This is another one of those dishes that makes good use of late summer/early fall produce while still feeling cozily satisfying when the days cool off. My local supermarket just wrapped up their annual Hatch chile extravapalooza or whatever, so I used them to make the pesto, but I think poblanos or Anaheim chiles would be equally delicious.

That little smattering of chile pesto floating in the soup looks pretty, but if I’m honest I added another tablespoon of the stuff before I ate it. I’ve also discovered that this pesto is awesome on eggs…and sandwiches. It’s just snappy enough to be interesting without being totally mean heat-wise. I’m thinking of making a massive batch with the last of the summer’s crop to see me through the winter.

Potato Cheese Soup with Green Chile Pesto

Ingredients:

Soup:
-1 medium onion, diced
-a splash of olive oil, to cook the onions
-2-3 large baking potatoes, peeled and diced
-1-2 cans chicken broth (or vegetable if you prefer)
-a good scoop of sour cream (probably 1/3 cup)
-about 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese, grated
-salt and pepper to taste

Pesto:
-2-3 green chiles
-4 green onions
-1 clove garlic
-1 handful cilantro
-1 tsp white wine vinegar (lime juice would also work)
-2 Tbsp olive oil (you may need more, you want the pesto to be thick but pourable/spreadable)
-salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Sauté diced onion in olive oil in a medium-sized soup pot over medium heat until onions are translucent. Add diced potatoes and cover with chicken broth (about 1 1/2 cans, but just use enough to cover the potatoes). Simmer over medium-low heat until potatoes are cooked through.
2. Use an immersion blender to puree cooked potatoes and onions in broth. Add more broth if the mixture is too thick (it probably will be). Remove soup from heat and stir in sour cream and cheese until the mixture is smooth and the cheese is melted. Taste and add salt and pepper to your liking.
3. Char whole green chiles over a gas burner, on a grill, or under the broiler until they are blackened in spots and somewhat softened. Remove seeds and stems from charred peppers.
4. Make the pesto by combining coarsely chopped green chiles, green onions, garlic, cilantro, vinegar, and olive oil in a food processor, and pulsing until combined and all the ingredients are nicely minced. Add salt and pepper to taste. Adjust texture by adding more olive oil. (You can chop everything by hand if you don’t have a food processor. The pesto’s texture will be rougher but it will taste great.)
5. Serve soup by pouring potato cheese soup into bowls and topping with pesto and maybe some black pepper. Crusty bread is recommended. Add salad to make it a meal.

I have a problem with recipes.  I think people place way too much confidence in them. Most people don’t realize that recipes are subjective. It doesn’t matter how many times it has been tested, how well it has been written, a recipe can still fail you. But it’s not necessarily the recipe’s fault, or even the recipe writer’s, because they can’t be in the kitchen with you. They don’t know if your oven is lying (it probably is), if your garlic is abnormally pungent, how your kitchen’s altitude or heat level or humidity will change cook times, or if your olive oil has gone rancid. The only one who can know this crap is you.

This level of responsibility can be kind of scary, especially when you’re first learning the ins and outs of cooking. But it’s also kind of empowering if you think about it, because it means that your palate and your opinion is valid. So if your recipe says “sauté for 5 minutes” and your veggies still aren’t as done as you’d like, you can (and should) keep cooking. If a recipe tells you to “add one teaspoon of salt” but it still tastes bland, add more. If your soup recipe calls for green beans but you hate green beans, use something else. Because the whole point of cooking is to feed yourself, and if you don’t like the taste, that’s really your problem isn’t it?

If you are going to cook, you need to taste. Everything. All the time. This is the only way you’ll learn just how spicy you like things, which brands of mustard are the strongest, how done you like your eggs, and how to generally make food you will actually enjoy eating.

Whenever I’m about to serve a dish I typically stand over the pan and taste, sometimes four or five times, adding salt or acid or sweetness until I’m happy with the flavor. I never measure salt or pepper (or most things) in my recipes. Just add and taste and add and taste. Witnessing the evolution of a dish from unseasoned to finished and balanced teaches me a lot, and makes it possible for me to get a dish to taste as good as I know how to make it before it hits the table.

I’m a proponent of the idea of “doctoring up” prepared foods when you are a brand new cook. It’s a little less intimidating to customize a jar of pre-made spaghetti sauce or bowl of ramen than it is to make your own from scratch. The ultimate goal will obviously be for you to be able to make your own everything from raw ingredients, but if you find cooking overwhelming, doctoring up pre-made food is a good way to learn how different seasonings effect your food and just what you like. Experiment with salt levels, pepper levels, adding tabasco, lemon juice or honey (even to something savory), extra garlic if you like it, fresh herbs – anything you want. Taste it before you make an addition and after, then make note of the difference.

