"elise" news and stories

Caramelizing Onions from Simply Recipes on Vimeo.

There are few meals I make that don't in some way involve onions. I add red or sweet ones to salads for crunch. When I saute greens, I almost always start by softening slivered yellow onion in some olive oil, in order to give the chard or kale a flavor partner. They go in all my soups, stews, braises and roasts. And, when I want a real treat, I'll caramelize them down to a puddle of dark, sweet onion jam that goes amazingly well on sandwiches, pizzas or even just on top of a cracker.

Elise at Simply Recipes posted a tutorial yesterday on how to make caramelized onions that is helpful for the beginnger and a good reminder for those of us who have let caramelized onions slip off our mental food map. What's more, she created a time lapse video of the caramelization process that I've now watched four times, just for the pleasure of seeing those crispy raw onions melt down into a rich and mellow spread.

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Those of us who follow food blogs are well acquainted with Elise of Simply Recipes. Her recipes are always dependable and she seems to have cooked just about everything in creation, which means that her website is something of a definitive resource.

However, if you haven't been following her for a long time, you might have missed a particularly useful blender tip she offered nearly three years ago. Lucky for all us internet readers, those eagle-eyed editors at Lifehacker found this particular tip and have brought it to prominence for our edification.

She suggests using a canning jar in place of your blender carafe when mixing up small batches of things. Apparently, most blenders are designed so that their bottom blade contraption will screw onto a standard sized canning jar. This way you can blend or chop inside a jar, remove the blender blade and store easily by popping on a regular old jar lid. It's like the predecessor to the Magic Bullet.

[via Lifehacker]

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When my mom was pregnant with me, she craved borscht. She would buy the jars of Manishevitz brand borscht and drink it cold, straight from the container. It was a surprise to no one when I came into the world with an unreasonable love for beets. I like beets just about any way that they come, and borscht is one of my favorite ways to eat them. However, for someone who loves those red root vegetables as much as I do, you'd think that I'd then have a go-to recipe for the stuff. Sadly, you would be mistaken. I've tried many times and while I've always come up with something edible, I've never made it and then thought, "Gee, I love that."

However, on Sunday, Elise at Simply Recipes posted about borscht and included a recipe that she's adapted from Bon Appetit. It is based on beef broth and includes beets, carrots, potatoes and cabbage. It looks hearty, flavorful and deeply colored and is calling my name. I think I'll save this recipe for when I go to visit my parents in Oregon in a few weeks, to see if I can't shake my mother's attachment to the jarred version of this soup. With this recipe in hand, I don't think it should be hard.

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Still have turkey leftover from your Thanksgiving dinner? If so, I recommend turning to Elise of Simply Recipes for a little post-holiday inspiration. This afternoon a friend of mine came over for a bit. While he was here, he mentioned that he was interested in making some chili that would incorporate all the meat leftover from the 12 pound bird he bought to share with his mother and brother. A quick Google search led up to the recipe for Turkey Chili that Elise posted two years ago. And just today, she shared a recipe for Turkey Tacos with Cranberry Salsa that sounds really tasty. I'm not much of a fan of reheated poultry (it's a weird quirk of mine) but after reading these recipes, I'm wishing I had just a little bit of leftover turkey. If these recipes whet your interest but don't seem perfectly for you, make sure to check out the box in the upper right hand corner of the screen that says More Recipes, as it links to even more terrific turkey recipes from Elise.

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A sandwich can be the perfect solution if you are hungry, but not hungry enough to sit down and have a whole meal. They can also be a relatively healthy late-night snack if you find yourself up in the wee hours. Finger sandwiches and tea sandwiches are categories of sandwich that were created entirely for snacking. More often than not, these snackable sandwiches are meatless, since that ensures that they will need minimal preparation time. Elise, of Simply Recipes, made up a batch of Caprese Mini Sandwiches that are perfectly suited to snacking, meeting both the size and meat-free requirements. Though they are small and easy to prepare, they are surprisingly elegant, using a combination of pesto, mozzarella and tomatoes on top of a lightly toasted and seasoned pita bread. The seasoned pita bread, which uses spices and a bit of parmesan cheese, could also be used for dipping in salsa or hummus, if you're not inclined to assemble the whole thing.

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