buffalo cucumber salad

October 18, 2015 radish*rose 0 comment

Ready to wake up your taste buds? Try this as a healthy appetizer at your next pre-game party. This four-ingredient winner features crisp, fresh cucumbers topped by spicy buffalo sauce, sliced green onions, and blue cheese. The recipe is inspired by a restaurant in my office building called Parm, which features classic Italian-American fare for the most part, but there was something on the appetizer list that caught my eye: Buffalo Cucumbers. Wait, what? I had to try it. I wasn’t sure if it would be a weird fried cucumber type of thing, but no, it turned out to be a fresh and spicy little salad! Continue reading

garlic spinach soup

October 12, 2015 radish*rose 0 comment

This garlic spinach soup is my new favorite thing for a fall weeknight. It uses ingredients I almost always have on hand – garlic, bread, eggs, spinach – plus some dried herbs and grated Parmesan or Gruyere cheese. I run in the door, put the water on to boil, change my clothes, and proceed with the recipe. It doesn’t seem like something so simple would be good, but it is simply delicious! You simmer rather a lot of garlic plus some dried herbs to make a clean broth, add some small pasta such as orzo, toss in some spinach or frozen peas, then swirl in some eggs to add protein and body. To serve, ladle it over some hearty, garlicky toasted bread in the bottom of each bowl. Voilá! Continue reading

kale mac and cheese

October 4, 2015 radish*rose 0 comment

Do you ever have a day in the early autumn when you absolutely *must* have comfort food? OK, maybe more than one day? A day like that just happened for me, while the NYC area was being rained on by a Nor’Easter for a week, while waiting to see if a hurricane was going to hit us next. I decided I *needed* to make classic macaroni and cheese, with a Radish Rose twist.

Where does one turn for the best classic recipes? To Cook’s Illustrated New Best Recipe, of course! For my Radish Rose variation, I added smoked paprika and dijon mustard to the classic cheese sauce, and I mixed in some kale before baking for extra healthy yum (not that this dish is slenderizing in any way!). And instead of regular bread crumbs, I used panko for extra crunchiness in the golden brown topping. I also baked it instead of broiling it as the original recipe says, because of that time I caught a breadcrumb topping on fire in the broiler. See? I can be taught. Continue reading

eggplant chickpea bake with feta and pine nuts

September 27, 2015 radish*rose 0 comment

Eggplant is something people have strong opinions about. I happen to love its hearty texture and delicate flavor, but I prefer it when baked instead of fried, because eggplant likes to soak things up, and frying can cause it to soak up too much oil. For this Mediterranean-inspired eggplant chickpea bake, we are going to broil the eggplant instead of frying it. Then we layer it with yummy things like tomato sauce with oregano, tangy feta, and hearty chickpeas, and we bake it. While baking, the eggplant will soak up beautiful, sunny Mediterranean flavors from the sauce, rather than oil from frying. I call that winning at eggplant! Continue reading

smoky little carrots in a blanket

September 13, 2015 radish*rose 0 comment

It may not be completely obvious what these are. Because this is some next level carrot action! Have you heard of pigs in a blanket? Little smoky sausages in a crispy crust? Well, these are little smoky carrots in a crispy crust! Baked, not fried, and containing hardly any fat. How on earth did I come up with this? It falls into the category of having to find out if it could possibly work. I read the basic recipe in The Best Casserole Cookbook Ever, and having also been on a Sheet Pan Suppers bender, I decided to make them on a baking sheet instead of in a casserole dish, thinking the shallow sides would allow more air circulation to add crispiness. I also added a hit of smoked paprika, which made a huge difference in turning them into a super-savory snack. They’d be really good with some sort of dip, but we didn’t wait for that – we ate them right off the pan, standing up in the kitchen! Don’t judge us until you’ve tried this fun little appetizer for yourself!

flaky mushroom goat cheese tarts with truffle and thyme

September 7, 2015 radish*rose 0 comment

Imagine if a pizza and a croissant had a baby. It would be a savory, flaky tart just like this! Puff pastry makes the flaky crust, topped with mushrooms, shallots, and thyme, then drizzled with a bit of truffle oil, sprinkled with goat cheese crumbles and baked till puffed and golden. This was my first time working with puff pastry and it was not as difficult as I had feared – it was actually quite easy. I always thought of it as something akin to phyllo dough, which requires brushing each layer with oil or butter as you use it, but puff pastry was much easier to work with. You just kind of unroll it and use it. What a nice surprise! Continue reading

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