Incorporating the habit of tasting into your cooking will help you discover new likes and dislikes and, without even realizing it, you’ll develop a culinary intuition that will make cooking a lot less stressful. So take your recipes with a grain of salt from now on, and trust your taste above all else.

Risotto is one of those dishes that’s known for being labor intensive, but the “labor” part of risotto-making is just stirring, which is really sort of meditative and intuitive and definitely nothing to be afraid of. You don’t even have to measure your ingredients, just stir and watch and take a few tastes when you think the rice is getting close to done.

The main thing to know about risotto is: use the right rice. I tried making this the first time about eight years ago with basmati rice. Because I was an idiot. The end result was decidedly not risotto. More like a rice ball. Arborio and carnaroli rice are the classic Italian picks for risotto, but I’ve used Japanese rice successfully, because it’s short-grained and similarly starchy. The other thing to keep in mind is that your cooking liquid is going to reduce while it’s cooked into the risotto, so any seasoning you add will be concentrated. Keep a light hand with the salt until the risotto is almost done, or you’ll risk over-salting. That’s it though: the right rice, and a low-salt broth.

It’s a weird thing for me to admit, but this is the first risotto I’ve made that I didn’t want to embellish with cheese. I needed this to taste like corn on the cob – just buttery and sweet. And I think cheese would have drowned out the delicate corn flavor. Yes, I spiked it with green onion, (for brightness) but overall this is just sweet butter and corn in a luscious little belly hug.

Also probably the whitest corn ever grown. Not so easy to photograph. Can you even tell it’s corn?

If you’ve never made risotto before, I think it’s helpful to watch a video to see how simple the adding liquid/stirring process is. Here’s a video for “golden risotto” on saveur.com. I love that the only way to really know if risotto is done is to get in there and taste it. No timing, no measuring, just pour and stir and pour and stir and taste.

Fresh Corn Risotto

Ingredients:
4 -5 ears fresh corn
1-2 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp butter, plus half a stick (4 Tbsp)
one small onion, diced
1 cup arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
scallions, chopped
parsley, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Method:
1. Cut raw corn from cobs and reserve in a bowl. Put leftover cobs in a pot and cover with water (about a quart, a little more is ok). Add 1-2 cloves smashed garlic and simmer, covered, for about two hours to make corn cob broth.
2. When broth is finished, remove garlic and corn cobs and scrape any cob pulp into the broth with a spoon or butter knife. Season lightly with salt, and keep on low heat. This liquid will reduce as it’s added to the risotto, so be very careful not to over-season the broth.
3. Sauté onion in 1 Tbsp butter over medium heat in another pot. When onion is translucent, add arborio rice and stir until rice is lightly toasted.
4. Begin by pouring white wine over rice and cook, while stirring, until the wine is mostly absorbed. Then, start adding corn cob broth a ladle or two at a time, stirring constantly. Allow the broth to absorb almost completely (there will be some creamy starchy sauce surrounding the rice) before adding another ladleful. Keep adding broth, stirring, and letting the liquid absorb in turns until the rice is al dente (not crunchy, but with a pleasant chew – it shouldn’t be sticking to your teeth or anything). Stir in reserved raw corn and allow to cook another minute or two.
5. When the rice and corn are done, remove the pot from the heat and stir in 1/2 stick butter. Taste and season as necessary with salt and pepper. The finished risotto should be somewhat loose (like it would spread a bit if you put it on a plate) but creamy, not watery. Add another touch of corn broth if necessary to loosen the risotto slightly. Top with scallions and parsley, maybe a bit of raw corn, and serve.

I don’t know guys. I feel like there’s something fundamentally lame about chicken salad. Maybe I’ve had it at one too many bridal showers or “ladies luncheons”. It’s just so irritatingly…inoffensive? Honestly, I had a small crisis when I sat down to write this, because I vehemently didn’t want to be the type of person who blogs about chicken salad. I tend to over-think things to the point of stupidity. “Chicken salad blogger” is not a thing. Thankfully I got my bizarre ego in check and remembered that this chicken salad is delicious, perfect for lazy cooking days, and flavorful enough to be interesting, if not…offensive? What is my deal sometimes.

