Sweeetheart Fever

hey, feeling good was good enough for me, hmm hmm

2010-07-20T11:28:00.000-07:00

hi there friends!

you may be wondering where i have been over the last year (but probably not, let's be real).
the answer is tumblr!

this is an open invitation to come and join me there: winesburgohio.tumblr.com

the postings are significantly more varied than what you'll find here (music, movies, general musings, nonsense, lots of food, etc) -- but i hope you will still enjoy.

until then,
cass

don't tell carda-dad

2010-06-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

"hello khala, my friend."

there are fortunate accidents. a little ginger when you were supposed to add pepper (grabbed the wrong bottle). a spray of basil when you meant to buy parsley (you were daydreaming in the grocery aisle). too much lemon (you just like it). a phone call you never made (it was the right thing to do).

"hello khala, my friend."

this recipe was an accident, fortunate, which occurred after having spent a lot of time in the "C" section of my favorite spice store. it's divine: aromatic, earthy, and with a subtle, quietly rising heat. when you swirl the cardamom in oil and add the rice, put on this song and dance a little. trust me!

"where do you think you're going to?
the road you've taken goes nowhere.
khala, my friend, come back to me."

cardamom and cinnamon scented brown rice, mixed with black beans, avocado, and sliced veggies.

to make:

Me to Mom Wed, June 9th 2010 at 1:45pm

learning to cook with spices is the most rewarding thing.

i bought whole green cardamom pods at my favorite wholesale spice market in the east village today. you split them open with your thumb and spill the seeds into a pan of hot oil and fry them to create a flavor base for cooking grain dishes with. the smell is incredible. i just made a pot of brown rice that started with that. i added in whole chunks of indian cinnamon bark, some salt. simmered it. when the rice was done and the water had boiled out i stirred in chili powder and turmeric, then covered it again and removed it from the heat. it will now steam for a little while, integrating the flavor more.

it smells SOOOOO good it’s amazing. did i already mention that?

love,
luna

how to make ambient sad-cake, and other songs of cooking

2010-05-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

“You've got some charm I must admit."

The East Coast is generally dreary, punctuated by a few key moments of sun.

Pizza with prosciutto, basil, ricotta, garlic, caramelized onions, and tomato on a homemade cornmeal crust.

This recipe is easy to compose, but I learned a new thing while putting it together. Mid-caramelization of the onions, soak them in red wine vinegar, dust them with black pepper, and add a dash of cinnamon. Trust me, it is the right thing to do! The onions will infuse the crust with a rich, heady flavor...the perfect base to make the other tastes really pop.

And when the pizza is pulled from the oven, still smoking hot and odorous with cheese and salty pork, drizzle fresh lemon juice on the top. Really, just put lemon in everything!

she came in through the bathroom window

2010-05-22T17:38:00.000-07:00

people with backyards in new york city are so lucky. they don't even know how good they've got it. today was the summer, and the backyard at dave's house, and the sun's light eliminating everything. i came by after grocery shopping, made a salad in the kitchen overlooking the lawn. the flavors were exactly right to fit the day. strong and peppery arugula, tart radish, coooooool cucumber, and buttery slices of ripe avocado. perfect, perfect, perfect.

but, i'm wonderin'

arugula and radish salad

arugula
radish
cucumber
avocado
salt + pepper
oil + vinegar
lemon

it's all in the dressing: lots of lemon, a big burst of bright. thinly slice the radish first. toss it in a bowl with salt and lemon, then stir in the arugula, avocado, cucumber. dress in oil + vinegar. give everything a good toss, then finish it off with a few turns of pepper. yum!

so long, honey babe

2010-05-21T12:32:00.000-07:00

i find the view from the window at my office -- although it reveals nothing of the outside world -- oddly and totally distracting. what could be out there ... ? a sailboat, three green fish, the view from a crow's nest, and nothing but ocean for miles and miles and miles...

"goodbye's too good a word, babe. so i'll just say fair thee well."

brown rice and radish salad

ingredients:

brown rice
garlic/pepper
cilantro
1 radish
red wine vinaigrette

to make:

prep brown rice, using lots of garlic/pepper and a little salt. (pssst…for great brown rice: when the rice is ready, drain the last of the water, remove the pot from heat, and cover it tightly. let the rice steam this way for about ten minutes — it really lets the flavor penetrate!)

thinly, thinly slice the radish and roughly chop the cilantro. stir them into the brown rice. dash a little red wine viniagrette and extra garlic/pepper over the top.

voila! consume.

graduation cake

2010-05-16T22:21:00.000-07:00

amy scheim graduated from college today. the rest of her life supposedly begins now, and (like all good things) it begins with cake. this key lime cake is perfect for summer. it's tart and crumbly, buttery and light. (i know, you think "buttery" and "light" are two words that don't belong together...but opposites attract.) you should definitely make this.

key lime cake (adapted from All Cakes Considered)

ingredients:

1 stick of butter, unsalted and at room temp
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup heavy whipping ream
5-6 key limes (for 1/2 cup of lime juice)
1 cup confectioners' sugar (plus more for dusting)

to make:

1. preheat oven to 350°. prep an 8" cake pan in advance (parchment paper or flour will do).
2. cream the butter, gradually adding in sugar (beat well!)
3. add the eggs, one at a time, and beat more.
4. slow down the beating. add half the flours, then 1/3 cup of the heavy whipping cream. beat well. then add the rest of the flour, and then the rest of the cream. (this is called alternating wet and dry ingredients!) beat the mixture for about two minutes. it will become thick and almost foamy.
5. grate the rind of one key lime, squeeze out about 1 tablespoon of juice. add to batter and beat for another two minutes.
6. pour the batter into your prepared ban and bake for approximately 20 minutes.
8. cover the pain with aluminum foil (to prevent the top from burning) and bake for another 20 minutes.
9. remove from oven, let cool thoroughly before transferring to plate.
10. whisk the key lime juice with the confectioners' sugar.
11. pour over the top of the cake, slowly. let the cake absorb the liquid!
12. dust the entire thing with leftover confectioners' sugar, and add thinly sliced limes around the rim (not required, but it's pretty).

spooky little girl like you

2010-05-02T11:18:00.001-07:00

i made brownies for nicole’s birthday today. they are supernatural. it is officially summer. you can tell because: jean shorts, beaches, dogs, frolicking.

supernatural brownies

2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter

8 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, cut into 1/4-inch pieces

4 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup all-purpose flour

One 13x9x2-inch pan, buttered and lined with buttered parchment or foil

Set the rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Bring a saucepan of water to a boil and turn off heat. Combine butter and chocolate in a heat proof bowl and set over pan of water. Stir occasionally until melted. Whisk eggs together in a large bowl, then whisk in the salt, sugars, and vanilla. Stir in the chocolate and butter mixture, then fold in the flour.

Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for about 45 minutes, until top has formed a shiny crust and batter is moderately firm.

seasonal consumption disorder?

2010-04-29T12:32:00.000-07:00

lunch today: cumin+chili powder roasted sweet potato with arugula and yesterday’s cowboy caviar.

cowboy caviar

2 cloves minced garlic
3/4 c. corn
1/2 c. black-eyed peas
4 avocados
1/2 small red onion, diced
red wine vinegar, lime, olive oil, cilantro, chili flakes & salt+pepper to taste
and one dash of cinnamon

mix!

if cindy and i started a food blog, it would be called “cinnamon in everything.”

couldn't agree more

2010-02-25T11:46:00.000-08:00

"I feel like this blog has suffered from a bit of mission creep lately. Know this: I am still really, really dedicated to eating and loving stuff. Case in point: I realized recently that you can improve almost any savory food by frying a shallot in butter and salt til it’s brown and crispy, draining the shallot on a paper towel, then sprinkling it on top (of whatever).

Here the shallot adorns a pile of rosemary mashed potatoes, some braised kale, and a poached egg. Don’t you wish your boy-or-girlfriend made lunch like me?"

text and photo via (thingsiatethatilove)

in other news of things that i love:

miniature cupcakes of all varieties from Baked by Melissa. particularly adore the quarter used for sizing reference. que linda! and thank you to taste-twin Meg for the tip-off.

happy valentine's day, with potato chips

2010-02-14T10:02:00.000-08:00

This morning, my housemate Dan made a crumbled Utz potato chip omelet. It was good.

You Will Need:

1 bag 25 cent Utz salt and vinegar potato chips
1 dash pepper
A pinch of Parmesan
1/2 avocado
2 eggs

To Make:

Put all ingredients in pan. Scramble. Add tapatillo.

Happy Valentine's Day!

How To Make Your Own Damn Tortilla: a Letter From Zach Sachs

2010-02-12T09:53:00.000-08:00

"Hi Cassie,

So I guess the massive snow day were were cueing you up for was just
rescheduled for tomorrow. The schools are clearing their slates
already and I suppose we're all trying to figure out how to get in
trouble before the thing starts dumping down on us. California must be
miserable.

A flour tortilla is lard, flour, water and salt. So about three Tb of
fat, two cups of flour, a little shy of three-quarter cup of warm
water, two heavy pinches of kosher salt. Form a dough that is neither
slack and wet nor dry and crumbly. Knead briefly. Let rest one hour.
Divide the dough into balls — about 12–14 — they will fit familiarly,
a certain way cupped in the inside of your palm. Let them hang out for
ten minutes after they're formed and then, on a surface well-dusted
with flour, roll out the dolls with a pin (or, as I did for many
collegiate years, a wine bottle). Heat something flat over medium heat
and when it's gotten quite hot, cook em on each side until they're the
way you like it (Chris likes them covered with small brown dots like a
ripe banana, I prefer them at once doughy and charred, like a good
pizza). Keep them warm in a couple of towels.

If you roll them all out you can keep them in the fridge for a few
weeks, heating them up as you go along. My mom's favorite snack is a
warm, fresh tortilla with butter and honey. However. That particular
combination is just the sort of bright and easy midnight fix that I do
not possess the willpower to keep around. Fortunately, making other
people eat them all is usually not difficult. OK, your turn.

Bring back some sunshine for the rest of us,
Z"

life lessons: another hasty update from home

2010-02-11T00:26:00.000-08:00

"i haven't changed a bit!" i said, laughing. how grossly ironic. here's a recipe to go with the mouthful of my own words that i just ate.

Kale, Squash and Potato Galette (adapted from Gourmet)

You Will Need:

1 lb kale, tough stems and center ribs discarded
1 tablespoon stick (1/2 cup) butter, 6 of the tablespoons melted and cooled
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
2 lb russet (baking) potatoes (4 medium)
1/2 pound cubed butternut squash
1 tbsb chili powder
1/2 tbsb cumin
1 tbsb olive oil
A few dabs of butter

To Make:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Toss cubed squash in a baking dish, rub with olive oil, chili powder and cumin. Let roast for 20 minutes or so. In the meantime, you can:

Cook kale in a 4 to 6 quart pot of boiling salted water, uncovered, until just tender, 4 to 6 minutes. Drain in a colander and rinse under cold water to stop cooking. Drain well, squeezing handfuls of kale to extract excess moisture, then coarsely chop.

Heat 2 tablespoons (unmelted) butter in skillet over moderately high heat until foam subsides, then add garlic and cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 1 minute. Add kale, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and saute, stirring, until kale is tender, about 4 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and clean skillet.

Around now the squash should be done. Remove from oven, allow to cool, then puree until creamy. Place in a bowl and set aside for later. (If you're like me, you can dig into it early with a few crackers).

Peel potatoes and thinly slice crosswise (1/16 inch thick) with slicer. Working quickly to prevent potatoes from discoloring, generously brush bottom of skillet with some of melted butter and cover with one third of potato slices, overlapping slightly. Dab potatoes with some of melted butter.

Spread half of kale over potatoes and sprinkle with 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper.

Cover with half of remaining potato slices and dab with butter. Using a spatula, spread pureed butternut squash mixture over the layer of potatoes. You will have to use a very delicate touch as to not upset the spread. Then, top with remaining kale. Sprinkle with 1/8 teaspoon salt and 1/8 teaspoon pepper. Top with remaining potatoes and sprinkle with remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Brush a sheet of foil with melted butter, then brush galette with any remaining butter and place foil, buttered side down, on top. Place a 10-inch heavy skillet on top of foil to weight galette.

Cook galette over moderate heat until underside is golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Remove top skillet and foil. Wearing oven mitts, carefully slide galette onto a baking sheet and invert skillet over it. Holding them together, invert galette, browned side up, back into skillet. Cook, uncovered, over moderate heat until underside is golden brown and potatoes are tender, 12 to 15 minutes. Slide onto a serving plate. EAT.

growing up: a hasty update from home

2010-02-09T00:30:00.000-08:00

when i was little, i was the designated grilled-cheese maker of our house. it was a purely honorary title, but i wore it with pride. now, at age 24, practically nothing has changed -- when i am cooking for others, i still rely on simple, cheese-based comfort foods that can be eaten with your hands. the cheese may have matured from orange cheddar into salty feta; the slabs of butter into here-and-there drizzles of olive oil, but the comfort part has stayed the same. honorary. universal. irreplaceable. etc.

