Faced with a bunch of oddly cut pork chops that needed to be used up, I turned to one of my favorite recipes for them: It’s from the cookbook 1,000 Italian Recipes by Michele Scicolone.
Read morePork Chops with Mushrooms & Red Wine
Pasta with Grated Tomato
Perhaps it was kismet that the day after I read a New York Times recipe for Grated Tomato Pasta, friends dropped by with a box load of farm-stand tomatoes. The ripe and juicy beefsteaks were just what the recipe required. Having its few other ingredients on hand, spaghetti, olive oil, garlic, Parmigiano, and basil, also triggered me to prepare the dish the same day.
Read morePizza, Pizza
My obsession with pizza continues. For the last several months, I’ve been experimenting with different dough recipes in an attempt to achieve a pizza with a crust that’s both soft and crunchy. Key to realizing this goal is finding the right percent of hydration, or the ratio of water to flour. Although it sounds pretty easy to do, it’s not. As the quantity of water goes up, the dough gets stickier and more difficult to work with. Sure, you can add a little flour as you go to make the dough more manageable, but add too much, and there goes the balance.
Read moreOven Barbecue Chicken
Because of the heat wave that’s been gripping most of the country, along with the frequent extreme temperature warnings, we had planned to make some barbecued chicken leg quarters on our outdoor grill. It had been a sunny day with temps hovering around 85 degrees; but then an hour before we were planning to grill, Mother Nature intervened with a torrential rain storm that our weather app said would continue for most of the evening.
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Cooking from Books 