THE LADY OF SHALLOTS

Ina Garten's Couscous with Peas and Mint: 3.5 stars Sometimes you make couscous for 15 people (Ina Garten's "Couscous with Peas and Mint" from her Foolpoof: Recipes You Can Trust ) and convince yourself that you need to double the recipe. Then you find that it probably wasn't necessary to buy TWO bags of frozen peas. Now you find yourself staring at a whole lot of leftover defrosted peas. What to do? Here's one idea! How about lamb sausage (more specifically, lamb-apricot sausage from Savenor's ) with a mint-pea purée? (It is winter, so I used this recipe for the purée and left off the pea shoots, etc). Do remember that a little bit of fresh mint goes a long way, so you may want to adjust the amounts depending on your preferred pea-taste to mint-taste ratio.  Serious Eats' "Lamb Sausage with Pea Purée" : 4 stars But one can only make/eat so much mint-pea purée. I was excited to try Food52's Peas Porridge Hot recipe until I...

When it is hot, as it has been for the last several days here in Boston, I tend to avoid turning on the oven as much as possible, and use it as a great excuse to dine outside. I've had several Ina Garten recipes that call for grilling that I end up broiling in the toaster oven due to lack of motivation to fire up the grill. Finally, however, we tried Garten's Herb-Marinated Pork Tenderloin on the bbq. It is really very good...especially in the summer when you want a "lighter" meat. I'm not totally sure how I feel about lemon and pork, to be honest...there is a moment of adjustment when I first taste it, but then it is decidedly delicious. I think the fresh rosemary, thyme, garlic, and dijon save it. The lemon sort of "summers up" these more traditional pork seasonings. Now, looking back at my blog, I can't believe I haven't already blogged my Amish Slaw recipe...it is part of what I call the Summer Salad Marathon (SSM), but I actually make it...

Saffron Risotto-stuffed Calamari with Tri-Colored Pepper & Zebra Tomato salad I picked up this little bargain cookbook quite awhile ago, and let me just say now, for the record, I don't know how on earth Amazon sellers would justify asking $57.95, and no...wait for it.. $135.71 for a cheap, paperback 64 page Könemann cookbook. That's disgraceful. I think I paid $4 at most. At any rate, I digress. I've made several recipes from Anne Wilson's Meze: Mediterranean-Style Eating , and while many of the recipes are labor-intensive (and some are missing list ingredients, ahem), most everything I've made has turned out well, including my first try with dolmades. So tonight I decided to try the Saffron Risotto-stuffed Baby Squid, given the presence of calamari in my freezer and my great love for risotto. I left out two of the main ingredients for the risotto (leeks and fennel) and substituted a few other ingredients: Saffron risotto-stuffed calamari (adapted from Ann...