My Kind of Place

A couple of weeks ago, TW and I quit our jobs and moved to the west coast. Over the summer I wrote a bunch of posts in my head about deciding to move, and breaking up with NYC (complete with a song), and the things I would miss about NYC. Then in July and August we discovered Insanity, I visited two nutritionists, and more posts were written (in my head) about things related to that (mostly how hungry I was). Finally, while road tripping across America I seriously planned to throw some stuff up on the blog so my nearest and dearest could follow along.

There. Now that we are caught up, here I am in California. TW and I are sort of in this limbo state. We are moving to Seattle, but we don't exactly have jobs yet, so we are hanging out in San Jose with the mother-in-law to save a little money in the meantime. It sounded like a lovely plan when we made it, and for the most part it's been great. We have been wine tasting, walking on the beach with dolphins, down to LA for a night and then back up to San Jose in a meandering sort of way stopping at all sorts of attractions along the 101. Including (!!) this amazing little town called Solvang that is modeled after a generic town in Denmark. There are windmills, precious little gardens, ebelskivers, and wine. Seriously. Amazing. We also walked on some of the softest sand these tootsies have ever felt at Pismo Beach.

Then there's the part that is unsettling. I have never left a job before with no plan for what was next. (Ok, not no plan. There's a plan a, b, c and d. I just don't know which one is going to happen yet). All of my earthly belongings, except a few shipped boxes and what we could fit in our car, are in a storage facility in Kent, WA. I just got what I think is my last paycheck from my former job. And we are sort of 'on call' to go to Seattle at a moments notice for interviews and the like.

So, I am returning to what is familiar. I have been cooking quite a bit, and subjecting my mother-in-law to my experiments with low carb/gluten-free cooking (result of aforementioned nutritionist appointments). Most of it has turned out quite good, although I have no pictures to that effect. I have also been drinking a fair amount of wine, catching up on Scandal and Breaking Bad, and snuggling up with my cat who is loving California's sunshine and his grandmother's spacious abode.

In addition to seeking comfort, we have been having some magical experiences. In California, craft fairs are called 'food and wine festivals,' and you are allowed to get a glass of wine and drink it throughout the fair. In Seattle, you are allowed to have unpermitted fires on the beach. Which we did, and watched a magical sunset, while a baby seal (I am assuming it was a baby, as I assume all cute furry things are babies) bobbed up and down in the water, the foliage rustled behind us, and a train passed by. It's moments like those, in all of the chaos that is our lives right now, that make me sure this is my kind of place.

And now for a non sequitur.  Last summer, when I was going to write a post about how we were ready to leave New York, complete with stories of crowded subways and the symphony in the park drowned out by children shouting, I was going to share a recipe for the summer rolls. I have always loved summer rolls, how they aren't fried, how they tend to be a lighter Thai appetizer, how they are delicious. Until this spring I didn't realize how easy they are to make. I found an post on Sprouted Kitchen for these and other travel snacks, most of which I promptly made for our family's St. John vacation. The summer rolls were gobbled up by my carnivorous father, but not my 2 1/2 year old niece. They were so good and easy that I made them again for the symphony in the park. They were not good enough to make up for the screaming kids or light stick salesman, but then, that's why we left New York.

Spicy Lentil Summer Rolls
Adapted from Sprouted Kitchen

Rice paper wraps (they are circular, and have these criss cross raised bumps on them)
1/2 cup cilantro
Any veggies you have in your fridge. I used: arugula, cucumber, sprouts, and avocado. Something with color would be nice.
Lentils, cooked
Sriracha
Sesame oil
Salt

Take your lentils and add sriracha, salt and sesame oil to taste.
Set up little bowls or a cutting board with all of your ingredients in piles.
Set up a damp dish cloth next to the ingredients.
Fill a large bowl with warm-hot water.
Dip a rice paper wrap in the water. Keep it in until soft, but not too soft (one tip I learned was to take it out when it was still 'al dente' or had some structure to it).
Place on the dish cloth. Add lentils and then the other vegetables in small amounts. Fold up like a burrito--start with the sides, then fold either the far or the close end over, then roll up. Confused? Visit Sprouted Kitchen's blog. It's great :) I also might have googled it to see pictures.
Bon Apetit! 

Healthy food is ugly...and my traumatic Verizon upgrade story

Oh sad. I wrote a whole post and the interwebs ate it. That's been my theme lately (or at least that is my segue to write about the horrible experience I had at Verizon upgrading my phone). I have been needing to upgrade my phone lately; the home button didn't work, it wouldn't hold onto any contacts, and it was slow as molasses. On the other hand, I was reluctant to get a new phone because I have been holding onto all of my voice and text messages from my mother. TW backed up the voicemails on her computer, but I liked having them in my pocket. I almost never listen to them, but the idea of being able to hear her voice at the touch of a button was such a comfort.

Anyhow, my sister upgraded her phone recently and by all accounts the rep at her store was great. She got her new phone, all of her contacts and voicemails were transferred over seamlessly, and basically everything was coming up roses. So on Friday, after I couldn't close out of a single screen because of my broken home button, I headed on over to the Verizon store closest to my Columbus Circle job to get my new phone.

Things were weird from the beginning. I signed in and texted TW while waiting to figure out if I should get a 16 or 32 GB phone. When the rep called my name we were in the middle of our conversation so I hadn't totally decided yet. She asked me what I was there for, what phone I wanted, and what size I wanted. I said I hadn't decided yet, and she asked me how she was supposed to help me if I didn't know what I wanted. I am not the most, say, tech-savvy, so maybe I have required more help than most at these occasions, but the store employees have always guided me through the process in the past. We finally figured out that I should get the 32 GB version. This is where it got bad.

The rep had to scan my phone a million times as part of the upgrade transaction. While she was doing this she was chatting with a bunch of her friends who were hanging out at the desk. At the same time, she told me that I would be losing all of my text messages when I upgraded. I freaked out and got emotional, and TW begged me to take screen shots of every text from my mom before going through with the sale. The salesperson was very patient while I did this, which clouded my judgment and made me think I liked her. We finished up, and I walked out with my fancy new phone. I sent a message to TW telling her that the salesperson had turned it around and ended up being great (because she was so patient). Then the message showed up on my phone. She had upgraded my phone to TW's number (because she was distracted and chatting with friends while doing all that scanning). I went back in, and she was able to get me back my number, but basically now everything is screwy. I initially lost all of my voice messages (of course, including my moms), then I got them back, and now they are gone again. Things still aren't working totally right. I had my contacts, lost them, now got them back again. I am unclear how much of this is Verizon's fault and how much is Apple's, but since the store experience is so fresh I am going with Verizon. I always sing their praises, too...

Whew. Glad I got that off my chest. The original post was all about how I keep taking beautiful foods and making them ugly, but tasty. Case in point. On this whole healthy kick, TW and I have been cutting way down on our meat eating (not that we ate much to begin with). For this one, I took a recipe I had made before (spicy beef and cabbage) and replaced the beef with lentils. Boom--vegan. And tasty. And super ugly. Despite using my real camera and not my iPhone. Oh well--the original recipe called for red tomatoes, this just happened to be what I had. If you used those, at least there'd be a little color contrast.

Spicy Cabbage and Lentils
adapted from Cooking Light

2 T peanut oil
1 cup thinly sliced shallots
1 tsp salt
1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 cups cooked lentils
4 cups thinly sliced cabbage
1 cup sliced tomatoes (I used yellow grape tomatoes, the recipe calls for plum tomatoes)
1/3 cup coarsely chopped peanuts

Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the shallots, salt, turmeric and cayenne pepper, cook until shallots are tender and starting to become translucent. Add lentils, cook for 2 minutes. Add cabbage and tomatoes, toss well and cover. Cook for 10 minutes, until cabbage begins to wilt. Add peanuts and cook for 10ish more minutes, until cabbage is soft and everything looks ugly. Eat. It's delicious. Promise.

