Subject: Recipes

• Thoughts on Michael Ruhlman's The Elements of Cooking

  November 9, 2007

• What I Would Eat Before Dying -- But Only Then

  January 9, 2008

• Barack Obama's Chili Recipe: A Gut Check Special Investigation

  May 30, 2008

• Indian Food Expert Raghavan Iyer in Town Next Week

  September 11, 2008

• Throwback of the House: Wiener Throwdown - Circle Pups

  Todd Ehlers, Wikimedia CommonsMy friend Maggie sent me a blog post by Spanno regarding "vintage hot dog horrors." Ha ha. Funny.But...wait. It's just pictures of shitty old recipes. Sure, that crown roast made of hot dogs looks hilarious, but did Spanno make and eat it? No. At least I took the effort to make my Treet crown roast and take a bite.Okay, a nibble.Honestly, my husband ate most of the meat product, I ate the strawberries that didn't have Treet goo on them, and the rest went into the tr

  June 2, 2009

• Throwback of the House: Pickle Cheese Soup

  Todd Ehlers, Wikimedia CommonsRobin Wheeler writes for the blog Poppy Mom. After years of making and eating fancy food, Robin is sick of it all. She's returning to the basics: recipes that haven't surfaced in three decades. She reports on the results for Gut Check every Tuesday.The Polish Dill Pickle soup at the Fountain on Locust is one of St. Louis' hottest dishes. Owner Joy Christenen recently made the media rounds, giving instructions on how to make this concoction of vegetable broth, potat

  March 9, 2009

• Can Ian make Barack Obama's chili? Yes he can!

  June 4, 2008

• Holiday in Style

  November 8, 2006

• Feast on St. Louis Farmers' Markets

  May 23, 2007

• Eat More Beaver

  Missourians have a healthy appetite for wild game meat. Some say raccoon tastes better than roast beef.

  January 5, 2005

• Remember Nonna?

  Her kitchen welcomes you!

  December 29, 2004

• Hill-Swallowing

  A new book shares the history and the recipes of the Hill

  December 24, 2003

• Best Fried Chicken

  September 24, 2003

• Best Gift Store

  September 24, 2003

• Red Beans and Rice

  April 17, 2002

• Thai Score

  January 2, 2002

• Now We're Cookin'

  November 21, 2001

• Best Mussels

  September 26, 2001

• Side Dish

  July 11, 2001

• Meating Place

  January 24, 2001

• Side Dish

  November 29, 2000

• BERRY NECESSITIES

  August 18, 1999

• Throwback of the House: Baking the Summer Away

  Todd Ehlers, Wikimedia CommonsAh, summer food. It's the only thing I like about summer. I'd gladly live in a climate that never rose above 60 degrees if it weren't for giving up local produce, cookouts and a good old-fashioned summer cheese bake.What? You don't have the summer tradition of cranking the oven to 350 degrees, boiling some water and suffering a clogged artery-related heat stroke? In 1958, the experts at Good Housekeeping thought that sounded like a fine idea, so they gave us a reci

  June 9, 2009

• The 48-Hour Sneak Project

  Fernando de Sousa, Wikimedia Commons There's an essential difference between discipline and morality, even when one is sneaking food into the movies. As I've discussed in previous posts, sneaking has its own ethics and its own style, a code less concerned with slavish devotion to rules than the currents of compassionate and appropriate behavior woven through the fabric of the situation.I consider myself, as a Sneak and a person, to be more moral than disciplined. Displays of discipline for thei

  June 15, 2009

• Cooking With Match: Vegan Crab Cakes

  photo: Jennifer SilverbergIn this week's feature article, I report on Match, a meat substitute created by Allison Burgess, a lifelong St. Louisan. If you'd like to try some, I'll be posting recipes here on Gut Check all week long. We begin with crab cakes devised by Match's executive chef and general manager, Freddie Holland:Ingredients:3 tablespoons vegan mayo1 tablespoon Dijon mustard1 teaspoon dry mustard1/4 teaspoon hot sauce1/8 teaspoon cayenne1 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon black pepper1/4 cup

