Pastry

Blackberries: Where to Find Them, How to Pick Them & What to Make with Them

Blackberry-picking season is right around the corner. In fact, in the next several weeks, blackberries will be ready for picking at several local farmers' markets. Don't be fooled by the early berries growing on the side of the road because those are dewberries, not blackberries. Tommy Neal from Ne ... More >>

What's Cooking This Week? Pork Meatball Banh Mi, Cauliflower Fried Rice and More

I love cooking for my fiancé and me, but most of the time, cooking for two proves to be difficult. If I don't make a plan, I end up running around in circles at the grocery store and wasting half the ingredient's I've bought (and I hate wasting food). Enter What's Cooking This Week - my weekly meal ... More >>

Easter Potluck Recipe: Greek Spinach & Cheese Pies

This weekend, I'll be attending the 3rd Annual Friendster. While it may sound like the name of a defunct social network, it's actually an Easter potluck with my degenerate group of friends. Last year's bounty was quite interesting -- from my homemade spinach bread and raspberry French macarons to a ... More >>

What's Cooking on Pinterest? Taco Cupcakes

The Food & Drink section of Pinterest is overflowing with recipes for Super Bowl weekend. Almost every pin is an easy appetizers, hearty game-day chili or a football-themed dessert. So, I decided to make an easy appetizer you can serve up to everyone at your home as you enjoy all the Super Bowl fest ... More >>

Dining Out on Turkey Day: Where to Eat This Thanksgiving

Let's face it, sometimes a "home-cooked" meal in a restaurant is better than anything we can whip up at home. Thanksgiving dinner is one of the most difficult, time-consuming and stressful meals to make if you don't normally cook meals at home. But, there's one thing to be thankful for this year, ... More >>

Lightened Comfort Food: Chicken Pot Pie

As the temperatures drop, we begin to crave creamy and comforting meals. Creamy warm crock-pot dinners, tender beef pot roasts, cheesy pasta dishes and many more delicious winter foods always come to mind when the weather begins to change. But sometimes we want to enjoy the comforts of winter food ... More >>

10 Dishes We're Excited About on Houston Restaurants' New Fall Menus

Roost Bistro is one of the restaurants with an exciting fall menu. Fall means looking forward to more than just oyster season, chili cook-offs and pumpkin spice lattes at Starbucks. It means that plenty of our favorite restaurants (and, yes, bars too) across the city are issuing new seasonal menus ... More >>

Where Are We Eating? Clue: Hometown 'Cue

Is there anything more Texan than a plate of barbecue and a Lone Star beer? You can get them both at this hometown barbecue "chain," where the pecan pies are as popular as the brisket. Think you know where we're eating this week? Leave your best guess below.

Use That Leftover Summer Squash: Easy Zucchini & Yellow Squash Quiche

Squash is in season...and it's cheap...and it's delicious -- so there really is no reason not to pick some up from your local farmer's market or grocery store, or even grow your own. One of my favorite summer squash recipes is a Zucchini & Yellow Squash Quiche. I use a hint of tangy Dijon and some ... More >>

What Are We Stuffing? Apples

Apple pie just screams "classic American dessert." Pair it with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and you've got yourself one of the best fruit dessert combinations. My favorite part about apple pies is the warm, sugary and slightly crunchy apple filling. You can't go wrong with apples, butter, brow ... More >>

What's Cooking This Week? Garlic Mustard Beef Skewers, Tomato & Goat Cheese Tarts More

I love homemade meals with my fiancé, but most of the time, cooking for two proves to be difficult. If I don't have a game plan, I end up running around in circles at the grocery store and wasting half the ingredients I've bought (and I HATE wasting food). Enter What's Cooking This Week - my weekly ... More >>

Make a Gourmet Meal in Half the Time with Our Tips and Tricks

Don't call it cheating; call it a shortcut. Very few of us these days have the time or energy to make phyllo dough from scratch or even to simply chop vegetables. And if you're trying to host a nice dinner for friends or cook a good meal for your loved ones, there's absolutely nothing wrong with us ... More >>

What's Cooking This Week?

