If you’re one of those people who still doesn’t like Brussels sprouts, I’m not even going to try and convince you. Go read another blog post about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crusts cut off.

But if you are one of those who appreciates the much-maligned mini-cabbage – when prepared correctly – you’ll love this recipe.

We generally make Brussels sprouts the way I make most vegetables: by tossing them in olive oil, salt and pepper, then roasting at 400 or so until lightly browned and tender. This is a great way to start if you’ve never had Brussels sprouts before. Try Ina’s recipe.

Last week, however, I discovered a new way to cook sprouts. I joined some friends at Smith - a local restaurant known for gastropubby food, good deals on drinks and taxidermied decor – and while we all agonized over the menu, we easily agreed on a certain dish for the table: Brussels sprouts with bacon and dates. No-brainer.

The dish disappeared fast between five hungry mouths, and we started to ponder what was in it, besides the obvious. The consensus was something tangy like creme fraiche, but we couldn’t figure it out.

So I decided to go to the source and ask Smith on Twitter. And after some logistical back and forth, they posted the recipe on their Facebook page.

Though the ingredient list was basic, I was a little nervous about trying a restaurant-style recipe with no real measurements. I shouldn’t have worried; it was straightforward to prepare and easy to multiply by a few factors to make enough for a side dish and leftovers.

And, most importantly, it tasted just like the restaurant version.

Smith’s Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Dates

Adapted from Smith

• 1 lb Brussels sprouts
• 3-4 strips good quality bacon
• 10-12 dates, chopped
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup cream
• olive oil

Cut the ends off the sprouts and slice them in half lengthwise. Chop up the bacon strips and saute in a large frying pan over medium heat until crispy. Set aside on a paper towel but leave the bacon grease in the pan.

Add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan and let it get hot. Add the sprouts, cut side down, and cook until the cut sides are a deep golden brown. You may be able to turn up the heat a bit, but make sure they are caramelizing and not burning. Also, your frying pan may not be large enough to fit all the cut sprouts – if so, just fire up another pan with some olive oil and cook them separately, then add them back into the big pan when browned.

Once the sprouts are browned and tender, add the bacon and chopped dates and toss until all is heated through.

Add the apple cider vinegar and toss, then add the cream and mix again. Let it bubble for a minute or so until the cream has reduced a bit. Taste and add a bit more vinegar or cream if needed.

Add salt and pepper to taste, toss again, and serve.

It’s not the fastest dinner in the world – it requires some chopping, some patience for simmering, some from-scratch pasta making (sounds much fancier than it is). But it’s worth it to make this savory, smoky, stomach-warming stew that always satisfies.

It’s tasted different every time we’ve made it, mainly because we never use the same type of chorizo. The original recipe calls for “3/4 lb/400g sweet chorizo, skinned and cut into 1/2-inch/1cm pieces.” I’ve never really been able to figure out what that means. Is it supposed to be cured chorizo, or fresh? Once you take the skin off fresh sausage, you can’t really cut it into pieces. So, we’ve just used whatever we can find at whatever store we’ve shopped at that day. Obviously The Spanish Table, the Pike Place Market mecca of all things Iberian where we bought the cookbook in the first place, has a vast selection. We’ve also used Uli’s and a super-spicy ground version from Leschi Mart. They all work – just be aware of the spice level and factor that in when you’re choosing between hot or sweet paprika.

Another word about paprika: smoked. Don’t even think about using regular old paprika in this recipe. It’s gotta be pimenton, people. Buy it if you don’t have it already – I put it in everything, especially soups, to boost that savory edge.

Don’t freak out about the “homemade pasta” ingredient. I don’t own a pasta maker and I have no skill with pasta making. Basically you just mix flour, water and salt, roll it out, cut it into strips, and toss them in the stew for 15 minutes. Any Play-Doh-adept toddler could do it.

If you went with a really spicy chorizo, a dollop of creamy Greek yogurt or sour cream is a nice cooling accompaniment as a garnish. But otherwise, this stands on its own as a meal in a bowl – truly the best of a one-pot dinner.

