On expectations

In cooking, as in life, things don’t always go as planned. As any home cook knows, the margin between success and failure can sometimes be pretty narrow: a bit too much heat here, not enough of a certain ingredient there and you end up with a dried-out steak or a collapsed soufflé. Disasters are to be expected and you can’t do much more than bin the results, dust off your apron and try again.

But there’s something almost worse about those dishes that work out just fine, but simply fail to live up to expectations. These brownies are a case in point.

From the vaults

Yikes. Forgive the lack of updates. Believe me, it's not for a lack of cooking either: just this past week I braised a brisket and staged a dinner for six with a (dare I say perfect) roasted prime rib as the cornerstone. Trouble is, whenever I cook event meals, I tend to be too busy, well, cooking (not to mention chatting and drinking)  to bother with photos. Since I got nothin' at the moment, I thought I'd reprint one of my favourite recipes from my original tumblr blog.

On a lighter note

I felt like taking a break from my recent run of one-pot dishes with this quick and healthy (relatively, anyway) weeknight supper. It’s hard to go wrong with breaded and fried chicken, whether its classic chicken parm or its northern cousin schnitzel. In this case, the crunchy, moist chicken floats on a bed of tart greens. Crisp and sweet apples add a seasonal touch to the salad.

Moroccan roll

So it’s shaping up to be pretty much all comfort food all the time here on the Kitchen Front. I’m okay with that if you are.