Mystic Gypsy Pickles

Adapted Arepas

2011-12-30T16:37:00.006-05:00

For the past few years, we've spent the week between Christmas and New Years at beautiful country house in Pennsylvania owned by very dear friends of ours. Whenever we're here, we get inspired to cook up some new dish. This year, I found a recipe for arepas with pulled pork and cheese in the Food & Wine magazine that our friends subscribe to. I looked in a few places here in the country for one of the arepas ingredients: masa harina, but couldn't find it. I thought I could substitute corn meal, but it didn't work. We adapted the recipe and instead made little corn cakes with pulled pork in the center. We served is as part of our little New Year's Day spread for a few friends who stopped by. They were delicious topped with sour cream, pickled cabbage, sliced jalapeno and chopped cilantro. We bought the pork from a local German place up here that sources their meat locally and does all their own butchering called the Alpine House.

Corn Fritters with Pulled Pork and Cheddar Cheese

For the fritters:

Milk
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/4 c. cornmeal
2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg, beaten
olive oil

For the pulled pork filling:

1 nice-sized pork butt
2 stalks of celery
2 carrots
1 medium onion
2 bottles of dark (or dark-ish) beer
a few cups of chicken or veggie stock
hot sauce
salt and pepper
1 cup of cheddar cheese

For the sides:

1 small head of red cabbage
1 medium red onion
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 bunch cilantro
1 jar of sliced jalapenos
1 cup sour cream

You can make your pulled pork in a slow cooker by placing all of the ingredients (browned pork butt, sliced onion, carrot and celery, 2 bottles of beer, salt & pepper, and enough broth to fully immerse the pork butt) in the cooker and leave on high for about 8 hours. We cooked ours in a heavy ceramic soup pot on low on the stove all day. It fills the house with a nice aroma. When the pork is very tender, remove from the liquid and let cool for a bit. Shred the pork to your liking. Place in a bowl as much of the pulled pork you need for your fritters (1 1/2 cup) and freeze the rest for pork tacos some other night. To the shredded pork that you've set aside, add 1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese and hot sauce. Mix together.

While your pork is cooking, make the cabbage by finely shredding the red cabbage and onion, placing it in a bowl and covering with the red wine vinegar. Set aside to marinate.

To make your fritters, mix together flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Add milk and beaten egg. Stir until moistened. Set aside for a few hours.

To assemble the fritters, drop a heaping tablespoon of the batter into smoking oil in a frying pan. When the batter begins to solidify, drop a ball of the pork-cheese mixture in the center, and top with another tablespoon of the batter. When the "pancake" has some integrity, flip to the other side and fry until golden. Drain on a paper towel.

You can pop a dozen in the oven to keep warm until your guests come. Serve each fritter with a dollop of cream cheese, a pinch of red cabbage, a few sliced jalapenos, and a sprinkling of cilantro leaves.

Festivus Feast

2011-12-30T12:21:00.003-05:00

For the past few years, I've been feeling like we need to go on a total cleanse diet after the holidays because we eat so much rich food between Halloween and the New Year. This year, we've been trying to celebrate in moderation to varying degrees of success. Kale is one of those restorative super foods (I've written about it here before), and has been looking pretty good at the farmer's markets this year. I've been trying to incorporate kale into a lot of the meals we eat for both of those reasons. Because I like to celebrate the hell out of every holiday, this is the meal we made for Festivus this year.

Tofu Stir Fry with Kale & Sweet Potato

1 8 oz package of firm tofu
1 sweet potato
A bunch of kale
4 large cloves
1 onion
1/4 of a head of green cabbage
1 small zucchini
olive oil
salt & pepper

Dry and gently squeeze the water out of the tofu and cut into bite-sized cubes. In a cast-iron skillet, heat some olive oil until smoking. Saute the onion and garlic until soft; add the cabbage and sweet potato and saute until tender. Then add the zucchini and kale until just wilted. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from the pan to a bowl and set aside. Heat a bit more oil in the pan and slowly brown the tofu cubes. When they are a nice golden color, add the vegetables back to the pan and heat through. We served this over Israeli couscous tossed with scallion, and a healthy side of kimchi.

Nuts about Nuts

2011-12-23T17:58:00.003-05:00

My dad loves nuts. If I had to guess at his favorite, it would be hard to decide whether it's Planter's roasted peanuts or pistacchios. For the past few years, I've been experimenting with recipes for different kinds of nuts that I package and give him as a gift for Christmas. This year, I'm trying recipes with walnuts (chocolate-covered), pistacchios (simple roasted), almonds (cinnamon-covered), and these pecans. I've been so enamored by the local maple syrup we've been getting that I decided to try some sweet and spicy pecans with maple syrup. They're in the oven now. Fingers crossed, I hope they turn out as good as they look.

Sweet and Spicy Maple Glazed Pecans

Butter (for the pan)
1 pound unsalted pecans
3 tbsp melted butter
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tbsp brown sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

Set the oven at 375. Lightly butter a rimmed baking dish. In a bowl, toss the pecans with the melted butter, maple syrup, sugar,salt, adn cayenne. Transfer the nuts to the baking sheet. Bake, tossing often, for 10-12 minutes, until browned and fragrant. Cool on the baking sheet.

Leek Alternative

2011-12-12T10:21:00.006-05:00

My experience with leeks,a vegetable I've always considered to be just a giant scallion, was limited to potato and leek soup until last night. I never think to buy leeks when I'm at the farmer's market, and when recipes call for leeks, I'll often cheat and substitute onion or scallion.

Yesterday at the farmer's market, I was looking for a good vegetable alternative for Sunday night's dinner with a few close friends and I saw the most attractive leeks. I had planned a roast chicken accompanied by rosemary potatoes, and thought that maybe roasted leeks would work. I consulted a number of difference recipe sites for the leek recipe, but in the end, I constructed my own.

Roasted Leeks Drizzled with Honey-Mustard Sauce

6 medium-sized leeks
olive oil
1 cup rich mushroom broth (you can substitute any other kind of stock)
3 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp fresh chopped parsley
salt & pepper

Wash leeks thoroughly! Especially if you've gotten your leeks directly from the farm, they will have a substantial amount of sand in the crevices of the skin. I would suggest chopping off a bit of the root end and most of the green (so that the leeks will fit in your roasting pan), then soaking them in cold water. Then, cut them in half lengthwise and wash again. Arrange in a baking pan coated with olive oil, cut side up. Drizzle with more olive oil and sprinkle with salt & pepper. Turn the seasoned leeks over, cut side down; season again. Pop in an oven pre-heated to 350 degrees and monitor. You may need to add a little bit of water to the bottom of the pan to keep the leeks moist.

While the leeks are roasting, make the sauce by adding all of the remaining ingredients to the broth. Heat to a boil and then turn the mixture down, stirring frequently as the sauce thickens.

Serve the leeks alongside your favorite locally-produced poultry and allow your guests to drizzle the mustard sauce over meat and leek alike.

Cranberry Pomegranate Relish

2011-11-19T17:43:00.011-05:00

This year's cranberry sauce is a little more complex than I've made in years past. I decided to incorporate the flavor du jour: pomegranate, into my recipes. I made two cranberry sides for Thanksgiving dinner this year: a cranberry pomegranate relish and a cranberry pomegranate citrus sauce. The savory relish is my favorite, but I always like to make a sweeter, more traditional version for people who expect that.

Cranberry Pomegranate Relish

2 teaspoons olive oil
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1/4 onion, finely chopped in slivers
1 bag (12 ounces) fresh or frozen cranberries
1 cup pomegranate juice
2 tbsp finely diced ginger
1 diced apple
1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar
salt, pepper, and cinnamon to taste

Saute shallot and onion in the olive oil until just turning brown. Add the rest of the ingredients and simmer on medium-low heat for about 30-40 minutes, stirring frequently, until the cranberries have all popped and the relish becomes the consistency that you want. You can serve immediately, or spoon the relish into jars and set aside until the tops pop, then store.

A few weeks ago, I picked up these beautiful canning jars from Housing Works in Brooklyn. I think they must be European; I'd love to get my hands on some more of them. They would be perfect for gifts.

Cranberry Pomegranate Citrus Sauce

1 bag (12 oz) fresh or frozen cranberries
1 3/4 cups pomegranate juice
3/4 cups sugar, more or less to taste
t tbsp finely diced ginger
1 tsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients in a medium saucepan and cook over medium-low heat for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally to prevent burning. Mixture will thicken as it cooks, and will thicken more as it cools. Cool in a jar or bowl in the fridge. Serve with Thanksgiving turkey.

Cupcake Dilemma

2011-09-18T09:47:00.013-04:00

Next weekend in upstate New York, a very good friend of mine is getting married. She found this wonderful guy after a long and storied single life and she's so happy. She asked me a few weeks ago whether friendships with your girlfriends change when you get married (in this case, to a man). I said that the friendships don't change, but for me at least, the time that I spend with my girlfriends is less than I used to. You have to work at it; but also, if they're true friends, you won't lose them. I had already been thinking about what to do for her because she didn't want any gifts for the wedding, and because I feel kind of sad that I didn't have a "bridal shower" kind of thing before I got married. All of my bridal party were from out of town--very good old friends who I wanted to make sure came to the wedding from places as distant as Ramallah. So I took the opportunity of that conversation to ask her if I could host a party for her with her closest women-friends. I thought she would say no, but she was touched, and after some coaxing, sent me email addresses for her friends--none of whom, surprisingly, I knew.

I co-hosted the evening with another friend of hers, and she suggested coordinating the food to make sure we had enough of everything. I decided I would make cupcakes--partly because I love using the cupcake tree my mother gave me a few years ago for Christmas. I also think people like having their own mini-cakes. As the evening drew nearer, I realized I didn't have a clue about what kind of desserts my friend likes. I know she likes margaritas. I know she likes Mexican and Middle Eastern food, but I had no idea about sweets. So I turned to her friends, and to her fiance. I came up with a list of cupcakes that I've wanted to make for a long time from a book Cupcakes I got for my own wedding. From that list, her fiance chose a rosewater raspberry cupcake, but her friends almost unanimously wrote back and said that my friend loves chocolate. What to do?

Last weekend, D and I went to the country to visit with two couples we love spending time with. After a few bottles of wine, I posed the dilemma: do I make the cupcake chosen by my friend's chosen life partner? A man she's known for a sliver of time compared to the girlfriends--some of whom she's known for more than 25 years? The question served as a platform for a lively discussion among the six of us, all men but for me. They debated back and forth about what the schism meant, and finally one of them suggested that her chosen life partner may know things about her that she doesn't even know yet herself. He may represent a new direction--one that she didn't even know she wanted to take. The argument for the rosewater raspberry was gaining support. But then someone said that I should stay safe with a cupcake that everyone knows she will like--it's her party after all. I decided to compromise and make them both, and see what happens.

It was the right decision. The cupcakes were pretty and yummy. Our guests liked them both, but the chocolate cupcakes that I chose to make were a real hit. At some point in the evening, my friend came over to me and told me how much she loved the chocolate cupcakes. I asked her if she'd tried the rosewater. She wrinkled her nose a little bit and said no, she had to keep it to one because she had a wedding dress to look good in next weekend. So I told her the story. She agreed to try the rosewater cupcakes and the smile on her face after she took a bite was priceless. She said: "I love tart things. [my fiance] knows that." She herself would never have chosen the rosewater, but she liked it a lot.

Finding the ingredients for these two cupcake recipes was a bit of a challenge. Despite thousands--maybe millions--of Mexican bodegas and supermercados in NYC, I couldn't find Mexican chocolate. So I substituted a Dagoba hot chocolate cocoa called Xocolatl and reduced the sugar in the recipe. The rosewater called for sugared rose petals as a decoration, and I thought I'd be too busy this week to make them on my own, so I found them at Kalustyan's in Kip's Bay. Unfortunately, they weren't as pretty as ones I would have made on my own, and next time I won't shy away from the task.

Mexican Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup xocolatl (Mexican drinking chocolate--see above)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup lukewarm water
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 tsp white vinegar
1/2 cup finely grated semi-sweet chocolate, plus a little extra for garnish
Buttercream frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, 1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, and the salt into a bowl. Add the water, oil, and vinegar to the flour mixture, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat until combined. Add the 1/2 cup of chocolate and beat until well combined.

Divide the batter evenly into the paper liners filling to about 3/4 full. Bake until a toothpick is inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 24-28 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to let cool completely before frosting--about one hour.

Frost with buttercream (I used a chocolate buttercream using the xocolatl again) and garnish with grated chocolate.

Rosewater & Raspberry Cupcakes

1 1/4 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 confectioner's sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temp
1 tbsp rosewater
2 large eggs, at room temp
1/2 cup milk
Rosewater glaze
12 raspberries
Sugared rose petals

Preheat oven to 350 degrees; line a muffin tin with paper liners.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the confectioner's sugar and butter together until light and fluffy--about 2-3 minutes. Add the rosewater and the eggs, one at a time, beating on low speed until combined after each addition. Add the flour in three additions, alternating with the milk in two. Beat on low speed until well combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling each to about 3/4 full. Bake until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 15-18 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely for about an hour.

When cooled, spoon a small amount of glaze on each cupcake and garnish with sugared rose petals. Depending on what colors you get with each, you may want to add a raspberry on top. My rose petals were too dark and wouldn't have looked good with the raspberries, so I baked my raspberries into the center of each cupcake. (I did this by filling the muffin cups 1/2 full, pressing a raspberry in the center, and then covering with another dollop of batter).

Favorite. Ice Cream. Ever.

2011-09-08T22:35:00.007-04:00

When my close friend and roommate left me eight years ago to move in with his wonderful boyfriend just down the street, he left me a lot of things. His boyfriend was a well-provisioned adult, and I was barely scraping by, so the hand-me-downs were welcome. One of the things he left was an ice cream maker. Every once in a while, I would contemplate the idea of making ice cream but I never did.

Eight years went by and the ice cream maker collected dust. Last year, my husband and I pulled it out and considered selling it at the yard sale my friend and his boyfriend were holding down the street--they were moving to a smaller apartment two neighborhoods away. We didn't sell it; instead, we dusted it off and put it in a new storage place. We vowed to use it soon. We didn't.

Another year went by, but I recently took it out. I experimented first with a simple vanilla ice cream, using some vanilla beans that I foraged in a Mexican market a few years ago. It turned out alright--though a little too fatty for my taste. It was kind of buttery. I served it over a fresh peach pie. My second experiment was with peach ice cream. D had bought a basket of peaches at a roadside green market in Pennsylvania and we couldn't possibly eat them all. This second batch was a little less buttery, but still a bit too creamy for me.

This week I decided to throw myself into the ring all the way and make my favorite ice cream of all time: mint chip. A colleague from work turned me on to a blog by David Lebovitz who writes, among other things, about making ice cream. I printed out the recipe for mint chip and headed to the market. I had no idea how many bunches of mint would make two cups, so I overbought. Then for good measure, I threw a bottle of mint extract in the cart. Instead of heavy cream, I bought light. And instead of whole milk, I bought two percent. In addition to those two ingredient changes, I also added my chopped chips in half-way through the mixing process directly to the ice cream base. I didn't heat it and drizzle as the recipe advised. And, I didn't have to worry about the mint extract, because after the two cups of mint leaves (less than two bunches, it turns out!) had steeped in the milk, I could tell that the flavor would be strong enough. And using light cream and 2% mile made it light and icy, just like I like it.

What is so sublime about this homemade mint chip, though, is the mint flavor. I've never tasted anything like it. To say that it tastes natural is an understatement. I mean, it IS natural. But it actually tastes like being in a garden. Long ago, I forswore mint chip ice cream that had that strange bright green color and only ate Breyer's mint chip. Then Haagen Daaz became the standard. But now? Now I think I'm just going to have to get used to plucking mint leaves to make my own.

Farewell Cookies

2011-09-07T20:24:00.006-04:00

Our office is losing a terrific and well-liked attorney on Friday and I baked these cookies as a fond send-off because I can't make it for the traditional send-off drinks on Friday night. I adapted this recipe from one I found on Epicurious. I hope he likes them.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup light wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
10 oz semisweet chocolate chips (or to taste)
3/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Lightly grease cookie pan. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Beat together butter and sugars in a large bowl with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Lightly beat 1 egg with a fork in a small bowl and add 1 3/4 tablespoons of it plus 2 remaining whole eggs to butter mixture, beating with mixer until creamy, about 1 minute. Beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and mix in flour mixture until just blended, then stir in chips. Scoop heaping tablespoon of batter for each cookie, arranging mounds an inch or so apart, on 2 baking sheets. Flatten mounds using moistened palm of your hand. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, until golden for 13 to 15 minutes. Transfer cookies to a rack to cool and continue making cookies in same manner using cooled baking sheets.

End of the Line

2011-09-05T21:39:00.008-04:00

When he was a kid, D's dad used to bring home 20 porgies at a time after fishing off the party boats in Canarsie. It was a good way for his dad to hang out with his buddies away from the wives and bring home food for his family. Who knows if you can even bring home 20 porgies at a time anymore? We've been eating less and less fish these days because of sustainability and toxicity concerns. We've also been searching for good information about what to eat and what not to eat, like this terrific NPR story that we heard by chance a few months ago about a book called Four Fishes. Tonight, we watched the movie The End of the Line, a documentary about overfishing featuring scientists predicting the extinction of many of the tastiest species. Porgies aren't one of those endangered fish, yet, but all of the experts advise eating less fish and trying to find sources that are committed to sustainable fishing methods.

Local is usually better. With that in mind, D and I trekked to Chelsea Market to get some fish at The Lobster Place after a day at the Highline Park, a park built on an old elevated former freight line (definitely worth a visit). At $4.50 a pound, the porgy--known for its tasty & firm white meat, locally fished, and not on the "Do Not Eat" list--was the fish to pick. We had 2 porgies filleted, and D prepared them for dinner. We garnished the fish with this black salt that we picked up at Williams Sonoma.

Seared Porgy with Corn & Olive Relish

1.5 lb fresh porgy, filleted
salt, pepper, olive oil
6 olives, chopped
one ear of corn, removed from the cob
small red pepper, diced
2 scallions, chopped
2 limes
1/4 stick of butter
splash of white wine

Saute in a cast iron pan the olives, corn, red pepper, and scallions in 1/4 stick of butter. Season with salt and pepper; finish with a splash of white wine and the juice of 2 limes. Season the porgy with salt and pepper and sear, skin side first, then flip to sear the other side. Pop it in the oven to finish. Serve on a bed of relish with some greens on the side (we used broccoli rabe). Enjoy!

Toasting Summer's End

2011-09-03T12:01:00.005-04:00

The swift kick we delivered to summer's ass last night was well-deserved: this summer was, weather-wise, the most miserable one from my perspective in memory. Our second annual Kicking Summer to the Curb party featured a new house specialty: watermelon mojitos. Last weekend, D and I went to a wedding reception where the bride's signature drink was watermelon mojitos and we instantly knew that this drink would be the perfect companion to pernil as a toast to the end of summer. Easy to make, these drinks were a delight and they didn't last long.

Watermelon Mojitos

One ripe, good sized watermelon
1 healthy, fresh bunch of mint
10 limes
honey
1 bottle of selzer water
1 big bottle of rum
crushed ice
lively straws

Blend half the watermelon into a liquidy pulp. Smoosh chunks of the other half of the watermelon into the pulp. Mottle together the lime and the mint and add to the watermelon mixture. Add about 1 tbsp of honey and mix thoroughly. Refrigerate to let the flavors marinate a bit. Serve by filling 1/2 of a 9 oz glass with crushed ice. Pour 1/2 to 1 shot of rum onto the ice (depending on how strong you like your drink), fill to within selter's reach of the cup with the watermelon mixture, top with seltzer water for fizz, and stir. If you want to get all fancy about it, garnish with a sprig of mint, a lime, and a slice of watermelon. Enjoy!

Hurricane Bars

2011-08-28T14:54:00.005-04:00

Last week, everyone from my dad to CNN was warning of the storm of the century. Hurricane Irene was making a bee-line for New York City, and we should all prepare to hunker down with sandbags, flashlights, and bathtubs filled with water for at least a few days, if not more. Most of us felt like the warnings were completely overblown, but echoes of Hurricane Katrina were playing around in my head, so I did everything they told me to do. My go-bag was packed, my cooler was filled with ice, and I was on the verge of taping up the windows. But after some harrowing wind and rain on Saturday night, the worst of the storm was over and when I got up at 6 am Sunday to catch the predicted water surge that would leave all of lower Manhattan under 6-12 feet of water, nothing happened. People in upstate New York suffered tremendously from flooding, but here, I can't even say we had a casualty. In fact, the storm prep motivated us to clean the porch and the fridge. So by Sunday mid-morning, I was feeling quite a bit of post-partum depression. I was all psyched up to sit inside, away from the windows, listening to the howling wind and playing scrabble by lamplight. Now, the sun was shining, birds were singing, and I had no tragedy to focus my energies on. So I decided to make dessert to bring to the home of some friends for dinner that night. I used a recipe from Gourmet magazine from 1999, and while I followed the perfectly good recipe, I would make several modifications to make the bars less sweet and more coconutty the next time around. I used an Epicurious recipe for the shortbread base, but used a light wheat flour instead of white flour. I'll call these chocolate macaroon bars Hurricane Bars probably forever.

Chocolate Macaroon Bars

4 large egg whites
1 cup sugar (I would use 1/2 cup sugar, or the same amount of sugar with a non-sweetened coconut)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup light wheat flour
a 7-ounce bag sweetened flaked coconut (about 2 2/3 cups) (I would use 3 - 3 1/2 cups coconut, and perhaps half or all unsweetened coconut)
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Shortbread Base

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter
2 cups light wheat flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cut butter into 1/2-inch pieces. In a food processor process all ingredients until mixture begins to form small lumps. Sprinkle mixture into a 13 x 9 x 2-inch baking pan and with a metal spatula press evenly onto bottom. Bake shortbread in middle of oven until golden, about 20 minutes. While shortbread is baking, prepare topping.

In a bowl whisk together whites, sugar, and vanilla until combined well and stir in flour and coconut. Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over hot shortbread. Let chips melt and spread evenly over shortbread. Drop small spoonfuls of coconut mixture onto chocolate and with a fork spread evenly. Bake in middle of oven until top is golden, about 30 minutes. Cool completely in pan and cut into 24 bars. We served ours with vanilla gelato.

