Edible/Usable

Thanksgiving Success Including Apple Sour Cherry Pie

Just a short post about some of the great food I had this Thanksgiving.  We went to a friend's for dinner where they made their famous turkey on the BBQ which is a fast and delicious way to make a turkey that I'd never seen done before.  There were also some delicious parsnips roasted with Parmesan, fantastic roasted potatoes and carrots with ginger.   I made brussel sprouts roasted with pancetta, one of the few ways I like brussel sprouts, and I spent literally 2 hours peeling pear onions for balsamic roasted pearl onions from The Cutting Edge of Ordinary blog which were fantastic.  Since I was dining with Brits, they requested that I not make the normal American version of sweet potatoes (the marshmallow ones), so instead I made Sweet Potato Gratin from Smitten Kitchen.  I made a few changes/substitutions since some of the 200+ commenters (!!) mentioned that it was a little watery: I used fresh spinach instead of chard (the chard at Fairway looked uninspiring), I baked it twice - once the day before, then I reheated it right before dinner.  And before I reheated it, I sprinkled some bread crumbs on top along with another sprinkling of Gruyere cheese.  It was a huge hit and definitely a keeper.

For desert, rather than the standard pumpkin or pecan pie (apparently Brits don't like Pumpkin) I made the Beet Pie which has become a new favorite, and since I had about 2 cups of sour cherries left from what I'd frozen this summer, I made an Apple Sour Cherry Pie.  Although it came out a little 'juicier' than I'd like, here's the recipe exactly as I made it.  I may try it again (next year when I have sour cherries again) and I'll drain the sour cherries before adding them, and I'll add a bit more flour and corn starch - corn starch being something I only use in berry pies that I know will be really juicy.

Four things I've been experimenting with lately with pies and pie crusts that I've been happy with: First, I've been making the pie dough in a food processor up to the point where I add the first half of the water (a few tablespoons), then turning it out on the counter and adding the rest of the water.  And I always make each top or bottom separately (it just seems easier to me that way).  Second, I've been using my standard recipe for pie dough (flour, butter, ice water, salt, sugar) but for sweet pies I've started adding about 1/4 cup of very finely chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans). Third, after reading the section about flour in Harold McGee's "On Food and Cooking"  where he talks about gluten and how it develops in pastry dough, I've been making the dough a day in advance and letting it sit overnight in the fridge.  Fourth, I've been using at least half raw or turbinado sugar http://www.sugarintheraw.com/ in the fruit filling, the other half regular granulated white sugar.  So far, my experiments have been successful.

Apple Sour Cherry Pie

4 apples - mix of baking types like Rome, Macintosh or Cortland
2 cups pitted sour cherries
1/2 cup raw sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 T lemon juice
Lemon zest from one lemon
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 t nutmeg
1/4 t cloves
2 T flour
2 T corn starch
1 T Port or Whiskey (or 1 t of vanilla if you prefer)

For crust: (makes one top or bottom crust)

1 C plus 2 T flour
1 stick cold butter, cut in pieces
2-4 T ice cold water
1 t salt
1 T sugar
1/4 cup walnuts or pecans

The day before you are going to bake the pie, make the crust recipe twice:  add the nuts to the food processor, and pulse until nuts are very finely ground.  Add flour, sugar and salt to the processor and pulse briefly to mix dry ingredients.  Add pieces of very cold butter and blend until it looks like cornmeal with a few bigger lumps.  Add about 2 tablespoons of cold water and mix briefly just until the dough starts to come together.  There will still be loose bits of flour/butter mixture.  Dump mixture into a bowl or onto a floured surface and add the remaining ice water and gently knead together until it easily forms a ball.  Don't over knead!  Pat it into a round disk, wrap well in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

For the filling: Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Peel and core the apples and cut into slices or chunky pieces (or both), adding lemon juice as you go to keep apples from turning brown.  Add sour cherries, port and lemon zest.  Mix all dry ingredients together in a small bowl, then add to the fruit mixture.  Mix well and set aside.

Roll out bottom crust into 9 inch pie pan.  Add filling and cover with top crust.  Cut small holes in the top crust and sprinkle with raw sugar.  Bake at 400 for 10 minutes.  Reduce temperature to 375 and bake for 55 - 60 minutes until filling is bubbling and crust is brown.  You may need to put foil or a pie crust ring around the edge of the crust to keep it from getting too brown.  You may also need to place a pan on the rack below the pie pan to catch any escaping juices.

Serve with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Beet Pie

I am actually working on blog posts about UX and usability (really, I've got two in the works...) but this is an emergency recipe posting!  A few weeks ago, we went to visit some friends in Pennsylvania.  They live in the northern part, past the Poconos - a really nice part of the state that I'd never been to before.  They have a beautiful hill-top apple orchard that they are in the process of reviving.  It's all organic, so I picked some apples and planned to go home and make an apple pie (which I did last weekend).  I forget why it came up, but I think I started going off on how much I love beets and how wonderful they are.  Our friend volunteered that she had a great recipe for a beet pie.  Not a savory beet pie, but a sweet beet pie.  I was intrigued and asked for the recipe.

I wasn't really sure what to expect.  But when I did get the recipe it sort of made sense.  It's officially called "Ruby Red Fruit and Nut Pie" which is really disingenuous because the only fruit it has in it according to the original recipe is raisins.  Maybe they thought people would be scared to make it if it was really called what it is.  Rather than being cagey about it, I'm officially renaming it Beet Pie.  I'm not sure what newspaper it was cut from, so I can't take full credit for it, but I did make a few changes to the recipe as it was sent to me (I used dried cranberries instead of raisins, and maple syrup instead of dark corn syrup).  It's actually similar to pecan pie, and it turned out much better than I expected.  I think it is now one of my new favorite pies.  It may even be on the desert line up for Thanksgiving.

Beet Pie

1 single unbaked pie shell (9 inches)
2 medium beets
1/2 cup grade B maple syrup
3 eggs
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t ground cloves
1/4 t white vinegar
1/2 t salt
1 t vanilla
2 T butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 T flour
3/4 cup dried cranberries
3/4 cup roughly chopped walnuts

Cut tops and bottoms off beets and boil for 20 - 30 minutes until tender.  Cool and peel.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Chop roughly and put into a food processor.    Pulse until beets are in small pieces, being careful not to puree them (you could probably also shred them with a box grater to get the same effect).    Remove the beets from processor and set aside.  Add all other ingredients except walnuts and cranberries to the processor and blend well.  Add 1 cup of the chopped beets (you may have some beets left over), the walnuts and dried cranberries.  Pulse until just blended.  Pour into the unbaked pie shell.