For serious chicken salad tips, I turn to Ina. Woman knows her way around composed salads, which is something I think you have to master as a deli owner/caterer (and she was! before her famous TV chef days). At her behest, I began roasting split, bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts for chicken salad, and it produced such superior chicken, I  will never do it any other way again. I choose the word superior because I dislike the “m” word (that ends in -oist), though that’s exactly what this is.

“Curried” chicken salad isn’t exactly cooler than plan chicken salad, but it is seriously delicious and it makes apples and bacon and onions really happy together.

A salad fit for an innocuous lunch, that also happens to be awesome. I’m just going to go ahead and be a chicken salad blogger then.

Curried Chicken Salad with Bacon
serves 3-4

Ingredients:
-2 split, bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts
-olive oil (just a drizzle, to coat the chicken)
-1/2 cup mayo (you will need more if you use boneless, skinless chicken because duh, it’s dry, so taste and adjust)
-2 tsp curry powder (the yellow, American kind – embrace it)
-juice of 1/2 lemon
-1/4 cup red onion, diced very small
-1/2 cup apple, diced (I like fuji or granny smith)
-1/3 cup (or so) bacon, crumbled
-1-2 tsp of chives, chopped (sort of optional)
-salt and pepper, to taste

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 350F, place chicken breast on a baking sheet, coat with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast for 35-40 minutes or until cooked through. Allow chicken to cool, remove bones and skin, and dice into bite-sized chunks.
2. In a bowl, mix mayo, curry powder, lemon juice, red onion, apple, bacon, chives, and a pinch of salt. Add chicken and stir together to combine. Taste chicken salad and add more salt and pepper to taste.
3. Serve chicken salad immediately (or chill it for a few hours, it’s good either way) with crackers or on a sandwich with lettuce if you like.

There’s a lot going on in this sandwich.

I know a BLT is one of those classics that people have opinions about. It’s the kind of sandwich that some say shouldn’t be trifled with. But I can’t help myself sometimes.

And so to you I submit: an excessively delicious, maybe sacrilegious, not so apologetic version of the BLT. I call it the BLT…A…E. A and E being buttery avocado and runny-yolked fried egg, respectively.

Too much of a good thing? More like another thing entirely.

Mmm hmm.

BLT…A…E
like you need a recipe, but here it is anyway

Ingredients:
-your favorite bread, two pieces per sandwich, sliced pretty thin
-ripe, summer tomatoes, two or three slices per sandwich
-your favorite bacon, 3-6 slices per sandwich
-ripe avocado, one half per sandwich
-lettuce (for texture and prettiness)
-one egg per sandwich
-mayo, as needed
-salt and pepper
-probably some chips

Method:
1. Cook your bacon as you like (though might I suggest roasting it in the oven as discussed yesterday?) and allow it to cool slightly.
2. Slice your sandwich bread, tomato, and avocado, and tear lettuce into sandwich sized pieces.
3. Assemble your sandwiches thusly: one piece of bread, mayo, sliced avocado, lettuce, bacon, tomato, salt and pepper. Leave the sandwiches open faced until you finish making the eggs.
4. Fry your eggs  sunny-side up or over easy and put one on top of each sandwich. Top with bread, cut in half (the yolk will get split and sort of act as a second sauce for the sandwich) and serve. Probably with chips.

There isn’t really a wrong way to cook bacon, but some ways are definitely better than others. When I cook bacon I want it to turn out crisp but not burned, I want to be able to walk away from it, and I’d rather not ruin a shirt or arm with hot grease splatters. It’d be nice if it was easy to clean up as well.

This is why I cook my bacon in the oven, at a relatively low temperature, for a longer amount of time than most. Low, slow cooking allows the fat in the bacon to render and become crispy, while minimizing those “turn around for two seconds and it’s charcoal” experiences. I also cut my bacon in half (for more even cooking) and use foil pretty religiously because it eliminates the need for scrubbing pans and makes disposing of the grease a non-issue.

Usually when roasting, you’re admonished to not crowd your pan if you want your veggies (or whatever) to brown up. But this is bacon, not veggies. And bacon is full of fat, not water. So go ahead and crowd the pan, I promise it will still get crispy. Plus when the fat renders out, the bacon will shrink to about half it’s original size. Bummer, but hey, bacon!

When you finish, bask in the glory of golden brown, perfectly crispy, evenly cooked bacon. And it’s all done at the same time, so you can eat breakfast with buddies instead of babysitting a spitting pan of hot fat while everything else gets cold.