Late Summer Harvest

2011-08-23T23:23:00.006-04:00

Assembling fresh tomato, mozzarella, and basil takes just moments, but when the ingredients are just right, there's nothing better in the dog days of summer. (I know the Dog Days (of Summer) Are Over as of August 11th, but it sounded good). I picked up these lovely tomatoes and basil at the farmer's market on Sunday, and used them on Tuesday night. I stored the basil incorrectly, so very few of the leaves were worth using after two days in the fridge, but luckily enough leaves to accompany the tomato slices. The mozzarella was fresh-made at Fairway. Drizzle some quality salt, cracked black pepper, and a good deep green olive oil and you're good to go. Serve it on a pretty dish and you'll make you dining partner or dinner guests swoon. (This is served on one of a set of owl plates our friend Jess gave us as a wedding gift.) Next time, I would serve with a side of nice crusty/chewy bread to sop up the excess oil. Yum.

Summer Pasta

2011-07-28T22:10:00.005-04:00

I got the idea for this recipe from a Martha Stewart Living magazine in my doctor's office. I didn't copy the details; I just remembered the picture. Aside from steaming up the kitchen with two burners, this was a great summer dish.

Papardelle with Summer Squash, Oyster Mushrooms, Basil and Pecorino

12 oz papardelle pasta
1/2 cup of pecorino romano cheese
handful of basil
two yellow squashes
1 cup oyster mushrooms, roughly chopped
a few broccoli florets
small eggplant
half a medium onion
3 tomatoes
olive oil
salt & pepper
1/2 stick of butter
4-5 roasted garlic cloves

Put on a big pot of boiling water, add olive oil and salt to the water. Sautee onion; when carmelized, add chopped eggplant, squash and mushrooms, as well as salt and pepper. Sautee until soft. Place the veggies in a bowl and set aside. Add the pasta to boiling water. Saute chopped tomatoes (seasoned with salt and pepper) in the hot pan (I used a wok) until soft. When the pasta is NEARLY done, add the broccoli florets to the water. When the pasta and broccoli are done to taste, drain in a collander. Return to pan and add pieces of roasted garlic, butter, plus the tomatoes and the set-aside vegetables. Toss over a low flame; do not overmix--the vegetables need to retain their distinctness. Just before serving, add basil and some cheese. Stir, and serve with extra cheese.

Lemongrass Quest

2011-06-20T21:24:00.006-04:00

Sometimes a recipe that appears on the yahoo home page catches my eye and I print it out, set it aside, and vow to make it at some later date. I saw this recipe from Better Homes and Gardens one day and always wanted to cook with lemongrass, so into the recipe folder it went. I asked all around to see where I could find lemongrass, and a colleague suggested a Thai grocery in Manhattan. I knew it would be months before I could make the excursion because I've been so busy at work, so I thought this recipe would have to wait. To my surprise, this weekend, we found some lemongrass at Fairway. It looks like an old and stiff scallion, and I was skeptical. But I trusted D, he knows what he's doing. I knew we had leftover pineapple in the fridge, and the rest of the ingredients were light enough for a summer meal so I was ready to go. I feel a little bad about this recipe because pineapple is far from local, but it is so delicious. I added basil to the recipe because my plants were growing so strong on the porch and I needed to trim them back. I made some adjustments, and would make some more if I made it again. Adjustments and suggestions are included below.

Thai Pineapple Lemongrass Chicken Stir Fry

3 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
2 tbsp lime juice
1 tbsp rice vinegar
3 tsp minced fresh lemongrass (or 2 tsp finely shredded lime or lemon peel)
olive oil
1 medium red onion, halved lengthwise and sliced
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 cucumber, cut into thin bite-sized strips (about one cup)
1/4 of a pineapple, cut into bite sized pieces
2 fresh jalapeno chile peppers, seeded and finely chopped
12 oz skinless, boneless chicken cut into thin bite-sized strips
1 cup sugar snap pea pods, trimmed
1/2 sliced red bell pepper
about 10 large basil leaves, chopped into thin strips
handful of chopped cilantro
3 cups rice (jasmine, brown, or basmati)

Make the sauce by combining the lemongrass with the lime juice, fish sauce, and rice vinegar; set aside. Saute sliced red onion and garlic in a wok with some olive oil. Add cucumber, pineapple, and chile peppers. Cook until the pineapple begins to brown/sear. Remove the wok from the heat and dump the vegetables in a bowl; set aside. Add the chicken to the hot wok and cook through. Add the onion/vegetable mixture and the sauce. Cook until heated through. Add the basil strips and stir until the flesh is wilted. Serve immediately over hot cooked rice. Sprinkle and garnish with cilantro.

Bread & Butter

2011-06-19T17:53:00.003-04:00

Would that making pickles were my bread & butter....particularly small batches like this. We're going camping for the July 4th weekend, so I'm getting some pickles ready for the burgers we'll grill over the fire. These are simple bread and butter pickles that take a few hours to assemble, and then about two weeks to sit.

Bread & Butter Pickles

6 cucumbers
1/4 sliced red bell pepper
1/2 onion, thinly sliced
1/2 cup salt
ice cubes
1 cup apple cider vinegar
2 cups water
3/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp pickling spices
3/4 tsp turmeric

Slice the cucumbers in oblong shapes, thick enough to stay crisp, but thin enough to place in a burger. Slice thinly 1/4 red bell pepper and 1/2 a white onion, then toss with 1/2 cup of salt. Cover the mixture with ice cubes and place in the fridge for at least three hours. The salt will make the vegetables emit water, so you don't need to put any water in with them. When you're ready to drain the pickles, add the cider vinegar, water, sugar, pickling spices, and turmeric into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Drain and lightly rinse the vegetables while you're waiting for the cider mixture to boil. Pack two mason jars full of the vegetables. When the cider mixture has come to a boil, pour the liquid over the vegetables so that they are fully immersed. Tighten the lids on the jars and let sit. After a day or so, you can move them to the fridge and keep until you're ready to use them. Enjoy!

I'll Bring the Batter

2011-04-23T11:38:00.003-04:00

Our friends in the country have a terrific waffle machine that cooks waffles to perfection every time. I have three sourdoughs in the fridge that I have to feed every week. I hate discarding the cups of sourdough, so I always end up making something or bringing a little something everywhere I go. This weekend, I volunteered to bring the waffle batter for some waffle perfection.

I found this recipe on the King Arthur website. We totally forgot to pick up buttermilk on the way out of the city, so I warily substituted light cream. The waffles turned out insanely light and tasty. We're considering using the leftovers to make some savory waffles with leftover ham for tomorrow's lunch.

Sourdough Waffles

Overnight Sponge

2 cups white flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 cups buttermilk (or light cream)
1 cup sourdough starter, straight from the fridge (not fed)

Waffle Batter

All of the overnight sponge
2 large eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

To make the overnight sponge, stir your sourdough starter and take out a cup. Feed your starter and place back in the fridge. Stir together the starter, flour, sugar, an milk. Cover and let rest at room temperature overnight.

The next morning stir the remaining ingredients into the sponge. Pour into your waffle iron according to instructions and serve immediately once done, with butter and syrup.

Gypsytized Chicken Piccata

2011-04-18T22:07:00.006-04:00

Chicken piccata was on the menu tonite, but I defrosted bone-in chicken breasts instead of boneless, and D told me that if I used bone-in chicken breasts, it wouldn't be chicken piccata. So all day, I was thinking about what I could do with these chicken breasts that would be piccata-like. I already knew I wanted to use olives and mushrooms, so this is how I made it. Several epicurious recipes for chicken piccata inspired this, but I didn't use a recipe while I was cooking.

Chicken Piccata Gypsy-Style

2 bone-in chicken breasts
1 lemon
10 cloves garlic
1 medium onion
1 jalapeno pepper
10 olives
10 cremini mushrooms
1 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tsp cornstarch
handful of capers
2 tbsp parsley
salt and pepper
olive oil

Coat chicken breasts with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Slice the lemon into thin slices and secure three slices with a garlic clove on top of each one with toothpicks. Bake in the oven at about 350 degrees for about a half an hour to 45 minutes, or until done.

While the chicken breasts are cooking, slice the onion into thin slices, and finely chop the garlic and jalapeno. Sautee these three ingredients in olive oil until starting to brown; add sliced creminis and halved pitted olives (I used green and a few black ones). Make your broth and mix with 2 tsp cornstarch. When everything is nice and browned, add the liquids (broth combined with cornstarch, wine, lemon juice) and reduce until the sauce is nice and thick.

When the chicken breasts are cooked through, remove the chicken from the bone and shred into the sauce (truth be told, the breasts were so big--no laughing--that I only used the meat from one of them and froze the other). The garlic was just for show--and a quick snack. We just ate the roasted garlic right off the lemon slices when the chicken came out of the oven. Finish the sauce with a handful of rinsed capers and parsley. I served this over spinach pasta. It was outrageously delicious.

My New Favorite Sandwich

2011-04-17T10:53:00.004-04:00

Last summer, my friend Sue invited me to go hear a string quartet she knew called Ethel at an outdoor venue at Lincoln Center. I rushed from work downtown, and didn't have the time to stop for a snack before and had the munchies when I arrived. Sue shared half of her sandwich with me: apples and brie on a french baguette. I knew I had to make it again for myself, so I did.

How to do it: Start with a quality french baguette, crusty on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. Spread a little mayo on one half, whole-grain mustard on the other. Line with apple slices, pieces of brie, and then fill with sprouts. I used pink lady apples, but any crisp, partly sweet/partly tart apple will work. It's actually better if it sits for a while, so it's perfect to wrap it up tight in some plastic and popping it in your bag to take to work. Yum.

A Bronx Find

2011-04-13T21:57:00.009-04:00

The organization I work for hosted a series of lunches for defense attorneys in four different cities across New York State to discuss the implementation of a drug law reform measure that passed in 2009. I wanted the luncheons to be something special, but defense attorneys in Buffalo and Rochester weren't very imaginative; we had sandwiches from a (nice) deli in Buffalo, but the Rochester lawyers opted for simple pepperoni pizza. When the luncheon for the Bronx lawyers came up, I posted a request on my Facebook page for some suggestions for a good restaurant nearby. Almost immediately, a friend responded by putting me in touch with a lawyer who happened to work for the organization I was visiting (but in a different department). He said: hands down, Coqui Mexicano. I visited the website and could tell from the menu that this place was a winner.

After agonizing over the menu, and deciding that I'd have to pitch in some bucks for extra food so I could bring home dinner, I called Diego and explained the plan. I was a little worried when he said that their catering menu was different, but not posted on the web, but ultimately, I just told him what I wanted in general and the amount of money that I wanted to spend.

It just so happened that D and I were traveling in the same direction the day of the luncheon, and so we decided to drive up to the Bronx and have a quick lunch together before the luncheon. (I knew that because I was speaking and asking a bunch of questions and taking notes during the luncheon that I wouldn't be able to eat during the meeting.) When we arrived, Diego seemed a bit frazzled, and worried aloud that the avocados weren't really ripe enough yet. The place was not very busy, just a few folks talking leisurely over some food in the brightly-colored dining room. Diego suggested the beef stew, which D ordered--but I knew I wanted a Cubano. I'm not a big Cubano fan, but for some reason, I wanted to try his. I'm so glad I did. Thinly sliced ham, pernil, pickle, and mayo, and a very tasty cheese on a soft roll. He conversed with us while we ate, asking if everything was alright ("some people make crusty Cubanos, I like mine like this. You like it?" I did.)

After giving the avocados a few more squeezes, he excused himself and set off at a quick trot down the street and around the corner--presumably in search of more ripe avocados for the guacamole we'd ordered for the luncheon. Watching him run down the street, I noticed an amazingly ornate, but run-down, building across the street--it was the old Bronx County Courthouse. Now covered in unartistic graffiti and grime, it appeared to be a sad symbol of a neighborhood in decline. But D told me that the owner recently sold it to a charter school, so (notwithstanding concerns about charter schools!) maybe someday soon, the beautiful architecture will shine on the block again. You can see the building in the background of the picture above, but some dude actually took photos of the inside and outside of the building and posted them on his blog, Satan's Laundromat.

Before D and I left to head over to the luncheon, I ordered a piece of Budin de Maiz, a sweet cornbread pudding with raisins, cinnamon, & grated coconut for a snack later that day. It was delicious. As the menu said, it's great for breakfast with coffee, or a dessert. I'll have it anytime, thank you.

When Diego delivered the spread for the luncheon a half an hour later, the lawyers greeted him like an old friend. I didn't know until later that about a year ago, when Coqui was struggling in the neighborhood, the legal services office organized a fundraiser to keep them in business. The bonds are tight between the organization and the restaurant. This article explains the story of Coqui Mexicano and why it's so special in the neighborhood.

I ordered a taco platter with pernil, warm corn tortillas, ricanized couscous salad, guacamole, escabeche de gandules, and five Cubanos. Diego apologized because he didn't bring as much as I ordered because he didn't want to use the under-ripe avocados, which was VERY COOL. He brought the chayote salad as a substitute--I have to admit, I didn't order it because I didn't know what it would be like, but it was outstanding. The lawyers enjoyed the food, the meeting was a success, and I brought some leftovers home so that D and I could taste the whole range of food from the place. I owe Diego a big, warm thank you for his thoughtful preparation of the food. I only wish I had more occasion to go to the Bronx--this would be my go-to place.

Photos courtesy of Welcome2Melrose blog, and The Daily News.

A Few of Our Favorite Things

2011-04-10T11:12:00.008-04:00

Jess and I hadn't seen each other since my wedding nearly nine months before, so when she made the suggestion out of the blue that we meet for a light dinner at a new Moroccan restaurant on the Lower East Side because she'd purchased a Groupon for it, I readily agreed. We went to Zerza in the East Village and I ordered merguez sausage in a tomato sauce with poached eggs that was absolutely delicious. Two of D's favorite things are eggs and merguez, so I knew he would love this dish. I found this recipe from a blog called Food52 for the dish and made it at home. We served it with a side of sauteed dandelion greens. The bitter of the greens was tempered by really nice olive oil and garlic, and it was perfect with the spicy tomato sauce. I had two types of harissa on hand: one from our friend Samir who is originally from Tunisia, the other (less hot) from a local Middle Eastern restaurant. If the sauce is spicy enough, you won't even want to use the harissa. The cilantro is really key, though, to cut the heat.

Moroccan Merguez Ragout with Poached Eggs

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 large onion, small dice
4 large garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 pound merguez sausage, sliced 1/2-inch thick
1 tablespoon ras el hanout*
1 teaspoon Spanish sweet smoked paprika
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 15-ounce cans fire-roasted tomatoes, preferably Muir Glen
8 extra-large eggs
1/2 cup roughly chopped cilantro, stems included
2 tablespoons harissa, see note above
warm crusty bread, for serving

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and sauté until golden. Toss in the garlic and cook another 2 minutes. Add the merguez and sauté until almost cooked through, about 3 minutes. Lower the heat to medium-low and add the ras el hanout, Spanish smoked paprika and salt. Stir to combine and cook for a minute to lightly toast the spices. Add the tomatoes. Turn up the heat to medium and cook until the mixture has thickened slightly, about 5 minutes. Crack the eggs over the mixture, cover and cook until the whites set, but the yolks are still soft. Divide the eggs and ragout among four warm bowls using a large spoon. Top with a sprinkling of cilantro and a teaspoon of Harissa. Serve immediately with crusty bread.

Ras el Hanout is totally simple to assemble if you have all of the spices. Layering the spices into the jar, the end result looks like a North African desert bathed in a sunset. I shook it to combine the spices before using it in the recipe.

Ras El Hanout

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground coriander
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground ginger
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons paprika
1 1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon cardamom powder
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

The Incredible Edible Egg

2011-03-27T19:02:00.001-04:00

I used to consider my husband to be an egg fanatic. When I met him, it was disconcerting to me how often he ate eggs. I was never a regular breakfast eater, but every morning after I'd stayed at his house, he'd make us fried eggs, half a bagel, and some coffee. I kind of liked the routine, but when we started living together, I was worried about eating so many eggs every week. "High cholesterol!" I'd exclaim. Some nights when I worked late or went out with friends, I'd find the tell-tale signs of fried eggs in the pan. "Did you eat fried eggs again?" I would ask, accusingly. Depending on his mood, he'd reply sheepishly that he'd been caught, or he would lodge a defense of eggs. In the lean years, he explained, he'd eat mai fun noodles from the corner Chinese place almost every evening for dinner--with a fried egg on top. He plays sports and swears that oatmeal with a fried egg on top is the perfect breakfast before a game.

Years have passed, both of our cholesterol levels are just fine (I insisted he have his checked!), and I feel differently about eggs. There've been conflicting studies about the effect of egg consumption in healthy adults. Some have even called it the perfect food because of it's nutritional properties. According to wikipedia: "They supply all essential amino acids for humans,[21] and provide several vitamins and minerals, including vitamin A, riboflavin (vitamin B2), folic acid (vitamin B9), vitamin B6, vitamin B12, choline, iron, calcium, phosphorus and potassium. They are also a single-food source of protein."

And you know what? I love eggs, too. I love omelets (which we make at least once a week), scrambled eggs, egg-drop soup, poached eggs (which I never even knew about until I went to London), eggs in fried rice, egg custard, deviled eggs, and hard boiled eggs at easter time with a little bit of mayonnaise and salt. In fact, I like hard boiled eggs all the time. A friend of mine was traveling in Africa once and packed a dozen eggs with her for snacks on the road. I actually don't know whether hard boiled eggs would keep while you're hiking in the heat for a week, but she swore that they survived the journey well and provided quick and easy energy.

These days, I especially love the eggs that my husband cooks perfectly and puts on top of the flax-oat sourdough bread that I make, with a few strips of smoked salmon. But I use hard boiled eggs a lot, too--both as a good travel breakfast on the train when I'm totally busy or chopped up on salads for lunch. We've started buying cage-free eggs (organic and/or from local farms when we can afford it) because of all of the horror stories about egg production. I still don't know whether to trust the "cage-free" label on the eggs we get at Fairway or Trader Joe's, but I have to think they're somewhat better than the 99 cent eggs in the styrofoam container. There have been a few articles about the topic, but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

Unfortunately, I've found that the better the egg, the harder time I've had peeling them. I used to be an expert egg peeler at Eastertime, but these days, I'm lucky if I get 3/4 of the egg I started with after peeling away strips of rubbery egginess with the shell. I found this recipe for cooking eggs to perfection, and I hope my egg-wasting days are over. The recipe recommends using eggs that are not fresh, 3-5 days old are the best. In contravention to everything I've ever thought, the recipe also tells you to not add salt to water, explaining that the salt will raise the boiling point of the water making the egg whites rubber.

How To Correctly Cook Hard-Cooked (Hard-Boiled) Eggs

Bring your eggs to room temperature before cooking. If the egg has been stored in the refrigerator, it can be warmed gently under a flowing hot tap water or sit at room temperature for 20 to 30 minutes. By bringing the eggs to room temperature, they're much less likely to crack in the hot water. Also the temperature of the egg at the start of the cooking process will affect the cooking time.

Choose the right size pot to cook your eggs in: The eggs must not be stacked but be in one (1) layer only. Gently place the eggs in a single layer in a pan with enough cold water to cover eggs completely (approximately by 1 inch of water over the top of the eggs).

Over high heat, bring water JUST to a rapid boil. As soon as the water reaches a rapid boil, remove pan from heat and cover egg pan tightly with a lid.

Set timer for 17 minutes for large eggs or 20 minutes for jumbo eggs. After 17 or 20 minutes (depending on size of your eggs), remove lid and drain off water from the eggs.

Watch the time when cooking the eggs carefully. Overcooking causes a green layer to form around the yolk. This layer is caused by a reaction between the iron in the yolk and the sulfur in the white. Heat speeds up this reaction, so the longer your eggs cook, the greater the chance of discoloration.

IMPORTANT - Stop the cooking process - Residual Heat or "Carry Over Heat."

After the eggs are removed from the heat, some cooking will continue, particularly the yolk of the egg. This is due to residual heat called “carry over cooking,” For this reason, transfer the eggs to the bowl of ice cubes and/or cold water. While they're in the cold water, a layer of steam develops between the shell and the egg white. The steam helps make peeling an egg much easier.

Let eggs cool at least 10 minutes in cold water, then drain. Either store in refrigerator or peel the eggs.

Can't Let Organic Buttermilk Go to Waste

2011-03-22T08:59:00.003-04:00

For this year's St. Patrick's Day soda bread, I used an outrageously expensive quart of buttermilk ($4.99). I had at least two cups of it left a few days later and didn't want to waste it. I also happened to have set aside a bowl of sourdough sponge two days ago, and it was nice and bubbly. I found the following recipe on Cooks.com, and we adapted it to make a pancake recipe that's an absolute keeper.

Sourdough Buttermilk Cornmeal Pancakes

1 c. flour
1 c. cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. sugar
1 1/3 c. buttermilk
1 c. Sourdough Starter (at room temp.)
1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp. vegetable oil

Combine first 6 ingredients in a non-metal bowl; stir well. Add buttermilk, Sourdough Starter and egg; beat just until large lumps disappear. For each pancake, pour about 1/4 cup batter onto a hot, lightly greased griddle. Turn pancakes when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked.

For these, I don't think I would combine them with fruit. Just too much going on.

Ancho Shrimp

2011-03-14T11:07:00.001-04:00

My office is holding a chili cook-off this week, and I prepared an ancho chile puree to use in my beef and black bean chili. I had some puree leftover, so we used it for our delicious Sunday night shrimp dinner. We paired the ancho chile shrimp with spaghetti squash, spinach, and black rice. I adapted this from a recipe on eHow.

Ancho chile puree

4 cloves roasted garlic
4 dried whole ancho chiles
1 tsp. fresh cracked black pepper
1 tsp. salt
1/4 c cider vinegar

Soak the whole chiles in warm water for at least 30 minutes, turning to make sure that the floaters are coated for at least 15 minutes on all sides. Remove the stems and the seedpods from the chiles. Cut them in half, and roast them in a dry cast iron skillet over high heat. Slip the garlic cloves out of their skins and place them in the bowl of a food processor along with the salt and pepper, vinegar and the roasted chiles. Pulse the machine a few times to begin the puree. Scrape down the sides and continue pulsing the machine and adding small amounts of water until the puree is as thick as possible but still allows the machine to run smoothly. Scrape down the sides as necessary and puree to a fine paste. Use a rubber spatula to force the puree through a strainer to extract skin and seed fragments.*

*I was too lazy to actually perform this last step, although I should have.