Easter was wonderful (as were the week of home cooked meals I enjoyed leading up to the celebration). One of my favorite parts about Easter are the leftovers, or remaking the leftovers. So I'm using up some leftover ham and making some other Spring treats. Here's what I'm making: Scrambled Eggs w ... More >>

Fast Times: Kentucky Fried Chicken 'Chunky Chicken' Pot Pie

A $4, fast food pot pie -- who could resist? Certainly not me, and as soon as I saw an advert for the Chunky Chicken Pot Pie at KFC I was pulling up to the drive-thru window. Chicken pot pie is a total throwback to my childhood, when my brother and I would turn up our noses at the delicious, homemad ... More >>

Whatever Happened to Baked Alaska? Five Out-of-Style Dishes

The meringue makes it extra fancy.​In the course of researching Turkducken's real age last week, I turned to one of my favorite food resources on the Internet: the Food Timeline. If you're a food nerd, prepare to lose dozens of hours to the fascinating depths of the Food Timeline and its entri ... More >>

How To: Bake Lattice Cookies for Fall

I came across this tutorial the other day on NotMartha.org and had to give it a shot. It's the easiest recipe because...well...you don't actually cook anything. The dough for the cookies is just ready-made pie crust, and I love warm, flaky pie crust topped with butter, cinnamon and sugar. It's an ea ... More >>

Pâte à Choux and Pilfered Sou(bise)

SO EASY​Some weeks ago, my wife and I were lucky enough to attend a vegetable-focused dinner prepared by Chef Justin Yu. It stands easily as one of the best meals I've had this year, and featured many moments during which either my wife or I would lament the fact that we could not have this di ... More >>

Sopapillas at Taco Cabana

​Last Tuesday, Taco Cabana gave away free sopapillas. "Free what?!" asked a man at the next table, when the manager offered to bring him an order. No wonder Taco Cabana was giving them away; how can you sell something if customers don't know what it is? I wouldn't have a clue, either, excep ... More >>

The Original Kolache Shoppe, Really

Anamaris Cousins PriceThe Original Kolache Shoppe​I drove about 20 miles, waved bye to Frank's Grill and just when I thought I would hit Hobby Airport, I fell in love with the kolaches, and everything else, at The Original Kolache Shoppe. A family business since 1956, their little shoppe is fu ... More >>

Chef Chat, Part 1: Tommy Birdwell of TQLA

Photo by Matthew DresdenChef Tommy Birdwell, in front of TQLA​Houston native Tommy Birdwell, the co-owner/executive chef at TQLA, may hold the record for having worked at more restaurants than any other chef in Houston: 37, at last count. Then again, his career began at age ten. A graduate of ... More >>

Food Fight: Sweet Potato Pie

Photos by Matthew DresdenA slice of sweet potato pie from House of Pies​A sweet potato is not a yam, and a yam is not a sweet potato. Except when a sweet potato is called a yam, which is not because that sweet potato is an actual yam, but because it is a variety with softer flesh, like an actu ... More >>

Food Fight: Battle Beignets

Photo by Matthew DresdenChez Beignets II​A few years ago, when I spent a month getting around Houston entirely by public transit, I found myself checking out from Central Market one warm spring evening at 10 p.m. It had just rained, and the air was fresh and cool, and I didn't feel like waitin ... More >>

Food Fight: Pecan Pie

Dacapo's, left. Goode Co., right.​It may be the state tree of Texas, but the pecan sure doesn't attract the kind of attention lavished on the state flower, the bluebonnet. Put it this way: You don't see photo studios offering to capture a young Texan's first bite of pecan pie. If only! The blu ... More >>

