"easy recipe" news and stories

Raw nuts make a tasty and satisfying snack. They are a little on the bland side, so it is not hard to stick with the recommended daily serving of a dozen or so nuts. Roasting and salting the nuts really increases their appeal, and you'll probably find yourself eating at least a handful or two before trying to find something to wash them down with. Adding sugar to the roasted, salted nuts makes them dangerously addictive.

Fortunately, candied nuts are also very easy to make. All you need to do is toss the nuts in some egg white and coat with a generous amount of sugar and spices. For this recipe, I used cinnamon and allspice, which combine with the flavor of the pecan to produce a result that tastes exactly of fall and the holiday season. In fact, a batch of these nuts would make a wonderful gift for family or friends, though you'll want to make two so you can keep some for yourself.

Read on for the recipe:

Since tomatoes seem to ripen all at the same time, those who grow their own in summer often struggle with ways to use them up quickly. Sauces and salads are very nice, as are fresh tomatoes when eaten out of hand, but a simple open-faced tomato sandwich, as Dawna from Always in the Kitchen made, might be an even better application. Her sandwich starts with a piece of toasted, crusty bread (sourdough might work very well here) and is topped with slices of red onion, tomato, mozzarella cheese and a few sprigs of fresh basil. She also added a generous amount of salt and pepper. Simple though it seems, a sandwich like this one is guaranteed to be one fantastic lunch.

More fresh tomato recipes:

• Roasted Strawberry and Tomato Salsa
• Gazpacho
• Heirloom Tomato Tart
• Slow Roasted Tomatoes

Source

Pasta salads are not usually considered to be particularly elegant dishes, in large part because people think of them as bowls of mayonnaise that happen to have pasta mixed in. A pasta salad could really be any kind of cold or room temperature salad that has a dressing (as opposed to a sauce) and veggies in it. If you use a long, thin noodle, your pasta can quickly be transformed from a picnic side to an elegant main dish. Elise from Simply Recipes used this techinque with her inspired Sesame and Cilantro Vermicelli Salad. The asian-inspired pasta uses a honey and sesame soy dressing over a mix of thin noodles, cilantro, peanuts, green onions and red pepper, creating a perfectly satisfying summer pasta dish - no mayonnaise required.

Source

I debated over what to name this dessert. The recipe that inspired it was in a recent issue of Cooking Light and was called a sorbet, but I felt that the rich, smooth taste of the dessert did not really fit the sorbet name. To me, sorbet inspires an icier treat and not a creamy one, not to mention the fact that most sorbets contain no dairy products at all. Ice creams usually have cream in them, but I think that in this case we can make an exception because the dessert, Black Cherry Buttermilk Ice Cream, is delicious enough to satisfy any ice cream lover.

I saw this recipe in an old issue of Cooking Light (from 2003) that I had lying around and it immediately caught my eye. Why I didn't make it the first time I saw it, I'll never know, but I'm glad I did it now.

Waldorf salad isn't something that you see too often, but the combination of apples, raisins, celery and walnuts is not only addictive, but crunchy and satisfying. Coleslaw, too, is crunchy and refreshing, which is why it is such a popular side to accompany rich and meaty meals. Of course, both salads are slathered in mayo, so they're not exactly healthy foods despite having low-cal ingredients. This is one of the reasons why I liked the Cooking Light recipe, since it eliminates a lot of the fat but still tastes great. Combining the elements of the two salads into Waldorf Coleslaw worked beautifully.