Carla's Cooking Show

These pancakes have the power—the power to make you feel really good about eating pancakes. They are fortified with whole wheat flour plus various seeds and grains, and they will actually make you feel full longer. That way, when you (or your child, aka Cosmo) dunks them in a vat of maple syrup or buries them under whipped cream and blueberry compote, it's fiiiiiiine. This is the first video in my new playlist: Where Cooking Begins (named for my book of the same name).

All my life, I cooked my frittatas over high heat, frantically stirring them so they'd firm up evenly before throwing them under a hellish broiler to brown and puff up. Then I read about a super low-heat baked method which is so much better for the eggs, which set at a fairly low temperature and are much more silky and tender when they've been gently cooked. So that's what this is! You can use any mix of vegetables you like, but today's version has springy broccolini, onions, and potatoes.

Sharing my technique for boneless, skin-ON chicken thighs, which is really how all chicken cutlets achieve their highest potential. I love the combo of hot and cold things together; the crisp thighs are paired with a crunchy salad and sweet and spicy coconut dressing. Don’t shake the can of coconut milk before opening it—you’ll use the layer of cream on top in the dressing, which is mellowed by cooling iceberg lettuce and rich dark-meat chicken. Transfer the unused coconut milk to a clean jar and refrigerate it for making soup or a curry (it will hold for several days).

This, my friends, is a special-occasion steak, and when I invest in a beautiful bone-in ribeye I really want to cook it perfectly. In this episode, I walk you through every step, including the first step—into the butcher's shop where you'll make your purchase. Then we season, preferably a day in advance. THEN we cook, turning frequently, which results in a steak without a dry and well-done outer ring. After that, I show you the way to cut it against the grain so that each slice is super tender. To go with it, there's a nice crunchy, punchy salad.

If a Greek salad and a grain salad made sweet beautiful love and had a baby, it would be this Greek-ISH grain salad. It's got all of my favorite things about a grain salad: al dente wheat berries, crunchy veggies, punchy dressing, along with all the things you want in a Greek salad. For me, that's feta, briny olives, and lashings of olive oil. Plus, there's a timeless Seinfeld reference. How could anyone go wrong?!?

A riff on the classic Italian recipe for orecchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage! I swapped out sweet cauliflower (which is in season in the fall) in place of the more pungent broccoli rabe, and show you a fast trick to make it perfectly seasoned, mellow, and tender without calling for additional equipment. There's also a super-easy way to make sure the sausage pieces get browned and crisp (instead of sweaty, mealy, and grey). Throw some crunchy breadcrumbs on that situation and you've got a glorious meal.

Removing the chicken’s backbone lets you open it like a book, flatten it, and cook it in half an hour at high heat. Ask whoever is at the meat counter to do this for you—you want it “spatchcocked” or “butterflied.” To do it yourself, all you need is a pair of sharp kitchen shears to remove the backbone (watch me do it!). Almost any vegetable will roast in the same amount of time as long as it’s cut into two-inch pieces; I've used winter squash, beets, potatoes, leeks, etc.

ALONE PASTA! Even when there is nothing to eat, there is always spaghetti aglio e olio. I put lots of parsley in this version— maybe enough to convince myself that I'm getting a serving of greens. Keep this dish in mind when you’re staring down a bunch of herbs in the crisper drawer.

It's not dessert, it's a SNACK! Seriously though, this sweet and salty peanut brittle is perfect for edible gifting. xoCLM

This week I'm bringing you what I hope is a very scintillating alternative to braised short ribs. Slow-roasting is one of my most treasured hands-off techniques, and I use it on everything from whole chickens and chicken legs to winter squash and, in this case, short ribs. Slow roasting is a dry heat method, unlike braising, which is a wet heat method. The key in either case is to cook the meats gently enough to cause their inter-muscular fats and cartilage to melt away, while simultaneously causing the proteins to soften (instead of seizing and tightening, which can happen with high-heat methods). With slow roasting (or at least, my version!), you season the ribs with dry spices and then ... stick them in the oven. Unlike braising, there's no browning, no bubbling, no babysitting. They come out tender as a kitten's undercarriage and you walk away with a concentrated pan jus for spooning over. This is so tailor-made for holiday entertaining, it's RIDICULOUS. The only trick here is

The great thing about making a ragu from dark-meat chicken instead of red meat is that it takes a third of the time to cook, but it starts the same way—by browning the protein slowly and deliberately, and using that time to prep the vegetables that sweeten and deepen the sauce. I’ve altered the original recipe from Where Cooking Begins, which called for pressure-cooking the polenta, to the equipment-free oven polenta method from That Sounds So Good.