Butternut Squash and Feta Quesadillas (adapted from Cooking Books)

2 cups cubed squash
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp cumin
1 leek, diced (only the white and pale green area)
1/4 cup cilantro, fresh and finely chopped
Feta (to taste)
Tortillas (2-3, whole wheat or four)
2 tsbs olive oil

To Make:

Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F. Toss the cubed squashed with 1 tbsb olive oil, cumin and chili powder in a glass baking dish. Roast for 15 minutes.

Toss the leek in remaining tbsb olive oil. Remove squash from the oven, scoot squash to one side, and add leek. Roast for another 10 minutes.

Remove leeks and squash from oven. Puree just the roasted squash cubes in a food processor, until they are smooth and creamy.

Spread the squash puree over one side of a tortilla. Sprinkle cilantro, roasted leeks and feta. Fold the tortilla in half, enclosing the squash/feta/herbs. Heat olive oil or butter in a skillet over med-high heat until you can feel the heat coming off the pan by hovering your palm over it.

Place the squash/feta stuffed tortilla in the pan and cover with a tight-fitting lid. Let roast for one minute or so -- check to make sure the first side has browned nicely. Flip and repeat on the next side.

Repeat until appetite satiated and adulthood reached.

food for thought

2010-02-04T14:53:00.000-08:00

a weekend wish list

* recipe dice from Leafcutter Designs.

* delicious, sustainably grown, and socially responsible coffee from Red Bird Coffee. (I've been drinking the Brazilian blend -- it's like silk. A necessary winter combatant if ever there was one.)

* reusable pantry bags from JulieMeyer on Etsy.

* anything and everything from the Little City Gardens Kickstarter project.

brr, brr shiver shiver

2010-02-02T22:00:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year in New York affectionately referred to as the "dead season." Nothing comes, nothing grows (Where My Rosemary Goes). I've been subsisting entirely on dried beans, various grains, apples and coffee (x3). These days, it is with a mixture of bemused indifference and curiosity that my co-workers regard me as I pull out my trusty tupperware at lunch. And it is with -- I hope -- a level of fondness that my housemate murmurs "Yep, that's a Cassie meal" when I toss a roasted sweet potato onto a plate.

But what am I supposed to do? The ground outside is cold and hard and dead. Cooking has been reduced to the most skeletal of parameters: maximum warmth-retention. That means a lot of soups, chilis, stews, crusty breads, cheeses...And while these kinds of comfort foods are no doubt superb, you can imagine how it's not just for the snow outside that one begins to forget that the color Green exists.

Ahh, but what of Kale? Lovely, dark, green and hardy; Kale perseveres through the winter alongside us. A nutritional superstar, a kissing cousin to wild cabbage, Kale is the cover-girl of every middle-aged Mom food magazine crammed into grocery check-out lines. That's right: KALE! With exclamation points!!! With MORE exclamation points !!!!!!! You can tell it's that part of winter where my grasp on sanity begins to slip, because never ever before have I been so excited about a vegetable.

This salad came together as an accompaniment to a chicken dinner I had with my friends Ben D. (glasses) and Ben S. (no glasses). It's easy, hearty and completely malleable to individual tastes. It's the perfect side, as it's mild enough to complement the main course, but bright enough to offer a nice boost to the other flavors on your plate.

Wilted Kale Salad with Parmesan

You Will Need:

2 bunches of Kale
lemon juice
olive oil
salt
pamesan

To Make:

Clean Kale. Separate leaves from stems. Discard stems. Roughly chop leaves and place in a large salad bowl. Add olive oil and lemon juice to taste, and begin firmly squishing and turning the kale. Continue to do this until the kale has become wilted -- darker in color -- and fully coated with olive oil and lemon juice. Add salt and parmesan to taste. Chill briefly and serve.

Here is a quick index of some of my favorite kale recipes. What are yours?

101 Cookbooks -- Kale & Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes

I've never had good luck with the recipes from this blog, but it's pretty hard to screw up a good mashed potato!

Orangette -- Carrot & Kale Frittata

Gourmet -- Kale, Butternut Squash and Pancetta Pie

Smitten Kitchen -- Spaghetti with Swiss Chard and Garlic Chips

Substitute kale, just as good. Or leave the chard! Still good.

Kale Chips

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle - "Eggs In a Nest" at NPR

Sub kale for chard. Or use chard! Or use both! Crazy, I know...

mental breakdown cake

2010-01-27T20:43:00.000-08:00

Do you know what's funny? That in Melissa Gray's All Cakes Considered (previously discussed, now personally owned -- thank you Siri, dreams do come true) there is literally a song about how Dutch Process Cocoa Powder and Unprocessed Cocoa Powder are different, non-interchangeable ingredients. It appears on page 175, the page immediately preceding the recipe for "Dark-Chocolate Red Velvet Cake" and it goes like this:

"Come and listen to a story 'bout a
Red Velvet Cake
Made with Dutch process cocoa
man, it tasted really great!
Only one problem
The cake it would not rise..."

You get the picture. Regardless of the chorus, the point is that Melissa Gray went out of her way to try and ensure that chefs following the recipe on the very next page would not goof and substitute regular, unprocessed cocoa for Dutch process.

Whoops.

Second point: I had a mental break-down while making this cake. But I learned a LOT about the anatomy of a good Red Velvet and the science behind baking. Miss Gray says it better than I ever could:

"If you use Dutch process unsweetened cocoa in a cake recipe that doesn't include baking powder, you're going to get a flat, moist, dense -- yet awfully tasty -- cake. This goes back to our chemistry lesson on the reaction that makes cakes rise: the interaction between your leavening agent, moisutre, and heat. Regular unsweetened cocoa is acidic. The addition of baking soda, which is alkaline, reacts to that acidic property, enlarging all those air bubbles whipped into the batter during creaming, which when baked, result in a risen cake. Dutch process cocoa has an alkali already added to it to neutralize its acidic properities. Its like a big, heavy blanket over the bubble party. BUT, if you add baking powder, which has alkaline and acid properities that will react with each other when introduced to moisture and heat, well, party on, dude! Swimming pools! Movie stars!"

Gotta love it.

Two weeks later, while chatting with my pal Dave: "Let me ask you something," he said. "Just real quick." I looked up at him, innocently, clearing my mental slate so that it might be quickly populated with answers to whatever burning question could be forthcoming. Totally useless thing to do, of course, because Dave never asked a question. He just pointed to a large, obscenely red blotch of "?!?@!@#" crusted onto the outer fold of my scarf.

...

SO, FYI: Red velvet cake will get on EVERYTHING when you make this recipe. Be prepared to clean. But -- even better than that -- be prepared to feast, because this is a damn good cake.

The Mental Breakdown Dark-Chocolate Red Velvet "Happy Birthday Frankie" Cake

You Will Need:

Two 8-inch or 9-inch round cake pans

For Cake:
2 sticks unsalted butter (at room temperature)
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cus light brown sugar
6 large eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup DUTCH PROCESS COCOA POWDER GODDAMMIT
1 cup sour cream /12 ounce red food coloring

For Frosting:
1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)
Two 8-ounce pakcages cream cheese (at room temperature)
Two 16-ounce boxes confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(You can tell this is going to be good already)

To Make:

Position a rack in lower third of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Prepare the cake pans (I used oil and a dusting of flour)

Cream the butter in a mixer on medium speed, then gradually add the sugars, beating well. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition (a minute is good. trust me on this, it seems boring and long, but the consistency and quality of the finished batter is worth it). Add the vanilla extract and beat until blended.

In a separate bowl, dry whisk the flour, baking soda, cocoa, and baking powder together.

Add 1 cup of the floured cocoa mixture and 1/3 cup of sour cream alternately, beating well after each addition. Repeat until all the flour mixture and sour cream have been blended in.

Add the food coloring and beat well. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl and stir up the batter at the bottom, then beat again.

Poor the batter into the prepared pans and place pans close to the center of the oven rack, but not touching. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake layers test done.

Cool the layers in the pans for 10 minutes, then unmold onto cake racks to cool to room temperature.

For the frosting: Cream the butter and cream cheese together at medium speed. Gradually add the confectioners' sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and mix until just incorporated. Assemble and frost the layers, frosting the sides last, after the crown.

before i go any further, something to say

2010-01-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

i'm not good at cooking -- just enthusiastic about it. also, i have terrible luck. for evidence, please direct your attention to exhibit (a): i just dropped a glass off a side table and shattered it on the floor of my friends apartment while writing this entry.

a friend is a chef: brian k. edition

2010-01-20T21:36:00.000-08:00

It's not difficult to explain why eating with other people is more enjoyable than eating alone. Nor is it hard to surmise why cooking has long been favored as a collaborative process. Simply put, when you're cooking with a partner, you can get away with all sorts of things otherwise impossible. You can blame them if something goes wrong, laugh at them when they hit their head on the kitchen cabinet, ask them to peel the ginger because you're not really that good at it, and -- best of all -- share dessert with them.

Brian is one of my favorite friends to be in a kitchen with, but it's not just because he fits the aforementioned bill so perfectly. It's also because he texts me photos of food that he makes. And because he gets genuinely excited over good deals on olive oil. And because he is always willing to go impossibly out of his way with me while investigating random restaurants our friends have recommended. He was also the first person that I ever tried cooking meat with, an endeavor delayed by years of stubborn vegetarianism. Oh, and he also went to Brazil with me.

To this day, Brian retains the honor* of being the only friend with whom I've cooked animals. Whenever I find a recipe that calls for the handling of raw meat (insert awkward/stupid joke), he's the first person I send it to. "Can we make this?" "Will you eat this with me?" The answer is always yes. Another reason why Brian is one of my favorite friends in the kitchen.

The inspiration for this recipe was torn from the pages of my friend Amy's copy of Martha Stewart Living (sorry, Amy!). It's incredibly simple, which is good for a fish-novice like myself. Also, it's a recipe for two. So I recommend finding yourself a friend before you make it. Simply!

*exaggeration of significance

Parchment-Baked Mahi Mahi with Bok Choy inspired by Martha

You Will Need:

2 fillets of mahi mahi
2 heads of baby bok-choy or 1 bundle of regular
4 limes, halved
zest of 2 limes
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh ginger
6 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
3/4 medium-sized onion, thinly sliced
parchment paper

To Make:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix lime juice, lime zest, garlic, onion and ginger in a small bowl -- set aside.

Fold two decently sized pieces of parchment paper in half lengthwise. Place mahi-mahi fillets and bok choy in the crease.

Rub the fillet/boy choy with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.

Top each with mixture of onion/garlic.

Fold parchment over fish, making small overlapping folds along edges and sealing (paper clip works, we improvised with sewing needles).

Place on rimmed baking sheets.

Roast 10 to 12 minutes -- parchment will puff when the fish is finished.

Cut open and serve.

it begins...

2010-01-16T16:57:00.000-08:00

the first fig-bar bake for my snack delivery company started today. phew!

a lot of work? yep! but it's a lot of fun.

whatever happened to mr. bean?

2010-01-10T11:30:00.000-08:00

My opinion of veggie burgers hinges on two key points. One, trying to imitate the taste of meat is counterproductive and never works, two, I like a fair amount of "chunk" in the chosen base, whether it be vegetable, grain, or bean. As a result of these two preferences, I'm incapable of consuming about 95% of store-bought veggie burgers with any amount of what I would call "joy." So my cooking gaff last week seemed curiously fated. Essentially, what I ended up making myself was a vat of pretty damn delicious veggie-burger base.

I've tried making black bean veggie burgers before and it hasn't worked out. The right recipe and a little luck later, though, and I am basking in beany success. Thick, hearty, flavor-dripping, perfectly textured, beany success. Yuuuuummm. I served mine with pieces of thinly, thinly sliced zucchini which I seared in the pan at the same time as the burgers themselves. Perfection!

