When I’m desperate for spring produce but nothing has hit the farmstand yet, frozen green peas are a godsend. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
Whipped ganache is a great gateway icing if you’re working your way slowly into the vast world of egg-based buttercreams. It’s just a few ingredients and far superior in flavor to the basic butter/sugar/milk frosting. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
Quince may resemble pears and apples, but unlike their fruit brethren, raw quince are inedibly tannic and sour. This means you do have to cook them, but the transformation is dramatic, and well worth your efforts. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
Holiday eating is a study in paradox. You’re surrounded by food, but you’re so busy shopping and cooking that you don’t have time to eat. Then, when your blood sugar dips to the point of derangement, you make a desperate lunge for the closest foodstuff – and the next thing you know, you’ve eaten an entire box of regifted peppermint bark. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
My maternal grandmother, a.k.a. Nanny, wasn’t much of a cook. As a kid I remember her making only a handful of things, mostly dishes with Ashkenazi Jewish origins like kasha and bowties (which, for the record, only my dad liked). Claire Saffitz Read Quote
For rave-worthy soups, skip the store-bought stock. You can extract a cleaner, stronger broth from a combination of water and several pantry ingredients. It’s all about layering powerful flavor-enhancers that you probably already have on hand – bacon, tomato paste, herbs, peppercorns, a Parm rind, and, of course, kosher salt. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
Lemon curd is one of the first things I remember cooking when I was old enough to use the stove without supervision. I looked up a recipe in my one of my mom’s Martha Stewart cookbooks and went to work, stirring anxiously and monitoring closely for signs that the mixture was thickening so as not to curdle the eggs. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
As an adult, I use whole-milk cottage cheese anywhere you might use plain Greek yogurt or ricotta cheese. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
Canned chickpeas are my tried-and-true pantry fallback for those days where I get home late with no game plan and no energy to cook. More than just about any other canned bean, they retain their shape and texture really well. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
I love the Grub Street Diet. I am particularly fascinated by what people eat; I think it says a lot about people. Claire Saffitz Read Quote
