twist your arm to take food home like she did, but I make enough if you’d like to. Giving away our leftovers made my brother wince, but tradition is tradition. Now he always brings his own stack of take-out containers.
Garlic fried rice has something for everyone, vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, carnivores… except the garlic allergic and the VAMPIRES!!! Oh and the paleos, but that’s their choice and they should really cheat with this dish. It’s healthy and so damned delicious… I can understand why the Filipinos kept it a secret.
You can follow a recipe and eat very well, or do your own thing and eat EXACTLY what you want, which I think is even better. I’m a rule-breaker and I encourage you to do the same. You can put anything in this Franken-salad. Just make sure the colors contrast as you build it and expect GASPS from your guests.
We didn’t give my niece sweets until she was three years old. She loved macaroni and cheese so I made a mac ’n’ cheese birthday cake for her second birthday. I dyed the mashed potato decorations with beets and spinach, but you can use turmeric, carrots, parsley, red cabbage and so forth.
Back in the Stone Age, I found the base recipe for Jackie’s Sassy BBQ Sauce in a compilation cookbook that was from a neighborhood association or the Rotary Club, which I’ve long since lost. I tweaked it and changed it and made it my own, so I renamed it. I’ve made it all over the world. In the 90’s, I had to bring my own Mexican chili powder to Australia to make it because they didn’t sell it there.
In my family, it’s evolved to a comfort food and my little brother likes it every Christmas Eve as part of his birthday dinner along with my Confetti Potato Salad and Pot Licker Greens. No, we don’t live or celebrate his birthday in a warm climate. I oven-barbecue it every year.