Bake for 10 minutes at 400 degrees.  Reduce temperature to 375 degrees and bake for 25-30 minutes or until pie is firm.  Cool on a rack and serve still warm with vanilla ice cream.

Sweet Tomato Chutney

 

I'm having a blog identity crisis.  I've been ignoring my other half.  I'm not married, so no, I don't mean my husband.  I mean the other half of what this blog is supposed to be about.  I've been having a nice summer creating lots of salads, canning stuff when I can (and freezing it when I can't can) and doing a bit of baking here and there.  But I haven't been writing at all about usability and user experience.    Definitely part of is has been that I've been taking advantage of all of the social media, promotion and blog marketing tools that I've discovered in the food blog world, so I've been focusing a lot on writing recipe posts.  I'm pretty amazed at the sheer number of food blogs there are out there, many of them excellent and inspiring.   But it's also a little overwhelming.  I definitely feel like I need to both step up my game in the quality of food photos (which means investing in a decent digital SLR) and the variety of recipe posts.   But I also need to really find my niche and differentiate my blog from others.  I still think that the differentiator should be a focus on usability and user experience with cooking, so I plan on focusing on that a little more down the road.  Those kinds of posts are more difficult to write, and generally not as much fun, but really, I'm not doing this to have fun.

But for now, here's a fun chutney recipe.   At this point you must think that I'm chutney crazy.  I sort of am, but my real reason for making chutneys this summer/fall rather than jam, jelly or simply freezing fruit has been twofold:  first, I've made jams and jellies all of my life and I don't find them particularly challenging anymore.  Chutneys have more ingredients, have more complex flavors and the end result can be used in ways other than just spread on toast.  I serve this chutney with curries, with a cheese plate, as a condiment for egg rolls, on a sandwich, with chicken, fish or pork.  Yesterday, I was making some chicken soup, so I added a teaspoonful of the chutney, and it added a nice acidic sweetness that really added to the overall flavor of the soup. 

The second reason is economic.  I think it can be argued that price isn't an issue if you are learning something about preserving food, so it doesn't matter how much you spend on home canning.  But it can also be argued that the main reasons to preserve food at home is to control the quality and sources of what you eat and to save money.   I didn't can tomatoes this summer.  The late blight on the east coast and New England drove up the price of organic tomatoes, and it didn't make sense for me to pay $50 for 11lbs of tomatoes (nice organic tomatoes run about $4.50/lb at the farmers market) which would translate to probably 5 or 6 pints of canned tomatoes - a cost of roughly $8/pint.  I didn't get out of the city often enough to canvas rural farmers markets for cheaper tomatoes.   I wanted to do something with tomatoes before they all disappeared from the farmers market, so I decided to make this chutney.  I bought some cheaper, non organic tomatoes at $2.00/lb from the farmers market.  I got a little over 5lbs of tomatoes for the chutney, which in the end resulted in 8 half-pints of chutney.  Figuring in sugar, vinegar, spices and raisins (organic where I could, all cost approximately $4.00) each half-pint ended up costing me about $1.75 each. 

The magic of fruit chutney is to have idiosyncratic yet complimentary blends of fruit, sugar, spices and acid.  The amounts of each vary depending of if you are making a spicier chutney or a sweeter one.  This chutney is pretty sweet, but it's also very acidic, with equal parts of sugar and vinegar.  You probably could make this chutney spicier by adding fresh chilies or more cayenne, but I think I'd rather have a hot chutney (like lime or a specific spicy chili chutney) as a separate condiment.   This chutney is fairly easy to make - it doesn't require a lot of preparation besides peeling and cutting the tomatoes, chopping garlic and ginger.  It calls for garam masala, a ground spice blend which you can make yourself by grinding your own spices (cinnamon, cumin, clove, pepper, ginger, anise, etc) which I did with the last chutney I made.  One of the great things about living in NYC is that you have close access to specialty stores that carry fresh spices and spice mixes.   I found some already mixed garam masala from Dual Specialty Store  on 1st ave and 6th street - their custom house blend is great.

Three notes on this chutney.  First, it WILL make your apartment/house smell like vinegar while it's cooking (but in a nice way, of course).  Second, you really do need to cook it for longer than you think you do.  It should get to the point where it is dark, thick and shiny, about 90 minutes.  Third, the recipe below makes approximately 8 half-pints so I processed them in a boiling water bath.  If you don't feel up to processing them, cut the recipe in half, and after cooking put the chutney in glass jars while it's still hot, let cool and refrigerate.

Sweet Tomato Chutney

Adapted From Madhur Jaffrey's World of the East Vegetarian Cooking

• 5 lbs of fresh tomatoes
• 4 cups white sugar
• 4 cups white vinegar
• 1 1/2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh ginger
• 2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh garlic (about 10 cloves or 1 medium head)
• 1 teaspoon ground fennel seed
• 1 teaspoon ground fenugreek seed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons garam masala
• 1 t cayenne pepper
• 3 t salt
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 cup raisins

Peel tomatoes by scoring the tomatoes and blanching for 20 -30 seconds in boiling water.  Chop into large chunks.  Place all ingredients, except raisins, in a large non-reactive heavy bottomed pot.    Cover and bring to a boil.  After 30 minutes, remove the lid, add raisins and adjust the heat so you have a low boil.  Continue cooking uncovered for approximately another hour, until it  has reduced by half, is thick, dark and shiny.  You will need to stir it more frequently towards the end as it will be thick and you don't want it to burn on the bottom.

If you are going to can the chutney, prepare your jars by sterilizing in boiling water.  Fill jars with hot chutney, gently tap to remove air bubbles, wipe jar edges, and place lids on the jars.  Process in a  boiling water bath for 20 minutes.  Confirm all jars are sealed.  Chutney will last for approximately 1 year in sealed jars.

Homemade Granola

As promised, at long last, the granola recipe.  Granola is one of those things that can seem really difficult and intimidating, but really, it's very simple to make, and is almost limitless in the way you can customize it.  I've been making this granola off and on for the past 3 years or so, experimenting with different levels of liquid, sweets and oats, and I feel like I've finally found a good base recipe to which I (or you) can add your own personal favorites.  I've actually been seeing a lot of 'homemade' granola for sale around Brooklyn lately (Early Bird Granloa is usually on sale at the Brooklyn Flea).  But at $8 for a 12oz bag, it's not cheap (disclaimer: I haven't actually tasted their granola).  This recipe makes about 24oz, and depending on the quality of ingredients you use, can cost as little as $5.00 to make.

