I’m crazy about salted caramels. This past Christmas I even got it into my head to make them as gifts. I got out my candy thermometer, and with that in hand, I confidently watched over my boiling pot of goodness (sugar, corn syrup and fresh vanilla bean), diligently checking the temperature until it reached 245°. Temperature is important to candy-making, and I knew that even with my limited experience, but somewhere along the line I still screwed up.

After I’d let my caramel rest in a pan overnight and turned it out onto waxed paper to cut into bite-sized pieces, it oozed to the sides of the paper – and there was nothing I could do to contain it. This caramel was sad, not liquid caramel just right for serving over ice cream and not chewy caramel, for snacking. This caramel was just plain wrong. I’ll try again, eventually, but for now, I’m sticking to Liddabit Sweets’ salted caramels instead. These delicious treats are perfectly soft, perfectly chewy and perfectly sweet and savory.

The women behind Liddabit Sweets in Brooklyn are Liz Gutman and Jen King. They met while studying pastry at the French Culinary Institute, and in 2009, they launched Liddabit Sweets, where they hand make small-batch candies using fresh, local ingredients. The star ingredient in their caramels, for example, is cream from Ronnybrook Farm Dairy in upstate New York. Maldon salt, a flaky sea salt from England, also lends a more subtle flavor than regular table salt. They make several different varieties of caramel, including seasonal flavors (like preserved lemon & olive oil or chocolate black truffle), but the salted caramels are my favorite – and luckily those are always available.

Tis the season that I do a lot of baking. I’ve been baking cookies now for a couple of weeks, cookies for gifts, cookies for parties, cookies for my husband to bring to his colleagues and cookies just to munch on. I always bake my classic Christmas cookies and more recently, I’ve added Maggie’s fantastic molasses cookies to the repertoire. This year I found a recipe for ambrosia macaroons in Bon Appetit that has quickly become a new holiday favorite. That’s because the chewy, flaky, orange-scented chocolate-covered macaroons are delicious for one, and they’re also super easy to make. But the best thing is that the recipe yields a large quantity – and that certainly is a gift to be thankful for this time of year.

Ambrosia Macaroons

Ingredients

• ½ cup (1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature)
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons grated orange peel
• 24 ounces sweetened flaked coconut (about 6 packed cups)
• 6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line rimmed baking sheets with parchment. Using an electric mixer, beat butter in a large bowl until smooth. Add sugar and salt; beat until blended. Beat in orange peel, then eggs, 1 at a time. Mix in coconut. Drop batter onto sheets by tablespoonfuls, spacing 1½ inches apart. Bake macaroons, 1 sheet at a time until golden on the bottom and browned in spots, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely. Using a fork, drizzle chocolate over macaroons. Cool until chocolate is firm.

Lately, I’ve had a hankering for sweet potatoes – and not prepared the way you might expect, dredged in olive oil and brown sugar and roasted until crispy or mashed with butter and maple syrup. No, instead, I’ve been thinking about sweet potatoes in miso sauce. It’s a dish I used to eat at the Asian-inspired tea house Teaism years ago when I lived in D.C. Their specialty is tea (surprise!), but their fluffy ginger scones, udon soups and bento boxes are delicious too.

In one of the compartments of the chicken bento is this side of sweet potatoes in miso. It’s served chilled, not warm, but the nutty, salty flavor of the miso combined with the creamy texture of the potatoes – not to mention the accompanying hot tea and good company – always made it seem more like a classic comfort food than light side. Since I moved to Brooklyn, I’ve often wished Teaism would open a New York City outpost, but finally I just broke down and decided to make this dish myself.

Despite the fact that Japanese cuisine is ragingly popular here, miso paste hasn’t caught on quite like spicy tuna rolls and wasabi. It’s just not one of those things like garlic and sea salt you find in peoples’ kitchens, although it makes just as great a seasoning. If you’re not familiar with it, miso is fermented soybean paste. It’s a relative of tofu, but think of it as the eccentric boisterous aunt. While it is used commonly in miso soup, it’s also a flavorful ingredient in marinades and sauces, with a distinct salty flavor.

A little miso goes a long way. I mixed miso with rice wine vinegar for acidity, then added a splash of water to thin it out more. The sauce at Teaism is a little pale and pasty, so on a tip I found from a quick google search, I added a bit of mayonnaise. Mixed together and poured over the sweet potatoes I had cubed, cooked and cooled, it tasted like the original. This dish is simple and flavorful, and makes a great complement to chicken teriyaki or a side for a light lunch. Next, I guess I’ll have to tackle those ginger scones.

