We have reached the final week of the Gourmet Live Giveaway, which means you have one last opportunity to enter for a chance to win an Apple Gift Card for an iPad. Check out the rules and enter here. Good luck!

NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. A purchase will not increase your chances of winning. Entry period begins October 19, 2010 and ends December 31, 2010. For Official Rules please click here.

• Cranberry-Lime Bellinis from Smells Like Home provide a creative outlet for leftover cranberries from your holiday table (pictured above).
• A Vanilla-Peppermint Martini from Muy Bueno Cookbook calls for both fresh mint and crushed candy canes, making it perfect if you plan to ring in the new year with a kiss.
• Pomegranate juice and elderflower liquor kick up the flavor of The Châtelaine from The Merry Gourmet.
• A creative duo of Guinness and champagne make The Black Velvet from The New York Times both bubbly and simple.
• Sparkling Pepper-Berry Cocktails from Apple A Day add a spicy kick to your celebration.
• Apple brandy, grenadine and a lime twist are all it takes to whip up the The Jack Rose from Cafe Lynnylu.
• The Vaina Cocktail from Andrea’s Recipes is a traditional Chilean belnded cocktail of cognac and crème de cacao topped off with a pinch of cinnamon.
• Gin Punch with Cherries from Lost Past Remembered is a sweet and sour combination with cherries and a touch of almond extract.
• Pomegranate-Grapefruit Champagne Sparklers from Hungry Cravings are the perfect way to toast to 2011.
• Tequila and mole add a unique Mexican flavor to the Cielo de Jalisco cocktail from Umami Mart.

Photo by Jeffrey Schad

Celebrate the start of a new year with a brand new party appetizer from Gourmet Live. Bake up a batch of these savory Feta Walnut Date Cigars then head to the Store tab in Gourmet Live to purchase the complete menu, A New Year of Entertaining.

Feta Walnut Date Cigars

• 6 oz cream cheese, cut into pieces
• 6 oz crumbled feta (1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons; patted dry if wet)
• 2/3 cup walnut pieces
• 1/2 cup chopped pitted dates
• 1 (1 lb) package phyllo dough (roughly 17- by 12-inch sheets), thawed if frozen
• 1 1/4 sticks (10 Tbsp) unsalted butter (preferably European-style), melted and cooled slightly

• Pulse cream cheese, feta, walnuts, and dates together in a food processor, stopping occasionally to scrape down side of bowl, until nuts are finely chopped and mixture is combined well. Quick-chill filling by freezing until cold (to make it easier to handle), 15 to 20 minutes in freezer.
• Stack 8 sheets of phyllo and cut stack crosswise into 4 strips (each about 12-by 4-inches), reserving remaining phyllo for another use.
• Stack phyllo strips, then place stack between sheets of wax paper or plastic wrap (to keep phyllo from drying out) and cover with a kitchen towel (to help keep the paper or plastic wrap in place).
• Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in the middle.
• Place 1 sheet of phyllo with a short end nearest you on a work surface (keep remaining sheets covered) and brush with butter.
• Roll a scant tablespoon of filling between your hands into a 3-inch-long log and place log in center of phyllo sheet, parallel to short end. Fold phyllo in half, enclosing log, and brush with butter.
• Starting at log end, roll up pastry to resemble a cigar. Transfer, seam side down, to a lightly buttered baking sheet.
• Make more rolls, leaving 1/2-inch of space between cigars on baking sheet. Bake until phyllo is golden, 15 to 20 minutes.

• Filling can be made 1 day ahead and chilled, covered.
• Unbaked cigars keep frozen for up to 1 week. To freeze, put cigars on a rimmed baking sheet and freeze until very firm, about 1 hour, then transfer to a sealable plastic bag. When ready to bake, do not thaw. Place frozen cigars on a baking sheet and place directly in oven for 20 to 25 minutes.
• If using frozen phyllo, be sure to follow manufacturer’s instructions for thawing it; if you are in a hurry and try to thaw it too quickly, you’ll likely end up with a frustrating mass of stuck-together sheets or a pile of shreds.
• Fresh phyllo that’s never been frozen is a delight to work with; you might find it labeled ‘strudel dough’. Look for it in international, Greek, Middle Eastern, or Eastern European markets.
• Butter labeled European-style has a higher proportion of butterfat than regular butter and therefore less moisture, which makes a difference when buttering phyllo. Moisture turns the phyllo wet and gummy. If you are using regular butter, you’ll notice that when you come to buttering the last few strips, the moisture in the butter, which is at the bottom of the pan containing the melted butter, will make those last strips more difficult to work with.