So first, some notes on my methodology that affect the outcome: 

• Use thick cut oats - I use Bob's Red Mill organic thick cut rolled oats, so this recipe is formulated I think with the right amount of liquid for this type of oats.  It would probably work with regular cut oats (Quaker or another brand), but I wouldn't recommend using quick or instant oatmeal for this recipe. 
• You can add your own mix of nuts - I generally use sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds (pepitas)  and one other kind of nut - usually pecans or walnuts.   But really, you could use any kind of raw nut in pretty much any proportion that you like.   Make sure you use RAW nuts. The recipe below has a 2:1 oats to nuts ratio, but you could add more nuts if desired.  If you add more oats, I would increase the amount of liquid.
• Dried fruit - I also usually make this with dried cranberries, but recently made it with dried cherries, coconut and dried apricots.  Just be sure to add the dried fruit AFTER you've cooked the granola or the fruit will be really hard and chewy.  I most recently added coconut after I baked it, but next time I might try baking the coconut and see what happens. 
• Go organic - I try to use organic ingredients whenever I can, including organic nuts and seeds and dried fruit. 
• Sweetness - This recipe doesn't have any refined sugar (unless you use sweetened fruit juice), so if it's not sweet enough for you, either add more maple syrup or add some brown sugar to the dry ingredients.  Obviously, if it's too sweet, decrease the amount of either maple syrup or honey, or use entirely unsweetened fruit juice.
• It's not clumpy - This granola doesn't really cluster together - but I like this way.  If you want more clustery granola, you could probably add more juice (or other liquid) and stir it less often while baking.

Homemade Granola

3 cups thick cut rolled oats
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
1/2 cup raw pepitas
1/2 cup raw peacans
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 t salt

1/3 cup canola oil (plus 1 T for the pan)
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 c fruit juice (apple, cranberry or a mix)
2 T honey

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a large, shallow roasting pan with canola oil and set aside.  In a large bowl, mix all of the dry ingredients including spices.  In a smaller bowl or a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup, mix together all of the liquid ingredients.  Tip: If you measure out the oil first and use the same measuring cup, the maple syrup and the honey will slide right out of your measuring cup.  Mix all of the liquid ingredients well, then pour over the dry ingredients.  Mix well, and pour into the greased roasting pan.  Spread evenly across the bottom (ideally it isn't more than an inch or so thick at the bottom of the pan.)

Bake for 45 - 60 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes or so, making sure to bring the granola from the edges of the pan to the center so that it all browns evenly.  You may need to stir more frequently towards the end of baking, and keep a careful eye on it so that it doesn't burn around the edges. 

Granola in the baking pan before going in the oven

Granola after baking

Breakfast!

Carrot Blueberry Salad

After a rainy, chilly June and July, August has been hot and steamy (and rainy again).   It's really seemed like a short summer for me.  I live near from Pratt Institute  in Brooklyn and this weekend seemed to be the weekend that all of the new students were being dropped off by their parents and were attending orientation. That means that summer is nearly over.  For me, starting college was such  a great time in life - starting a whole new chapter in a totally new place.  And even though I haven't been in school for longer than I will reveal, I still get an unsettled and yearning feeling each fall - like I need to be starting something new.  But at the same time, I'm really sad that summer is over.

I love summer, I really do.  Even though it gets really hot in my apartment and it is uncomfortable to bake or cook or do laundry, there are tons of fresh fruit and vegetables available from the farmers market for making simple salads and simple fruit based desserts (I will get either my rooftop garden going or will find that perfect country house at some time in the future - it's just not happening yet).   We go on trips to the country.  I don't have to wear sweaters and jackets and gloves.  Everything is lush and green.   So before fall really kicks in, and before I go away for my camping trip where I'll be eating lots of meat and nary a green thing, I'm going to celebrate summer by making and eating a lot of salads.

I like odd food.  I don't mean food that is in itself odd, but taking different normal foods and pairing them in ways that  you had never thought of before.  It's so revelatory.  Watermelon feta salad was the salad revelation for me two years ago.  This year it's been this salad - the carrot and blueberry salad.  Two very simple and tasty ingredients, tied together with some lemon and roasted sunflower seeds.  I think nuts (or seeds) go well in almost any salad, and this salad is testament to that.   It's from the NY Times 101 Simple Salads article by Mark Bittman that I've mentioned before.  Last week I got as far as number 1.  This week it's number 7.

Carrot Blueberry Salad (from the NY Times)

3 Cups shredded or matchstick carrots
1 Cup blueberries
1/2 T olive oil
1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
Juice of half a lemon
Salt
Pepper

In a shallow pan, heat the olive oil over medium heat and add he sunflower seeds.  Stir constantly for 3-5 minutes until most of the seeds are brown and toasty.  Watch them very carefully since they burn easily and remove them from the pan immediately when they are done.  Set aside to cool.  Either grate or matchstick the carrots and mix with the blueberries.   Add the cooled seeds, lemon juice, salt and pepper.  Mix thoroughly and enjoy immediately.

Fennel Salad

It seems like all summer I've been on a feta/mint combo salad bender:  I'd walk through the farmers market or rifle through my fridge and everything that I bought or pulled out seemed like it would be a perfect fit with mint that I have growing in a big pot in my window, and my new favorite feta cheese.  But yesterday at last, I got a craving for a great summer salad that has neither feta or mint - Fennel Salad.

I adapted this recipe from something that a good friend of mine used to make at her regular summer Williamsburg Brooklyn backyard BBQs.  She is an amazing cook, and was a great hostess, but has unfortunately (for me) moved to London  so I thought I would make this nice salad in her honor.  

It's actually funny that I like this salad - or that I like fennel bulb.  I don't generally like the anise-y licorice flavor that comes from anethole, an aromatic compound in fennel that is also found in anise and star anise. I don't like Pernod or Absinthe or black licorice, but I really like fennel.  Raw or cooked the flavor of fennel is complex and goes well with other vegetables, meat or cheese, but holds its own. 

Two notes about this salad: It is actually very easy to make, especially if you have a mandoline.  I actually don't currently have a mandoline, so I partly used my box grater and partly sliced it very thinly with a knife.  I'm planning at some point on doing a 'mandoline off' where I compare 2 or 3 mandolines and rate them accordingly.  I think I've read all of the reviews of different ones on Amazon, and they all seem to have some issues (dull blades, cut fingers and awkward orientation to name a few).  Any recommendations on which ones I should try would definitely be appreciated.  But even if you don't have a mandoline, you can still make this salad fairly easily.  It just takes a little longer.

The second note is that the recipe calls for pistachio oil.  If you haven't ever tried pistachio oil, you are totally missing something.  Like many nut oils, pistachio oil has a strong toasty flavor that goes really well with both sweet and savory foods.  I raved about how delicious it was to my fennel salad friend the first time I had it, so she generously brought back a bottle of it from France the next time she went.  Unfortunately, like many good things, it's very expensive - especially if you buy it here imported from France.  But I think you can easily substitute another nut oil like walnut or hazelnut oil (or even dark sesame oil) and get a similar flavor.  Just now, as I'm writing this, I'm thinking that this salad would be really amazing with the addition of some toasted nuts - hazelnuts would be nice.  You could probably get away with using a good strong olive oil and some toasted nuts and get a similar effect.