Andrajos con chorizo – chorizo, tomato and pasta stew

Inspired by Penelope Casas’ One Pot Spanish

• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 3/4 lb chorizo – sweet or spicy, cured or fresh
• 5 medium Roma tomatoes, chopped
• 1/3 cup tomato sauce
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp smoked paprika, sweet or hot
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 1/4 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• salt and pepper
• Homemade pasta
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/2 cup cold water

Heat the olive oil over medium heat in a large pot or cazuela if you have one (I usually use my Le Creuset). Saute onions and garlic until soft, then add chorizo and saute until no longer pink (2-3 minutes).

Stir in tomatoes, tomato sauce, thyme, paprika and bay leaf, and cook another 5 minutes. Add broth, wine, salt and pepper to taste, then turn the heat to high and bring to a boil. Turn the heat down and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes. Don’t worry if it seems liquidy – the pasta will thicken it up.

While the soup is simmering, make the pasta. Mix the flour and salt together, then add the water until you can form a ball. Turn it out onto a floured surface and roll it thin. Cut into strips, circles, triangles, stars, whatever shape you like – “andrajos” means “rags” so we’re not going for beauty here.

After the soup has simmered for half an hour, add the pasta into the broth, making sure it is all submerged, and cook it another 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. I’ve found it doesn’t take long for the pasta to get al dente. You may need to add a little more chicken broth so it stays a little soupy.

Taste for doneness and flavoring, then serve in shallow bowls and top with yogurt or sour cream if you like.

We had pop-ups on the mind because of a recent New York Times article about their rise in London, so when a friend tweeted about a Monday-night-only Thai dinner at popular Capitol Hill cocktail joint Licorous, we had to check it out.

One Monday's menu at Shophouse

Called Shophouse and billed as “a developing restaurant concept based in Seattle devoted to the craft of traditional street level Thai cuisine,” the menu features simple but supremely flavorful dishes that Lark sous-chef Wiley Frank learned to cook during a year spent in Thailand. Monday nights, he and his wife serve up small plates zingy with tamarind, fresh chilis, cilantro and other spices imported from Southeast Asia. The menu is constantly evolving, though there’s a sampling of dishes on the website.

We started with mini curried fish cakes with cucumber vinegar and fried basil. You could really taste each ingredient, with the strong sour, sweet, salty and bitter flavors all coming through. We also ordered the spicy squid salad with greens, cherry tomatoes, lemongrass and celery leaf. It wasn’t nearly as spicy I was expecting – our barometer being the five-alarm, religious-experience heat of the papaya salad at Portland’s Pok Pok – but it had a slow burn underneath the citrus-y dressing.

We also had a salad of granny smith apple, peanuts, chili, lime and dried shrimp. The apple salad in particular was a cooling counterpoint to the spiciness of the other dishes. Then we finished with the simmered Madhatter chicken with garlic rice, squash broth and spicy soy. This was outstanding. Both the broth and the meat had a strong flavor, and the spicy soy sauce added just the right amount of kick.

Madhatter chicken (left) and granny smith apple salad

There were also three Thai-inspired cocktails, though we stuck with lime and lemongrass sodas.

Our waitress said they plan to keep up Shophouse Thai night as long as there’s interest, so we’ll plan to be back to try some of the other offerings – herbed pork sausage, chicken wings, yes please – in the coming weeks.

Presentation is key

Not only was guacamole the first dish I ever learned to make by myself, but it remains my go-to appetizer for pretty much every occasion. And while I am open to trying other versions, I’ve honestly never tasted a batch of guac that I like better than my own.

We ate Latin-inspired food frequently when I was growing up. My parents got into Cuban food when they were living in Boston as a young couple. Later on, with four kids under the age of 10, a meal based on tortillas, beans and rice was easy to prepare and pleasing to toddler palates. Guacamole was a natural accompaniment.

Guacamole might seem basic, and barely even qualifying as “cooking”. There’s no heat involved, and minimal chopping. It’s made with avocados, which are nature’s ice cream only more addictive, so pretty much no matter how it comes out people are going to scarf it down.

