Condiments and Sauces
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Brown Butter
Brown butter. You’ve probably noticed it in recipes and on restaurant menus a lot lately. It’s become a popular ingredient in recent years, and for good reason – it makes everything more delicious. I mean, butter itself makes everything better, so it makes sense that butter, heated until it browns and gives off a deliciously nutty scent, would improve everything it touches. Browning butter is not complicated – all you need is butter, a heavy-bottomed, preferably light-colored saucepan, and a rubber spatula. The only tricky part is making sure your butter turns nicely brown without burning. This, I’ve found, really just takes patience and practice. Steps Melt your butter in…
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Fennel Pesto – a Twist on Your Favorite Pasta Sauce
I’ve been loving our local Farmer’s Markets lately. Our growing season here in Northern Minnesota is short, so it’s especially exciting when we start to see fresh veggies at the market. I feel the need to use and preserve as many of them as possible while I can. My newest love is this Fennel Pesto. I’ve eaten my fair share of fennel bulb – I usually roast it until caramelized and toss it on a salad. But I’ve never utilized the lovely green fronds before. The fronds on the fennel I’ve gotten at the farmer’s market lately have been so lush that I couldn’t bear to toss them out, so…
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Buffalo Cauliflower Tacos with Cilantro-Lime Crema
I love tacos (who doesn’t?). Any type of taco will do, really – especially if it has lots of delicious toppings. (Ok, maybe I eat tacos primarily for the toppings – so sue me.) And though I’m not a vegetarian, I do love veggies, and am always looking for new ways to eat them. Recently I stumbled on the idea of buffalo cauliflower (cauliflower smothered in buffalo sauce? Yes please!), and even more importantly, buffalo cauliflower IN TACOS. I found a great-looking recipe on thissavoryvegan.com, and decided to try it out. Of course I had to make a few tweaks, because that’s just what I do. I added Poblano peppers…
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Kimchi
File this under “foods I eat when I’ve had too much sugar”. Or “foods I eat all the time because they’re delicious”. Both work. Kimchi has become one of my favorite foods over the past few years – so much so that I had to start making my own because my kimchi habit was costing me a fortune! It’s a good thing I did, because now I get to enjoy both the eating of kimchi and the process of making it. Win-win. Kimchi Background and Resources Kimchi, if you’re not familiar with it, is a spicy fermented cabbage, most often used as a side dish or condiment. If you’ve had…
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Homemade Dulce de Leche
I’m a big caramel fan. I love it all – caramel lattes, caramel apples, caramel corn, even fake caramel-flavored coffee (though I’m embarrassed to admit that!). But my absolute, hands-down favorite is the thick, creamy, completely addicting caramel sauce known as Dulce de Leche (Spanish for “candy of milk”). This treat is made by slowly cooking sweetened milk until it caramelizes and thickens, resulting in one of the most delicious things ever. This recipe is the simplest way I’ve seen to make Dulce de Leche. You boil UNOPENED (yes, really) cans of sweetened condensed milk in a water bath for a few hours, and BAM! Just like magic, you have…
