Some Recipes

Here are some of the recipes that I use pretty often. I've put some of them here because people often ask me for them and others because I happened to have already typed them up at some point and think they are worth looking at. Actually I rarely use recipes when I cook. I like to read them -- I always browse cookbooks when I go to bookstores and I have quite a few of my own -- but I don't usually make them. I just use them for ideas.

The problem with following recipes is that whenever I go to the store to buy what I need, they are invariably out of some key ingredient, or maybe they have it, but it doesn't look very good, or is ridiculously expensive. I prefer to go and check everything out and buy whatever looks good and is not prohibitively priced and do something with whatever I find. I don't generally plan my meals very far ahead (no more than a couple of days). I ought to write down the things I make and put the things that turn out particularly well here. Maybe I'll try to make more of an effort to do that in the future.

Most of the food I cook is quite simple -- easy and quick to prepare, using only a few ingredients. Part of this is convenience and time -- I have a job and I go to the gym after work and I don't start making dinner until 7:00 or so. I'm usually tired and hungry, and I don't want to spend two hours cooking at the end of the day. People often seem impressed that I cook every single day, but it rarely takes me more than 30-45 minutes to make dinner, and it doesn't really require much effort if I keep things simple -- most of the time is taken up by standing around waiting for things to cook.

I actually prefer simple meals anyway; it's easy to overdo things. Too many seasonings and ingredients will overpower the flavor of whatever you're making. You don't need to use everything in your cupboard to season your piece of chicken -- two or three things will suffice. It's better to buy the best quality ingredients that you can afford and let them stand mostly on their own.

This simple, generic recipe for chicken is a good example of the type of thing that I usually make. Here is a more specific instance of this style of chicken: chicken with bacon and apricot sauce. Here's a recipe for a pork chop with cherry sauce, also fairly typical of the things I eat.

Anyway, here are the rest of the recipes. Someday I will add more of them.

Here are a few cookie recipes. Cookies are one thing that I do use recipes for most of the time but I don't want to copy the ones in the cookbooks I use; you should buy the cookbooks. Many of them come from King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion, a cookbook that I highly recommend. The recipes below are family recipes.

Here are two more recipes (source: Courtney Caldwell)

If you happen to make one of these things and enjoy it or if you have comments about it, you should let me know.

You can also let me know if any of the recipes are missing any crucial information. When I typed the recipe for the leckerli I forgot to write the amount of almonds. Oops! And I often only keep the list of ingredients and their quantities with no instructions, so when I write the recipes down for others, I sometimes forget steps. Or I might have even gotten the recipe that way. I sent somebody a link to my cheesecake recipe once and she pointed out that I never said what to do with the egg whites. I've corrected the problem now but I went back and looked at my dad's recipe card (which he has been using as long as I can remember) and it didn't say anything about them either. I never noticed this myself. So there are probably mistakes and if you find them, feel free to tell me.