Bacon, the Best Way

Ingredients:
bacon

Supplies:
aluminum foil
baking sheet
plate lined with paper towels or cooling rack

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 300F.
2. Line your baking sheet with aluminum foil and line up your bacon end to end until the pan is filled.
3. Roast your bacon in the oven for 40-50 minutes, or until it’s as done as you like.
4. Drain bacon on lined plate or cooling rack, allow it to cool slightly, and serve.

A fool is probably the cutest-named dessert I’ve ever found. Traditionally, fools are made from stirring stewed fruit into whipped cream, making pretty, streaky ribbons of color in the cream.  But with the abundance of perfect summer nectarines, I thought freezing just made more sense than stewing. So instead of stewed fruit, we have a fresh nectarine granita.

Granitas are really easy to make if you have a 9×13 pan and enough freezer space to store it for a few hours. You just make a thin fruit purée in a blender or food processor (thinner than your average smoothie), pour it into a wide, shallow pan, and stash it in the freezer for about two hours – checking on it every half hour or so to stir the frozen edges into the middle. When it’s done it turns into a craggy sort of slush.

And you can always serve a granita topped with whipped cream, but because this is a fool, our ratios are more like one part whipped cream to one part granita. This is no time to be bashful or stingy with the whip, so make a foolish amount.

Orange Nectarine Frozen Fool
makes 4 generous servings

Ingredients:
2 medium nectarines (or peaches if you have them instead)
1 cup orange juice (fresh squeezed if you can manage it)
1/4 cup sugar, plus two tablespoons
2 cups heavy cream

Method:
1. Heat orange juice in a small sauce pan until steaming, and add 1/4 cup sugar (the point is just to make sure the sugar dissolves well). You can use less sugar if your nectarines and orange juice are already very sweet, or more if they are tart.
2. Add orange juice and pitted, diced nectarines to a blender or food processor and pulse until smooth. Taste the purée and add more sugar if you want it to be sweeter. (Salvage a too-sweet puree with a squeeze of lemon and a few tablespoons of water.)
3. Pour the nectarine and orange juice puree into a 9×13 or similarly shallow and wide pan, and store it in the freezer for about two hours. Set a timer for every half hour to check on it and stir the frozen edges into the middle of the pan.
4. When the granita is flaky and thoroughly frozen, whip your cream with two tablespoons of sugar (or more if you want it to be sweeter).
5. Layer granita in serving dishes with whipped cream and enjoy.

I spent this past weekend hanging out in New York with a darling, fabulous friend. And between the excellent girl talk, sushi, bagels, and flea market strolls I felt something – I felt the sun getting lower, the shade getting cooler – I felt the promise of fall. And it was glooorious. I love that fall means layers and boots and hot drinks and cozy socks, and I know lots of you agree, but we need to chill right out for a minute. We have three weeks of summer left to enjoy, during which all the best things about the season will likely be at their peak levels of awesomeness – including tomatoes, cucumbers, corn on the cob, barbecues, and those elusive, perfectly hot but not horribly sweltering afternoons.

This chilled soup is the perfect thing for a sun-speckled, early-evening, late-summer meal, maybe as a prelude to pasta or grain salad. It’s light, yet rich, and easy to throw together if you have five minutes and a blender. Plus it makes the most of late summer cucumbers, which can be a little much after two months of unrelenting bounty.

Normally when I make a puréed hot soup, I use chicken stock or vegetable stock to thin out the purée, but here that didn’t seem right, (I didn’t want that slow-cooked broth flavor) so I used water to keep it tasting fresh. Adding water to a soup sounds like kind of a dumb thing to do, but it works if you season the soup really well to make up for the gap in flavoring. The essential ingredients to make this soup flavorful are lots of salt, a generous squeeze of lemon juice, and a touch of raw garlic.

Let’s not put away our sandals just yet. These last weeks of summer are probably the best.

Chilled Avocado Cucumber Soup

Ingredients:
2 avocados, skinned, pitted, and diced
1 small English cucumber, peeled and diced (or one regular hot house cucumber, seeds removed)
1-2 cloves garlic, grated or minced (start with one, add another after tasting if you want more zing)
juice of 2 small lemons (if you are unsure about size, start with one and add more if the soup is blah)
1- 1 1/2 cups water
salt, to taste (start with 1 tsp)
sour cream, for topping
chopped chives, for topping
black pepper, for topping

Method:
1. Put diced avocados, cucumber, garlic, lemon juice, and salt in a blender with 1 cup water. Pulse until smooth. If you want to serve this soup immediately, use cold water.
2. Taste soup and add more garlic, lemon, or salt as needed. If the soup is very thick, add more water and pulse again until it is incorporated. Repeat tasting process until the soup is well seasoned. Trust your taste buds here – this soup should be light and refreshing but not bland at all, don’t be afraid of heavy-handed seasoning/lemoning etc.
3. Chill soup for 20 minutes (up to overnight). Taste it again once it is cold (flavors will develop as the soup sits and will taste slightly different cold). Serve topped with sour cream, chopped chives, and a grind of black pepper.

