HotmailForget the flowers! Learn to cook these dishes
Impress your date with this perfect menu from ‘Queer Eye’ expert Ted Allen’s cookbook, ‘The Food You Want to Eat.’ Check out the recipes
 | FREE VIDEO |
 |
Try these recipes for the perfect date dinner Oct. 12: Ted Allen cooks up some great dishes and talks about his cookbook “The Food You Want to Eat.” Today show |
Recipes from TODAY |
 |
 | Interactive |
 |
 | Slideshow |
 | Appetite for perfection From Rachael Ray to Rocco DiSpirito, these celebrity chefs know how to turn up the heat in the kitchen. more photos |
 |
 Giant squid attack California coast July 18: It may sound like something out of a horror movie, but for surfers, swimmer and divers in parts of Southern California, these jumbo-sized sea creatures are getting a bit too close for comfort. NBC’s Miguel Almaguer reports, then NBC’s Amy Robach sits down with diver Shanda Magill. |
As the food and wine connoisseur on “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” Ted Allen has taught helpless men how to cook. Now, everyone can get the know-how to pull off simple dishes with Allen's new cookbook, “The Food You Want to Eat: 100 Smart, Simple Recipes.” Allen visited “Today” to share some suggestions for the perfect date meal. Here are the recipes:
Makes 30 to 35 pieces
INGREDIENTS
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Cut the baguette into thin slices on an angle, lay them on baking sheets, and drizzle with olive oil. Bake until the crostini are beginning to brown and crisp, 10 to 12 minutes.
Serve with some or all of the following dips and spreads.
Crostini are the essence of rustic Italian snacking; nothing could be easier or more crowd-pleasing. Make a few of the different varieties, and you’ll also notice how beautiful crostini look on big platters — that is, for the brief interval before they’re all eaten.
MANAGE YOUR RECIPES
Makes about 2 cups
INGREDIENTS
Purée
Optional garnishes
Combine the beans, 5 tablespoons oil, garlic, lemon juice, sage, hot sauce, 1/8 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper in a food processor and purée. Scrape into a serving bowl with a rubber spatula and taste for salt; you might need to add more, depending on how salty the canned beans are. Drizzle with about 1 teaspoon olive oil and serve it with the crostini.
That’s the basic recipe and you can leave it just like that. Or you can mess with it: Before adding the oil, stir in chopped parsley or basil, or sprinkle the top with ground cumin or paprika and/or either of the herbs, or scatter some tomatoes over the top.
It’s a Tuscan thing. And if you haven’t been to Tuscany — a beautiful, rolling province of Italy a few clicks north of Rome — you should put it on your list. Great food, great people — and, it must be noted, great shopping.
MANAGE YOUR RECIPES
Makes about 1 cup
INGREDIENTS
Combine everything in the food processor and process to a rough paste.
Pitted, unstuffed olives are often available at supermarket delis. But olives sold with the pits are likely to be fresher and hence of better quality. To pit, place the olives on a cutting board and roll a rolling pin over to crush them; it’s very easy then to pull open each olive individually and pop out the pit.
MANAGE YOUR RECIPES
- Discuss Story On Newsvine
-
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh - Instant Message
MORE FROM FOOD & WINE |
 Food & Wine Section Front |
| Add Food & Wine headlines to your news reader: |
Sponsored links
Resource guide