Peach-Basil Ice Cream
Nothing speaks to me more of a summertime treat than peach ice cream. Here in Texas, we’re blessed with an abundance of fresh peaches, primarily from Parker County in North Texas and Gillespie County in the Hill Country. In July and August, these beauties are at their peak, and we’re making peach ice cream as […]
K-Paul’s Lemon-Dill Cucumber Salad
In honor of what would have been his 80th birthday recently, I made Paul Prudhomme’s summer-perfect cucumber salad with lemon-dill dressing. Any time I make something of from the kitchen of this big-hearted, immensely talented man, I think back to the evening when I had the honor of meeting him at the opening of the […]
Tomato Pie
In a twist on James Beard’s famous tomato pie, which his friend and renowned food writer Ruth Reichl has touted for decades, I used my husband’s famous buttermilk biscuit recipe for the crust. (You can always use a store-bought pie crust.) Then I included cherry tomatoes (that’s what our garden is producing by the bushel […]
Ginger Peach Crumble Pie
Inspiration for this dessert came from an exalted source, Helen Corbitt. She rose to fame in the 1950s when she put Neiman Marcus on the culinary map. A native New Yorker, Ms. Corbitt moved to Texas to teach catering and restaurant management at the University of Texas and then joined the Houston Country Club in […]
APPLE-CHERRY-ALMOND UPSIDE DOWN CAKE
Lots of the old cookbooks I turn to for Kitchen Comfort inspiration include recipes for pineapple upside down cake. I longed to do something different, and I love the way sweet apples and tart dried cherries play against each other. This one gives me the chance to haul out one of my cast-iron skillets, the […]
Kitchen Comfort: TUNA NOODLE CASSEROLE
When this Kitchen Comfort recipe series began, a friend urged me to create an updated Tuna Noodle Casserole. Tiffany is a Tex-pat, a Texan living much of the time in South Africa, where she craves the comfort foods of home. My confession: It’s a dish I’ve never truly embraced, simply because I always found it […]
Kitchen Comfort: DARK CHOCOLATE WHISKEY SHEET CAKE
If ever we need comfort, it’s now. Perhaps as unsettling as the onslaught of the pandemic and all that it has brought us is the partial opening of places — because now, we have even more questions than before. Should we stay home or is it safe to go out to eat? We want to […]
Kitchen Comfort: APPLE CRISP
As soon as I told my sister I was embarking on this food makeover quest I call Kitchen Comfort, she urged me to find our grandmother’s recipe for Apple Crisp. No question, it was one of the happiest dishes from our childhood, and one we haven’t tried in a long time. “The only ones I […]
Kitchen Comfort: STUFFED PEPPERS
Red, yellow and green stuffed peppers served with seasoned, grilled home-made sourdough. Searching for old family recipes for this reliable comfort dish, I found a couple of options for making over. My paternal grandmother’s well-worn 1920s cookbook from The Woman’s Club of Fort Worth offers up a version begging for some updates. Due to the […]
Kitchen Comfort: SPANISH CHICKEN
Among the cookbooks my mom has collected since the 1950s, several fall into the genre I call “church lady” — the compendiums of every casserole and covered dish you can imagine. When on the search for recipes to make over for this Kitchen Comfort series, I especially like prowling through a 1980s edition of The Pride […]