Miso-glazed sweet potatoes

Peel and cube 2 to 3 sweet potatoes, then boil for 10 minutes. Be careful not to overcook, depending on the size of the cubes. The texture should be soft but still a bit chewy. Chill the sweet potatoes for two hours.

For glaze: mix 2 tablespoons miso paste (I used dark miso) with 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar. Add 1 tablespoon of water and 1 teaspoon of mayonnaise. Mix. Then combine with the sweet potatoes.

-Jessica Merrill

I was at a wedding not that long ago when the groom came up to me and said, “I thought of you while I was at the wine store – and I bought an extra case.” Now I’ve never been known to drink an entire case of wine in one night (that I can recall), but I guess that tells you something about me.

I love wine and I love a good cocktail and I love iced cold beer too. Along the same lines, more recently I was going to my friend Laura’s house to grill out (she has one of those rare things in Brooklyn called a roof deck), and I was excited enough about the grill and the deck. But that day, she sent me a text simply saying, “I’m making bourbon peach punch.” Clearly, Laura knows the way to my heart.

The night was one of the hottest so far this summer, humid and sticky, but sitting far above the pavement, there was the slightest breeze, and we looked out over the rooftops and church steeples, and it felt like we were someplace else entirely, like France maybe (only a France set in front of a gorgeous Manhattan skyline).

There was good conversation and great food, grilled Polish sausages from a local market, a salad of cucumber, pea shoots and cilantro, and gazpacho. There was also bourbon peach punch. Really, that drink was the perfect accompaniment to the muggy evening, like something two spirited old ladies might sip sitting in rocking chairs on a sultry night in Georgia.

I left before getting Laura’s recipe for the drink, but the next day, when I went to the farmer’s market, the first thing that caught my eye were peaches, bursting with juice, so soft they bruised at the slightest rough touch. Lucky for me, I knew exactly what to do with them.

Bourbon Peach Punch

Ingredients:

• Juice from 1 ripe peach
• 3 tablespoons simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water, heated to blend, then chilled)
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon grated fresh ginger
• 1½ oz. bourbon or whiskey
• Good ginger ale like Boylan or ginger beer

Using your hands, squeeze the juice from one peach into a bowl. Add the lemon juice, simple syrup and fresh ginger. Put ice into a cocktail shaker, add the whiskey, then add the juice mixture. Shake and pour into a glass. Top lightly with ginger ale. Garnish with peach slices.

Posted by Jessica Merrill

Put a medium-rare steak, hot pastrami sandwich or anything containing bacon in front of me and I’m a happy camper. But I love fruits and vegetables equally. When it comes to food, for me, anything goes. One thing I haven’t embraced though is the vegan/raw food movement.

Limiting so many categories of food outright just seems, well, sad. Like a morning without coffee really. That’s why when my husband’s cousin, Vanessa (also Maggie’s incidentally), opened a vegan restaurant in the East Village and had us in for a raw food dinner, I was a little apprehensive, not because I don’t like vegetables, but because on the menu was fettuccine alfredo. I don’t know much about vegan raw food, but I know this much: no cream, no cheese, no pasta. What else is fettuccine alfredo?

Vanessa is a great cook though, so I headed off to the dinner with an open mind. As it turns out, to raw foodies, “pasta” is zucchini put through a spiral slicer to give it an effect that is somewhat like noodles, but not really. As for the alfredo, I never did find out what was in Vanessa’s sauce, but I’m guessing nut milk because she does amazing things with nut milk. Vanessa’s fettuccine alfredo definitely wasn’t that, but no matter. It was delicious. The vegetables were crunchy, the sauce was rich and flavorful, and I happily chomped away until every last bite was gone.

To my surprise, I even found myself craving it later, but I felt daunted at the task of recreating it. Then I found a recipe for squash and zucchini “linguine” with goat cheese in Food & Wine. The farmer’s market is overflowing with chubby green zucchinis and baby yellow squash, and this seemed like the perfect way to use them. This “linguini” has become a new favorite of mine because it is easy, light and refreshing. I adapted the recipe, switching out parsley for dill among other things. I just peeled strips of zucchini and squash using a vegetable peeler, blanched them in boiling water for 30 seconds, then dropped them into a bowl of ice water before patting them dry.

When the whole thing is put together, the effect is pretty great. You can even twirl the strips around the prongs of your fork, and while it’s not linguine, it’s something else entirely. And that something is good.

