Savory Bacon 'n Cheddar Scones

A friend is having a brunch party "When Pigs Fly" in celebration of bacon, Brooklyn, and her birthday this afternoon, and we've all been asked to bring some bacon. I tried to get some bacon from the Flying Pig organic farm at the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning, but the stand was mysteriously not there. So we bought normal bacon at Fairway in Redhook (after an awesome dinner at Hope & Anchor), and this is what I came up with.

Savory Bacon 'n Cheddar Scones

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 teaspoons sugar

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick, 2 oz) cold butter

1 cup (4 oz) diced cheddar cheese

1/3 cup fresh chives, or finely diced scallion tops

1/2 pound bacon, cooked, cooled, and crumbled (about 1 cup)

3/4 cup (7 oz) heavy cream, or enough to make the dough cohesive

Preheat the oven to 425° and lightly grease a baking sheet.

Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar. 

Work the butter into the flour until the mixture is unevenly crumbly. 

Mix in the cheese, chives, and bacon till evenly distributed. 

Add ¾ cup of the cream, stirring to combine. Mush the dough together with clean hands. If it won't go together or if it's too dry, add a little bit of cream. Shape the dough into a smooth mound, about 3/4 inch thick. Put the dough onto the baking sheet and cut the mound into 8 wedges, spreading the wedges apart. Brush the scones with some milk or cream and sprinkle with just a hint of sea salt.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, depending on your oven, until they are golden brown.

Serve warm or at room temperature.

Friday Night Fare

It's been a long week. The convention, house guests, working overtime, the debut of a huge campaign (www.nyclu.org/vote), today's big news from McCain...all ending well with a scrimmage against Crescendo in Prospect Park (big disappointment: I struck out). We needed a simple dinner. I love stopping for chicken wings after a softball game, but we came home (after a margarita at Rachel's) and made a standard Friday night dinner. (Nice Christian girl, fish on Fridays...)

Marinated Salmon & Sauteed Broccoli
(serves 2)
1 lb fresh piece of salmon
Tamari
2 tbsp sugar
pinch of ginger
Salt and pepper
Half a head of broccoli
3 cloves garlic
1/2 cup yogurt
3 scallions

Marinate the salmon in a mixture of tamari, sugar, ginger, salt and pepper for a few hours.

Heat a cast iron pan and sear the salmon in some olive oil. Stick the salmon in a dish in the stove at about 350 degrees.

Sautee some chopped garlic, add broccoli florets and chopped stem. Add 1 1/2 chopped scallions. Season with salt and pepper.

Mix 1 1/2 chopped scallions with yogurt and season with salt and pepper.

Serve a piece of salmon with some broccoli pieces and a dollop of seasoned yogurt. Chomp it up.

Obama Acceptance Speech Celebration Dinner

Since we didn't make it out to one of the group viewings of Obama's speech, I figured we ought to celebrate the way that we usually do at home with an insanely yummy healthy dinner. This sounds like it would be a lot of preparation, but you can do a bunch of stuff ahead of time (over the weekend, for example) that makes it super easy. Everything on the menu was local, most of it organic. I purchased the lamb from one of my favorite meat vendors at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market. I brought the figs back with me directly from Berkeley, California.

Lamb steak with fig chutney, pureed parsnips, and sauteed dandelion greens

1 1lb lamb steak
1 bunch dandelion greens
3 parsnips
1/4 cup of milk
4 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper
8 oz mission figs
1 small onion
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vinegar
one cinnamon stick
pinch of fresh thyme and rosemary
olive oil

Marinate the lamb steak in olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme and rosemary. You can freeze it just like that after it's done sitting in the mix for a little while.

Peel and boil the parsnips until tender. Put in a blender when tepid with 1/4 cup of milk, salt and pepper, and I used a touch of truffle oil, which is not essential, but is super yummy. Puree. You can put that in a freezer-safe container or a freezer bag, too.

Cut figs into bite sized pieces and boil them in a mixture of chopped onion, sugar, vinegar, and cinnamon stick until jam-like. Put in a jar and refrigerate.

The dandelion greens you can't freeze, so that's what you have to prepare just before the meal. Cut the dandelion greens into bite sized pieces and sautee in olive oil, chopped garlic, and salt and pepper. I added toasted sesame seeds, but again, not essential.

