If you’re feeling confident with your pickling skills, try them out on this recipe from The Complete Chile Pepper Book:

Pickled Peppers

2 pounds jalapeño, serrano, yellow wax, cherry, habanero, or pepperoncini chiles, whole.
4 sterilized pint jars

Brine:
3 cups water
1 cup pickling salt

Pickling solution:
3 cups water
3 cups 5 to 6 percent distilled white vinegar
3 teaspoons pickling salt

This recipe works well with a variety of chiles. So if you’re a lover of pickled peppers, mark this recipe, as you’ll be using it a lot. Note: This recipe requires advance preparation and does not have to be processed in a water bath.

1. Combine the salt and water and cover the chiles with the mixture.

2. Place a plate on the chiles to keep them submerged in the brine.

3. Soak the chiles overnight to crisp them. Drain, rinse well, and dry.

4. Poke a couple of small holes in the top of each chile and pack them tightly in the sterilized jars, leaving ¼ inch headroom.

5. Combine the water, vinegar, and salt in a pan. Bring the solution to a boil and pour over the chiles, leaving no headroom. Remove trapped air bubbles.

6. Store for 4 to 6 weeks in a cool, dark place before serving.

For more picking tips, check out yesterday’s post, How to pickle, make pickled peppers, and not get burnt in the process

What’s frightfully scary, but delicious at the same time? Ghoulish Goodies by Sharon Bowers!  Both kids and grown-ups alike will get a kick out of these fanciful recipes — from Chocolate Spider Clusters to I’Scream Cake to Unblinking Eye Halloween Meatloaf — the snacks, party favors, and meals all add up to an unforgettable holiday. Offering a mix of recipes, some simple enough for kids to create on their own, as well as more complex concoctions, there’s something for everyone. You better believe that Halloween will never be the same.

Swamp Creature Toes: (Makes about 36 toes!)

Salty, sweet, and nutty, these funny big-toe-like snacks are made extra ghoulish by tossing the almonds with green food coloring to give the end result an eerie glow.

Even if you skip the green color, you’ll still have funky toes.

1/2 cup whole skinless salted almonds
green liquid coloring
1 (12-ounce) package semisweet chocolate chips (2 cups)
1 (6-ounce) bag 8-inch pretzel rods (about 12)

1. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment or wax paper. Blend the almonds with about 10 drops of coloring in a small stainless steel, ceramic, or glass bowl (plastic might stain). Stir well until all the nuts are coated. Spread the green almonds on a plate to dry.

2. Put the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl and melt the chocolate in the microwave: Heat on high for 60 seconds, and then stir well. If it’s not quite smooth, heat in two or three 10-second bursts, stirring well after each burst.  (Alternatively, you can melt the chocolate, stirring frequently, in a double boiler, over just-simmering water. Avoid overheating, which can cause chocolate to seize up into a stiff mass.)

3. Break each pretzel rod into 3 pieces. Dip a broken piece about three-quarters of the way into the melted chocolate, leaving a broken end visible. (If it’s an end piece of the pretzel, dip the finished end, leaving the broken end showing.)

4. Lay the dipped pretzel on a prepared baking sheet and lay a green almond on the top of the dipped end. If the almond won’t stick, dip the underside in a bit more chocolate. When all the toes are decorated, place the baking sheets in the refrigerator or freezer to firm the chocolate. Serve cool.

Gingersnaps most likely have their origin with the Pennsylvania Dutch, and their name probably comes from the word snappen, which means “easy.” The cookies are rolled in sugar before baking, giving them a lovely, crinkly top.

For more baking tips, check out yesterday’s post, How to bake just like your grandmother did. Or even better.

Makes about 40 cookies.

1 1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons dark molasses
1 tablespoon warm brewed coffee
6 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

1. Sift the flour, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl.
2. Combine the molasses and coffee into a small bowl.
3. Cream together the butter, the 1/4 cup granulated sugar, and the brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves in a large bowl. Add the molasses mixture and the flour mixture, beating until well blended. Stir in the crystallized ginger. Gather together the dough in a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for at least 1 hour, until firm.
4. Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Lightly grease two baking sheets.
5. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in 2 tablespoons of the granulated sugar. Place them on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Press down each cookie with the bottom of a glass dipped in the remaining 1 tablespoon granulated sugar until the cookies are nice and thin.
6. Bake, one sheet at a time, for about 10 minutes. Remove the cookies from the oven before their edges start to brown; they will be soft in the center but will harden when cool. Watch the cookies carefully and do not allow them to scorch.
7. Transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool.

The Cake Mix Doctor Returns! is in stores now, and we’ve got recipes from the new book to share.

For a full-color look at all of the cakes in the book and four recipes including Fresh Strawberry Cake and Orange Birthday Cake, click here or read the excerpt below.

Visit cakemixdoctor.com for Anne Byrn’s tour dates

Based on the tenets that men eat more, with gusto and at any hour of day or night, Lucinda Scala Quinn’s Mad Hungry offers the perfect response to “I’m starving! What’s there for breakfast/lunch/dinner?” Liberating eaters from processed and artificially enhanced foods, this collection of recipes emphasizes cooking fresh and satisfying food that can be enjoyed by all. So dig into Sour Cream Waffles, Savory Chicken Pocket Pies, Chinese Celery Salad, Seafood Paella, and German Apple Cake. This cookbook guarantees no one will leave the table hungry.

Luscious Oven-Braised Short Ribs

Most recipes for short ribs tell you to brown the meat on the stove top before adding the braising liquid and cooking it. This recipe doesn’t, eliminating the mess, time and attention that this step requires. The ribs do their own work in the oven while you putter around doing something else. Add the potatoes in the last forty-five minutes, or omit them and serve the ribs with noodles, rice or polenta if you prefer. The meat in its sauce turns out luscious.

