Shredded Brussels Sprout and Red Cabbage Salad with Walnuts and Pecorino

Shredded Brussels Sprout and Red Cabbage Salad with Walnuts and Pecorino

A beautiful, healthy salad that combines thinly shredded brussels sprouts and red cabbage with toasted walnuts and Pecorino cheese. Simple but so delicious. 

In the midst of all the joyous holiday feasting, it’s easy to forget the pleasures of a simple, really good salad. Don’t get me wrong, one glance at our Instagram feed tells you that we’re chock full of holiday spirit (in the form of toffee, cookies and homemade eggnog) but sometimes it all becomes just a bit too much, you know?

I was going to make this salad for Thanksgiving but feared there would be a riot if there was no Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Pecans on the buffet, so I played it safe.

Shredded Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Pecans

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Hasselback Potatoes with Easy Garlic Confit

Hasselback Potatoes with Easy Garlic Confit
Hasselback Potatoes with Easy Garlic Confit

This post is sponsored by US Potato Board. Thanks for supporting Nerds with Knives’ sponsors!

Get ready for a new holiday tradition: crispy-skinned Hasselback potatoes studded with soft, meltingly tender cloves of confit garlic (like roasted garlic, but even more delicious).

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One of the things I’ve come to realize is that I’m a bit of a curmudgeon about, well, a lot of things really but especially about food trends. That cronut thing that happened? Easily a 6.5 on the richter scale of Emily eye rolls. And while I like kale as much as the next faux hippie, I’d very much appreciate you keeping it out of my cupcake.

Hasselback Potatoes with Easy Garlic Confit

That’s why no one was more surprised than me when I recently became obsessed with the most Pinterest-y of all potato dishes, the hasselback. Honestly, this is the potato of my dreams. Crispy on top but also pillowy and luscious in the middle. And while it may look like a major project, it’s actually extremely easy to do (especially with our tips listed below) and takes no longer than a regular baked potato.

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Easy Candied Pecans

Candied Pecans We made these candied pecans to top our Bourbon-Pumpkin Mousse Pie but luckily I made double the recipe because they are delicious. They’d be great in a fall salad, or sprinkled over Butterscotch Pudding, or just as a snack. They’d be delicious served with blue cheese along with sliced apples and pears.

Bourbon Pumpkin-Mousse Pie with Candied Pecans
Bourbon Pumpkin-Mousse Pie with Candied Pecans

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Bourbon Pumpkin Mousse Tart with Candied Pecans

A pumpkin tart covered in meringue cones

Bourbon Pumpkin Mousse Pie with Candied Pecans

Light and airy pumpkin mousse, with a good splash of bourbon, in a rich chocolate cookie shell topped with whipped cream swirls and crunchy candied pecans. Yeah, you need to make this. 

Wotcha! Very occasionally we at Nerd HQ rifle back through the posts of this blog and try to find ingredients which haven’t been well-represented. It being autumn, and almost Thanksgiving and all that, we thought – heck it, let’s do pumpkin. It’s been a while, right? And then we looked back through the archives and realized we’d actually never done anything bloggable with pumpkin. (I don’t mean “unbloggable” like we’d done weird, private things with pumpkins, you nutter. I just mean we hadn’t cooked anything and photographed it.)

Bourbon Pumpkin Mousse Pie with Candied Pecans

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Brown Sugar and Mustard Glazed Acorn Squash

Brown Sugar and Mustard Glazed Acorn SquashAcorn squash easy-baked with a brown sugar and mustard glaze. Simple, tasty and nutritious. This recipe just screams autumn! 

I fully admit that around this time of year I go a little squash crazy (examples: mashed with mascarpone, curried in soup, curried in another soup, in pasta with bacon, in farro salad). I tend to focus my obsession on the butternut variety (it’s just asking for it. I mean look at those curves!) but I have plenty of madness left for my other favorites like delicata, kabocha and the wonderful acorn.

Acorn squash
Acorn squash. The green is most common but new varieties, like this variegated golden are becoming popular.

What I love about acorn squash in particular is that it’s very mildly flavored and extremely easy to cook. You could basically whack it in half, rub the flesh with a little olive oil, salt and pepper and simply roast it and it would be delicious.

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