Black Bean Burgers adapted from A Mighty Appetite

You Will Need:
4 cups cooked, rinsed and drained black beans (about 2 ½ 15-ounce cans)
1/2 cup Japanese-style panko breadcrumbs
2 large eggs
4 scallions, both white and green parts, minced
3 tablespoons (a small handful) chopped basil or cilantro, or a combination
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2-2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons dried oregano
1 teaspoon coarse salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

To Make:

Place the black beans in a large mixing bowl and mash -- do not overmash! Leave a good amount of the beans whole for good texture. Add bread crumbs, eggs, scallions, fresh herbs, garlic, cumin and oregano to the mix and continuing stirring/lightly mashing until well combined. When the mixture is turned out to your satisfaction, portion and shape it into patties about one inch thick. Sprinkle the patties with salt and pepper. Place a cast-iron skillet over high heat, without any fat; when it is hot but not smoking, add burgers to dry pan. Cook for about four minutes on first side or until well seared and with a flipping spatula, turn onto second side and allow to cook for an additional five minutes, over medium heat.

three imaginary boys in orange

2010-01-06T16:10:00.000-08:00

climbing out of the subway, i meet a girl face-to-face. hers is wide and pale, shocked by our confrontation. "it's not my fault the doors opened," i say. "they just do that." i get out, you get in. but her eyes look at me, accusatory.

later, on a quiet street, i startle a middle-aged woman deep in thought on the steps of her apartment. she is smoking a cigarette and her face registers the same level of shock as the girl on the subway. she hangs, suspended, on the other side of her frozen smoke-cloud, dangling delicately from its salty plume.

this is one of my favorite lines: "Justin's
syncope still lasted, and his eyeballs disappeared in the pale sclerotics
like blue flowers in milk."

we are people flowers. pink disappearing inside the milky snow. huzzah.

Summer-Colored Winter Slaw

1 head of kale, leaves stripped from stems and roughly chopped
1/2 head of small purple cabbage, roughly chopped
1 large carrot, grated
1 apple, cored and roughly chopped
2 tbsp apple-cider vinegar
1 tsbp olive oil

Place olive oil in pan over medium high heat. Add cabbage and apple, turn to coat.(I also added a 1/4 cup of water to the pan to help steam the cabbage down.) Cover, turn heat to medium, let cook for approximately three minutes -- until cabbage softens slightly. Uncover, add apple-cider vinegar. Stir. Add carrot and kale, let cook down until kale wilts slightly, stirring and turning the mixture steadily. (This won't take long, kale cooks very quickly).

food on the brain (brian?) (and in dreams)

2010-01-05T10:49:00.000-08:00

brian (1:49 PM): i had a dream last night that i was making bean soup and i cooked it too long
and almost everything was gone
and i got really mad

me (1:49 PM): HAHAHA

(also, one time brian's mom made us stuffed cabbage. she rules.)

black bean soup and a lesson learned

2010-01-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

I am unlucky with three things in life: electronics (always broken within a month), soups, and my health. These are listed in descending order of importance. Maybe I would have better health if I had more luck with soups.

I suspect that soups are not meant to be made from recipes. That they should be reserved for that special, seemingly innate, intuition of "moms" (emphasis on quotes). In the end, my black bean soup was an unequivocal failure. What I did end up with was a good lesson and a large pot of puffy, garlic-rich black beans. I look forward to making them into other things.

Below is the recipe reproduced in full, my annotations in italics. To make a good soup, try following the italicized version. To get hearty and delicious black beans, follow the regular version -- but leave out the eggs/tortilla and change the simmering time to 1.5 hours.

This is the choose your own adventure of recipes. Tell me how your adventure ends.

Grandpa's Favorite Black Bean Soup

You Will Need:

8 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 medium yellow onion, chopped
1 medium bell pepper, chopped (2 medium bell peppers, 1 large carrot, 1 green zucchini -- double the amount of vegetables)
1-2 tbsp olive oil
6 cups of chicken broth (vegetable is a fine substitute)
2 15 oz cans of black beans (1 bag of dry beans will suffice -- boil them for 2 minutes in water and let soak for an hour. They will cook the rest of the way down while the soup simmers)
fresh thyme, to taste
fresh oregano, to taste
4 eggs
corn tortillas
sour cream
fresh cilantro

To Make:

1. In big soup pot, grill garlic, onion and bell pepper in oil and stir. Grill until vegetables soften, onion becomes translucent. Done best over medium high heat.

2. Add chicken broth, black beans, fresh thyme and oregano to pot. Stir ingredients.

3. Bring to a boil. Lower heat, cover pot and simmer soup for at least half an hour. This will allow the herbs to fully flavor the soup.

4. Crack eggs on edge of pot and drop into soup in different areas of pot. Do not stir! The eggs will cook in place in 2-3 minutes.

5. Remove soup from heat.

6. To best enjoy the soup, place a hard boiled egg in each bowl and fill with black bean soup.

7. Tear corn tortillas in strips and sprinkle over bowl. Add a dollop of sour cream and a generous pinch of freshly chopped cilantro.

This recipe came care of the first print issue of Remedy Quarterly, which I received in the mail (appropriately enough) on my birthday. It is a beautifully curated collection of recipes and stories about food; I highly, highly recommend grabbing a copy while you still can. The ginger cookie recipe alone is worth it.

merry christmas, shhh

2009-12-24T06:53:00.000-08:00

merry christmas baby

i wish it was christmas today!

Homemade Peppermint Patties (adapted from The Kitchn by Serious Eats)

You Will Need:

2 cups confectioner's sugar
1.5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons peppermint extract
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons heavy cream
8 ounces dark or bittersweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon vegetable shortening

To Make:

1. With a blender or stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the sugar, butter, extracts, and heavy cream on low. (Note: if using the stand mixer, it's important to add the ingredients in that order. Otherwise the mixture becomes concrete on the bottom and crumbs on the top.) Once ingredients are combined, turn mixer to medium speed and beat for another minute or two. The end result should be smooth and adhere very well, almost like a paste. It shouldn't be lumpy or powdery.

2. Line a large cookie sheet with wax paper. Using a teaspoon or your hands, roll mixture into small balls (about 1-inch or so). Place on cookie sheet and flatten each one into a patty. Once all are made, place in fridge for 20 minutes.

3. While patties are chilling, melt chocolate and shortening together in a microwave, with a double boiler, or using a metal bowl placed over a pot of simmering water. Thenm let mixture cool to room temperature. (Note: don't place it in the fridge, though. You don't want it to harden prematurely.)

4. When 20 minutes are up, remove patties from fridge. Using two forks, dunk them one by one into chocolate mixture and roll around until totally coated. Remove and place back on wax paper. When all are finished, place the cookie sheet in the fridge and leave for a few hours, until chocolate hardens.

5. Eat. Store leftovers in the fridge, sealed in a container and separated by wax paper.

and don't forget to lick the bowl:

the world is as soft as lace...

2009-12-19T14:16:00.000-08:00

...and i don't love anyone.

soundtrack: itunes christmas radio

"'Whereof we cannot speak,' says the great philosopher Wittgenstein, 'we must be silent.' But it is also true that, whereof we cannot speak, we dream, or tell stories." Leonard Michaels said that in his essay "The Story of Jonah". It sticks with me; reciprocity. Tell me a story and I will tell you a story. Dream. I will dream with you.

"Events become meaningful as they become -- at some amazing turn -- stories, just as notes become meaningful, retrospectively, in a melody. The moral, like the melody, is open to interpretation." Food, like stories: reciprocity. Passed down through my family, our time. In retrospect, the repetition attains meaning. Eating is an agent of history.

"'One portion of being is the Prolific, the other, the Devouring,' said Blake, a great storyteller."

Yes, devouring.

"Modern stories are hardly ever retold," Michaels once said, also.

Here is a story worth repeating.

Smooth as Silk Pumpkin Pie (from Smitten Kitchen)

You Will Need:
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
3 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 cup drained candied yams from 15-ounce can (regular canned yams can be substituted)
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon table salt

To Make:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Whisk cream, milk, eggs, yolks and vanilla together in medium bowl. Combine pumpkin puree, yams, sugar, maple syrup, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in large heavy-bottomed saucepan; bring to sputtering simmer over medium heat, 5 to 7 minutes. Continue to simmer pumpkin mixture, stirring constantly and mashing yams against sides of pot, until thick and shiny, 10 to 15 minutes.

Remove pan from heat. Whisk in cream mixture slowly, until fully incorporated. Strain mixture through fine-mesh strainer set over medium bowl, using back of ladle or spatula to press solids through strainer. Re-whisk mixture and transfer to warm pre-baked pie shell. Return pie plate with baking sheet to oven and bake pie for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 300 degrees. Continue baking until edges are set (instant-read thermometer inserted in center registers 175 degrees), 20 to 35 minutes longer. Transfer pie to wire rack and cool to room temperature, 2 to 3 hours. (The pie finishes cooking with resident heat; to ensure the filling sets, cool it at room temperature and not in the refrigerator.)

details, details

2009-12-16T08:45:00.000-08:00

It's the little things that matter -- life's pleasures reside, always, in the details. Cinnamon-scented pancakes, yellow flowers, sunlight on wood floors in the afternoon, somebody holds you. When I was 12 years old I had a writing teacher who came to my house every week. What I recall now is the carpet (dusty blue), the way her lip gloss gathered in the peaks of her upper lip, the unconscious gesture of her right hand, hovering mild and pale around her throat, while she read. She passed away when I was 17 from a long-term genetic illness that I never knew she had. It's been years since then, and those are the things I remember.

A poem she wrote is hanging from my wall. In it she says, "Apres moi the void. Before moi, too. Right now yellow tulips."

Turmeric-Roasted Chickpeas

You Will Need:

1 can of garbonzo beans
turmeric, salt, pepper to taste
2 tbsb olive oil

To Make:

Place the olive oil in a skillet over med-high heat. Once the liquid is hot, dump in the chickpeas. They should snap and crackle immediately. Give the pan a few shakes to roll the chickpeas in the oil, making sure they are thoroughly coated. Add salt, pepper and turmeric to taste. The chickpeas should turn a nice, rusty color. Cook until golden brown and slightly cracked -- five to eight minutes.

Remove from heat and serve over whatever you like. I ate mine with stewed grain/onion over tortillas (what can i say, it's been a "leftovers" kind of week.)

in watermelon sugar ... cake

2009-12-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

*photo credit, slang editorial

I've been out of town with some friends, but absence makes the heart grow fonder -- and I have missed my kitchen dearly.

A great person once told me that inspiration is born from desperation. Actually, that person might have been Bill Watterson, but I still think he's pretty great, right? Anyway, in consideration of the sentiment, I'd like to add that (on occasion) love can also serve as great source of inspiration. Not my own -- that's gross -- but that of my best pals Siri and Alex. These are the facts: Alex, being a member of previously linked band, has been gone. Siri has missed him. Alex loves watermelons. Siri wants to surprise Alex on his return home with something nice, delicious, and brightly colored.

Thus we have: "In Watermelon Sugar ... The Cake." TA-DA! Probably the most colorful piece of food that I've ever contributed to. Getting the right shade of red was a little tricky, so I'm including this excellent reference for making rainbow cakes -- it will help you maintain a good pigment to flavor ratio.

Funnily enough, the general internet consensus seems to be that recipes like this are best made from boxed ingredients. I feel slightly less bad now about posting something that calls for five out of five pre-packaged ingredients and calling it a "recipe."

In Watermelon Sugar Cake

You Will Need:
basic white cake (store-bought or made from scratch)
red and green decorating gel (betty crocker makes an excellent one)
1 jar of raspberry jam
1 bag chocolate chips
(it's that easy)
Dark green frosting (store-bought or make your own)

To Make:

Prepare the cake mix according to instructions, then stir in chocolate chips to preference. It's good to make sure there's enough that they show up in the batter, but not so many that they overwhelm the flavor and natural texture of the cake. Pour the batter into two, greased 9" round cake pans. Bake and set out to cool. Once the cakes are about room temperature, gently remove them from the cake pans. Slice the rounded top off one of the cakes and slather the surface with raspberry jam. Set the the other cake on top of the exposed/jam-covered surface, and place in fridge until raspberry jam sets (about 20 minutes).

Remove double-layered cake from fridge. Cover in one layer of dark green frosting, then return to fridge. This is known as the "crumb layer" -- and it doesn't matter if it looks messy. This exists just to "hold" the crumbs that will flake off the top of the cake while spreading frosting, allowing you to have an even and beautiful outermost layer. Once the crumb layer has set, spread another layer -- making sure to use even, steady strokes.

Slice open and serve. Oooh and aaah! You've just made Watermelon Cake!

reality bites: a mail-order snackfood company

2009-12-01T15:39:00.000-08:00

i've just launched a project on Kickstarter.com for Reality Bites, my very own mail-order snack food company. limited-edition release 001: the handmade-to-order Fig Bar, a fig&walnut stuffed cookie delight. i know you THOUGHT i couldn't take my obsessive-level love for fig bars any further, but you were wrong!!

:) <-- yep, i'm so pleased that i went and made a smiley face. aaaah!

check out my project here. the possibility of homemade treats awaits!

never enough pretzels

2009-11-19T07:54:00.000-08:00

Awhile ago I made pretzels. Then...I made them again.