PS Started tennis. I am a natural. Call me Serena Williams. Or a yuppie in training, either way.

Reset

Lately, TW and I have been healthing it up over here. I know that's a familiar theme in that I've mentioned it before in more than one of the twenty or so posts on this blog, but that's how it tends to go. Indulge, restrain, repeat. I will say that maybe this time I went a little too long between gym visits, as at my first spin class back I legit thought I might lose it Biggest Loser style for the first time ever in my life. Or maybe it was just a really hard class. Totally...

Anyhow, as I was saying to a friend of mine last week, this time I'm really going in, whole hog. I've watched 'Forks Over Knives' and 'Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead,' and while I'm not going vegan or on a juice fast (and I dislike their approach of 'standard American diet' vs 'twigs and salad'), I am aiming for a more unprocessed, whole foods approach. I even made plane snacks for our recent family vacation, and got my dad to eat a lentil summer roll, and he liked it. Score.

I consider myself lucky that TW is relatively un-picky (besides a few food allergies) and doesn't have strong opinions about what I put in front of her for dinner. It can be a tiny bit frustrating to ask for help with planning the weekly menu/shopping list and get little to no input, but in general I like total control in the kitchen. I consider food preferences to be a major compatibility issue. It is probably more important to me since I like to cook so much, but I would have a hard time being with someone who, say, thought dinner wasn't complete without meat. Or someone who wouldn't eat certain vegetables just because. I digress.

When she does ask for something specific, I do my best to give it to her. This past week, while in St. John, she discovered a love for coconut. Specifically in the form of piña colada pancakes. She had them a couple of times for breakfast at the resort, and requested that I figure out how to make them at home. So in an effort to keep vacation alive, encourage menu participation, *and* in keeping with our health goals (which were partially tossed aside on vacation) I created a 'healthed up' version for breakfast this morning. The recipe was inspired by Smitten Kitchen's upside down sour cream peach pancakes from her cookbook (so. much. love. for that cookbook) but I actually did enough modifying that I can almost call it my own. Almost.

PS New goal: go back to using a regular camera for blog pictures. Sick of the unappetizing green filter from the iPhone. Too bad the last several things I made were instagrammed/hipstamaticked/regular iPhone pictured. I'll try to phase it out.

Piña Colada Pancakes

1 large egg
1/4 tsp vanilla
1 cup low fat or fat free greek yogurt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/2 cup oat flour
1/4 cup spelt flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/8-1/4 cup finely chopped pineapple
2 tablespoons unsweetened, shredded coconut
1-2 tablespoons pineapple juice
Several chunks pineapple, thinly sliced, or you could use pineapple rings
More coconut to sprinkle on top
Butter

Combine egg, vanilla and yogurt in a medium bowl. Add dry ingredients, stir gently until just combined. Add finely chopped pineapple and coconut and fold into batter. If batter is very stiff, add 1-2 tablespoons pineapple juice (it's ok to add more, just do it slowly) to thin it out a bit.

Heat a small amount of butter in a nonstick skillet over medium heat. When butter is sizzling, use a 1/4 cup measure to pour pancake batter into the skillet. Arrange pineapple slices on top of batter. When the pancakes begin to have bubbles in their surface, flip. Cook until golden brown on both sides.

While pancakes are cooking, toast a small amount of coconut in a dry skillet (this is the point where TW popped in, told me it should be toasted, and then asked if I wasn't toasting it too much, and was promptly kicked out of the kitchen).

Top pancakes with coconut, and butter and powdered sugar, if desired. You could also do syrup. I wish I got a good pictured of how nicely browned the pineapple chunks looked. Actually, and just in general, I wish I got a good picture of the pancakes. Oh well. It's good to have goals.

PPS I am starting tennis lessons tomorrow. Stay tuned.

iPhone Blog

I hate winter. I know it's cliché, but I do. I don't mind the 10ish days after winter starts, when the holidays are happening and everything is all jolly and merry and warm fires and stews, and then January 2nd hits and it is just endless drear. I feel incredibly unmotivated, twiddling away the hours and then when the sun sets at noon (ish) I feel like it is time to crawl into bed. That's only a slight exaggeration. Maybe that's why new years resolutions are so historically unsuccessful--people are full of holiday cheer and positivity, make some plans for a newer, better life, and then BAM. The SAD hits, and all you want to do is hibernate until spring. (Except for the one obligatory snow day. I do love that. I like sledding and snow shoeing, and traipsing through the freshly fallen snow. Once. And preferably before Christmas, when the idea of winter is all romantical and stuff. I'll still take it in the New Year, I'll just grumble about it a bit more.)

Around this time I also tend to get a little wanderlust. Not so much related to travel (although I am very much looking forward to a trip to St. John in May), but to getting away from winter. I love seasons, but it is incredibly difficult to remember that in this godforsaken time of the year. This year, since TW and I are seriously contemplating a move in the near future, it's been almost a desperate get-me-out-of-here-before-another-winter desire. We are concentrating our search on the Pacific Northwest, but I have been looking at the weather in southern California with envy...sigh. It's a winter thing.

Anyhow, with a potential move on the horizon, studying for my nurse practitioner boards, a new part time job starting soon, and other big changes at my regular job, things have been busy. I have been cooking some, and often thinking 'ooh this would be good to put on the blog,' and then we eat it hurriedly and remember belatedly that I meant to take a picture. So, for the next couple of months, until things simmer down, I am going to own this whole iPhone blog thing. I have been doing it, but not loving it. Until today. I am going to take pictures in the poor late afternoon winter light, apply an Instagram filter and slap it on up here. I am so succeeding at this whole new me no guilt thing.

Just look at this beautiful, grainy, green-ish, slightly blurry masterpiece:

A couple of years ago, back in take one of this blog, I wrote about a delicious salad with black bean patties that had become a regular in my kitchen. Then times changed, and now I am preferring things that are less fussy (see above re: busy life). This dish is a perfect example. It comes from an article in Food and Wine on one pan dinners, it's a curry, so it makes me feel fancy, and I can make it without referring to the recipe (a never for me). I like it even in the summer.

(Apologies for the post about my laziness. What can I say. I am boring in the winter. It's almost that time of year when I spend tons of money on the very first microgreens and anything-we-haven't-been-eating-all-winter so things are about to get crazy in the little brooklyn kitchen.)

Curried Eggplant with Chickpeas and Spinach
very lightly adapted from Food and Wine

2 cloves garlic, crushed
salt
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/4-1/3 cup canola, grapeseed or olive oil
1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into chunks (the recipe says 3/4", I don't know what that looks like, but if you do go for it)
1 15-oz can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/4 cup julienned fresh ginger (not going to lie--I tend to get the canned ginger)
Pepper
Spinach, swiss chard, kale, or any other green--and lots of it
Warm naan and plain yogurt for serving

1. Preheat oven to 425 F. On a large baking pan or jelly roll sheet, mash the garlic and salt together. Add the curry powder and oil. Add the eggplant, chickpeas and ginger and toss to combine. Season with salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes. Add the greens (like I said, lots of them--they wilt and get small so I just heap as much will fit on the roasting pan) and roast until wilted, about 5 minutes. Serve with naan and yogurt.

New Year, New Me?

Oh hey, it's 2013.  I thought more would be made about this being the 13th year of this century and somehow unlucky (I mean, the other day was 1-3-13 for goodness sake), but maybe we were too busy worrying about Mayan prophecies and the end of the world.  Anyhow, I, like the rest of the country, have been thinking about the new year, what I'd like to accomplish in the coming months (resolutions, if you will) and all that jazz.  By it's very nature this year should (god I hope it is) be better than last.  So I am trying to figure out how I can contribute to the greatness that I know this year can be. 

