For perfect soft-boiled eggs, set your Instant Pot to 3 minutes and low pressure. The eggs will have perfectly jammy yolks and will peel like a dream! My first Instant Pot success was a hard-boiled egg , my second was a soft-boiled. The virtues of making “boiled” eggs in an Instant Pot can be summed up as follows: 1. They peel like a dream. 2. They come out perfectly every time....

It’s been about three years now that I’ve been making Bon Appetit’s parmesan-roasted cauliflower , a recipe Molly Wizenberg wrote about on her blog and described as a “go-to”. Here’s the gist: cauliflower florets, a sliced onion, and a few unpeeled garlic cloves dressed with olive oil and a few thyme sprigs roast for 40 minutes on a sheet pan, where they caramelize before they meet a showering of salty, grated parmesan....

I’ve heard that trying to please everyone, as a general life strategy, may at best lead to disappointment and, at worst, failure. Eek. But what if, say, without even trying, you just happen to please everyone? Hmm. I thought about this on Sunday night as I sat at Pizza Buono, our favorite neighborhood spot not only for its delectable pizza and fresh-squeezed juices but also for its dining room, which is equipped with a well-stocked play kitchen for the kids....

Do you ever find yourself needing to prepare a meal for a friend? Perhaps a new mom? Or someone on bed rest? Or just someone in need? As comfortable as I feel in the kitchen, cooking for these sorts of occasions makes me panicky. I never know what to make. I know comfort food is the name of the game, but I worry that my comfort food might not comfort others....

If you can make focaccia — and you know you can! — you can make excellent Sicilian-style pizza at home. It’s shockingly easy. Read on to learn the game-changing secret that allows the focaccia-like crust to stabilize and ensures the toppings do not overcook. 🍕🍕🍕 While the definition of Sicilian-style pizza as we know it today is debatable, the indisputable original Sicilian pizza is something called sfincione , a focaccia-like dough topped with onions, bread crumbs, and caciocavallo cheese....

My search for a perfect chocolate mousse, led me to Julia Child’s recipe on David Lebovitz . In addition to containing booze and coffee, Julia’s recipe calls for a technique that resembles parfait-making but that is simpler. Yolks and sugar get whisked until thick, first in a double boiler then over an ice bath. Beaten egg whites get folded in at the end. Lebovitz describes Julia’s mousse as having “a perfect, slightly-gummy texture, backed up by a wallop of pure dark chocolate flavor....

Tired, pale, wrinkled — it’s a sad lot of vegetables gracing the farmers’ market tables these days. But I’m not judging. Those very three words came to mind as I looked in the mirror this morning. I could use a little help right now — some sun, some fresh air, spring — and so could those vegetables. And I’ve got just the thing. I had read about this tahini sauce in Jerusalem , where it’s used in various places, most notably in a recipe for roasted butternut squash with pine nuts and za’atar, but I never felt compelled to make it until I read this note under my friend’s Instagram photo: “I will never tire of this: roasted CSA root veg and squash, tahini with lemon and za’atar....

Soft and chewy, perfectly sweet, and loaded with chocolate, these cookies are irresistible. Read on to learn my 6 tips for making excellent chocolate chip cookies every time. Bonus: these cookies are easily made gluten-free — see recipe box for details 🍪🍪🍪 Lightly adapted from a Fine Cooking recipe , this is the soft and chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe I’ve been making for over 20 years. During these past two decades, I’ve refined my method and measurements, and while I can’t promise I won’t make more tweaks, these cookies are near perfection....

An attempt to make an authentic fattoush salad could easily send someone down the YouTube rabbit hole. I found myself nearly there a few weeks ago, when I remembered the exceptional fattoush salad my Lebanese friend Liliane made for lunch a few summers ago at her house. It was simple, too: good tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce, good crispy pita bread, a simple dressing, a drizzle of pomegranate molasses, and a sprinkling of za’atar....

Whenever I have an Instant Pot win, it feels big, miraculous even. Take this one-pot spaghetti and meat sauce. It comes from Skinny Taste’s One and Done cookbook , and, as the title suggests, it will leave you with one — one! — pan to clean. I have made and loved Martha Stewart’s famous one-pot pasta, which is cooked stovetop, but somehow I doubted the idea would transfer to a pressure cooker: in such a short period of time, could good flavor develop?...

On the topic of kitchen mistakes, Cal Peternell in Twelve Recipes writes: “There’s no losing them, so we invite them to the table to teach us what they can.” Wise words. This is how two-lentil dal materialized in my kitchen. One night I scrounged two cups of assorted lentils from several near-empty, many-months-old bags, threw them in a pot and crossed my fingers. But the result, a happy mix of creamy and chunky, like a partially puréed soup, was very welcomed at the table, even more so than subsequent purebred dal attempts....