Fennel Salad

2 fennel bulbs
1/2 cup chopped Italian parsley
2 T finely chopped fennel greens
3 T pistachio oil
Juice from 1 lemon
Shaved parmesean cheese
Salt & Pepper to taste

Cut the tops off the fennel, reserving a few of the greens.  Clean the fennel, and lightly peel any spots off the outside.  Slice very thinly using a mandoline  or a sharp knife. Finely chop the Italian parsely, the reserved fennel greens and mix into the sliced fennel.  Add the lemon juice, pistachio oil and salt and pepper and mix well.  Using a vegetable peeler or a cheese slicer, shave thin pieces of cheese over the top.  Crack fresh pepper over the top and serve.

Tomato Peach Salad

This week's Summer Fest is all about tomatoes.  I thought long and hard about what tomato recipe I could share - I have so many  favorite ways of eating tomatoes, but very few actually written down or codified.  One of my favorite events of each summer is the first tomato sandwich:  some sort of nice white bread toasted, mayonaise, heirloom tomato, salt, pepper.  Super simple and super delicous.  Or, there is my favorite sweet tomato chutney - but that is actually long, hot and complicated, so I'll save that one for later.   

It's finally been hot here in NYC - August hot.  Humid, sweaty and smelly.  That means I've been cooking a lot less and just making salads or simple dinners of toast and cheese for dinner at home.  Since I've been working in an office near Union Square, I've been able to shop for food the way I like to - just picking up a few things that I'll need in the two days until the next market happens - rather than doing a big shopping trip once a week and lugging tons of bags home.  I've been getting lots of peaches, carrots, zucchini and radishes.  Sunday afternoon, I ventured on to the NYTimes site for the 101 Simple Salads article to get some inspiration.  I remembered seeing something about a tomato peach or tomato watermelon salad, so I thought I'd give it a shot.  The recipe called for tomatoes and either peaches or watermelon, a simple vinagrette and basil.  I didn't have any basil on hand, but I did have some mint, so I used this as a starting point and mixed it with the basics from my favorite watermelon salad and made a tasty peach tomato salad:

Tomato Peach Salad

2 ripe tomotoes, cut into chunks
3 ripe peaches, cut into chunks (I left the skins on)
1/3 cup feta cheese
1/2 cup chopped mint
Fresh ground pepper

Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl and prepare the dressing:

Basic Vinagrette
2 T white wine vinegar
1 T balsamic vinegar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 T pistachio oil (this is kind of difficult to find - but it is amazing oil if you can find it.  If you don't have it, sub olive oil)
4 T olive oil
Salt

Whisk together, taste for salt.  Pour half over salad - you may not use all of the dressing - toss and taste before adding more.  Grind fresh pepper and toss again.

Summer Salad: Haricot Verts

Another Summer Fest Post!  This week is beans and greens.

I never made it through the 101 Simple Summer Salads article in the NY Times a few weeks ago.  And by "made it through" I don't mean making them all.  I mean reading them all.  I didn't even get past the first page.  There were so many great salad ideas on the first page that I got a little overwhelmed and didn't go any further.  But that doesn't mean I haven't been making salads for dinner this summer. 

I've been inspired by two recent discoveries in the farmers markets.  First, radishes.  I've realized that I really love radishes - even just cut into chunks, lightly salted, eaten right off the cutting board.  But they are also a great addition to almost any salad.  The second thing is the goat cheese feta that I found at a stand at the Brooklyn Borough Hall farmers market.  It's sweet and salty and not too overpowering. 

Earlier this week I found some haricot verts (French green beans that are longer and thinner than most American varieties) at the Union Square market on my way home, so I put together this simple salad with my new favorites.

Haricot Vert Salad

1 lb haricot verts (or young, thing regular green beans)
2 small gherkin cucumbers
3 medium radishes
2 small spring onions or 4 scallions
1/3 cup crumbled feta
Salt
Pepper


Dressing*
1 clove garlic, smashed
1/2 small shallot, minced
1 T dijon mustard
1/4 cup white wine or rice vinegar
1/2 t salt
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 T olive oil

Trim the beans and place in a vegetable steamer over boiling water.  Steam for 4-6 minutes, stirring a few times until the beans have changed color and have a nice aroma.  Don't steam them too long (to the point where they are flimsy) You want them to be crunchy and crisp.  Immediately run under cold water and set aside.  Slice the gherkins, radishes and the onions in thin slices with a mandoline.  Place in a bowl with the cooled beans, crumble the feta cheese on top.

For the dressing, smash the garlic in the bottom of a small bowl.  Mix in the shallot, mustard, vinegar, salt and lemon juice.  Slowly whisk in the olive oil.  Pour half of the dressing over the salad and mix well.  Let it sit and marinate for 15 -20 minutes.  If desired, add more dressing, and taste for salt.  Crack fresh pepper over the top just before serving.

*This is actually the same dressing I made for the Fava Bean Salad I posted awhile ago (with the addition of some shallots).  I had some left over, so I thought I'd try it here.

Plum Chutney

I'm participating in Summer Fest 2009 - the month-long blog food extravaganza.  This week's theme is Fruit from trees, and rather than doing a pie or a desert, I thought I'd so something different: chutney! 

I'm a relatively recent convert to chutney - but what a convert I am!  I actually can't eat Indian food or most curries now unless I have a sweet/vinegary chutney to counter balance the spicy/savory of Indian curries.  Last year, I made a sweet tomato chutney from a recipe by Madhur Jaffrey from her book "World-of-the-East Vegetarian Cooking."  But this year, with all of the news on the east coast about the tomato blight, I decided to make a chutney from something different (I'll just have to ration that last 1/2 pint of tomato chutney I have left).

Walking around the farmers market after work, I saw that plums were just going out of season, so I bought a couple of pounds.  I got a few responses to my Twitter query (Twuery?) for good plum chutney recipes (thanks to @FoodPreserver1 and @crankycakes).  I took some basics from these, but then added the spice mixture idea, garam masala, common in Indian food, to give it a little more spice (not hot spice, but spicy spice).  I grind my own spices in a coffee grinder (that is only used for grinding spices), but if you can't do this, you can usually get garam masala mixes in many asian grocery stores.

I used what were sold as "sugar plums," which had dark skin and a dark red flesh, but when I make this again I will probably use a different type that has firmer yellow flesh.  I would also make sure that they are just on the edge of ripe - mine were too ripe and weren't easy to cut and also resulted in a chutney that is a little less chunky than I would like it to be.