We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday filled with family, friends, and of course, great food. Now we’re getting ready to launch into the new year with brand new recipes and brand new features in Gourmet Live.

Head over to your Store tab to purchase A New Year of Entertaining, an exclusive menu that includes savory party snacks like French Onion Bites and crowd-pleasing desserts like Chocolate Pavlova with Whipped Cream and Berries. With your celebratory menu all set, you can then check out our brand new SuperFavorites upgrade, which is the quintessential tool for the food culture enthusiast.

The SuperFavorites upgrade (pictured above) can be found as an item in your Store tab and will allow you to have an unlimited number of favorites for a full year. Save unlimited articles, recipes and more anywhere, anytime from anywhere in the app and enjoy enhanced features that allow you to search your favorites (pictured below) and sort them by date or title in an upgraded view.

Gourmet Live guest columnist Adam Harrison Levy explores the relationship between food and love by rediscovering dating, one meal at a time.

Over trout with Chinese long beans and a confit of tomatoes and capers with an almond puree we talked some more. She asked me why my marriage had gone south. To tell you the full story, I said, would take hours, perhaps days. I looked down at my plate. I didn’t want to be coy. It was like a vase, I said. Even at the start it had hairline cracks. We tried to cover them over but incrementally they just grew wider until the whole thing just split apart.

For the full story and more, download the free Gourmet Live app.

Photo by Romulo Yanes

We’re celebrating a very merry Christmas with the third exclusive recipe from The Gourmet Cookie Book, which features the single best cookie recipe for every year from 1941 through 2009.

Bake up a batch of this week’s featured cookie, Old-Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies (December 1947), then order your copy for the ultimate collection of holiday sweets. You can also bake up two other exclusive recipes for Cranberry Turtle Bars and Mocha Cookies.

Old-Fashioned Christmas Butter Cookies

Copyright 2010 by Condé Nast Publications, Photographs by Romulo Yanes. Buy it now.

By 1947, memories of the war were beginning to recede and the country had relazed into a more lighthearted mood. That’s evident from the cover, which boasted a Christmas tree with gifts piled beneath it. Inside were stories about “Truffles and Trifles,” “Gilding the Goose,” and, for the first time ever, an article about gingerbread men. As if slightly embarrassed by such frivolity, the editors also included these cookies, which they insisted on calling the “pride of the thrifty housewife.” That is definitely underselling them. The cookies are made with modest ingredients, and they keep for weeks, but we were taken with the old-fashioned technique, which calls for blending sieved hard-cooked yolks and raw yolks into the dough, and then perfuming it with lemon zest or a dash of brandy. What you end up with are cookies that are incredible crisp and so flaky they almost seem to float away.

Makes about 12 dozen cookies.

Put 3 hard-cooked yolks through a fine sieve. Cream 1 pound (2 cups) sweet butter and gradually add 1½ cups sugar, stirring constantly until light and fluffy. Add the 3 strained yolks alternately with 6 cups sifted flour and 3 raw yolks. Knead the mixture with your hands until thoroughly blended, or until the dough is smooth and easily handled. Add the rind of ½ a lemon or 2 teaspoons brandy and continue kneading.

Chill the dough several hours, then roll as thin as possible. Cut it with cookie cutters in as many fancy shapes as desired. Brush each cookie very evenly with slightly beaten white of egg. Sprinkle the tops with a mixture of 1 cup each sugar and blanched almonds or walnuts, coarsely chopped. Place them on a slightly floured cooky sheet and bake in a moderate oven (350ºF) for 10 to 15 minutes, or until delicately brown, removing each cooky as it is ready.

Recipe Notes

1. To hard-cook eggs, put them in a saucepan with cold water to cover, partially cover pan, and bring the water to a rolling boil, reduce the hear to low, and cook the eggs for 30 seconds. Remove from the heat and let stand in the water, covered, for 15 minutes, then run under cold water for about 5 minutes.
2. The butter should be softened before beating (creaming).
3. Use grated lemon zest (without any of the bitter white pith).
4. Roll out the dough to a 1/16-inch thickness.
5. Instead of flouring the sheets, line them with parchment paper.

