Author: Chef M

This recipe uses chard leaves, but don’t discard the stems. Chop and add to an omelet, or sauté them in a little olive oil and use as a flavor booster in a grilled cheese sandwich. To turn this side into a vegetarian main dish, top with chickpeas and crumbled feta.

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There’s something very seductive about a caramelized onion-pepper-tomato mix it’s sweet and oily in that good way. Luckily, this peperonata is a secret nextover. You’ll have about 2 cups of it left over to use in a grain bowl, serve on crackers with a glass of wine, or stir into tomorrow’s scrambled eggs.

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This soup could be the poster child for the nextovers movement. Not because it’s sexy (lentils are not sexy) or pretty (nope), but because it’s delicious and nourishing and takes less than 15 minutes.

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An herb butter–rubbed chicken boasting a cranberry-walnut stuffing sounds like a meal fit for a holiday table, but our version takes the stuffing out of the chicken and moves the cooking to a Dutch oven for a fuss-free, anytime dish. The Dutch oven’s tall sides easily contained the chicken and a hefty portion of stuffing. We sautéed some classic aromatics and herbs such as celery, onion, sage, and thyme to give the dish a solid flavor base, then nestled the butter-rubbed chicken into the pot and surrounded it with cubes of sturdy Italian bread. Placing the bread cubes around the…

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Classic French poulet en cocotte relies on the moist environment of a covered Dutch oven to yield unbelievably tender meat (albeit with soft skin) and a concentrated jus made of the chicken’s own juices. To make this dish into a complete meal, we added root vegetables to the pot but found that they were underdone even after an hour of baking. Adding liquid (a combination of chicken broth and wine) tenderized the vegetables, but the jus lost its appealing intensity. To counter this, we browned the chicken and vegetables to build fond. Browning our bird also crisped the skin slightly,…

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This salad and vinaigrette include many of my favorites from the spring garden peppery arugula, tender spring lettuce, crunchy radishes, sweet peas, and fragrant mint and parsley. The combination is incredibly flavorful, but not in an overpowering way.

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Sweet, perfumed peaches with a gorgeous mascarpone custard that hints delicately, yet deliciously of cardamom. Please don’t be tempted to add any more than the seeds from one little green cardamom pod, or you’ll end up spoiling it.

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Potato soup can be made thick and creamy, even without traditional cream, by adding non-dairy milk. This is the soup to make mid to late summer, when both leeks and potatoes are abundant. Luckily, it freezes well, allowing you to save some for a chilly winter night.

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