I couldn't resist some sweet, local corn, but it may have overloaded our plates. I definitely felt gluttonous.

Enjoy!

Pollo en Mole Poblano

This isn't the most appetizing of photos, but let me tell you, mole paste directly from Mexico is no joke. I find it so strange that I couldn't find a good recipe for using it on the web, and even when I tried asking a restaurant chef in Xochimilco how to use it, his advice was sketchy. He leaned in and said, "I'll tell you my secret: I break sweet cookies up into the mixture." I was like, well, thank you, but I am never going to do that. So I brought home a recipe last night for mole negro just to get an idea of proportions, and then I played around with it a bit. This mole, as I mentioned in a previous post, is from Xochimilco, and it was Mole Poblano, which means that it was made with poblano peppers. It cost about $1.70 for 5 ounces of it, which I used in this recipe that serves 4 well.

This is what I came up with, and it was really very delicious.

Pollo en Mole Poblano

4 skinned, boneless chicken breasts
olive oil
salt & pepper
4 medium sized tomatoes
2 cups of chicken stock
5 ounces of mole poblano paste (or any mole negro)
sliced almonds or pepitas

2 cast iron pans and a small food processor or blender for liquifying the roasted tomatoes.

Start out by browning the chicken breasts in a cast iron pan with some olive oil. When they are well browned, but not cooked all the way through, place the entire pan in the oven at about 325 F.

Next, cut the tomatoes into quarters and heat another dry cast iron pan until it is smoking. Fry the tomatoes in the dry pan until the juices have all come out and you get a nice fragrance. Take the tomatoes out of the pan when they are done and set aside in a bowl.

Rinse out the tomato pan and put it back on the fire to dry a bit. Once dry, put some olive oil in the pan and put the mole paste in and quickly break it up into small pieces. Add a bit of stock tot he mixture until the pieces are nearly all broken down. Don't let the mole burn. Turn the heat to low, and turn back to your tomatoes, which should be no longer steaming hot. Place them in the food processor or blender and make a liquid out of the tomatoes. One recipe suggested straining them, but why waste the nice tomato seeds?

Keep heating the mole and adding stock and pureed tomatoes until you get the consistency you want (it should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon) and the desired heat intensity (mole can be very spicy).

When it is nice and thick and smooth and soupy, take the chicken out of the oven and pour the mole sauce over the four breasts. Place back on the stove and simmer on low until the chicken is tender. I like mine well cooked so that it is nearly falling apart, you can cook your to the degree that you want.

Spoon a bit of the mole onto a plate and then place a chicken breast on top. Then dollop with a little bit more mole sauce. I didn't sprinkle almonds or pepitas on top, but I would like to have. So you should. If you like them. I served the pollo en mole with plain steamed veggies as a nice clean contrast to the complexity of the sauce.

The Long, Hot Labors of Pepper Relish

This is the product of my labors on Saturday. Several jars of sweet pickles for a barbeque in San Francisco this coming weekend, several jars of Mexican Pepper Relish, and one experiment in gherkins that I am less than optimistic about.

I didn't keep perfect track of my recipe for the relish, but this is what I remember I did. In addition to the peppers I brought back from Mexico, I shopped at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market for the tomatillos, bell peppers, and onions.

Mexican Hot Pepper Relish

10 hot peppers of various shapes, sizes and colors
2 green bell peppers
1 red bell pepper
1 large onion
5 medium-sized tomatillos
1 cup of sugar
2 cups of vinegar
2 cups of water
3/4 cup of canning salt

Cut the hot peppers with a sharp knife into tiny pieces. Your fingers will be burning, but its better than putting them through a processor...too much juice and you lose too much of the meat of the peppers. Put aside in a small bowl. I suggest putting half of the bell peppers, half of the onions, and all of the tomatillos in a little food chopper and handcutting the rest. Mix them all together in a bowl and sprinkle with 3/4 cup of canning salt. Stir up to ensure that the peppers are covered in the salt, and then cover with boiling water. Let stand for about 2 hours.