And don't forget the soundtrack:

All Tied Up in Knots

2009-11-13T05:47:00.000-08:00

What's cool about cooking is that you can make-up entire recipes on a whim just because you feel like eating all of your favorite ingredients in one dish. Or -- as is the case with stuffed pretzels -- in one bite. In no small part inspired by the opening of the East Village pretzel shop Sigmund (apparently, not worth it, though, thanks for the forewarning Alex), these tiny pretzel bites are great because the recipe warns you "cheese may ooze" during the baking process. Uhhh.... yes please.

Cheddar and Green Apple Pretzel Bites (adapted from Gourmet)

You Will Need:

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon packed light brown sugar, divided
1/4 cup warm water (110–115ºF)
1 cup warm milk (110–115ºF)
2 1/2 to 3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup finely chopped Granny Smith green apple, divided
1/3 cup finely chopped sharp Cheddar, divided
6 cups water
4 teaspoons baking soda

To Make:

Stir together yeast, 1 tsp brown sugar, and warm water in a large bowl and let stand until foamy, 5 to 8 minutes. (If mixture doesn’t foam, start over with new yeast.) In a separate bowl, stir remaining 2 Tbsp brown sugar into warm milk until dissolved.
Add 2 1/2 cups flour and milk mixture to yeast mixture and stir with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a soft dough forms, adding up to 1/2 cup additional flour, a little at a time, if necessary. Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead a few times to form a smooth ball. Transfer to a clean bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled and bubbles appear on surface, about 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 400ºF with rack in upper and lower thirds. Line two 4-sided sheet pans with parchment paper.
Turn out dough onto a lightly floured surface and cut into 4 equal pieces. Lightly dust your hands with flour, then gently roll and stretch 1 piece of dough to form a 12-inch-long rope. Flatten dough and arrange so a long side is nearest you, then roll out to a roughly 12- by 4-inch rectangle with a lightly floured rolling pin. Gently press one fourth of apples and cheese into lower third of rectangle, leaving a 1/2-inch border along bottom edge. Stretch bottom edge of dough up over filling and press tightly to seal, then roll up as tightly as possible to form a rope. Cut rope into 12 pieces and transfer to a sheet pan. Make 3 more ropes with remaining dough, ham, and cheese and cut into pieces, transferring to sheet pans. Let rest at room temperature, uncovered, 30 minutes (dough will rise slightly).

Bring water (6 cups) to a boil in a 4- to 5-qt saucepan. Reduce heat and stir in baking soda. Cook pretzel bites in batches in gently simmering water, turning once, until slightly puffed, about 20 seconds. Transfer with a slotted spoon to sheet pans.
Bake until puffed and golden-brown, about 15 minutes (cheese may ooze slightly).

Brush warm pretzel bites with butter and sprinkle with pretzel salt. Serve warm or at room temperature with jalapeño mustard for dipping.

absolute favorites: 1:41 pm Thursday afternoon edition

2009-11-05T10:30:00.000-08:00

The new Milk Made flavor: Double Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Cookie. Described as "fair trade dark chocolate ice cream with chocolate shavings and underbaked peanut butter cookie." Use of the phrase "underbaked" in this context makes my knees tremble.

Vegan chili with grilled tofu hunks from Brooklyn Label. I could care less about my meat and dairy content, but this is a.) served in a huge coffee mug (I've previously discussed my love for this) and b.) totally effin' delicious.

Sigh! Fall....

boozie pie, or: Siri gets us drunk on Ben's Chest

2009-10-29T19:32:00.000-07:00

"You have pie on your face," Siri says when I tell her that I Iove her pie. Of course I have pie on my face. I'm drunk. The pie is full of bourbon. But you'd be a fool to turn down a piece of pie from Siri. Even one booby-trapped with hard liquor, three eggs, and a bath of heavy cream. Siri makes the best pie I've ever had in the history of the world. Not just because she a.) serves it immediately following an impeccably prepared dinner of goat-cheese-squash-lasagna with salad b.) makes the crust from scratch and c.) whips the cream while the pie is still cooling, but because she somehow infuses everything she makes with that special feeling of "home-ness" which makes home-cooking so ... well ... exactly what it sounds like.

FYI, Epicurious has provided me with the following pertinent information on this particular recipe: "Pumpkin pies have long been favored in New England; there is a recipe for a "pompkin" pie in Amelia Simmons's 1796 American Cookery. New England colonists, in spite of their puritanical reputation, were known to enjoy a tot of rum now and then. And if the liquor was hidden in a pie, even the ladies were able to indulge."

1796, eh? Old chum! Here's one for the ladies. And Happy Halloween!

(Dinner, pre-pie)

Siri's Pompkin Boozie-Pie c/o Epicurious

Crust
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 tablespoons chilled vegetable shortening, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3 to 4 tablespoons ice water

Filling
1 16-ounce can solid pack pumpkin
1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground mace
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3 large eggs
1 cup whipping cream
1/4 cup whole milk
1/4 cup dark rum
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
print a shopping list for this recipe

To Make:

Crust:
Mix flour and salt in processor. Add butter and shortening; process until mixture resembles coarse meal. With machine running, add ice water 1 tablespoonful at a time and process until moist clumps form. Gather into ball; flatten into disk. Wrap in plastic; chill 30 minutes. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.)

Roll out pastry on lightly floured surface to 13-inch round. Transfer pastry to 10-inch-diameter glass pie dish. Fold edge under and crimp. Pierce pastry all over with fork. Freeze pastry 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450°F. Bake crust until pale golden, about 15 minutes. Transfer to rack and cool. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

Filling:

Whisk first 10 ingredients in large bowl until smooth. Whisk in all remaining ingredients. Pour filling into crust.

Bake pie 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 325°F. Bake until filling no longer moves in center when dish is shaken, about 30 minutes longer. Transfer pie to rack and cool completely. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill. Bring to room temperature before serving.)

wish-list things

2009-10-29T18:45:00.000-07:00

NPR's All Cakes Considered: A Year's Worth of Weekly Recipes Tasted, Tested, and Approved by the Staff of All Things Considered, by Melissa Gray.

"I love watching our staff — all of these incredibly competent, brilliant people — taken back to being like 8 years old, and having that little joy: 'Oh, there's cake!' " Gray says. 'I love that because it makes you remember that people at their core are still human beings.'"

My favorite part is when she describes staff preferences. It seems so strangely intimate; all these radio personalities that I've been pleasantly estranged from as physical beings my entire life...suddenly laid bare by the revelation of their favorite sweets. What a thing!

"'Michele Norris is very easy to please,' Gray says, 'but she does not eat coconut. Robert Siegel claims he does not eat cake, Gray says, but she says she has seen him take cookies. Melissa Block likes fried pie, brown sugar pound cake and bittersweet chocolate frosted layer cake. Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep is a butterscotch guy. Film critic Bob Mondello loves coconut cake, and news analyst Dan Schorr is partial to frosting.'"

and then, the best part:

"'He likes cake as a delivery system for frosting,' Gray says."

This is exactly how I feel about peanut butter. As far as I'm concerned, essentially anything will serve as a plausible vehicle for peanut butter.

Missy G's Sweet Potato Poundcake recipe here.

the sweetest thing

2009-10-26T06:50:00.000-07:00

"On the bus radio, 'Fifty ways to leave your lover alone'/I laughed at the irony/But life is stupid, the irony all lost on me/It got lost on me."

I don't know why hand-crafting snack foods is so endlessly amusing to me. At the end of the world you will find me in the kitchen, humming quietly to myself while I fold sheets of yeasty dough into pretzel nuggets and mold shimmering streams of molten chocolate into perfectly coiffed cups of peanut butter.

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

You Will Need:

1 brick of chocolate (dark or milk - your choice)
1 jar of peanut butter (i prefer crunchy)
Powdered sugar
Various muffin cups

To Make:

1. Dump the peanut butter jar into a large mixing bowl and whip with powdered sugar until it lightens in color and becomes sweet to the taste.
2. Separate and set out muffin cups on a plate
3. Slow melt chocolate by setting a large mixing bowl on a pot with an inch or two of boiling water at the bottom. Stir frequently until consistency is smooth and creamy.
4. Using a spoon, dollop chocolate into the bottom of each muffin cup and spread it - creating a base. Chill for 15-20 minutes until this base is firm.
5. Spoon peanut butter onto chocolate base and spread. Pour molten chocolate over the top of the peanut butter until it is fully encased.
6. Let chill in refrigerator.

*final product shots thanks to friend Ringo.

headlines

2009-10-21T09:40:00.000-07:00

San Francisco's food-recycling law is now official. Read here, listen here. Recycled output from home and businesses has already jumped to 500 tons.

Pretty great!

i don't give a fig (but really, i do) !

2009-10-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

I love Fig Newtons. God, it's embarrassing. Not only are they totally inappropriate for my age group (they've somehow straddled the divide between ages 10 and 70 - only really young or really old people can eat them and get away with it), I'm pretty sure that most of America thinks of them as some kind of cleverly packaged laxative. In an effort to take back Fig Newtons - and my dignity - I made up my mind to make them from scratch. The only problem? It's actually kind of tough to find a legitimate recipe. Like I said, I really love Fig Newtons.

Then my Mom gifted me an old Sunset magazine cookbook entitled, appropriately, "Cookies." Inside was a recipe for Fig Newtons, and I knew as soon as I looked that it was "the one". The lemon makes the difference.

Musical accompaniment here.

Homemade Fig Newtons

You Will Need:

For the dough:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup each of granulated sugar and firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup whole what flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup toasted, unsweetened wheat germ
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

For the filling:
1 pound dried fights (about 2 cups, lighly packed)
1/2 cup walnuts (or almonds? yes?)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. grated lemon peel
2 tbls. lemon juice

To Make:

Using a food processor or a food chopper fitted with a medium blade, grind together dried figs and walnuts (almonds?).

Turn into a medium-sized pan and add sugar, water, lemon peel and lemon juice. Place over medium heat and cook, stirring, until mixture boils and becomes very thick (5 to 8 minutes). Let cool completely.

In a large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar, and brown sugar until creamy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. In another bowl, stir together whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour, wheat germ, salt and baking soda; gradually add to butter mixture, blending thoroughly. Cover dough tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until easy to handle (at least one hour - or even until the next day).

Divide dough into two equal portions. Return one portion to the fridge while you work with the other. On a floured board, roll out each portion to a straight-edged (editors note: there is literally no reason to make this straight-edged. for all I can see, the messier the better!). Cut length-wise into three strips. Divide cooled fruit filling into six equal portions and evenly distribute one portion down center of each strip, bringing it out to ends. Use a long spatula to lift sides of each dough strip over filling, overlapping edges slightly on top. Press together lightly. Cut strips in half crosswise; lift and invert onto greased baking sheets (seam side down). Brush off excess flour. Refrigerate for about fifteen minutes. Meanwhile, repeating rolling and filling with remaining dough.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes or until browned. Let cool on baking sheets or rack for about ten minutes, then cut each strip crosswise into four pieces. Transfer cookies to racks and let cool completely. Store covered - eat immediately, etc.

a man needs a Made

2009-10-11T20:36:00.000-07:00

This is a grape ice-cream and peanut butter sandwich. If you understand my feelings on peanut-butter, you must already know my feelings on ice-cream....

the answer is yes. yes. and yes.

This concoction was brought to you by the brand new Milkmade Ice Cream, a premium ice cream delivery company based in New York and bringing unto thee population things like this coffee/beer/chocolate ice cream (picture below).

I beg you to check them out.

"Rich, dark-roasted coffee, a dark and creamy chocolate stout, and pieces of semi-sweet chocolate seemed like such a good idea."

Whhhhaaaaaat?! I just blew so many fuses I think I'm a fire hazard.

breadhead: the adventures of

2009-10-11T12:26:00.000-07:00

Do you ever get in over your head? I do. I also start things I can't finish, bite off more than I can chew, and have eyes that are bigger than my stomach. If you add all of these things together, you'll realize that I get into a lot (a lot a lot) of trouble pretty much all the time. So when I find myself in the MOST trouble; sitting precariously astride the absolute pinnacle of trouble-having, when I cannot possibly get into any more trouble, I will always conveniently quarantine myself by doing something that is time-consuming and keeps me tied to my apartment all day. I hate laundry, so the thinking-persons solution is bread-baking. I bake bread all day. "Sorry, can't come out. The dough is rising."

Rising.

Crusty Cornstalk Bread (c/o of Gourmet Magazine, RIP)

You Will Need:

1 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast (from a 1/4-ounce package)
1 1/4 cups warm water (105–115°F), divided
1 tsp mild honey or sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus more for kneading and dusting
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoon stone-ground yellow cornmeal, divided

Equipment: a spray bottle filled with water (or your hands, dipped in water)

To Make:

Stir together yeast, 1/4 cup warm water, and honey in a large bowl and let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. (If mixture doesn’t foam, start over with new yeast.)