I mentioned in my last post 'the person I think/wish I am/was.'  For the new year, I'd like to be more like her.  I want to have more meals at the kitchen table than in front of the TV.  I want to do that thing where you eat full fat brie and are satisfied with less because it's the real thing.  I want to pay attention to what I am really hungry for and 'intuitively eat' or whatever.  I want to finally learn how to can, to make the rosewater syrup and calendula salve I've been meaning to make for months, to put to use some of the craft supplies I inherited from my mother...and most importantly to not feel guilty/disappointed if I don't do any of those things.  Basically I am resolving to be happier and to do the things I love doing.

To that end, I had a lovely weekend.  Yesterday TW and I had brunch with friends, went on a long walk in the sun, visited the Ann Hamilton exhibit again (the swings!  Oh how I love the swings...), and did a little shopping before we watched the football games.  Today I went to the gym, did my shopping at a combination of the hippy store that I love, the local fish market and wine store, came home and made a Dutch baby pancake for breakfast (at 3!) and then made a meal from Bon Appetit's food lover's cleanse to eat while watching the football game.  I have a feeling the eating at the table part of my resolution will have to wait until after football is over.  This dinner was really delicious, and not at all cleanse-y.  Not going to lie, I was hungry an hour later and had some dark chocolate and kale chips.  In an effort to achieve balance, I'd call that a win.

Just going to give the links, as I didn't modify the recipes at all.  If your baby bok choy is was big as mine was, you probably only need to get 2-4.  I got the recommended 6 and I couldn't fit them all into a large pot.  Otherwise I followed the directions exactly.

Sake-Steamed Clams with Soba Noodles
Bok Choy with Chili-Black Bean Sauce

The Things You'll Miss

It hasn't been all bad, these two years since I last posted.  DP and I got married, so now I have to figure out how to refer to her here.  I could go with DW, but...no, actually I can't.  I hate it.  Oh, maybe TW for the wife.  I'll go there.  For now.  Anyhow, that was a wonderful, magical time, and it came together in a matter of months thanks to family, friends and strangers that pitched in to make it happen.  Including and especially my mom, who in the months leading up to the wedding hand made 80 champagne glasses and sock monkeys for people to take home as favors.  It was a beautiful, personal touch.  Incidentally, I would highly recommend the planing-your-wedding-in-2.5-months approach.  Takes a lot of the stress away when you don't have time to obsess over small details.  


Since we got married (and talked about having kids), we've been getting a lot of 'do this now' advice.  Travel now, read all the books you want to read now, go out to bars and get drunk now, and most recently, enjoy your time in the bathroom, alone, now.  I've been thinking about this advice today, partially because it's New Year's eve, and partially because we will (hopefully) be expanding our family of three (us and our cat) sooner rather than later.  Sadly, I have no money for travel.  I'll have to settle for pinterest browsing/living vicariously through my traveling friends.  Books, I have been reading.  I got a kindle for my birthday and I have been making the most of it (plus the progress bar at the bottom makes it feel like a competition, and I am nothing if not a competitive person).  Going out to bars and getting drunk, no comment.  And spending time in the bathroom...I feel like that's one of those things that I'll wish I had done when I can't anymore, but I probably am not going to savor it now.

So, the things that I'll miss.  Lazy mornings drinking coffee and watching TV.  Spontaneous museum trips.  Making long and complicated recipes.  Date nights.  Taking advantage of NYC.  Since I only do one of those things with any regularity (the first, obviously, although since school ended date nights have entered the rotation with more regularity), I decided to take this weekend, the last in 2012, to focus on the others.  I went to the Museum of Natural History and the beautiful Ann Hamilton exhibit at the armory yesterday.  I entered the drawing to win opera tickets for this weekend (potential date night).  And this morning, I made myself the kind of breakfast I always tell myself I should make.  The breakfast the girl I think/wish I am/was makes on a regular basis.  You know, the girl who is happy with a slice of bread and some cheese alongside a simple salad for lunch.  Who sits down for proper meals, instead of snacking on the go.  Who eats plain yogurt with a little bit of fruit for a snack, instead of chips and hummus.  Or who doesn't snack at all.  Basically I want to be a French woman.  Goals for the new year...

I made a simple roasted tomato sauce (from scratch!  for breakfast!), baked an egg in it, topped it with romano cheese and ate it.  A breakfast that took me a little over an hour to make.  That's something I'll miss, even if I've only done it once.  Actually, it was perfect for this little experiment, because while it took a long time, very little of it was hands on, and it turned out delicious.  In the winter, roasting plum tomatoes brings out their sweetness, which added a little bit of summer to the meal.  To make it even more perfect, I ate it lazily, drinking coffee, and watching a Buffy marathon on Netflix.  Here's to 2013, to saying goodbye to some of these things, and just maybe to discovering other things I love more.

(I couldn't find my camera, but in the interest of keeping this blog going I wanted to post, so I used my phone.  Unfortunately the second photo doesn't totally capture the deliciousness of this dish...)

Eggs Baked in Roasted Tomato Sauce
Lightly adapted from Food and Wine

2 lbs plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise
3 cloves garlic, smashed
2 glugs olive oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 tsp dried oregano
4-8 large eggs
Pecorino Romano cheese

Preheat oven to 400* F.  Line a large baking sheet with tinfoil, toss the tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil together, season with salt and pepper.  Make sure all of your tomatoes end up cut side up.  Bake for 15 minutes, then flip over and bake 20 more minutes.  Cool slightly, then transfer to a blender.  Add oregano and blend.  Can make ahead (see note).

Set oven proof dish (how ever many servings you are making--I just used one) on said baking sheet lined with new foil.  Pour 1/4 of the sauce into dish, add 1-2 eggs (I used one) and top with grated Pecorino Romano cheese.  Bake for 15 minutes, until whites are set.  Serve with toast, coffee, and preferably several episodes of your favorite show, enjoyed with your sleeping cat curled up next to you. 

Note: If you make the sauce ahead, or have leftovers and are making it from the refrigerator, heat the sauce up before proceeding with the egg/oven step.  Otherwise your egg will cook unevenly, it'll take too long, and the yolk will most likely cook (speaking from experience, clearly).  

Let Me Entertain You

It's been a while.  Last time I wrote, I had just moved into this apartment, and my mom had just been diagnosed with cancer.  A lot's happened since then, some of it good, some of it decidedly bad.  The haze of the past couple of years culminated in my mom passing away in April.  For a while, I stopped cooking.  I even quit the coop (aka the hippie store).  We ate lots of Trader Joe's frozen food, risotto (turns out the only takeout food worth eating in this neighborhood is risotto), and Fresh Direct.  We went back to our old neighborhood for Thai.

Since then it's been a slow journey back to myself.  A little heavy for a cooking blog, but what the hell.  It's been two years and it's my damn blog.  For a while after my mom passed away, one of my coworkers, who happened to lose her sister a week or two after my mom, would randomly turn to me at work and ask 'do you still miss your mom sometimes?'  So yeah, all day, every day, with every fiber of my being.  Indulge me in a little reminiscing.  

