FloorCookies

It’s time for a simple salad!  For a simple Italian bean salad that is refreshing, colorful, and good on its own or served as a side to any meat.

When it comes to the use of small berries for baking, frozen or fresh blueberries are always a good choice.  I love their taste and color, and how beautifully they can color the batter.

Quick bread – noun – “bread made with a leavening agent (as baking powder or baking soda) that permits immediate baking of the dough or batter mixture” – Merriam Webster Dictionary

My newest scone recipe discovery comes from pastry chef Elizabeth Prueitt’s book Tartine which she co-authored with her husband, the baker Chad Robertson.  This recipe can be varied – as they do in their famous Tartine Bakery & Cafe in San Francisco – using different types of dried and fresh fruit.

Would I consider baking for a wedding reception?  I enthusiastically said yes, when my friend Tricia asked me to bake for her.  She knew I had experience with this – earlier I had baked for my son’s wedding.

Delicious savory tart with bacon, preferably with lots of sour cream!  It’s so good especially warm on its own (instead of a pizza) or as an accompaniment to a hearty soup.  I adapted the recipe from one of my favorite Hungarian cookbooks Mai magyar konyha by Tamás Bereznay.

Gulyás, which is a soup not a stew, is probably the best known Hungarian dish, even though other nations, the Slovaks, Czechs, and Austrians, have their own versions of it.  Interestingly enough, ”In the United States, someone decided that elbow macaroni with ground beef and tomatoes could also be called gulyas (although the innovator changed the spelling to goulash).” – writes Nicolaus Balla and Corthney Burns in Bar Tartine: Techniques & Recipes.

Recently I realized that if I want to stay true to my promise, I need to collect those Hungarian recipes that characterize my everyday cooking and culinary heritage.  Let’s start with a meat paprika stew called pörkölt.  In my family, we don’t eat too much meat, but when I choose to cook meat, I often go with this, because it’s simple, delicious, and very easy to make.

Many of you might agree, that there is nothing better to eat on a chilly, rainy day than comfort food.  This traditional quintessential Hungarian baked one-pot dish of layered potatoes fits the bill.  The true star here is the amazing Hungarian smoked sausage, mild or hot.

I love fresh blueberries very much, but in the winter I use frozen ones to make healthy and delicious treats, like these warm pancakes for a lazy weekend morning.

These wonderful walnut cookies – a tray bake, so it’s incredibly easy to make – were in the box of goodies for two family parties during this past holiday season.  They were well loved.  The combination of chocolate and walnuts, together with the tanginess of the apricot jam, makes them irresistible. Try to bake them, you might agree with me.

Picture yourself in your kitchen wanting to treat your family (or just yourself) to a delicious breakfast, but not wanting to spend too much time there.  Yes, the idea for what to make, is in the title: make scones, make these scones.