Mix flour, salt, 1/2 cup cornmeal, and remaining cup warm water into yeast mixture with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until a soft dough forms. Turn out dough onto a well-floured surface and knead, dusting surface and your hands with just enough flour to keep dough from sticking, until dough is elastic and smooth, 6 to 8 minutes. Form dough into a ball.

Put dough in an oiled large bowl and turn to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Punch down dough (do not knead) and fold into thirds like a letter (dough will be soft), then gently roll into a 12-inch-long log with lightly floured hands. Sprinkle a large baking sheet evenly with remaining 2 tablespoon cornmeal and put dough diagonally in center. Alternating sides, make 3-inch-long diagonal cuts, about 1 1/2 inches apart, into sides of log using kitchen shears (ends of cuts should not touch; maintain a center “stalk”). Gently pull apart cuts to stretch dough, forming rolls that are separate (about 1 1/2 inches apart) but connected to center stalk. Cover with a kitchen towel (not terry cloth) and let rise in a draft-free place at warm room temperature until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.

Preheat oven to 425°F with rack in middle. Set a pan of water on the bottom rung.

Spray rolls with water, then bake, spraying into oven 3 times in first 5 minutes of baking (to help form a crust), until golden, about 20 minutes. Transfer roll to a rack and cool at least 20 minutes.

morning cooking

2009-10-06T17:59:00.000-07:00

... is back in my life!

cKale: Obsession

2009-10-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

Re: a friend’s recent commentary on my eating habits, liking Kale does not make me “from California.” Being OBSESSED with Kale makes me from California (and believe you me, I am obsessed). And, yes, I am grammatically overstating my Kale by insisting on Capitalizing it in every part of this entry.

Kale and Tomato Bird's Nest

1 tbs olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
8-10 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 bunch of Kale, torn from stem and roughly chopped
1 egg

To make: Heat olive oil in a large skillet on med-high heat. Drop in cherry tomatoes and garlic. Let cook for 3-5 minutes, until tomatoes start to stew. Turn heat up and stir in Kale, turning to coat and then covering. Let cook for about three minutes, until the Kale turns brighter green in color and begins to wilt. Turn heat down (medium is good), and spoon a hole into the center of the Kale/tomato mixture. Crack and drop the egg into the depression, covering the pan again to ensure that the egg will cook all the way through. Let cook until egg reaches desired consistency. Remove mix from eat and serve over toast/brown rice/sweet potatoes/pasta/whatever strikes your fancy.

Let's Jam.

2009-09-29T20:43:00.000-07:00

OR: How Siri, Rowan and Cassie Got Their Grooves Back.

Siri Thorson grew up on an island. Ask me and I will tell you all about it. Don't ask me and I will still tell you all about it. Aside from cool things like having a hose-filled bathtub in a room into which a peach tree grows, no modern electrical facilities, and a yurt (maybe I made that up), Siri also has a farm. On this farm grows fruit, and out of this fruit Siri's parents make jar after jar after jar of thick and gooey homemade jams. Really. There is so much jam arriving in care packages to our apartment every week that we're at a complete loss as to what to do with it all. As far as I know, there are no jam-based donation drives and, even though I want to, I can't eat toast with jam and tea three square meals a day.

So what do we do? Make thumbprints and pawn them off on other people as thank-you gifts! Excellent.

Disclaimer: I did not really pawn these off as a thank-you gift. They were a very-well-deserved thank you gift.

You Will Need:
1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons water
1 egg, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
jam or jelly
1 teaspoon cinnamon (essential!)

To Make:

Preheat over to 350°. Cream butter and sugar together. Add water, the egg yolk from the separated egg and the vanilla. Blend well. Sift together the flour, cinnamon and baking powder in a separate bowl, then add to creamed mixture bit by bit, blending as you go to keep the mixture moist. Shape into small balls and set them, about one inch apart, on a baking sheet. Press your thumb delicately into the center of each, creating an indentation. Using the egg-white to coat each slightly-indented cookie (trust me, this will be worth it in the end. purely aesthetics, of course). Finally, spoon a bit of your wild-island-made jam into each indentation, making sure to slop and spill and ooze it over the side of each cookie, your hands, the jar, and the counter. Pop into the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes or until the crust of each cookie begins to turn a lovely golden brown (thank you egg white). Remove and let cool for as long as you feel like. I waited approximately five minutes.

Peanut Butter Lover and A Sense of Deja Vu (Have I Said Something Like That Before?)

2009-06-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

Even though I feel absolutely confident in the normalcy of my obsession with peanut-butter, it is always a little bit nice to receive the occasional reminder that other people share in my sentiments. I am not alone. Who doesn't like to hear that once in awhile? Today's reminder of not-aloneness comes to us care of NPR's Kitchen Window.

Let it be known that before I saw this recipe, I was innocently lying in bed on a Sunday morning with my feet tucked up underneath me. I think there was a cup of coffee on my bedside table. The fan I remember. That was definitely on, pointed directly at my face. It was enjoyable, but not so enjoyable that I didn't get up and make these cookies immediately upon reading this article. Motivation!

Basic Peanut Butter Cookies:

You Will Need:

1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter (more is always better)
1 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 egg
A little cinnamon and sugar (to taste)

To Make:
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder in one bowl. Cold cut the butter into 1/2 inch cubes, then cream it with the peanut butter and sugar. Beat the vanilla and the egg into this mixture. Resist the urge to eat ALL of the batter in this stage. Now stir in the flour bit by bit, making sure it is well-blended as you go. The dough should be very pliable now. Tear out chunks and roll them between your palms to form small balls.

For the next part, I combined equal parts cinnamon and sugar with a dash of sea salt in a small dish. I then rolled each of the dough balls through this mixture until thoroughly coated. This lends a dash of snickerdoodle to your peanut butter cookie, which (if it's your thing) I highly recommend.

Place the balls on a greased cookie sheet, and lightly smash them with the tines of the fork. This will give them that distinctive peanut butter cookie aesthetic. Bake for approximately ten minutes (a little less to leave them chewy...which I like. A lot.)

Suggestions for consumption:
*With lots of dairy product on hand to wash down with.
*Crumbled over freshly whipped cream.
*On either side of a huge, cold scoop of ice cream (ice-cream sandwich)!
*Straight

I Want Some-More-Sa (Samosa)

2009-06-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

I'm not lying when I say that I first picked up these pea's because I loved the way the cans looked. All clean lines and so absolutely classic! Just look at them! And on sale...? Done. I bought five cans, took them home, and proudly displayed them on my pantry shelves - a mother hen preening over her culinary brood. It took me three or four days to even begin pondering appropriate recipes, as fully satisfied merely to gaze upon them as I was.

But what to make with peas that did not include carrots (visions of my youth and "healthy dinners," microwaved, eaten in front of fuzzily rendered cartoons on public television)? The answer: samosas. Thank you, Gourmet.com. Even with factors like "excellent taste" set aside , this is a totally satisfying recipe to make. It just involves a very gratifying amount of handling: folding, prodding, stirring, tucking, rolling, etc. Afterward you'll feel universally accomplished...you might even be faintly perspiring. And when it comes time to actually eat, you'll known that you've truly earned it. You went for it; you rolled up your sleeves and really dug into it! Congratulations, you!

It must go without saying that these are my favorite kinds of recipes (see also: pizza dough pounding, ice-cream making, whip-cream whipping, anything involving bread dough). Perfect for unwinding after a long, long (long, long) day.

Phyllo-Wrapped Potato Samosas, courtesy of Gourmet.

You Will Need:

1 1/2 lb Yukon Gold or boiling potatoes
1 large onion, chopped (2 3/4 cups)
1 teaspoon garam masala (Indian spice blend)
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
12 (17- by 12-inch) phyllo sheets, thawed if frozen
3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

To Make:

Peel potatoes and cut into 1/2-inch cubes. Put in a medium saucepan with 1 tsp salt and enough water to cover by 1 inch. Simmer until tender, about 15 minutes, then drain in a colander.
Cook onion, spices, and 3/4 tsp salt in oil in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Add potatoes and peas and cook, stirring, 3 minutes, then remove from heat and cool slightly.
Preheat oven to 375°F with racks in upper and lower thirds.
Cover stack of phyllo sheets with plastic wrap and a damp kitchen towel. Keeping remaining phyllo covered and working quickly, place 1 sheet on work surface. Gently brush with some butter, then lay a second sheet on top and brush with butter. Cut crosswise into 4 strips. Put 2 tablespoons filling near one corner of 1 strip and fold corner of phyllo over to enclose filling and form a triangle. Continue folding strip, maintaining triangle shape. Put samosa, seam side down, on baking sheet. Make 3 more triangles in same manner. Repeat with remaining phyllo and filling. Generously brush both sides of each samosa with butter and bake, turning samosas over halfway through and switching position of sheets, until golden and crisp all over, about 25 minutes total. Cool slightly. Serve warm or at room temperature.

perhaps an explanation?

2009-04-15T19:38:00.000-07:00

Do you notice how this seasonal-food-map of the United States has New York City listed as being 'dormant' in the winter time? Perhaps my months of February and March simply fell victim to the happenstance of my geography and that explains why I've been void for weeks.

That said -- recipes coming soon!

happy easter

2009-04-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

sorry that i've been gone

the spice of life

2009-02-15T21:28:00.000-08:00

"Cardamom will solve all problems," I said to my co-worker on Thursday afternoon, not in jest. "Cardamom can do it!" is my new mantra. Not only is it a spice favored globally in dishes both sweet and savory, but it's also a medicinal supplement capable of combatting everything from gum disease to lung infection. Cardamom also, conveniently enough, tastes really good, with its success in a dish being akin to its ultimate subtly. It never overpowers and always enhances, the perfect bridesmaid if there ever was one. I now turn to cardamon as the finishing touch for any dish deemed lacking 'just that something'. As a result, the spice has made a cameo appearance in a wild variety of my most recent recipes, most notably some chocolate covered sugar cookies (coming soon) and these: rosemary cheddar biscuits.

The recipe was originally inspired by Kristin at Our Kitchen Sink, who wrote of some plain cream biscuits featured in Alice Water's The Art of Simple Food. The biscuits made by this recipe are perfect, period. I added the fresh rosemary on a whim because I had it, followed shortly by the cheddar and ever essential cardamom. The result was a product I demand that every single person reading this post (you know who you are--all four of you) make immediately. Please!

You Will Need:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbls cardamom
6 tbls cold butter, cut into pieces
2 tbls fresh rosemary, chopped roughly
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, finely grated
3/4 cups heavy cream

To Make:

Preheat the oven to 400F. Stir together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cardamom in a large bowl: Sift gently. Cut the butter into the flour with a pastry blender until the mixture forms doughy balls about the size of small peas. Add the rosemary and the cheddar cheese. Mix. Set aside 1 tbls of the heavy cream. Sti the remainder into the flour/cheese mixture, stirring with a fork until it all begins to hold together. Lightly knead the dough a few times, turning it over in the bowl, then roll it onto a lightly floured surface. Using a rolling pin, flatten the dough until it is about 3/4 inch thick. Cut into circles/hearts/cowboy hats (whatever your heart desires) until all the dough has been used. Place the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and lightly brush the tops with the leftover cream. Bake for 17 minutes until totally, absolutely, purely delicious. Enjoy immediately.

Warning: consumption of heart-shaped biscuits may result in overt displays of adorable affection:

packages that care & banana bread

2009-02-11T14:49:00.000-08:00

(photo by Julia F.)

I know a girl named Julia and she takes care of me. In college, the front porch of her apartment would suffer the regular collisions of my bike tire as I catapulted myself through her front door and unceremoniously into the middle of whatever she was doing. She was a master of the "Oh Cassie" eye-roll-and-sigh combination.....you know the one. It was a simultaneous acceptance of and preparation for whatever disaster I was about to inadvertantly wreak upon the normal and manageable rhythm of her life. ( If you know me, you perform it on a twice a day basis at LEAST. )

But Julia was the best at it, so it goes without saying that I owe her one. She recently moved to Kansas City and I decided that I would craft her the ultimate-special-wonderful-care-package-of-joy. Inspiration came by way of the million years old Moosewood Cookbook that has been the cornerstone of my cooking since I was too small to even see above the countertop. I knew as soon as I saw this:

that i had found the magical, integral centerpiece to my care package. Oh, Moosewood. How I love thee.

Moosewood Cookbook Banana Bread

FIRST:

1.5 cups melted butter
1 3/4 cup brown sugar (or 1 1/2 cups honey)
4 eggs, room temperature
2 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
Grated rind of 1 orange

TO MAKE: Beat these ingredients in large bowl, beginning with sugar or honey and butter, add eggs one-at-a-time. Add remaining ingredients, and beat until light in color.