My mom was hysterically funny, and really had a handle on her particular brand of humor.  She would send me cards with whatever money she had in her pocket (one time $2.37) and instructions to buy myself a cup of tea, or as I got older a beer, with the money.  She would have one sided conversations with herself in said cards.  'How are you?  I am fine.  Your father and I are watching TV.  I don't have anything else to say.'  She would answer my calls when shopping, and then promptly announce that she couldn't multitask and hang up.  She loved to tell the story about seeing a horse with a large erection while we were driving cross country.  Suddenly full of understanding, she turned to me and started excitedly squealing 'hung like a horse! hung like a horse!' over and over again.  Spending time on Cape Cod, she would always get into the ocean first, and we would act out the old cartoon Cecil and Beanie.  She'd call, "Help, Cecil, help!" in a high voice, to which I would respond 'I'm coming Beanie,' and join her in the water, just past our heads, where we would tread water and talk about how many calories we were burning (usually 5,000/minute).  She would get so excited about gift giving.  She'd buy something, and then want to give it to the recipient immediately.  Instead of doing that, though, she'd run through some version of 'no matter how hard you try you are not going to get it out of me...don't even try...ok, I got you a puzzle.  I can't believe you made me tell you!' 

Yeah, I still miss her.  She was a great entertainer.  She loved to cook a huge spread and have people over--the more the merrier.  For her 50th birthday, we wanted to cater a party, or take her out to a restaurant, or rent out a hall.  She refused, and would only let us heat up food that she had pre-made for her guests.  One of my regrets is never learning her style of cooking.  My sister is better at it--I am a strict recipe follower, but my mom could throw together seemingly random ingredients and make it taste good.  Her version of writing down a recipe was 'croutons, sausage, celery, cream of chicken soup.'  Full stop.  My goal, in that and many things, is to be more like her.

(My parents on their anniversary trip to St. John.  We were pretending to be paparazzi.)

One of the new recipes I tried this summer is perfect for entertaining.  I saw it on a couple of different blogs, and then researched different versions of it.  It is ideal for a lazy summer dinner party.  It comes together quickly, and can be made while your guests nibble on starters.  I like to dunk my bites in a pile of extra Old Bay.  I made it for friends visiting from out of town, and again for family when I went to Cape Cod for the annual Carnival parade in Provincetown.  I wish I could have made it for my mom-she would have liked it (and probably would have uttered many effusive 'mmm's and 'this is the best meal of my life' type statements.  I'm not bragging, she just really enjoyed each meal and lived life like it would just keep getting better).

Low Country Boil
adapted from multiple sources, including katheats.com
serves a lot

4 ears corn, halved
1.5-2 lbs shrimp (deveined but not peeled--my fish market did it for me)
1-1.5 lbs smoked sausage (such as kielbasa)
6 red potatoes, quartered
1-2 lbs quahogs (optional, in this version my father had gone clamming, so we had quahogs to spare)
Old Bay
4 lemons, halved

1. Fill a large pot with water, add lemons and old bay to taste (I just dumped it in until the water tasted spicy), bring to a boil.  

2. Add potatoes and kielbasa, cook 20 minutes.

3. Add corn and quahogs, cook 10 minutes.

4. Add shrimp, cook 3-5 minutes, until pink. 

Drain and serve with extra old bay and a nice, crusty bread.

Long Time No Cook...

For a second there, I thought I was going to have to change the name of my blog to "Little Queens Kitchen." We moved last month, and the process was, as always, harrowing. We met with sleazy brokers, saw lots and lots and lots of tiny basement apartments, raised our price limit, expanded our search to other boroughs, and finally ended up in an apartment way out in...Brooklyn. Hurrah. Because partway through the searching we realized that we are just not Queens people. We have roots in Brooklyn, and they run deep.

After the apartment hunting was done, of course, we had to deal with actually moving. And while we hired actual movers this time (Yay! We're adults!) doing that combined with starting school and working was just exhausting. But now here we are, settled in, with my favorite dancing lady lamp finally in a place of honor on the kitchen table. And I am getting back to cooking.

Perhaps my least favorite part of the moving experience is the disruption of routine, specifically in the kitchen. At some point you have to pack your pots and pans, and from that point until everything finds a place in your new home, cooking is pretty much on the back burner. We ate take out, sandwiches, cereal and yogurt, and various other convenience foods for what seemed like forever. Meanwhile, though, we explored our new neighborhood and figured out where to shop, played with the new oven, and finally made a functional kitchen. Ever since, I've been making up for lost time. French onion soup, pizza, roasted veggies...it's good to be back.

Unfortunately, I haven't taken any pictures. So this recipe is from the glory days, over the summer, when I had little to do and lots of time. It's my favorite summer pizza, packed with all the best flavors of the season. And there's salad on top, so it's healthy! You could make it with apples or pears and spinach instead of arugula to make it a fall pizza.


Pizza with Plums, Prosciutto, Gorgonzola, Balsamic and Arugula
adapted from Bon Appetit

1 1-pound package purchased pizza dough (I make my own, usually from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything)
2 cups Gorgonzola cheese, crumbled (about 8 ounces)*
3-4 plums, pitted and cut into wedges (the recipe calls for figs, I use plums when I can't get fresh figs)
2 tablespoons fig balsamic vinegar, divided
8 thin slices prosciutto
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
8 cups arugula

Preheat oven to 450*. Role out dough on an upside down cookie sheet to a 12" x 10" rectangle. Sprinkle Gorgonzola over dough. Sprinkle with pepper. Place plums in a medium bowl, drizzle with 1 tablespoon vinegar and set aside.

Bake pizza until crust is golden brown on the bottom, 15-20 minutes. Immediately drape prosciutto slices over, covering entire pizza. Arrange plums on top of prosciutto, and cook until just warmed, 1-2 minutes. Whisk remaining vinegar and olive oil in a large bowl, add arugula. Toss, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Mound salad atop pizza, cut into slices and serve.

*I measured the Gorgonzola for the first time the last time I made this, and it was a bit much. I'd recommend 1-1 1/2 cups instead of 2.

Missed Opportunities

Every summer, I swear I am going to take full advantage of all the opportunities of the season. The days are long, and despite the heat I love the idea of carefree evenings filled with outdoor movies, drinks outside, and the impromptu sidewalk jazz concerts (ok, that last one only happened once, but it was still awesome). The key phrase there was "despite the heat." Although secretly I want to be that person with just a dewy glow while carrying out various activities in all the humidity, I am really a crazy sweat ball and often forgo events because it is just too darned hot in this city. I usually manage to attend several carefully selected summertime-only events: symphony/opera in the park, Bastille day, and perhaps a movie outside. The rest of the time I prefer a more air conditioned existence, choosing indoor seating over the patio and madly fanning myself until my sweat beads evaporate. Inevitably, when fall rolls around I look back on the summer with rose colored glasses and berate myself for not making just a little bit more effort. I wax nostalgic about the still summer nights, the air heavy and full of potential.

Inevitably the air turns cooler, and I become more motivated. And my only remaining regrets have to do with produce. Summer is so abundant in this area that I can't possibly use it all. I walk the aisles with eyes wide open, breath slightly held, packing as much produce into my tiny cart as I think I can possibly eat in one week. As much as I try, I always miss something. This year it was garlic scapes. I love those things! I saw them in passing a few times at the store, but not when I was in the experimenting mood. By the time I was ready to buy they were long gone. I also missed fresh garlic, spring onions, and blueberries.

I actually ate a lot of blueberries this summer, but all in the "enjoy these beautiful orbs in their most natural form" way. Prior to the summer start I thought we might make our way to a "U Pick" blueberry patch and purchase enough to make jam, bake endless muffins, and perhaps freeze some for the winter. Sadly, we never made it. Plus, by the time I located the recipe I clipped three years ago to make for DP, local blueberries were no longer in stock at my grocery store.

Not to be deterred, I grabbed some frozen blueberries and headed home. And I made what is easily the best summer desert I have ever made. First, I've never made a shortbread from scratch and was pleased to discover that it's actually easy. Second, the little bits of ginger made the whole thing sing. And third, the frozen blueberries worked just fine. They reminded me that even in winter, when I am looking back on all of summer's missed opportunities, I'll be able to whip up a little bit of summer (before I head out with my sled to take advantage of the snow!).


