The Other Woman Cooks

This crust recipe is worthy of the best French chef -- the simplest ingredients using a complicated technique that delivers scrumptious results. From fussy Frangipane with pears (full recipe below) to fresh berries glazed with seedless jam (microwave the jam a minute before brushing it over the berries piled in the perfectly baked crust). Cooked chocolate pudding (make it dark chocolate) also makes a yummy filling. Add a dollop of whipped cream. Not exactly on the low-cal diet menu but I guarantee your family will be in awe! BUTTER SHORTBREAD TART CRUST 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar dash of salt 1 stick very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces 1 large egg yolk Put the flour, sugar and salt in the food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Scatter the pieces of butter over the dry ingredients and pulse until the butter is coarsely cut in — mixture will be the size of baby peas. Whisk th...

No special utensils are needed to make these scrump-dilly-umptious cocoa almond rum balls. Have your mini-food processor handy to fine chop the almond slivers and grind the vanilla wafers. A grater to get enough white chocolate shavings to roll the candies in for the finishing touch and you're good to go. You'll have approximately three and a half dozen yummy truffle-like sweets to give away ... or not! COCOA ALMOND RUMMIES 1 cup almond slivers, finely chopped 1 cup finely ground vanilla wafers 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar 2 tablespoons good quality cocoa powder 3 tablespoons honey 1/4 cup rum 1/2 cup grated white chocolate bar for rollimg Combine almonds, cookie crumbs, confectioners' sugar and cocoa in a large bowl. Mix well. Add honey and rum and stir, making sure to moisten all of the mixture evenly. Form the mixture into one inch balls with your hands and roll them in grated white chocolate. Refrigerate at least 6 hours before serving. If desired use individual can...

I was 13 years old in the late 1960s when the Galloping Gourmet was a television cooking show hit. It wasn't until twenty years later, not long after Sheila Lukins and The Silver Palate Cookbook got me hooked on cooking, that I discovered Graham Kerr and his Minimax series. He taught me that all it takes is a little experimenting with a traditional recipe to make it better for you without losing the traditional flavor. It’s not a given that I adjust a recipe to be healthier. But a pound of butter in one loaf cake always seemed a bit over the top when elevated cholesterol levels run in the family. And who doesn’t love pound cake? I read about a group of cooks who delivered homemade pound cakes to families left homeless and devastated in the aftermath of Katrina. Welcome gifts for hungry folks. After trying lemon pound cake, chocolate pound cake (using cocoa powder to keep the fat content down) and plain Jane vanilla pound cake, my family's all-time favorite is almond pound cake...

No doubt young Isaac brought that fallen apple straight into the kitchen and his mom baked it into something delish before setting it before the lad with these words, "Apples are good brain food." Obviously correct because some years later, Isaac Newton came up with the Law of Gravity. Probably while his mother furiously searched for ideas on how to cook something new with all those damned apples falling off that tree! And now here I am, more than three hundred years later, facing the same dilemma as Mama Newton. I've sauced 'em, canned 'em, baked 'em, baked tarts and even a few pies with 'em. There are a number of good apple almond cake recipes out there but I wanted something just a little different and really easy. According to my live-in taste testers the experiment was a success. AMARETTO APPLE CAKE 1/4 cup slivered almonds 4 ounces unsalted butter, melted 2 large eggs 1 cup granulauted sugar 1 ounce shot of amaretto liqueur 1 cup all-purpose flour 1 ...