Blog Posts by Zester Daily

Salmon cakes from mom were baked, rather than fried.By Barbara Haber

One of the treasures I inherited from my mother is "The Settlement Cook Book," a recipe collection that originated in Milwaukee where my mother had lived most of her life. The book was a standard for Midwestern home cooks just as the "Boston Cooking-School Cook Book," better known as the Fannie Farmer cookbook, gave New Englanders basic instructions for what most people were eating a couple of generations ago. In my mother's time, people generally owned only a few cookbooks, a basic all-purpose one, and several community cookbooks purchased as fundraisers for their local schools, churches or synagogues.

Related: From mother to daughter, a suggestion for the best birthday cake recipe.

My mother's "The Settlement Cookbook" was pretty tattered by the time I got it, held together by a rubber band because of a missing spine and some loose pages. But the book's infirmities have only made it dearer to me, for it reflects its years of use in the hands of a

Vintage tools make great kitchen art too.By Susan Lutz

There are many reasons to hang on to old kitchen tools (beyond satisfying your secret hoarding addiction). Here are five good reasons to keep those old graters, grinders and pans you just can't seem to let go.

1. You can't bring your grandma back, but you can bring her back into your kitchen.

I cook with my Grandma Willie every time I step into my kitchen. Her perfectly seasoned cast-iron skillet has helped me make many a grilled cheese sandwich for my daughters. I think of her when I feel too tired to stand at my kitchen stove and I wonder how often she felt the same way. And I would never make a cake without putting it in my grandmother's cake carrier (even if I'm only carrying my cake as far as my own dining room.)

Related: Why you need a vintage cast-iron skillet.

The downside of this strategy is that when your old equipment finally breaks, it will break your heart. I've never mourned the loss of a newly purchased tool, but I must admit that I

Making buttery croissants from scratch isn't difficult.By Susie Norris

A pale golden color and a uniform puff lure unsuspecting buyers to second-rate croissants. This disguise simulates the classic good looks of the famous flaky French pastry. The smell of lightly salted butter and fresh yeast encases a real, handmade croissant like an alluring halo of authenticity. Its color ranges from warm brown to a golden yellow -- a palette only possible when eggs are mixed with white fours and real, pale yellow butter.

Related: Check out a perfect recipe to go with cheese and croissants.

As you might expect, real croissants are made by hand in small batches -- part of the morning process for bakers around France and other pastry-centric countries such as Austria, where the croissant originated. (It was modeled after a popular pastry from Vienna, the kipfel.) When you bite into a factory-made croissant, no flavor emerges. No buttery melt, no peaks and valleys of fresh yeast flavor, no slightly caramelized base. These good-looking

Celery rootBy Terra Brockman

Also known as céleri rave and celeriac, celery root won't win any beauty contests. The beige-colored, lopsided sphere is embossed and channeled, convoluted, creviced, and crowned with disorderly rootlets that tenaciously hold the soil from which they were recently unearthed.

But if you give celery root a chance, you will be won over by the beauty within. Just one sniff of the recently-dug root will fill your head with an intoxicating parsley- and celery-scented aroma. The taste combines that herbaceous pungency with the crisp texture of the root. Together the combination is irresistible.

Related: Need the perfect wine for a celery root dish?

Despite its gnarled and gnarly appearance, celery root is well-loved by those who know it, and it has an honored place and starring role in the French specialty, céleri rémoulade (celery-root remoulade). If you have ever been to a French bistro, chances are you began with a crunchy salad of julienned or shredded

Carpaccio of Roast Beets on Mâche Leaves With Fresh Goat Cheese and Balsamic Dressing By Zester Daily Staff

Sure you've been great about eating a nice healthy salad for lunch at least a few days every week. How can you beat salad for a good nutritious crunch? But the same old lettuce, tomatoes, onion and croutons gets real old, real fast.

Take a break from boring salads with these tasty, exotic alternatives from our Zester Daily contributors:

#1 -- Lentil Salad with Olive Oil and Egyptian Spices (Coriander Seeds)

Clifford A. Wright's recipe has a pungent coriander flavor. It serves 6 and can be prepared in just 30 minutes.

Ingredients

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped

½ teaspoon freshly ground cumin seeds

½ teaspoon freshly ground coriander seeds

¼ teaspoon freshly ground cardamom seeds

½ teaspoon ground fenugreek

1 cup dried brown lentils, picked over and rinsed well

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Related: How growing a garden full of salad ingredients can

Leafy green kale packs a nutritional wallop and works in all kinds of dishes.By Zester Daily Staff

One of the most robust-looking vegetables in any garden is kale in all its varietal splendor -- red leaved, purple-veined, blue green or nearly black; ruffled, savoyed and smooth. One look at kale and you know you should eat it, and given the robust good looks of the leaves, you'd expect them to make for spectacular eating.

Related: A great vegetarian soup that comes to life with kale.

Kale's fast becoming the trendy salad green. But this veggie is sturdy and hardy enough to stand up to some serious cooking and some serious accompanying flavors. Kale can take, and needs, plenty of garlic no matter how it's cooked, and a splash of acid to wake it up, just as with turnip, collards, mustard and other greens in this family.

Related: Tips on growing kale.

As with other greens, kale somehow comes alive when it runs into a piece of bacon or thick slices of Spanish chorizo, as in a mess of kale with potatoes and chorizo. Of course, the kale is going

Hanger steakBy Clifford A. Wright

A simple steak dinner can get complicated in a hurry. Navigating the myriad and ever-evolving names for cuts of meat, weighing the politics of whether your menu is made of sustainable products and considering endless options for how to cook your beef is complicated. Here's a look at some basics you need to know about where your steak comes from and how to find the best cuts for dinner.

Tip #1 -- Know your cuts

Butcher nomenclature is a warren of confusion for the consumer. For example, butchers give multiple names to various cuts. The names also can vary from region to region. In naming beef cuts, butchers start with general categories that refer to the cow. So a particular steak such as hanger steak, flap steak and skirt steak come from, respectively, the plate, the flank and the plate and flank. Flank steak, obviously, comes from the flank as well.

Related: The simple recipe for the world's best brisket.

Hanger steak or hanging steak. This

An authentic Provencal tapenade is easy to make.By Martha Rose Shulman

Nowadays, it seems that any food that can be crushed or pureed is entitled to be called a tapenade, but real tapenade is the authentic signature dish of Provence. It should be made (if possible) with the rich, fleshy Nyons olives that grow in the northern part of the region.

Related: Savor the annual olive harvest in Italy.

Nyons olives are hard to find in the United States, but look for a dark black olive with a moist, not too salty flesh. Amphissa olives from Greece are the closest I've found in texture, though they are a light color, and don't make as pretty a tapenade as the dark black olives. I find kalamatas a little too metallic tasting. If you can find cured olives from France or North Africa, those would be my recommendation.

Related: Growing olives in the desert in Israel.

Classic Tapenade

Makes about 1½ cups

Ingredients

½ pound (about 1⅓ to 1½ cups, depending on the size) imported black olives

2 large garlic