Nevertheless, learning to make guacamole taught me the crucial, elemental guidelines of cooking that today I apply in everything I make. Simplicity of ingredients: don’t get too fancy, and trust what tastes good as you go. Texture is as important as flavor: in my guacamole, it’s mandatory to preserve chunks of avocado. Presentation matters: my dad taught me to always wipe down the sides of the bowl before serving, even if it’s just for a casual appetizer between friends.

Aside from avocados, salt and pepper, the other ingredients can be flexible. You will want to have citrus, preferably lime but lemon is doable. I prefer crushed garlic cloves, but I’ve used garlic powder in a pinch. Cilantro is practically necessary, but I can make do it without it. Hot sauce or salsa are nice to add, if you have it.

I may or may not use all of these ingredients

For me, the most important thing is that you don’t overly mash or puree the avocados. Instead, cut them into chunks as shown below, and add crushed garlic and/or a little bit of chopped onion and/or a dash of hot sauce or salsa and/or a good handful of chopped cilantro and/or a squeeze of citrus and salt and pepper to taste . Then use a fork to gently combine, but making sure to keep some significant pieces of avocado intact. Adjust seasonings to taste, then wipe down the sides of the bowl with a napkin or your finger and garnish so it looks pretty. Sometimes I refrigerate it for a few minutes to let the flavors meld.

Cut it into chunks like so

I like that the first dish I ever made is still the one I return to over and over again, that I can make it without even thinking and that it’s always polished off down to the last scrape.

The ultimate comfort food

We have a tradition for the first meal we eat on our first night in a new apartment. It’s not particularly original – we order pizza. I remember when we moved from Brooklyn to Manhattan, in one of the most hellish days I’ve ever spent – just try to imagine navigating a U-Haul through the streets of the Big Apple – and we finally allowed ourselves to relax, surrounded by boxes, with a pesto pizza from the parlor a few blocks down Amsterdam Ave.

Last weekend, we moved from our well-appointed but tiny apartment in Wallingford to a more spacious pad in Madrona. We now have a washer and dryer, a dishwasher and a (gasp) full-sized refrigerator. The first night, with an almost-bare fridge and most cutlery still deep in boxes, we again ordered pesto pizza, indulging in a garlicky chicken topping.

You get a freebie on moving day. But after that, you have to roll up your sleeves and put away enough kitchen supplies to actually make use of that nice fancy kitchen you wanted so badly. For me, the odds are good I’ll break in my oven with cookies.

The critical components

It used to be chocolate chip was my standby, but Jeremy loves snickerdoodles with an almost-religious fervor. I can get behind that. Snickerdoodles are essentially sugar cookies with the addition of cream of tartar for that distinctive tang, given a quick roll in cinnamon and sugar. Some bakers believe they should be thin and flat, and I’ve made them that way before. We prefer, however, a plumper cookie. That gives you a slightly crunchy crust on the exterior that gives way when you bite it into a chewy center.

My recipe is adapted from an AllRecipes.com entry called “Mrs. Sigg’s Snickerdoodles“. It might not be that glamorous to use an online recipe, but I’ve tried the America’s Test Kitchen version and it honestly wasn’t as good. Also, the AllRecipes one has almost 2500 reviews and over 33,000 versions saved. Sometimes, the masses are just right.

Mmm...cookies...

Snickerdoodles

From AllRecipes.com

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup shortening, such as Crisco
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cups flour
• 1 tsp. cream of tartar
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 2 Tb. sugar
• 2 tsp. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Using a hand or stand mixer, cream together butter, shortening, sugar, egg and vanilla. Slowly stir in flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt (ok, ok, you can sift the dry ingredients together first if you’re legit like that.)

Cover a baking sheet with a parchment paper. In a small ziplock sandwich bag, mix the sugar and cinnamon.

Shape the dough into small balls about 3/4 inch in diameter. I find it works best to do this with your hands. Then drop each ball of dough into the ziplock bag and shake it around so it’s coated on all sides.

Arrange the balls of dough on the baking sheet with some space in between and then gently press on the top of each one – don’t flatten them, just dimple the tops a bit.

Bake 8-10 minutes, until the bottoms are light brown and the tops start to crack a bit. Don’t wait until the tops are golden-brown – they will be dry and overcooked at that point.