Gingered Blueberry Shortcake
from Cooking Light

4 cups blueberries
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon lime juice
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces
3 tablespoons minced crystallized ginger
3/4 cups 2% milk
1 large egg white
1 tablespoon water
1 tablespoon turbinado sugar
1/3 cup heavy whipping cream
2 teaspoons powdered sugar, or to taste

Preheat oven to 400F.

Combine first three ingredients in a saucepan over medium-low heat, cook 3 minutes or until sugar is dissolved, stirring frequently. Set aside.

Place flour, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a food processor; pulse 3 times to combine. Add butter and ginger; pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. Place mixture in a large bowl, add milk and stir until just moist. Turn mixture out onto lightly floured surface, press into 7-inch circle. Cut into 8 wedges and place each 1 inch apart on baking sheet. Combined egg white and water in a small bowl. Brush wedges with egg mixture, sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Bake at 400F for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool.

Place cream and sugar in a medium bowl. Use an electronic or wire whisk to beat cream until you get to your desired consistency. Split shortcakes in half horizontally. Spoon 1/3 cup blueberries over bottom half, top with 1 1/2 tablespoon whipped cream and top half of shortcake. Eat. Yum.

Favorites

DP has decided that our children will never have the chance to be picky, because I seldom make the same thing for dinner twice. Since I decided to learn to cook 8 years ago, my collection of cookbooks has grown to more than 20, and I have 4 binders stuffed with all the recipes I have pulled out of magazines to try. Recently I implemented a "one in, one out" policy (toss one recipe for each one I add) but that hasn't kept me from cramming extra pages into the side pockets of the binders. In addition, since I discovered food blogs I've learned how to bookmark recipes in my internet browser for future reference. I now have over 100 saved. I would like to try for a tiny bit more organization to help on those occasions that we like something so much we want it again, but for the most part I like the variety of trying something new almost every time I cook.

I have never been one to have a "favorite" something. Favorite color, meal, band, TV show--I generally don't get attached enough to things to call them my favorite. Occasionally, though, we like a meal so much that it makes a repeat appearance (sometimes the next day--like the Fried Green Tomato BLTs). More occasionally, the meal is so good, and so satisfying that it finds itself in a somewhat regular rotation. There's the "sick soup" (chicken and rosemary dumplings, made when one of us is sick), our favorite pizza, and this salad. It was the first recipe I made from the first food blog I ever discovered, The Kitchen Sink. The creamy, healthy dressing is regularly made for everything from fish tacos to cabbage salad. I think I like it best with the original salad, which I have now made so many times I think I can firmly call it a "favorite."

Crispy Black Bean Cake Salad
adapted from The Kitchen Sink (who adapted it from Food and Wine)

1 tablespoon + 2 teaspoons canola oil
1 small onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
2/3 cup dried bread crumbs
salt and pepper
2 to 3 cups baby greens*
1/2 pint cherry tomatoes
3 scallions, sliced
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and sliced
2 limes, cut into wedges
*All salad ingredients and quantities are a matter of personal preference/what you have. Basically, put together the ingredients you would to make any salad.

Yogurt-Lime Dressing
1/3 cup plain non-fat greek yogurt
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 teaspoon cumin
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium skillet, heat 2 teaspoons canola oil. Add onion and garlic, cook over medium heat until softened, ~ 3 minutes. Add the cumin and cayenne, cook until fragrant, 1 minute. Place the onion mixture in the bowl of a food processor. Add about half the beans (3/4 cup, but I never measure) and pulse until the mixture is finely chopped. Scrape the mixture into a medium bowl, add the remaining black beans and 1/4 cup of breadcrumbs. Add salt and pepper to taste, mix thoroughly. Shape into six patties.

Place breadcrumbs into a shallow dish and dip each of the patties into the dish, pressing to get the breadcrumbs to stick.

Heat remaining 1 tablespoon of oil in the skillet until shimmering. Add the cakes and cook over medium-high heat until browned.

Meanwhile, mix all of the ingredients for the dressing in a large bowl. Add salad ingredients (except avocado), toss.** Divide between 2 plates.

Top salad with avocado and bean cakes, serve and enjoy!

**Alternately, as in the picture above, you could just drizzle the dressing over the assembled salad.

Bait and Switch

DP and I are planning to move out of our place and into a (hopefully) larger, cheaper apartment in a little over a month. We are currently in the middle of navigating Brooklyn real estate, which has fortunately gotten a lot more reasonable in the last couple of years. Three years ago, looking for an apartment was horrifying. We laughed, we cried, we fought, and then we found ourselves in a beautiful little gem for exactly the right price. It's remembering that the gem is out there that is difficult.

No matter what the state of the market is, real estate agents love the "bait and switch." It's something I had forgotten about in the intervening years, but when we started the search all of the memories came flooding back. Here's how it goes (as I'm sure most people know): you find an apartment, perhaps on craigslist, that looks great. It is large, lots of light, nicely maintained, and the right price (all of which you can't totally tell from an ad, but you get an idea). You call to set up an appointment to see it, and one of two things happens. Either the agent is upfront with you and says that actually, that apartment is [no longer available, not showing yet, being converted into a yoga studio] but how about we show you this other apartment in the [wrong neighborhood/price range/move in date]. Or you show up for the appointment and the same thing happens. Or you show up and the apartment is in a "slightly" different location than you were told. Or, occasionally, it is exactly as represented. That's what we are looking for, and hopeful we will be able to find in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully sans tears/fights/frustration.

Today, after a full morning of appointments, we came home for brunch. There, I performed a little bait and switch of my own. I took a normal, healthy ingredient (heirloom tomatoes), and fried it. Then I served it up with bacon and arugula for a delicious sandwich that screamed of summer. It was a welcome break from the detox diet--although with the light batter and whole grain bread I might have a second batch tomorrow!


Fried Green Tomato BLT
from Food and Wine

4 slices bacon
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 pound unripe green tomatoes, cut into 1/2 inch slices (I used green zebra heirloom tomatoes)
canola oil
8 slices whole wheat/multigrain bread, toasted
mayonnaise (I used canola oil mayo)
arugula

Preheat oven to 400F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil, bake bacon on sheet until crisp, or 15 minutes. Drain the bacon and cut in half.

Put the flour, cornmeal, and egg in three separate shallow bowls. Season the cornmeal with salt and pepper. Dredge the tomato slices in flour, egg, and then cornmeal, tapping to remove excess.

In a large skillet, heat 1/4 inch canola oil until shimmery (or water sizzles when flicked in pan). Add tomatoes and cook until golden brown, around 5 minutes, turning once (it took me longer than 5 minutes to cook them until crisp). Drain tomatoes on paper towels.

Spread the toast with a thin layer of mayo. Layer with arugula, 2 halves of bacon, and tomatoes. Serve and enjoy!

Detox and Cake

As I said in a previous post, DP and I traveled a lot (for us) this summer. Starting in April and finishing in late July, we went to St. John, San Francisco, Cape Cod, Princeton, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Some of those places for just a night, some for longer, but either way by the time the end of July rolled around we felt a little bit of a mess. Housework neglected, freewheeling spending, many weeks of skipped grocery shopping and take out meals, "vacation" lifestyle...let's just say we needed to detox hard. And we are. We are well on our way--the house is looking a lot better, regular shopping and weeknight cooking have resumed, and the spending has been slightly curtailed. Oh, and the gym? We are rebuilding our friendship. Although if they don't fix the air conditioning we may resume our previous casual acquaintance status.