This is one of my favorite, pantry-made salads: vegan “tuna” salad. The texture of partially crushed chickpeas mixed with the dressing, a mix of tahini, mustard, and Greek yogurt (or vegan mayonnaise), combine to form an astonishing resemblance to tuna salad. A few briny bites — capers and pickles — along with a few classic tuna-salad players — diced celery and onion — make it irresistible! <img loading=“lazy” src=“https://alexandracooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/sandwichstacked_alexandraskitchen.jpg" onerror=“this.onerror=null;this.src=‘https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhe7F7TRXHtjiKvHb5vS7DmnxvpHiDyoYyYvm1nHB3Qp2_w3BnM6A2eq4v7FYxCC9bfZt3a9vIMtAYEKUiaDQbHMg-ViyGmRIj39MLp0bGFfgfYw1Dc9q_H-T0wiTm3l0Uq42dETrN9eC8aGJ9_IORZsxST1AcLR7np1koOfcc7tnHa4S8Mwz_xD9d0=s16000';" alt=“No-tuna “tuna” salad sandwich, cut and stacked on top of one another....

In this simple recipe, baked spaghetti squash, pulled with a fork to create noodles, replaces pasta in the classic dish cacio e pep e. Dressed with olive oil, cheese, salt, and pepper , the sweet spaghetti squash takes so well to salty and sharp Pecorino. I’ve had this recipe for cacio e pepe spaghetti squash bookmarked since last fall, when I first found myself flipping through Skinny Taste’s latest cookbook: One and Done ....

In September 2008 I returned from Slow Food Nation convinced I would, by the end of the week, build a mud oven in the alleyway next to my apartment and, as a result, have wood-fired pizzas at my disposal from then on out. I had watched volunteers at SFN stomp in the mud and cobble together an oven in two days, and I couldn’t stop dreaming about the pizzas, thin and crisp with a blistered bubbly edge, that emerged from that wood-fired oven....

These homemade Chinese steamed buns with scallions emerge from the steamer puffed and bouncy, feathery light in texture with a nice chew and an onion-y flavor permeating every bite. Hua Juan are mainstays of Chinese breakfasts and snacks, fluffy white vehicles to be eaten on their own or stuffed with countless fillings from barbecued pork to egg custard. This recipe is surprisingly simple to make and so, so delicious. Shortly after opening Cynthia McTernan’s A Common Table , I found myself reading about Chinese steamed buns, mainstays of the country’s breakfasts and snacks, fluffy white vehicles to be eaten on their own or stuffed with countless fillings from barbecued pork to egg custard....

I found the recipe by googling “best coffee cake ever,” which led me to discover The Pioneer Woman . She’s funny. She described the cake as a complete miracle. How could I resist making a complete miracle? I couldn’t, but I broke one of my rules in the process. Rules, you ask? Yes. You see, I try hard to follow a recipe — a baked goods recipe at least — to the T first time around....

This is the Brussels sprouts recipe that will convert skeptics into believers, haters into lovers , naysayers into evangelists. Roasted at high heat until charred at the edges, then tossed with a simple pomegranate butter, these Brussels sprouts are completely addictive. For many people, memories of boiled, mushy Brussels sprouts conjure mostly horror. For me, having only discovered them in my 20s, when chefs had figured out how to capitalize on their inherent sweetness, it is only a story of love....

A new summer favorite: Roasted broccoli steaks with fresh tomato sauce and olive bread crumbs. Here, roasted tomatoes and onions unite in a super simple but incredibly tasty sauce. It’s topped with roasted broccoli “steaks” and finished with olive bread crumbs, which are insanely addictive. This recipe, from this month’s Food & Wine , immediately caught my attention for its attribution: Greg Vernick of Philadelphia’s Vernick, a restaurant I love....

Sweetened with maple syrup and loaded with oats, this fresh maple oat bread is baked in a loaf pan, comes together in no time, and is so, so tasty. The oats give the bread a nice chew, and the whole wheat flour lends a heartiness, making it an excellent toasting bread. This no-knead maple oat bread is a variation of a favorite recipe in my cookbook, Bread Toast Crumbs . It’s a simple recipe, just like all of the others, but the process is slightly different than the main peasant bread recipe....

I have been making some variation of this breakfast casserole since this past Christmas morning, when I made Andrew Feinberg’s broccoli frittata , which was very well received (by the four adults sitting at the table). Like many frittata recipes, Andrew’s starts on the stovetop and finishes in the oven. In the recipe included below, the eggs cook entirely in the oven, moving it out of the frittata territory, making it more of an egg bake or a casserole....