The Splendid Table

Weeknight Kitchen: Rustic White Bean Salad with Soft-Cooked Eggs

Chefs Collaborative and Ellen Jackson — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:52:31 +0000

This salad has much more than an assortment of flavors and textures. The beans and eggs can be cooked ahead, while the vinaigrette can be made several days in advance, leaving assembly of the salad for the last minute. It's lovely for lunch or as the anchor to dinner. Dress the beans in advance of eating to absorb the flavors of the vinaigrette.

Serves 4

Weeknight Kitchen: Warm Goat Cheese Salad

Ethel Brennan and Sara Remington — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:22:17 +0000

Weeknight Kitchen: Roasted Chicken Salad with Apples, Golden Raisins, and Tarragon

Shauna James Ahern with Daniel Ahern — Wed, 01 May 2013 16:21:42 +0000

Weeknight Kitchen: Grilled Asparagus with Spicy Parmesan Sauce

Barton Seaver — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 15:55:47 +0000

I rarely dress up asparagus; it has such a wonderful flavor that it feels silly to complicate it in any way. But, as the first warm months carry on, cooks and farmers, all eagerly anticipating the next wave of crops, begin to grow a little weary of asparagus. For this dish, I drizzle the grilled spears with a sauce that I made up one day when my wife was desperately hungry and the pickins were slim in the kitchen. We had olive oil, hot sauce, and a little grated Parmesan. I mixed them all together to make a dipping sauce for bread, and she loved it!

Weeknight Kitchen: Omelette Baguette

Tracy Lister and Andreas Pohl — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:51:38 +0000

Simple but delicious! Wrapped in a sheet of newspaper, this is a popular breakfast for people on the run. Often, the Vietnamese will simply pull up with their motorcycle at their favourite banh mi cart to pick one up on the way to work.

12 eggs
1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
pinch of salt

Weeknight Kitchen: Cauliflower with Saffron and Pasta

Heather Anderson — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 15:24:09 +0000

Is saffron — the legendarily expensive, hand- harvested spice — worth the money? Yes, if it's allowed to be the star.

Weeknight Kitchen: Green Pasta with Blue Cheese

Nigella Lawson — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 16:14:00 +0000

Reposted from www.splendidtable.org

Weeknight Kitchen: Croque Madame Muffins

Rachel Khoo — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:14:43 +0000

Croque Monsieur is essentially a toasted cheese and ham sandwich. Put a fried egg on top and you've got a Croque Madame (the egg is supposed to resemble a lady's hat). What makes the difference between a toasted cheese and ham sandwich and a Croque Monsieur is the cheese – in a Croque Monsieur it comes in the form of a creamy cheese sauce. And boy, does this make a difference!

Weeknight Kitchen: South of France Tomato Soup with Young Chevre

Lynn Rosetto Casper and Sally Swift — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 18:50:25 +0000

This soup tastes like it comes from Provence's culinary central casting. All the usual (and lovable) characters are here: the tomatoes, the garlic, the goat cheese and those herbs that actually do scent the air the way hyperventilating travel writers say.

Cook to Cook: Resist substituting fresh herbs for the dried ones called for here. They should be dried (but never powdered), just as they are in Provence's famous blend, Herbes de Provence. The ready-made blend is often stale. Here, you will be making your own.

Weeknight Kitchen: Straw & Hay Pasta

Lidia Bastianich — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 17:27:32 +0000

via www.splendidtable.org

Turkey Confidential Live Thanksgiving Day

Heather Anderson — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 15:54:15 +0000

On Thursday, November 22, help is on the way for Thanksgiving cooks, kitchen helpers and dinner guests on this, the biggest cooking day of the year. Lynne Rossetto Kasper will be available to answer listener questions throughout the live, two-hour program. Quickly becoming a Thanksgiving morning tradition, past shows have included everything from a cross-country trucker cooking his Thanksgiving dinner on the manifold to a panicked first-time cook who didn't realize a turkey needs to be thawed. Lynne handles all questions with wit, expertise and laughter.

Why Organic Food May Not Be Healthier For You

Allison Aubrey — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 07:22:00 +0000

Yes, organics is a $29 billion industry and still growing. Something is pulling us toward those organic veggies that are grown without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers.

