The Bitten Word

Our Test Kitchen Tour

As you might remember, visiting a food magazine test kitchen is something that's been on our list of Culinary Resolutions for two years now. 

Last Friday, we finally had the opportunity to make that resolution a reality. Where'd we go? We'll let this photo do to talking:

Yep! We were fortunate enough to be given a tour of the offices of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, in New York. We had the best time!  And of course we wanted to share our photos with you.

So come along!

Photos from Spring

We've had a busy start to the year, but between our jobs and other projects, we've squeezed in a few long weekends away and a lot of really great meals. We feel really lucky to have so many opportunities to do fun things and eat good food with people we love, and we want to share some of that with you.

So here's a selection of photos and stories from our lives these past few months.

 

Our favorite Thai restaurant in DC is owned by three friends, and they've started serving Thai brunch. There's such a thing as Thai brunch? We had no idea, either! But in March we got invited to a "test brunch" as they were working on the menu. We loved a lot of the dishes, especially the Thai donuts, a delicious rice soup with a soft, creamy egg, and sweet ginger soup with soy curd. But we were especially enamored with these kanom krok (pictured above). They're delicate little shells filled with sweet coconut milk. Delicious. 

Jeni's Winners

We have had the most fun over the past few days reading all your awesome ice cream flavor ideas!

We've tried not to play favorites (and don't worry -- the cookbook winners have been chosen at random anyway). But some of these flavor combos sound amazing. Fig, Nectarine & Bleu Cheese Ice Cream with a Balsamic Ripple. Guinness Ice Cream with Chunks of Salted Pretzel. Goat Cheese Ice Cream with Honey, Strawberries, Candied Pecans & Basil. Sweet Japanese Sake Ice Cream with Black Cherries. Mmm!

(Also, we have to give reader Linda a shout-out for naming her banana-and-chocolate ice cream The Bluth Banana. That one made us chuckle, and it reminded us of a killer bumper sticker we saw last week. If you don't know what we're talking about, you need to marathon "Arrested Development" immediately.)

Can we please all quit our day jobs and open an ice cream shop together? 

Which brings us back to the cookbook giveaway. Which three Bitten Word readers won a copy of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home?

Dream Up an Ice Cream Flavor and Win a Copy of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home

This week, we've been talking about our latest kitchen obsession, Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. We've told you about the amazing Salty Caramel, and the yummy, fruity Pineapple and Sage flavor we tried. (And we've got a great final flavor coming up tomorrow!)

But what we really wanted to do is share Jeni's book with a few lucky readers of The Bitten Word. So we're doing a giveaway!  We reached out to Jeni's team earlier this week, and they graciously helped us out. So we're giving away a copy of Jeni's book to three of you!

Here's how you can win a copy.

When Food Photos Go Bad...

We thought you'd get a kick out of this photo, which shows the small-scale disaster that occurred while we were trying to photograph a slice of the Blackberry-Cream Layer Cake we wrote about yesterday.

We were trying to capture the light coming in through the back door of our kitchen, so we balanced the cake on a cutting board on our stovetop. Something fell on the board, the cake went flying and ultimately it did a face plant on our kitchen floor.

Too bad! (And you have no proof that we scooped part of this off the floor and ate it, so quit insinuating that we did.)

The 9 Food Magazine Recipes We Revisit Most Often

Cooking through food magazines is great. But there's a downside to spending so much time testing new recipes that we want to feature the blog: We very rarely make the same thing twice.

Still, there are a number of recipes that we've returned to time and again because they're just so darn good. 

Here are the 9 food magazine recipes we've featured on the blog that we revisit most often. You can click the images below to go directly to those posts. And below the photos you can read a bit of new commentary about each dish. 

   

   

   

Here's why we keep coming back to these recipes:

Chicken and Israeli Couscous with Tomato and Lemon: This recipe taught us to love Israeli couscous, and it's a love affair that's still ongoing. 

