Making the most of getting together with friends.
CREATIVE SOLUTION | Sometimes the most stunningly beautiful solution to a problem is also the most elementary one—like using candlelight rather than electricity to illuminate a snowy walkway.
EASY & DELISH | The best coffee-flavoured dessert in the world? Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel think it’s the affogato, and I would have to agree. According to the celebrity press, the Timberlakes served this simple Italian treat made with a shot of espresso and a scoop of Italian gelato to go along with the almond and coconut wedding cake at their nuptials in southern Italy. Read more
EASY & DELISH | In the annals of dinner party desserts that look so impressive everyone assumes they must be horribly complicated to make, the chocolate soufflé is right up there. To begin with, it’s a soufflé for gawd sakes, and everyone knows that making any sort of soufflé can be a recipe for disaster. Read more
EASY + GOOD | Puff pastry is a flaky, crispy ingredient found in a surprising array of show- stopping appetizers, entrées and sweets. Of course you can make it from scratch if you want—à la Julia, perhaps?—but quality premade products found in the freezer section of grocery stores work fine, too.
Author Martha Holmberg used mostly frozen puff pastry for the 50 interesting and original recipes featured in her cookbook Puff—mains like the pizza alternative she shares with Frugalbits readers here. Read more
CULT RECIPE ALERT | Summer is dinner party season for us. Since early June, we’ve invited friends over for supper at least once a week. We manage this despite busy schedules by sticking to a few proven menus. First-time visitors, for example, invariably tuck into our number-one-favourite no-brainer entrée: Chicken Marbella, which usually results in their asking for the recipe. If you’ve ever made or been served Marbella, you already know the impact its exceptional flavour can have on all who take a bite. Read more
SUMMER FARE | If you use the school calendar—June through August—as a way to measure summer days and have yet to find the time to get away or relax absolutely, you have six weeks remaining to do something fun and seasonal. But these six weeks will slip away on you like the last six did if you don’t make kicking back a priority. Read more
EASY & DELISH | Making authentic French puff pastry is no small accomplishment, even for the likes of Martha Stewart who confessed in her cookbook Martha Stewart Pies & Tarts that producing a classic puff takes time, “skill and practice,” and that she’s had her share of difficulties making one “because there are so many variables.”
While “quick-from-scratch puff pastry” is definitely easier and less time-consuming to make than the true classic version, it can still be a disaster as I learned not long ago when I tried to replicate THIS AWESOME RECIPE from the Los Angeles Times. Read more
SAVE TIME & ENERGY | If in-home entertaining is something you’d like to do more of but you don’t have the extra time or energy to put into an elaborate production, consider adopting the game plan Janie Collier uses to host twice-monthly Saturday night suppers.
Collier has developed one wonderful meal that she can serve to carnivores, vegetarians and vegans—and she repeats it—with slight variations and tweaks—in perpetuity. “If I had to come up with a new menu and source new ingredients every time I wanted to have people over, I just wouldn’t get around to it much.”
EASY & QUICK | Silver and pewter are traditional materials for decorating and never go out of fashion. These metal place markers were created by cutting bannerlike shapes with scissors from a disposable aluminum baking sheet. Read more
SLAM DUNK | The next time you are asked to bring cookies to a book club, meet-up or exchange, try making the ones pictured here. After their taste, which is amazing, the fabulous thing about these caramel-covered slabs is their pan-generational appeal: sophisticated enough to seduce discriminating adults and gooey-good enough to reel in the children.