Makes 18-24 cookies, depending on size.

Beef stews - so delicious, so un-photogenic

I promised amazing paleo recipes, and I will deliver. This is straight-up cribbed from the amazing site Mark’s Daily Apple, which is a must-read for anyone interested in paleo or primal eating, or just plain healthy eating and exercise habits. While I love the success stories, fitness analysis and links on this site, of course the recipes are my favorites.

While poring over the site for inspiration, I came across the Beef Burgundy recipe. Like probably everyone else who saw the film Julie and Julia, we desperately craved boeuf bourguignon throughout the movie and then promptly forgot all resolve to actually make it the moment we left the theater.

When I ran across this recipe, months later, I was reinvigorated. It is a bit modified from the original Julia Child version from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but you should still plan to block off a few hours to commit to this masterpiece. It is absolutely worth it. The slow braising makes the meat become meltingly tender, and the flavors meld into something rich and winey and unmistakeably French.

[Side note: In my limited experience, I'd advices using a quality source for your meat. Not that the cut needs to be expensive — since it's braising for a couple hours, it's going to get tender — but I think it's worth it to get local and/or grass-fed. Obviously it's more environmentally friendly, green-friendly, Paleo-proper, and all that en vogue stuff. But I made this dish with grass-fed Washington State beef purchased at Whole Foods as opposed to another beef stew later with free-range Australian meat from Trader Joe's, and I thought the WA meat tasted much better. Who knows...more testing needed. Price was the same, anyway.]

The recipe makes enough for 8, or a big dinner and 2 sets of lunch leftovers. It also freezes quite well.

Boeuf Bourguignon

Inspired by Julia Child and adapted by Mark’s Daily Apple

• 1/4 lb. bacon
• 4 Tbs. fat of some kind (butter or oil…I used a mix of coconut and olive oil)
• 2 1/2 – 3 lbs. of beef cut into 2-inch cubes. I used the stew meat from the WF meat counter.
• 1 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. pepper
• 2 Tbs. almond flour (or regular flour, if non-paleo)
• 2 carrots, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 Tbs. tomato paste
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 Tbs. fresh thyme (or 1 tsp. dried)
• 1 Tbs. fresh parsley, finely chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 cups full-bodied red wine (I used Chianti)
• 2 1/2 cups beef stock
• 1 lb. white or brown crimini mushrooms

Preheat the oven to 425. Get your big shallow oven-proof casserole ready. I used our cazuela [How do you know you're a hipster foodie? When you have kitchen tools that don't have an English translation!] but any deep and wide oven-safe dish would work.

Cut the bacon into little strips (lardons) and saute with a tablespoon of the fat until cooked but not crisp. You can do this all in your Le Creuset if you are fortunate enough to have one, or in a deep skillet. Reserve the bacon in your casserole dish.

Pat the beef as dry as possible and in batches, brown it on all sides. Take the time to get all the sides brown, even though it takes a long time and is a bit messy, because it’s worth it for the flavor in the long run. As the pieces brown, add them to the casserole with the bacon.

When all the meat is browned, sprinkle it with the flour, salt and pepper and put it in the oven for 10 minutes. The goal is to create a bit more of a crust on the meat. Then remove from the oven and turn the heat down to 325.

In the skillet or saucepan you used to brown the meat, add another tablespoon of the fat/oil and saute the onions and carrots until soft. Then add the tomato paste, garlic, thyme, parsley and bay leaf. After a moment, stir in the wine and beef broth and bring up to a gentle boil.

Let the whole thing simmer for about 5 minutes so the flavors start to meld, then pour over the meat in the casserole pan. Cover the dish with a lid or foil, then place it in the oven and cook for 2 1/2 hours (I told you you need to commit to it!)

In the meantime, slice the mushrooms and saute in batches in the remaining fat/oil. Set aside.

Every hour or so peek in the oven under the lid to make sure the liquid bubbling gently. It’s done when a fork easily pulls the meat apart. You should taste it to make sure.