Confetti Cornbread

2011-03-13T11:33:00.007-04:00

Sometimes I use a packaged mix. This is a risky admission on a blog that champions slow home cooking and tries to follow, as much as possible, Michael Pollan's suggestion to shop around the perimeter of the supermarket. But sometimes I do. I wanted to make cornbread for an annual chili party that friends of ours on the Upper West Side have every year, and I happened to have three boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix in the cabinet. You can find these little guys for as little as 33 cents in some grocery stores; these were 55 cents at Fairway. The ingredients aren't so bad, and its just so easy: add an egg (in this case three), and a 1/3 cup of milk (in this case one cup) and voila! Tasty cornbread. I dressed it up a bit, of course, with 1/2 cup of corn kernels and about 2 tbsp of chopped red jalapeno and fire-roasted poblano. My cornbread didn't hold up very well on the long walk and subway rides from Brooklyn to the party, but people gobbled them up despite their looks.

Six of Everything

2011-02-26T20:20:00.012-05:00

We finally have six of everything for entertaining: six fancy water glasses, six matching cloth napkins, six salad plates, six dessert plates, six steak knives, six matching chairs at a lovely new table, and matching silverware to boot....so we had to have four of our friends over for a mid-week dinner party. We haven't had a chance to use the lovely tagine that we received as a wedding present, so I decided to prepare a lamb tagine that I made as our very first tagine, which I wrote about here. One of our friends has very specific food aversions, including nuts, chocolate, and aged cheese--three things we discovered we use routinely. So dinner planning was a bit of a challenge, but a welcome one. Finding an appetizer without nuts or aged cheese was the first challenge. Dessert without chocolate was the second. Epicurious came through with flying colors on both fronts. I decided on a goat cheese with roasted yellow pepper and dill for an appetizer, served with lavash crackers from Damascus bakery on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. For dessert, I chose a honey cake called Basboura. The Basboura was a hit; everyone had a second piece.

Basboura

2 cups fine semolina
1 cup dessicated coconut
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
A little less than 2/3 cup melted butter or ghee or semnah
1 cup milk

For the syrup...
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 tbsp lime juice or 2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp honey

Preheat the oven to 345 degrees F. In a large bowl mix all the dry ingredients, the semolina, coconut, sugar and soda together. Mix in the melted butter and milk and stir until well combined. Pat this mixture into a buttered, shallow medium sized oven proof dish and level the surface with a spatula or a palette knife. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown on the top.

In a medium sized sauce pan, place the sugar and water on low heat and stir until the sugar dissolves completely. Increase the heat to medium and then bring the mixture to a vigorous boil and cook until it coats the back of a spoon or reduces by about one-third or until it reaches 220 degree F on a cooking thermometer. Stir in the lime juice and allow to cool. Once cooled or warm, mix in the honey and stir well.

Allow the cake to cool sllightly, for about 10 minutes and then cut it into squares or diamonds. Carefully pour the syrup over the cake. It will look like a lot of syrup, but the cake will absorb all the syrup gradually.

Serve at room temperature. We served ours with a dollop of yogurt mixed with a splash of rose water, and a generous sprinkling of dessicated coconut. The dessert can be served, or baked, with almonds as well.

Goat Cheese and Yellow Pepper Dip

2 yellow peppers, halved, seeded
2 jalapeno peppers, cut in half and de-seeded
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 ounces sharp soft goat cheese
2 tablespoons chopped dill, plus 1 sprig for garnish
1 tablespoon lime juice
Coarse salt and fresh cracked black pepper
Pinch cayenne

Roast peppers over an open flame until soft and a the skin a little charred, about 5-8 minutes. Place them in a plastic bag for about 20 minutes, remove and peel the skin off. Emulsify the peppers in a food processor and add the goat cheese, lime juice, dill, cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt to taste. Pulse until combined well. Serve with flat bread or pita chips.

Kimchi's Best Friend

2011-02-21T14:16:00.005-05:00

I started buying packaged bulgogi from Trader Joe's about a year ago and it has become one of our favorite go-to dinners. We love kimchi so much, and pile it high on the plate alongside a modest amount of the seasoned beef and white rice. I swear we could go through a few pounds of kimchi every week without even trying. We've tried to find other kinds of bulgogi in different Asian shops, but haven't been able to find an alternative to Trader Joe's (which is kind of expensive) that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup. D kept suggesting that we could probably make it ourselves, and I don't know why I was so intimidated. Not only was it easy, it was actually deeply satisfying to make. Rubbing the meat with brown sugar and then mushy kiwi was an almost sensual experience. Even now as I write, I can still smell the sesame oil and garlic on my fingers.

I found this recipe on Epicurious, of course. That website never lets me down. The following is an adaptation of the recipe, which unmodified is probably very good.

Homemade Bulgogi

1 1/4 lb skirt steak, cut into 2 inch pieces
2 tablepoons tamari
2 teaspoons sesame oil
2 teaspoons crushed garlic
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon rice wine (sake)
Pinch of black pepper
1/2 tbsp sesame seeds
1 fresh kiwi, juiced in a blender

Juice the kiwi--it's okay if its just in little pieces. It's probably better if it's not completely juiced. Trim the fat off the beef with a sharp knife. Rub the sugar evenly into each piece of the beef. Allow beef to sit for at least 10 minutes. In a separate bowl, mix together the soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, sesame seeds, sake, and black pepper. Put aside. Massage the beef with the kiwi using your hands. The kiwi works as a tenderizer. Add the soy sauce mixture and mix. Allow the beef to marinate for 10 minutes, and then pack closely into a plastic bag. Pop it in the fridge and it will be awesome in a day or so. When you're ready to prepare it, just heat up a wok or a cast iron pan with oil until smoking. Cook the meat directly from the bag quickly until browned, being careful not to overcook. Serve either over or to the side of white rice, with a generous side of kimchi. We've found that pickled mangoes on the side are a nice accompaniment, too.

Squid Memories

2011-02-21T11:59:00.008-05:00

Seafood was not big in our house when I was a kid, so when I started hanging out with my late friend Jon Paul , I was constantly fascinated with the seafood stir frys, stews, and soups that he and his partner Wende would dish up for us after a night of street outreach for the needle exchange program that we worked with in Philadelphia. Tentacles, legs, sometimes even eyes would be floating around in the bowls he would hand me; the food they prepared was always delicious. I rarely work with that kind of seafood, but I picked up some fresh Long Island calamari at the farmer's market this weekend, and tried this recipe. JP passed away a few months ago, and this dish brought back fond memories of him.

Thai Calamari with Chili

1 pound calamari (squid)
1 medium onion
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped garlic
3 fresh red chilies, seeded and chopped
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 tablespoons palm sugar or brown sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon cornstarch

Cut the calamari into chunks; leave the tentacled ones the way they are. Slice onion from top to bottom to form curved strips. in a skillet cook onion, garlic, and chilies in oil till onion is almost tender. Add calamari and cook for a few minutes or till they curl and become tender. In a bowl stir together fish sauce, vinegar, sugar, water, and cornstarch. Add to skillet. Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Cook and stir 2 minutes more.

Finally! Perfectly Risen Sourdough Loaf

2011-02-21T11:57:00.005-05:00

If you know me, or have read this blog at all over the past year, you know that I've been working with sourdough since December 2009, baking at least two loaves of bread nearly every weekend. Maybe you've even been the recipient of one of my experiments. One of the most mysterious things about this process is that I haven't been able to find one good recipe for a rustic sourdough loaf that has the classic hard crunchy outer crust, and the spongy, fragrant inner bread. I've also had a hell of time getting my white breads to rise beyond bloated flatbread shapes. I finally stumbled upon a good recipe that produced a nice loaf with a strong rise. I served this bread at a chili party/meeting I hosted for my softball team and it got rave reviews.

Sourdough Olive Bread

2 cups lukewarm water (110°F)
2 cups white sourdough starter, room temperature
2 teaspoons active dry instant yeast
1/2 teaspoon diastatic malt**
7 to 8 cups bread flour***
1 tablespoon salt
2 tablespoons finely-minced fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups Kalamata olives, pitted and coarsely chopped
Semolina flour, for dusting

** Diastatic malt is powdered malted grain, usually barley, but wheat, and rice may also be malted It breaks down the starch in dough to yield sugars on which the yeast can feed.

*** The thickness of your sourdough starter can determine how much flour needs to be used. If you think the dough is too moist, add additional flour (a tablespoon at a time). The same is true if the dough is looking dry and gnarly. Add warm water (a tablespoon at a time). Your dough should not be sticky but should form a nice elastic ball. I usually have to add extra flour.

Combine water, sourdough starter, yeast, and diastatic malt in the bowl of a mixer; stir with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, just to moisten. Add flour, salt, rosemary, and olive oil; mix the dough until it snaps back quickly. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured board; add olives and knead by hand for several turns to be sure the olives are well incorporated and the dough is smooth, adding additional flour if needed. NOTE: Knead dough by pulling the dough towards you and then pushing down and forward with the palms of your hands (kneading gives the bread the elasticity and lets it rise).

Place the dough in a lightly oiled large bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap Let rise until it doubles in volume (when you can put your finger in the dough and it leaves and indentation and doesn't spring back out) approximately 4 to 8 hours (depending on the temperature and the starter used, the rising time can vary as much as 2 hours).

Punch dough down and knead it on a floured board to feed it one more time before baking. Divide dough in half and shape each dough ball into a loaf or round shape (boule); place each loaf into a pan (I used both a loaf pan and a round spring-form cake pan). Cover with plastic wrap and place in a warm spot to rise until doubled in size, approximately 1 to 3 hours.

Oven Bread Rising: Sometimes I use my oven for the rising. Turn the oven on for a minute or so, then turn it off again. This will warm the oven and make it a great environment for rising bread. If you can't comfortably press your hand against the inside of the oven door, the oven is too hot. Let it stand open to cool a bit. Sourdough rises more slowly than yeast bread; Always remember, the longer the rise time, the more sourdough flavor.

Cool or Refrigerator Bread Rise: If I don't have the time to wait for the rise to finish or I know that I will be interrupted before the completed rise, I do a cool rise. A cool rise is when the dough is place in the refrigerator and left to rise slowly over night approximately 8 to 12 hours. I usually do this after the first rise and the dough has been shaped into a loaf. As this is a longer rise time, it improves the sourdough flavor in your finished bread.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. After the bread has risen, slash the bread with a bread razor or a very sharp knife making three 1/2-inch deep diagonal slashes. Brush or spray the top of the bread with cold water. Slide the trays in the oven. Spray the oven with a spray bottle full of water and close the oven door. Thirty seconds later, open the oven door and mist the oven again. Repeat this two more times, then turn the oven temperature down to 400 degrees F. and let the bread bake for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, turn the bread around 180 degrees so it can brown evenly; bake another 10 minutes or until nicely browned. NOTE: A good check is to use an digital thermometer to test your bread. The temperature should be between 200 and 210 degrees F.

Remove from oven and place bread on a wire rack to cool. Let the loaves cool for 30 minutes before cutting (this is because the bread is still cooking while it is cooling).

Poor Man's Fish

2011-02-21T11:12:00.007-05:00

It's been so long since I've been to the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market, things have just been too busy. But yesterday, despite the violent wind, I took a walk through the neighborhood to the farmer's market with a short shopping list in mind: fresh fish, butternut squash, and kale. It's hit or miss at the fish market, and if you don't get there early, some of the fish is sold out and the line is always long. But this Saturday, I was lucky. The wind was so bitter and strong that there weren't that many people out, and instead of the regular fish stand, there was a new one with only two or three people on line. The poor woman who was staffing the table was rosy red with cold and her hands looked like they were on the verge of frostbite. I watched her "fish" out a big slab of cod and a squirmy-looking handful of calamari for the woman in front of me, and so I got the same. The cod looked beautiful--it was a thick, white, meaty 2 1/4 lbs coming in at a whopping $29, but it was Long Island line-fished, never frozen, and we hadn't eaten fish for so so long.

When I brought it home, D was shocked at the price. He told me that codfish used to be known as the "poor man's fish," they used to make fish sticks out of cod. But to me, it's political. We spend too little on food in this country, and we get what we pay for. Fishing off the Long Island coast is probably no easy matter in this weather, and fishermen have to make a living (not to mention the freezing cold fish monger!) I'd rather splurge on a nice piece of cod once a month, than pick up some cheap fish every friday night from Chinatown like we used to do. God knows where that fish comes from, and you can totally tell it'd been frozen. Unfortunately, I violated the complicated fish rules in terms of sustainability. The sustainability issue, as well as the health-related issues surrounding fish, are one of the reasons we hardly eat fish anymore. I still can't quite figure out the rules, but when I consulted one of my food experts, Mark Bittman, while writing this entry, I learned that cod is overfished. : (

We found this spice mix that must have been part of a gift basket at one point, and decided we'd use it on the fish. It is amazing, just check out the ingredients: ginger, roasted garlic, sea salt, caraway seeds, sugar, roasted sesame seeds, cumin, paprika, cassia, chillies, coriander, blackpepper, turmeric, mint, nutmeg, grains of paradise, rose petals, and saffron. D loves roasted cauliflower, so we decided to use that with some sauteed spinach to accompany the fish. D's the king of fish, so he's the one who pulled this meal together. He just asked me to make a tahini sauce like the kind we get at Tanoreen. I can't compare my cooking to that of the chef at Tanoreen, but I think the sauce came out pretty well. We suspect that Tanoreen fries their cauliflower, and nothing beats the taste of fried cauliflower, no matter what the sauce.

This is the recipe I used:

Tahini Lemon Sauce with Pomegranate Molasses

2 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp lebne
2 tbsp plain yogurt (low-fat, for texture)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp salt
2 tsp minced and mashed garlic
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp pomegranate molasses

Combine all and stir vigorously with a fork until it's really smooth. This sauce should be poured over the cauliflower and just thick enough to stick on the vegetables; it shouldn't be the consistency of a dip or a liquid.

We sauteed small pieces of cauliflower with some salt and pepper and when it was nicely browned, it was done. We served it alongside the fish with the sauce drizzled over the cauliflower with a drizzling of additional pomegranate molasses--both for taste and for decoration.

For the cod, D marinated the fish with olive and lemon with salt and pepper, and let it sit for three hours in the fridge. When we took it out to prepare dinner, he coated it generously with the spice rub and patted it into the fish with his hands. He sauteed it on one side for three minutes, flipped it, put a handful of spinach on top, splashed it with some white wine, and some butter and covered it to let it steam for about 7 or 8 minutes at a simmer.

Last Minute Brownies

2011-02-06T23:32:00.003-05:00

We had a few friends over to watch the Superbowl, and after setting out all of the dips and veggies and popping the chicken wings in the oven, D asked me if we had anything sweet. We didn't, but I offered to whip up a quick batch of brownies. I was lucky enough to have just enough organic cocoa from Trader Joe's left. The recipe only made about 10 decent sized brownies, but that was perfect. They were chocolatey and chewy...but they would have been better with some Ghiardelli chips.

Epicurious Best Cocoa Brownies

10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cold large eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup walnut

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray your baking pan (8" square) with olive oil. Combine the butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a pot of water so that it fits, and bring to a simmer. Stir from time to time until the butter is melted and the mixture is smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test. Remove the bowl from the skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is only warm, not hot. Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or a rubber spatula. Stir in the nuts. Spread evenly in the pan. Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, about 30 minutes. Let cool before attempting to cut, but not too much. These brownies are delicious warm.

Stayin' Home Pizza

2011-01-15T21:36:00.003-05:00

D and I were going to go and see a friend play with his band at a Lower East Side club this evening, but at some point, we just decided we'd rather stay in. Earlier in the day, I'd unpacked the freezer to see what we could use for the week and found a small ball of whole wheat pizza dough we must have made a few months ago. I scavenged some vegetables that were leftovers in the fridge and made a small pizza for lunch. It was so good that D asked if I'd make pizza again for dinner. I found this great recipe for whole wheat pizza crust, and it turned out great. It was much thicker and and puffier than the dough I usually make, but it was very good.

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

2 tsp honey
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups white flour

In a large bowl, dissolve honey in warm water. Sprinkle yeast over the top, and let stand for about 10 minutes, until foamy.

Stir the olive oil and salt into the yeast mixture, then mix in the whole wheat flour and 1 cup of the white flour until dough starts to come together. Tip dough out onto a surface floured with the remaining all-purpose flour, and knead until all of the flour has been absorbed, and the ball of dough becomes smooth, about 10 minutes. Place dough in an oiled bowl, and turn to coat the surface. Cover loosely with a towel, and let stand in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

When the dough is doubled, tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and divide into 2 balls for 2 crusts.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Shape the dough into a circle. When the circle has reached the desired size, place on a well oiled pizza pan. Top pizza with your favorite toppings, such as sauce, cheese, meats, or vegetables.

Bake for 16 to 20 minutes (depending on thickness) in the preheated oven, until the crust is crisp and golden at the edges, and cheese is melted on the top.

We topped our pizza with homemade tomato sauce, mushrooms, kale, green bell pepper, onion, mozarella, salt and pepper.

Mimicking Muhammara

2011-01-08T14:12:00.004-05:00

The last time D and I went to Tanoreen in Bay Ridge, just before Christmas, we asked for a double order of Muhammara. I'd been looking forward to the trip to Tanoreen for weeks, thinking of the slightly crunchy, garlicky sweet mystery. It didn't occur to me until the end of the night, after sopping up the last juicy specks on the dish with a piece of pita, that I could probably learn how to make it at home. If not as good as Tanoreen, I could at least enjoy and entertain others with something like it at home. I vowed I would make it sometime shortly after the New Year.

Epicurious has a great recipe that's simple and ended up being very tasty. I might add more olive oil next time, and try to blend the ingredients in a way that allows it to retain a bit more of the individual ingredients' distinctness, but for a first try, it was very good.

There will never be a substitute to enjoying a warm dish of muhammara with a glass of Lebanese wine surrounded by friends and the warmth of Tanoreen itself, but I'm glad I can whip this up for any occasion.

Muhammara

a 12-ounce jar roasted red peppers, drained
1/2 cup toasted bread crumbs
1/2 cup walnuts, toasted lightly and chopped fine
2 to 4 garlic cloves, minced and mashed to a paste with 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice, or to taste
2 teaspoons pomegranate molasses
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
1/2-3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
toasted pita triangles as an accompaniment

In a food processor blend together the peppers, the bread crumbs, the walnuts, the garlic, the lemon juice, the pomegranate molasses, the cumin, the red pepper flakes, and salt to taste until the mixture is the consistency you'd like. Add the oil gradually. Transfer the muhammara to a bowl and serve it at room temperature with the pita triangles.

The original recipe, which I adapted only slightly, from Epicurious can be found here.

Restorative Kale

2011-01-02T23:01:00.008-05:00

After the excess of the holidays, I find myself craving kale. I wrote about kale around this time last year, with a link to all of it's nutritional benefits. It's worth repeating that here. We had a leftover butternut squash that never got made into soup over the holidays, and the Washington Post recently published a recipe that was perfect: Butternut Squash, Kale, and Shitake Casserole. I followed the recipe almost to the letter and it was absolutely delicious. The original recipe is in the link, my modifications are reflected here. (And yes, that is a margarita in the background of the picture above. Everything in moderation.)

Butternut Squash, Kale, and Shitake Mushroom Casserole

1 cup whole-fat coconut milk
4 tablespoons Thai green curry paste
2 teaspoon Chinese chili paste with garlic
1-inch piece peeled ginger root, finely grated or pureed (1 tablespoon)
2 tablespoons soy sauce or tamari
2 cups of peeled butternut squash, cut into 2-inch pieces
8 ounces shiitake mushroom caps, cut into quarters
1 bunch (9 ounces) kale, center veins removed, leaves torn into large pieces and rinsed and blotted dry
2 tablespoons white sesame seeds

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat a 9-by-13-inch baking dish with olive oil. Use a whisk to combine the coconut milk, Thai curry paste, Chinese chili paste, ginger, and soy sauce or tamari in a large mixing bowl. Add the squash pieces, mushrooms and kale; stir to coat evenly. Transfer the vegetables to the baking dish and sprinkle the top evenly with sesame seeds. Cover with a layer of parchment paper, then seal tightly with aluminum foil. Bake for 45 minutes, then uncover and bake for 25 minutes, or until the squash is fork-tender and the kale on top is dark brown and crisp. Serve warm all by itself, or over rice.

2010 New Year's Eve Meaty Balls

2010-12-31T14:51:00.003-05:00

Believe it or not, I never made a meatball before today. It's the last day of 2010, and I decided it was high time. The Joy of Cooking has about seven meatball recipes--traditional Italian meatballs to Hawaiian meatballs. I see more meatballs in my future.

I deviated only slightly from The Joy of Cooking's recipe for Italian meatballs, which start with a German meatball (or Konigsberger Klops), and then get more Italian-y.

Here's what I did:

2010 New Year's Eve Meaty Balls

1 lb grassfed beef, ground
2 eggs
1/2 cup panko crumbs
olive oil
3 heaping tbsp chopped parsley
3 heaping tbsp parmesan cheese
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp nutmeg

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil (I cheated and used leftover bacon fat). Once cooled, add to ground beef in a good-sized bowl. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix with clean hands. Form into your desired shape (I made one inch balls) and sautee in a large pan in olive oil, turning so that each part of the meaty-balls is browned. Place in a casserole dish filled with tomato sauce and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

I asked D to do the pasta up right, and that he did. I don't think I'll ever serve pasta without doing it up this way. I had roasted two heads of garlic the day before, and D melted some butter with the roasted garlic and tossed it with whole wheat linguine. He added fresh cracked black pepper and chopped parsley and that's how we served the meat balls....on top of this amazing pasta.

Mystic Gypsy Libations

2010-12-28T18:25:00.001-05:00

In addition to the jars of hot sauce that we gave folks this Christmas, I also made Chai Infused Vodka and a bottle of Frangelico to a few people as a special treat. People are always so impressed with infused vodka, and it's the easiest thing in the world to make. I brought this concoction to a tea party for a dear friend's birthday party a few months ago and it was a hit.

I remember visiting a Russian bar-bistro in the East Village called Anyway Cafe years ago and being transfixed by the number of infused vodkas on the menu (the food an ambiance there are fantastic, too). I chose this spot to celebrate a publication I worked on once with the Open Society Institute and a Ukranian colleague, and we had a really nice time.

Christmas celebration at Tanoreen

2010-12-24T21:35:00.001-05:00

It was the night before Christmas Eve, and we'd planned to spend it with friends at Fone of our favorite restaurants, Tanoreen in Bay Ridge. We were seven: two close friends who were headed to Ghana for the holidays, a friend from Florida who'd come to town to house- and dog-sit for them while they were away, and another couple from Jersey. We'd gotten to the neighborhood a little early, so D and I drove to Dyker Heights, a neighborhood where folks try to outdo each other every year in over-the-top lawn decorations. It's really an unbelievable sight: life-sized toy soldiers, Santas, reindeer.....D jokes that Con Ed makes a profit just from this neighborhood every year.

Tanoreen recently moved to a larger location with a liquor license. I was afraid a move like that might kill the spirit of the lovely little restaurant where the chef and owner, Palestinian and Nazareth-born Rawia Bishawa, would come out from the kitchen and check in with guests to make sure they were enjoying their meal. Bishawa still comes out, and the place is even warmer and more festive than its smaller digs down the street. Bishawa and her team cook up an amazing array of food from all over the Middle East. I am so glad that I've outgrown my childish distaste of lamb, because lamb is a huge part of Tanoreen's menu.

One of my favorite dishes is muhamarra, which is a blend of roasted red pepper, walnut, and garlic. I absolutely love it, and have vowed to make it in the New Year. D and I shared the lamb kafta roll, which the menu noted was featured on ABC news, along with the recipe. It was one of the best entrees I have ever had. We ordered several bottles of this Lebanese wine, which D really enjoyed. Our friend told us he can sometimes find it at Red, White, and Bubbly in Park Slope.

Mystic Gypsy Sauces

2010-12-22T21:06:00.000-05:00

We made hot sauce for our friends and colleagues this year for Christmas. I had an elaborate idea in my mind for labels, but life was hectic, and I ended up doing each label by hand. They were minimalist and I think they turned out okay. After making a special coffee-mustard sauce for pigs n' blankets we brought to a party, we bottled up that sauce, too, and paired it with the smoky plum sauce.

Saucy-Son En Croute

2010-12-17T22:31:00.007-05:00

The past few months have been so busy that we haven't done a lot of adventurous cooking. But I knew that I wanted to make something fun for our holiday potluck office party. One day I was shopping at Trader Joe's, and they were giving out samples of their crescent rolls with Quattro Formaggio cheese. It was delicious. I remembered D mentioning that we should make pigs in blankets, so I picked up three packages of sausage (smoked apple Chardonnay chicken sausage), three containers of crescent dough, a bag of Quattro Formaggio, and some dijon mustard. D suggested we make a spicy coffee mustard sauce for dipping.

I couldn't quite visualize how to roll these up, but it was pretty simple. Just stretch the dough out to be large enough to cover one whole sausage, and then roll it up with cheese and fresh ground black pepper, stretching the pastry dough over the sausage. At the last minute, we had the idea of rolling the sausages in parsley.

We popped them back in the fridge and let them sit overnight. About an hour and a half before the party, we cut them into 8 pieces each and placed them on a greased cookie pan. We baked them at 350 degrees until the pastry started to brown. Then we placed them on a tray decorated with red tissue paper.

For the spicy mustard sauce, we brewed a strong cup of coffee and then boiled it down to a syrup. We added that to a 12 oz jar of mustard, added some maple syrup, and seasoned it with a tiny bit of salt, pepper and Worcestershire sauce. It was very spicy; I think the dijon base we used was a bit too strong (Roland's). In the future, I might increase the amount of coffee syrup, and switch the maple syrup to honey. It was very tasty, though.

I love making little signs for potlucks. I started making little signs with used envelope backs, and then taping them to little toothpicks and sticking them in the food. I think people really appreciate knowing what they're about to eat. There were lots of people who don't eat pork at the party, and I think the sign helped to let them know it was chicken sausage.

I would definitely make this dish again.

Late Brunch on the First Cold Day

2010-11-29T17:29:00.005-05:00

After snacking on sourdough muesli bread upon rising late on the first cold day in the country, none of us was particularly hungry for breakfast. Around 2 pm, though, knowing that dinner was a good five hours away, we started getting antsy. I had brought some red Russian kale with us from home that I'd gotten at the farmer's marktet because it looked so good, and I knew we had eggs and cheese in the house, so I wondered if I could make a quiche. I'd never made a quiche before, so I consulted our friends' extensive library and found a book by Julia Child basically describing how to cook everything. Our friend volunteered a frozen pie crust leftover from some other time, and it was on. My first quiche-making experience commenced.

What follows is a tasty adaptation of the spinach-swiss quiche in the Julia Child book.

Red Russian Kale, Cheddar, Bacon and Roasted Onion Quiche

3 tbsp chopped roasted onion
2 tbsp butter
10 oz stemmed, washed, chopped, and stir fried kale
3 cloves garlic, chopped
6 large eggs
2 cups milk or cream (or one cup of each)
1 cup grated cheddar
3 strips bacon, cooked, chopped
seasonings: salt, pepper, nutmeg
9 inch pie shell

Bake the pie crust. Best to place pie weights in the bottom and cover the side crust-tops with either aluminum foil, or by placing a cookie sheet on the top rack over the pie shell. You can brush the bottom with egg white to form a kind of seal. Bake at 250. If you don't bake the pie crust first, the quiche will be mushy.

Cook the bacon in a pan and remove the slices, chop and set aside.

Saute garlic and kale in the remaining bacon fat and butter, set aside to cool.

Sprinkle half the grated cheese on the bottom of the cooled pie crust.

Blend eggs and cream (or milk) with the roasted chopped onion, bacon bits, seasonings, and cooked kale.

Pour over the sprinkled cheese into the pie crust. Top the custard with remaining cheese, evenly distributed.

Season the top of the pie with salt and pepper (don't use too much salt!) and bake for 35 minutes at 350.

Slice and enjoy!

Pumpkin Muffins!

2010-10-20T22:47:00.005-04:00

I thought a little bit of sweetness was needed in my office today, so I decided to bring in pumpkin muffins for our legal department meeting. Last weekend we went to the Harvest Festival in Red Hook, run by Added Value community farm, which works with at-risk youth to teach them urban farming and business skills. Very cool. So we picked Sophie out of the pumpkin patch and brought her home to roast. I have a feeling that one of the secrets to this recipe adaptation is that I used freshly roasted pumpkin puree that had been seasoned with salt AND pepper. Sophie was intended for a soup, not muffins, but I had so much puree left (and still do!) that I just used the soup puree. I think they turned out really well--moist & sweet. All reports confirm my assessment so far (except that D, the real judge, hasn't tried his yet!).

Pumpkin Oat Bran Muffins

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup oats
1/4 cup bran flakes
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp each of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted
2 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
15 oz pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 12-cup muffin tin, or line with paper baking liners. In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, bran, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. Set aside. In a large bowl, mix butter, eggs, sugars, pumpkin, and vanilla until combined. Gradually add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture, and mix gently until smooth. Spoon batter into prepared muffin pan, filling three-fourths full. You can press a pecan into the top, or you can add 1/2 cup of chopped pecan. I kept a bunch nut-free for a colleague at work I knew would like them, but is allergic to nuts. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool in pan for 2 minutes. Remove to wire rack. Makes about 18 nice-sized muffins. I drizzled mine with a cinnamon-sugar glaze made with confectioner's sugar mixed with a little bit of milk and cinnamon, and then tossed some chopped pecans on top.

Harvest Festival Dinner

2010-10-20T20:38:00.010-04:00

Last weekend, despite a nagging cold, I bundled up and went with D to the Added Value Harvest Festival in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I try to go every year, even though I've been disappointed for the past three because they never brought back the petting goats and shaggy sheep. (They did have petting chickens, but petting chickens is very hard. This I know.) Added Value is this awesome repurposed lot in Red Hook that's now a community garden run by folks who work with at-risk kids teaching them both urban farming skills and business stuff. Check out more info on Added Value here. Because we're away for Hallowe'en this year, the pumpkin chose from the pumpkin patch (affectionately named "Sophie" by some kid who wrote her name on the pumpkin with magic marker) was destined for the oven. I scooped out Sophie's insides, roasted the pumpkin, and then roasted the seeds. I made pumpkin soup, and this recipe for pork tenderloin that I found online. We served this with some sauteed carrots D made seasoned just with salt and pepper. It was delicious. Now onto those pumpkin-pecan muffins....

Pork Tenderloin with Pumpkin-Seed Sauce

4 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, chopped, plus 2 tbsp. sauce
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon light brown sugar
2 lbs. pork tenderloin
3/4 cup hulled pumpkin seeds
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon chipotle chile powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon pumpkin-seed oil

In a small bowl, combine chiles, sauce, orange juice, and sugar. Put pork in a baking dish and add marinade, turning pork to coat. Cover and refrigerate for up to three days, or just overnight. Preheat oven to 375°. Toast pumpkin seeds on a baking sheet until they have popped and are just starting to brown, 7 to 11 minutes. Let cool. In a food processor, whirl 1/2 cup of seeds into a paste. Heat grill to medium-high. Grill pork, turning once, until an instant-read thermometer inserted into center reads 160°, about 10 minutes per side. Or you can cook in a cast-iron pan and pop in the oven at 500 degrees until done as well as you'd like it. Let rest 10 to 15 minutes. Reserve juices. Meanwhile, in a medium pan over medium heat, combine pumpkin seed paste, cream, garlic, chile powder, and salt. Cook, whisking until thickened, 3 to 5 minutes. Stir in reserved pork marinade juices. Slice pork into 1/2-in. medallions. Drizzle with sauce and pumpkin-seed oil and garnish with remaining 1/4 cup toasted pumpkin seeds.

Excess Phyllo Dough

2010-10-11T19:02:00.006-04:00

Cleaning out the freezer, I realized we have two packages of frozen phyllo dough just hanging out in there. I decided to make one of our favorite dishes: Green Lentil Kulbyaka. It's D's birthday this week, so I decided to spruce it up a bit and make the lentils a little spicer, and add spinach to the mix. Unfortunately, I forgot to defrost the phyllo in time, so I had to buy yet a third package. I'll have to make this dish again soon.

Lentil-Spinach-Mushroom Kulbyaka

1 cup lentils
2 bay leaves
2 onions, sliced
5 cups chicken stock
3/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cup long grain rice
salt and black pepper
paprika
cumin
dash of cayenne pepper
4 tbsp parsley
4 tbsp dill
1 beaten egg
8 oz sliced mushrooms
4 hardboiled eggs
1 cup cooked spinach
8 sheets of phyllo
4 cloves of garlic

Soak the lentils for about 30 minutes; drain and simmer with bay leaves, one chopped onion, and half the stock for 25 minutes or until cooked and thick. Season well, and set aside.

Sautee the remaining chopped onion in another saucepan with some butter for about 5 minutes. Stir in the rice and the rest of the stock. Season, bring to a boil, and then cover and cook gently until it's no longer crunchy. Leave stand uncovered once cooked for about 5 minutes before stirring in the fresh herbs. Cool, then beat in the raw egg.

Sautee the mushrooms in butter until they are just soft. Set aside to cool.

Sautee spinach with chopped garlic until just soft. Set aside to cool.

Chop the four hardboiled eggs and set aside.

Brush the inside of a large round ovenproof dish with more butter. Lay the sheets of phyllo in it, covering the base and making sure that enough of the pastry overhangs the sides so that you can fold it over the center. Brush well with butter in between overlapping the pastry. Use no less than 8 sheets of phyllo.

Into the pastry lining, layer rice, lentil, egg, spinach, and mushrooms at least twice.

Bring sheets of pastry over the filling, scrunching the top into attractive folds. Brush all over with the rest of the butter and set aside to chill and firm up.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. When ready, bake kulbyaka for about 45 minuts until golden and crisp. Allow to stand for 10 minutes before you cut and serve it.

We serve ours with a yogurt sauce seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin and chopped herbs.

Kicking Summer to the Curb

2010-09-29T17:35:00.006-04:00

D and I recently hosted a "Kicking Summer to the Curb" party. It didn't work--we've still had too many hot and humid days here in New York. But the food was good, the company excellent.

Inspired by a wonderful dinner party we went to in the country last weekend, we made a slow-roasted pork shoulder, a Puerto Rican dish called "pernil." People raved about it, we loved it, and we had plenty of leftovers. Here's how we made it.

Pernil

1 pork shoulder (about 10 pounds), with the skin on
15 garlic cloves
2 tbsp dried oregano
2 tbsp kosher salt
2 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp white wine or champagne vinegar

The first thing you want to do is brine the pork shoulder about two days before you need to eat it. Place the raw pork shoulder in a pot, bag, or bin of water mixed with salt, pepper, sugar, and garlic. I recommend 4 tbsp of each. Submerge the shoulder in the water and keep for 12 to 24 hours in the fridge. This will make it really juicy.

Put the garlic, oregano, salt, and pepper in a mini chopper and chop chop until it forms a kind of paste. Remove from the chopper and place in a bowl. Stir in the olive oil and vinegar.

Take a knife and separate the skin and fat from the meat, leaving it attached so you can fold it back over the meat. Stab the meat with a sharp knife in 1/2 inch incisions, 1 inch deep so that the paste can penetrate the meat. Rub the garlic paste on the meat, and cover the coated meat with the skin again, securing with a skewer so that it doesn't pull away while cooking.

Cover the pork and let marinate for at least three to six hours. Depending on how long you let it sit, and how warm it is out, you might want to consider refrigerating it. Make sure you allow enough time to let it sit out at room temperature for 30 minutes before you roast it.

Preheat the oven to 350 and roast for about 10-12 hours. Some recipes will tell you to roast it at different temperatures for a shorter amount of time, but this length of time worked for us and we had nicely falling-off-the-bone pork, which is how I like it. If you want to get the skin crispy brown at the end, you can put it back in the oven and roast it for about 20-30 minutes at 450.

Let the meat rest on a cutting board for 20 minutes before slicing.

I used a recipe from epicurious, found here.

We served this on a big platter with pico de gallo, corn tortillas, rice, and beans, with a cilantro-lime-garlic viniagrette dressing to drizzle on top. I also froze about three sandwich bags full to make pork tacos at some point in the future. Tonite, we're having leftovers of this pork cooked with some BBQ sauce.

Excess Tomatoes

2010-09-08T20:49:00.002-04:00

Tim and Peter's neighbor in the country brought them over a big bag of tomatoes from her garden. They didn't have time to use them, so they gave them to me. This is what I did with them.

Fresh Tomato-Basil Sauce

3 lbs off-the-vine tomatoes
6 cloves garlic
2 medium onions
3 tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
handful of basil

Saute chopped garlic and onion in olive oil until browning and fragrant. Chop tomatoes into small cubes and add to the garlic and onions. Bring to a boil and then simmer for up to an hour as it thickens. Season it anytime you want with the salt and pepper. Add chopped basil at the end.

We served it over some angel hair pasta with more chopped basil, fresh ground pepper, and parmesan cheese.

Give Me Spots on My Apples....

2010-09-02T22:28:00.003-04:00

...but leave me the birds and the bees. Pleeease. --Joni Mitchell, Big Yellow Taxi

I spent last weekend in the Catskills at a friend's country house catching up with two friends I hadn't spent time with in over a decade. The last we saw each other, we were all living in Buffalo, New York. They both agreed to drive over five hours to meet at this house, and we had a great time. One of my friends has an apple tree growing in her yard. Even though she apologized for how funky they looked, she brought a big bag of apples with her, and we used them in oatmeal and pancakes. At the end of the weekend, there were still a lot left, so I spent the last day I was at the house making applesauce. I froze it because there were too many leftovers to eat before they all went bad. I expect thawed applesauce in the fall will be a nice reminder of the time we shared.

Applesauce

3 to 4 lbs of peeled, cored, and quartered apples
5 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup of organic sugar
1 cup of water
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Put all ingredients into a large pot and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Remove from heat and process to desired consistency in a food processor, or mash by hand with a potato masher. Enjoy over yogurt, vanilla ice cream or as a side dish to pork chops.

Pozole Rojo

2010-08-24T21:23:00.004-04:00

It's Tuesday night, and the only night we're both home for dinner this week, so I wanted to make it special. I made this soup once before when we first got the cookbook from Margaritte Malfy of the most awesome Mexican restaurant, La Palapa in Manhattan, but I think it came out better this time. It's a speck time consuming, and it requires some special implements and ingredients, but it's worth it. I made a few slight alterations to the ingredients, but I remained true to the recipe.

Pozole Rojo
Chicken and Hominy Soup
From antojitos: festive and flavorful mexican small plates

3 dried ancho chiles, seeded with membranes removed
2 cups water
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped tomato
1/4 cup olive oil
6 cloves crushed garlic
2 cups cubed, cooked chicken
1 15 oz can of hominy, rinsed and drained
1/4 tsp ground cumin
sea salt

Garnishes
1/2 cup chopped radishes
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1 cup chopped avocado
1 cup shredded romaine lettuce
1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco cheese
lime cubes

In a small saucepan, combine chiles and water and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Lower the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. While that is simmering, sautee the onion in a cast iron pan and set aside when the onion is carmelized. Drain the chiles, and reserve the water. Transfer the chiles to a blender or food processor. Add the tomatoes and sauteed onions to the food processor and proces until smooth. You can add some water to make it smoother, but I didn't.

In a skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook for about one minute, or until the garlic begins to soften. Add teh tomato-chile paste and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Cook the chicken either by roasting it or by searing it until it turns golden brown in a cast iron pan. In a small stockpot, combine the broth, the tomato-chile paste, and chicken and bring to a boil. Add the hominy, return to a boil, and cook until heated through. Add the cumin, and salt and pepper to taste. If the soup is too thick for you, thin with a little bit of water.

Ladle the soup into bowls and allow your guests or loved ones to add whatever garnishes they want. Best served with a margarita. : )

Farm to Table in Boulder

2010-07-13T21:25:00.014-04:00

D and I traveled to Boulder, Colorado for the second annual Grand Masters Ultimate Frisbee tournament. He was competing with a team from Atlanta called Ball and Chain. During my research for stuff to do on our trip, I searched for restaurants featuring locally-produced food. I was thrilled to find out that one of D's teammates has a cousin who, along with three other partners, runs Cafe Aion, a farm-to-table restaurant in the university area of Boulder and invited the team to a private dinner party at the restaurant on Sunday night after the tournament. Cafe Aion's website says it perfectly:

We aspire to cultivate this tradition in our own local soil. We gather our ingredients from farmers, ranchers and fishmongers we know and admire, and we draw upon the time-honored practices of the osteria and tapas bar as we cook for our friends and neighbors.

We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves here, the decor and ambiance; the food and drink; and the professional and resposive waitstaff were all lovely.

We started by sampling some local beer, and I settled on a New Belgium Fat Tire from Fort Collins. The staff set out tasty hummous, bread, and really delicious oysters wth homemade horseradish. At the table, we found dishes of vegetable anti-pasta (green pepper, onion, and olives) and marinated lentils.

I enjoyed the way the staff did the party for us: they just sent stuff out and we didn't have to choose from the menu. I have a very hard time making restaurant decisions, particuarly with a new place, and it was nice to sample a variety of things sent from the kitchen. I read a review of the restaurant online after the meal, and I love the way the chef creates little treats for the table from kitchen leftovers: :

Dakota Soifer's chicharrones, seasoned with a dash of chile oil and salt, are crispy puffs that crack between the teeth and dissolve on the tongue almost instantly, leaving behind nothing more than the sweet smokiness of pork. They're not on the menu at Cafe Aion, but they're sent, along with other scraps-turned-tapas, to diners as thanks for their business, and as a way to use every part, even the skin, of the pig the chef buys to make sausage and ribs and pancetta.

The house-cured meats were delicious. We sampled some sausage and a pate that was served with bread and olives.

For our main courses, the kitchen staff sent out a nice paella with squid, shrimp, and chorizo. For me, the dish was a bit heavy on the rice and a touch bland--but I like fiery dishes. I might have put a dash of hot sauce on it, but I didn't ask for hot sauce and none was on the table. They also brought us plates of rare and medium-rare strips of beef, perhaps a london broil or a flank steak, with roasted vegetables. Best of all was that I recogznized the baby white turnips on the plate as those I saw on display at the farmer's market the day before. I so wanted to buy a bunch and prepare them back in our kitchen hotel, but we didn't have the time.

Dessert was a slice of fresh strawberry tart with a luscious cream base. They also brought us a plate of biscotti, iced ginger snaps, and caraway-seeded shortbread to go along with coffee or espresso.

What a wonderful find in Boulder. I definitely recommend putting Cafe Aion on your agenda if you visit the Boulder area.

The.Best.Tomato.Soup.Ever.

2010-07-11T20:19:00.005-04:00

A group of us went out to dinner at a place called The Kitchen, a recommendation from a friend who recently visited Boulder. The service wasn't so hot, and they had a disappointingly small number of local wines on the menus, but the food and the ambiance were outstanding. Especially good was the tomato soup that our 7-year old dinner companion ordered. You wouldn't think tomato soup would be so remarkable, but she shared it with everyone at the table and we all raved and tried to guess the secret. If you instinctively guess "butter" for the ingredient that makes everything better, you win--to my great surprise. I thought the soup was made of fresh tomatoes and olive oil, but I was totally wrong.

The waiter was kind enough to ask the chef to give me the recipe.

The Kitchen's Tomato Soup

1 can quality tomatoes (the chef used organic tomatoes from California canned with basil)
2 medium onions
Cream
Butter
Salt & Peper

Sweat down the chopped onions in butter. Combine with the canned tomatoes and cook over low heat. Finish with cream and blend in a blender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I'm looking forward to making this with both canned and fresh roasted tomatoes to see if there's a difference. I'll report back. : )

Independence Sourdough Pancakes

2010-07-05T12:03:00.005-04:00

I have three sourdough starters going in my fridge: one from San Francisco, one from Denmark, and one from the week that we got married two months ago. We're going on vacation next week, and we're also experiencing a heat wave, so I don't want to make bread today, but I hate wasting the sourdough starter when I feed it. I used the wedding sourdough to make these sourdough pancakes this morning with some leftover mixed berries from the tart we made yesterday for the family Fourth of July picnic. We made the tart with raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries from the Farmer's Market. Topped with maple syrup with a side of pork sausage, it was delicious.

Sourdough Mixed Berry Pancakes

1 large egg
1 cup sourdough starter
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 cup granulated sugar

Mix together all; drop 3 tbsp plops into a smoking cast iron griddle with melted butter. Watch carefully and turn once when the pancake top starts to bubble; turn again and watch even more carefully 'cause the second side burns quickly. Turn to make sure the pancake is a golden brown. If it is, place it on a plate, top with a prudent pat of butter, and pour some maple syrup over them to taste. Enjoy!

50 Year Old Cupcakes

2010-07-03T20:15:00.002-04:00

My dear friend turned 50 this week and invited a few of us to a dinner party on Friday night. I polled his closest friends about his favorite things, and everyone agreed that buttercream frosting, maple, and bourbon were his three favorite sweet tastes. I created the frosting from a basic Martha Stewart frosting recipe, in consultation with my mother. It was a little tricky because the syrup and bourbon started to candy and harden while I was making it, but it really was worth it. Delicious.

I debated over what cupcake to use, and finally settled on an Apple Spice Cupcake from the book "cupcakes" that D and I received for our wedding. (cupcakes: Luscious bakeshop favorites from your home kitchen by Shelly Kaldunski). The finalists were carrot, zucchini, and french vanilla. If it were Fall, I might consider a pumpkin cupcake. The cupcakes came out a little too tender; D suggested baking them a little longer than the recipe called for. I already baked them for about 15 minutes more than the recipe below called for because our oven's temperature is a little bit off.

I also used silicone baking cups that my sister in law gave me a few months ago, but I don't think I will use them again. The cupcakes stuck to them too much, and they weren't as convenient as the paper ones. I'm not convinced that the paper ones are so bad for the environment anyway that you have to use re-usable ones.

Bourbon-Maple Buttercream Frosting

3 large eggs
1 cups pure maple syrup, preferably grade A dark amber
3 tbsp bourbon
2 sticks unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
1/4 cup

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg yolks on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour maple syrup into a medium saucepan. Place pan over medium-high heat; bring syrup to a boil. Cook syrup for about 15 minutes as it begins to thicken. When done, it will start to harden on the spoon when you stir and remove the spoon with some syrup residue and let sit for a moment.

Remove the saucepan from the heat. While the electric mixer is running, pour the syrup in a slow, steady stream down the side of the mixing bowl into the egg-yolk mixture (it is essential that the syrup touches the side of the bowl as you pour it in so the sugar will be very evenly incorporated and not splatter onto the sides of the bowl and harden into candy) until the syrup has been completely incorporated, about 1 1/2 minutes. Beat until the bowl is just slightly warm to the touch, 5 to 6 minutes.

Add butter, one piece at a time, until all of it has been completely incorporated and the frosting is fluffy, about 4 minutes more. Use immediately, or keep refrigerated for up to a week. Makes 2 cups.

Apple Spice Cupcakes

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
5 apples, peeled, cored, and cut into small chunks
4 tbsp plus 1 1/2 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose or cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 pinch of cloves
4 large eggs at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat your oven to 350 F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners.

In a saucepan over medium-high heat, melt 4 tbsp of butter. Add the apple chunks and the 2 tbsp of sugar and cook, stirring often, until the apples start to turn brown and carmelize, about 5-7 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, and cloves. In another bowl, mix with an electric mixer the remaining 12 tbsp of butter and the 1 1/2 cup of sugar together until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until combined.

Slowly add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Add the sour cream and the cooled apple mixture, beating until just combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full. Bake until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean, about 18-20 minutes. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack and let cool completely for about an hour.

Frost the cupcakes and serve.

I decorated mine with candied ginger.

Searching for Kimchi

2010-06-30T13:35:00.008-04:00

A few weeks ago, D and I discovered Oaxaca Taqueria, a restaurant that had opened in our neighborhood in Brooklyn. I was really impressed with the simplicity, freshness, and decor of this place. I especially fell in love with the Korean Tacos made with bulgogi and kimchi. They were tiny, but they were tasty and filling. On our second visit, we asked for extra kimchi because it was so delicioso. We asked the owner where they got their kimchi, and he told us that he got it from a Korean deli just a few blocks away. He couldn't remember exactly where, but he said that the deli has the pre-packaged industry kimchi, but they also sell one that they make right there on the premises alongside the manufactured kimchi. I went to the corner he said he thought the deli was at (5th and Carroll), but the owner disavowed making her own kimchi; she also disavowed the fact that there were any other Korean delis in the neighborhood! Off I went to another Korean deli one block over at Garfield and Carroll. No homemade kimchi. 7th and Carroll--nope. 7th & Garfield--bingo! The unassuming containers of kimchi sat on the shelf and the cashier had to ask the owner in the back how much the containers were. I took 2 for $3.99 each because we go through an entire container in one sitting.

We're desperate to figure out how to make our own, but no online recipes work out well, and I don't know anyone who's willing to share their favorite recipe. A colleague of mine has a roommate who started Mother In Law Kimchi based on her MIL's restaurant in LA--the company has been pretty critically acclaimed, but they don't sell in some of the key places...like Trader Joe's, which has some of the best pre-prepared bulgogi I've ever tasted. Unfortunately, MILK doesn't market itself very well, and despite the fact that the kimchi is very good, the website offering it for sale is horribly designed and misleading. Nor do I think the owner would share her recipe with me.

We served the kimchi with TJ's bulgogi over some organic jasmine rice. Definitely one of our favorite dinners.

Tasty Eight Balls

2010-06-29T22:31:00.007-04:00

This used to mean something else at a different time in my life, but tonite, it meant delicious 8-ball zucchini stuffed with quinoa, onions, garlic, toasted walnuts and herbs and spices. It seems labor intensive, but it's not. You'll have some of the quinoa mixture leftover, which is good all on its own. You can mix some seasoned tofu into this, which is how I had meant to make it but forgot. It was fine on it's own. The spices you use will really make this dish special.

Toasted Walnut & Quinoa Stuffed Eight Ball Zucchini

4 Eight Ball Zucchinis
1 cup quinoa
1 cup vegetable broth
olive oil
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
1/4 cup currants
3 tbsp chopped parsley
3 tbsp chopped basil
1 medium onion
4 garlic cloves, chopped
spice mix (I used a Yucatan Spice mix described here; but you can use cumin, paprika, cinnamon . . .)

Cut the zucchini heads off like you were cutting out a pumpkin for Halloween. Scrape out the insides, chop them up into little pieces, and set them aside. Set the empty zucchinis into a baking dish with a bit of broth on the bottom.

Toast the quinoa in a cast iron pan and then cook with one cup of water and one cup of broth. Season with salt and pepper.

Sautee the onion and garlic in a cast iron pan. Once the onion starts to brown, add the zucchini and sautee until tender. Add half of the chopped herbs, the currants, and the walnuts. Once everything is mixed and heated through, add to the quinoa with the rest of the fresh herbs. Mix thoroughly. Spoon into each of the eight ball zucchinis and bake at 400 F for about 30-45 minutes.

We served this with a dollop of lebne and a bit of sriracha sauce on the side (you could substitute plain yogurt or sour cream and hot sauce), and a Middle Eastern Beet Salad with parsley, toasted walnuts, and rosewater.

English Muffin Afternoon

2010-06-20T16:52:00.006-04:00

I found this recipe on Epicurious after hearing a co-worker talk about making it a few weeks ago. I hate wasting my sourdough when I feed it, so this is another good alternative. I used the sourdough starter I'm calling "Wedding Sourdough" because its a combination of my San Francisco starter and 25-year-old Swedish starter that got mixed up the week before my wedding and I just started a new one with it. I've been feeding it with whatever happens to be around, so it's nicely unidentifiable.

Apparently, this epicurious recipe that I adapted myself was adapted from a Mark Bittman recipe. I used a Martha Stewart recipe to alter it.

Whole Wheat Seeded Sourdough English Muffins

1 cup sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup flour for dusting and rolling
1 tsp. instant yeast
2 tsp. salt
2 Tbl. olive oil
1 Tbl. honey
2/3 cup lukewarm milk

For the topping
1 egg
Seeds (I use a variety of poppy seeds, black and white sesame seeds, hemp seeds, and sea salt)

Mix together the the starter, flour, yeast and salt, then add all the rest of the ingredients and mix together until it starts to form a ball around your spoon. At that point, start kneading the dough until it's a well-defined ball that's tacky but not truly sticky.

Lightly grease a plastic or wooden bowl. Place the dough in the bowl and cover it loosely. Let it sit until it's doubled in size, about two hours. Deflate and let rest for 15 minutes.

Oil a cookie tray and sprinkle with semolina. Roll the dough out onto a well floured surface and using a bisquit cutter (or cooker cutter or the mouth of a glass), divide the dough into eight to 12 pieces (depending on how big you want your muffins). Lift each muffin up and set it on the cookie tray. Let them sit for about 30 minutes.

When they've puffed up a bit, use an egg wash to brush the tops of the muffins and sprinkle with seeds.

Heat up an unoiled cast-iron skillet and cook each muffin in olive oil on both sides until lightly browned. It should take about 1-2 minutes per side. When they are nicely browned, take them out of the pan and place them on a cleaned, oiled, and semolina-ed cookie sheet and pop them in the oven for about 10-15 minutes, or until the insides of the muffins are about 190 degrees F.

Venison Experiment

2010-06-07T21:00:00.003-04:00

Last year, D and I were given a gift of venison meat cubes from a friend of D's who is a bow hunter. At that time, we were venison virgins and had no idea what we would do with the meat, or what to expect. I think we were both a little afraid of a "gamey" taste. We decided to do a tagine with it, and it's now one of our signature dishes. I wrote a blog entry about the recipe I adapted here.

This year, my new brother-in-law, also a hunter, brought over a bag of deer meat just before our May 1st wedding. We didn't have the time to look at it, much less do anything with it, before the wedding. We got a tagine as a gift, and the first thing I thought about was taking the venison out of the freezer and making a stew as our first tagine. When I defrosted it over the weekend, I realized to my dismay that what we'd been given was cutlets, which would certainly not work in the tagine. I'm not sure why I felt stymied by cutlets, but I did. I decided to marinate two servings of it in some olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and thyme and pop it back into the fridge until I could decide what to do.

I decided to cook it in a cast iron pan and top it with a black currant sauce with a side of sugar snap peas that I picked up at the Farmer's Market over the weekend. I couldn't find a black currant sauce that I liked, so I made this one up:

Black Currant Sauce

1 cup chopped onions
1 cup black currants
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 1/2 cups water

Sautee chopped onions until starting to brown. Add the brown sugar, cornstarch, and dry mustard. Stir for about a minute, add vinegar, currants, lemon juice, and water. Continue cooking, stirring constantly, until thick. Turn the heat off and let cool for a bit. Blend 3/4 of the mixture in a blender and add back to the saucepan. Reheat and spoon over the meat when heated through.

Rich People's Bread

2010-06-06T22:42:00.000-04:00

I've been experimenting with sourdough bread since Christmas; I think I've made over a hundred loaves of bread since then. I keep looking for a recipe that combines the right timing with the right flavor. Many a morning I've been late to work because I'm waiting for dough to rise or bread to finish baking. Many of the sourdough recipes I've found require days of developing the dough and rising, and those recipes are just not practical for everyday bread for someone who works full time. This recipe, which I tried early on and just filed, was a hit. Every time I tried a new recipe, D would say: "Why don't you make that oat and flax bread again? That was great!" The first time I made it, he called it "rich people's bread." So that's what I'll call it here. I adapted it from a recipe I found on a blog called Kath Eats Real Food: A Blog Devoted to Healthy Living

The blog suggests a way to make your sourdough starter from scratch, but I've used a sourdough starter that a friend from Sweden gave me: it's a hearty wheat-grain sourdough that's been going for 25 years! I feed it about once every two weeks with 1/2 cup of warm water + 1/2 cup of wheat or rye flour. Sometimes I throw a drop of honey or a tsp of flax into the mix.

Rich People's Oat and Flax Sourdough Bread

1 3/4 cup starter
1 1/2 cup wheat flour
1 ¼ cup bread flour
1 cup oats
3 Tbsp flax seeds
2 ½ tbsp honey
1 ½ cup water
1 tsp instant yeast
1 tbsp kosher salt
1/3 cup walnut pieces

Warm water to body temperature. Pour in oats and flax and let soak for 5-10 minutes. Then mix all ingredients EXCEPT walnuts until mixture comes together. Add walnuts. It should be fairly sticky but not runny, and have good strength when tugged. Let dough ferment for 2 hours, folding after the first hour. After the second hour, shape into a compact ball and allow to rest for 10-20 minutes. Shape dough ball into two oval loaves and place in two 9×5 loaf pans. Oil and dust pans with some kind of a dusting agent (I've used oats, sesame seeds, hemp seeds, and pysllium husks) Allow to rise for 1 1/2 hours. After 1 hour preheat oven to 400. Brush the top of the risen loaves with an egg wash and sprinkle with oats or seeds. Bake for 30-35 mins until very dark in color and interior hits 190.

This bread is delicious with fried eggs and smoked salmon, which is how we ate it this morning! It's also delicious toasted with butter, or all by itself. The author of the original blog recommends french toast, which sounds intriguing.

Wedding Rehearsal Dinner

2010-05-19T23:21:00.010-04:00

We hosted our wedding rehearsal dinner at our dear friends' home down the street for about 40 people. In addition to all of our other preparations for the wedding, which was the following day, in retrospect it was probably not the best idea, but it turned out really well.

The week before the wedding, David decided we needed a new stove. It stopped working two days before the wedding, which sent me into a bit of a panic. Thankfully, a friend called and said she was going to make the cupcakes for me (from my own blog recipe!) and have her husband deliver them to D so that I didn't have to worry about it. Making everything for this dinner was a real source of pride for me, but I let it go on the dessert and it really was a godsend. I will forever be grateful to Deb.

This is what was on the menu:

Appetizer

Pickled eggs
Cheese and crackers
Spiced nuts

Sides

Green salad with homemade sprouts
Roasted vegetable couscous
Kalamata olive sourdough bread

Main Course

Grass-Fed Beef Shishkebabs served with either Teryaki Sauce, or Chipotle Sauce (homemade)
*made with beef cubes, pineapple chunks, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, red onions, and green peppers

Dessert

Carrot cupcakes

I think folks enjoyed the food and appreciated the effort.

Potato Salad To Go!

2010-05-19T23:05:00.005-04:00

We're off to another frisbee tournament this weekend on Long Island, so I put the leftovers to use in some yummy potato salad for us to nosh on at the field. Mayonnaise-based salads are never a good idea for a hot day, so I made this recipe up with olive oil, rice wine vinegar, and mustard. This kind of a salad is best made one or two days before you plan to eat it, although it's great fresh too.

Fresh Dill and Radish Potato Salad

6 medium potatoes (I used some butter potatoes from the farmer's market)
6 large cherry tomatoes
2 stalks of celery
4 nice sized radishes
1 scallion
2 hard boiled eggs
1/2 cucumber
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
1 tbsp dijon mustard
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
healthy dash of salt and pepper

Make two hard boiled eggs and pop in the fridge to cool down. Boil the potatoes until tender. Drain and pop in the fridge (or freezer, depending on how quick you chop!) Chop up the vegetables. Chop the potatoes into at least six pieces each. Chop up the hard boiled eggs into small pieces, Mix the whole lot together really well. Refrigerate for at least a day.

Easy peasy.

St. Pat's by Lamplight

2010-03-17T21:45:00.011-04:00

After Christmas last year, we spent a week at our friends' country house in Pennsylvania. We usually go and stock up on buffalo meat from the buffalo farm about forty-five minutes away. A few times, we decided to stop at an antique store called The Glass Hat, where we found this amazing lamp. It took us a few months to decide whether we wanted to plunk down so much money for it, but even when money is tight, we never regret buying this oil lamp from the 1880s. We don't light it very often, but when we do, it makes any meal feel really special. We lit it for St. Patrick's Day this year.

Our meal only looks like it took a lot of work, but it didn't. The weekend before, we picked up a brined brisket from Trader Joe's (I meant to make my own this year, but . . . well, next year). I stuck that in a crock pot with some Guinness Beer, carrots, and onions this morning and let it cook for 8 hours. Then I boiled cabbage with caraway sees, heated up some aging carrot puree, and baked some sliced baby potatoes with olive oil, salt, pepper, and chopped rosemary.

The most unique thing about this year's meal was the whole wheat soda bread. I found a recipe that claimed to produce little confetti shamrocks when you sliced the bread. And it did! The sunflower seeds react somehow to the dough when it sits and then bakes in such a way that the seeds turn green! Totally fun. And it was very tasty. I will definitely make this bread again next year.

Shamrock Soda Bread

1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour or graham flour, plus more for shaping
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon-sized pieces
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 3/4 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup wheat bran
1/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup untoasted wheat germ
2 tablespoons flaxseed
1/3 cup raw sunflower seeds
1 large egg
About 1 3/4 cups buttermilk

Adjust an oven rack to the center position and preheat the oven to 425°F. Coat a heavy baking sheet with vegetable cooking spray or line it with a silicone baking pan liner or aluminum foil.In a large bowl, stir together the all-purpose flour and whole wheat flour. Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients with your fingertips until the fat particles are very fine. Stir in the baking soda, salt, sugar, wheat bran, oat bran, wheat germ, flaxseed, and sunflower seeds. Beat the egg lightly with a fork in a 2-cup glass measure. Add enough buttermilk to come to the 2-cup line and stir with the fork to combine well. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until the dough gathers into a thick, wet-looking mass.

Sprinkle your work surface with whole wheat flour and scrape the dough onto it. Dust the dough with a bit more whole wheat flour. Pat the dough into a circular shape about 7 inches across and 2 inches high and transfer it to the prepared baking sheet. Don't be concerned about evenness—the loaf should look rustic. Make a cross-shaped indentation on top of the loaf going right to the edges. I use a plastic bench scraper and press it into the dough very gently; don't actually cut the dough. During baking the indentation expands, giving the top of the loaf an attractive pattern.

Bake the bread for about 40 minutes, until it is well browned and sounds hollow when rapped on the bottom. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the loaf should register 195° to 200°F. Cool the loaf on a wire cooling rack, and serve warm or at room temperature. Cut into quarters and slice each quarter with a sharp serrated knife. Delicious with butter.
h

An Orgasm of Flavors

2010-03-11T09:52:00.010-05:00

"It's wednesday . . . I know what you're trying to say girl. You're trying to say oh yeah, It's business time." --Jemaine, Flight of the Conchords

A couple of years ago, I started cooking really nice meals in celebration of American Idol-watching. That tradition has kind of fallen off with wedding planning, trying to go to the gym more, and just general busy-ness at work, but last night was an exception. I found a recipe I wanted to try from the March 2010 edition of Saveur magazine, and made it this Wednesday night. D said it was "an orgasm of flavors." I think that's a good description.

Moroccan Chicken with Carrot Puree

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
olive oil
2 cups chicken broth
2 lbs carrots
1 large white onion
4 large garlic cloves
1 1/2 cup orange guice
4 tbsp unsalted butter
2 peeled and seeded oranges, segmented
3/4 cup harissa*
2 tsp sherry or champagne vinegar
2 cups salad greens
1/2 cup pitted, oil-cured black olives, roughly chopped
2 shallots, thinly sliced

*Harissa is a North African pepper paste. I'm a very lucky person, as my friend S brought a jar of homemade Tunisian harissa over last month. This is the first I've had a chance to use it. (Clicking on "harissa" above will bring you to the Wikipedia page describing it).

Start by boiling roughly chopped carrots until soft in order to make the puree. I started this the night before, and while the carrots were boiling, I placed the chicken breasts in a container with olive oil, salt and pepper to sit overnight. I then sauteed the onions and garlic until carmelized, added the carrots and sauteed until they started to carmelize as well. Then I put the mixture in a food processor and made the puree. I set that aside for the next day.

The next day, I browned the chicken in a pan with olive oil and then placed them in the oven topped with most of the harissa at about 400 degrees F. While the chicken was finishing, I made the orange sauce by reducing 1 1/2 cups of orange juice in a pan, adding 4 tbsp butter, salt and pepper. As the mixture started to thicken, I added the orange segments.

I then tossed the greens with olive oil, vinegar, shallots and chopped olives.

I heated up the carrot puree, and plated the dish by putting a dollop of carrot puree on the side of the plate, and arranging the greens on top. I then placed one chicken breast on the bed of greens and topped the whole thing with orange sauce.

The whole thing was both festive looking and delicious.

Practicing with Sourdough

2010-03-07T13:48:00.003-05:00

This past summer, I brought back some sourdough starter from a trip to San Francisco. It sat around for a few months until I had some time over the holidays to see what I could do with it. I've been experimenting with different recipes since Christmas. There is a rich body of literature out there about how to do sourdough, but what I like best about what I've learned so far is that, as I'd suspected, making bread can be less about science and formulas, and more about art.

This is the most simple recipe I've found for sourdough, and the cinnamon-raisin bread that I made pictured here is the best loaf I've made so far. I'll keep practicing, though, and someday I'll make "the perfect loaf."

Basic White Sourdough Bread

1 cup sourdough starter (at room temperature)
1 1/2 cups warm water
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup oil (I use olive oil)
6 cups bread flour
1 tsp yeast
1/4 cup of warm water
2 tbsp whole wheat flour or oat bran
1 tsp honey

Mix sugar, oil, salt, water, and 1 cup of sourdough starter together in a large bowl. Sift the flour and add to the mixture. Grease or oil the dough. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise overnight.

The next day, stir the 2 tbsp of flour or bran and 1 tsp of honey into warm water and sprinkle with 1 tsp of yeast. Let this mixture sit for about 10 minutes. While you are waiting, grease & dust two bread pans with either oat bran, semolina, or corn meal. When the yeast mixture starts to look a little frothy or bubbly, pour the mixture into the bread dough and knead for 10 minutes. Allow the dough to double in size. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 40 to 45 minutes, or until bread is golden brown and taps hollow. Turn out to cool on wire racks.

To adapt to a cinnamon-raisin bread, make a mixture of cinnamon-sugar by mixing 2 tbsp sugar with healthy dashes of cinnamon. Add 1 cup of raisins right before you knead the bread. Divide the bread in half, and roll out each half into a long, narrow rectangle. Sprinkle a mixture of sugar and cinnamon over the rectangle and then roll up into a compact shape to place into your bread pans. Bake as directed above.

Coffee Marinated Bison Ribs

2009-12-27T15:51:00.005-05:00

While visiting a friend's farmer's market in Phoenixville, PA, I found another source of grass-fed buffalo meat. It was more expensive than the farm that we visit in Hamlin, PA, but I picked up two packages of buffalo short ribs anyway (about $25). I found this recipe on the web from the February 2008 Bon Apetit and adapted it to use my slow cooker. The recipe is time consuming, but well worth it. Each portion came out to be about $7 with all the ingredients.

Coffee-Marinated Bison Short Ribs

Marinade

4 cups water
3 cups chilled strong brewed coffee
1/2 cup coarse kosher salt
3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons (packed) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
2 cups ice cubes
4 pounds bison (often labeled buffalo) short ribs

Short Ribs

2 cups chopped onions
1/2 cup chopped shallots
6 garlic cloves, chopped
1 small jalapeño chile, seeded, chopped
1 cup strong brewed coffee
1 cup low-salt chicken broth
1/4 cup chili sauce or ketchup
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce

To prepare the marinade

Stir 4 cups water, coffee, 1/2 cup coarse salt, and sugar in large bowl until salt and sugar dissolve. Add syrup and next 3 ingredients; stir until ice melts. Add ribs. Place plate atop ribs to keep submerged. Cover and chill 4 to 6 hours. Drain ribs; discard marinade. Drained ribs can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and chill.

To prepare the short ribs

Heat until smoking a deep cast iron pan and add olive oil. Sprinkle ribs with salt and pepper. Working in batches, cook ribs until browned on all sides, about 7 minutes per batch. Transfer to large plate. Add onions, shallots, garlic, and jalapeño to pot. Reduce heat to medium, cover, and cook until vegetables are soft, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Add coffee and broth; stir, scraping up browned bits. Add chili sauce and all remaining ingredients; bring to boil. Transfer all to a slow cooker and cook for at least 6 hours, more to taste. We like our ribs falling off the bone, so we cooked them for about 8-9 hours.

We weren't ready to eat ours right away so I put them in the freezer almost immediately after they cooled with a generous portion of the liquid they cooked in. When we were ready to eat them a few days later, I defrosted them overnight, and then when we got home from work, I put them into a foil covered pan and heated them at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes. They were delicious.

White Chocolate Christmas Triangles

2009-12-27T15:43:00.003-05:00

Friends of ours had a holiday party and asked that all of their guests bring triangle-shaped foods. Everyone's first thought is always phyllo dough triangles, but I wanted to do something different. I found this recipe after googling for "triangle recipe": Double Ginger Shortbread Triangles, and I sprinkled a little red sugar on the white chocolate tips to make them look more festive. They were a hit and I would definitely make them again.

Double Ginger Shorbread Triangles with White Chocolate and Red Sugar Sprinkles

Ingredients

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened 
1 cup confectioners’ sugar 
1 Tbsp ground ginger 
1 T bsp vanilla extract 
1/2 tsp salt 
2 cups all-purpose flour 
1/3 cup crystallized ginger, finely diced
1 ounce of white chocolate, melted according to package directions (I used white chocolate chips)
crystallized ginger, cut into thin strips

Preparation

Heat oven to 325°F. Line a 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 x 1-in. jelly roll pan with parchment paper. Beat butter, sugar, ground ginger, vanilla and salt in a large bowl with mixer on medium speed until creamy. On low, beat in flour just until blended. Press evenly with floured fingers over bottom of prepared pan. With a knife, cut dough lengthwise into 4 equal strips, then crosswise into 4 equal strips, making 16 rectangles. Cut each rectangle in half diagonally. Prick each triangle several times with a fork. Bake a half an hour or until shortbread looks dry and pale gold. Cool in pan on a wire rack 5 minutes; recut cookies while still warm. Cool completely in pan before decorating. To decorate: Dip short sides of each triangle into melted white chocolate, or spread melted chocolate on triangles. Decorate with a few strips of ginger. Refrigerate to set chocolate.

Wedding Favors

2009-10-20T22:08:00.007-04:00

So I'm getting married! Wow. I haven't written about this on my blog yet; sadly, I've been spending all of my blogging time on another site, the Off Beat Bride Tribe. I keep a running journal of wedding planning updates there, but the last update overlaps with this blog, so here you have it.

The only person who will truly know what I went through to create my wedding favors will be my BFF/maid of honor, and who I call my Top Chick, but for here will be referred to as M. I had 160 little jars shipped to her place because there's no room for them in my apartment in Brooklyn, and I drove myself, 75 hot peppers, and a food processor to her house this weekend to make my favors. We got up early to go to the green market near her house for 30 bell peppers (I didn't get them at home at my own green market on Saturday because I was afraid they wouldn't keep all week), ran some errands, and I got started chopping at around noon. I was committed to using local ingredients, so everything that went into these little buggers came from either my green market at Grand Army Plaza or her green market in Phoenixville, PA. I was going to use the peppers that are growing on my back balcony, but I didn't get a bumper crop this season, so I had to settle for someone else's.

I chopped half of the hot and bell peppers by hand so that the relish wouldn't be too mushy, and chopped up the other half in the food processor. I was chopping for FIVE STRAIGHT HOURS! Tomatillos go in the recipe, too, and I ran into a huge problem when the tomatillo skins got stuck in her garbage disposal unit. I had to fish around in there with my bare hands to clear it up, and even then, I had to use some Liquid Plummer. By 5:30, the relish was brining and my hands were burning like a &$((##@. I consulted an article on Chow about how to soothe burning hands after cutting chiles (Avoiding Chile Eyeball), and jumped in the car to buy some lemons, lemon juice, and yogurt.

You should have seen me at Target wheeling around a cart resting my hands on two frozen bags of edamame, and then in the parking lot pouring lemon juice over my hands.

It took me from about 8 pm until 11:30 to rinse the brine, drain the relish, wash the little jars, spoon in about 5 teaspoons into each jar, and then pour boiling hot vinegar syrup in each little jar. By the time Saturday Night Live came on, I was sitting on the floor with a glass of wine and each hand dunked into a big bowl of yogurt. Quite a sight (and very difficult to drink the wine). I was only able to do about 115--I ran out of relish. So I'll do the remaining 50 or so as sweet pepper relish this weekend. I don't think I can handle another batch of the hot anytime soon. I guess that answers my question about switching careers.

Lemon Pepper Chicken on Shitake Farro

2009-09-19T23:52:00.006-04:00

I've been looking all over for farro for about a year. None of my usual spots carries it.

I read about it on someone else's blog, and I had to travel all the way to San Francisco to find it. Everytime I visit my friends in San Francisco, I visit the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative, and I always find stuff that I can't find back East. I usually pack an extra bag so that I can bring back groceries from this place. http://www.rainbow.coop The last time I was there, I brought back heirloom beans, three different kinds of salt, and mission burrito shells. This time I got the farro, blue cornmeal, and orecchiette (literally, "little ears," or "lambs ears pasta"). We cooked the orecchiette with homemade pesto, inspired by our lunch at Chez Panisse which we visited while in the Bay Area.

I finally made the faro last week, which is actually spelt. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farro I cooked it with shitake mushrooms from the green market, topped with lemon pepper chicken breast strips and lemon-butter sauce with thyme. It was a delicious meal.

Shitake Farro

3 T olive oil
2 cloves garlic. each cut in half lengthwise
1/2 cup diced red onions
1 cup sliced shitake mushrooms
1/4 cup marsala wine
1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
3 cups cooked farro

To make 3 cups cooked Farro:
1 cup farro
1 3/4 cups water
pinch salt

First, boil your water so that you're ready to use it in the faro, which you'll toast next. Place farro in a dry, cast iron pan and heat it until it starts to smell roasted, maybe 3-4 minutes. Shift the farro around with a wooden spoon or other cooking implement. Turn off the heat, and then carefully pour the boiling water over the farro. Add salt, simmer and cover and cook until the farro is tender and chewy. This may take 20-30 minutes and you may have to add a bit more water.

Heat oil in another cast iron pan, add the onion and garlic and saute until onions are starting to soften, about 3 minutes. Add sliced mushrooms and stems, season with salt, and saute over medium high heat until mushrooms have released their liquid and are well browned, about 5 minutes or longer.

Stir in the marsala/water mixture and cook until liquid is mostly evaporated, about 2 minutes. Add chopped thyme, and then add thecooked farro and heat 2-3 minutes, stirring gently. You may need to add some water to keep the farro moist. Heat through and you'll be ready to serve.

Lemon-Pepper Chicken
This is the simplest part of the whole dish. You can prepare the chicken en paillard, in strips, chunks, or as whole or half breasts--on the bone or off.

Chicken (enough for your guests, plus some for lunch!)
Lemons
Salt
Peppers
Olive oil

Heat the oil in a pan until it's smokin' hot. Add the chicken, season with salt and pepper, then squeeze the lemon(s) over the chicken when it's just starting to brown. You can throw the lemon (in slices, or chunks) right into the pan with the chicken. Brown the chicken until it's cooked, and until it's cooked to your liking.

Lemon-Thyme Butter Sauce

2 tbsp. ghee (or clarified butter)
(if you're making it from scratch, you'll need abt 1/2 stick butter)
2 tbsp finely-minced yellow onion
2 tbsp finely-minced garlic
6 tbsp fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp dry white wine
Kosher salt to taste
Freshly-grnd white pepper to taste
2 tbsp cool butter

To clarify butter: Heat 1/2 stick butter over low heat. When melted, remove from heat and set aside for several min to allow the lowfat milk solids to settle to the bottom. Skim the clear (clarified) butter from the top and throw away sediment. (This can be done ahead.)

To make sauce: Heat clarified butter, add in onion and garlic and saute/fry till transparent. Add in lemon juice and white wine and season to taste with salt and pepper. Simmer 2 to 3 min to reduce liquid. Remove from heat and swirl in cool butter till sauce is smooth and emulsified.

Food on the West Coast Road Trip

2009-09-10T02:41:00.003-04:00

A relative recently asked me why I hadn't posted in so long.....well, D and I got engaged! And I recently became a replacement for my boss who went out on maternity leave! So I've been busy...and not paying attention to the blog. But D and I are on a trip from Laguna Beach to San Francisco, and we've had an interesting culinary experience along the way:

Plane Food

Korean BBQ

Chinese Food--LA Chinatown

Hawai'ian Restaurant in Pasadena

Laguna Beach

In "n Out Burger

Wahoo's

Clam Chowder, salad, and Calamari

Frank and ....whatsername?

Half Moon Bay

Peets....

Alcatraz

Dinner with Friends--Artichoke, pasta, local, bio-dynamic wine

Rainbow Grocery

Chez Panisse

Home

Brunch in the Mission

Denver-inspired Sweet Potato Pancakes with Honey-Cinnamon Butter and Pecans

2009-07-18T14:53:00.006-04:00

I was in Denver, Colorado last week to watch D play a frisbee tournament, but ended up not watching too much frisbee. Another of the players had a 6-year old daughter who kindly accompanied me to some Denver-area restaurants. We joined another friend there for Saturday brunch at a restaurant called Snooze on the recommendation of a co-worker in New York who used to work there. She said, "You simply must try the sweet potato pancakes." So we did. The entire meal was delicious (we all shared the sweet potato pancakes, chocolate chip pancakes, and poached eggs with hash and English muffins--the best I've ever had in my life, and discussed in a separate blog entry here). But I was underwhelmed by the sweet potato pancakes, so I just had to try my hand at them.

This weekend, we went to our friend's country house in Pennsylvania and spent time with a mutual friend who was up from Florida. D thought the sweet potato pancakes would be too heavy for a summer morning, but I was determined to make them better than Snooze did. They turned out really well, and we couldn't have asked for better company or a setting--at a lovely table on a porch by a noisy river. I served them with sweet chicken and roast pepper sausage, honey-cinnamon butter, pecans, and maple syrup.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
3 tsp baking soda
6 tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp nutmeg
3 cups milk, 3 eggs, 5 tbsp butter
1 1/2 cup boiled or roasted mashed sweet potatoes
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Mix dry ingredients together (you can even do this days ahead of time, or before a trip to impress a host if you go visiting). Stir in the moist ingredients until well-blended. Ensure that the batter is drippy enough, but not too drippy. Heat a generous amount of oil in a pan and drop in approximately 1/4 cup or 3 tbsp of the batter until browned on either side. Serve with honey-cinnamon butter, a sprinkling of chopped pecans, and heated maple syrup.

Frisbee Kirbys

2009-06-28T23:40:00.002-04:00

D has been playing frisbee since he was like 12 years old. He's been to both national and international championships multiple times. This summer, he joined a Grand Masters team--men over 40--in a tournament in Denver, Colorado. I wanted to do something special to support the new team. A few times, I've brought out big containers of cookies or brownies that they guys munched up after their last game. I wanted to do something healthier this time.

For the past few years, from the sidelines I've seen the guys chugging pickle juice from big jars of Vlasic pickles that they kept in coolers. Apparently, pickle juice helps with muscle cramping in athletes. I don't know if it's the vinegar, or a complex interaction of the ingredients, but I knew what I had to do. (info about the benefits of pickle juice in muscles here). So I made a big batch of kirby dills a few weeks before the tournament, and then packed them very carefully in a big plastic container, quadruple wrapped them, and put them in my checked luggage. I had a lot to think about before this trip--a lot of work stuff going on, things to do....but the safety and security of the pickles on the plane was really my biggest concern. They arrived safely with a very minimal amount of leakage and I brought them out during their second day of play. I think they liked them, though I regret not getting a picture of them digging in to the jar from the sidelines.

D's master's team made it to nationals in Sarasota, Florida this year, and I wanted to send him down with another batch of pickles. I bought about 24 persian cucumbers and socked them in ice water for two days, but then I found myself too busy to finish the picklemaking in time enough for me to be confident in their taste to send them down for the team. I cut them up, packed them in a big glass jar, and they stayed behind when D boarded the plane for Florida.

I wish I would have sent them because they were delicious, and they would have been fine after sitting for a few days in his hotel room. Oh well. Now we have a big old jar of pickles to eat ourselves!

Naturally Occurring Salad Greens

2009-06-15T10:56:00.006-04:00

Last year, my friend took me to a swanky localvore joint just North of the meatpacking district in Manhattan called The Cook Shop (http://www.cookshopny.com) and we had a purslane, goat cheese, and blueberry salad. When the waiter put the plate in front of me, I recognized the greens: I had pulled up and disposed of every single one of them from my balcony garden in Brooklyn because I wrote them off as weeds. I vowed to bring them back and cultivate them this year, and it's working. Just the other day, I was able to harvest a handful and toss them in our salad. Delicious. Check out the nutrition benefits of purslane:

http://landscaping.about.com/cs/weedsdiseases/a/purslane.htm.

This experience definitely made me rethink an article that a friend wrote when we were in college called: Why is a Weed a Weed? I can't wait to have enough purslane on the porch to make my own blueberry and goat cheese salad. I'll be sure to post a photo.

Now that's camping!

2009-06-01T14:00:00.001-04:00

camping

2009-06-01T13:58:00.004-04:00

Blog-productivity has suffered this summer because D and I have been traveling so much. There's not much to say about this meal in terms of preparation, but it can't go unrecorded. We drove to Letchworth State Park a few weeks ago--about an 8-hour drive from Brooklyn. I was on a work trip and D came to meet me on the train. We drove from where I was staying about 3 hours to Letchworth, and then broke the trip up on the way back by stopping at my parents. Letchworth is known as the Grand Canyon of the East, and it was simply beautiful.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letchworth_State_Park

On the way to the campground, we stopped at a supermarket and picked up a grass-fed beef steak, fresh ears of corn, asparagus, and heirloom tomatoes. When we got to the campsite, we set up the tent, made some margaritas, and chopped up some garlic and spices to marinate the steak in (with olive oil, salt, and pepper). A friend brought back some spices in a little decorative container from Zanzibar, and we just used those--saffron, sesame, cumin, and I think some sort of red pepper spice. We put the marinating steak in a plastic bag and tucked it away in the cooler and headed off for a hike.

When we returned, D sparked up the fire, set up the grill, and we laid it all out. One flip on the grill, and voila. Shortly before sundown, we were enjoying this lovely meal under the trees.

Roofkebabs

2009-05-25T18:04:00.005-04:00

We spent a beautiful day in the park and decided to extend the day outdoors and barbeque on the roof for the first time this season. I had marinated some buffalo sirloin cubes earlier in the day so when we got home, we just soaked some bamboo skewers and arranged red pepper, tomato, pineapple chunks, and the sirloin cubes. We invited a friend over at the last minute, and she contributed some tomatillos and green peppers to the mix. We added some fresh local asparagus from the farmer's market and it was a feast.

Buffalo Roofkebabs

1 lb sirloin cubes (you can use beef, we used buffalo)
1 tbsp honey
1 tbsp tamari
1 tbsp olive oil
3 minced garlic cloves
3 tsp minced ginger
salt, pepper, drops of sriracha sauce
1 green pepper, cut into squarish pieces
1 cup cubed pineapple
1 red pepper, cut into large squarish pieces
3 tomatillos and one large red tomato, cut into chunks

Marinate the meat cubes in all of the ingredients mixed to the green pepper for the day (at least two hours). Arrange pieces of each ingredient on bamboo skewers and cook over grill until meat is seared and vegetable/fruit browned. Serve with some veggies or over rice, we served our kebabs with asparagus.

When in doubt...

2009-05-24T13:10:00.003-04:00

...or when creativity eludes, we opt for burgers. We always use local and/or grassfed beef or buffalo. Very little fat, and the taste is so much different (and better) than cheaper burgers. A pound of ground sirloin is around $6, and you get at least four meals of out it (you figure, 1/4 pound burgers, plus we add in a lot of stuff). The mixture is always a little different, but in general, this is how we make it. We had mini-burgers with broccoli, mushrooms, and green peppers on the side.

Simple Grass-Fed Burgers

1 lb ground sirloin
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, diced
splash of soy sauce or tamari
squeeze of barbeque sauce
splash of steak sauce
squeeze of sriracha sauce
chopped green pepper
chopped mushrooms
breadcrumbs (optional)
salt, pepper, paprika

Form into burger-sized patties, cook in olive oil in a cast iron skillet. Serve with veggies and splashes of hot sauce (chipotle and green tobasco sauce pictured here).

Frozen Salmon Dilemma

2009-05-20T13:53:00.011-04:00

We read an article recently about the dangers and disadvantages of farmed fish; afterward, we vowed to only eat wild-caught fish. Unfortunately, wild fish are expensive, and there's still the problem with overfishing.... What to do if you love fish? I'm not sure. I guess all things in moderation. I was at Trader Joe's a few weeks ago and saw Wild Alaskan Salmon on sale. I called D and asked if I should pick a few packages up, and I think he was distracted and work and said: "why not?" Well, frozen fish is simply just not something he does, having worked at a fish restaurant in the past, so he was not pleased with the purchase when he saw it: there was freezer burn, the color wasn't right, the texture wasn't right.... Back into the freezer went those fish, and I spent some time thinking about what to do with them. I ate one piece when he was out of town (it tasted fine to me), but then found this recipe from Eating Well (Winter 2004). I modified it a little bit, and the results were delicious.

Salmon Cakes with Creamy Yogurt-Dill Sauce

1 lb salmon
1 medium onion, finely chopped
3 minced garlic cloves
1.4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 cup fresh whole-wheat or unseasoned breadcrumbs
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
olive oil
Creamy Dill Sauce (recipe follows)
1 lemon, cut into wedges

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spread or spray a light coating of olive oil on a baking sheet. Set aside. Heat olive oil in a cast iron frying pan and saute the onions and garlic until the begin to brown. Remove them from the heat. Flake the salmon into small pieces with a fork. Mix in parsley, mustard, egg, and pepper. When the onions have cooled a bit, mix those in and add the breadcrumbs. Shape the mixture into 8 equally-sized patties. Heat some more olive oil in the pan over medium heat. Add 4 patties and cook until the undersides are golden, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a wide spatula, turn them over onto the prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining patties. Bake the salmon cakes until golden on top and heated through, 15 to 20 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare Creamy Dill Sauce. Serve salmon cakes with sauce and lemon wedges. We served ours on a bed of wilted baby spinach, pan-fried tomatoes, and a half an ear of corn.

Creamy Yogurt-Dill Sauce

1 cup yogurt
2 tbsp mayonnaise (optional)
3 diced garlic cloves
3 tbsp chopped fresh dill
season with salt and pepper

Mix together, chill, and serve over salmon cakes.

Hmmm, seitan? No thanks.

2009-05-19T11:47:00.005-04:00

D and I are flirting with the idea of a raw diet cleanse, but at the very least, cutting down on our meat consumption which has admittedly been really extravagant of late. I picked up some seitan (wheat gluten) at Fairway last week to use as a meat-substitute in my tagine. The flavor was okay, but that's because seitan really picks up the flavor of whatever you cook it in. I'm not crazy about the texture of seitan cubes, and D thinks that its too processed and doesn't fit into our ethos of cooking with whole, unadulterated foods. I suppose we could make it at home, but why? Seitan is a good protein source for those who have entirely given up meat (and apparently, a good substitute particularly for duck meat), and it's low in fat and calories, but there aren't really too many other benefits that make it worth doing this again. Check out some info on seitan here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_gluten_(food)

Here's the recipe I used, though. I made it up.

Ginger-Seitan Tagine

1 lb package of seitan
3 tbsp sliced ginger (I used matchsticks)
2 tbsp diced garlic
1 tbsp diced jalapeno
2 small onions, or one medium one (sauteed until browned)
1/2 cup garbanzo beans/chick peas
1/2 cup diced tomato
1/4 cup currants
1/4 cup olive oil
2 tbsp honey
1 cup vegetable broth
squeeze of lime juice
salt, pepper, paprika

Even though the seitan is pre-cooked, I decided to marinate it anyway in the olive oil, honey, lime juice, salt, pepper, paprika, ginger, garlic and jalapeno. It sat in that mix for a few hours, and then about an hour and a half before dinner, I combined the entire mix with the browned onion, chick peas, tomato, currants, and vegetable broth and placed in the base of the tagine. 400 degrees, an hour and a half later = yummy tagine. I served it over couscous cooked with parsley and scallion, seasoned with only salt and pepper.

Spicy Tofu with Mushrooms and Spinach

2009-05-10T14:52:00.007-04:00

We've been eating a lot less meat lately, and the tofu from the Korean place a block away is terrific: $1.50 for about 16 ounces of firm, white tofu. I don't know how they do it, but I like it. It's not overpackaged and it always seems fresh. This dish has become a staple because its so easy to prepare the night before and cook up quickly after a long day. I've been using spinach and mushrooms from the farmer's market.

Spicy Tofu with Mushrooms and Spinach

12 ounces firm tofu
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
8 ounces fresh mushrooms, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon ginger, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
6 ounces baby spinach, chopped

Slice the tofu into squares that are about 1/2 inch thick. Place the blocks of tofu in a clean kitchen towel and press down gently to try and soak up as much water as possible without breaking the tofu. Cut into 1/2 inch cubes. Whisk together the soy sauce, vinegar, honey, cornstarch, sesame oil, and crushed red pepper. Add the tofu, and gently combine. Cover and place in the fridge overnight. You can marinate for as little as an hour, or as long as 48 hours (I've never kept something marinating for longer than that, but you might try it). When you're ready to cook, take the tofu out and drain, reserving the leftover marinade in a separate blow. Set a wok or large iron skillet over high heat. Pour the 2 tablespoons of the oil in pan and heat until smoking hot. Add the tofu, stirring gently and occasionally until the tofu is browned, about 2 minutes. Remove the tofu and place in a separate bowl. Pour in the rest of the oil, and then add the mushrooms, ginger, and garlic. Stir and cook for about a minute. Add the spinach and the marinade. Cook until the spinach has wilted, and then add the tofu back in. I serve this over soba noodles, brown rice, or if I'm feeling decadent, jasmine rice. Sometimes we even eat it all by itself. This recipe makes enough for two dinners and two lunches for the next day.

Venison Virgin

2009-05-03T18:13:00.008-04:00

There's something about looking an animal in the eye before taking its life for food that really appeals to me. Michael Pollan wrote about a meal that he cooked for a group of friends that entailed not only foraging for wild mushrooms, but also stalking and killing a wild boar. What a terrific essay. Pollan explored the conflicting feelings he had as a hunter of excitement, disgust, guilt, and satisfaction. I'm pretty sure the essay was included in his larger work, The Omnivore's Dilemma, but it also appeared in the New York Times (http://www.michaelpollan.com/article.php?id=74). I don't know if I'll ever be a hunter, but D has a friend who is, and this friend hunts deer with a bow and arrow for meat that lasts him through the year. He generously gave us a pound of venison tender loin. Neither D nor I have ever had venison before, so we decided to prepare it as a tagine with north African spices. I rooted around on the internet and adapted this recipe from the a website in the UK: Seriously Good Venison: http://seriouslygoodvenison.co.uk/tagine_of_venison_with_apricot.php

Venison Tagine with Apricots

1 lb cubed venison
1 large onion, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp ground ginger
1 teasp turmeric
½ tsp ground coriander seed
½ tsp cinnamon
a few threads of saffron
½ tsp ground black pepper
1 bell pepper, de-seeded & cut into chunks
½ head of garlic cloves, peeled & halved
12 dried apricots--the French ones are better than the Turkish ones for this dish
Few slices of chopped salted lime
Handful of fresh cilantro, chopped
1 cup whole wheat couscous
1 tbsp oil
2 cups vegetable stock
1 1/4 cup water

Heat the oil an a pan and toss the onion, garlic and meat in it till a little brown. Add the spices and fry them too for a minute. Add the bell pepper. Place the meat, onion, and vegetable mixture into the base of a tagine and add apricots, cut in half. Cover with 1 cup of vegetable stock, and pop in the oven at 400 degrees. Let stew for about an hour. Add preserved lime slices 20 minutes before serving. To cook the couscous, stir olive oil into one cup of couscous in a medium bowl and season with salt and pepper. Boil 1 1/4 cup of water and pour over the couscous. Cover and let stand for 15 minutes, or until the couscous has absorbed all of the water. Stir in fresh cilantro and fluff with a fork. Spoon the tagine over the couscous and enjoy!

From leftover chicken to spicy Asian-style soup

2009-05-02T19:53:00.007-04:00

We had friends over for dinner one night and cooked a whole chicken that had been marinated in lemon and parsley. There was quite a bit of meat left on the bird when we were through (four hearty meals and two lunches later: $12, organic, free-range, definitely worth it), and I didn't want to waste the tastiness of the marinade, so I threw the chicken in a pot and boiled it into stock with leftover meat. I didn't want to make the same old chicken soup, so I scrounged around online for something different. I had almost all of the ingredients on hand, but had never made anything like it before. I love anything with peanut butter, but add these flavors and I'm in heaven. Our friend from South Africa brought back a red pepper paste: Hot & Sweet Mazavaroo. I want to use it, but I rarely find the right occasion. The mazavaroo worked quite well in this soup as a substitute for chopped red chili pepper.

Malaysian Lemon Peanut Chicken Soup

1 3 lb chicken (you can use leftover carcass)
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 tbsp red pepper chili paste (or if you have mazavaroo on hand...)
2 cans of coconut milk
2 chopped carrots
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
1 diced red pepper
1/2 cup sliced cabbage
3 tbsp ginger, in slivers
2 tbsp chopped garlic
2 cups of water
2 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp peanut butter
3 scallions; sliced
1 tbsp fresh coriander/cilantro; chopped
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Make stock out of a leftover chicken carcass: this is always going to make better soup than cubed or canned stock. Sautee ginger, garlic, red pepper, mushrooms, carrots, and cabbage in olive oil sprinkled with turmeric. Add the tender, spiced vegetables to the chicken stock, along with the lemon juice, peanut butter, and coconut milk. Add red pepper chili paste, mazavaroo, or any other type of spicy seasoning to your liking--remember, it will get hotter as it cooks and sets. When the soup has simmered for at least 40 minutes, you can serve hot with scallions and fresh cilantro. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Creamy Turkish Treat

2009-05-02T19:22:00.008-04:00

A friend in London brought a lovely semolina pudding-type dish to the bar mitzvah a few weeks ago. He's the only one who brought homemade food, so of course I was charmed. But it was also super delicious. He hasn't yet shared the recipe with me, but I found this one online, and made it soon after my return. His dish was Turkish, but semolina-type desserts are common in many areas of the world. Apparently, its a favorite among Hare Krishnas. That's cool.

Suji Halva

2 3/4 cups water
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon saffron strands, soaked in 1 tablespoon boiling hot milk
140 g unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups semolina
1/3 cup sliced almonds
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/3 cup currants

Combine the water, sugar and the soaked saffron in a saucepan. Place over moderate heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to very low and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Melt the butter in another saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally. Add the semolina, and slowly and rhythmically. Stir-fry the grains for about 20 minutes, or until they darken to a tan colour and become aromatic. Add the flaked almonds to the grains towards the end of the toasting process. Raise the heat under the syrup, add the cardamom and the raisins and bring it to a rolling boil. Raise the heat under the semolina for 1 minute, stirring continuously. Remove the saucepan of semolina from the heat, and slowly pour the hot syrup into the semolina, stirring steadily. The grains may at first splutter, but will quickly cease as the liquid is absorbed.

Return the halava to the stove and stir steadily over very low heat until the grains fully absorb the liquid, start to form into a pudding-like consistency, and pull away from the sides of the pan. Place a tight-fitting lid on the saucepan and cook over the lowest possible heat for 5 minutes. Removed the covered saucepan from the heat and allow the halava to steam for an additional 5 minutes. Serve hot.

I served ours with a bowl of labne, which complemented the custard well.

Sustainably harvested fish & chips

2009-05-01T17:21:00.009-04:00

Visiting the local chipper is one of my top three favorite things to do when I'm in London. My friends recently moved to a new area, so there was a new chipper to try: The Sea Cow. The old chipper was wonderful: a dingy little place where the fish was dripping with grease and they still wrapped everything in newspaper. I kind of missed it, and in fact, after visiting Sea Cow, one of my friends made a vow with me to seek out a new, dingy chipper for my next visit.

The Sea Cow fit in nicely with my local and sustainably produced food agenda; the ambiance and the tastiness of the food made the trip perfect. Unfortunately, I didn't snatch a "guide to the fish" sheet that was available with the menu, but the menu itself states: "All of our fish is sourced and delivered daily from the coast or Billingsgate Fish Market. We try and take advantage of the seasonality so our menu may change from time to time."

M and I chose the locally-harvested cod and chips--the most traditional of the fish and chips selections. P's mum ordered the Plaice and chips, and P ordered the grilled organic salmon. Everything was delicious. They had a good wine selection (with suggestions about how to pair the wine with the fish) as well. This place is a winner. I would definitely return.

A Welcoming Mezze

2009-05-01T17:17:00.009-04:00

Advice for people hosting overseas houseguests: the best way to welcome a travel-weary visitor is with a mezze plate like this one. I recently took an overnight flight to London, and when I arrived late-morning, my friend put this dish in front of me. Delicious whole-grain pita, grape leaves, grain salad, roasted peppers, and the best homemade babaganoush I've ever tasted. Mmmmm. Mezze is such an awesome concept: so many different cultures enjoy some version of the mezze, and there are so many different kinds of dishes that you can include: olives, yoghurt, roasted cauliflower.... (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meze) Mezze is served as an appetizer to share at some restaurants.

The baba I had could be made with the following recipe:

Garlic-Dill Babaganoush

1 eggplant
1 red bell pepper
2 cloves garlic
handful of dill
3 tbsp non-fat plain yoghurt
2 tbsp tahini (optional--makes it thicker)
olive oil
lemon juice
salt and pepper

Roast the eggplant and garlic until mushy. Dice red bell pepper. Mix together with the fresh chopped dill, 1 tbsp (or so) of olive oil, yoghurt, a few squeezes of lemon juice, and season with salt and pepper. Simple. Elegant. Healthy.

Easter Bunny

2009-04-14T11:56:00.004-04:00

Nothing says Easter better than a bunny. When our friends asked us to prepare dessert for the dinner party we had this weekend, I knew this is what I wanted to make. I used the cupcake recipe from my birthday (see earlier post), used toasted coconut for the fur and jelly belly jelly beans for the eyes, and placed dyed green coconut underneath so it looked like the bunny was sitting on grass. I found instructions for how to make a bunny-shaped cake from good old Betty Crocker:

http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/recipe.aspx?recipeid=36248

This treat surprised and delighted everyone. We had a more sophisticated dessert that D. made (a lovely, simple apple tart), but after a few glasses of wine post-dinner, people started to dig into the bunny.

Persephone's Ruin

2009-04-12T13:13:00.008-04:00

Persephone is a mythological figure from ancient Greece who was seduced by her uncle, Hades, god of the underworld. Hades lured Persephone to him with a pomegranate. Zeus punished Persephone by banishing her to the underworld for six months a year--one month for each of the six seeds she ate. The remainder of the year she could spend with her mother, Demeter, the greek Mother Earth. For six months of every year, Demeter mourns the loss of her daughter; she celebrates during the other six. This is how the ancient Greeks explain the changing of the seasons, and this is how The Love Bite, my favorite recipe treasure trove, describes the origin of the dish Persephone's Ruin. (See http://thelovebite.com/recipes/the_main_event/persephones_ruin)

I've been dying to try this recipe, so when friends invited us up to their country place in Pennsylvania for Easter, I knew that this is what I wanted to make. I had to adapt the recipe a bit because I couldn't get the right kind of lamb, nor could I get pomegranates. While this recipe reads and tastes like a Spring recipe, it clearly isn't because pomegranates are not in season in April in this area.

For all of the many dishes I've served to all of my friends, I received the most--and the best--compliments for this one. One of our friends who is a chef himself said that this was the best dish he'd ever tasted, and that it reminded him of something his mother once said about another dish: "Every bite says I love you." Well worth the effort for that kind of praise.

Persephone's Ruin
Spring in New York version

1 package of phyllo dough
1 stick of butter
1 lb ground lamb
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
smidgen of cumin powder
8 oz goat cheese
1 egg yolk
salt and pepper
6 golden beets
pomegranite molasses
olive oil

The day before, place the beets in aluminum foil, drizzle them with olive oil, and season with a little bit of salt and pepper. Bake them at 350 until tender (about 1 hour). Dice the onion and garlic, and saute in olive oil until translucent. Add the ground lamb, season with a bit of salt and pepper and some ground cumin. Cook until just beginning to brown. Place in a bowl with 3 tbsp pomegranate molasses, cover, and put in the fridge.

When the beets are done roasting (you can tell when they are tender enough to poke through with a fork), take them out, let them cool down a bit until you can handle them, and then, running them under cold water, peel the skins off with your hands. Cut the beets into rounds and refrigerate.

The next day, brush a sheet of phyllo pastry with melted butter, place another sheet on top, and repeat until you have 8 sheets stacked. Place the phyllo stack in a buttered loaf pan and press the pastry to sides of pan. Brush the inside with butter. Pre-heat the oven to 400. Mix 8 ounces of goat cheese with 1 egg yolk and beat lightly. Reserve 1/4 of the goat cheese, and spread the rest onto the phyllo pastry. Line the goat cheese with the golden beet rounds, then place the ground lamb on top. Spoon the reserved goat cheese in small clumps on top of the lamb and fold the phyllo dough over the entire mixture. Brush with butter and pop it in the oven. It should cook for about an hour, maybe more, until the phyllo dough has turned a golden brown color.

I served this as a good-sized appetizer to 10 people; it could probably be a nice dinner for 4-6 people, depending on your sides and how much you eat. I also served it with a Cucumber Mint Yogurt Sauce on the side, as the original recipe called for chopped mint on top of an open phyllo dish.

Cucumber Mint Yogurt Sauce

1 cup lowfat plain yogurt (labne or Greek yogurt would be the best)
2 chopped scallions
2 finely minced garlic cloves
1 peeled and finely grated cucumber
salt & pepper

Mix all of the ingredients together and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Not-so-Seder

2009-04-09T10:46:00.005-04:00

My favorite local meat vendor at the green market in Prospect Park, the Flying Pig farm (http://www.flyingpigsfarm.com/) handed out a recipe for Cumin-Citrus Pork Cutlets a few weeks ago. I've made the dish twice and it was delicious, even better for leftovers the second day. The citrus part certainly isn't localvore, unfortunately, but I think exceptions always need to be made for lemon.

Yesterday when I defrosted the cutlets, I didn't realize until later that day that it was the beginning of Passover. I have to admit, it felt a bit like a heresy to have pork on the first evening of Passover, despite the fact that I'm not Jewish. Next year, I promise something more seder-like.

Here's the recipe, which the farm found in an August 2001 issue of Bon Appetit. I adapted it only slightly.

Cumin Dusted Pork Cutlets with Citrus Pan Sauce

4 tbsp flour
4 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne or hot paprika
1 tsp salt

1 lb pork cutlets or pork strips
olive oil
4 minced garlic cloves
1/2 cup orange juice
6 tbsp fresh lemon juice (2-3 lemons)

Orange wedges

Combine on a plate: 4 tablespoons flour, 4 teaspoons ground cumin, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper. Dredge each piece of 1 pound of pork cutlets in the flour mixture. Heat olive oil in large cast iron pan over high heat. Add pork and sauté for about 3 minutes per side, until just barely cooked through. Don’t overcook! Transfer pork to serving plate, cover with foil to keep warm. Add a bit more olive oil to the pan. Add 3 or 4 minced garlic cloves and sauté until golden brown. Add ½ cup good quality orange juice, 6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from 2 or 3 lemons), some citrus flesh (chopped up oranges or lemons from the lemon you squeezed), and a pinch of salt. Boil until slightly thickened. Pour sauce over pork and serve.

I've served this dish with any combination of daal, black beans, quinoa, rice, and quinoa, but always garnished with the orange wedges. Dumping all of the leftovers on some greens makes an amazing lunch the next day.

Healthy Easter Basket Treat

2009-04-08T23:12:00.007-04:00

Any moment now, I expect a package from my mother--her famous peanut butter easter eggs. If they don't come today, I'm going to be really disappointed. Easter baskets have always been a critical part of my life--I remember one year I didn't get one from my mother I was devastated. My argument was that each year until she died, my grandmother (Nana) used to put together an Easter basket for my Aunt Dorry . . . long after Aunt Dorry had her own child and started making Easter baskets for him. I'm embarassed to say that I cried because I didn't get a stuffed bunny. How could my mother think that just because I was a busy lawyer in New York that I wouldn't want a stuffed bunny for Easter? The next Easter, she took me to a small shop in Pennsylvania and had me pick out my own bunny. Last year, I got two bunnies: one that I keep in my office (see below), and another that Sneak appropriated as her companion.

In anticipation of all sorts of Easter sweets this year, I googled "healthy easter basket" and got the idea of making popcorn balls to fill out the rest of the communal basket that I'll put out for friends on Sunday. This recipe turned out really well. I'm already imagining peanut butter ones . . .

Honey-Raisin Popcorn Balls

12 cups air-popped popcorn
3/4 cup butter, cut into chunks
1 cup honey
1 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 325°. Put popcorn in a large bowl. Line a large baking sheet with waxed paper. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, use a heatproof spatula or wooden spoon to stir together the butter, honey, raisins, and salt until the butter is melted. Increase heat and boil honey mixture gently 1 minute, stirring constantly. Stir in the vanilla. Carefully pour the honey mixture over the popcorn and stir gently to coat. Bake popcorn, stirring every 5 minutes, until deep golden all over, about 25 minutes. Let the popcorn stand for 5 minutes, or just until cool enough to handle. Working quickly with lightly oiled or buttered hands, press small handfuls of the mixture into small balls, occasionally loosening popcorn from bottom of pan with a spatula. If mixture cools too much to be malleable or if the popcorn starts to crack instead of press into ball shapes, return it to the oven for about 45 seconds to soften. Put the popcorn balls on prepared baking sheet and let cool completely. Place in an airtight container at room temperature, or wrap individually, and store for up to 2 weeks.

Spring Onions and Snap Peas

2009-04-06T20:37:00.001-04:00

The green market in Prospect Park this Saturday was the prettiest yet this season. I didn't have any ideas about what I wanted to get when I went, but I was on the look-out for some snap peas. The Council on the Environment for New York City (CENYC) provides a calendar of what types of veggies are in season in the city's over 45 greenmarkets (http://www.cenyc.org), and April is the month for snap peas. None to be found, sadly, so I had to get them on a later trip to Fairway.

I did pick up some fresh green onions and spinach, and then found some inspiration from a recipe from the January 2004 edition of Bon Appétit. We're trying to eat a few meals every week without any meat, so this is the first one for this week.

Stir-Fried Tofu with Snap Peas, Green Onions, and Spinach

3 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp sesame oil
1/4 tsp dried crushed red pepper
1 12-ounce package extra-firm tofu, drained, cut into 3/4-inch cubes, patted dry with paper towels
1/4 cup water
1 teaspoon cornstarch

3 tbsp olive oil, divided
1 cup fresh spinach
1 cup fresh snap peas
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon minced peeled fresh ginger
1/4 cup spring onion tops
2 scallions

Whisk the first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl to blend. Add the tofu cubes and stir to coat; marinate for one hour, or overnight if you can. Drain, reserving the marinade in a small bowl. Whisk 1/4 cup water and cornstarch into the marinade and set aside. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in large nonstick skillet over high heat until the pan is smoking. Add the tofu and sauté until golden, about 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the tofu to a plate. Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil to the skillet and heat again. Add the ginger and garlic and stir continuously until browned. Add the snap peas and stir-fry for 2 minutes or until tender. Add the spinach and stir into the peas until it is wilted. Add the green onions, and return the tofu to the skillet. Drizzle the reserved marinade mixture over the whole thing and stir-fry until the sauce thickens slightly. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with scallions and serve over quinoa or brown rice.

Postscript: Wow. I brought this dish to lunch today, and it was even better a day later. I am just stunned at how tasty the sauce was. The dish was not expensive either: $1.89 for the tofu, about $3 for the snap peas, about $3 for the spinach, and I guess about $4 for the rest of the ingredients, portions of which I have in my kitchen already. So maybe all told, a generous estimate of about $12 for the entire meal, and it made four servings. This recipe is definitely a keeper.

Stumbling Upon a Tagine

2009-04-05T20:13:00.001-04:00

I spent some time in Morocco in 1995 and had a tagine for the first time. A tagine can either be the dish that you eat, or the pot that you cook it in: a shallow dish with a dome cover, most often made of clay. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tajine) I had tagine with chicken and chick peas made in a super-huge tagine and baked in a clay oven that fed about 50 people in an extended family during a wake in Meknes, and I also had a small, dainty tagine of pigeon in an upscale French-style restaurant in Marrakech--both equally delicious.

I didn't buy a tagine when I was in Morocco because it would have been too difficult to carry home--I already had a set of ceramic tams with me that I carried wrapped in a blanket and fretted over constantly. And while I've thought about asking for one every Christmas since, I know that I just don't have the space in my apartment in Brooklyn. When I visited Kalustyan's a few weeks ago, I stood gape-mouthed at the selection of tagines on display. Surely I could squeeze one of the small ones into my kitchen? I didn't buy one then, promising myself that once we leave the city, I'll get myself a big one.

On a recent trip to Buffalo of all places, though, I stumbled upon a small silicone tagine at a Marshall's discount store. It was $10 and came with a little cookbook. I was traveling home by train, and already had quite a few bags, but I bought it anyway, figuring it could squeeze it into one of the bags because it was bendable and very light. And so I did.

I found this recipe for a lamb tagine on a blog called Five Spice Duck (http://fivespiceduck.blogspot.com/2008/02/moroccan-lamb-tagine-recipe.html) and headed to the green market at Grand Army Plaza in Prospect Park on Saturday morning. I bought a pound of fresh lamb, some carrots, onions, and garlic. Later that day, I stopped at Fairway and picked up some Israeli couscous (ptitim), saffron, dates, and Turkish apricots. I adapted the recipes that I found online and made this dish for our Sunday evening meal.

Honey-Paprika Lamb Tagine

1 pounds lamb pieces, cut for stew
3 cloves garlic, coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 cup olive oil
3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
Pinch of saffron threads
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons sun-dried tomato paste
Salt and pepper
1 carrot, cut into chunks
1 yellow onion, peeled and cut into chunks
1 cup vegetable stock
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup cooked chickpeas
1/4 cup diced apricot

Mix together the garlic, honey, olive oil, cilantro, saffron, paprika, cumin and tomato paste in a large bowl. Add the lamb and toss to coat. Cover and marinate in the refrigerator overnight, or at least for a few hours.

