Weekends in the Kitchen and Beyond
New Year’s Dinner at my house this year was delightful, with a cocktail party music mix of Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Mel Tormé, etc. playing in the background while we feasted on roast duck, mushrooms, cauliflower, and red potatoes. Admittedly, the food on the dinner plate was missing some colors, like […]
The closest equivalent to an American pie in Polish cuisine is a double-crust, sweet pastry filled with summer fruit, usually apples or plums, and baked in a large, rectangular baking pan. The apple version is called szarlotka. It’s like Polish apple pie. The pastry that forms the base of the pie is “półkruche” or “half […]
If you buy a bunch of peaches, and they all happen to ripen at the same time, what can you do? No need to panic. The tried and true solution to such a dilemma (aside from making jam) is to bake something special with the extra peaches. You can bake a fruit pie, tart, crostada, […]
If you’ve got Polish roots and have even the smallest plot of land, you are likely to be growing cucumbers in the summertime. And lots of dill. This summer, once our plot of cucumber vines started producing fruit, nearly each dinner at our house has included a Polish cucumber salad, called “mizeria.” Oddly enough, the […]
A summer cake that I remember from my childhood with much delight is a simple yellow cake baked in a large, rectangular pan, topped with seasonal fruits, such as a blueberries, cherries, or plums. If we spent the day at the community pool, this cake would routinely be packed in my lunchbox. Easy to pack […]