A collaboration between Andrew Schloss and Cookthink, the Sunday Dinners project is designed to help busy people cook more at home. Each week, we show you how spin the leftovers from a leisurely weekend meal into a slew of brand new, easy weeknight dinners. (For more on this, read Andy’s introduction to the project.)

A soufflé is one of the great culinary cons. Reputedly temperamental, in truth soufflés are the simplest and most humble of casseroles. Though many cookbooks talk about a soufflé as a fancy version of scrambled eggs, every soufflé in fact starts with a sauce, and it is the flavor, consistency and structure of that sauce that will in large part determine the rise or fall of the finished product. (more…)

Once hidden only in margaritas or obscured by swigs of beer, tequila has aspired to savoring and sipping status over the past decade.

Find out more about the infamous agave-based Mexican spirit (including how to choose it, drink it, and cook with it) in this week’s Root Source: Tequila.

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Photo: Sparkling Margarita (Cookthink)

Looking for that famous tequila worm? You’ll only find it in one of these Mexican spirits, which are both made from the distilled juice of the agave plant.

Reference: What’s the difference between tequila and mezcal? (Cookthink)

Tangy and creamy, with a sharp finish from the tequila, this lime-flavored ice cream is an adult treat. Since the alcohol is not heated in this recipe, it’s worth using an aged tequila, which elevates the ice cream’s delicate flavor to the ethereal.

Recipe: Tequila-Lime Ice Cream (Cookthink)
Reference: How to choose tequila (Cookthink)

To line a margarita glass, we like to run a lime wedge along the rim and dip it into coarse sea salt. Kosher salt has light, flaky and irregular crystals that play nicely off the cocktail’s flavors. Or you could use fleur de sel for a slightly more delicate taste and feel. Steer away from fine table salt, which is too concentrated and lacks texture. And don’t bother falling for the marketing gimmick of branded “margarita salt”.

Recipe: Sparkling Margarita (Cookthink)
Reference: What is kosher salt? (Cookthink)
Reference: What is fleur de sel? (Cookthink)
Reference: What is Maldon salt? (Cookthink)

Like tequila, sangrita is from the Mexican state of Jalisco and has become the traditional tequila chaser in most of Mexico.

Sweet and savory with big tomato and citrus flavors, the spicy and acidic notes in sangrita  play off of the complex, smoky flavors found in aged tequilas much like Bloody Mary mix plays up the neutral flavor of vodka.

Recipe: Sangrita (Cookthink)
Reference: What is tequila? (Cookthink)
Reference: How to choose tequila (Cookthink)

Do you have a special bottle tucked away that you’ve been waiting to open?

This Saturday, February 28, is the 10th anniversary of Open That Bottle Night, an annual event started by Wall Street Journal wine critics Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher to get people to pop the corks on bottles they’ve been holding onto for sentimental (or other) reasons. They’re encouraging everyone to shop their own wine racks and partake in this designated special occasion to open up and share bottles of wine, Champagne or spirits that they’ve been saving for the perfect moment.

Related: Open That Bottle Night (official site)
Related: Terry Gross interviews Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher (NPR)

A few years ago, I went for a quick dinner and a glass of wine at the bar at Babbo in New York City. The bartender placed a glass the size of my head in front of me and poured what looked like a splash into the bottom. He let me know that the bottle was right there beside him should I want more. “That’s one big glass,” I told him. And then he paused and said with a dash of bartender’s pride: “I can fit a whole bottle in that glass.”

I found that disturbing. That gargantuan wine glass was yet another testament to the supersizing of America, evident not just in sinister fast food chains but lovely high-end restaurants. That bloated glass seemed to offer subliminal encouragement to drink more — in the same way that the giant portions served on enormous plates have come to seem normal all over our land of plenty. (more…)

I think tequila tastes like a hot penny. That’s what my grandmother would tell me I smelled like whenever I returned from Gus’s Hot Dogs as a kid. Lance Cutler, tequila expert and author of The Tequila Lover’s Guide to Mexico, compared the taste of tequila to “the smell of freshly poured concrete, or a hot street after a quick summer cloudburst.” That also seems right.

What does tequila taste like to you?

We’re getting in the spirit of the new administration’s fledgling Wednesday White House cocktail policy — more change we can believe in — with three apple-themed cocktails from A.J. Rathbun that are perfect for the final weeks of winter.

Recipe: Cider Cup (A.J. Rathbun)
Recipe: Appletini (A.J. Rathbun)
Recipe: Steaming Spiked Cider (A.J. Rathbun)