NEXT:

2 cups whole wheat flower
2 cups white flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon

2 cups well-mashed , ripe banana
soaked in
1 cup strong, black coffee

TO MAKE:

Add flour mixture and banana stuff alternately to the butter mixture, beginning
and ending with flour (flour-banana-flour-banana-flour). After each addition mix gently to combine, but do not beat
or otherwise overmix--this toughens and dries a cake. Add nuts and raisins last if you want them. Generously butter 2
loaf pans and sprinkle with sesame seeds (they'll stick to the butter). Divide batter and bake at 350 F. for 40-50
minutes or until done. Cool 10 minutes in the pan then remove to wire rack to finish cooling.

all the world an oyster

2009-01-30T04:05:00.000-08:00

I'm not minding this winter so much. Last year things were a little bleak, I got a little sad, etc. Not this year! Not for me. There ain't no cure for the summertime blues, but there is a very, very tried and true cure for seasonal depression: soup (or stew, in this case). The purest distillation of sweet comforts.

Oyster-Mushroom & Split Pea "Stew"

You Will Need:

1/2 pound oyster mushrooms
1 cup split peas
2-3 cups stock
1/2 red onion, sliced
1 tbs olive oil
Salt/Pepper To Taste

To Make: Warm the tablespoon of olive oil over med-high heat and then throw in the onion and mushrooms--cook them up for just a few minutes until they start to smell real good and brown at the edges. Remove from heat. Bring splits peas and stock to a boil in a large pot, then simmer. Let cook for about ten minutes, then add carrot, onion, and mushrooms. Let the whole concoction simmer while you taste and balance the flavors, add salt and pepper as you see fit. Cook, cook, cook. Eat, eat, eat.

(Ideally, this recipe would be pureed prior to adding the mushroom, but I am unfortunately lacking such equipment in my current situation.)

It's so pretty! How could I resist it?

anything goes now!

2009-01-22T07:55:00.000-08:00

There are two ways that sweets are eaten. The first is an anonymous thrust of hand into cavernous box followed by extraction of [fill in the blank chocolate product]. It doesn’t matter what the vehicle of sweetness is, so long as said vehicle arrives in mouth carrying flavor and resulting in endorphin rush. Serotonin will be released, life will go on. But the second way…ah, the second way…that is the one that counts. Imagine:

Some cookies come out of the oven. You transfer them to a plate and set them on the coffee table to cool. They rest innocently between the sneaker collection that is all of your friends feet resting on the tabletop while a movie is watched. The cookies are still so fresh that stream rises from them: fragrant, ghostly, and iridescent with the glow of the television. This is worthy of some attention. One by one, each lounging figure begins to stiffen slowly and rise from the depths of the couch cushions. For a long time nobody does anything else. They just look. Every warm cookie is inspected carefully from afar until one is finally deemed most worthy for consumption based on the merits of its visible nuts, chocolate bits, and golden-hued tan. This cookie, “the one”, is slid delicately from the plate and eaten…very….slowly…. Then the process repeats itself again…and again...and again. The process of cookie elimination becomes suddenly very time consuming, delicate, slow, enjoyable. The cookie has fully surpassed the simplistic and thoughtless rhythm of the grab-and-stuff-in-face; it has become an object of intense speculation and desire.

A really great cookie needs a really great recipe, of course, and this really great recipe comes from David Lebovitz, a bit of a personal hero of mine. We went into this with all possible obstacles against us (not enough brown sugar, and it was hard as a rock, no mixer, stubbornly frozen butter) but we made due by taking a few creative liberties. For example: My friend, Wyatt, took the pleasure of throwing in an entire bag of big chocolate chunks, followed immediately by another entire bag of chopped walnuts. I panicked for a millisecond that there wouldn’t be enough dough to hold all the chocolate and nuts together, but then I was like “Wait a second---listen to what you just said" and realized that I had potentially the best cookie batch EVER now ready to go into the oven. And I was right!

Please, please make these cookies for you and your friends. Each one is a misshapen ball of delicious, just dying to be broken apart with your fingers and eaten in a slow, prolonged swan-song of heavenly pleasure.

Chocolate Chip Cookies via David Lebovitz:

“Great Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe
1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (120 grams) firmly packed light brown sugar
8 tablespoons (1 stick) (115 grams) unsalted butter, cold, cut into 1/2-inch (1cm) pieces
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups (175 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups (200 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup(130 grams) walnuts or pecans, toasted and chopped
Adjust the oven rack to the top 1/3 of the oven and preheat to 300F (150C). Line three baking sheets with parchment paper.
Beat the sugars and butters together until smooth. Mix in the egg, vanilla, and baking soda. Stir together the flour and salt, then mix them into the batter. Mix in the chocolate chips and nuts.
Scoop the cookie dough into 2-tablespoon (5cm) balls and place 8 balls, spaced 4 inches (10cm) apart, on each of the baking sheets.
Bake for 18 minutes, or until pale golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
Store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 3 days.
Make about 20 cookies."

(recipe reproduced without permission, please don’t be mad!)

nobody's hippie

2009-01-11T14:40:00.000-08:00

There are a small collection of foods in my life for which I have rarely considered the process of creation. Among them: crackers, mayonnaise, cereal, and ketchup. It's not for a lack of interest on my part, it's just a general non-consideration of product development. And I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom these items spring into existence at the point of encapsulation in air-tight packaging on grocery store shelves everywhere. Every time somebody brings it to my attention that said food stuffs can easily be made from scratch, I'm always left wildly flabbergasted and wondering why the hell I never thought of it before. Such was the case when the ever-luminescent Amelia Scheim said to me "We should make granola".

Duh! Granola! From Scratch! Capitals Everywhere For Emphasis! How have I never thought of doing this before?

The great thing about making granola is that there is never a truly definitive recipe; a really good batch will (and should) absorb any number of left over knicks, knacks, oats, and grains from your kitchen. For a leftovers-rehabilitation junkie like myself, it's the ideal recipe. It's also the kind of recipe that will forgive you for the doofus mistakes that one inevitably tends to make whilst experimenting in ones kitchen; if you use too much honey, or too many almonds, or burn a few raisins, it won't really matter in the end. A few imperfections in the final pot always add rather than detract from the over-all quality of the product; another thing that separates the homemade from the store bought. Huzzah!

Also, I splurged and used Walnut Oil in my batch. Its a complex and richly flavored oil, and it was the perfect touch to counterpoint the sweetness of the honey and raisins. I highly recommend it.

You Will Need:

1/2 Cup Walnut Oil
1/2 Cup Honey (more if you like it sweeter)
Almonds
Walnuts
Pine Nuts
Flax Seed
Golden Raisins
2 Cups Rolled Oats
Anything Else You Think Would Be Good (that is the best part)

To Make:

Roughly chop the walnuts and almonds, then scoop them into a large pot. Add the oats, flax seed, pine nuts, golden raisins, and anything else you have on hand.

Combine the walnut oil and honey in a large saucepan over low heat and stir slowly until the mixture comes to a bubbling simmer.

Pour the oil/honey mixture slowly over the granola mixture, turning the ingredients slowly so that they are evenly and thoroughly coated. Spread the resulting mixture over a baking sheet. Spread it thinly in order to ensure that the granola comes out of the oven evenly baked and extra crispy (that means delicious).

Pop the pan into an oven pre-heated to 350°F. Let it bake for 20-30 minutes, stirring/turning occasionally.

Take out and do not even let cool; begin consumption immediately.

happy new year

2009-01-01T15:04:00.002-08:00

a good luck feast for the new year, brought to my stomach specially by: dagmar, winter, siri, and jackie jazzyowl.

Happy New Year everybody! Regular and real posting to be resuming again soon.

simple pleasures, to infinity

2008-12-29T23:33:00.000-08:00

When your best friend's mom specially prepares food for him to take back home to you. In this case, Brian's mum made some killer stuffed cabbage (and then some) and Brian brought it over to my apartment for us to share. We ate 'til fit to burst and I've never been more pleased.

merry christmas

2008-12-25T15:05:00.000-08:00

wishing you all the best in the new year

pumpkin seeds

2008-12-24T23:02:00.000-08:00

For the first eight days of this December my entire apartment was filled with old friends. Every morning I would wake up to a living-room battlefield of sleepy bodies and cast-off clothes, their garments and limbs draped lazily across every extraneous surface: couch, table, floor, and chair. The perilous daily crossing to the bathroom was a careful negotiation of careless leg arrangements and upturned wrists flung across pale faces; over soft hair spillings across gold couch cushions and clenched-fist pullings of blankets beneath neatly tucked chins. It was a perfect and entirely consuming practice. I seemed to have no time to do anything but work and return home to these faces, work and return home to them.

It wasn't until I stole home for a weekend that I had a chance to really cook again, and by then all I had it in my heart to do was somehow try and recapture that sense of complete comfort so briefly enjoyed in the presence of my true loves. Much to the ongoing anguish of lonely people everywhere, though, it turns out that almost nothing will serve as a substitute for the earnest and wholesome solace of being with close friends. Almost nothing EXCEPT for the combined scents of cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin. So, having already been thoroughly stuffed with as much pie as one could possibly want in any season, I decided to take pumpkin down a slightly different path and turn it into some butter. Pumpkin butter! It is so delicious to even say it.

This recipe was simple...adapted straight off of allrecipes.com. I was overwhelmingly pleased with the results, but if you have any recommendations for substitutions or changes please, please feel free to share!

This piece from the NY Times Holiday Food section is also a very worthwhile read if you have the chance. It'll make you smile, I promise.

Out Of This Strata

2008-12-01T17:38:00.000-08:00

Great things come from small beginnings, big things come in small packages, etc. I'm sure you're all familiar with the standard-issue anecdotes about how it is the littlest things in life that matter the most, but a reminder now and then has never hurt. Especially when we're all still in the lovely rose-colored flush of Thanksgiving consumption after-glow. This dish is the definition of great big things being cultivated from very tiny beginnings, i.e. a mouth-watering Recipe shared via Google Reader as almost an afterthought one afternoon at work. Next thing I knew, Ben Duchac had turned my cast iron fantasy into one hundred percent reality. He is now my personal hero and shall remain so for eternity.

Running a very close second in my ranking of life-time heroes, though, would be the delightful lady behind the always-amazing Our Kitchen Sink for providing me with endless hours of salivary-gland-activating photography and food ideas. Haha. No, I cannot really believe that I just said that, either. Aren't you just amped to eat yourself some strata now?

Care of the Kitchen Sink:

"You Will Need:

4 large eggs
1/2 cup low-fat yogurt
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons finely chopped sage
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
One 16-ounce can diced tomatoes with their juices
Salt and freshly ground pepper
5 ounces whole wheat peasant bread, cut into 1-inch cubes (4 cups)
2 ounces feta cheese, crumble

To Make:

Preheat the oven to 450°. In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs, then whisk in the yogurt and parsley.

In a 10-inch ovenproof skillet, heat the olive oil. Add the onion, garlic, sage and crushed red pepper and cook over moderately high heat, stirring, until the onion is softened and lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and their juices, season with salt and pepper and bring to a simmer. Stir in the bread and sprinkle with the feta. Pour the egg mixture on top and bake for 20 minutes, until golden brown. Let cool slightly, then serve."

Yum!

Prep stage, bread cubes

Almost there!!

Ready to be devoured!

An ultra-rare-never-before-seen-behind-the-scenes glimpse at me photographing my food! Kidding, kidding.
care (once again) of Ben D.The man can do no wrong!

post-Thanksgiving; stuffed

2008-11-28T09:50:00.000-08:00

I like going home again. As few and far between as these visits have become, they are always fairly necessary in maintaining stasis on my sanity. Food isn't the only reason, of course, but it's up there as one of the best. For as many years as I've made the southward trek to have Thanksgiving dinner at my cousin Nick's home, I've been known to indulge in three or four portions too many of our family's patented chestnut stuffing. When I was very much younger, my theakoula would sit around the kitchen table with a few other family members and steam, prick, and peel all the chestnuts by hand on Thanksgiving morning. I remember very well their whispering, their rustling and the scent of nuts, still warm and cracking--their voices as palpable and sticky sweet as the odor, just as rich and full of promise. I'd find myself wandering over on purpose, seeking aimless errands that would take me into the kitchen, just so that I could be around them while they worked.

For some reason it had never occurred to me to ask for the recipe before. I had a reliable resource of it on a yearly basis, plus enough take-home leftovers to kill an ox. Recently, though, I have begun to realize that chestnut stuffing is a dish I'd like to eventually be able to bring to my own table. And I'd like to have spent enough time with it to get it absolutely right, maybe even add a few of my own twists and turns to the mix. So between glazing pears, mashing potatoes, sweating feverishly, and slicing carrots--I leaned over and sneakily asked my cousin Maria if she would be so kind as to relay the recipe to me.

