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Making soup doesn’t have to be difficult, and if you are working with fresh, high quality vegetables, you don’t even have to add stock. This cauliflower soup couldn’t be easier! Just blanch cauliflower florets for a few minutes, purée them with some of the blanching liquid, salt, and butter, and serve with olive oil and chopped chives. Of course when you are working with so few ingredients, you have to make sure that each ingredient is as good as it can be. There’s no place to hide if something is off. What I love about this soup is that the cauliflower really shines through, and it’s also pretty light, so it works well as a starter for other courses. Simple Cauliflower Soup Recipe To take this soup from simple to sublime, add a dash or two of truffle salt or truffle oil to the soup when serving. Ingredients Florets from one head of cauliflower (See How to Cut and Core Cauliflower) 1 quart of water Salt Unsalted butter Chives ...

This was the year I fell in love with black eyed peas. (The food. Already loved the band.) They have a wonderful flavor, almost smoky, even without bacon or ham. Earlier this last summer we put them in a salad with feta and spinach. So so good. The dish that black eyed peas are most famous for is Hoppin’ John. No idea where the name came from. And depending on where you are from you might not even call it that, but simply black eyed peas and rice. Hoppin’ John is one of those classic Southern dishes that come with as many versions, stories and flavors as there are cooks. At its core, however, Hoppin’ John is rice, black-eyed peas (or field peas), smoked pork, and onions. Black eyed peas are supposed to bring you luck if you eat them on New Year’s Day, and it is traditionally eaten with collard greens. So, for this new year, I offer you a hot plate of Hoppin’ John. May we all enjoy its good luck. Happy New Year! This post has been updated, originally...

Many people are afraid of hollandaise sauce, are you? Some think eating it will make them fat. (It will if you eat it every day, so don’t eat it every day.) If you are like me, the thought of making hollandaise conjures up visions of toque clad chefs with big bowls and even bigger whisks swearing because the beautiful sauce they have spent the last several minutes vigorously whisking has separated on them, “Merde!” I have been desperately afraid of making this sauce since forever. (Not afraid of eating it mind you, I’ve never met an eggs benedict I didn’t like, or eat.) To overcome this fear I asked my friend Hank to show me how to make it. OMG. Hank’s hollandaise didn’t separate, and he didn’t swear (any more than usual), but the work! The beads of sweat forming on this man’s forehead as he whipped those egg yolks and butter into submission. I was dreading the attempt. Hank has arms of steel. I have arms of, hmmm, a young, willo...

Do you like cranberry sauce? My father can’t get enough of it during the holiday season. He’ll even stock up on fresh cranberries when they become available in late October, and freeze them to eat all year long. I think he looks forward to Thanksgiving just because he knows he can have as much cranberry sauce as he wants with his slices of turkey, and plenty leftover for turkey sandwiches. When he finally runs out of frozen cranberries sometime in May, he’ll start buying the cans. He’ll hide the cans in a remote corner of the pantry and eat up the canned cranberries all by himself. Yes, he’s a little obsessed. For me it’s been an acquired taste. As a kid I just couldn’t understand why something so beautifully garnet colored didn’t taste like berry pie filling! Cranberries are tart, very tart, and need sugar to balance their tartness. But even with the sugar, the tartness comes through. As an adult, I have come...

This year on Halloween, in my typical do-it-at-the-last-possible-moment approach, I set out to find a carving pumpkin in the afternoon only to find all of the local stores completely sold out. So, instead I bought some sort of heirloom fairy tale pumpkin from Whole Foods. It wasn’t even orange, but some terribly un-Halloween grey color. My attempts to carve it were laughable. The flesh was at least 3 inches thick. I did finally manage to carve something resembling a face, but it was so pathetic I ended up chucking the whole thing in the oven and baking it at 350 for a couple hours. (I think it’s almost impossible to overcook a pumpkin.) Obviously this pumpkin was meant for eating, not for entertaining trick-or-treaters. What to do with 8 cups of cooked pumpkin? Make pumpkin soup, of course! While we already have several pumpkin soup recipes on the site, we were missing one with more of a Southwestern feel. I’m delighted with how this soup turned out. It’s s...

Looking for the perfect cheesecake? It takes a bit of hubris to describe a recipe as “perfect”, especially for a recipe such as cheesecake, for which so many have their own personal favorite. But, this is simply the best, most wonderful cheesecake I have ever had, and have ever made. It is based on a master recipe, from the master of baking herself, Dorie Greenspan. It is a classic New York style cheesecake with a graham cracker crust and high sides. It is dense, rich, and light at the same time, and serves a small army. But watch out—just when you think you’ve made enough for your gathering, so many people will go back for seconds that you may be left without a piece! My young friend Audrey and I made some slight changes to Dorie’s base recipe. We’ve thickened the graham crust on the bottom and doesn’t let it ride up the sides. We also top the cake with a creamy sour cream topping and serves it with a tangy bright raspbe...