• Whip up Gingerbread Pancakes with lemon-maple syrup from The Galley Gourmet to satisfy the sweet tooth of even the pickiest of eaters (pictured above).
• Photo A Day bakes up Eggnog Cranberry Muffins that are perfect for a quick bite between unwrapping gifts.
• Gourmet Traveller gives breakfast potatoes a twist with individual Bacon Hash Browns fried with eggs and sauteed onions.
• Pink Grapefruit Cake from Playing House is a light, sweet and citrusy start to the morning.
• The Girl Who Ate Everything updates quiche with a make-under of just four ingredients in her Bacon and Egg Toast Cups.
• Prosciutto adds an Italian twist to the classic breakfast sandwich in BS’ In The Kitchen’s Prosciutto & Smoked Gouda Egg Sandwich.
• Simple Bites brings fresh flavor to brunch with this bright and seasonal Citrus & Pomegranate Salad with Rose Water-Vanilla Syrup.
• Kids will love these homemade Cherry Pop Tarts with Vanilla Bean Glaze from Spicy Ice Cream.
• Christmas Oatmeal from Karma Cucina combines oats with classic holiday spices, apples and pomegranate for a warming breakfast treat.

Photo by Nikola Tamindzic

Quarters are tight in the basement kitchen of Torrisi Italian Specialties, where late on a Monday afternoon, every square inch of counter space is occupied by herb chopping, vegetable slicing, and pretzel-dough twisting. Pretzels? "Of course we have pretzels tonight," laughs chef-partner Mario Carbone. "New York pretzels. With liverwurst. Jewish New York. Why not?"

To note that soft pretzels are hardly an Italian specialty is to point out only the first of the contradictions of this New York restaurant. By day, and by original design, it’s an Italian-American deli done right, serving things like chicken parm heroes with house-made mozzarella and supremely moist slow-roasted turkey sandwiches that have attracted lunchtime lines down Mulberry Street and rave reviews from all corners. But by night, Mario Carbone and Rich Torrisi flip their eighteen-seat dining room to seated service, chalking up a nightly four-course menu on the board that hangs above the dining room. Four antipasti, a pasta course, two entrees and a dessert platter: $50. Diners can only choose between the two entrees and the entire menu changes every night.

With two distinct seatings (as in, the entire restaurant sits down and clears out at the same time, twice a night), the nightly meals are Italian in pacing, but American in character: you’re as likely to see Vietnamese sweetbreads as sweetbreads Milanese, a shrimp po’ boy as tripe cacciatore. Since dinner service began in mid-2010, it’s grown steadily more inventive. "The restaurant’s personality splits more every day," says Carbone.

In less skilled hands, the concept could lack focus or smack of pretension: two young chefs running wild in the kitchen, pushing the notion of Italian-American cooking so far it threatens to break. But the restaurant’s humor and understated charm keep it likeable— and the sheer talent in the kitchen makes it remarkable. "I think people like us because we don’t take ourselves too seriously," ventured Torrisi. He paused. "Except that we take ourselves really, really seriously."

It’d be hard for two chefs of their age— Torrisi is 31, Carbone 30— to rack up a more distinguished list of credentials. "Very few cooks have the résumé that Mario and Rich have," says chef David Chang of New York’s acclaimed Momofuku restaurants. Both chef-partners grew up in the New York area, citing meals with Italian-American family as a childhood introduction to the kitchen. Torrisi "realized at some point that what we ate at home was much, much better than what anyone else ate." And for Carbone, "The most important time in my house was mealtime. I absorbed cooking through osmosis."

Both attended the Culinary Institute of America; both put in time in European kitchens (Carbone, in Italy; Torrisi, France) before returning to the city. Carbone started as an extern at Mario Batali’s Babbo in 1998, and went on to help open Batali’s Lupa and then, years later, Del Posto; Torrisi worked at Aquavit and Café Boulud. Even early in their careers, both stood out to fellow chefs. "Mario made the best pasta at Café Boulud," says Chang of Carbone. "I distinctively remember a Spring Pea and Mint Ricotta Ravioli."

