Blue Cayenne

This is one wonderful salad dressing. A real keeper.

This Creamy Sesame-Ginger Dressing is a Samin Nosrat recipe from The New York Times. You can find the original recipe here. Nosrat is the gifted author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, an exceptional cookbook that should be in everyone’s collection. 

This recipe caught my attention because of its carefully-crafted blend of interesting ingredients. You’ve got quite a bit of white miso, rice vinegar, honey, a good pop of sesame oil and quite a bit of fresh ginger in this dressing. How interesting is that?

I enjoyed this dressing on a simple salad of romaine, beautiful heirloom tomatoes from my farmer’s market haul,  and purple cabbage (and a few beautiful wax beans) but it would be wonderful on a cabbage coleslaw.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

It’s flaky. It’s tender. It’s sweet. It’s savory. There is a bit of a sour feta bite. 

It’s wonderful.

This is a riff on Greek Tiropita–layers of crisp and flaky phyllo dough stuffed with pungent feta cheese.

This recipe brings back memories of glorious stays in Greece.

Athens was one of the first places we visited in our travels. It was a Four Capitals Tour sold by the Broadway Department store. We visited London, Paris, Rome, and Athens. And so started our travel odyssey that took us to more than fifty countries.

Through it all, Greece remained a favorite.  From Athens to Thessaloniki, Greece captured our imaginations and our hearts. The history!  The ruins! The museums!  The people! The tavernas! I would go back there in a heartbeat. 

This particular recipe rekindles fond memories of sitting on the terrace of a bakery near our modest Hotel Plaza just off Victoria Square in Athens . Each morning we sipped potent Greek coffees and devoured freshly-baked tiropita and spanakopita as we watched Athens wake up. This quick little tiropita-esque recipe hits all the right taste and fond-memory notes. I’m not sure why you couldn’t omit the honey and make a tasty spinach version, too.

Here is a photo of me from those many years ago travels enjoying an Aristophanes play in the ancient Greek theatre at Epidaurus. I’m pretty sure I must have had a stash of phyllo pastries in that picnic bag. Maybe even a bottle of retsina.

This recipe is from Georgina Hayden’s cookbook Greekish: Everyday Recipes With Greek Roots. You can buy the cookbook through your local bookstore or at Amazon here..

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

I’ve had this recipe in my burgeoning to-do file for some time.

The original recipe is from The New York Times and the reviews are pretty strong.  A reader named  Isabel, for example, wrote that this cake may be one of the best things she’s ever eaten or baked. You can find the original recipe here.

I’m a sucker for that kind of review.  I knew I had to bake this.

In the end, I really enjoyed this  Mochi Cake. It is delicate and moist and not too sweet…and interesting. I’ve never baked a Mochi Cake before and my experience using red bean paste is pretty thin! Be forewarned, though, that this recipe makes a lot of cake. You may want to halve the recipe or invite your friends to a mochi feast. (Come to think of it, that mochi feast is a great idea!)

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen.