Smoky Homemade Chili Paste

On August 28, 2025August 28, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

Homemade hot sauces have become all the rage, because they’re simple to make, last for months, and customizable to an ever-widening variety of chilies at a range of heat levels. I included several in my pickling cookbook, from long-fermented red hot sauce and garlicy sriracha, to quick green and red vinegar-based hot sauces with red chilies and tomatillos, to thicker spicy pastes popular in Southeast Asia and North Africa. A home-smoked chili paste, the result of my first exploration into making hot sauce, didn’t make it into the book, but I share it this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

Like other hot sauces, you can make this paste as spicy as you like. My batch varies every year because I typically make it as the growing season is winding down. I usually grow a half-dozen types of hot peppers, from mild pepperoncini to spicy Thai chilies, and whatever is left on the plants in small enough quantities not to pickle or dry on their own ends up mixed together on a grill tray over a smoke tube.
Learn to make Smoky Homemade Chili Paste

Roasted Raspberry Syrup

On July 24, 2025July 24, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

Fruit syrups are easy to make—if you create a jar at a time or have a bumper crop of fruit and a plan to use the remaining solids. As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, it takes about 3 pounds of berries to create about 2 cups of syrup. When you use raspberries for syrups or their tangy cousins, drinking shrubs, roasting the berries and straining off the juice leaves a couple of pounds of sweetened seedy pulp. I hate to dump such a large mound straight into the compost. I primarily freeze the pulp in cubes to blend into smoothies instead of whole raspberries and notice little difference in the overall seediness.

Other easy uses that make berry pulp versus whole fruit less noticeable include granola: Dry the pulp in sheets and crumble it into the mixture of grains, seeds, and nuts. Some baked goods, like quick bread, can handle a certain volume of seedy pulp. The berry pulp still has enough flavor to infuse vodka or vinegar.
Learn to make Roasted Raspberry Syrup

Lemon Tahini Sauce or Dressing

On July 17, 2025July 17, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

The first thing I thought when snapping and choosing photos for this week’s Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon was that everyone would think I’d squirted yellow American mustard on falafel. The impression couldn’t be further from the truth. The bright yellow sauce that I share in this week’s column does get its color from turmeric, but the flavor is entirely the bright citrus tang of lemon, the pungent bite of garlic, and the earthy, slightly bitter taste of tahini.

Given its layers of flavor, Lemon Tahini Sauce is surprisingly versatile. In my recipe, I give options for making it into a thicker drizzle-worthy sauce or a thinner pourable salad dressing. Leave the minced garlic chunky or puree the mixture until smooth. Add yogurt or fresh herbs to make it a dip, and swap in lime juice as a flavor variation.

Learn to make Lemon Tahini Sauce or Dressing

Your Choice Berry Curd

On May 8, 2025May 8, 2025 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

The first time you tasted fruit curd, it was most likely made with lemons or perhaps limes. But as I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, it can be made with a range of berries and other fruits—a big advantage if you don’t have access to backyard citrus but do grow or live in an area where berry crops are popular. Plus, you can make berry curd with frozen fruit.

Raspberries are my personal favorite for berry curd, but I’ve made it with everything from strawberries to gooseberries and huckleberries. Rhubarb Curd is another delicious variation this time of year. I get the best texture by using just egg yolks in the curd, so when I developed a recipe for Gingerbread Pancakes, one of my preferred pairings for fruit curd, I used the remaining egg whites in the pancake batter.
Learn to make Your Choice Berry Curd

Ganache (Chocolate Glaze)

On December 12, 2024December 12, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

Whether you’re just starting your winter baking season or have already churned out dozens of cookies, no doubt holiday treats are on your mind. My family’s favorite Christmas cookies—Vanilla Bean Cookies and Chocolate Rum Balls—sit for several weeks to age, so my holiday baking traditionally starts the weekend after Thanksgiving. But when I need a last-minute batch for a cookie exchange or solstice party, my favorite upgrade for any cookie is the ganache recipe I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

Ganache is simply the French word for a mixture of chocolate and cream, but these two ingredients can take on so many textures depending on ratio and temperature. The ganache I make to drizzle over cookies flows easily for a chocolate glaze. The more it cools, the firmer it becomes, letting you also use it like a sauce, frosting, and firm candy truffles. Even outside the holiday season, this easy and versatile dessert upgrade should be part of your baking skillset.
Learn to make Ganache (Chocolate Glaze)

Homemade Caramel Sauce

On June 27, 2024June 27, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

My first experience with making “caramel” was in a high school home ec class. The recipe melted brown sugar, butter, and Karo syrup in the microwave, added baking soda, and then poured the concoction over a grocery bag full of popped corn and microwaved it until coated. It was so easy that when I began to make true caramel sauce, I lacked the trepidation that many people have about melting sugar until it is molten liquid.

As I explain this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, making caramel successfully at home is all about becoming comfortable with the process and using the right tools. A pan that seems excessively large for the project is key to preventing a bubbling volcano of liquid sugar. A sturdy whisk is a must so that you can keep stirring the sugar steadily and constantly. Avoiding multitasking is crucial to controlling the process. But watching the sugar change as you stir—from white granules to tan clumps to pure liquid that darkens the longer you cook it—is part of the fun.
Learn to make Homemade Caramel Sauce

Rhubarb–Vanilla Syrup

On May 16, 2024May 16, 2024 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigeratedLeave a comment

We tend to buy fruity sparkling waters and hard seltzers in cans, but bottles of fruit syrup concentrate are easy to make and stash in your fridge, or freeze in ice trays, for homemade spritzers and cocktails. You can also play with flavors you’re unlikely to find on the store shelf, like the tart–sweet rhubarb syrup I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon.

The technique for making fruit syrups that you plan to use in beverages is simple. I make them from spring to fall with fresh fruit, cycling through flavors as they ripen. In winter, you can make them with fruit from the freezer in the same way you make Frozen Strawberry Syrup to pour over pancakes or waffles—just don’t let it cook as long to keep it fully pourable.
Learn to make Rhubarb–Vanilla Syrup

Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub

On June 15, 2023November 18, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, refrigerated3 Comments

If you’d walked into my kitchen late last night, you would have found me turning some of summer’s first fruit into a batch of shrub. A drinking shrub, as I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon, is an old DIY beverage that fans of today’s sparking water and hard seltzers should have on their radar. The combination of fruit, vinegar, and sugar into a concentrate that is then diluted with fizzy water to taste packs a flavor punch and quenches thirst of hot summer days. Mix in a couple of shots of alcohol and you end up with a sparkling evening cocktail.

I usually have several shrub flavors in my fridge, made with the current bumper crop of fresh fruit or whatever I squirreled away in the freezer for the off-season. Although I find strawberries too sweet to pair with rhubarb in desserts and jams, the vinegar in a shrub balances this popular combination for my taste buds.
Learn to make Strawberry-Rhubarb Shrub

Apple-Sweetened Yellow Onions

On February 23, 2023November 19, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, Cookbook, picklesLeave a comment

I have to admit: Before I wrote The Complete Guide to Pickling, I rarely thought about pickling onions. Onions land in just about every jar of pickles I make, from Spring Asparagus Pickles and Salt-and-Vinegar Winter Squash, to canned Honeyed Bread-and-Butter Chips, to Southern-Style Pickled Shrimp. If I wanted slices of pickled onions for a sandwich, I just fished them out of one of those jars.

But part of the fun of pickling onions is that red onions are just as readily available as yellow ones, making it easy to create colorful combinations. Lime-Pickled Onions, with thinly slices of red onion immersed in lime juice, become a shocking pink. Red Onions in Wine Vinegar turn a deeper reddish hue. For Fermented Red Onions, weighing down the onion rings with a red beet doubles down on the brightness. I even use red onions, and sometimes just their skins, in other recipes for an extra shot of color.

The pickled onions I share this week in my Twice as Tasty column for the Flathead Beacon keep their pale, nearly translucent color, but apple cider vinegar and a little bonus sugar make them a bit sweeter than these more colorful versions.
Learn to make Apple-Sweetened Yellow Onions

Cucumber-Dill Refrigerator Pickles

On August 19, 2022November 19, 2023 By Julie Laing | Twice As TastyIn Column, pickles1 Comment

If there was any doubt that I love pickles, it was dispelled when my first cookbook focused entirely on pickling. Even I explored some new-to-me flavors and foods for that book, some of which has since become personal favorites: Lime-Pickled Onions, Cultured Curtido (Cabbage Slaw), Zucchini Escabeche (Grilled and Pickled Zucchini), Fresh Pears with Lemon, Tepache (Fermented Pineapple Beverage), Sweet Vinegar-Pickled Eggs, Scratch-Made Sriracha, and more. But I always leave space in the fridge for simple, classic, cucumber-and-dill pickles.

In my Twice as Tasty column this week for the Flathead Beacon, I share one of my simplest and most straightforward pickling cucumber recipes that can be eaten in about a day (if you just can’t wait) but will keep for weeks in the refrigerator. It’s a great way to use less than a pound of pickling cucumbers, whose importance I also explain in the column, or make a couple of jars with a larger crop but without the hassle of canning.
Learn to make Cucumber-Dill Refrigerator Pickles