When done, take the meat out of the oven and strain it through a colander with a bowl underneath, so the liquid is in the bowl and the solids in the colander (not the other way around!) Put the liquid in a saucepan and bring it to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer for about 10 minutes. Meanwhile, put the meat back in the casserole (or another serving dish of your choice) and add the mushrooms.

When the sauce is done, pour it over the meat and mushrooms and top with chopped parsley.

Rather than highlight any one event, I thought I’d just do a roundup and give some link love to some of those who are actually motivated enough to blog responsibly. I realize this also makes it seem like we eat all the time, but I figure people would rather read about food than the grueling Crossfit workouts, hours sweating in a hot yoga studio, or late nights at the UW athletic communications office or on the road in exciting places like Kalamazoo, Michigan.

• The Rachel Dinner, aka Foods That Scare Us, in honor of Rachel’s food phobias, including tongue, blue cheese, tendon and chicken liver. May I just say that the pigs’ ears were absolutely delectable?
• There was Chinese-Jewish (aka “Chewish”) night, that came about from some matzah-ball soup-related Twitter trash talking and evolved into a massive potluck that included standards like the classic aforementioned soup, knishes and brisket (my contribution, from Joan Nathan’s recipe), as well as more creative efforts like Naomi‘s guanciale-spiked kugel (kugel is SO much better with pork!) and Lorna’s red-cooked pork belly which is the perfect combination of melty crispiness.

• 

  Protest Nachos

  Thanksgiving, which I desperately wanted to be Mexican-themed but we’re not all yet quite enlightened enough. One day. It still featured “Protest Nachos” as an appetizer and five kinds of pies.In the head-to-head of Columbia City‘s pumpkin vs. my Aunt Maureen’s, the homemade version was a clear winner.

• Cookies and Dumplings, originally two events but combined into one glorious afternoon. Picture, if you can, a piano top with every inch covered by plates of cookies, from chocolate to maple to meringue to chocolate chip and chocolate chip and chocolate chip. And lest you get distracted by the sugar, noticed that dumplings of all kinds are being cranked out in the kitchen, some Chinese-inspired, some that go hand in hand with long-stewed chicken in a restorative broth. The bag of cookies I took home from this lasted a solid week.
• Latkes, which happened because every Hannukah that I’m in Seattle I make my father make latkes. No one makes them lighter or more spidery. Trust me, spidery is a very good quality in a latke. (Sorry, didn’t get any photos of them. Next year, maybe.)
• I went to The New Guard‘s holiday party, which brought together art, music and food by Poppy pastry chef Dana Cree, who re-envisioned an old-fashioned holiday meal of ham, green bean salad, homemade onion dip (addictive) and many, many kinds of pie.
  

  Breakfast tacos, I love you

• And finally (though I’m probably forgetting some things) we went to Austin, Texas, and dined on breakfast tacos every morning while managing to squeeze in swimming, biking, exploring and BBQ, of course. But really, the breakfast tacos were the best. I’ve never had flour tortillas as soft and buttery as the ones we had in Austin. Filling them with fluffy scrambled eggs, bacon, avocado and hot sauce was practically overkill. They were so good that we had to smuggle 20 extra home in our suitcases.

It’s been an incredible year being in Seattle. We can’t wait to see what we’ll do (and eat) in 2010.

A spread of cheesy goodness

I decided to go for the mac n’ cheese, which like any good human being I love, though oddly before this weekend I had never made it myself. I’ve always tended more toward the quick and dirty boxed variations, growing up with the occasional Kraft or shells + Velveeta before graduating to the more virtuous Annie’s. For whatever reason, I never felt the urge to make it from scratch.

So this was the perfect opportunity. Naturally, I obsessed about it for days. Basic? Bacon? Mushrooms? Green chiles? An attempt at the legendary fried mac n’ cheese wedges from Denver’s Cherry Cricket?

Ultimately I did the obvious thing and turned to one of my most reliable cooking resources: my cousin Megan, currently a pastry chef at the delicious Columbia City Bakery, always ready with recipe suggestions and sure-fire potluck winners. We consulted, and she gave me the guidelines for her crab mac n’ cheese with Gruyere, Comte, and chives.