When the peppers are brined, rinse them lightly and then drain them (you can save the liquid). If you want, you can substitute some or all of the pepper liquid for the water to make the relish syrup.

Combine the water (or pepper juice), vinegar, and sugar and bring to a boil.

Spoon the pepper mixture into small jars, cover with boiling syrup, and seal the jars. They should be good after three days of setting.

Enjoy some on scrambled eggs, steak, hot dogs . . . and remember to share with your friends!

I haven't decided on a name for my Mexican pepper relish

Two years ago, I called my first batch of relish hellfire hot pepper relish. My friend Patrick grew scotch bonnets and gave me a few, and I made 12 jars of relish. Last year, my own peppers were either not hot enough, or I added too many other ingredients, so the relish was awesome, but it wasn't very hot.

This year, I've been growing my own peppers--Carribean Reds and Jalapenos--but I also brought these peppers back from Mexico and made a few jars this afternoon. I'll post the recipe soon (its kind of complicated), but for now, I'll just say that my fingers are still burning.

Pan Integral, muy delicioso en Coyoacan

On the way back from Mercado de Coyoacan I found this lovely little organic bakery about 8 blocks from the subway station on a beautiful main street in the town aptly named La Casa del Pan. The waitstaff was friendly, the atmosphere totally relaxed, and the food was terrific--all organic, fresh, and local. I had a cappuccino, a whole wheat roll that was slightly sweet, and a small almond crescent cookie. The wheat roll was just the right kind of crusty and shiny on the outside, the right kind of soft in the middle, and the right kind of sweet throughout. I also bought a roll to make a sandwich for the plane the next day and carried it like an ancient vase all day so that it didn't get crushed.



Besides amazing breads and other baked deliciousness, they served soup, pizza, and sandwiches that were also prepared in a lovely and healthy way. There are more and more places like this in Central America. If you're ever in Mexico City, it's worth a trip to Coyoacan--for the market, but also for lunch at this bakery.

Mexican Fresh Food Markets

One of the reasons that I agreed to take a few of my remaining vacation days to go to Mexico for two small presentations at the International AIDS Conference was so that I could visit some local fresh food markets and bring back mole and vanilla beans. I posted queries on Chowhound and the Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum to see if people had recommendations about where to go and whether I would have any trouble bringing things back. I didn't get very many responses, and didn't have a clear idea of where to go or what to do when I got there. Luckily, I ran into a friend of a friend of a friend at a breakfast on the first day I was there who is from Mexico City and told me to visit Mercado de Xochimilco and Mercado de Coyoacan.



Public transit in Mexico City is easier than in any other city I've ever visited, so it was easy to get around, even though both of these markets were very far from where I was staying, and from where the conference was being held. I spent time practicing my Spanish, taking pictures, and buying food stuffs to bring home. These are just a few pictures of the produce in these markets. In the coming days, I'll post more about what I've done with some of the ingredients I brought back. First up: mole verde chicken breast.

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.

Salmon and French Lentils with Roasted Red Pepper

I needed a simple, balanced meal for a weekday this week because I'm running like a maniac with meetings, events, etc. Only one night to chill at home with a thoughtful meal. I picked up some fresh salmon this weekend in Chinatown, and since I'm a bit salad-weary (I know, right? How could that be?) I stopped at the Farmer's Market on Monday night in Union Square for some locally-grown broccoli to go with it. I needed a good lentil dish for the side, but I couldn't find one that I liked. So I made one up.



Salmon & French Lentils with Roasted Red Pepper

1 lb fresh salmon
1 small head of broccoli
1 cup uncooked french lentils (a bit smaller than the usual kind)
1/2 cup of chicken or vegetable stock
1 red bell pepper
1 small white or yellow onion
3 cloves garlic
salt, pepper, cumin, paprika, ground coriander
olive oil
sesame seeds
Diced tomato (optional)