Since we are currently in the throws of eating nothing but sprouted bread, fruits and vegetables, cabbage salad, and other assorted healthy foods, I'm going to take a moment and reflect on cake. In my family the traditional birthday cake is cherry cake. Actually, my mother would argue that it was her special cake and that we all stole it from her. Either way, it's delicious. Flavored with maraschino cherry juice, the bright pink frosting is adorned with pecans and glistening artificially colored and flavored shells of fruit--we like to cram so much on it is difficult to find space for the candles. Friends who have been served the cake generally look at it first with an air of suspicion, then taste it, love it, and find themselves looking forward to it year after year.

So that's what I have on my birthday, but DP is an entirely different story. While she likes the cherry cake, she wants (and deserves) her own special cake. We haven't settled on an every year favorite yet, and this year she requested either a yellow cake or flourless chocolate. I opted to make a flourless chocolate cake (because I like chocolate better...yeah, I'm a gem). As previously mentioned, I am not a baker. This cake makes someone like me look like a whiz in the kitchen, and that I appreciate. It was also delicious, and I might be able to convince myself that its lack of flour makes it detox approved...

but most likely not. Oh well, my birthday is coming up in November.

Flourless Chocolate Cake (or La Bete Noire)
from Bon Appetit

Cake
1 cup water
3/4 cup sugar

9 tablespoons unsalted butter, diced
18 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped (I used semisweet--next time I'd use bittersweet)
6 large eggs

Ganache
1 cup heavy whipping cream
8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped (same above note)

Whipped cream

Cake instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 10 inch cake pan (springform would be easier, but I used my silicone pan and it worked just fine). Line bottom of pan with parchment paper, butter parchment. Wrap 3 layers of tin foil around pan (I tried to do this, failed, and it was fine). Combine 1 cup water and sugar in a small saucepan, bring to a boil and stir until sugar dissolves. Simmer 5 minutes, remove from heat.

Melt butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Whisk sugar syrup into chocolate, cool slightly (I cooled slightly more than slightly--I was afraid I'd end up with scrambled eggs mixed in with my cake). Add eggs to chocolate mixture and whisk until well blended. Pour batter into prepared pan. Place cake pan in large roasting pan, add enough water to come halfway up the sides of the pan.

Bake cake until center doesn't shake when jiggled, about 50 minutes. Remove cake pan from roasting pan and place on cooling rack. Cool completely in pan.

Ganache instructions:
Bring whipping cream to a simmer in a small saucepan, remove from heat. Add chocolate and whisk until smooth. Pour over cake still in pan. Refrigerate until ganache is set, ~2 hours.

Whipped cream:
Pour remaining whipping cream (1 cup from the 2 cup pint) in medium bowl. Add 1 tablespoon sugar (or to taste) and dash of flavored vinegar (I used pomegranate). Whisk your little heart out, until soft peaks form. You could use a mechanical whisker, but I really like to do it myself. Adjust sugar and vinegar--you are going for lightly sweetened.

Pancakes

I love pancakes. Actually, more broadly, I love brunch. By its very design, brunch is like giving yourself permission to slow down. It's a later in the day meal, shared with friends, meant to be lingered over, and often involves a drink. Friends, slowing down, and a well made drink--my favorite things. I love that in New York brunch is something you 'do,' and that in Brooklyn the relaxed pace makes it possible without an oppressively long wait. I love that it's a reliable fall-back idea: Can't think of what to do? Let's do brunch. I also really do love brunch food more than most other meals of the day. Eggs, omelets, frittatas, bacon, and pancakes. And I do love pancakes.

I actually consider pancakes a 'bridge' food. They aren't great for having friends over for brunch (standing at the stove making batches does not a happy hostess make) but they do require a certain amount of extra time to prepare and cook. I also don't, as a rule, order pancakes out--I usually find them dry, and restaurants almost never have real maple syrup. Thus, they're good for the "slow down" part of brunch, but closer to an every day food. Growing up my parents didn't make pancakes, they made crepes, which we called "clipes." We only ate them with maple syrup (which had to be real, no Mrs. Butterworth in our house), and they were a frequent weekend treat. The whole concept of savory crepes still kind of confuses me and I've yet to try them. Since I started cooking for myself (and DP) I've had to try to find my own "go to" pancake recipe. Crepes, unfortunately, are too eggy for DP. While that is something of a bummer, it has given me an excuse to experiment and go searching for the "perfect" pancake recipe.

I think I may have found my "favorite" pancake. It is moist, light, substantive (some pancake recipes, I have found, are too light), and has a great lemony flavor. I made these for DP's birthday and I look forward to enjoying them for many brunches to come.


Blueberry Lemon Ricotta Pancakes
adapted from Epicurious

4 lg eggs, separated
1 1/3 cups ricotta
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh grated lemon zest
1/2 cup all purpose flour
blueberries
butter
maple syrup

In a medium bowl whisk together the egg yolks, ricotta, sugar and lemon zest. Add the flour, stir until just combined. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form stiff peaks. Fold the egg whites into the ricotta mixture until combined. Melt a small pat of butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until bubbling. Pour the batter into the skillet in 1/4 cup measures. Scatter blueberries into pancakes. Once you see bubbles forming on surfaces of the pancakes, flip (1-2 minutes per side). Cook 1-2 minutes more. Serve with maple syrup and extra blueberries.

July

Wait, is it August already? I can't believe what a whirlwind summer it has been. Since we got back from traveling I have been cooking up a storm while trying to avoid the unbearable heat and humidity in the city. More to come, later.

Back to July. One of my favorite holidays used to be the fourth of July. Up until I was ten, my entire family would get together for what we called a Penny Sale. All of my relatives would bring dishes to share, and items that they thought others would like to win in the raffle. My Aunt Lorraine, an Avon lady, would bring a whole carload of Avon products and organize the sale. We would arrange all of the items on folding tables and tape a dixie cup nearby. Raffle tickets were sold in envelopes ($2 for adults, I think kids got a discount); you would use your numbers to "bid" on the items. For instance, an envelope might hold 50 slips of paper with the number 2 on them. If you really, really wanted the little keepsake box, you would put all 50 of your tickets in the cup for that item, increasing the chances that your number would get picked. Funny memory--when I was around five I asked my aunt if I could carry on the tradition of doing the sale when she died. She was probably in her mid-fifties at the time.

While the raffle went on, we would sit in lawn chairs, eating barbecue, eagerly anticipating hearing our number from the "caller." In between, cousins and siblings would play lawn games and swing on the swing set. The day would culminate in backyard fireworks--the best, if not the safest, of firework displays.

Family circumstances caused the Penny Sales to be retired some 20 years ago, and the memories of them are drenched in nostalgia. Now I associate July 4 with Cape Cod, and even if I only have a few days off (like this year) I brave the traffic and head up there. Usually the weekend is full of barbecues at various family friends' houses, complete with bocce tournaments and babies, and the best adult perk: wine. This year I was sick and my parents weren't there, so DP and I embarked on a quest to make some authentically summery/Cape Cod-y food. We steamed lobsters, grilled corn and chicken, and made time for ice cream sundaes.

Our lobsters were delicious, and easily made once you get over the whole "they must be cooked while alive" hump. We read that placing them in the refrigerator prior to cooking numbs the nervous system, so we did that. I'm not sure if they were numb or not, but I like to think they fought a little less than usual.

*love the little barnacle by mr. lobster's eye

Loose directions for cooking lobster:
Place a large (really large) pot on the stove, fill with 1-2 inches water mixed with 2 tablespoons salt and the juice of 1 lemon. Bring water to a boil, add the lobsters (1-2 lbs each). Cover, steam 12-15 minutes or until lobster shells turn bright red. Serve with melted butter, preferably on plastic plates printed with instructions on how to eat a lobster (see above).

