savory stuffing strata

I have a lot I could say about the origins of this recipe and the importance of stuffing, but I’m going to cut to the chase first. For me, this is The Best Stuffing Ever. The only recipe I’ll need from now on. The One.

This stuffing strata comes out so fragrant, moist, and flavorful, you would never know it hasn’t been cooked inside the turkey. But the fact that it hasn’t set up camp in a turkey means that you can shorten your turkey cooking time, and serve the stuffing to vegetarians without that out-of-place taste of vegetable broth that usually flavors vegetarian stuffing. Also, it’s a total snap to whip up; you can assemble it the day before and just pop it into your already-350-degree oven on the big day. It features all the traditional flavors of a really homey stuffing (sage, thyme, celery, and of course the bread) bound together by a magical mixture of egg, milk, wine, mustard, and gruyere cheese. The strata gets moistness and richness from the egg mixture, but doesn’t turn out soggy or taste of breakfast; essentially, it tastes like everything stuffing should be, but more…better!

kitchen firsts: poached egg sandwiches with spinach, tomato and cheese

The kitchen first this time is not a new ingredient, but instead the conquering of a kitchen technique: the poached egg, no cheatsies! Up until now, whenever I was called on to create a poached egg I would simply reach for my handy dandy egg-poaching device, let the eggs cook in their little metal cups, and then slide them out, looking all freakishly disc-shaped. I am not a fan of runny yolks, so poached eggs are not a huge deal for me and I was happy enough with this arrangement as it allowed me to quickly and easily make poached eggs for Stephen. But, the more I cook and blog, the more I realize how obsessed food people are with poached eggs, so it kind of bothered me that I wasn’t able to create a normal-looking, old fashioned poached egg in a water bath. Enter my new favorite cookbook, America’s Test Kitchen’s Cooking For Two: 2010, and I finally found a poached egg sandwich recipe that I could master, and even enjoy.

kitchen firsts: fresh pea and pea shoot pasta carbonara

I realized this year that somehow I have never managed to shell fresh peas before. Favas, yes, but never regular shelling peas! I’ve been wanting to get some for quite awhile, but I had trouble finding them when pea season supposedly started, so all my bookmarking of yummy pea recipes was going unused. Perhaps our unseasonable rain in May and June slowed the peas down and kept them out of the markets when I was expecting to find them, but now that it’s almost August and we’re moving on to zucchini, tomatoes, and corn galore, I had pretty much forgotten about the elusive shelling pea!

That is, until I spotted some shelling peas at the market earlier this week. And it just so happened that I was at the market next to the library, so I popped in to see if any of my requested cookbooks had come in, and luckily my long-awaited copy of Sunday Suppers at Lucques had finally arrived. I couldn’t wait to peek inside, so I flipped through the glossy pages and what was the first recipe that caught my eye? A pasta carbonara using freshly shelled peas AND pea shoots! Have I mentioned that I love pea shoots? With the discovery of the shelling peas and then the discovery of the ideal recipe to make use of them happening within ten minutes of each other, I could pretty much only conclude that making this pasta was my destiny.

kitchen firsts: homemade mayonnaise + bacon deviled eggs

This week I decided to make mayonnaise from scratch for the first time. I’d been meaning to try it for quite awhile, but this week I didn’t have anything else in mind for a kitchen first, and the timing seemed appropriate since I am hoping to audition a few new summery recipes this week that need a little bit of mayonnaise each (potato salad, anyone?). People are always raving about how much better homemade mayonnaise is, and I decided to see for myself.

Oh, and did I mention these bacon deviled eggs? We decided to try them because we had lots of eggs, wanted a snack, and I wanted to do something right away with my fresh mayonnaise, but I realized I’ve never actually made deviled eggs before so I guess I’m getting a double kitchen first out of the deal. Can anyone say no to a deviled egg? This recipe can be made with or without the bacon and is fairly standard, so if you’re look for a meat-free version this can certainly be it. Although really, you can’t ask for a better combination than bacon and eggs (scroll to the bottom if you want to skip to the eggs!).