Adam D. Roberts's Blog, page 132

Improvised Mac & Cheese

The Mac & Cheese you see above was created by yours truly without a recipe. I don't know if you find that impressive, but I'm certainly impressed with myself.

It all started when I made those roasted red peppers you saw in the previous post. The next night, I had those in the fridge and I also had our latest shipment of the Cheese of the Month Club from Murray's Cheese. That shipment contained both cheddar and Emmentaler, both of which I thought might work in a mac & cheese. Since I...

How To Roast Red Peppers

As autumn conquers summer, and I stroll through the Union Square Farmer's Market, I start to panic and worry about all the fruits and vegetables I didn't buy during those precious few warm-weather months. Which explains why, during one Saturday saunter, I came home with four giant red peppers.

I didn't really have a red pepper agenda, but after watching this red pepper video on Food52 I decided I wanted to roast them. Then marinate them. And who knew that from that simple act I'd get...

The Taste Test: Yogurt

Let's start the week out with some yogurt. I really like yogurt, and here I taste three: American style yogurt, Skyr (remember when I met Siggi of Siggi's Skyr?) and Greek yogurt. As a side note, yesterday I made a breakfast parfait of Greek yogurt mixed with honey and vanilla, layered with blueberries, nectarines and my favorite recipe for granola. Very enjoyable. What's your favorite kind of yogurt?

Previous Taste Tests: Honey, Water, Eggs, Chocolate, Chardonnay, Peanut Butter.

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Melissa Clark's Chocolate Chip Pecan Loaf Cake

[A note on the above photo: that was taken by my friend & neighbor Rob Meyer who came over for cake and let me tinker with his SLR because I'm thinking of getting one. Has the time come? What kind should I get?]

The idea of a snack cake really appeals to me because, for most of my childhood, I'd come home from school and snack on cake. Only the cakes I'd snack on were the kind of cakes you find at a rest stop on the highway: Yoo-Hoos, Twinkies, Ring-Dings (my brother's favorite) and...

The Avocado Sandwich at Prune

It doesn't happen often, but sometimes you're at a restaurant, waiting for your food, and you see a dish appear on the pass. You think to yourself: "Ooooh, that looks so good, maybe I should've ordered that?" You stare it for a few more beats and begin chastising yourself for ordering the thing you ordered instead of that other dish. "What was I thinking? That looks so much better! Mine's going to suck."

That's exactly what happened to me the other day when I had lunch at Prune, only...

Emily Wallendjack's Pistachio Pudding (at Cookshop)

Meet my friend Cara (screen-left, pink top). On October 9th, she's getting married.

A few weeks ago, at her wedding shower, we were chatting and I was asking her about her wedding cake.

"We're not having a wedding cake," she said. "I'd rather have a dessert I really like," she explained. But when it came to choosing that dessert she said, "The one dessert I most want is this pistachio pudding with chocolate cookies and salted whipped cream I once had at Cookshop. But I don't think...

The Taste Test: Honey

Ok, folks, time for another Taste Test. I know some of you are wary of the unscientific nature of this project, but science was never the intention. Think of it more like hanging out with me in my kitchen as I taste stuff. And this week we're tasting honey: clover honeys from Brazil, New Jersey and the Union Square farmer's market. Which will I like the best? Click "play" and find out.

Previous Taste Tests: Water, Eggs, Chocolate, Chardonnay, Peanut Butter.

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Lunch at McDonald's

Writing about McDonald's is a dangerous thing for a food writer. There are two possible outcomes: you turn up your nose and write a snobby screed, offending those who eat there and like it. Or you write something in its defense, and you piss off 99% of the people who read food blogs, who love "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and who think the entryway to Hell isn't marked, as Dante suggested, with the phrase "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" but, instead, by golden arches.

Perhaps, if I tread ...

My Friends Do Talented Things

This post is to inform you that my friends do talented things. For example, my friend Travis Sentell (who once wrote this guest post) has a book out called "In The Shadow of Freedom." You should read it. My friend Ricky Marson produced a CD for our friend Merideth Clark who writes and sings her own songs. The CD is called "Young Stellar Object." You should listen to it. My friend Rob Meyer (whose house we just stayed in on Cape Cod) wrote and directed a short film called "Aquarium" which rece...

Cooking For A Group, Part II

You may recall a post, back from September 15th, 2008 called "How To Cook For A Group."

In that post, I whined about how I wasn't good at cooking for a group: "The truth is that to impress a large group of people, you've got to cook large. Some folks are better at cooking large than others; I've come to discover that I am far superior at cooking small. I'd much prefer to cook for four than to cook for fourteen: I'd rather roast a chicken than a whole pig, I'd rather man a single skillet t...