This recipe might be the greatest thing I’ve ever invented.  It’s rich and creamy, and sweet enough to be a dessert without being cloyingly so. The goat cheese keeps it interesting (trust me, it goes really well with sweet things), and the lemon zest cuts through all the richness in the best way. It’s just really good.

Baked ricotta is one of those dips that you don’t see very often, but it’s so delicious it really needs to make a comeback.

I used some of my fancy naked roasted almonds to top off this dip, but if you aren’t into peeling your own almonds (I get it), you can definitely use regular roasted, salted almonds.

There she is, above, ready to go into the oven. And below, the finished, golden-brown and delicious product.

Yaaaahm.

Serve with crostini (obviously).

Honey Almond Baked Ricotta with Goat Cheese and Lemon

Ingredients:
1 lb carton of whole milk ricotta cheese
1/2 small roll of goat cheese (about 2 ounces)
2-3 tablespoons of honey (depending on how sweet you like it)
zest of 1 small lemon
juice of 1/2 small lemon
small pinch of salt
roasted, salted almonds (enough to cover the top of your baking dish)
extra honey, for drizzling

Method:
1. Put your ricotta into a strainer over a bowl, cover with paper towels and another, heavy-ish bowl (just to speed the process a bit). Allow the ricotta to drain for about an hour. (This step isn’t utterly mandatory, but ricotta will let off some water when it’s warm, so the more you strain it, the less liquid you will have in your dip).
2. Preheat your oven to 375. Dump the drained ricotta into a mixing bowl, add goat cheese, honey, lemon zest,  lemon juice, and a pinch of salt. Mix well and taste. Make any adjustments you deem necessary, keeping in mind that you are about to add more honey on top.
3. Transfer your ricotta mixture to a small baking dish and smooth out the top with a spatula. Chop up your roasted, salted almonds and cover the ricotta with them. Drizzle the almonds with honey.
4. Bake your dip at 375 for 20-25 minutes, or until the top is slightly browned around the edges. When you take it out of the oven, it will be a little wobbly-looking. Let it cool for about 20 minutes, and serve with crostini and maybe a little grind of black pepper (trust me it works).

P.S. It’s also good cold.

Crostini are one of those foods that are stupidly easy to make, but sadly underused. I love them because I’m a dip fiend, and these pretty little toasts turn any dip into a fancy appetizer. Everything just feels more grown up with crostini. I don’t mean to insult your intelligence by posting such a simple recipe, but I don’t want to assume everyone already knows how to do it. You’ll see what I mean. Dead. Simple.

The most important thing you need to make great crostini is a sharp bread knife. You want your slices to be about 1/4 inch thick, so they’re easy to crunch into. If your bread is a little bit stale it will be even easier to get uniform slices, but it’s not necessary if you’ve got a good knife.

And really, you can make crostini out of any bread you want. I like to use baguettes because I think they make nice chip-sized bites, but you can use the loaf that goes best with your dip, as long as you cut them into about two-bite pieces. It might be a bit more difficult to slice a large loaf into thin slices, but if you let it get a bit stale you’ll have a better time of it. So toast up some pumpernickel triangles, bagel chips, even three-cheese focaccia slices – they all behave similarly in the oven.

Basic Crostini

Ingredients:
a baguette or loaf of un-sliced bread
olive oil or melted butter
salt and (optional) pepper

Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 375 Fahrenheit. Some people like to go hotter, and that’s fine, but I find I get a more even result at a lower temperature for a slightly longer time.
2. Slice your bread into 1/4 inch thick slices, as evenly as possible. Line them up on a baking tray and drizzle them with olive oil or melted butter. Sprinkle with salt and (if using) pepper.
3. Bake your oiled bread slices for 15-20 minutes, until golden brown. Things brown up quickly between the 15 and 20 minute mark, so turn on your oven light and keep and eye on them. Allow them to cool, and store in a zip-top bag for up to a week.