It was while rooming together that Carbone and Torrisi started to formulate the idea for a restaurant. "Of course I wanted to do my own thing, but I thought that would be later in my career," said Torrisi. "When I was, like, 35." Carbone always had notebooks, saving up every flicker of a thought, "if not real ideas." Meanwhile, Torrisi found himself considering any number of next steps, but compelled by none of them. "The more I heard, the more I didn’t want. I found myself thinking, ‘I could do that, but not as well as I could do something else.’ I liked my own ideas better. Deli was just a word I threw out— but it felt right."

Photo by Nikola Tamindzic

The original thought of Torrisi was just that— a deli, proudly Italian-American in its use of provolone cheese and Progresso bread crumbs, elevated in its precision and technique. To two Italian-American New Yorkers, reviving the deli was a matter of personal pride. "I remember this place Giannini’s," Torrisi says; "They had a line every day, starting at maybe 11:30. I’d practically jog over there, 3 or 4 days a week. And when they closed, people kept talking about them, year after year. It stuck in my head all through culinary school."

In a neighborhood that could once have been called Little Italy, now long stripped of its deli tradition, Torrisi’s lunch menu was an instant hit. But once they established that platform, it was onto a much more ambitious dinner service. "That’s why we went at this alone," said Torrisi of their decision to retain control of the restaurant. "An investor would never let us do all this. Add more tables, they’d say. Add more choices. More risk, for us. But more reward."

"Chefs more talented than we are have tried this and failed," Torrisi says. Carbone’s mentor, chef Mark Ladner of the highly acclaimed Del Posto, concurs: "It is nearly impossible to open a business on the island of Manhattan as a small independent. They had to completely rewrite the book." The reward was the freedom to cook in their signature and wildly inventive manner without hindrance. "If I opened a more traditional kind of place," says Carbone, "I’d be lying to myself." It’s melting pot food, of course. But at dinner, that means not only the served-nowhere-in-Italy greasy garlic breads and Progresso-dusted cauliflower of their Italian-American childhoods, but the Chinese and Jewish and Caribbean inflections that are every bit a part of New York life.

Even the pasta course may be neither Italian nor particularly Italian-American. "I started thinking of the Jamaican beef patties I had for lunch at our high school," Carbone said, "and we envisioned that as a pasta dish." So he started working on a cavatelli dough that incorporated shortening, like the patty crust, and a ragu that reflected the beef filling’s flavors, Scotch bonnet peppers and Jamaican spices. Russia shows up in "Brighton Beets"— cheekily named for Brooklyn’s heavily Russian neighborhood Brighton Beach— served with fried brussels sprouts, sour cream, and dill.

So while Torrisi is nominally Italian-American, it’s the America of a kid from Queens who grew up at the end of the last century, with beef patties on the cafeteria menu and a Vietnamese restaurant on the corner.

The other implicit joke in a restaurant called Torrisi Italian Specialties? There’s not a single Italian-sourced ingredient on the menu. No balsamic from Modena, no Parmigiano-Reggiano, no Italian wines or meats or olive oil. The menu is as American-sourced as a restuarant kitchen can realistically be. "I mean, you can’t buy American peppercorns," says Carbone. Still, that’s about it. Rather than Parmesan, they use Wisconsin-made SarVecchio; "It’s got the salt crystals, the aged character." Rather than prosciutto from Parma or San Daniele, it’s Iowa-made La Quercia. These decisions add another layer of distinctiveness to Torrisi’s cuisine; "Give me an Italian dish," says Carbone, "and swap in all my American ingredients— just by virtue of doing that, the dish’s character is 100% different."

As Torrisi and Carbone see it, their choices are less of a slight toward Europe than an investment in a distinctively American cuisine. "We have nothing but respect for European ingredients," says Carbone. "I’m not going to sit here and tell you that La Quercia is better than Prosciutto di Parma. But we want to champion our ingredients. And when we do, we’re giving money to producers; we’re pushing them to make it better.

"We’ve only been really making wine in this country for what, 40 years? And we make some damn good wine."

If it is American to assimilate, it is Italian to use what’s at hand; and as Torrisi and Carbone talk about their dishes, their ingredients and suppliers, they seem almost giddy with possibility, with vertiginous freedom. Wild juniper comes in from their Long Island forager; they find a way to use it. They create a seafood salad, and after a stint with a pepperoni vinaigrette, decide they prefer one with fermented broccoli rabe.