On the fourth, because I was sick, we kept everything really simple. Grilled the corn, in the husk, no bells and whistles--just butter. Grilled the chicken, brushing with store bought barbecue sauce (Dinosaur) frequently. Grilled romaine lettuce, dressed in store bought balsamic vinaigrette. Drank wine. Ate ice cream, and made it to the beach for the amateur fireworks show. It was great. Not too many pictures, but here's one of the corn:

Even Better than the Real Thing

Another vacation, another salad week. This one a little more indulgent (the vacation, and the salad). We spent a week in San Francisco with family, and it was like a 'Best Of' tour of the city. I lived there for a while once upon a time, and the city as a whole holds a special place in my heart. We shopped, went to wine country, had a fire on the beach, and we ate. And ate. And ate. I'm needing a cleanse week now more than ever. Unfortunately, as soon as we got back I worked for 2 days and then we celebrated DP's birthday. So now it's salad week, one week later.

This salad I actually made a couple of weeks before we went on vacation. I liked the idea of the lightly sauteed lettuce, and all the components of the BLT except not in a sandwich (I'm not a huge fan of sandwiches). I really like grilled lettuce, and I wondered if lettuce cooked in another manner would be as appealing. It was! This was great--the chicken crispy, the salad wilty and delicious, and the mayonnaise a nice, citrousy accompaniment. I'll definitely be making it in salad weeks to come, and I'll be sharing this weeks salads in later posts!

*Photo courtesy of DP

Deconstructed BLT
from Bon Appetit

1/2 cup mayonnaise (I use canola oil mayo, you could certainly use low-fat for a lighter salad)
1 tsp minced fresh rosemary
1/2 tsp lemon zest
5 slices center cut bacon
4 large plum tomatoes, cut into 1/2 inch cubes
1 tsp ground cumin
1 5-ounce package mixed baby greens
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
1 cup panko

Mix first three ingredients in a small bowl, season with salt and pepper.

Cook bacon in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp, crumble and set aside. Add tomatoes and cumin to bacon fat, cook 2 minutes. Add greens, toss until just wilted, about 1 minute. Sprinkle with red wine vinegar, toss to blend, season with salt and pepper. Add bacon to greens.

Preheat oven to 400 F. Place panko in shallow dish, sprinkle chicken breasts with salt and pepper, press into panko to coat both sides. Place on jelly roll pan and cook in oven until meat thermometer reaches 165 F, around 35 minutes.

Divide greens evenly among 4 dishes. Top each with 1 chicken breast, and 2 tablespoons mayonnaise. I also had some extra roasted cherry tomatoes, so we threw those on top (roasted in 400 degree oven, tossed with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, for 20 minutes or until soft).

Hot and Heavy

It has recently gotten hot and humid in Brooklyn. Summers in New York are generally miserable (for me), but the thick, super hot days usually don't roll around until at least the end of June. So far this year we have already hit 90, and most days have been in the mid 80s with the humidity hovering around (or over) 70%. All of this makes me lazy, and while at the very least I have to show up at work and school, a lot of cooking has been falling by the wayside. DP and I have been eating out a lot--which hasn't been good for our wallets or waistlines. I need to re-fill my coffers with light, easy recipes that aren't much work when it's too hot to move.

This salad fits the bill: it's a salad, nearly always light; it has some of my favorite ingredients (avocado, miso, and cilantro); and a final treat--steak. Oh, and it comes together in about 40 minutes. I made this a couple of weeks ago when the hot weather started, and it was great. Of course today, after a long, hot weekend of traipsing all over the city (damned if I'm going to let the heat spoil my fun!) and buying presents for a very special someone, we went right back to going out to dinner. Ah, well...


Photo courtesy of DP

Beef and Red Pepper Salad with White Miso Dressing
from Bon Appetit

3 Tablespoons + 2 teaspoons vegetable oil
3 Tablespoons unseasoned rice vinegar
2 Tablespoons white miso
2 Tablespoons chopped, peeled ginger
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 1 1/4 lb flank steak (pretty sure I used hanger steak, which was just fine)
1 5-ounce container mixed baby greens (or salad greens of your choice--especially local!)
2 cups thinly sliced cucumber (unpeeled if Japanese/English hothouse, peeled otherwise)
1 lg red bell pepper, cut into strips
1 cup chopped cilantro
1 cup thinly sliced red onions
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and cut up

For the dressing:
Place 3 tablespoons oil, rice vinegar, miso, ginger and garlic in blender or food processor, pulse/blend until smooth. Set aside 2 tablespoons for the beef, reserve the rest.

Heat remaining 2 teaspoons oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Salt and pepper steak, brush one side with reserved dressing, and place dressing side down into the skillet. Brown on both sides, 3-4 minutes per side. Brush steak with some of the remaining dressing toward the end of cooking. When done, transfer to a cutting board and let sit for 10 minutes. Brush with remaining dressing. Slice thinly.

Place all greens in a bowl, toss with reserved dressing.* Divide evenly among 4 plates, topping with beef and avocado.

*There is only 2 of us, so I always only dress half the greens--otherwise they get soggy.

The Easy Button

A couple of weeks ago I found myself in a meeting that I felt could have been avoided. The meeting took just five minutes and was going over plans that I already knew, yet I had to take the subway 45 hours to get there and then back home before going to work that night. When it was over, the woman said "Well that was easy--just like I pushed the 'Easy Button.'" And I thought 'if only.'

I have been trying to find the easy way out of certain daily routines lately. I used to enjoy long, sprawling afternoons to make complicated, time consuming recipes. It was fun for me--I talked at length about the Eric Ripert salad that took me 2 1/2 hours to make (and that would be all I ever ate if I had the time). I'm not quite sure what happened, but I haven't had that kind of time in months. And so, in between trying to find my way back to free time and continuing live my over-scheduled life, I have also been looking for some simple time savers. Trying to find the 'Easy Button' in my own life, if you will.

This dish, pasta with roasted tomatoes, accomplished exactly that. It came together in about 40 minutes (and I am one where, if the recipe says 30 minutes it usually takes me three times that), roasting the tomatoes deepens their flavor, and the fresh herbs brighten the dish. It's perfect for right now.



Pasta with Roasted Tomatoes and Goat Cheese
from Cooking Light

12 ounces uncooked whole wheat spaghetti
2 pints cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper
1/4 cup chopped basil
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
3/4 cup crumbled goat cheese

Preheat oven to 450* F.

Cook pasta in dutch oven according to package directions, omitting oil. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup cooking liquid. Return pasta to dutch oven.

Toss cherry tomatoes with 1 tablespoon olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and crushed red pepper. Bake in oven for 10-15 minutes, until softened (you'll hear them popping open in the oven--when most of them are open and there is some char in places, they are finished).

Add cherry tomatoes to pasta. Pour 1/4 cup reserved pasta liquid into tomato pan, scraping to loosen all the juices/browned bits, add to pasta. Add remaining oil to pasta, cook over medium heat, adding pasta water slowly, until whole mixture is glistening. Add herbs, top with goat cheese.

Here and There

Two weeks ago I finished my very intense spring classes. The material was concrete, grounded in research, and tangible. Today, I started my summer semester course, the first in the holistic part of my curriculum. The class is about the mind-body-wellness connection, and it most certainly leaves the concrete behind. For example, we watched part of a film about quantum physics today. One of the people in the film spoke about instances in which particles can be in two places at the exact same time. While I can't quite wrap my brain around such an abstract concept, I also can't help but find it appealing.

Recently, DP and I found out that two of our good friends in the city are moving across the country. Just before that, two other friends also moved across the country. As I look at the dwindling list of friends I have here (with an eye on the ever growing list of friends I have elsewhere), I find myself wishing that I could be in two places at once. If I could have one superhero power I'd want the ability to be transported anywhere, any time, instantaneously.