  July 1, 2009

• Cooking With Match: Match Burger

  flickr.com/photos/creativilleIn this week's feature article, I report on Match, a meat substitute created by Allison Burgess, a lifelong St. Louisan. If you'd like to try some, I'll be posting recipes here on Gut Check all week long.Just in time for the Fourth, here's Clint Whittemore's Match burger. Whittemore is the executive chef at The Market at Busch's Grove.Ingredients:1 pound Match Beef1/2 of one poblano pepper, diced1 teaspoon cumin1 teaspoon coriander1/4 teaspoon allspice2 tablespoons c

  July 2, 2009

• Cooking With Match: Wild Rice and Corn Stuffed "Chicken" Roulade

  photo: David KilperHolmes Lounge at Washington University, where you can eat Suarez' food.In this week's feature article, I report on Match, a meat substitute created by Allison Burgess, a lifelong St. Louisan. If you'd like to try some, I'll be posting recipes here on Gut Check all week long.Gary Suarez is the executive chef at Bon Appetit, the dining service at Washington University. Here's his recipe for a Match chicken roulade, stuffed with corn and wild rice.Ingredients:1 pound Match chicke

  July 6, 2009

• Throwback of the House: Hot in Herre Orange Mallow Refrigerator Pie

  Todd Ehlers, Wikimedia CommonsThis weekend I'm jetting to slightly-less-hot Philadelphia, and I planned to make a vegetable scrapple from a southwestern cookbook.I couldn't do it, though, because scrapple, like haggis, should never be vegetarian. Also, it's hot, and I don't want anything boiling for an hour anywhere near me.Which means that, finally, I get to bust out Cooling Dishes for Hot Weather for some Orange Mallow Refrigerator Pie.Make a graham-cracker crust. Or, if you're like me and tu

  July 14, 2009

• Innovations in Sneaking: The Solid-State Cocktail

  Fernando de Sousa, Wikimedia Commons While I'm constantly amazed at the number of movie theaters in St. Louis that offer beer, wine and decent coffee, there still aren't many places you can enjoy a good cocktail during the show. What's a sneak to do?1. Pre-mix the cocktail and bring it in a bottle or thermos.This is all right for simple cocktails, like a screwdriver, but for something more complicated or garnished, this is a poor choice. It's also hard to get an appropriately-sized serving for

  August 24, 2009

• Introducing Farmers' Market Share: Be Thankful for Tomatoes

  Alissa Nelson​Alissa Nelson is a graduate student and compulsive buyer of cookbooks. She enjoys scouring seed catalogs and thrift stores alike. Beginning this week, she will seek the bounty of local farmers' markets for Gut Check -- and then cook it.St. Louis, I have a message for you: Be grateful that you are not on the East Coast this summer.I know it's hard. You've absorbed the sense of inadequacy. You've grown accustomed to bitching endlessly about the weather. You've accepted the trek to

  August 26, 2009

• Farmer's Market Share: Chilled and Grilled Okra

  Alissa Nelson​Okra is one of the most beautiful plants in a summer garden. Its flowers make it look like an exotic plant imported from a gorgeous tropical isle where the summers are mild and the humidity is bearable -- kind of like St. Louis this summer. Red okra is so pretty that I've even seen it used for landscaping.

  September 2, 2009

• Farmers' Market Share: Haricots Verts Salad

  Alissa Nelson​I'm such a superficial produce buyer. If something is even remotely colorful or eye-catching or cute, I go nuts. (No, seriously, don't even get me started on cute.) So when I walked up to the Deep Mud Farm stand at the Maplewood Farmers' Market this past week, I was a goner. I mean, there were color coordinated outfits, the most vibrant -- almost luminous -- beans piled high and A DOG EATING THE BEANS. My dog eats green beans, so it was serendipitous.Naturally I picked up two pou

  September 9, 2009

• Chef's Choice Recipes from the Rotten Apple's Jerad Gardner

  Robin WheelerJerad Gardner of the Rotten Apple.​In my profile of Jerad Gardner of the Rotten Apple in Grafton, Illinois, he made fried green tomato breakfast sandwiches and fried rabbit livers. After the jump, the recipes for both.

  September 10, 2009

• Throwback of the House: A Study in Contrasts with Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs

  Todd Ehlers, Wikimedia CommonsWhen my friend Kelly gave me her copy of 1968's Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Cookbook, I thought it might be hard to find a bad recipe in a book published by the company that made New York hot dogs famous. Then I saw the cover, illustrated with a photo of a glass of wine and a crown roast made of hot dogs. Even classics can bring the suck.The Nathan's book swings from hot-dog delights to nightmares, encompassing the best and worst of human creativity.