Serve this chutney with Indian curries, as an addition to a cheese plate or in a sandwich (turkey or chicken with brie and this chutney would be amazing)It would also go really well with meats like lamb or pork.

Plum Chutney

2 T yellow mustard seeds
3 lbs plums, cut into quarters
1 1/4 cups raw sugar (I used Sugar in the Raw)
1 1/4 cups white vinegar
1/2 cup white onion
4 cloves garlic, chopped
1 T kosher salt

2 whole star anise
1 t whole cloves
1/2 t whole allspice
1/2 t whole cardamom

2 cinnamon sticks

If you are going to put up this chutney, wash 5-6 half-pint jars and lids.  Get the water bath canner ready, but don't start heating until 15 minutes or so before the chutney is done cooking.

Cut up the plums (leaving the skin on) and put aside.  Put the whole spices (with the exception of the cinnamon sticks and mustard seeds) in a spice grinder and pulse until finely ground.  Heat a heavy bottom pot and add the mustard seeds to the dry pot.  Watch them carefully, and when they start to pop and jump, turn down the heat and add the plums.  Add the remaining ingredients including all of the remaining spices.  Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and simmer until significantly reduced, about 50 minutes to an hour. 

Stir occasionally, but towards the end, stir frequently, making sure it doesn't stick to the bottom.  I always try to cook chutneys a little longer than I think they should be cooked - they always turn out better that way.  The chutney should be thick, dark and somewhat shiny and you should be able to see the bottom of the pot as you stir it.

Sterilize your jars, and fill each leaving a 1/2 inch headroom.  Process for 20 minutes in a boiling water bath canner.  If you don't want to can this, the chutney will keep in the refrigerator for several weeks.

Makes 5-6 half pints.

Pickled Beets

Amongst friends, I'm kind of known for a few food specialties: Molasses sugar cookies, any kind of pie and pickled beets.  I've been reluctant to share the recipes for the cookies and the beets - the cookies because it's a recipe from my grandmother that was one of her favorites and the beets because they are good enough that even people who don't like beets have told me they like them.  I've decided to share the beet recipe (with all of the 35 of you that are reading this blog...)

Standard pickled beet recipes use spices like cinnamon, cloves and/or allspice to enhance (or some would say 'mask') the beet taste that some people say resembles dirt.  I love the earthy flavor of beets, but for some people it can be overpowering.   I picked up this recipe from an ex-roommate in San Francisco that uses umeboshi which is itself a pickled fruit  (usually called umeboshi plums, but they are actually related to apricots).  I've used both versions of umeboshi for pickling beets - the paste or whole plums  that you can get at most asian food markets, or the umeboshi vinegar  that you can find in most health food stores.  I'm not particularly fond of the cinnamon-y flavor of most pickled beets, but you can, if you want, add a stick of cinnamon and/or some whole allspice to one or several jars before you seal them up.  But in general, these pickled beets are more savory than sweet.

If you haven't had pickled beets before, you might wonder what you actually do with them.  I always tell people they can do the same things they would do with any pickle: put them on a sandwich, add them to a salad, eat them on their own.  My favorite way of eating them is with a little chunk of multigrain bread (or a simple water craker), some extra sharp cheddar (Canadian or English) and a few slices of pickled beets.

 

This recipe uses rice vinegar.  I only use unseasoned Japanese rice vinegar (which is clear), not seasoned or Chinese rice vinegar (which is dark colored).  Rice vinegar is only 4.2% acidity, which technically is not recommended for boiling water bath canning (recommended 5% acidity).  I do it anyway and I've never had a problem (I don't dilute the vinegar with water as many recipes that use regular vinegar suggest).  But if you aren't comfortable with this, make a smaller batch and just keep them in the refrigerator.  They will last for several weeks in the refrigerator.

Pickled Beets

1 dozen medium beets
1 1/2 cups unseasoned rice vinegar
1 small head garlic, minced (about 5-7 cloves)
1/2 c ume plum vinegar (or 1 tablespoon ume plum (mashed) and 1/2 c more rice vinegar)
2 t kosher salt
optional cinnamon sticks (1/2 for each half-pint jar) and whole allspice berries (can also use cloves)

Before you start cooking, wash 8 half pint jars and new lids.  Put the canning pot on to start heating. 

Wash beets, peel and cut into bite sized slices (some people cook whole beets then peel them, I've had issues with beets cooking evenly that way, so I peel and cut before I steam them).  Steam in a vegetable steamer or a pot with a steamer basket for 20 - 25 minutes, stirring occasionally until tender but not mushy.  While the beets are cooking, in a glass bowl mix together the rest of the ingredients including the cinnamon and allspice.  Immediately after the beets are done cooking, add the hot beets to the vinegar mixture.  Stir well.  If you're going to can the beets, prepare jars for filling by sanitizing them in boiling water. 

Fill each jar with beets, leaving about 1/2 inch of headroom, then pour remaining vinegar solution evenly into each jar.  Add 1/2 cinnamon stick and 1 or 2 nutmeg berries to each jar (or add to some and not to others) if you are using spices.  Seal jars and process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes.

Makes 7 half pints

Fava Bean Salad

Looking back through my posts from the last few months, I've realized that I actually haven't been providing a lot of usable food information, (that is food information in the form of recipes).  I've been a little obsessed with pickles and pickling (a pickled beet recipe is coming soon - once they've had time to cure and I can verify that they really worked), but pickles are condiments, and not really full meals, and therefore aren't especially useful to someone who's trying to feed themselves or their family.  So it's time for a useful recipe.

Even though it's been a cool and rainy summer in NYC so far I've also been making a lot of different salads.    I got some of the last fava beans from the farmers market last week, and decided that rather than pureeing them into a tapenade or topping for bruschetta, I'd make a salad of some sort.  The edible/non edible ratio of fava beans is pretty low, and you need to get A LOT of whole unshucked fava beans to get a little bit of actual fava beans.  There is the tough outer shell, then a thin inner skin that you need to remove from each bean, so they actually aren't easy beans to make.   I knew it needed to be a salad that had fava beans as a component rather than as the main ingredient.  I like to make bean salads a little ahead of when I serve them so they have time to marinate and soak up the dressing and meld all of the flavors together.

This salad is great as a side to a Mediterranean dinner: Grilled or broiled merguez sausage, cous-cous pilaf and fava bean salad.  Or just use a cracker or a slice of bread and scoop it up.

