Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join more than 30,000 food lovers and subscribe.
The annual holiday party is coming up...and remember last year's incident with the mysterious brown dip? Let's make sure you're not THAT person this year.
Holiday Party & Potluck Appetizers
Walking into a party carrying these snacks? You'll have the same swagger as a mall Santa who knows he's rocking that velvet suit.
Artichoke hearts are an essential store-cupboard ingredient for me. This recipe is one of my favorites—delicious, quick, and simple to make, it's inspired by my mother. I always serve this at Christmastime, with toasted rosemary focaccia. It is rich, comforting, and everyone always wants the recipe.
This easy slow cooker cassoulet calls for beans, garlic, store-bought duck confit, and sausage, just like the traditional cassoulet recipe from France.
This butternut squash gratin is a lot like like a scalloped potato casserole except it's made with winter squash instead of spuds along with onions, garlic, butter, heavy cream, cheese, and bread crumbs. A simple--and simply elegant--side for Thanksgiving as well as a random weeknight.
Think of the most delicious hermit bar you ever ate, the moistest, chewiest, nicely spiced bar, with a crisp shiny top and dense center. Okay? This bar beats that one, we guarantee it. If you count molasses cookies, spice cake, or gingerbread—any of the old-fashioned, dark and spicy baked goods with their long international history—among your favorites, you’ll love these bars.
Think of these twice-baked potatoes as an easy mashed potato casserole loaded with bacon, Cheddar, sour cream, and chives. Talk about awesome game day grub or meals kids—heck, any of us—can't resist.
This wild rice with roasted chestnuts and cranberries is a healthy Thanksgiving side dish that also happens to be gluten-free. Made with dried fruits and chestnuts, it's ideal for holiday entertaining as it can be made in advance.
Who doesn’t love garlic bread? And this tear-and-share style is always a winner. I’ve written the recipe for 12 because it’s an easier quantity of dough to work with. What I like to do is make up both pans of bread, then whack one in the freezer, ready to bake another day—you won’t regret it.
These mac and cheese canapes, essentially baked mac and cheese bites, are made from macaroni and sharp Cheddar cheese and baked in mini-muffin tins. Perfect finger food for kids and adults. Cocktail party, anyone?
These IKEA Swedish meatballs, made with ground beef and pork, and served in a Dijon cream sauce, are the real deal, except you don't have to leave the house or walk through the store to enjoy them. Here's how to cook them.
Why, hello! Leite's Culinaria is the James Beard Award-winning site that helps home cooks and bakers put dinner on the table and laughs in the kitchen. Hungry for more? Join more than 30,000 food lovers and subscribe.
Hi Reader, When I was a kid, the days before Lent were treated like a culinary Olympics in our house. My mother would declare, “We’re cleaning out the freezer,” which translated to every cut of meat known to man sizzling, braising, or roasting at once. The kitchen looked like a Renaissance banquet—steam clouding the windows, the table groaning, me stationed nearby with a dinner roll in each hand like a linebacker ready to carb-load for Jesus.Even now—decades after Papa and Mama Leite went...
Hi Reader, The One likes to tell people that the first meal I ever cooked for him was “French-ish.” Which is a polite way of saying I served steak au poivre with enough cracked pepper to fumigate the apartment. The smoke alarm sang, the windows flew open, and we ate on the fire escape with our wine balanced on the railing. But here’s the secret: he still remembers that dinner twenty years later—not because it was flawless, but because it was ours.A romantic dinner for two isn’t about...
Hi Reader, Years ago, The One and I agreed to skip Valentine’s Day—no gifts, no dinner reservations, no grand gestures. Naturally, by 8 p.m., I had chocolate melting on the stove and he was pretending not to notice the champagne chilling in the fridge. Somewhere between the whisking and the teasing (“You said we weren’t doing this!”), the night turned into one of those quietly cinematic moments—two people leaning over the counter, sharing spoonfuls straight from the pan, laughing like we’d...