Food Fight: Fried Rodeo Fare

​ Fried delicacies abound at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, so what better place to do a little food fighting? To locate the stands we visited, click here. Battle Corndogs (Yoakum Packing Co. vs. Cajun Unlimited) What rodeo trip would be complete without scarfing down a corndog--or ... More >>

Crescent City Beignets

​Sometimes, nothing satisfies quite like a plate full of hot dough, fat, and sugar. I'm speaking, of course, of beignets. When the mood strikes, these pillowy confections simply can't be replaced. People may try to ply you with Indian fry bread, funnel cakes, or perhaps even sopapillas. The pa ... More >>

National Pie Day and Oh My! Pocket Pies

Angie Villasenor triumphs. ​Did you know that yesterday was National Pie Day? Apparently, a few of you did. I went out to Houston's 2nd Annual National Pie Day Celebration, held in the historic Heights shopping district at 339 W. 19th Street. The event was co-hosted by Oh My! Pocket Pies ... More >>

Bean Pie, My Brother?

Photo by Romana Klee​If 2011 is supposed to be the year of the pie, I would like to humbly submit the bean pie for consideration as one of the great examples of pie innovation throughout the years. At Conscious Cafe -- the subject of this week's cafe review -- you can buy bean pie by the slic ... More >>

Top 5 Uses for Holiday Leftovers

savorytartGo fix us a turkey pot pie.​The holidays are awesome. Everybody makes their best dish, which usually leaves enough food left over for a small army. Rather than continuing to gorge yourself on reheated, plain-old leftovers, here are some ways to help gobble up what's left. 5. Make i ... More >>

The Perfect Christmas Gift: Goode Company Pecan Pie

store.goodecompany.com​Need a gift that is outrageously Texan that you can send to an out-of-stater without having to do much more than click a mouse? My choice, beyond all others, is a Goode Company pecan pie. You don't even really have to be a thoughtful person to send one. Say what you wi ... More >>

Top 5 Flying Saucer Pies

Photo courtesy of out_of_rhythm​The pies at Flying Saucer are creeping up in price, and dare I say a little overrated in the taste department. But tradition is tradition. What's a Thanksgiving without waiting in line for one of their tasty treats? Here are the top five worth waiting for...and no, ... More >>

Your Handy Thanksgiving Flow Chart, Plus Bonus Recipe for Creamy White Deliciousness

Jason Bargas Click here to view the chart full-size.​If you have to attend a Thanksgiving meal, then you have to make a Creamy White Deliciousness Pie - at least according to this handy flow chart, which we've assembled to help you navigate the holiday. Fill your quota of Kickass Points (Coo ... More >>

What Are Houston Chefs Cooking This Thanksgiving?

Photo by Carbon NYC​Thanksgiving: A day to gather with your loved ones and give thanks? Or a day to display your culinary prowess to friends and family? Increasingly, the emphasis has been on the latter in the past few years, as people try to dress up the traditional Thanksgiving spread and im ... More >>

Cajun Made

The sweet potato bar

Tex-Cajun Cuisine at BB's Cajun Cafe

This is the new late-night place to be if you like poor boys, grits and gravy, and breakfast in the middle of the night.

Brie Good at Cafesito Cocina Mediterranea

This Tart's for You

Tart Cafe

Refined Taste

Blue Plate Bistro

Precision Pecan Pie

Roland's Swiss Pastry and Bistro

Mycological Masterpiece

Shade

Cupid Plays the Odds

Does Restaurant Ronit/Café Beignet pass Valentine's Day muster?

Haute Pocket

Massa's

The Orange Show

Moeller's Bakery

UFO Sighting

Flying Saucer Pie Company

Size Does Matter

Kenny & Ziggy's New York Delicatessen

Hot Plate

Mighty Aphrodite

Hot Plate

Beignet Blahs

Good ideas. Bad execution.

Battlin' Beignets

Dish

Eating on the Cutting Edge

Daily Review has the foodies alerted, and for good reason