Fava Bean Salad:
1 1/2 cups of fresh fava beans* (you get about 1/2 cup of fava beans for every pound you buy, so plan on 3 lbs)
1 large radish, diced
1 small red onion, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 scallions sliced
1/2 large tomato, or 1 small tomato
1/2 cup chopped fresh mint
Salt & Pepper to taste
Crumbled feta cheese

Dressing:
1 clove garlic, smashed
1 T dijon mustard
1/4 cup white wine or rice vinegar
1/2 t salt
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 T olive oil

Remove the fava beans from their shells and blanch for 2 minutes in boiling water.  Soak in cold water for 30 seconds then remove skins from the beans.   Steam or pan sear the shelled fava beans for 5-8 minutes. 

Add all salad ingredients including the fava beans to a medium bowl and toss together. 

For the dressing, smash the garlic in a small bowl.  Add the mustard, vinegar, salt and lemon juice.  Mix well.  Slowly whisk in the olive oil.

Pour the dressing over the salad ingredients, mix well, taste for salt.  Let sit at room temperature for 1 hour, or in the fridge for longer.  Serve with crumbled feta cheese and fresh ground pepper on the top.

*The photo is of the version of this I made with Trader Joe's Steamed vacuum packed fava beans.  It was different, but just as good.

List Post: A Cornucopia of Food Blogs

Back in the olden days of the internet, in the late 90's, before hosted blogging tools like Blogger, Typepad and Livejournal, it was relatively difficult to post your thoughts and photos online, have people comment about them, deliver almost real-time notifications of updates and get real-time stats on who's been visiting.  The challenge then was how to get content online.  The challenge now is that it has become so easy, fast and in many cases free to post content online, that the number of blogs and content on niche subjects is overwhelming.  Technorati has some interesting statistics on "the state of the blogosphere".  Since I started this blog and joined the fray, I've realized that food bloggers are a huge group (271 people have tagged themselves on Twitter as being "foodbloggers" and I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg).  The issue for me has been figuring out which blogs I want to read on a regular basis.

There are several things I've come to realize about my use of food blogs in compiling this list. First, I've relied on Twitter way more than Google for referrals and links to new blogs that I wasn't previously familiar with. Second, I definitely have noticed a 'birds of a feather' syndrome - both on blogs and on Twitter.   People link to to similar blogs on blogrolls and follow similar 'Tweeps' on Twitter.  I started following a locavore food blogger and subsequently was following and was followed by lots of other locavore food bloggers.  When I tweeted something about a diet I was on, I got several followers who wrote blogs about diets and nutrition.   Third I really don't like using RSS - or I haven't found the right RSS reader.  I'd much rather go directly to each blog and read posts in context.  I think this method works well for blogs that are updated at most once a day - the general publication scheudle of most food blogs that I read. 

Despite all of the blog content I consume on a daily basis, and the fact that I've started my own food blog, I really don't think that blogs are the best medium for recipes.  Two things that I want to do with a recipe when I find one are to 'save' it for future reference (a digital version of clipping it from the newspaper and sticking it in a binder or folder somewhere) and/or to print it so I can either make it right away or save it for future use.   Neither of these things are easily possible with most blogs in the way they are formatted.   You have to use a 3rd party for saving (del.icio.us or other bookmarking tool) and either print a whole long post or cut and paste to print.  Most of the online recipe sites have added this sort of functionality, but most blogs don't have it.  Lastly, in general Google does a lousy job of finding recipes on food blogs.  Unless you know the specific title of the post, or unless is particularly popular, rarely do you get results for blog posts in a Google search.  I haven't found a good search tool for finding recipes posted on blogs.

So here's my list of blogs that I've been reading and using in the past few months.  It doesn't include blogs that are only about restaurants or the restaurant scene (like Grub Street which I read occasionally).  I'll probably add to and remove items from this list in the future.

Cookbook Review: Well-Preserved by Eugenia Bone

There's been a lot in the press lately about preserving food at home:  canning, curing and pickling.  Maybe it's because of the bad economy, or maybe because of the growing movement for people to be closer to and more in touch with the food they consume.  Since 1967 with the "Fair Packaging and Labeing Act", the ingredients of any packaged food must be listed on the label.   But beyond having the ability to decipher what some of the ingredients actually are, are you ever really sure what's in the packaged food you buy? 

From the article on Salon last week about home canning, the discussion in the letters  was both about whether or not home canning really can be economical (the article starts out with the author stating that she's eating a $17.00 peanut butter sandwich because she spent so much money on the homemade jam in it) or if it's just a anachronistic craft and a craze that guilty city dwellers partake in to make themselves feel better about themselves.  For me, the answer is "sorta both."

I live in Brooklyn.  I don't have a garden, and for the past few years, I haven't belonged to a CSA.  My only source of fresh vegetables is the farmers markets that dot the city and my occasional trip to Vermont, upstate NY or Pennsylvania.  As anyone who's shopped at farmers markets in the city, even when produce is in season and plentiful, it's often not cheap.  But I really enjoy the process and hard work that goes into making jam, chutney, pickles and other condiments that can easily be preserved (either canned or frozen), and I'm always proud of the end product.

That's why I especially like Well-Preserved by Eugenia Bone .  Though it does give good, basic instructions on the process of preserving food, the real focus of the book is how you can make small batches of preservable foods that become pivot points for meals that you can make all year long.  The book is structured into sections on types of food - fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, & fungi and meats and fish.  Within each section, there are several "master recipes" - for things like Brandied Figs, Meyer Lemons, Preserved Zucchini and Sauerkraut, followed by recipes for meals and dishes that use the "master recipe."

Although I've only tried one recipe in this book so far, I wanted to review it now, mainly because it's summer and it's time to be inspired by some of these recipes and start putting stuff up.

How it stacks up to the cookbook review criteria:

1 T flr&sug - Otherwise known as Twitter Recipes

One of the first things I remember from my 4-H cooking class was learning the difference between a 'T' and a 't' when you read or wrote down a recipe.  The difference in case could mean a successful recipe or a total disaster.  A lot of experienced cooks start with a recipe and add or remove or replace ingredients as they are inspired to do, so an accurate detailed recipe isn't often required.  The same isn't true of baking. Some experienced bakers know enough about the science of baking to know proportions and required ingredients, but for many, exact amounts and detailed instructions are necessary.

When I started this blog, I expanded my Twitter followings to a lot of food related tweets.  I did a search for cooking, food, recipes and randomly followed a bunch of people.   I found others to follow based on tweets in my feed.  Some of the more intriguing posts came from @cookbook  (definitely a Twitter name that many, many people/companies wish they'd gotten first...) who tweets recipes in a severely abbreviated form.  For example, here's a recipe that was posted on June 10th:

Apricot Platz: Mennonite. Mix8T milk&sug/c flour/t bkgpdr&vanil/5T mltbutter/egg. Top w 8halvedfruit/mixed 6T butter&flour&sug. h@175C/350F.

