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Recipe of the Week

Homemade Blackening Seasoning for Seafood and Chicken

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This smoky, moderately spicy blend was inspired by the first blackened dish I tasted in the 1980s. This homemade blackening seasoning combines sweet and smoked paprika, garlic, herbs, and three kinds of pepper. It takes five minutes to make and works beautifully with fish, shrimp, chicken, vegetables, and potatoes. Jump to Recipe ↓ The first time I encountered blackening seasoning was in the 1980s at a restaurant in upstate New York. I was working as a crew member on a video shoot for a producer who created a lot of food-focused content for Campbell’s. This was several years before the Food Network captured America’s attention and we all started casually throwing around words like reduction and mise en place . I was mesmerized by the process: a screaming-hot cast-iron pan, a quick sear—and all that smoke. Especially the smoke. Today, a smoke alarm might be the first indicat...
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The Pantry: What I Always Keep in the House

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A good pantry isn’t about having everything. It’s about having the right things. A pantry should grow out of the way you cook—not the way somebody on the internet tells you you’re supposed to cook. That sounds obvious, but take a look at most lists of “essential pantry staples” and you’ll find everything from canned coconut milk to twelve kinds of flour, specialty vinegars, dried beans you may never cook and spices that will sit untouched until you finally throw them away five years from now. That’s not a pantry. That’s inventory. I look at a pantry differently. The ingredients I keep around are the ones that repeatedly earn their space. They’re things I know I can reach for on a Tuesday afternoon, pair with whatever meat, fish or vegetables I have in the refrigerator, and turn into dinner without making another trip to the store. That’s really the purpose of a well-stocked pantry. It gives you options. And once you start thinking about a pantry...
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Location: Northampton, PA, USA
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Smoked Chorizo, Goat Cheese & Fontina Jalapeño Poppers

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Garden jalapeños stuffed with Mexican chorizo, goat cheese, Fontina, roasted garlic, and fresh jalapeño, then finished with a little wood smoke. There comes a point every year when the jalapeños in the garden seem to go from a few peppers ready to pick to what in the world am I going to do with all of these? That means it’s popper time. I’ve made plenty of jalapeño poppers over the years, but my version has wandered pretty far from the familiar cream-cheese-and-bacon formula. Nothing wrong with those, but when I’ve got fresh peppers coming out of the garden, I want the jalapeño to remain part of the flavor rather than simply being a container for cream cheese. So these get stuffed with Mexican chorizo, goat cheese, Fontina, roasted garlic, and finely diced fresh jalapeño , then smoked upright on the grill until the peppers soften, the cheese melts, and everything picks up just enough wood smoke. The result is rich without being ridiculously heavy, spicy without blowing ...
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Location: Northampton, PA, USA
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Red Argentine Shrimp and Mandarin Pico Tostadas

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Poached shrimp, garden tomatoes, jalapeños, and sweet mandarins, piled onto crisp, Tajín-seasoned toasted corn tortillas. Some afternoons make you want to pull up another chair and stay awhile. This was one of them. Out-of-town family was over, we were catching up, and the day couldn’t have been better. The garden was still giving me tomatoes and jalapeños, and the afternoon sun had enough warmth to make you forget fall had officially arrived. Summer was clearly keeping a few things on the calendar. It was one of those days when you feel completely at ease. Good company, plenty to talk about, and nowhere else you’d rather be. The conversation wanders into “what if we…” territory, and suddenly a few new possibilities sound pretty good. Naturally, I started thinking about something to eat. With tomatoes and jalapeños ready to go, pico de gallo was an easy starting point. Then came the shrimp, avocado, and mandarins, and things got a little more interesting. Sw...
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Location: Northampton, PA, USA
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