These are exactly, word-for-word, the instructions that she passed down to me. The original recipe calls for both beef and liver, but Maria and Nick have long been making their version vegetarian. (Necessary in order to accommodate the variety in diets bound to be encountered in any gathering numbering above twenty.) Remember: this is a recipe intended for many, you might want to cut it down a bit if you're cooking for less than forty.

You Will Need:

white onions
1 lb. black raisins
1 lb. pine nuts
5 stalks celery
2 sticks butter
3 lbs. chestnuts (to prepare-boil for ten minutes, prick shell with knife, and peel)
1 bunch parsley
40-45 oz. vegetable broth
2 cups cooked rice

To Make:

1. Saute onions in butter. Add celery, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste.
2. Add pine nuts, chestnuts, raisins, and rice.
3. Add broth.
4. Bake in oven at 375 degrees covered with foil for 30-35 minutes.

And don't forget dessert:

fall is my favorite season

2008-11-24T21:43:00.000-08:00

I am a simple girl.

You Will Need:

1 bag of cranberries
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
(that's it--seriously)

To Make:

Bring all the ingredients to a boil together in a large pot. Turn heat down to low and let bubble/simmer for about ten minutes--I don't let mine go for that long because I like my sauce pretty chunky and still loaded with lots of whole berries. Remove from the heat and let cool for a time, then transfer contents to a container and refrigerate until thoroughly "gelled". Serve cold and delicious.

simple pleasures #3

2008-11-20T21:00:00.000-08:00

Alex Naidus bringing you pumpkin cheesecake from Veniero's when he comes over to your apartment late on a Thursday evening.

left-hand luke and the beggar boys

2008-11-20T07:33:00.000-08:00

I think it has been--and mind you that this is only a rough approximation--a century and a half straight since I have gotten any sleep. Move the tea bag from the cup to the plate, pour the wine, lean back, have a smoke, think a little. Resurrect a meal from the dead.

No, but seriously. I had chicken soup at the Thai wholesale market in Chelsea the other afternoon in a rare lunchtime hour interlude, and was (not surprisingly) unable to finish the straight-up trough of broth and noodle-y deliciousness that they plunked down in front of me. Luckily, it took only fifteen minutes and a few key ingredients to bring the remainders right back to life again in the form of a fragrant, salty, slurp-worthy soup.

You Will Need:
1 bunch scallions
1 bunch bean sprouts
1 large carrot
1 head broccoli
left over, pre-cooked rice noodles from Thai place
3 cups chicken broth
cardamom to taste
garlic powder to taste
salt and pepper to taste

To Make:
Bring the chicken broth to a slow simmer. Slice and dice the carrots and broccoli up into whatever size you feel like eventually fitting into your mouth. Drop them into the broth (pop one of two into your mouth as you go...it's your right as the cook!). Shake in a bit of cardamom, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Don't worry about precision, to be exact is to be a fool! Cover the dish; let simmer. Dice the scallions, wash and strain the bean sprouts. Add them to the concoction, which should be smelling pretty delicious about now. Cover everything and let it simmer until the carrots and broccoli are soft (this will happen faster than you expect). Once the broth and vegetables are cooked, dump in the left-over noodles. Cover and let simmer until the mixture is completely warmed through. Stir, serve, and enjoy!

why do fools fall in love?

2008-10-26T18:42:00.000-07:00

I always find myself with a great sense of purpose in this city in the fall. The sentiment is completely unwarranted yet it never fails to surface year after year after year. When I am walking I cease to wander. I always know exactly where I am going. The future is bright and clear and close. Then I stray into the menagerie that is Whole Foods at 730pm on a Sunday and am immediately deflated of all concept of higher direction or intention.

Nevertheless, I still get a pretty good soup out of it.

You Will Need:

3-4 sweet potatoes (hell...the more the better i say)
1 Apple (any variety, but a sturdy cooking apple works best)
1 med. sized onion
salt/pepper
cinnamon
nutmeg
1 tbs. olive oil

To Make:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Slide the sweet potatoes in on a baking tray and let them cook until they are nice and tender...about forty five minutes (but a few fork pricks should let you know if they're ready or not). In the meantime, core and thinly slice your apple. Dice the onion up into good sized chunks. Heat the olive oil in a sauce pan over med-high heat and dump in the apples and onion. As it cooks down, add cinnamon and nutmeg. Be hearty. This party will both smell AND taste good (if you're smart, you'll steal a few slices of the apple before adding it to the rest of the soup. yum).

Let the apple and onion mixture cook through until the apples are soft. Cover and set aside. When the sweet potatoes are cooked all the way through, slice them in half and scoop their innards into a big pot. Add the apples and onions. Add a tsp. each of salt and pepper. Combine with six cups of water and turn on the heat--let this warm all the way through for about ten minutes, so everything is nice and mixed and pulpy.

Next you'll have to puree the mixture down. I did this part in small batches because I only have a tiny Cuisinart, but it still worked beautifully. Once the entire batch was done, I transferred everything back into the original pot and turned the heat on low so that I could spice it to taste. That meant loads more cinnamon and nutmeg (I can't get enough) and a dash or so more of salt.

Turn off heat and serve with some slices of cool cucumber as adornment. Ta-da!

que linda, brazil!

2008-10-20T16:17:00.000-07:00

Brazil, Brazil, Brazil! Let me get it all out there right from the get-go so there's no confusion about what's on my mind, in my heart, and tattooed on my left rib-cage (just kidding).

Not just the sun, the rain, the salt, the sweat, and the lack of necessity for formal clothing...but the people, the apartment rooms, the chatter, the streets, the midnight-caterwauling and packed-car-careening around sharp turns... and the food. Of course, the food!

The dominant theme of the trip was definitely the ol' clutter&share, i.e. fill the table as much as humanly possible with as many heaping, steaming plates of delicious food as can be fit and then drop everything (even silverware) and dig in. By the time the smoke clears, not a soul at the table will have retained any sort of recognizable human shape. Instead, each will have gleefully succumbed to the vast, gelatinous influence of laughter, over-indulgence, and pão de queijo galore. Fat, happy, and (as always) BRAZIL!

"You're a ghost, la la la la la la la..." -John Cale, Paris 1919

some things never change

2008-10-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

My aunt just sent me a care package. Tucked inside of an old cookbook from Athens was this collection of small photographs, all of which she took in a Paris bakery over twenty years ago. Some things really don't ever change!

breakfast with alisha

2008-10-07T09:25:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love most about having a silly, sort of harmlessly-self-indulgent kind of blog is when other people in my life feel moved to be just as silly and sort of self-indulgent as me by sharing the various things that they make and eat. It justifies my ridiculous culinary pursuits AND makes me into a happy person.

My friend Alisha, who created a veritable piece of artwork out of her banana-layered-peanut-butter-toast this morning, was kind enough to forward along a photo to me so that I might visually partake in/absolutely salivate over her breakfast. PB+B--so simple! So pleasing! Ah, sigh.

I always love a little food-picture-pick-me-up.

Irrelevant Grandeur

2008-10-04T15:51:00.000-07:00

Do you ever have that feeling like you just want to plunge both hands deep into your chest cavity and fall backwards off a high cliff as the only possible means of successfully counteracting the catastrophic forward momentum in your life?! Me either. Summer is over; it's fall. Among the things winding down aside from seasons and friendships are my first year in New York City and the Roaring Camp song on my computer from the original AGCS Summer Mixtape. Perfectly Appropriate.

I made this dish weeks ago, when summer corn was still all the rage at the Farmer's Market and a large batch of garden-fresh tomatoes had just been brought to me by a co-worker from his parents home in Virginia. It was a spectacular conclusion to the sweetness of summertime, so fresh that I didn't even cook the corn all the way down before rolling it out of the pan and onto the plate. If you're looking for an easy way to clean out the vegetables in your pantry (in order to make room for things like spice jars full of cinnamon, canned pumpkin and fleshy halves of acorn squash, of course) I really think you should go for this recipe!

You Will Need:
Corn
Tomatoes
Fresh Basil
Salt and Pepper
Olive Oil
Mushrooms

To Make:
As usual, so easy it's painful. Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil over low heat, add a few sliced mushrooms. Let them cook down for about three minutes. Dice up your tomatoes (as many as you please!) and drop them in with the mushrooms. Add your spices and let them meditate over the warmth for awhile, soaking up the flavors. Everything should be awfully juicy and smelling pretty nicely at this point. Then toss in some handfuls of freshly shucked corn. Stir everything together, cover, and let simmer down for five to seven minutes. At the end-point, the corn should be cooked down but still have retained a little bit of its crunch. Serve immediately! Enjoy.

uh oh!

2008-09-16T20:31:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry for my lack of posts lately! Quite unfortunately, my computer went spontaneously ka-put a few weeks ago...pretty effectively stemming the flow of photos/words from my dinner table to my desktop. Now that everything is all better, though, things should be back on track (and possibly delicious?) quite shortly! Huzzah!

simple pleasures #2

2008-08-27T22:51:00.000-07:00

caramel apples, anything and everything about them!

Also, anything and everything about this girl.

Summertime Soul, Volume 2

2008-08-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

Otherwise known as: a further attempt at justifying my eggplant-avocado sandwich "recipe".

This morning, making lunch before work.

Summertime Soul, Volume 1

2008-08-25T17:36:00.000-07:00

I don't know what I am going to do when summer is over. Frequent, easy, and rewarding access to my neighborhood Greenmarket has completely spoiled me. No longer do I discuss foods in combination with each other("meals" if you will), but rather as entirely independent beings with no need nor desire to maneuver around one another within a single dish.

Whole, fresh heirloom tomatoes straight from the vine. Hunks of unblemished, ripe, yellow mango. Avocado scraped directly from the shell. Peaches, apples, and plums. Eggplants! Does this all sound familiar? It should! If not creative, it is certainly satisfying.

In an effort to recapture the spirit of cooking ambitions past, I recently took all of these things fresh from the Farmer's Market, slapped them together between two pieces of bread, and called it a 'sandwich'. I know that it's borderline ridiculous to post this as a "recipe", but the gooey, toothy mess of delicious that it produced was too good not to share. So, without further ado, let me infringe on your conscious with the Eggplant-Avocado Sandwich.

Eggplant-Avocado Sandwich

You Will Need:
1/2 avocado
Hummus
Eggplant
Tomato
Mustard
1 tbs. olive oil
Salt+Pepper to taste

(That's IT!)

To Make:

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees. Slice the eggplant, brush it with olive oil, and arrange it in a baking dish. Pop it in the oven. Smear your bread with hearty portions of hummus and mustard. Add wedges of avocado and tomato to that, contributing a dash of salt and pepper just for fun. After the eggplant has been baked soft, remove it from the oven and let it cool for a second. Then layer it on top of the avocado and tomato, and smash everything together immediately. With any luck, the eggplant will still be warm when you start to eat.

(If applicable, lay in sunny park during consumption.)

Spoiled rotten, I tells ya!

simple pleasures #1

2008-08-23T22:42:00.001-07:00

Eating food out of coffee mugs for no apparent reason, either in the morning or very late at night.

2008-08-15T15:33:00.000-07:00

I haven't had a lot of time recently. The only sad and lonely spot I can find for cooking these days is the twenty or so minutes it takes every morning to put together my sack lunch for work. And so it goes!

Swiss chard with tomatoes, roasted mushrooms, and summer squash.

Confined to the plastic walls of my lunch-time tupperware.

cheeseburgers in the sky

2008-08-12T05:18:00.000-07:00

Look up!

That's right. As part of the globally enacted "Wall Project" celebrating the urban canvas as an artspace, a giant cheeseburger has been painted on the facade of a building on 7th ave and 19th street. At the opening they gave away--you guessed it--free cheeseburgers. Never ones to act appropriate about anything involving burgers, Nani and I were there to celebrate.

This is going to get dangerous, though, as I have to walk by said canvas every day on my work and it is already hard enough to not want to eat hamburgers four meals a day eight days a week. C'est la vie! The Diesel Wall

best in show

2008-08-09T08:00:00.000-07:00

Food is a lovely thing. On more than one occasion--embarrassingly more--the stoop-shouldered slope of a bell pepper's top will swoon me to the point that I'll be late for work. Literally late for work. It turns out that I'm helpless in admiration of the evolutionary tactics that nature has employed in order to make what's edible appealing. Lustrous, yellow-skinned summer squashes, eggplants thick and fleshy, ebony with ripeness, garlic bulbs puckered from heat and oil into tiny brown kisses. The feast is entirely visual before it is edible.