Squash and Zucchini “Linguini”
(adapted from Food & Wine, August 2008)

Ingredients:

• 2 zucchini
• 2 summer squash
• 1 tablespoon chives
• 1 tablespoon chopped dill
• 1 lemon for juice
• 1 chopped shallot
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• olive oil
• Fresh goat cheese

In a bowl, whisk the lemon juice with ¼ of a cup of olive oil, salt and pepper. Add the chives and dill. Sauté the shallot, garlic and red pepper in 2 tablespoons of olive oil until fragrant over medium heat. Add salt and pepper. Meanwhile, peel the zucchini and squash with a vegetable peeler, then peel off long thin strips until you reach the core. Blanch the strips in boiling water for 30 seconds, then remove them to a bowl of ice water to cool. Remove and pat dry. Put them in the bowl with the lemon juice and herbs. Add the garlic and shallot, and stir. Top with crumbled goat cheese.

Posted by Jessica Merrill

Today’s post was written by Jessica Merrill, a new contributor to EatBoutique.com. Jessica is a food and travel writer who has written for some big-time publications – check out the About page for more. Jessica and I are working on some very cool food stuff together. Promise to tell you more once it’s solidified.

As far as I’m concerned, cooking and summer are a bit like god and the devil; you can put the two in a room together but I don’t want to be there. And by cooking I mean pots and pans and a heat-powered indoor appliance, not grilling. I live in an apartment in Brooklyn, so words like “yard” and “garage” aren’t part of my vocabulary, and when the temperature soars past 80, I simply give in. I surrender to summer’s bounty, to the fruits and vegetables practically begging to be lightly dressed, gently touched and eaten at their crispest or ripest.

Stocking up on ingredients and inspiration means hitting the farmer’s market. A few weeks ago, it was a vibrant bunch of pink radishes that caught my attention. Socked in by greenery on all sides, they looked like little gems glinting in the sun. And I sighed. Because the truth is, I’ve never really liked radishes. But these were just lovely, and they reminded me of my grandfather who grew them in his garden and adored them sliced and sprinkled with nothing but a dash of salt. And so inevitably they ended up in my bag on their way home with me. I pickled slices of those little rubies quickly in red wine and sugar, which turned out to be tangy, spicy and delicious, perfectly good alone, but a real hit on salads where they were a yummy mouth-puckering addition.

This week it was baby bok choy. It looked so darling stowed away between lofty leaves of Swiss chard and beet greens. And long story short: it was the bok choy that got me thinking about summer rolls with peanut sauce, the Vietnamese specialty (like spring rolls but not fried). In case it isn’t obvious enough, these are named SUMMER rolls for a reason. They are cool, crisp and refreshing and require almost no cooking at all. It doesn’t matter that bok choy isn’t an ingredient in authentic summer rolls. I’d argue it should be. It’s true, too, you can order them easily enough in Asian restaurants, but I find those versions are too often overstuffed with clumpy vermicelli noodles and not enough shrimp and vegetables. Even the driest ones are delicious, of course, dunked in peanut sauce (really, you could pull leaves from a tree and dip them in peanut sauce and they would be delicious, right?) But I wanted a homemade adaptation crammed with ingredients from the market – including the peppery bok choy, mint, cilantro and cucumbers. I also bought plump shrimp from my seafood market and vermicelli noodles (vowing only to add a few). All these ingredients I tightly wrapped in rice paper and, tah dah, dipped in peanut sauce.

Summer rolls are easy to make, and when you’re done, they look pretty spectacular. I doused the shrimp in olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted them for five minutes earlier in the day, before chilling them. When I was ready to eat, I simply chopped a few bok choy leaves, sliced cucumber, and pulled sprigs of mint and cilantro from their stems. The rice vermicelli noodles only take three minutes to cook! To assemble, simply soak a spring roll wrapper in a bowl of room temperature water for about 30 seconds, then gently place it on a work surface. Put about three to four shrimp down first, then layer bok choy, mint, cilantro, cucumbers and a few noodles. Lastly, wrap the rolls like an itty bitty burrito, bundling the goodies inside and tucking the ends under. As for the essential peanut sauce, I make a couple of different versions, but for this, I used a quick recipe from Cooks Illustrated’s “The Best Recipe” cookbook, a version that is packed with flavor and thick enough to make a good dipping sauce.

Spicy Peanut Sauce

• 5 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• ¼ cup unsweetened coconut milk
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 tablespoon fresh ginger
• 2 medium garlic cloves
• ½ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon curry powder (optional)

Combine the ingredients in a food processor and blend.