Photo by Nikola Tamindzic

Even the more rustic-seeming dishes are anything but humble. On one night, it’s a Heritage pork chop under a tangle of peppers, its crisp-edged, custard-soft fat cap so remarkable you’re inclined to cut it off and eat it first—and to begin every meal, a dish of mozzarella, stretched to order. They find themselves with veal neck, and Torrisi tosses out "Yankee pot roast!"— though the resulting preparation cooks the meat sous vide until fork-tender, plated in broth with an Italian flag of red, white, and green sauces served alongside. "If a construction worker comes off the street, I want him to get it," says Torrisi about this dish. "Not the way we cook the meat or why. But you put an Italian flag down in front of someone? They get it."

It’s characteristic of this kitchen that they didn’t streak pesto and marinara sauce on a plate and call it a day; the fennel salsa verde, horseradish cream, spicy pepper are all carefully thought out, independently and together, designed for the dish. There’s nothing gimmicky about the food— it’s all in the presentation. And so it is with Torrisi itself, equal parts soulful, satisfying, and creative, where an Italian ice appears as an intermezzo and rainbow cookies grace the dessert plate.

It’s impossible to speak with Carbone and Torrisi and not sense their relentless curiosity and genuine, almost wide-eyed open-mindedness— two chefs who honor others’ expertise, eager students of New York culinary history, who ask fisherman what they should be cooking, not demanding a given fish from them. "We drove out to Long Island and met these fishermen way before we opened the restaurant," Torrisi remembers; "It wasn’t until I started talking to fishermen that I realized I’d been cooking the same dozen fish my whole career. My whole life! Even when I went to France. They’re cooking their shit, we’re cooking ours, and it’s the same shit. halibut, salmon, Dover Sole— they’re all we’d ever cook. But what about all the other fish out there?"

"Porgy are a good fish," Torrisi insists. "Sea robins— they’re good fish. But people are preconditioned to think they’re garbage— so there’s no market for them, so people keep thinking they’re garbage. Until they eat them.”

"We charge you $50 for dinner. We couldn’t do that if we were serving you halibut every night. So we get this delivery, they charge us $3 a pound, and it gets here and it’s hard as a rock." This is a good thing. Fish remain stiff as a board until at least a few hours after they’re caught. "The damn fish still has rigor mortis," says Torrisi. "The game with seafood is to cook it and eat it as quickly as possible. That’s the game, and you fight it endlessly. This gives us a leg up."

The final twist at Torrisi might be that while it’s a candid, almost defiant celebration of American cuisine, it’s colored by immense respect for the European cultures it draws from— and, moreover, an unabashed desire to make our eating culture more like theirs.

"In the countries Mario and I loved, life really revolves around food, but they don’t over-think it,” says Torrisi. “The best meals weren’t necessarily at Michelin-starred restaurants. Tiny places. There’d be some guy in the kitchen, some old dude, or maybe someone’s grandma, and they just cooked things and everyone ate them and nobody cared that they didn’t have a choice."

Whereas every new restaurant these days seems to flaunt a local, seasonal mantra, the philosophy of Torrisi seems to be that they live it, rather than scrawling it across the menu. "Someone cooks for you, from what’s in season and what’s available and what’s made in your area, and that’s what you eat. These things aren’t buzzwords— it’s embedded."

No matter how refined their cooking, it’s that sense of a Sunday supper, a hearty Italian-American meal that Torrisi wants to channel. "The antipasti are always family-style," says Carbone, "and the desserts; we want people to share. We created a restaurant where there’s no room for I don’t eat that, change that, more of that," says Torrisi. (Carbone concurs: "I hate long menus.") "It’s like a disease in this country, the control people want to have. They should be excited about food, should be open to eating. If my cooking has any impact on the world, and I don’t know if it will, I’d like to change that mentality."

Photo by Nikola Tamindzic

Youth and ambition simmer at the surface of Torrisi, where the daily whirlwind is exhilarating to the diner, but could hardly be anything but exhausting to the partners. "I was playing around with four different pasta doughs today," begins a characteristic Carbone sentence. Dishes that appear on a night’s menu, though they may only be up on the chalkboard for a day or two, are often the product of two or three months’ refinement. "They are complete students of this industry," says Mark Ladner. "There is no detail too small or idea not considered. We’ve only just begun to see what those guys are capable of."