Roast one red bell pepper over an open flame. Everybody thinks this means having a fire or something, but you can do it over a flame on your gas stove. Once the pepper is black all around, let it cool a bit, and then stick it in a plastic bag and pop it in the fridge. Boil one cup of lentils in 2 1/2 cups of water and one 1/2 cup of thick vegetable stock with all of the above spices. While the lentils are boiling, saute the diced onion and garlic in a cast iron pan until carmelized. Toss the onion/garlic into the not-yet-done lentils. Take your pepper out of the fridge and scrape all of the black off of the outside. Dice and add to the lentils. You can increase the moisture (and taste) with some diced tomato. Cook until lentils are nice and tender. You can make this one day ahead of time and refrigerate to let the flavors steep.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and place the salmon piece in a baking dish. Lightly coat the salmon with olive oil and sesame seeds (or, if you're lucky enough to find it, a sesame-seeweed rice seasoning that you can get from an asian grocery....I use Ebi Fumi Furikake rice seasoning, costs $2.45 and it lasts for months! It has sesame seeds, hydrogenated shrimp, potato starch, seaweed, sugar, salt, and egg yolk) and stick in the oven for about 15 minutes.

While the salmon is baking, cut up some broccoli florets and stick 'em in a veggie steamer (you can also lightly cook in a shallow pan with some boiling water).

By the time the salmon is done, everything else should be ready. If you want to get really fancy, take 3 tbsp yogurt, dice up 3 scallions, a small handful of cilantro, salt, pepper, coriander, cumin, and paprika to make a sauce. (Sauce not pictured above).

Edible weeds

Last night, my friend Patrick treated me to an awesome meal at Cookshop in Chelsea, a green-chic restaurant on 10th Avenue in Manhattan. I wasn't charmed by the place like I was with the Good Fork in Red Hook, but the food and the company were terrific. We started out with a salad of purslane, toasted hazelnuts, and blueberries in a champagne vinegarette. The waiter told us about how packed with nutrients the purslane is....and it's a weed indigenous to New York. When I asked where I could find some, he just pointed outside. I went to Whole Foods afterwards to find some to no avail. Then I started poking around on the Internet, and realized that I eradicated them from my porch garden this Spring. I can't believe it. I religiously went out there every morning and picked the purslane and threw it in the trash. I went out to search for some when I realized that the weed I'd been picking was actually the delicious and nutritious green I had paid $12 for (well, actually, Patrick paid) the night before. None. Successfully exterminated. (Which, according to web reports, is quite difficult). I will pray to the Goddess that it returns next Spring.

My favorite new restaurant

The Good Fork in Red Hook, Brooklyn is as good as I've been hoping it would be. I've been trying to get reservations for every special occasion that I've had for the past year, and I always call too late and find that they are booked. One of my main reasons for wanting to go is the restaurant's support and use of produce from Added Value, http://www.added-value.org/, a nonprofit that fosters youth development and sustainable agriculture in Brooklyn. They train at-risk youth how to grow and market produce, and they run a pretty neat little Farmer's Market on the weekends.

Now I know for certain why I've been unable to get reservations: the care and attention that the chef and her partner have put into the place. From the minute we walked in, I loved the place. The decor was perfect: just the right amount of tiny sparkling Christmas lights, the old fashioned paintings, the brick walls, the solid wood tables, the lighting.... We were greeted by one of the owners, very friendly...drinks were awesome and served up right away.

We ordered three appetizers and a main course because we couldn't decide what to get. Pork and chive dumplings, grilled asparagus with a poached egg on a bed of greens, and the crab cake with endive and radish sprouts on a bed of chipotle aioli to start. All of it was prepared perfectly and I savored each bite. For the main, D and I shared roasted organic chicken with potato-parsnip puree and a roasted leek. It was actually just the right amount of food, not too expensive, and utterly delicious. The bill wasn't outrageous ($76 for all of that, two mixed drinks, and a glass of reisling), and the servers were perfect. The only complaint we had was that the place was a tad noisy. It might have been the rowdiness of the guests around us, or maybe it was the acoustics, but it hardly detracted from a perfect evening out.

I can't say enough about this place. In addition to everything else, its right across the street from LeNell's Wine & Likker (http://www.lenells.com/); down the street from Fairway; close to another awesome Red Hook restaurant called Hope & Anchor (http://www.hopeandanchordiner.com/index.html); and serves Steve's Authentic Key Lime Pie--made right down the street (http://www.stevesauthentic.com/) I'm glad my blog isn't heavily trafficked, because I almost don't want more people to know about this place.