I was on the fence about this at first.  I love the fact that Twitter has inspired a concise way of writing.  For some writers, this means normal grammar and rules, but choosing your words very carefully.  For others, it means creating a new grammar and language that uses abbreviations and short cuts in similar to texting.  For general thoughts, opinions, feelings, references to more detailed information, this new form of grammar is fine.  But for any type of information where details are important, Twitter fails.  From a usability point of view, recipes on Twitter fail miserably.

Take the example above.  If I reference the glossary  "Mix8T milk&sug/c flour/t bkgpdr&vanil/5T mltbutter/egg" I think means 8 tablespoons of milk and 8 tablespoons of sugar.  But how much flour and baking powder and vanilla? According to the glossary,  "/" means "and another amount."  But what that other amount is isn't clear.  But beyond the amounts and ingredients, this recipe has no context for me.  I assume from the list of ingredients (milk, sugar, flour, vanilla, egg, fruit) that it is some sort of cake.  But what kind of cake?  I have to Google "Apricot Platz" to find out that it's a coffee-type cake with fruit on top.  What sort of pan do I use?  How long do I bake it?  What is it going to look like in the end?  I need a lot more information that simply cannot be conveyed in 140 characters. 

The other usability issue I have with this format is a lack of scan-ability.  I think it is important to be able to scan through a recipe and either mentally or physically note that you have the required ingredients, the right tools, the amount of time necessary to prepare it.  Twitter recipes require an extra level of translation that makes them more complicated and easier to make mistakes.   Recipes on Twitter are the opposite of what a real recipe offers, where context, photos and details inspire and instruct.

I would have much less of an issue with recipes on Twitter if there was a link to a more detailed recipe.  I would be happy to get a new Twitter recipe every day from multiple sources (Martha Stewart  has started tweeting recipes as well) that provided a quick link to the detailed recipe.  This to me is the power of Twitter:  a one to many relationship that allows people to easily publish content and create their own feeds of content based on keywords and that is influenced by what other people are reading, re-tweeting and saying.

Here's an alternate opinion.

Blog Review - Smitten Kitchen

I think I have fairly standard blog reading habits.  I have several favorite blogs that I visit every day (some several times a day), and a few others that I visit when I remember to or when I have time to.  I've never been a big user of RSS - or rather I subscribe to RSS feeds (via My Yahoo just because that's where I started doing RSS years ago) but I actually never visit My Yahoo page and see what's there.  RSS never really gave me enough information or context.  Twitter has changed my blog reading behavior somewhat - I will now go a read a blog post that has been mentioned on Twitter.  I also rely on del.icio.us to keep track of and categorize my favorites.

I've bookmarked a lot of food blogs in the past few months.  In general, I find that there are three different types: blogs about dining, food and food issues (locavore blog , NYTimes Diners Journal ); blogs by chefs, 'food personalities' or more professional publications or organziations, (Dorrie Greenspan,  Martha Stewart, David Lebovitz , the kitchen - a food spin-off of Apartment Therapy ) and 'amateur' blogs - ones that are written by non-professional cooks and feature recipes and thoughts about the recipes (big girls, small kitchen,  Much Depends on Dinner , Orangette).  It's a lot of writing, recipes and thoughts to keep up with.  But I've found a few that have been really inspiring - not only making me want to cook, but making me want to write in my own blog.

My most recent favorite is Smitten Kitchen.  It has all of the things I value in a blog:  great content that is well written, really nice photos and there's a personality behind it that comes through not only in the writing, but in the choice of topics and recipes.  Other things: unlike many food blogs, it has a categorized recipe index. It has a conversions and equivalents page!  There is also a very extensive links page (a blog roll) "Good Reads" that provides links to many different food blogs and other blogs of interest.

Another Favorite Summer Fruit - Sour Cherries

When I started writing this blog, I signed up for a bunch of email newsletters from different sites and publications.  Some of them have been good (Serious Eats) but some have been really inspiring.  One of the most inspiring ones has been the "Gourmet Weekly" from Gourmet Magazine.  And according to the email I got today it's Sour Cherry season! 

I haven't seen them yet at the farmers market, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled and will grab them when they come in because the season is very short.  Last year I got a few pounds, froze half of them and used the rest to make sour cherry and rhubarb compote - a delicious treat with granola and Greek yogurt, ice cream or almost any kind of cake.  It's definitely helpful to have a cherry pitter, (I have one of these, which also works for olives) but apparently you can also pit cherries with a paperclip.

Pickled Daikon

 

Update:  A photo!

I love Korean food, partly because of the mix of sweet, sour and spicy condiments or Banchan that many Korean restaurants give you with your main dish.   Especially places like Han Bat on 35th  street - my favorite cheap Korean place.  I recently got some Kimchi from the people that sell different banchan and greens and things at the Ft. Greene farmers market, but I was inspired to make my own pickled daikon when I noticed they hand some nice fresh organic daikon for sale.  I had ordered a new cookbook "Well-Preserved" by Eugenia Bone, which promised lots of pickle recipes,  but hadn't gotten it yet, so I looked around online for a good pickled daikon recipe.

Rhubarb Mustard

Obviously, this spring I've been obsessed with rhubarb.  I've also been spending a lot of time reading, subscribing and following food blogs, websites and twitter feeds.   I'm on the fence about the realization of this idea, because I think it's unclear, but I love the idea!  I've re-discovered Gourmet Magazine, and last week, they had a recipe for rhubarb something, which had a link to 'other recipes with rhubarb' - a super important function on all recipe and food websites.   One of the linked recipes was for Rhubarb mustard.  I love rhubarb, and I love mustard, and I hadn't ever heard or read about fruit mustards, (or mostarda di frutta), so I thought I'd try it out.

Rhubarb Mustard (from Gourmet Magazine)

3/4 cup yellow mustard seeds
1/2 cup brown mustard seeds
1/2 teaspoon fenugreek seeds
3 cups rhubarb cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/2 cup sugar
Just under 1 3/4 cup vinegar (cider vinegar, mostly likely)
1/2 teaspoon salt

Grind the mustard and fenugreek seeds into a fine powder, leaving some portion of the yellow mustard seeds whole. Put everything in a wide pot and cook over medium heat until the rhubarb is helplessly soft. Add a splash of sweet wine at the end if you want to; run it though the coarse disc of a food mill if you like things smooth rather than chunky. Process 15 minutes in a boiling water bath if you want to keep it on the shelf.

The thing was, I couldn't find whole mustard seeds anywhere in my Brooklyn neighborhood (I know immediately where to find them in Manhattan, and I probably could have gotten them at any of these places as well).  I had about a half cup of them from chutney I made last summer, but that was it.  I was able to find already ground powdered mustard (organic), and I was a little unsure of the proportions, but I thought I'd give it a try.  

