Like every good bisque it starts with bacon--cook it crisp, crumble it, and use the fat to sautee the vegetables. You
cut corn off the cob and then simmer the cobs in heavy cream and chicken stock to create a base. There's a bunch more steps involving the bacon fat and onions and leeks and chanterelles and sherry, and at some point you add potatoes and then the corn. At the END you sauté crab meat in butter and add it. Serve with fresh herbs on top. I'd never made it but it seems like the perfect luxurious dish for my valentine.I still use cookbooks, and I have file folders bulging with recipes. But these days my go-to site for recipes is Epicurious. It's loaded with wonderful ideas, and often I'll print off 2 or 3 same-but-different and merge them to my taste. Frankenfood.
The comments are helpful and sometimes crack me up. Like this, for one of their recipes for soft shell crab with wilted spinach:
"I substituted red snapper for the soft shell crabs and kale for the spinach, and cut down on the amount of vinegar. It turned out very well."
When you want to cook up something sensational and special, where do you go for inspiration?
RHYS BOWEN: Valentine's dinner was garlic jumbo prawns in a balsamic glaze, with crispy garlic potatoes and asparagus. Yummy.
When I was young I used to try out new and complicated recipes on guests, much to my husband's dismay. You've never tried this before? He'd wail. Usually they turned out okay, except for the turban of sole that collapsed in a big mess all over the plate when I turned it out.
These days I stick to tried and true recipes, ones we know we love. We often serve guests a curry, which John does awfully well, or a leg of lamb with roast potatoes. Sometimes I browse my many cookbooks, especially for appetizers and desserts, or look online but I have to confess we often wind up taking guests to a nice restaurant!
LUCY BURDETTE: Mmmm, That crab and corn bisque sounds
divine! I save recipes all the time, from the New York Times, the Washington Post, a variety of email lists I belong to... and if I want to make something I haven’t tried before, I usually start by googling. Then I skim over the recipes that show up and pick and choose my ingredients and methods. I also get obsessed with ingredients from time to time – this year it’s Rancho Gordo. I can’t wait to make the shrimp and hominy stew that came in their latest email. I had to order a bunch of stuff just to be sure the hominy and the smoked pimento were on board in my kitchen!
JENN McKINLAY: That bisque sounds delicious. What a lucky Valentine, you have. I actually loathe cooking. I find the day to day
meal planning to be utter drudgery. Thankfully, I married wisely and Hub and I split the cooking, which makes it tolerable. I should say that while I find daily cooking tedious, I love to bake. I am a cookie, pie, and cake machine and bake every week, usually a couple of times so there is always a dessert around here or two. I love cookbooks and have a solid collection. For fresh inspiration, I hit Pinterest and I have a subscription to All Recipes (a website inspired the print version) both of which I enjoy.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, Jenn, the planning! Is the worst. I say: just TELL me what to make, and I make it, but don't make me think of it.
That said, when I get inspired with an idea, I go to various cookbooks and online to see the different ways people
make it--say, beef bourgignon or lemon chicken, and take the parts from each that I like. For Valentines day, ooh, I forgot it was valentines day, But my cooking fun is to see what's in the fridge, and then see what I can make from it. So we had sirloin tips on fresh spinach with yellow tomatoes and black olives and bleu cheese. it was SO pretty--and delicious!
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I actually don't mind the meal planning. Usually I do it on Saturday or Sunday, and then do the shopping for the week.
My downfall is not managing to cook everything I plan
and so I end up wasting stuff at the end of the week. My other downfall is cookbooks, which I am just swoony crazy about. I made a resolution that this year that I would try to actually cook one thing from every cookbook I keep on my shelves! But, alas, aside from the standards that pull up again and again, I am much more likely to try something new that I find on the Internet when I'm looking for ways to use that food in the fridge! (What can I do with fresh English peas and butternut squash, for instance, when the hubby likes neither...)I like Epicurious, too, Hallie, and love the NYT recipes. Oh, and I follow cooking blogs (big trouble) my most favorite being Deb Perlman's Smitten Kitchen. She's such a good writer than it's even fun to read about things I'd never make.
Rhys, I want your balsamic shrimp recipe! And, Jenn, I wish I had the metabolism to eat all those goodies you make. I'd probably be a better baker...
JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Jenn, I, to, suffered the "I hate to cook" period, and why not - when you're cooking for hungry teens, it's all about shoveling the greatest amount of calories and nutrition for the most reasonable price, in a form they won't turn up their noses at. It has a lot more in common with being a coal stoker on a steam engine than anything else.
That being said, I'm starting to enjoy cooking much more these days, mainly because the only person I have to please is me. Vegetarian? Fine. Ancient grains? Bring it on. "Weird" soups? Okay.
HALLIE: PS on the crab bisque. It was a near disaster. I'd bought dried chanterelles which turned out not to be 'dried' so much as petrified. The plastic package was broken, and they must have gone bad because no matter how much hot water I used to reconstitute them they remained woody. I had to remove them from the soup, tiny piece by tiny piece.
After that, it was delicious.
What are your go-to places for meal-planning inspiration? And it's ok if it's your takeout menu drawer.