I ended up using a Barefoot Contessa recipe for lobster mac n’ cheese as the template for Megan’s crab mac n’ cheese, and I have to say I was pleased with the result. It’s always nerve-wracking making something for the first time, especially when you are making it for other people and even more so when you aren’t going strictly off a recipe. But it turned out gooey and bubbly, with the sharp bite of the Comte cheese giving it a nice kick while the savory crab paired well with the chives.

The reviews from the others at the potluck were positive too, and almost all of it got eaten — which is the best kind of feedback, especially considering there were about 8 or 9 other kinds of mac n’ cheese and a few types of fried chicken.Some of the other offerings: Lorna‘s prize-winning macaroni and cheese had six kinds of cheese and a pound of bacon (!), Valentina creatively rolled up long, wide noodles individually, and hosts Sarah and Frank fried up ridiculous amounts of popcorn chicken that everyone devoured like…popcorn. [Update: Lorna thankfully has better photos in her blog post.]

I only took one hurried photo before diving in, but you can see my little mac on the right side in the red casserole.

If you need a dish for a potluck, macaroni n’ cheese or otherwise, I’d recommend this one. It makes a ton of food so you’ll need some help eating it. I have an entire pan full of it in the freezer still.

Crab Macaroni n’ Cheese

Adapted from Megan Bokan

• Kosher salt
• Vegetable oil
• 1 pound cavatappi or penne
• 1 quart whole milk
• 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, divided
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 12 ounces Gruyere cheese, grated (4 cups)
• 8 ounces Comte cheese, grated (2 cups)
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 pound cooked crab meat (canned is fine unless you’re a high roller)
• 1/2 cup chives, chopped
• 1 cup panko (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Drizzle oil into a large pot of boiling salted water. Add the pasta and cook until just al dente but not completely done. Drain well.

Meanwhile, heat the milk in a small saucepan, but don’t boil it. In a large pot, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and add the flour. Cook over low heat for 2 minutes, stirring with a whisk. Still whisking, add the hot milk and cook for a minute or two more, until thickened and smooth. Off the heat, add the Gruyere, Comte, 1 tablespoon salt and the pepper. Add the cooked noodles, crab, and chives and stir well. Place the mixture in 1 big casserole or 2 medium ones.

Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, combine them with the panko, and sprinkle on the top. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the sauce is bubbly and the noodles are browned on the top.

You say you want a Canvolution?

A few months ago, the ridiculous yet continuously inspiring thing that is Twitter sprouted yet another movement: The Canvolution. Essentially, one person asked if others were interested in learning more about canning and the art of “putting food by.” The response from all corners was resoundingly positive, and the result was a summer and fall full of classes, events and blogging on canning and preserving. The Canning Across America homepage has more details, and mastermind Kim O’Donnel has blogged about the Canvolution’s full history.

I got involved because I was also curious to learn more. I know little about canning myself, so my paltry contribution to the effort was to organize the group email list. I have canned before, though — when I was about 8, I went over to my aunt Maureen’s house and we spent several hours canning peaches and tomatoes. So this summer, when I wanted to revisit canning, I cornered Maureen and told her I wanted to learn at the feet of the master.

“Sure!” she said. “What do you want to do? Blackberry jam? Peaches? Pears? Tomatoes?” I lost track at that point. Suffice to say, the Canvolution was in full swing.

Millions of peaches, peaches for me

On a rainy Sunday about a week ago, we finally made it over to her house in Ballard. While Maureen and her husband Don grow some fruit and vegetables in their garden, to get enough peaches for canning they bought a few boxes worth. We decided to make some regular canned peaches and some with Cognac and schnapps. Maureen said my newfound enthusiasm inspired her to “get creative” and raid the liquor cabinet.

While my teenage cousin Mariah provided adolescent commentary (“Mom, why do you always take the jars out of the oven without mitts? What is wrong with you?”) Maureen walked us through the process. First, she sterilized the jars in the dishwasher and then kept them in a hot oven while preparing the fruit. She had three kettles boiling, one for processing the cans, one for scalding the peaches, and one of sugar water for the syrup.

Jeremy's a pro at this already

We dunked the peaches in the boiling water for a minute or two, then dunked them in an ice bath. That helped the skin slide right off. We cut the peaches in halves or quarters, depending on the type, and then put them into the syrup.

After they had cooked in the syrup, we grabbed the sterilized jar and slipped the peaches into it. Then we filled them to the brim with the rest of the syrup, put the lids on, and popped them into the canning kettle to process. About 15 minutes later, we had gleaming jars of golden fruit, just waiting to be opened months later on a dark Seattle winter evening.

We also made some smaller jars for the alcohol-soaked peaches, and then Mariah cranked out some peach jam and Maureen cooked down the scraps of skin to make a thick peach syrup for pancakes. It was a lot of work, but it was fun work, the sort that only gets better the more people are involved.

We came away impressed with the ease of it and itching to try making our own red pepper jelly. I’m also looking forward to trying some of those Cognac peaches on top of pound cake or ice cream in a few months…

A sampling of cookbooks

If you grew up cooking or in a family of people who cook, like I did, I bet you have That Cookbook. The one you always grabbed when you needed to make something special for dinner, or needed to check the best way to make a certain dish, or wanted to flip to the old standby recipe that was guaranteed to produce that one familiar meal.

For me, or at least how I remember it, that cookbook was The Silver Palate Cookbook. Sheila Lukins, one of the authors, died this week. Reading about her life and the way her cookbook expanded the culinary horizons for so many American home cooks in the 1980s made me think about just how significant a cookbook can be. Reading Twitter, you would have thought everyone owned this book! It was either their first, or the one that taught them to “cook like a grown-up”. Seeing this, it’s logical why it was so popular in my house growing up in the 1980s and 1990s.

Thinking about cookbooks got me thinking about the ones I use regularly. We don’t own too many, as I try to resist the urge to buy every cookbook that catches my fancy and because the Internet is such a wealth of resources what with Epicurious and all the numerous food blogs I am addicting to reading.

But we do have a few favorites, and as I was thinking about our little cooking library I realized that each one has some special significance for me. Here are a few selections of what we’re cooking from, and why.

How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman

This is my Joy of Cooking and my non-Internet encyclopedia. It was one of the first cookbooks I got when I moved out on my own (Silver Palate was the other) and it is battered and worn after just a few years of service. This cookbook is great because it doesn’t make me feel stupid when I realize I don’t know how to soft-boil an egg or cook beets. Plus, it’s really entertaining reading material in its own right.

One Pot Spanish, by Penelope Casas

We got this at our favorite cooking store, The Spanish Table, and are smitten with it. Anything Spanish is a win for us, and everything we’ve made from this so far has been delicious. The favorite is the Tomato, Chorizo and Homemade Pasta Stew.

Classic Rachael Ray 30 Minute Meals and Rachael Ray Express Lane Meals

I know what you’re thinking: R-squared? Seriously? But one thing Rachael Ray does, for all her annoying perkiness, is give you confidence in the kitchen, and when we were just venturing into cooking for ourselves she was the perfect launching pad. Plus, Jeremy gave me the Classic 30 Min. Meals as a Hannukah gift the first year we were together, so I will always think of it as particularly special.

Tapas: A Taste of Spain in America, by Jose Andres

Have you been to Washington, DC? Have you eaten at Jaleo’s? If not, go do that, and then come back and finish reading. Jose Andres is the chef at this tapas destination, which Jeremy introduced me to when we visited DC and where we’ve had some of the most perfect tapas ever. Getting his cookbook was a no-brainer, and the recipes are surprisingly easy and practical for home cooking.

Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way, by Francis Mallman & Peter Kaminsky

We’ve mentioned this book before, but we’re really pretty infatuated with it right now. Gorgeous photos, lyrical writing, and compelling recipes based off simple ingredients. Not sure we’ll venture to cook the whole cow any time soon (yes, that’s a recipe in there) but the delectable Pork Loin with Peaches will tide us over. It makes me want to go to Argentina and build a massive wood firepit on our tiny patio.

That isn’t everything, as you can see from the picture, but those are the ones that resonate for me right now. What are your favorite cookbooks? Which ones mean the most to you?