June 17, 2001
Good Eats
I found Epicurious.com while searching with Google for a carrot cake recipe. The Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Icing caught my eye immediately. It was unique without being fussy and I happened to have pure maple syrup leftover from a gift package. I made the cake for a mid-week treat; it was delicious and moist. I returned directly to Epicurious the next week to find an apple pie recipe. A search on 'apple pie' at the site brings up 34 recipes - all relevant and ranging in style from all-American apple pie to an elegant Apple Ginger Pie with Cider-Bourbon Sauce. I opted for a middle of the road, Deep Dish Caramel Apple Pie.
I had a bit of trouble with the homemade caramel at first, (it did nothing for 10 minutes, then immediately turned very dark brown), but thesecond try came out fine. I even dared to serve it to a guest and receivedpositive feedback from everyone.
I found myself going back to the site every day to find something new, so I decided to plan an entire week's meals around interesting recipes on Epicurious. On Monday, I searched the site and was extremely pleased to discover their personal recipe box service. I added everything I had tried so far to my box and searched the site for 5 easy, inexpensive and intriguing dinner recipes. Accessing your favorite recipes from any computer may not be overwhelmingly useful to the typical cook, but with my Web-centered lifestyle, I'm grateful for the value.
I chose Chicken Piccata on Monday and followed up with Pasta with Artichokes and Parsley Pesto on Tuesday. The Chicken Piccata was a little too lemony, even after I adjusted the other ingredients to compensate, but it was still very tasty. On Tuesday night, Dave wouldn't stop raving about the parsley pesto and even Trevor "I can survive on air and chocolate milk." had seconds. I think the secret there was exactly the right amount of garlic and high quality, fresh grated parmesan (don't go using the canned stuff as a main ingredient). And, as an added bonus, I was able to prepare the pesto dinner using only one hand! (I burnt a finger rather badly while cooking and had to hold an ice pack while cooking.) Tonight we'll be trying Chicken with Sun-Dried Tomato Cream Sauce
and Baby Potatoes withParsley and Lemon Butter.
One of the recurring issues in our house is that food often spoils before I can think of a recipe to use it in. I was impressed by the extensive search available at Epicurious where I can search by ingredient and find ways to use what's already in my fridge. I had a huge bunch of parsley leftover from the Chicken Piccata and searched 'parsley' to get that fantastic pesto recipe. I guarantee that before I knew of this site, that parsley would have wilted and gone in the trash. This translates into stretching our food budget with less waste.
We also usually eat out at least once a week and buy mainly prepared foods like Skillet Sensations, but we found this week that our grocery bill was reduced by a third because we bought no pre-packaged dinners. Now that Dave is on 80% pay, that's going to be a huge help.
And we don't feel deprived of tasty restaurantfood. As Dave said last night, "This would be a hit at a restaurant!"
- Features to note:
- Robust and accurate search capability
- Several selections for each basic recipe
- Clear instructions
- Printer formatting
- Personal recipe box to save your favorites
- Shopping area featuring hard-to-find spices and pre-made gourmet meals from Dean & Deluca
- Complete schedule and inside information about Epicurious shows on the Discovery Channel
- Food dictionary
- Much more… go explore!
- Wish list:
- Pictures for each recipe
- Customizable organization of the personal recipe box (good, so-so, yet to try, etc.)