Frittata – the Perfect Last-Minute Dinner

By Zoe McLaughlin

This dish is as simple as it gets. With just a few pantry staples, you'll have a delicious and satisfying meal in minutes.

Growing up in a household where both parents worked outside the home, this dish was perfect for the nights when we all got home late. We served it with a simple green salad.

A frittata is essentially an open-faced omelet. It's prepared in one pan so clean up is easy. I used a nonstick sauté pan but you could also use a cast iron skillet and finish the frittata off in the oven at 375°F for about 10 minutes, instead of cooking it on the stovetop.

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Deviled Eggs for Breakfast

By Marilyn Hunter

Nicky has always loved hard-boiled eggs or “boilers” as we call them in our house. His favorite part is the bright yellow yolk, while Benny eats all the white and leaves the “yellow” for his brother. In a never-ending quest to sleep just a little later in the morning, I decided to start deviling boilers at night, so breakfast is now both a novelty and a snap.

Sometimes well-laid plans come together…deviled eggs are the boys’ new favorite breakfast. Two deviled eggs (one whole egg) are plenty for each kid, along with their regular serving of fruit and ice water.

This method for hard-boiling the eggs belongs to Andrew. He’s done it this way for years and swears that 12 minutes will yield a runny yolk and 14 minutes will create the unwanted gray line around the yolk. He swears that 13 minutes is pure perfection. Being married to a chef makes for odd kitchen debates.

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Leftover Cream of Tartar? Try these Great Uses

By Katie Barreira

Cream of tartar is another one of those pesky ingredients that gets used by the quarter teaspoon and stays forgotten in the back of the spice rack. A byproduct of winemaking, this acidic powder is commonly used in angel food cake to prevent darkening, in meringue to stabilize beaten egg whites (or I like to lightly beat a pinch into whites for a super fluffy and satisfying egg white omelet) and in sugar syrups to inhibit crystallization.

When I got to thinking about all the different ways to use cream of tartar, I decided it would be a fun challenge to try and employ all (or most) of them in a single recipe. There’s less than a teaspoon, but a little goes a long way!

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Some Quick Meals to Survive the Holiday Frenzy

By Sandy Hu

From Thanksgiving until the New Year, there are never enough hours in the day to get ready for the holidays.  While you’re trimming the tree, shopping for gifts, baking cookies and preparing to host parties, the daily cooking still must get done.

Special Fork, a mobile recipe website, was built to solve what to cook at 4 p.m. when you haven’t yet decided what’s for dinner.  While spur-of-the moment decision-making is fine most of the year, during the holiday frenzy, it’s good to have some quick meals in mind for the week so you can plan ahead and stock up on the ingredients you’ll need.

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At Least, Eat your Egg!

By Sandy Hu

I’ve been crazy-busy recently, working nights and weekends to do my day job while getting ready for the Les Dames d’Escoffier annual conference starting this Thursday at the Ritz-Carlton, Buckhead in Atlanta. The end of the conference marks the end of my year as president.

LDEI is the only organization of its kind: a worldwide society of professional women of high achievement in the food, fine beverage and hospitality industries. The organization embraces all aspects of food professions – from chefs and restaurateurs to cookbook authors, food editors, culinary historians, vintners, bakers, farmers and more. Membership is by invitation.

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