Eggplant Parmesan For Two: It's our all-time favorite eggplant recipe and indispensable in the summer when our CSA share gets eggplant heavy. 

Baked Eggs in Tomato-Parmesan Sauce: Often called Eggs in Purgatory, we've seen similar recipes in magazines ever since we first made these in 2008. They're a go-to weeknight meal for us. Crusty bread optional but highly encouraged.. 

Scrambled Eggs with Ramps and Asparagus: We make this dish every spring and we've already made it once this month. When we can get them, we use ramps. Other times we just use asparagus. To us, this dish is April. 

Soy-Glazed Flank Steak: Our go-to for a simple flank steak. We've made it so many times that we don't even refer to recipe anymore. The marinade is just great. 
 
Fresh Corn Pancakes: Every summer we can't wait for fresh corn to come into season so we can make these pancakes. If you can't wait, sub in frozen sweet corn. They're better with fresh, but sometimes you just need a fix. 

Overnight Oatmeal: Steel-Cut Oats in 10 Minutes: When we first learned how to shortcut cooking steel cut oats from Food & Wine, it was a revelation. The recipe is printed on just about every oats package, but every time we make oats using this method, we think of F&W. 

Chili-Rubbed Pork Tenderloin: Another recipe from way back in 2008. Martha taught us how to properly make a pork tenderloin and we've been doing it that way ever since. 

Risotto with Butternut Squash and Sage: It's a basic risotto but absolutely delicious. We've been thinking about it (and making it again) ever since 2008. 

 

Do you have favorite food magazine recipes you revisit all the time? Share the love! 

 

Backyard Visitor

Last Friday, we came home to find a surprise.

Just outside our kitchen door, where we have two planters that hang off our back staircase, a bird had made itself at home, right in the middle of our chive plant.

Barrelling out the backdoor, unaware that we had a new resident, we and the bird startled each other. She took off, revealing a nice surprise. 

The Reluctant Gardeners

Last fall, we were a bit ambivalent about whether or not we'd garden again this year. We got a lot of enjoyment out of watching our plants grow, but we were also disappointed by our overall yield, and as we shared in the wrap-up of last season, even our small garden is a whole lot of work. 

But then winter came, and the seed magazines started showing up. We're immune to the charms of most catalogs, but seed catalogs, with their (sometimes faux) country charm, reel us in every time. 

With a bit of reluctance, we're heading back into the garden. But we're making some changes this year that we think will help simplify our gardening lives. 

In Praise of Bon Appétit: Revisiting the "New" Magazine One Year In

Nearly a year ago, we highlighted the revamped Bon Appétit magazine and the changes that had happened since GQ vet Adam Rapoport had taken over as editor in chief. We expressed a few concerns -- chiefly, a move toward blander, "nicer" photography and a new, cooler-than-thou tone of writing that sometimes came off as grating and a little condescending. But by and large, we were complimentary of those early issues.

A dozen issues have passed since then, so we thought it might be worthwhile to check in on Bon Appétit, and to share some thoughts about what we've observed over the last year. 

But really, we just want to write about Bon App because we're absolutely loving it right now. Month after month, we've each finished reading it and said, "Wow, what a great issue!"

Here's what we're loving. 

How To Stop Using Paper Towels + Other Ways to Cut Kitchen Waste

Earlier this week, we mentioned that we've drastically cut back on our paper towel usage. It's one of the ways we've tried to reduce our kitchen waste. A few Bitten Word readers asked for a little more info, so we thought we'd devote a post to cutting down on paper towels and other ways you can have a more sustainable kitchen.

First, a caveat: We're really not trying to be greener-than-thou proselytizers here. We're not trying guilt-trip you or tell you how to live. It's just that we got really fed up with how frequently we were filling up the garbage can, so we decided a few years ago to see what we could do about it.

We think that cutting your paper towel usage may be the single best step you can take toward a less wasteful kitchen. We came up with a method that allowed us to dramatically reduce the number of paper towels we use.

Wanna hear what our brilliant method was?