But if you're thinking that organic produce will help you stay healthier, a new finding may come as a surprise.

Chewing Chia Packs A Superfood Punch

NPR Staff — Sun, 15 Jul 2012 20:04:00 +0000

When you hear the word chia, you probably think of chia pets. Maybe you even mutter that catchy slogan: "ch-ch-ch-chia."

Or maybe not, but lately, chia seed has been getting buzz beyond those terra cotta figurines. It's becoming a popular health food. Rich in fiber, protein and the highest plant source of Omega 3s, the little seeds pack a major nutritional punch.

Wayne Coates grows and sells chia seeds and has a book called Chia: The Complete Guide to the Ultimate Superfood.

He's also an ultra-runner. In his free time, he goes on really long runs — some 100 miles long.

Three Beers To Cheer Your Summer Suppers

editor — Sat, 14 Jul 2012 09:51:00 +0000

When the mercury's soaring, a cold, refreshing beer can be the best part of summer. As part of our occasional Taste of Summer series, we asked beer expert Graham Haverfield to recommend a few of his seasonal favorites.

Haverfield is the beer director for the Wine Library in Springfield Township, N.J. He's also a certified cicerone, or beer server. "Summer beers are typically lighter in body, they're typically a little lower in alcohol," he tells NPR's Scott Simon.

His first pick is Last Chance IPA, from Weyerbacher Brewing Company.

Wake Up Call To Grocery Stores: Young People Shop Around

editor — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Supermarkets have spent decades catering to the needs and wants of baby boomers, and now the millennial generation is disappointed with what they're finding at traditional grocery stores, and are shopping elsewhere in greater numbers.

In fact, a new market research report called Trouble in Aisle 5 reports that millennials buy only 41 percent of their food at traditional grocery stores, compared to the boomers' 50 percent.

Instead of buying the same brands from the same store every week like their baby boomer parent

'Hot Dog' Meets 'Bun': Famous Food Discoveries

NPR Staff — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 16:51:20 +0000

If you're watching a sports game at home, at a bar or at an arena, what better way to enjoy it than with some nachos, pretzels or hot dogs?

As a former baseball player, Josh Chetwynd knows a thing or two about stadium grub. His new book, How the Hot Dog Found Its Bun: Accidental Discoveries and Unexpected Inspirations That Shape What We Eat and Drink, features 75 short essays that trace the history of popular food and dispel common misconceptions.

Chetwynd tells NPR's David Greene that the book's main theme is about luck.

An Olympic Task: Finding Good Food At The Games

Vicki Barker — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 16:50:56 +0000

When the 2012 Summer Olympics begin in July, a culinary starting gun will go off: Fourteen million meals will be prepared for spectators and athletes during the Olympic and Paralympic games in London.

The criticism is already pouring in.

Jacquelin Magnay, the Olympics editor at The Daily Telegraph wrote a recent article calling the food to be sold at Olympic venues "bland and over-priced." In response, an Olympic caterer sent her a custom bento box of gourmet delicacies.

But Magnay has eaten her way through eight Olympics, and she's pretty sure she knows what visitors to this on

When Ice Cream Attacks: The Mystery of Brain Freeze

Joe Palca — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 07:30:00 +0000

If it hasn't happened to you, count yourself as lucky. For many people, eating ice cream or drinking an icy drink too fast can produce a really painful headache. It usually hits in the front of the brain, behind the forehead.

The technical name for this phenomenon is cold-stimulus headache, but people also refer to it as "ice cream headache" or "brain freeze."

The good news is that brain freeze is easy to prevent — just eat more slowly.

Pie-Making 101: How I Overcame My Fear Of Crumbling Crust

editor — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 07:29:00 +0000

If you listen to my story on Morning Edition, you'll understand the generational divide that has led to my fear of making a pie crust.

So when I decided to overcome my fear, I did it the right way. I hopped on a train to the Culinary Institute of America, the nation's premier cooking school, in Hyde Park, N.Y. There I learned the foolproof pie crust formula that chef George Higgins teaches his students. "It starts with 3, 2, 1," he explains.