  September 14, 2009

• Farmers' Market Share: Peach Pound Cake and Apple Honeycake

  Alissa Nelson​While training for my first 100-mile bike ride last spring, I developed a terrible habit. Although I stocked my saddlebag with the finest in sports goos and my back pocket with peanut butter-and-banana sandwiches, I couldn't help but plan the huge meal I would eat as soon as I got home. When you have twenty miles left in a bike ride, then a drive from the exurbs back to South City, this is probably not the most motivational way to look at your day.On the upside, I developed a spe

  September 16, 2009

• Chef's Choice Recipe from Anthony Devoti of Five

  Robin WheelerAnthony Devoti of Five and Newstead Tower Public House​My visit with chef Anthony Devoti focused on the abundance of local ingredients and how he's using them at Five and Newstead Tower Public House. When using fresh, high-quality ingredients, the food doesn't require difficult preparation. This isn't so much a recipe as a flexible guideline for preparing a simple, delicious roasted poultry dish with vegetables that can be altered based on ingredient availability and the number o

  October 1, 2009

• Throwback of the House: Jolly-O Cheap Eats from Merry Olde England

  Todd Ehlers, Wikimedia CommonsA few months ago, I introduced you to one of my favorite people in the world, my British pal Sally. This week, I got a care package from the U.K.: two cookbooks from Sally's mom's collection, copyright 1962. They're weathered with use, which I love, and full of notes from Sally about which recipes her mom used to make. She even left some clipped magazine recipes hidden among the pages.Sally's mom, Gill, was classmates with Mick Jagger at the London School of Economi

  October 5, 2009

• Out, Damned Sneak!

  Show: St. Louis Shakespeare's cunning blood-n-gore production of Macbeth, a terrific play about terrible people.Food: Globe Theatre Apple-Hazelnut Tart, baked by yours truly.Difficulty: Extreme. While the initial sneak phases of repackaging the food in aluminum foil and taking it into the theater were easy, the tart recipe had to be significantly altered to be appropriate for sneaking, and even then its deliciously crumbly crust nearly blew the whole operation. Close quarters and bright lightin

  October 5, 2009

• Farmers' Market Share: Winter Squash Muffins

  Alissa Nelson​Life isn't all sunshine and rainbows in this food blogger's kitchen. I was seriously tempted to just link to the New York Times recipe for Ratatouille Pot Pie and call it a day. (It was really excellent, by the way.) Then I made a meal that resulted in the exclamation, "What the fuck, persimmons?" Then I had to send my laptop for repairs. Believe it or not, I still haven't seen Julie and Julia, so I have no idea how this lives up. But she just had to cook, not think stuff up, so

  October 7, 2009

• Chef's Choice Recipes: Vito Racanelli's Calabrese Chicken and Rice

  Robin WheelerVito Racanelli of Onesto Pizza and Trattoria​As I wrote in my profile of Vito Racanelli, the chef's food passion lies in the home cooking of his 71-year-old mother, who still cans her own tomatoes every summer. Don't skimp on the fresh flat-leaf parsley. The herb's the predominant seasoning in the Calabria region of Italy, where Racanelli's mother is from. If tomatoes aren't in season, opt for a high-quality canned version, like San Remo.

  October 8, 2009

• Farmers' Market Share: Sunchoke and Potato Gratin

  Alissa Nelson​A few years ago, local chefs started hopping on the sunchoke bandwagon. Suddenly you had sunchoke purées and soups and risottos popping up like mushrooms after a week of fall rain. This happened to correspond to my first farm-share experience. As it turns out, Biver Farms is quite the purveyor of sunchokes. Every week for about a month, I would find myself with about two pounds of the little guys. I got sunchoke fatigue, to be honest.But like all things there is a season (turn,

  October 14, 2009

• Chef's Choice Recipes: Jeffrey Constance's Chèvre-Stuffed Meatloaf

  Robin Wheeler​During my visit with Jeffrey Constance of Hanley Grille and Tap, he prepared a meatloaf unlike any mama's meatloaf. With influences from both his classic French and Italian background, this dish has all the surprising, complex flavors of upscale cuisine without sacrificing the comforts of home cooking.

