Eggnog / Poached Pears with Warm Chocolate Sauce / Brussels Sprouts & Grapes

Blog Post & Recipe: Homemade Eggnog

Every season I try to find an excuse to make a version of my grandmother’s simple eggnog recipe. This weekend, we had a small gathering to let kids run amuck and I treated myself and the other parents to the following variation

Blog Post & Recipe: To poach a pear

As poached pear recipes go, this one could be called plain: just pears, water, brown sugar (or golden caster sugar, if you have it), a vanilla bean, and lemon juice. But what I like about it is that you wind up with a poached pear that tastes intensely of pear. The end.

Blog Post & Recipe: Brussels Sprouts and Grapes: A Counterintuitive Holiday Recipe

Brussels sprouts and grapes? the host repeated, incredulous.

Yes, I said. It’s sweet and savory; the grapes release their delicious sugars as they cook, which in turn caramelize the sprouts. You can eat it hot, cold, or at room temperature. You can add anything to it, within reason: toasted walnuts, pine nuts, spicy pepitas, lardons, whole garlic cloves, fresh thyme or rosemary, sea salt. Or nothing at all, which is generally how I like it.

100 Cooking Tips / 3 Recipes with Bread Crumbs / 3 Pear Recipes

Article: 100 Greatest Cooking Tips (of all time!) [via]

Food Network Magazine asked top chefs across the country for their best advice.

Article & Recipes: The California Cook: Mighty, mighty bread crumbs

But what I'd never really realized was the true potential of bread crumbs, how instead of being bland character actors toiling in the background, they can actually become the stars of a dish, or at least a very impressive second lead.

Grilled romaine with radishes, hard-boiled eggs and toasted bread crumbs ... Spaghetti with arugula and garlic bread crumbs ... Swiss chard with golden raisins and lemon bread crumbs

Article & Recipes: Perfect pears

To test to see if a pear is ripe, all you need to do is press the neck of the pear and if it gives a little it is ripe. If it is hard as a rock it needs a bit of time. Pears are rich in fibre and vitamin C – most of this is in the skin, so make sure you are eating some pears in the raw and in their skins to get the maximum nutritional value from them.

PEAR CHUTNEY ... PEAR AND PECORINO SALAD ... POACHED PEARS

Concept: bread crumbs

n.b. M! I'm going to top linking to the New York Times because they've installed a paywall.

Poaching

Article/Recipe: Perfectly poached.

Poaching tips. Includes links to recipes for aromatic poached sea trout with stir-fried rice noodles; poached beef fillet with chicory and pecan nut salad; and caramel poached peaches with raspberries and thyme cream.

One of my favourite methods of cooking is poaching, and yet so many people associate it with bland and boring diet food. The fact that it results in lighter, healthier dishes is just a bonus, if you ask me.

It's also a convenient way of cooking, because you can poach the garnish along with the food and serve both without losing heat or running the risk of over-cooking ­ the ultimate all-in-one method.