Ingredients:

1 onion, finely sliced
4 garlic cloves, smashed
1 leek, cleaned and finely chopped
1 carrot, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, finely chopped
4 sprigs fresh thyme, or 1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 cup red wine
½ cup soy sauce or tamari
1 tablespoon sugar
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3½ pounds short ribs
2 to 3 Idaho potatoes, peeled and cut in quarters (optional)

1. Mix all ingredients except the meat and potatoes in a 9 x 15-in. roasting pan. Add the ribs and rub all over with the marinade. The meat should fit comfortably in a single layer in the pan. Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for 6 hours or up to overnight.  Occasionally turn the meat over in the marinade. Remove from the refrigerator 30 minutes prior to cooking.

2. Preheat the oven too 400ºF. Braise the short ribs for 2 ½ to 3 hours, reducing the heat to 350ºF after an hour. Turn the ribs over. Add the potatoes in the last 40 minutes of cooking. Add water to the pan if too much liquid evaporates. You want to end up with glistening ribs in a reduced glaze.

With the High Holidays coming up, Judy Bart Kancigor, author of Cooking Jewish, shares some of her favorite holiday memories and recipes.

To read an excerpt from Cooking Jewish, click here or scroll to the bottom of this post.

When I was growing up, my large, boisterous family would gather in my grandparents’ tiny apartment in Belle Harbor, New York, for the festive Rosh Hashanah meal. Papa Harry, a carpenter who had emigrated from Russia in 1906, would extend the dining table with boards reaching practically to the walls. The arrival of the aunties with their foil-covered dishes signaled the beginning of the holiday feast, a menu that seldom varied:

For the forshpeis (appetizer) Aunt Estelle’s homemade, lovingly shaped gefilte fish served with Uncle Lou’s horseradish, hand-grated on the back porch to keep out the fumes;

Aunt Irene’s golden chicken soup and ethereal matzoh balls, followed by Mama Hinda’s roast chicken and brisket with oven-browned potatoes and Aunt Sally’s tsimmes (sweet carrot stew).

The centerpiece of the table was Mama Hinda’s grand spiral challah, round for Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, a symbol of the endless cycle of life. Only for this holiday would she add raisins, a sweet embellishment to enjoy a sweet New Year.

Sweet notes echoed from the beginning of the meal, as all assembled dipped apples in honey, to the dessert platters wedged onto Mama’s groaning sideboard: Aunt Irene’s dark, dense honey cake, Aunt Estelle’s mile-high sponge cake, Aunt Hilda’s chocolate chip mandelbrot (twice-baked cookies), and Aunt Sally’s apple strudel and taiglach, crisp cookie balls slowly simmered in honey.

Over at the children’s table, a gaggle of cousins, raised practically as siblings, chattered, spilled soup, shouted, squabbled, hiccupped with laughter, fought over drumsticks, dropped crumbs, clamored for seconds, and ran around, as far as one could run in such tight quarters, until a withering look from one of the aunties brought a temporary attitude adjustment, and then it was back to the merriment.

Or so I’m told.

We were never there!

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Grow, harvest and eat as a family. Kids love to help out in the garden and to keep them interested there is the (almost) instant gratification of fresh flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables. Karen Liebreich, Jutta Wagner, and Annette Wendland’s The Family Kitchen Garden offers a slew of ideas and activities relating to the garden—and all are child-friendly. Offering crafts, information on growing seasons, plant varieties, and recipes for family meals, there is something for everyone year-round.

Oriental Summer Rolls are one of August’s highlighted recipes and can be made with fresh peppers and herbs plucked straight from the garden.  But not to worry, even if you can’t grow your own, you can still indulge in this seasonal snack…

Oriental Summer Rolls
This dish is great for getting the kids involved, as there is lots of rolling and filling. Serves 4.

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Chef Eric Ripert shares some simple recipes for a gourmet lunch for kids or adults on the Early Show. In the video below, he demonstrates 3 recipes from A Return to Cooking; Smoked Salmon Croque-Monsieur, Salade Monique, and a Peach and Plum Tart. The dishes looked so delicious, the Early Show folks started digging in before Chef Ripert even finished cooking! For the recipes, visit the Early Show website.

My own grilling skills are embarrassingly limited, but as soon as the weather gets warm, I begin craving all things cooked over charcoal. But between excessive rain here in the Northeast and a lack of grill access  in my Brooklyn apartment, I didn’t get a chance to grill at all this spring. So, when I went to the beach last week, I decided to beef up my skill set by grilling every single night. Among the hot dogs, hamburgers, vegetable skewers, and my latest obsession, grilled corn, one dish stood apart from the rest–Steven Raichlen’s Caveman T-Bone recipe.

Due to a mediocre grocery store and budget limitations, we had to go with a flank steak rather than T-bones. We marinated it in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and parsley for a couple hours, sprinkled on salt and pepper, heated up the coals, and then laid it right on the coals. While the thinner cut made it more difficult to get the amazing char Steven gets on the T-bone (while still keeping the middle nice and juicy), it did get a more smoky flavor than it would have gotten on the grate. The steak was delicious on its own (with grilled corn on the side, of course), and the leftovers made for incredible steak sandwiches the next day, but to be honest, the best part was that it was just plain fun to make!

Flank steak on the coals

The poke test

After foiling and resting, it's time to slice

Click here for Steven’s Caveman T-Bones With Hellfire Hot Sauce recipe and video

Looking for a way to spice up your Fourth of July grilling? Check out Steven Raichlen’s Caveman T-Bone with Hellfire Hot Sauce, a primal way of cooking your steak right on the coals. Click here for the complete recipe.