  October 15, 2009

• Farmers' Market Share: Autumn Latkes

  Alissa Nelson​Last week, while browsing the wares at Local Harvest Grocery, I encountered the biggest beets I'd ever seen. They were like cow hearts. I considered staging the Harrison Ford sacrifice scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, just for dramatic effect. Then I saw a sweet potato that was the size of a head, which would have served the role of monkey-head soup tureen. How can you pass up produce like that?According to proprietor Maddie Earnest, these monstrous root vegetabl

  October 21, 2009

• Chef's Choice Recipes: Josh Galliano's Butternut Squash Ravioli with Chinese Bacon

  Robin WheelerMonarch executive chef Josh Galliano​While I interviewed Monarch executive chef Josh Galliano, he prepared butternut squash ravioli in a lemon-sage beurre blanc with Chinese bacon. After the jump, the recipe for this dish -- and for the fresh pasta you need to make it.

  October 22, 2009

• Farmers' Market Share: Freaky-Ass Cauliflower Soup

  Alissa Nelson​This week I bought a $6 head of cauliflower. It was purple -- which was novel -- and it was locally grown, which is obviously what this blog is all about. But, ultimately, it was a single head of cauliflower that cost $6.Can I get political for a moment?This past spring, Alice Waters -- the proprietor of the venerable Chez Panisse restaurant and the mother of the Slow Food movement in America -- raised a ton of backlash among the food blog world when she made an appearance on 60

  October 28, 2009

• Farmers' Market Share: Braise Those Greens!

  User "Quadell," Wikimedia CommonsSave those greens, beet fans!​Despite riding my bike in shorts on Monday -- shorts! in November! -- there is something about the trees losing their leaves and three straight weeks of rain that begs for hoodies and comfort food.Since I care about your colon, I'm not going to pass along a bunch of bacon recipes today. However, I will pass along that Greenwood Farms bacon is delightful, and I ate a bunch of it this week on Companion Bavarian Pretzels, the last of

  November 4, 2009

• Chef's Choice Recipes: Steven Caravelli's Potato Gnocchi with Truffled Bacon Jus

  Robin Wheeler​During my interview with Steven Caravelli of Sleek, he emphasized that combining gnocchi with bacon and truffles isn't an original idea. Ever-deprecating of his own creativity, Caravelli sees himself as more of a craftsman than an artist with food, perfecting techniques and flavor combinations until something unique emerges. Such is the case with his classic Potato Gnocchi with Truffled Bacon Jus. "It's bacon and truffles. How can that ever go wrong?" he asks.

  November 6, 2009

• Farmers' Market Share: Thanksgiving Wheat Berry Salad Recipe

  Jérôme Sautret, Wikimedia CommonsSweet potatoes: Try not to eat them all before you're done.​As a compulsive cooking overachiever, I have a tendency to see pot lucks as a challenge: How can I make something totally novel and awesome...yet avoid shopping? It's like Iron Chef: College Ingenuity.So when I was invited to a pot luck by a school friend with whom I'd never hung out off-campus, the stakes were raised. I don't want to be the person who brings a bag of tortilla chips -- I mean, reall

  November 11, 2009

• Chef's Choice Recipes: Josh Allen's Spinach-Walnut Pesto Crostini

  Robin WheelerJosh Allen, founder of Companion​Just as Companion founder Josh Allen's career has focused on bread, so does his family's diet: "We mainly eat a Mediterranean diet with lots of spreads like tapenade."Read the Chef's Choice profile of Josh Allen.Even pesto, traditionally relegated to pasta, turns into a fine spread when paired with crostini. To overcome the seasonality of fresh basil, Allen uses spinach instead, which gives the spread a tangy bite instead of basil's sweetness.

  November 13, 2009

• Chef's Choice Recipes: Chuck Friedhoff's Bacon Cheddar Burgers and Vinegar-Salted Fries

  Robin Wheeler​Anyone can buy ground beef and frozen French fries, but as I detailed in yesterday's Chef Choice's profile, Chuck Friedhoff of Persimmon Woods Golf Club wants to make these American classics transcend the manufactured version that's taken over in food service. It takes a lot of extra work to hand-grind burger meat, and there was much trial and error in finding a French-fry technique that pleased Friedhoff and his clientele, but it was worth it. "Putting the extra work in is one

  November 20, 2009