I wasn't super happy with the results at first, but I had some last night as a condiment with fish, and it was actually really good! I think though, if I made it again, I would make sure to have whole mustard seeds, and I would do what they recommend later in the recipe - cook the fruit first, then when the fruit is soft, add the vinegar and mustard and cook for another 5 minutes before putting it in jars, rather than cooking all of the ingredients at the same time.  Because mustard loses some of it's flavor when you cook it, it would hopefully be much more 'mustardy' tasting if you add it at the end.  I would probably also use another vinegar besides cider vinegar because I don't particularly like the smell of cider vinegar vs. something like rice vinegar or wine vinegar.

Maybe later this summer, I'll try it again with another sort of fruit. 

A List Post: Recipe Websites

As a kind of experiment, I signed up for Pro Blogger's  "31 Day's to Building A Better Blog".   At first I assumed it was going to be a bunch of nonsense advice about linking to other sites, sticking ads all over your blog and basic SEO pointers.  But, I've actually found that it has inspired me to write more posts than I had been previously, and I feel like the author, Darren Rowse has some really good advice about promoting yourself and your blog.  He sends out an email each day with a task, some of them to write posts, and some of them to guide you towards defining your blog further.  It might not be for everyone, but I've found it helpful.  Day 2 (I'm a little bit behind...) was the task of creating a "List Post," so here is mine:

Online Recipe Sites:

I use the internet a lot when I'm looking for recipes - either for alternate versions of recipes I have in cookbooks, or to find recipes that I don't have.  My general search pattern is to do a Google search from my Firefox browser search bar and see what comes up.  If I don't find anything (generally on the first page of results), I'll go to specific recipe sites and do individual searches.  Between Google results and my own 'favorite' sites, here's a list of the sites that I visit frequently, along with some new sites I've just discovered, and a basic summary of each.  I intend to do more detailed reviews of some of these sites in the near future - hopefully another regularly occurring feature.  I'll bet you can't wait.

1. Sites that come from magazines:
Epicurious
Epicurious is the online conglomeration of different Conde Nast food titles including Gourmet, Bon Appetit, Cookie, Self, Parade and Nutrition data.  This site has a lot of useful functionality: Good search; community functionality; active forums; great editorial content from the partner magazines; multiple blogs; great photos and videos; good recipes also from the partner titles.   Because content comes from multiple sources, each with a different market or demographic, the type and focus of recipes on the site is varied, which I think is a good thing.  All of the partner sites also each have their own sites, some with recipes, some without. I'm on the fence about that, but more on that later.
Martha Stewart *
The virtual world of Martha Stewart is as vast and information filled as I'm sure her real world is.  The site not only has recipes and editorial content about food, but content about the whole Martha Stewart lifestyle (Entertaining! Crafts! Holidays!).   I find the site very difficult to browse - there is so much content - photos, video, editorial - that I often get lost.  There are lots of links to "Best X Recipes"  (where X=chicken or summer or quiche) but when you click on the link, you get photos or slide shows (rather than a list of recipes) and have to click multiple times to get to the recipes.  I do find it inspiring, but I don't use it often.


2. Sites from TV networks  (specifically the Food Network):
Food Network
I don't have cable TV, so I am admitedly unfamiliar with many of the personalities and shows that are featured on this site. I think that if I knew who some of the personalities were, it would definitely influence my experience of this site.  Obviously, I do know some of them (I think Rachel Ray is annoying and relies too much on prepared food, Bobby Flay sold out and Emeril is just annoying) but I'm not a fan of this site.  Because it's TV, it relies too much on video which I think only works well for instructional type content.
Food 2
Another Food Network site that exists only as a website and is targeted towards a younger demographic who are interested in food and cooking.  It uses Facebook as a way for users to connect (via Facebook Connect) and features lots of video content as well as recipes and editorial content (blogs, newsletters).  I commend Food Network for taking this step of creating an online only content channel.
Recipezaar
Recipezaar is similar to All Recipes, but with a little more focus on the community, with very limited editorial content.  The forums and discussions in the community section seem to be very active.  This site is also part of the Food Network, but seems to be aimed at an older and/or more suburban demographic.

         (Martha Stewart could be included in this group as well...)

3. Established online recipe sites:
Cooks.com
A soul-less link farm of recipes that often comes up at the top of Google results.  The site is made up of user submitted recipes, and after searching for info about the site, it seems like the real purpose of the site is to allow users to use the site as a way to "never lose your favorite recipes." This is a noble cause, but there is no sense of a user community, no functionality that allows  user comments/reviews and no images, so the site is nothing but text.  I find it totally uninspiring and I don't think I've ever used a recipe from this site.
All Recipes
It used to be that this site came up frequently in Google searches, but less so frequently.  To me, All Recipes is the penultimate recipe site:  it has all of the functionality that a product manager or site user could possibly dream up: accurate and functional search; ability to save recipes; recipe collections (groups of recipes in a common theme/ingredient); an active community that regularly rates and reviews recipes and uploads content (recipes and photos); great browsing features like "recipes like this," recently viewed recipes and top searches; decent editorial content.  But I never use this site unless a recipe comes up in a search.  I'm not sure why.
4. Newer online recipe and community sites:
Foodista
Foodista is a wiki for food that is trying to be "the world's largest, highest quality cooking encyclopedia."  Besides recipes, there is content about techniques and tools, blog content and photos from Flickr that supplement food, tool and technique articles.  Like most wikis, content is edited by anyone who has an account on the site.  The site also has tools that bloggers can add to their sites to increase traffic.  Foodista was created by ex-Amazon people and Amazon is a major investor in the site.
Foodbuzz
Foodbuzz is the realization (by someone else) of an idea that I had in the past week or so.  I've been doing a lot of food blog reading, many of which post good or great recipes, photos and instructions.  But these posts don't always come up in Google searches.  Foodbuzz has created a network of food bloggers (and other people interested in food) and aggregates them all in one place (they claim to have content from over 10,000 food blogs).  Users can search for, comment on and "buzz up" content on the site, vote and see profiles of other users who 'buzzed' the content.  Since all of the content is user generated, there is limited editorial and most of the content featured is by popularity or according to a given ingredient or topic.  Also includes a restaurant guide.

I know there are many more recipe sites, but these are the ones I'm most familiar with and that I use most frequently.  Any suggestions on other sites to use or look at?

Of all of these sites, Food Network, Cooks.com and Recipezaar get the most traffic (according to Compete.com).

*Disclaimer:  I've done work for both Conde Nast (Nutrtion Data) and for Martha Stewart