Sweet 'n Sour Mystic Gypsy Pickles

I found 6 mini Hungarian cucumbers at Fairway this weekend, and realized how badly I need to pickle again. We're going to a BBQ this coming weekend and making burgers for everyone (see previous post) and I decided to make some sweet 'n sour pickle slices to go on our burgers.

Sweet 'n Sour Mystic Gypsy Pickles

6 small cucumbers
1/2 red bell pepper
1/2 medium red onion
1/2 cup kosher salt
2 c. sugar
1 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
2 tbsp. white mustard seed
1 1/2 c. water
1 1/2 c. yellow cider vinegar

Combine cucumbers, onions, peppers with kosher salt and cover for 3 hours. Rinse and drain thoroughly. While the cucumbers are marinating in the salt, combine the sugar, turmeric, ground cloves, white mustard seed, water and vinegar. Bring the syrup mixture to a boil. Once the cucumber mix is rinsed, place the veggies into three medium-sized canning jars. Artfully. Pour the boiling hot mixture over the cucumbers and seal. They're good after a few days of marinating in the juice. Yum!

Burgers for 14

Our friends who have a country house Pennsylvania are having so many people over for the weekend of the 4th that D. and I are sleeping in a tent on the lawn. We're planning a BBQ for 14, and I offered to bring burgers. I've been buying all of our meat free-range, local, or organic, so the endeavor was not cheap, but I hope worth the effort. We make a variation of these burgers about once every two weeks, but we never eat them with buns. We have to find a place near us here in Brooklyn that makes good hamburger buns.

Gourmet Free Range Beef Burgers

7 lbs. free range ground sirloin
2 red bell peppers
2 red onions
1 lb of cremini mushrooms
4 eggs
1 1/2 cup panko
salt
pepper
paprika
cumin
tamari
worsteshire sauce
sriracha sauce

Finely chop 2 medium red onions and set aside in a bowl. Do the same with peppers and mushrooms, both in separate bowls. Saute onions until they are soft. Add red peppers and saute until they are soft as well. The onions will be limp and will have lost most of their color. Add the mushrooms and saute until the mushroom have gotten just soft. Set aside in a cool place (put in the fridge after its cooled for a bit). Mix in a bowl the eggs, salt, pepper, paprikia, cumin, tamari, w. sauce, and sriracha to taste. Don't add too much sriracha. Take out the ground sirloin when the veggies have cooled and mix the veggies and spiced egg mixture into the ground sirloin, dump in 1 1/2 cup of panko and work with your hands until the meat is the right consistency for burgers. Shape and either cook 'em up right away, or store them in the fridge or freezer between parchment paper. Best grilled, but you can cook 'em in a cast iron pan. Enjoy!

Tomato-Basil Tilapia with Roasted Mushroom & Shallots

I'd never seen a Hen-of-the-Woods mushroom before, but my favorite mushroom man was at the Grand Army Plaza Farmer's Market on Saturday, and sold me on 1/4 pound of the succulent beauty. I took it home and presented it to D. and said: "what do we do with it?" The mushroom man had suggested roasting the 'shroom with shallots and olive oil, which is just what we did. The key was cutting the mushroom the right way....you cut it like a cauliflower, separating it from the base into smallish pieces. One quarter pound yielded about a dozen pieces. We tossed sliced shallots (cut to be about the same size as the mushrooms) with salt, pepper, and parsley and then tossed that mix gently with the mushroom pieces, so that the tips didn't break off. Then we placed it all in a small shallow roasting pan at 400 degrees and roasted for about 20 minutes. We ate the mushroom with two medium pieces of tilapia roasted with tomatos and fresh basil from the balcony. Delicious.

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.)

The best Buffalo wings...made in Brooklyn

I've really had every kind of wing....the penny wing; more commonly, the 10 cent wing; buckets of wings that come with pitchers of beers and are served in a basement with paper tablecloths and loud rock music; fancy wings in upscale restaurants that you have to eat with forks (well, I guess you don't HAVE to); wings in Europe (OMG); wings from THE original Anchor Bar in Buffalo; and speaking of Buffalo, wings from the long-departed Jaime Jhota's, La Nova's, Wings 'n Things, the place around the corner.... I've had mild wings (yuck), medium wings, hot wings, suicide wings, barbeque wings, garlic wings, ginger wings.....ginger/garlic wings. I've brought wings through customs, wings through airport security, wings on busses, wings in the back seat, wings in a cooler....Wings were the downfall of my vegetarianism.

