Brick

If New York Times food colum­nist Mark Bittman ran his “Min­i­mal­ist” piece “The Secret of Great Bread: Let Time Do the Work” in Novem­ber 2006, then this has been my go-to method week-in week-out for 6 1/2 years. I began bak­ing bread in about 1989 so I’ve tried lots of recipes. Bittman “dis­cov­ered” Jim Lahey of …

I love roasted veg­eta­bles, but to me they’re a nui­sance. Fill two cookie sheets with chunks of veg­gies, after toss­ing with oil and herbs in a big bowl, bake nearly an hour, return­ing to toss a few times, and you get at most three serv­ings. So find­ing com­pa­ra­ble fla­vor in Mark Bittman’s “Pan­fried Pump­kin” inspired …

The prob­lem with home baked piz­zas is crispi­ness, because who has a oven that goes to 700 degrees? I’ve fig­ured out a solu­tion: Make the tomato sauce on the pizza while it’s bak­ing. (If you are fine with thick crusts or pan piz­zas, best if you move along now, as you have it easy.) The issue …

Thanks­giv­ing. America’s Feast Day. It was yes­ter­day. Before I for­get what my notes mean, here are two of the dishes whose recipes I’ve been tin­ker­ing with for years and now have just about set­tled on. We don’t eat meat — well, a piece of salmon maybe every month — so we keep exper­i­ment­ing with the hol­i­day meal …

In Food Sec­tion World, this long-evolved Irish Soda Bread recipe would be pub­lished before St. Patrick’s Day. But in Brick World, I bake a loaf on St. Paddy’s, rely­ing on col­lected recipes and some­times a new one that pops up. Brick could sched­ule the recipe for March 16, 2013, but why wait? Every news­pa­per every year …

Copy­right 2011 Ben S. Pol­lock Though we who note the news have known about the Greek eco­nomic cri­sis for quite some time, it seems to have come to a head here in the first week of Novem­ber. Maybe if Greece exported more of that sunny yogurt, the bud­get would teeter back a bit. But in check­ing …

Here is Mom’s Spaghetti Sauce, circa 1970s (my sis­ter kept the index card): Brown 1 pound ground beef, drain. Add 1 Table­spoon salt, half an onion chopped, half a stick of but­ter, 1 (large) can toma­toes cut up, and 1 large can (2 small cans) tomato paste. Cook cov­ered in 275-degree oven 1 1/2 to …

My Reform Jew­ish fam­ily in Fort Smith, Arkansas, had sch­necken for break­fast every Christ­mas. There was no recipe so every Decem­ber in adult­hood I’ve tried to recre­ate the child­hood mem­ory, with cook­books, rec­ol­lec­tions of fam­ily and impro­vis­ing. That was start­ing in my 20s. In my 30s, I also began cook­ing health­ier. These can­not hon­estly be …

Copy­right 2010 Ben S. Pol­lock “Fried soup” was what I announced when I brought these to the table, what oth­er­wise are called veg­gie cro­quettes, pan­cakes or burg­ers. When I try to make veg­gie burg­ers they fall apart. These held together and are as good or bet­ter than gro­cery store veg­gie burg­ers. The name stems from …

The Fourth of July calls for red, white and blue. But if it’s inde­pen­dence we’re cel­e­brat­ing, why not red, green, yel­low and pur­ple? Rata­touille is a south­ern Euro­pean, mid-summer, veg­e­tar­ian casse­role, ideal for when you return from the farm­ers mar­ket with way too much. The chick­peas make this a one-pot meal; bread crumbs are to …