Sadly, I don't have that power. I do, however, have the ability to make a dish that transports. I wanted to use meatballs that I saw on one of my favorite food blogs to make an Asian spaghetti and meatballs dish. I followed her instructions almost exactly, but I put the meatballs over soba noodles, added some snow peas and used the dipping sauce as the pasta sauce. The winds of change are a'blowing, and this recipe is coming with me!



Asian Spaghetti and Meatballs
adapted from this recipe

1/3-1/2 cup panko
1 1/3 cups ground turkey
1 egg
1 tablespoon minced ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt (scant)
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
3 scallions, chopped
1 tablespoon low sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons sesame oil
assorted vegetables (snow peas, haricot verts)
1 (8 oz.) package soba noodles, cooked according to package directions

Sauce
4 tablespoons low sodium soy sauce
2 tsp sesame oil
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon water
1 scallion, chopped

Preheat oven to 500* F.

In a large bowl, mix together panko, turkey, and next 8 ingredients (through sesame oil), combining with your hands until just mixed. Shape into golf ball sized meatballs (I made about 14) and place on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray (or olive oil in a spray bottle, like I do). Bake for 15-20 minutes, until cooked through.

Meanwhile, heat 1 tsp sesame oil in a 10 inch nonstick skillet. Saute vegetables for 5 minutes, until crisp tender.

Combine all ingredients for the sauce, tasting to adjust seasonings.

When meatballs are done, place soba noodles on dish, place 3 meatballs atop noodles, top with vegetables and sauce. Enjoy!

Method

I love the farmers market. Love it. Last year, on the most perfect spring day in early May, I went to the market with the goal of filling my house with flowers. It was a rare Saturday off and the farmers market was bursting with people, flowers, and fresh produce. It was like heaven. And then, to add to the perfect day, I spotted Dan Barber with two assistants doing the shopping for his restaurant, Blue Hill. I couldn't resist the opportunity to find out what a chef-hero thought was the best looking produce that day, so I followed him. For about 45 minutes. He weaved through the people, stalls, and food like he owned the place, and I must admit that occasionally when he picked up something extra and asked for some for the restaurant (most stalls had pre-prepared orders for him) I came up right behind him and bought some too. Animated birds couldn't have made me happier.

When I came home from vacation a couple of weeks ago there were facebook and blog posts about peoples' amazing hauls over the weekend. Ramps, asparagus, spring greens--spring had arrived! I couldn't wait to get there. Monday morning, bright and early, DP and I grabbed some bags and headed out, eager in our anticipation. It was, to put it mildly, a disappointment. We set out with the mission: "Find stuff we haven't been eating all winter." Unfortunately, Monday at the farmers market is like a skeleton market. There aren't many stalls, and this particular Monday the only "new" vegetable was asparagus. It was the woodier, thick asparagus stalks, but I bought some anyway because I was so excited. Then I got some salad greens, cheese, eggs, carrots and beets (for the aforementioned carrot and beet salad). If it wasn't going to be spring yet, at least I could get some fun new products. Fortunately, later in the week I discovered Wednesdays at the market and since then all has been right with the world.

Later in the week I roasted the asparagus, placed it atop the greens with pork medallions and cheese, and made a red wine vinaigrette--and forgot all about my disappointment at the market. It was delicious!



Salad with Pork Medallions
*This is more of a method recipe than an actual recipe.

1 tsp olive oil
1 lb pork tenderloin
1 bunch asparagus
salad greens (in my house, enough for 2--leftover salad is almost never good, unless it's kale)
your favorite cheese, cut into chunks or crumbled (depending on what kind of cheese)
red wine vinaigrette (I know there are very good recipes out there with the ratios. I just can't be bothered to measure when it comes to dressing. All of this is to taste)
-red wine vinager (2 tablespoons?)
-good olive oil (1/4 cup?)
-1 tsp honey
-salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400 F.
Heat oil in a large skillet.
Trim fat off pork tenderloin and slice into 12ish rounds. Place in skillet, being careful not to overcrowd (or they will steam, not brown). Cook until done, about 8 minutes, turning 1-2 times. Set aside.
While the pork is cooking, wash the asparagus and break off the ends (the asparagus will break at the point it starts to be tender, so it's best not to cut). Place on a baking sheet, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Shake it around. Bake at 400* for 15 minutes. Cut into 1 inch chunks.
Place the salad greens on individual plates, top with 3 pork medallions, cheese, and asparagus. Drizzle vinaigrette over salad and enjoy!

Ode to Squid

Squid, when they are swimming, look like evil little demons heading to their master. Or hypnotized animals following the sirens' call. They swim in groups, all of their pointy little heads tilted in the same direction, and they move by fluttering their tentacles--all of this combining to look like they are being pulled by some magnetic force to their destination.

They are also beautiful. They have purple flecked skin that changes to golden brown for camouflage purposes. Every time we saw a group of squid while snorkeling on vacation I was mesmerized and found myself following them as they glided through the ocean. I also found myself wishing that we had splurged for the water case for the camera so I could snap pictures of the little guys.

My first memory of eating squid was in the third grade at science camp. We dissected them, pulling out the spine to write our names with the ink, and then cut them up and sauteed them for a little snack. I remember thinking it was rubbery, and, quite frankly gross. Of course, throughout the years I have had my fair share of fried calamari--sometimes quite good and often quite bad--but it wasn't until two years ago at Christmas that I started to think about squid as a fish to cook and enjoy at home.

My mother bought some un-prepped squid from her fish guy, and then had a "family project" during which we all learned how to clean the little guys for cooking. First, you pull off the wings, which helps you loosen the skin which you also pull off. Then, you reach inside and pull out the spine, and finally you open up the top and pop off the little beak. I started out the activity begrudgingly, but it was actually kind of fun to get my hands a little dirty and relive my science camp dissection days with a different purpose. Of course, the squid, tossed in an Italian vinaigrette with vegetables, was delicious.

This week at the farmer's market, my favorite fish market had squid for relatively cheap and I snapped up a pound without thinking about what to do with it (a rarity for this devout recipe/list girl). I also got ramps, asparagus, and whole wheat pasta. When I got home I saw this recipe and this recipe on Closet Cooking and I figured I could make a variation of the pesto and add the squid to the dish. It was delicious--full of spring flavor and slightly lighter than your average pesto.


*photo courtesy of DP

Whole Wheat Pasta with Asparagus and Ramp Pesto and Calamari
Pesto adapted from Closet Cooking
*I should note here that I don't really use recipes for pesto. I just throw things in the food processor, whirl it around, taste, and adjust for seasoning/texture. So I'll give my method here.

1 bunch ramps
1 fistfull of basil
3-4 tablespoons olive oil (the original recipe called for 1 tablespoon--maybe because I don't measure, my pesto was originally way too thick. I ended up pouring it through the food processor opening until I got the right consistency--I think it was about 3 tablespoons)
zest of 1 lemon
palmful of walnuts
lemon juice (to taste, and to help with the consistency so you can use a little less oil)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, to taste
salt and pepper to taste
3-4 spears blanched asparagus (from a bunch, use the rest with the pasta)

Place everything in the food processor and turn on, blending until you reach the desired consistency. I like mine a bit chunky.

For the pasta:
12 oz whole wheat pasta, cooked according to package directions
The rest of the bunch of asparagus, cut into 1 inch sections
1 lb squid, cut into 1/4 inch rings
1 tsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
1 cup asparagus and ramp pesto

1. Blanch the asparagus (place in boiling water for 2-3 minutes, until bright green, then remove and plunge into ice water).
2. Heat olive oil in a skillet, add the squid and a little salt and pepper, saute until opaque.
3. Place pasta in large bowl. Add asparagus, calamari, and pesto. Toss. Enjoy!