But tonite, I had the best wings a girl could ask for. D hooked up some wings for us with his own special Buffalo Wing Sauce, and we tossed it up with some free-range chicken wings, and it was GOOOOOD.

So now you want the recipe? Sorry. That's a family secret.

But I can tell you that one of the secrets to the preparation is roasting seasoned wings until the skin is crispy, THEN toss them with the sauce, and then return them to the oven for a bit. Of course, serve them with some celery and blue cheese.

Ordering Out: Get Fresh

We've both been way too busy with work and other things for the past two weeks; tonite, I was out of ideas and decided to try the new place that opened in Park Slope called Get Fresh.

http://www.getfreshnyc.com/

The place delivers prepared meals that just need to be cooked, and uses organic and local ingredients. The menu changes every month or so to reflect foods that are in season. It's a bit expensive, and the food wasn't stellar, but I felt okay having it for dinner.

We ordered Korean beef BBQ w/rice and kimchee, sauteed kale with garlic, and porcini mushroom rice cakes. The rice cakes were not on the printed menu that I had from last month, because the porcinis were in season, and the celery root remoulade that I did want was not. I was tempted to order the vanilla bean rice pudding (and at this time of the night, I really wish I had). Get Fresh took credit card info over the phone for payment, and the delivery came in a jiffy. Very convenient. They even delivered a little later than they usually do because I sounded desperate--and maybe because I was very close and they hadn't been very busy. Anyway, it made me feel special.

The meat was a bit chewy, but the flavor was nice. We decided to forego the rice and serve the beef with the rice cakes. We also put the kale in the fridge...just seemed like too much to eat. (Just finished Michael Pollan's latest: eat less, he says, mostly plants). The kimchee was a little strange, kind of like an Asian cole slaw, and the porcinis had too much rice and not enough porcini.

It was also a bit pricey--but paying more for healthy, quality food that's produced in a sustainable way is kind of part of the point. You vote for the kind of food you want with your dollars to the extent you can, and hope that it results in a rise in demand, which in turn results in the development and investment in small farms. That's a good thing. Check out http://www.sustainabletable.org/

This description sounds harsh, but I have to say, I wish this place well and hope that it takes feedback in stride and gives it some consideration. The concept is awesome; I hope I get a chance to taste another dish sometime soon.

Antigua-inspired Granola

Finally, finally the time to experiment with a granola recipe. Amazingly, it turned out great and my imagination is stoked for all kinds of other granolas. We had some the next morning with yogurt, pineapple, apple, and dried cranberries. Totally reminiscent of our vacation--with the sun streaming through the window on this beautiful Brooklyn morning.

D wondered whether little bags of granola might make good holiday gifts this coming winter, but they seem a bit too, well, crunky for most family. But who knows? Anyway, here's the basics. Use your imagination to create The Perfect Granola For You.

Ingredients

1 cup of old-fashioned (no quick cooking) oats
1/4 cup of wheat germ
1 Tbsp brown sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup peanuts
1/8 cup raisins
1/8 cup of pepitas (pumpkin/squash seeds)
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 Tbsp canola oil (not olive oil)
1/2 Tbsp water
1 tsp cinnamon

Preparation

Preheat over to 275 degrees F. Take out a sheet pan or a roasting pan (about 9 x 11) and coat with some kind of oil. Mix together in a bowl everything until the honey. Heat the honey, oil, water, and cinnamon in a sauce pan. Drizzle the liquid over the dry ingredients and stir. Spread the mixture out on the pan and stick it in the oven.

Bake until the pepitas start to puff up and everything turns a nice golden brown. Take out and place in an airtight container or a brown paper bag. Should last about 1 week out, 2 weeks in the fridge. Best way to enjoy? Over 1 - 1 1/2 cup plain yogurt, 1/2 cup of sliced fruit (see previous blog entry), a drizzle of honey, and some sprinkled toasted coconut if its on hand. Yum.