When you're ready to cook, remove the lamb from the fridge and preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Brown the meat in it's marinade in a smoking hot cast iron pan. Pour the stock into the base of the tagine and add the browned meat with it's marinade, the carrots, onions, and cinnamon and stir together. Place the tagine lid on and bake for 1 1/2 hours. Stir the chickpeas and apricots into the tagine and cook for 30 minutes. Remove the lid or foil and cook an additional 30 minutes to brown the vegetables.

Israeli Couscous with Dates

1/2 pound dry Israeli-style couscous 
1 large onion chopped 
1 tablespoon olive oil 
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
 1/2 cup dried chopped dates
 1/2 cup chopped almonds

In a sauce pot, saute the onion in the oil until tender and just beginning to brown. Toast the couscous by stirring in the couscous and cooking and stirring until pale golden. Cover with the broth and bring to a boil and cook and simmer about 10 minutes or until couscous has absorbed the liquid. Stir in the dates and nuts. Remove from heat and led stand covered 10 minutes. Fluff with fork. Season with salt and pepper.

Serve the stew on top of, or to the side of, the couscous and garnish with chopped cilantro.

Postscript: More stews to come, for sure. This tagine is lovely; it cleans up like magic and I really think it makes a difference in how the ingredients steam in it. I think I'll try chicken thighs or a vegetable stew next time.

Cupcake Birthday

2009-04-02T08:43:00.015-04:00

For my birthday this year, my mother sent me a cupcake decorating set: 50 metal icing tips in a case, a guidebook on how to make flowers and other decorations, frosting bags, and all sorts of other accoutrements in a handy plastic case. I took the day off on my birthday and practiced, producing about 5 dozen cupcakes. I brought them around with me all week, including to the bowling alley on Saturday night where my friends joined me for a few hours of bowling. I used the cupcake display rack that my mother got me for Christmas.

Lemon cupcakes are always surprising, so I made two dozen and decorated them with lemon frosting. I ran out of lemon extract, so they would have been more tart had I used it. As they were, they were just subtly lemon-ish. I wanted to make gerber daisies and pansies, but mostly, these turned out like huge, cartoonish flowers. My mother had warned me against using too much of the icing tint as the colors get darker the longer the icing sits. No one complained, though, and in fact, someone asked if I'd make cupcakes for her daughter's birthday in a few months.

When I was young, my mother used to decorate cakes for friends and friends of friends. She was in high demand, and I remember one year I learned how to do type-setting in a class in school and I made her a stack of business cards. I wish I had the entrepreneurial spirit that it takes to start up a home business with things like this. Maybe I just need a business partner.

Lovely Lemon Cupcakes

1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
6 tbsp butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp ground lemon zest
3 tsp lemon juice
1/2 cup yogurt

Preheat oven to 350 F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners and set aside. Whisk the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a small bowl and set aside. In medium bowl, beat the butter till light and fluffy. With the mixer on high speed, gradually beat in sugar, and continue beating till mixture is very light and fluffy. Lower speed to medium, beat in eggs, one at a time, beating just until blended, then beat in lemon juice and zest. Lower speed to low, and alternately beat in flour mixture and yogurt, beating just till blended. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Lemon Buttercream Frosting

2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups of confectioner's sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp lemon juice

Beat the butter until it's creamy, and gradually add one cup of confectioner's sugar, along with the vanilla and lemon juice. Set aside about 1/3 of the icing for decorative flowers. With the remaining 2/3, add a tint if you like and frost the tops of the cupcakes, once they've cooled. Go back to your 1/3 reserved icing and add more confectioner's sugar until you have a nice, thick icing. Decide how many colors you want (leaves, flowers, etc.) and divide that frosting into small bowls for tinting. Remember not to use too much or the colors come out ridiculous (see below).

I brought these cupcakes to work to share with colleagues, for drinks with a group of old friends, and then to the bowling alley. Surprising that there were still some left.

Carrot Cupcakes

2009-04-01T12:29:00.002-04:00

Cupcakes are so much fun to make. They're easy, and it almost doesn't matter how sophisticated the decorations are, they always seem to make people smile. The only drawback is that they are difficult to transport, but it's totally worth it when you set them out in front of people and see their eyes light up. A tiny, individual cake for everybody! I wanted to make "healthy" cupcakes for my birthday this year; carrot cupcakes at least give people a portion of their daily vegetable intake. I adapted this recipe and used a simple cream cheese frosting. I also tried out my new cake decorating implements to make the little carrots. I got carried away a bit at the end, some of the cupcakes have three carrots on them! I also made about two dozen mini cupcakes, which were perfect to bring to a bar for happy hour on Friday.

Moist Carrot Cupcakes

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 large eggs
1 cup white sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 cups finely grated raw carrots

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Place paper liners into muffin cups.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and ground cinnamon.

In another large bowl whisk the eggs, sugar, and oil until slightly thickened. Fold in the flour mixture until incorporated. With a large rubber spatula fold in the grated carrots. Evenly divide the batter between the muffin cups and bake about 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and let the cupcakes cool completely on a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting

16 ounces cream cheese (2 bars), room temperature
1 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Whip together all three ingredients until the texture is smooth. Set aside about 1/3of the frosting to color for the decorations, separate that third into two small bowls. Using food coloring or an icing gel, tint the frosting in one bowl orange, the other green.

When your cupcakes are cooled, spread the frosting onto the tops and then decorate. I used the Wilton website to learn how to make my carrots:

http://www.wilton.com/technique/Carrots

I think they came out kinda nice.

Home of the Original Buffalo Wing

2009-03-30T12:58:00.007-04:00

Finally, a pilgrimage to the temple of chicken wings, in Buffalo: Frank & Teressa's Original Anchor Bar--they have a cool website with recipes and everything: http://www.buffalowings.com. Kind of unbelievable that I was never able to make it there in all of my years living in Buffalo, and visits back over the years. I had a few hours in the city on a work trip last week, and took the time to have lunch at the Anchor Bar. Table manners be damned, I ordered 10 juicy, saucy BBQ wings and ate as many as I could before popping the leftovers in a container to take away. Delicious! Dripping with sticky, sweet and hot sauce, I licked every finger. I didn't get to eat my leftover wings, though; my co-worker didn't have the time to eat lunch and I gave them to him because he'd never had a real Buffalo chicken wing in his life.

I stopped at the gift shop before leaving and picked up some wing sauce. The gift shop had so many funny wing-themed things, from stuffed buffaloes with wings to big drum-wing-shaped pillows; the weirdest thing was a hard silicone flat chicken wing key chain. It looked like a dessicated hot wing that had been left in the kitchen uncovered for a few days. Imagine carrying that thing around in your pocket every day!

Even though D makes the best wing sauce I've ever had, I'm sure I'll be happy to make wings sometime soon with the familiar taste of Buffalo. As a matter of fact, I wonder what we're having for dinner tonite?

Black Bean Dessert?

2009-03-24T11:47:00.000-04:00

The New York Times magazine's recipe page had an article about a father's learning how to cook for his son, who seemed to be allergic to everything. The article was about perfect chocolate cupcakes for just about everyone: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/magazine/08food-t-000.html (those allergic to flour couldn't enjoy them, for example). I'm unfortunately impatient with allergies, but reading this article reminded me of an old recipe that a friend used to make for black bean brownies. I decided to try them again to serve to D's sister and her husband this weekend. This recipe appeals to me because it uses agave nectar instead of sugar. We like to use agave for all sorts of things: on pancakes with cinnamon and butter as an alternative to syrup, in oatmeal, on granola and yogurt. Agave is a syrup produced in Mexico from an agave cactus: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agave_syrup If you're allergic to flour, or if you just don't want to cook with granulated sugar, these brownies are for you. You have to have people eat them first, then tell them the brownies are made with black beans.

Black Bean Brownies

4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup unsalted butter
2 cups black beans, cooked
1 cup walnuts, chopped
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
¼ cup instant coffee
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 large eggs
1½ cups light agave nectar

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line an 11- by 18-inch baking pan (for thin brownies) or an 8 ½ x 11-inch pan (for thicker brownies) with parchment paper and coat with oil.

Melt the chocolate and butter in a pan. Place the beans, 1/2 cup of the walnuts, the vanilla extract, and a couple of spoonfuls of the melted chocolate mixture into the bowl of a food processor. Blend about 2 minutes, or until smooth. The batter should be thick and the beans smooth. Set aside.

In a large bowl, mix together the remaining 1/2 cup walnuts, remaining melted chocolate mixture, coffee substitute, and salt. Mix well and set aside.

In a separate bowl, with an electric mixer beat the eggs until light and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the agave nectar and beat well. Set aside.

Add the bean/chocolate mixture to the coffee/chocolate mixture. Stir until blended well.

Add the egg mixture, reserving about 1/2 cup. Mix well. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Using an electric mixer, beat the remaining 1/2 cup egg mixture until light and fluffy. Drizzle over the brownie batter. Use a wooden toothpick to pull the egg mixture through the batter, creating a marbled effect. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the brownies are set. Let cool in the pan completely before cutting into squares. It's better if you refrigerate for about an hour before cutting.

I made this batch with the bigger, shallow pan; the next time I make them, I will make thicker brownies. And serve them with vanilla ice cream. Yum.

Happy Nowruz!

2009-03-22T15:32:00.005-04:00

Nowruz is a new year holiday celebrated each Spring in many Asian countries including Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan and India. I think all New Years' celebrations should be in the Spring because that's when everything seems most new, right? Today was the perfect day to celebrate a new beginning, after a ride in the park, and some time just laying in the grass and looking up at the trees.

Fesenjan is a traditional persian dish made for celebrations, so in order to celebrate Nowruz this year, I made the dish last night. Some people might not like the sweet-tartness of the dish, I loved it. Next time, I would definitely prepare some vegetable on the side.

Persian Fesenjan

1/4 cup lime juice
1/4 cup butter or oil
2 lbs chicken breast, cut into pieces
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 cups walnuts, finely ground in a food processor
2 cups chicken stock
1/3 cup pomegranate molasses
1/3 cup pomegranate juice
1/4 cup honey
sea salt, to taste
fresh ground pepper, to taste

Sprinkle cut chicken with lime juice, salt and pepper and allow to marinate for a few hours. Over medium heat in a large, heavy-bottomed pot heat an 1/8 cup (2 Tablespoons) of olive oil until the pan is smoking. Add the chicken pieces a few at a time and brown on all sides. Remove to a plate. Add onions and sauté in remaining oil until the onions are translucent. Stir in ground walnuts and saute for 1/2 a minute. Add stock and browned chicken pieces. Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover and simmer 20-30 minutes. Stir in the pomegranate molasses and juice, honey, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning. The sauce should have a balanced sweet-sour flavor. Simmer another 15-20 minutes until the chicken is tender and the sauce is somewhat thickened. Serve with plain white rice.

Happy St. Pat's!

2009-03-17T22:06:00.007-04:00

Next year, I vow to you, loyal reader, that I will make my own corned beef. I don't know what I was thinking. Fairway had piles of corned beef all sealed up in shrinkwrap, $6.29/lb. We opted for Fairway-made, old-fashioned, barrel brined corned beef, $6.99/lb. But it only takes 7 days to make your own. I just have to mark it on the calendar so I don't forget.

No matter, St. Patrick's day dinner was great. D brought home some soda bread (I wanted to forego the bread this year, but hey, it's yummy), and last night, I slow cooked the corned beef in my slow cooker (Guiness, water, beef, pickling spices, onion, carrot, and celery --> crock pot for 7 hours --> drain --> stick in fridge). When I got home from work this evening, I pre-heated the oven to 350, took the corned beef out of the fridge, and coated it with Dijon mustard. Then I mixed 1/2 cup of panko and 5 tbsp horseradish together and pressed the mixture over the mustard-covered beef. I placed the beef in a roasting pan and surrounded it with fingerling potatoes tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, rosemary, and caraway seeds. After popping that in the oven, I sliced up the cabbage and stuck it in a soup pot with water (enough to cover it), caraway seeds, half a veggie bouillon cube, and salt and pepper and brought it to a boil. D snuck in a quartered onion. When the cabbage was tender, I turned off the heat and turned up the oven to 450 for about 15 minutes. When the panko topping was browned, I took it out of the oven. I let the beef rest for a bit and drained the cabbage. Sliced beef, boiled cabbage and onion, and roasted potatoes--a wholesome Irish meal.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh

2009-03-16T23:29:00.006-04:00

The blessings of St. Patrick be upon ye! Sprinkles make everyone smile. I brought these cookies in to my office for St. Patrick's Day and someone told me that they made her day. They definitely cheered me up when I made them last night. It's good to just do something childlike and generous. I think it makes a tiny slit in the dark cloud that seems to be hanging over everything these days.

These cookies are super simple to make; I figured they would be given that they come from the Real Simple website. I made a few modifications, but essentially, the recipe is theirs. It makes about 4 dozen thin sugar cookies, about 2 dozen thick ones.

Real Simple Sugar Shamrocks

2 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus about a cup more for the work surface
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Heat oven to 350° F. Beat the butter and sugar in a bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed until smooth. Add the egg and beat until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and add it slowly to the butter mixture, mixing until just incorporated (the dough will be stiff). Refrigerate, wrapped, for 30 minutes.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into shapes and place on parchment-lined baking sheets. Sprinkle with green sugar crystals or tiny shamrocks. I also experimented and combined some green food coloring with about 1/4 of the dough for green marbled cookies. The scraps can be combined and rolled out again. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are a light golden brown. Cool slightly on the baking sheets before transferring to cooling racks. Bring them into your office to share!

Saturday Night Beans

2009-03-14T22:45:00.006-04:00

We went to an early party this evening....it was at a social hall in Staten Island, D's sister-in-law's 50th. We had a nice time, the party was early and, feeling like a bunch of old folks, we went out to Fairway to get the week's shopping done. Somehow it feels nicer to have it all done by Sunday morning. Tomorrow we're going to make huevos rancheros alternativos for breakfast....eggs, cumin pepper black beans, salsa verde, hot sauce and, well, bagels.

This is how I made the

Cumin-Pepper Black Beans.

1 cup black beans
water
olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
1 tsp cumin
1 whole red jalapeno
1 tsp diced rosemary
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Soak the beans for a few hours. Rinse and boil in a deep pot with just over double the amount of water. Add a whole red jalapeno pepper, 1 tsp diced rosemary, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and salt & pepper to taste. Boil until the beans are tender.

And here's how to use them:

Huevos rancheros alternativos: A toasted whole-wheat tortilla, a dollop of black beans, sauteed cherry tomatoes, salsa verde, sour cream, spicy turkey sausage, eggs, and hot sauce. Makes you think, for a split second, like you're sitting at an outdoor cafe with your friends in San Francisco.

Garden Greens

2009-03-11T12:05:00.002-04:00

These greens are not from my garden, although I'm hoping this spring I'll be able to start to grow mizzuna, mache, and other light greens on my porch. These are from the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market in Prospect Park. I tossed them with cherry tomatoes and toasted walnuts. Nothing more. Delicious.

Simple Turkey & Spinach Flatbread

2009-03-10T22:08:00.010-04:00

This is my favorite quick meal on a weeknight. Nothing about it disappoints. The simplicity of it is what makes it so satisfying I think. Leftovers are perfect for lunch the next day. I found this recipe in a magazine several years ago, and it's the one staple I always return to. The spinach makes the dish taste so clean and fresh. You'll think you're putting in too much spinach, but remember how much it cooks down. If you use organic turkey meat, the dish will taste that much better.

Paprika Ground Turkey Flatbread with Spinach and Cheese

1 lb ground turkey
4 cups spinach
2 medium onions
salt, pepper, paprika
olive oil
1/2 cup jalapeno pepper jack cheese
3 pita rounds/flatbread

Coarsely chop the onions and sautee in olive oil until just starting to brown. Add the turkey meat and seasonings and cook through. Once the turkey meat is starting to brown, add the spinach. Stir in well until the spinach is wilted. Shred the cheese and toast the flatbread. Serve the turkey-spinach mixture on the flatbread and top with cheese. Enjoy! Serves two for dinner, with enough left over for lunch the next day (1/2 a pita each).

Local food makes you feel better

2009-03-09T22:07:00.000-04:00

Last week we had a wicked beautifully warm day that made me crave some summery food. I found a recipe for Lemon-Arugula Chicken Paillard on myrecipes.com (from the April 2006 issue of Cooking Light) that looked perfect, even though I knew the warm weather was just passing through as a tease. On our weekly trip to Fairway, I threw a plastic box of arugula in the cart. D took it out, examined the price ($4.99) and the source (Mexico) and made me put it back. He said we could make the dish with swiss chard, which was local. Luckily, on Monday night I met a friend for dinner at the Galaxy Diner (a fun place, but the food was way too greasy) right at Union Square, which has a nice green market three days a week. I picked up a quarter pound of local, organic arugula. I'm so glad I did; the recipe would not have been the same with steamed chard. I paired this recipe with a red pepper aioli. Delicious.

Lemon-Arugula Chicken Paillard

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 garlic clove, crushed
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, divided
4 cups fresh (local!) arugula
2 skinless,boneless chicken breast halves
Olive oil
1 cup grape or cherry tomatoes, halved (about 6 ounces)
1/3 cup dry white wine

Combine the lemon zest, juice, oil, and garlic in a large bowl. Sprinkle with 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Add arugula; toss well. Place each chicken breast half between 2 sheets of heavy-duty plastic wrap; pound each piece to 1/4-inch thickness using a meat mallet or small heavy skillet. Sprinkle both sides of chicken with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and remaining 1/4 teaspoon pepper. Heat a grill pan or a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Coat pan with olive oil. Add chicken, and cook for 4 minutes on each side or until done. Remove chicken from pan, and keep warm. Add halved tomatoes and dry white wine to pan. Cook for 2 minutes or until the liquid almost evaporates. Serve the two pieces of chicken on the arugula topped with the tomatoes and drizzled with ailoi (below).

Red Pepper Aioli

1 red pepper
2 egg yolks
4 cloves garlic, smashed
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
A few drops of Sriracha sauce
1 1/2 cups oil
salt and pepper

Place the red pepper on an open flame or grill (you can do this on a gas stove). Turn the pepper with some tongs to blacken on all sides. When the pepper is fully charred, remove to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Let the pepper cool until you can handle it comfortably. Using your fingers, remove the blackened skin to reveal the red color underneath. Rinse the pepper under some tepid tap water to remove the remaining charred skin. Coarsely chop the pepper and place it in a blender or food processor. Add the rest of the ingredients (except for the oil) and puree until everything is fully mixed. While the machine is running, slowly drizzle in the oil until incorporated. Check the aioli for texture and flavor. If it's too thick, add a few drops of water to thin it down, or on the flip side if it's too thin add more oil. The desired outcome is a fairly thin aioli. Check the flavor and add more salt or chili paste to taste. Drizzle over the paillard dish and serve!

The Simplest Crisp

2009-03-08T22:41:00.007-04:00

This simple crisp is light and delicious. And so easy to make. I made an apple one last week, and this week, I used an Asian pear that I got at the farmer's market at Grand Army Plaza last weekend. Really perfect.

Fruit Oat Crisp

Serve this crisp with a dollop of plain yogurt, or for a special treat, ice cream or whipped topping.

5 granny smith apples or Asian pears, peeled, cored, and sliced
Pinch of cinnamon
Pinch of ground ginger
2 tbsp agave
pinch of salt
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup quick cooking oats
pinch of salt
1/2 cup melted butter
1/3 cup water

1/2 cup plain or vanilla yogurt; whipped cream or vanilla ice cream

Arrange sliced fruit in any sized baking dish--depending on your taste, you may like a narrow dish or a small deep dish. Season the fruit with cinnamon, ginger, agave and a pinch of salt. In a bowl, combine the sugars, flour, oats and salt; stir in melted butter. Spread mixture over the fruit smoothly. Now, this is the surprising part: Once the oat mixture is set, pour the 1/3 cup of water evenly over the top. Bake in a 375° oven for 30-40 minutes, or until the fruit is tender and the top is nicely browned. The fruit will be bubbling over the oat topping. Serve warm or cooled with yogurt, ice cream or whipped cream. This should serve about four people, or just two people, depending on how much you like it.

Figgy Pork

2009-02-28T19:02:00.007-05:00

The weather is starting to turn, but I needed one more warm, winter dish before it's all said and done. I got the idea from my new favorite food website: The LoveBite (http://thelovebite.com). There was something I didn't like about their figgy roast piggy, so I went looking for another recipe with the same idea. I'm a big fan of cardamom, so this one was perfect. It was a bit labor- and ingredient-intensive, but good for a Sunday evening meal. And I think it would also be good for a holiday, it's festive enough.

Cardamom Pork Roast with Apples and Figs

Roast

3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon ground fennel
1 (3-pound) pork loin, trimmed
Cooking spray
2 cups dried figs, halved lengthwise
2 cups dried apples
1/4 cup minced crystallized ginger
3/4 cup pear nectar
1 (14-ounce) can fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth

Sauce

1/2 cup pear nectar
1/2 cup port
2 tablespoons currant jelly
1/4 cup heavy creamPreparation
Preheat oven to 400°.

To prepare the roast, combine the first nine ingredients in a small bowl. Rub mixture over the surface of the roast and place in a shallow roasting pan coated with cooking spray. Place the figs, apples, and crystallized ginger around roast. Pour 3/4 cup nectar and broth over fruit. Bake at 400° for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until meat thermometer registers 145°, stirring the fruit frequently. Remove the roast from the oven and place it on a carving board. Spoon the fruit in a separate bowl using a slotted spoon.

To prepare the sauce, pour any pan juices into a saucepan. Add 1/2 cup pear nectar, port, and jelly; bring to a boil. Cook 4 minutes or until thick enough to lightly coat the back of a spoon. Stir in heavy cream; simmer 2 minutes or until sauce has thickened, stirring occasionally.

Serve thinly sliced roast with a side of some sort (I used mashed cauliflower and garlic), a dollop of fruit, and drizzle with the sauce. Apologies for the picture, the colors on this very colorful dish are a little washed out with all the white (white plate, cauliflower, flash...)