My grandmother, Mommom Boyd, is well-known for her cole slaw. She chops the cabbage, carrots, and onion extra-fine and makes the dressing creamy and somewhat sweet. It’s highly requested by church members and friends, and is an absolute must-have at every family gathering. When I was a kid, Mommom would sometimes mix in red cabbage, too. I would marvel at how the bright purple bits would pop off our plates next to the orange carrots.
Like anything purported as easy, biscuits are also notoriously easy to mess up. Simplicity, as it turns out, leaves plenty of room for error. Luckily I have quite a few biscuit makers to call on to discuss the common mistakes people make when preparing biscuits, and even better, the tips you need to know to avoid them all together. So before you get ready to bake up you next batch, here are five mistakes you’ll want to steer clear of.
Eat more veggies. We all should be doing it, but let’s face it — sometimes it’s easier said than done. But there are plenty of recipes you can make that give you a veggie boost without a lot of extra effort.
Make any of these vegetable-filled dishes this week and soon you’ll realize that getting those veggies in is easier and tastier than you might have thought.
Growing up in 1970s and 1980s Moscow, my day began and ended with tea. Always in a cup with a saucer, in the mornings it accompanied a breakfast of eggs or a cheese sandwich and in the evenings a dushevni (or soulful) conversation with my mother.
If you needed another reason to add to the list of why you’d probably never want to be cornered at a party with me, I should tell you I’m more than a normal level of fascinated by the intersection of tomatoes and cucumbers in salads around the world. And I want to talk about it.
Because, seriously, can we go on a cucumber-tomato salad summer world tour? From the classic Greek salad (horiatiki), to the Palestinian/Arab/Israeli salads in their infinite variations, their close cousins, the shepherd’s salads (shirazi in Iran, çoban salatası in Turkey, shopska in Macedonia and Bulgaria), plus the kachumber in India and all of the variants, like fattoush and I’m going to need one of each. I was particularly struck by what Ottolenghi said in the intro to the fattoush salad in his Jerusalem cookbook, that freshly chopped vegetable salads like this are served with every meal and that friends visiting London often complained of feeling like they ate ‘unhealthily’ because there weren’t fresh salad with each meal.
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What is a Swedish meatball? Köttbullar, like all traditional recipes, have thousands of variations, but what nearly all Swedish meatballs have in common is that they are made of ground pork and beef, use bread and milk as a binder, are covered with a rich gravy, and are served with lingonberry jam.
With this recipe we’re sticking with tradition and delivering meatballs spiced, fried, and sauced to perfection. The next time the craving for classic Swedish meatballs hits, nix the trip to IKEA and makes these instead.
My annual Christmas party isn’t a party without the giant bowl of punch I whip up every year, but when it comes time for warm-weather entertaining, I seek out other options. Punch isn’t exactly well-suited for backyard imbibing (the bowl is extra large and often extra fragile), which is why I’ve come to love pitcher cocktails. Just like punch, they satisfy a crowd, but since they’re pourable, they’re better suited for the casual nature of spring and summer parties.
But there’s a key to great pitcher cocktails, and it’s something you might not expect.
People aren’t the only ones who like to escape from their hometowns; animals do, too, but with more serious consequences than being unable to speak a language.
Scientists classify any species that didn’t originate from an environment as invasive. Simply put, it’s something that doesn’t belong. The introduction of a species like this throws off the balance of the ecosystem — and destroys it. “Some of them are very obvious, like invasive insects that destroy the dominant tree,” says Daniel Simberloff, professor of environmental science at the University of Tennessee. “Others change fire cycles, [such as] invasive African grasses.” Another well-known invasive species is the lionfish.
A few weeks back, on a very hot Southern California day, I had a gaggle of girlfriends over for a tea party in a fancy greenhouse to celebrate the launch of my cookbook, Food with Friends: The Art of Simple Gatherings. I went pretty over the top with a decadent menu of nibbles from the book, soul music crooning from under the table, a dress code (yes, I went there!), and finally a beautiful group walk on the beach when it was all over. So far I’ve shared the party plan, a couple recipes from my cookbook, and my party playlist.
Here’s how everything came together.
When it comes to grilling, chicken breasts can be problematic, especially boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The meat itself is lean, and without the bones to insulate it or skin to protect it, that naked chicken breast on the grill has a tendency to easily overcook and dry out.
So, what to do?
One method is to marinate chicken cutlets, or chicken breasts pounded to an even thickness, and quickly grill them on high heat. We use this method for our cilantro lime chicken and it works fine.
Another way, which doesn’t require you to change the shape of the chicken breasts,
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