Get that party started with this caponata
Changing up the party menu this summer? Get that party started with this caponata, explosive with the flavors of green olives, eggplant, roasted red pepper, tomatoes, red onion, and garlic. The Cookery served this last week with crackers and fresh zucchini rounds. You may find a great selection of caponata recipes, but try Nathalie Dupree’s easy variation.
Something sweet . . . and good to eat
Not in peak season but available almost everywhere, sweet potatoes are still shaking up taste buds around The Cookery this spring. I’ve had a run-in with sweet potatoes in recent weeks, starting with a superb soup at an Austin restaurant. Then a neighbor shared a load of unwanted sweet potatoes. These were beautiful and I couldn’t think of turning […]
Hungry? Make this a meal
Hungry? Round up four primary ingredients and make this a meal. Prepare rice and chicken to your liking, add fresh spinach and feta, and fold these flavors into a worthy meal. Skip the chicken or substitute rice with your preferred grains to recycle your recipe.
Sweet Loaf
You won’t want to skimp on the eggs with this bread recipe. It’s perfectly rich, courtesy of our Austin baker man. He modified the variation he learned from his grandmother to continue the sweet tradition. Portuguese sweet bread 4-5 loaves (half-batch) 2.5 lbs flour (That’s the starting point, though you’ll probably need another one or two […]
Baker in disguise
I’ve seen a few good men turn out perfect peach cobbler at the campsite, but that’s no wonder. They’ve been preparing the dutch oven dessert for years. What really marked surprise was discovering that our neighbor is a baker in disguise. He keeps busy working with the law, staying active with his family, and training to look like a […]
Cookbook receipt marks carrot soup recipes
Among the cookbooks I received that belonged to my late sister, I found a copy of Fields of Greens, New Vegetarian Recipes from the Celebrated Greens Restaurant by Annie Somerville. The inspiration of this recipe collection only gets better with the tiny scrap of history tucked into the pages. My sister purchased the cookbook way back in 1994, at […]
Recipes from heaven
I thought I had enough cookbooks, but this time, there’s room for more. Dozens line my shelves, yet I’ve found a place for several special additions to The Cookery collection. When one of my sisters passed away a few months ago, she left a little of her own heaven behind in her cookbooks and loosely filed recipes. I’m deeply saddened by her […]
UT students collaborate in The Cookery to create meatless meal
The Cookery serves as a subliminal classroom for our family, but last weekend, we opened it up to a mixed group of graduate and undergrad UT students who rinsed, chopped, blended and tasted a sampling of Middle Eastern dishes to create a meatless meal. The menu: saffron rice, hummus, bread, and cucumber yogurt sauce (jajik in my recipe binder). This fabulous meal […]
Get your Cub cake on
Here’s a sample of one of the cakes from last year’s Pack 61 Father-Son Cake Bake in Austin. The father-son Scout team that turned out this spaghetti and meatballs confection lives and loves the real version of pasta and this cake shares a slice of their story. Dad works in the world of pasta. I’ve seen this […]
Gramma’s Recipes
My mother-in-law has never been fond of cooking. Nobody starved as she raised four healthy sons, and one of her resources remains the frozen food aisle along with that old stand-by, deli sandwiches. She hails from a multi-generational line of semi-cooks. Her mother, still the life of the party at 95, can entertain like few […]