Creamy Cheddar Polenta with Sausage and Charred Ramps

Polenta with Charred Ramps and Sausage

Polenta with Charred Ramps and SausageCreamy, cheesy Cheddar polenta with charred ramps (wild garlic) and grilled sausages: a dish made for Spring. The sweetness in the corn pairs beautifully with extra-sharp cheddar cheese, and a topping of garlicky grilled ramps is as delicious as it is simple. If ramps are not available, scallions make a great substitute. The addition of good quality sausages turns it into a meal. 

There comes a time for most people when they experience a food in a totally different way from how they’ve been used to. For us, that revelation was stone-ground polenta. For the longest time, we’d stuck to the packaged tubes of pre-cooked polenta that you slice up and grill. Now, there’s nothing wrong with them, and we still cook with that variety from time to time, but can we tell you, the first time we had really good, slow-cooked traditional polenta, it was like night and day.

Of course we, along with the rest of the world, have been stuck inside our home so we’ve been craving something warm and comforting even more than usual. When we found a bag of really good polenta, we knew exactly what we wanted to do with it — combine it with our favorite extra-sharp cheddar cheese from our friends at Cabot Creamery.

This cheddar polenta is a sponsored recipe in partnership with Cabot Cheese.

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Chocolate Frangelico Mousse

Chocolate Frangelico Mousse
Chocolate Frangelico Mousse

In the spirit of the holidays, we’ve decided to publish one of our favorite recipes, Chocolate Frangelico Mousse, from our new cookbook, Cork and Knife

It’s around this time of year that we load up at the grocery stores on cartloads of high-quality semi-sweet chocolate, cream, Frangelico hazelnut liquor and shelled hazelnuts. And that’s just our normal shopping list, it’s nothing to do with Christmas. But seriously though, this year we really are stocking up, because  Cork and Knife was published this summer, and we’ve been overwhelmed with the positive responses to it! We’ve seen your wonderful Instagram posts and stories about recipes you’ve made from the book, and you’ve sent us so many wonderful emails. Thank you so much!

If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, now is the perfect time. Are you searching for a Christmas gift for that special foodie in your life? Is there a family member whose sock drawer is STILL bursting with all the socks you’ve bought them as gifts over the years? Are you looking for an unusual cookbook that combines the best of the food world AND the liquor cabinet? Well, here you go! Click on the book cover below to hurry over to Amazon and order your copy while you still have Christmas mailing days left!

Cork and Knife cookbook

(If you prefer to get your books elsewhere, no problem! Just head over to our cookbook page to find other places you can buy it! Or ask your local bookstore.)

As a holiday treat and a sneak peek at the book, we’re sharing just one of the recipes you’ll find in the book: Chocolate Frangelico Mousse. Think of it as an amuse bouche to get you in the holiday mood.

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Thanksgiving Recipes Round-Up 2019

Whipped Rutabaga with Crispy Shallots
Whipped Rutabaga with Crispy Shallots

Our annual Thanksgiving recipe round-up has a little twist of something special this year. We published our first cookbook, Cork and Knife, earlier in the year, and it celebrates cooking with alcohol. If you haven’t picked up your copy yet, now’s the perfect time — and it’ll make a great holiday (or Thanksgiving host) gift. We’ll soon post an exclusive recipe from the book, but in the meantime, in the summaries below, we’ve marked recipes which contain booze in bold

If one thing on this green earth is certain, it’s that in about a week and a half, most of the US will be engaged in stuffing a turkey and then stuffing themselves, with the turkey, like some kind of human Turducken. Let’s call it a “Turkhuman” (unless you’re actually stuffing yourselves with a stuffed Turducken, in which case I don’t know what to call you. Answers on a postcard please.)

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Stuffing with Apples, Sausage and Fennel

Stuffing with Apples

Stuffing with Apples, Sausage and Fennel

Our Stuffing with Apples, Sausage and Fennel is so good, we make it for (our friends and family demand it for) Thanksgiving every year. Like a savory bread pudding, it’s moist and flavorful in the middle, with crispy brown sides and top. The flavor combination of rich breakfast sausages, sweet apples and fennel make this the Thanksgiving side dish we just can’t do without. 

Yes, we call this Thanksgiving “stuffing”, but several years ago we realized that actually stuffing a turkey is a losing battle. First, it causes the turkey to take longer to cook. This means the white meat will definitely dry out before the stuffing reaches a safe temperature. Not only that, but all the delicious drippings that we want to go into the gravy get soaked up by the bread (which just gets soggy). But don’t fret, you lovely Nerdlings, we’ll show you how to make stuffing so moist and flavor-packed, it doesn’t even need gravy. (You should drizzle gravy on the stuffing anyway because gravy is delicious and you deserve it.) 

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Perfect Classic Glazed Meatloaf

Meatloaf

Meatloaf

I don’t think of us as “fancy” people. To be sure, our pantry is chock-full of ingredients from various parts of the world, but that’s more about variety than any attempt to impress. That being said, I do have a culinary philosophy: if I’m going to take the time to make something, I’m going to try to make it well. With childhood favorites, that’s even more important because they can so easily not live up to our memories of them. Meatloaf, that all-American classic, is no exception — and making a really good one requires a little thinking outside of the box.

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