Alternative Pesto

Have you noticed how expensive pine nuts are? Oh my god. The last time I checked, they were well over $20 a pound. If you love pesto the way that I do, you will love this substitute that allows you to use a less expensive nut: walnuts. You can actually make pesto with hazelnuts and pecans, too (probably more, but I haven't tried any others). This is a delicious alternative to pine nut pesto. The next few weeks will be the best times to get fresh basil at the farmer's market. Make sure you pick up a bunch--if you make this recipe, you can freeze enough to keep yourself in fresh pesto through the winter.

Fresh Basil-Walnut Pesto

5 cups clean fresh basil leaves

1 1/2 - 2 cups parmesan cheese

2 cups walnuts

6 cloves of garlic

salt & pepper

1 - 1 1/2 cup olive oil

1/2 cup lemon or lime juice

Make sure your basil is washed thoroughly. I wash it, place the leaves in a bowl of cold water, and then stick it in the fridge til I'm ready to make the pesto. Start by placing about 1/4 of your basil leaves in a food processor along with about 1/4 cup of walnuts and 1-2 cloves of garlic. Once that has blended down, keep adding those three ingredients until they are all blended. Slowly add your oil until the mixture is a little loose; then start adding the cheese a portion at a time. Finish off with lemon or lime juice and salt & pepper to taste. Note: this is a really malleable recipe. You can use more or less of any of the above ingredients to taste. Just keep tasting your pesto until you get it just the way you like it.

Serve over your favorite pasta. We paired ours with some browned chicken breast, cherry tomato, and a lovely Long Island rose.

Gypsytized Chicken Piccata

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.

Christmas celebration at Tanoreen

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.

The.Best.Tomato.Soup.Ever.

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. : )

Venison Virgin

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!

Local food makes you feel better

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!

Figgy Pork

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...)

End of Winter Stew

I waited for the snow all day, but it never came. The weather people kept saying that we would see snow sometime this weekend, probably the last of the snow for this region. But it didn't come after midnight, it didn't come in flurries in the wind this afternoon, and its not here now. Stew is perfect for a snowy day, so last night I defrosted a pound of bison sirloin that we picked up the last time we were in Pennsylvania and planned to make a stew today. Notwithstanding the lack of snow, here's how I made bison stew in my crock pot.

Bison Rosemary Stew

1 lb of bison sirloin cubes
2 cups beef stock
2 tbls olive oil
12 baby onions
1 cup diced rutabaga
1 cup diced turnip
2 tbs flour
2 large carrots cut
2 stalks celery
3 cloves garlic
2 tbsp chopped fresh rosemary
2 tsp chopped fresh thyme
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp dry mustard
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup red wine
salt and pepper to taste

Place beef stock in a crock pot and set on high. Add the diced rutabaga, turnip, and peeled baby onions. Season the sirloin cubes with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a cast iron pan and add the cubes when the pan is smoking hot. Brown the meat on all sides, but don't overcook it. Add a bit more oil and flour and stir until flour is not white or noticeable. Place the browned meat with flour coating in the crock pot. Sautee the carrots, celery, and garlic until tender and place in the crock pot with the herbs and other seasonings, except the red wine. Leave simmering in crock pot for about an hour, then add the red wine and cook for another 20-30 minutes until the texture is to your liking. Serve with dumplings, white or brown rice, or a nice bread.

The Best of the Leftovers

Tuesdays were never meant to be this easy. D and I came home a bit late and a bit short on planning tonite. I thought I'd make turkey legs with mushroom masala sauce, but D said he was sick of turkey. We've eaten it every day since Thursday. That's five straight days: turkey slices, turkey soup, turkey slices, turkey soup (again), turkey stuffed in delicata squash boats . . . I knew I was pushing the limit. So I asked him to defrost the sirloin I have in the freezer, and to pick up some lettuce and mushrooms so that I could make a beef and ginger stir fry and a salad. But when I got home, he said he had just gotten home and didn't have a chance to do it. Well, I said, I kinda wanted to order Atomic Wings anyway, and I started getting together some money to give him so he could pick them up on the way back from the gym.

But then I thought: damn, I have so much food in this fridge right now why can't I just make something...it doesn't even have to have turkey in it! So I started taking out the cubed butternut squash that I had from the other night, the chopped kale, the ginger, an onion, some quinoa; I figured I'd make a stir fry. But then I thought: why not add some ground turkey that I haven't yet stuck in the freezer. Add some leftover ricotta cheese in there to make it all mushy. Maybe he won't even notice. And I could bake it in some of the phyllo dough that we used the other night.

I swear, this must be the best leftover turkey recipe I've ever dreamt up. I cooked it while I was listening to this awesome online service called Pandora radio (www. pandora.com, thanks so much to Ariel for the tip!) which takes a musician who you like, and collects all of the music that is like that music that you like, as rated by other pandora service users, and you just listen to it as though it is a radio station. You get to say whether or not you like the songs you hear, and pandora promises that it will not play songs like that one again. Anyway, I've been playing my Matt Nathanson station since this afternoon at work and I love it. What a great way to discover new music, seeing as how there is not a single consistently decent radio station that plays music that I like here in NYC.

I talked to an old friend while I was doing the dishes, and poured a glass of new Brooklyn Oeneology Motley Cru (very interesting...made by a local vintner so small they don't even have a website! I get my B.O. wines from LeNell's Wine & Likker (http://www.lenells.com/). Then I cooked up this thing:

Turkey Phyllo Torte

1 large onion, diced

3 cloves garlic

2 tbsp minced ginger

1 cup turkey

2-3 cups shredded kale

1 cup cubed butternut squash (uncooked)

1/4 cup chopped mushrooms

2 tbsp small black currants

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cracked black pepper

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp paprika

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

1 pkg (8 oz) phyllo dough

olive oil

Saute the onion until it becomes a golden brown and gives off a heady scent. Add the diced ginger and garlic and saute until tender. Add the ground turkey, brown for a bit, and then add in the butternut squash, kale, and mushrooms. Add some water or broth as needed to keep the mixture moist. Toss in a handful of currants. Then season with salt, pepper, cinnamon, and paprika. Saute until everything is cooked through and the butternut squash is a bit mushy, but not too mushy. Take off the heat and set aside until it is no longer too hot to work with. Line a springform pan (or a pie pan, but it won't turn out as a torte). Layer phyllo dough sheets, about five atop one another arranged to cover the pan, spraying some olive oil in between each layer.

Scoop in half of your turkey/kale/squash mixture and spread at the bottom generously but evenly. Dollop your ricotta cheese atop that layer, and repeat with another layer of turkey/kale/squash. Pat evenly, and layer another five phyllo dough sheets evenly over the filling.

Pop it in the oven at 350 for 45 minutes, then 400 for 15 minutes, or until the crust is nicely browned. Serve with a dollop of yogurt and some nuts (pistacchios). But if we were to make this recipe again (which seems likely) we'd sprinkle a handful of pistaccio nuts in the middle of the torte.

What a perfect meal.

The leftovers make a great lunch for the next day. I packed ours with a few olives, a slice of mango, and a handful of pecans. If you heat everything up together, it's delicious.

Red Lentil Tofu Curry

It's fun to have friends who are vegetarians come and visit.  I cook a lot of vegetarian food, but when I have guests, I always try to dig around for something new and interesting.  Someone clued me into this squash-scallop garam masala dish, but since I couldn't make the shellfish, I tried to find another recipe using garam masala. The recipe was really simple, warm and filling after a long day out in the cold.  We shared a bottle of Malbec, which was a great accompaniment.

Red Lentil Tofu Curry

1 medium onion
1 red bell pepper
1 carrot
2 garlic cloves
½ inch piece of ginger
1 cup red lentils
4 tbsp olive oil
4 cups water
1 lb tofu
1 tsp garam masala (Indian spice mixture)*
1 tsp salt
1 pinch cayenne
½ cup chopped cilantro

Thinly slice the onion and mince the garlic. Peel the gingerroot and mince. Rinse the red rinse lentils and drain. In a 2-quart heavy saucepan cook onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon oil over moderate heat until golden. Add gingerroot and cook, stirring for1 minute. Add lentils and water and gently boil, uncovered, until lentils fall apart. This might take about 20 minutes.

While the lentils are boiling, rinse the tofu. Cut tofu into 1/2-inch cubes and gently press between paper towels to remove excess moisture

In a small heavy skillet heat remaining tablespoon oil over moderate heat until hot but not smoking and cook cumin seeds, stirring, until a shade darker, about 1 minute. Add garam masala, salt, and cayenne and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 15 to 30 seconds. Stir hot spice oil into lentils and gently stir in tofu cubes. Let curry stand, covered, 5 minutes to allow flavors to develop.

Heat another tablespoon in an iron skillet and sautee the tofu until golden brown. When cooked, stir the tofu into the red lentil mixture and serve with a large pinch of cilantro with salt on the side.

* You can make it yourself if you have the ingredients, the time, and the energy. Unfortunately, I have to admit that I got mine from Zabar’s…and I didn’t even buy it myself, I sent my friend to buy it for me.

Street Food in Mexico--it's the best, no lie

I'm just finishing up a four-day trip to Mexico (attending pre-conference activities for the International AIDS conference here), and I have so much to tell. Although people warn about eating street food in Latin America, many who have been here will attest that street food--tacos, to be precise--are better than anything. And after summoning up the courage to approach a vendor with not the least bit of an idea about how to order, or what was in all of those piles of goodness, I'm glad I did it sooner than later. So while my colleagues were probably enjoying restaurant meals costing between $20 and $50 (with drinks), I was able to dine on less than $10 a night by buying a small bottle of wine at the supermarket (about $5), two tacos, an avocado, and a tomato at the market. The tortillas were fresh, and filled with pork, onions, peppers and hot sauce, or beef and cheese. They were amazing. As a single woman in a not-so-great area, I didn't want to eat at the stands myself, so I brought the tacos back to my hotel, cut up the avocado and tomato, put a little salt and lime on the salad, and voila! Almost a home-made dinner away from home. The last night here, I had a "vampiro" to drink as well--a mixture of beet, carrot, and lime juice. Delicious.



I strongly recommend, although I've heard that street food is for the strong of stomach. Be careful.

Fresh Lamb Roast with couscous and purslane tossed with goat cheese, toasted pecans, and blueberries

I had to make up for a lazy day--we decided against going to the beach this morning because of impending thunderstorms--with a special dinner. Yesterday at the Farmer's Market, I found some purslane. I splurged on a nice cut of lamb roast...the guy told me to use romemary and thyme and cook it for thirty-five minutes. I had some couscous from earlier in the week, so I decided to put it all together. I was trying to replicate the salad I had at Cook Shop several weeks ago, but I think I like mine better. I served it with a chilled Pinot Grigio.

Fresh Lamb Roast with couscous and purslane tossed with goat cheese, toasted pecans, and blueberries

Lamb

1 lb lamb shoulder roast
5-6 sprigs of thyme, 5-6 of rosemary
olive oil
salt & pepper
3 cloves of garlic

Coat lamb roast with olive oil, salt & pepper, and chopped thyme and rosemary. Cut several slits into the top of the roast and insert halved garlic cloves into them. Roast at 375 for 40 minutes.

Salad

1/2 lb purslane
1/2 cup toasted pecans
2 Tbsp goat cheese
1/4 cup of blueberries

Toss together and drizzle with dressing (below)

Dressing

1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbsp Champagne vinegar
1 tsp cooking sherry
1 clove garlic, minced
1 scallion, minced
salt & pepper
1/2 olive, squozen

Accompanied with couscous (with roasted red pepper, 2 roasted garlic cloves, salt & pepper, lime)

After we finished and cleaned the kitchen, we watched In Bruges with Ralph Fiennes and Colin Farrell. Nice.

White Sangria for a Blazing Hot Day

Two parties this weekend and I would normally cook something up to bring, but it was just too damn hot. I didn't even want to LOOK at the stove today. So I tried to copy an amazing white sangria that I sampled at a wine store in Red Hook a few weeks ago. The secret: tamarind juice. I embellished on the recipe of course. Homemade coolness. One of the parties was a housewarming for two friends who just moved in together and have more than enough to start their home, so I brought the sangria in a thermos they can use for summer concerts and stuff.

White Sangria

2 bottles of mid-priced Chardonnay
1/2 cup tamarind juice
2 chopped apricots
2 chopped peaches
1 chopped peeled apple
about 30 grapes, halved and juice
Juice from 3 limes
splash of black currant cordial (optional, I just happened to have it on hand).

Add crushed ice and you're good to go.

(you can use any kind of fruit, really. I made it again and used peaches and nectarines. Blood oranges and passion fruit juice work well, too. For an even lighter taste, splash a bit of soda water on top and add a lime wedge.)

A New Take on Meat & Potatoes

I just got paid from a relatively lucrative consulting gig and I went to town on menu planning for the week. Last night we had grass-fed lamb chops (coated with honey that I brought back from Ukraine, allspice, cardamom, salt and pepper) on top of curried couscous with cranberries.

Tonite, we had filet mignon au Jus, fresh stringbeans with bacon and almonds, and pureed parsnips with white truffle oil. I dry rubbed the meat yesterday afternoon with thyme, allspice, salt and pepper, and wrapped it in plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge. This afternoon, I boiled the parsnips in chicken stock and skim milk, then put it through the food processor and added salt and pepper. D blanched the stringbeans, shocked them in cold water, and then sauteed them with the bacon and almonds. We braised the meat in olive oil, then stuck them in the broiler for 26 minutes. We made the sauce by adding shallots, thyme, and brandy with beef stock and the beef juices. Then we heated the parsnips and added the white truffle oil at the end.

Served it with an Organic Rioja from Spain.

A completely new take on a traditional meat and potatoes meal. The pureed parsnips were like pudding. Kids would never know the stuff was healthy. They'd be too busy lickin' it off the plate.

It was an exquisite meal, perfect to top off an exquisite weekend. Last week was hard: Me recovering from some health stuff and D getting over a cold, and me just finding out that I've deveoped some kind of allergy with spots on my forearms. Here I sit watching interesting Sunday night television, finishing off the last of the wine, being fed Marzipan chocolate after D's cleaned the entire kitchen after the meal. And to top it all off, D said despite my spots, he might have to do me anyway.

The whole meal must have cost me $35 at the most (the most expensive thing was probably the white truffle oil, and we've got plenty left for other recipes. Or maybe D's labor). The Rioja sounds fancy, but it was really just $11 at "Big Nose, Full Body" on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. Mostly everything else came from the Farmer's Market at Grand Army Plaza, and the best neighborhood butcher on Prospect Park West and 16th Street--a great little Italian place, family-owned, just the kind that are disappearing from all over New York. I even bought a big ole dill pickle while I was there. Had to go to Fairway in Red Hook for the truffle oil, though.

Happy Hanaukkah!

We hit the Farmer's Market early this morning (but not as early as we'd wanted!) for vegetables to pickle for presents. We bought some carrots, brussel sprouts, and beets. They didn't have some of the other vegetables we wanted, so we had to resort to the grocery store for the rest. We're pickling tomorrow....I can feel the energy. Although I have to admit, I'm a little worried about working my pickle magic in the kitchen with D., who is very particular about his cooking style and recipes....he's a scientist; me, I'm more of an artist.

Last night was uncertain because I had conflicting plans, but it turned out that I ended my day near Union Square after having a drink with a friend at a cafe I'd never been to: 71 Irving. I stopped off at Whole Foods before jumping on the train to Brooklyn to get some fish and vegetables. I had an idea from the Bon Apetit magazine that I had just gotten in the mail. There was an article about how eating farm-raised fish is better for the environment than wild ones, and after just seeing Happy Feet, I was all for contributing to the well-being of penguins (and everybody else). The article said that tilapia, in particular, is a good farm-raised fish because the water it's raised in is rich in nutrients that are good for us, too.

I didn't remember the recipe exactly, so I just picked up a few things that I thought I would need and headed home. I cut up some carrots and elephant garlic and started roasting them in the oven. Then I flash-fried two pieces of tilapia with salt and pepper and set them aside. I sauted a bunch of broccoli rabe and set that aside as well. I simmered about 3/4 cup of balsamic vinegar with some chopped up garlic and set that aside. I also decided to fry some shallots to put on top of the fish. I called D. and told him the only thing I was missing was butter, so he brought some over. I put the broccoli rabe in the casserole dish in the oven with the roasted carrots and garlic, and put the fish on top. I popped it in the oven at 350 F and stirred 1/2 c of butter into the balsamic vinegar mixture, which I reheated.

I served the fish on top of the vegetables, drizzled the balsamic-butter vinegar on top, and then sprinkled some fried shallots on top. What a great meal! And it paired nicelyl with a wine called Echelon (2005 Pinot Noir, Central Coast, Sacramento, CA, hints of cherry and clove.

D. and I wondered whether ginger might have been a good spice to add. Next time.

Mystery Sauce

I’m not sure whether it was the wine, the new Sufjan Stevens Christmas CD I just got from iTunes, sweet D. and his antics, or the vegetalis, but the mystery tomato sauce I found in the freezer tonight paired with some pasta and garlicky asparagus was almost magical tonight. I started to dethaw it yesterday because I thought there might be one night this week when I didn’t want to cook and I wasn’t going out. Tonight was that night! I got stood up for dinner by a colleague, and D. had an office holiday party. So I was on my own. With my Christmas tree, fresh from the country this weekend and naked as the day it was born. So I went home and starting compiling a Christmas playlist on my iPod. I had a bunch of Christmas CDs that I hadn’t loaded onto my computer yet from years past, Christmas on Death Row, Cocteau Twins, A Jazz Christmas, and A Soul Train Christmas, so I spent some time importing the CDs to my library.

While I transferred my old music, I took the stems off of some asparagus that had been in the fridge for a few days. I needed to break off a substantial piece of each stalk—they had already started to go. I set them aside and chopped three cloves of garlic. I opened a bottle of wine that I had just gotten at Trader Joe’s, a Carinena from Spain called Abrazo Del Toro (The Embrace of the Bull?) and poured myself a glass.

I jumped onto iTunes and searched for some holiday music that I had just read about in the magazine I’d been reading: The Week, that claims to be the magazine that contains “all you need to know about everything that matters.” (how could I not read it?) I downloaded Sufjan Stevens’ Songs for Christmas, Sarah McLachlan’s Wintersong, and James’ Taylor at Christmas. What beautiful music! And what a nice night on my own. D kept calling from the party, he sounded like he was having fun, and I was happy puttering about on my own.

I heated the olive oil in the pan, and when it got really hot, I threw in the sliced garlic cloves. I think I cooked them too long, they were really brown, but when I added the asparagus, the smell was amazing.

Another glass of wine, and I took out some ornaments. The sauce was getting hot, the pasta was ready, and the garlic and asparagus were still sizzling. The review in The Week said that although McLachlin’s CD was “probably the prettiest CD of the season, [she] is not the best bringer of holiday cheer,” and I thought that was a bit unfair. I’ve always found her music to be unflinchingly real, and appropriately sad. Her song "Hold On" that came out in the mid-90s, which was, I thought, about a woman who was caring for a lover, or a friend, who was dying of AIDS and looked to God for help towards the end was one of the most moving songs I’ve ever heard. The review in the magazine said that “Christmatime Is Here" was a tearjerker, but I didn’t find nearly as sad as "Song for Winter’s Night," which I can only imagine is about a woman whose loved one is in Iraq or Afghanistan. Oh my god.

Sufjan Stevens was more whimsical, but just as beautiful. And James Taylor was, well, James Taylor. Very nice. So against that backdrop, I made a small plate of pasta with the tomato sauce I’d found, but didn’t remember the origins of, some asparagus with very brown and gooey garlic, and freshly grated Romano cheese. Yum. There’s nothing wrong at all with a night on your own.