"It takes a tremendous amount of energy," says Carbone of their constantly shifting menu. "We don’t change up dishes for the sake of changing them. But the bar keeps getting higher— our dishes get better and better, and it’s harder to knock them off the menu with something better, or something more interesting."

No matter how high that bar seems to rise, Torrisi doesn’t want to stray from their deli roots. "You need to be very careful that it’s not over-thought," says Torrisi. "You can’t get carried away. I hate it when I eat somewhere and I can’t understand what the chef is thinking." He doesn’t want to lose the often straightforward, gut-level appeal of their fare.

It’s striking to find two chefs whose first restaurant, by their own account, seems already to embody just about every tenet of their own culinary philosophy. Like the author whose first novel seems to tell their entire life story, it’s difficult to imagine what a second book would say. But in reality, Torrisi is hardly all the two chefs have in them; even the evolution of the restaurant from month to month shows that. "Will it be Rich and I in the kitchen every night until we die?" Carbone muses. "Of course not. We’ll do other things. But this restaurant needs to stand for creativity, for youthfulness. For what Italian-American food can be."

Of course, the menu has long leapt the fence of Italian-American food, even cheffed-up or reinterpreted Italian-American. What Torrisi and Carbone really play with is the notion of all that’s encompassed in the second half of that term— of American food. That tacking on those letters isn’t just the dumbing down of a proud culinary tradition. It isn’t even just their grandmothers making eggplant parmesan, but an amalgamation of the country’s innumerable cultures and products and immigrant contributions. In a store that’s Italian by name and European in philosophy, it’s the American experience that’s celebrated above all.

The latest issue of Gourmet Live is serving up a double helping of the holidays. Sit back and enjoy an in-depth look at the big surprise being cooked up in New York City’s Little Italy neighborhood, and then read about Gourmet Live guest columnist Adam Harrison Levy’s personal take on the relationship between food and love.

We know your holiday spread wouldn’t be complete without brand new recipes for a crowd-pleasing Christmas dinner, as well as the perfect party bites and cocktails for ringing in the New Year. You’ll find a taste of these menus on the home screen, which gives you access to the complete menus along with curated collections and back issues available in the Store tab.

We’re also arming you with some of our personal words of wisdom for how to make the holidays both stress-free and spectacular. And finally, it’s time to get your bags packed with a review of the top travel apps of 2010. Find all of these stories and endless recipes for your holiday spread in the latest issue of Gourmet Live.

Download the free Gourmet Live app and stay tuned to the blog for the latest updates.

Get a taste of Gourmet Live’s brand new A Christmas Feast menu with an App Exclusive recipe for Potato Fennel Gratin. You can then download Gourmet Live to visit the Store and purchase the complete menu, which includes a signature champagne cocktail, Mushroom Bisque, Boneless Rib Roast, Cranberry Clementine Tartlets and more. Merry Christmas from Gourmet Live!

Photo by Jeffrey Schad

Not all potato gratins have to be creamy to be deeply satisfying. Thinly sliced boiling potatoes mixed with equally thin slices of fresh fennel and then lubricated with a little butter cook into a richly flavored side dish for your holiday roast. A little melted cheese on the top adds a lustrous touch. By Ruth Counsineau

Makes 8 servings

Active time: 15 min // Total time: 1 1/4 hr

Ingredients:

• 1 (1 lb) fennel bulb with fronds
• 2 lb boiling potatoes
• 4 Tbsp (1/4 cup) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 cup coarsely grated Gruyère cheese (3 oz)

Equipment:

• a handheld adjustable-blade slicer

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in lower third of oven. Butter a 2-quart shallow flameproof gratin pan or baking dish (not glass.)
• Cut fronds from fennel and chop enough to measure 1 tablespoon. Set aside. Cut off and discard stalks. Quarter fennel lengthwise and cut very thinly with slicer into a large bowl.
• Peel potatoes and cut very thinly with slicer into bowl. Add butter with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and toss to coat.
• Transfer vegetables to gratin dish, spreading them out in an even layer, and cover tightly with foil.
• Bake 30 minutes, then reduce oven to 350°F and continue to bake until vegetables are tender, 20 to 25 minutes more.
• Remove from oven and remove foil, then sprinkle gratin evenly with cheese.
• Preheat broiler and broil gratin 4 to 5 inches from heat just until cheese is lightly golden 4 to 5 minutes.
• Let gratin stand 5 minutes before serving.