In my perfect world, eating would always be composed of these three parts: careful preparation, ensuing admiration, and then celebratory consumption. It seems sadly more often than not that food is lost beneath the noise and traffic of restaurants; it moves effortlessly into our awareness and is just as easily swept back out again, a carousel of aroma with the occasional nutritive benefit. The diner entertains no relationship to the individual ingredient and the vibrant space between kitchen and table is plunged into darkness.

I take great enjoyment from the private illumination of this realm. To know how something smells, appears, and feels before it is coaxed into relationship with a half dozen others of its kind. As a result, I know that a lot of what I cook seems unforgivably dull at first glance. The eggplant pictured below was simply sliced in half and baked with garlic cloves at 350 degrees until it was soft. The squash was sliced, layered, coated in olive oil and fresh herbs, and then baked as well. The cross-section of fresh pepper above just happened to catch the light coming through my window when it was on its way to my mouth. You see? It's not that I'm eating plainly! It's that I am partaking in a prolonged and thorough study of food appreciation. Huzzah huzzah!

morning sounds

2008-08-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

If I had to pick a moment, this is it. The morning, the breakfast, the coffee. The friends and hangovers. Yellow kitchen walls. Endlessly and endless, forever on repeat.

The Tom Tom Club

2008-07-25T12:29:00.000-07:00

I've spent my life eating. When I am not eating, I am thinking about what and when I will be eating next. There is no middle-ground, and this is the truth. Summer is my favorite season because there is the shortest distance between thinking about the food that I want and obtaining it; it seems that every other corner I turn offers up a bouquet of fresh vegetables and thick, dark breads for sale . It's the season of the farmers market... and all my favorite foods are there, begging to be eaten raw, ripe, and juicy.

I say this because I want you to be sympathetic to my plight, the one in which I have begun to eat too many tomatoes. I ingest them constantly and without regard to personal pride or recipe. On many a workday I have been known to casually saunter into the Union Square greenmarket, spend an hour or so fervently selecting the ripest and reddest of all the tomatoes--the ones whose splitting flesh yields softly to the applied pressure of my palm--and then return, triumphant with my prizes, to the office to eat them completely raw (and a little noisily, if my coworkers don't say so themselves). It's disgusting, childish, frivolous. These things I know, but I am powerless to stop it.

The only thing to be done (the only thing that could conceal the nature of the beast) was to find recipes that allowed me to consume as many delicious tomatoes as my gourd could possibly hope to handle in as respectable a fashion as possible. Respectable being the key word here, but one also having a broad and highly elastic definition.

Since pizza in the summertime is an all time favorite of mine, I thought I might as well up and toss 'em on some 'za. This is one of those recipes that I can hardly wait to make again, both because it was so delicious and also because there about a million things I want to tweak about in order to make it better. Any suggestions are warmly accepted and appreciated!

Thus: Lemon-Avocado and Tomato Pizza

You Will Need:
1 tomato, ripe
1 avocado, ripe
a few slices of Fontina (or your favorite) kind of cheese
1 bunch fresh basil
pizza dough (i picked up a big bucket of mine from my favorite pizza place)
2-3 tbls. of olive oil
2-3 tbls. of fresh lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

To Make:

Pre-heat your over to 350°. Slice the avocado open, then use a butter knife to slice it while it remains in the shell. Each slice should be relatively narrow, but not so much as to disintegrate into mush upon removal from the shell; they should have some individual integrity. Scoop out the slices using a spoon, and place them in a bowl. Cover them heartily in lemon juice and black pepper, then set them aside (they'll come in handy later.)

Next, prepare the dough by abusing it a little. You'll have to roll and beat it on a well floured surface. Using a rolling pin works best, but I found that a sturdy glass can suffice just fine in the absence of one. Once the dough is nice and pliable, stretch and roll it out as thinly as possible, and mold it into as round a shape as you can manage. Rub the finished piece with fresh olive oil. Now you're ready to start laying down the actual pizza.

Slice the tomato thinly, clean and chop a little basil, slice a little of the cheese. Lay down the tomato slices, making sure to leave a little space between each round. Now, arrange the slices of lemon-soaked avocado to fill in any blank spaces. Sprinkle generously with the fresh basil. Tear your cheese slices into bits, and scatter them across everything. Eventually, they will melt into brown, attractive little spots.

Pop your pizza into the oven and let it bake until the cheese bubbles and the crust smolders into a lovely, golden shade of tan. Let cool and then eat it all in one sitting!

For the sake of historical record, I must also note that this recipe was made and consumed in honor of my close, personal friend Ben's birthday. He is the man, obviously:

Counting Your Eggs

2008-07-16T13:57:00.000-07:00

When I was little, the newspaper in my hometown ran a weekly feature where kids would submit phrases into which the word "egg" had been cleverly incorporated. Every week I would read it and consider contributing. I never did. Being that I was not a big fan of eggs at the time, and that my family did not celebrate Easter in any capacity, this regular and vaguely disinterested pondering was, for a long time, the extent of my relationship to the food.

It was only much, much later in life that I realized the degree to which eggs could be incorporated into almost anything. Not just turns of phrase, but every conceivable kind of meal. Eggs benedict, burgers, grain salads, quiche: eggs seemed to be the pivotal ingredient in limitless cuisines. So for awhile I went nuts and tried to put them in everything, resulting in equal parts disaster and delight. Then, inspired by the plight of a miserably empty pantry one morning before work, I decided to reign in the unmitigated cree-egg-tivity (haw haw) and just do it straight for a second. Let the egg be an egg, like it was always meant to be. I decided to bake myself some! A little of this and a little of that later, I pulled out of the oven a right tasty egg dish. I look forward to making it for my friends with some frequency in the future, but until that morning comes I will satisfy my urge to share as usual...via blog.

PS: Predictably, cooking an egg in a muffin tin makes it look like a muffin. This does not detract from their appeal in any way whatsoever.

You Will Need:

Eggs
Whatever spices you damn well feel like
Tomatoes

To Make:
This is so simple it is literally painful. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Crack your eggs into each, individual muffin tin. Be careful so as not to break the yolks (unless you like it like that). Sprinkle the top with whatever spices of interest you have on hand. I used oregano, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Slide them into the oven, and let them back for approximately fifteen minutes. Upon removal, let them cool for a bit so you can pop them out without breaking them apart. Serve over fresh, cool slices of tomato.

one if by land, two if by sea

2008-07-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

What are vacations good for if not eating? A photo-essay of the good eats to be had will have to suffice for now as I'm only home for a second. I have about four hours until I am back on the road again until Sunday, and I haven't even started to pack. Silence for now, but rest assured that the stories are plentiful, fresh, and locally grown.

In a quick synopsis of events: we went clamming!

peace out!

2008-07-02T14:43:00.000-07:00

It's the Fourth of July and I'm goin' to Montauk! I'll be back on Sunday just fit to burst with stories of fresh lobster, BBQs, homemade pancakes, popsicles, and sunshine. And I'll admit, a small, girlish part of me does want to check-out Sam Talbot's new restaurant The Surf Lodge, while I'm up there...but I doubt I'd get one cut-off-denim clad leg in the door before they'd be shooing me away with a broom.

I've got lots of other good stuff on the way, as well, (figs are in season!) so make sure to come back soon, ya hear?

Photo (as always) care of Ben D.

Ice Cream Man On Edge!

2008-06-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

The last few weeks I've had one thing on the brain and one thing only: ice cream. The finding of, eating of, and making of ice-cream. Number one on my summertime wish list right now? An ice cream maker. I would like nothing more in the world than to have made from scratch, fresh-fruit gelatos and sorbets prepared on a daily basis in my kitchen. O, Summertime! There are not even words for the feeling it brings me.

P.S. That top photo comes from a post on Seriouseats.com that I must insist be read: http://www.seriouseats.com/newyork/2008/06/new-york-citys-top-10-best-ice-cream-sandwiches-nyc.html

I'm Gonna Bake You! (Stay Gold, Ponyboy!)

2008-06-20T05:15:00.000-07:00

One of my absolute favorite things about cooking is when a dish signals its completion by browning. From the decadent (creme brulée) to the demure (toast, anybody?), the deepening to gold of any cuisine is like some kind of consumptive mating dance...a visual offering that elicits desire in any onlooker à la peacock. Hence my attraction to a classic like the baked pasta casserole. So perfectly crusty and golden. I'm sure my recent infatuation with summer-time pizza is fully responsible for this recipe, and I apologize in advance for any disgusting and flagrant displays of joy on my part if you're around me the next time I make it.

You Will Need:

A few cups of pasta (the wider and heartier the noodle the better)
1 cup shredded mozarella
2 tbsp. olive oil
3 cups of spinach, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup of sun dried tomatoes (a little goes a long way, hoo boy)
1/2 onion (chopped)
4 cloves of garlic (died)

To Make:

Prep time first! Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, and oil up a large/deep baking dish. Boil the pasta, toss it with olive oil, and set it aside for later. Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Toss in the chopped onion and let it cook for several minutes, until the slices start to brown. Add in the garlic and the sun dried tomatoes. Stir the mixture and let it cook for a minute or so, making sure everything is thoroughly coated. Then add the spinach, making sure everything is still well mixed. A few whirls around with your spatula should do it, then remove the goods from the heat. Toss it in the large bowl with the pasta, and stir everything together. Then stir it some more. Add a layer of this mixture to the bottom of the baking dish, following it with a hearty dusting of sliced mozzarella. Repeat, until all the pasta and all the cheese are used up. Make sure to leave enough cheese to be sprinkled over the very top...this is the key part, now. (Without the cheese topping you'll have none of the fine and delicious golden crust.)

Cover the dish and place it in the oven, cooking for about thirty to forty minutes. Trust me, you'll know when it's done. Aromatic, bubbling...sigh. I wish I could eat the whole thing all over again right now.

Roofies

2008-06-17T18:39:00.001-07:00

It was a perfect summer day, so Siri (of Ringo, Have A Banana) and I celebrated it on my roof by making salads and drinking an entire bottle of wine to ourselves. Afterward, we were determined to watch the Royal Tenenbaums for some reason...I can't really quite remember why, though. Either way, the dream remains unrealized and we've now retired to the couch to eat ice cream and watch Seinfield. Ain't nothing wrong with second-bests. It was a lovely evening.

Sum-Sum-Sum I Sum(mer)- I Let Go

2008-06-13T12:29:00.000-07:00

I'm not normally a big maker of salads. Big time lover of them, yes, but not a big-time maker. Although I've always silently acknowledged this fact about myself, I've done little to try and understand it. See also: any other single characteristic I've ever exhibited in my entire life. Woe is me, though, the onset of my first humidity-happy, East Coast summer has been very convincing in favor of salads. The idea of anything but the lightest and coolest of cuisines is difficult to stomach--waka waka waka.

Salads are excellent dumping grounds for leftovers, cravings, and all kinds of seasonal goodies. Anything that happens to strike my fancy at the grocery store can easily be negotiated into a salad by weeks end, a quality that I'm particularly fond of in a dish due to my bad habit of wandering into corner stores and emerging hours later the proud parent of 8 pounds of strange vegetables. Also, keeping myself in supply of fresh spinach and mesclun mix is as easy as 1-2-walk to the corner store and buy a container for only two dollars-3. The rest is a revolving door of ingredients and fly-by-night fancies. This tempeh and avocado concoction was dreamt up as I scavenged my recently cleaned (i.e. everything thrown away) fridge for a satisfying lunch. It's definitely light, but full of good proteins and veggies for a filling and utterly delightful dish.

You Will Need:
8 oz. tempeh
1/4 an avocado
1/2 med. sized tomato, diced
1/4 cup chickpeas
1/2 cup sliced carrots
Handful of sliced almonds.
Spinach
A few tbls. of vinegar

To Make:

Tempeh preparation takes longest, so best to do it first. Dice up the tempeh into 3/4 inch cubes and lay them out on a baking sheet. No oil or prep is necessary. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (or somewhere in the vicinity), and slide the baking sheet in. Check in on them periodically, turning to make sure all sides turn golden. Once they are crispy and brownish, they're ready to go.
Rinse your spinach and toss it with the chickpeas, diced tomato, carrots, and almonds. Place this part in a bowl and lay some avocado slices over it. When the tempeh is done, throw that on top and drizzle vinegar to taste over the whole she-bang. I say this every time but: delicious!

Summer's First Sound!

2008-06-09T11:17:00.000-07:00

The first time I ever came to New York, my friend Julia and I survived exclusively on two dollar slices of cheese pizza selected at random from various sidewalk cafes. It was the dead of winter, fresh snow shivering in the still air, and I remember being particularly grateful for each still-steaming, gratuitously layered slice of genuine Big Apple 'za. I was then unacquainted with East Coast weather beyond the novelty of a Christmas spent in Ohio with my extended family, and I thought that pizza must be the pinnacle of all NYC cold-weather-food staples. Short of heavy drinking, it was second to none in terms of combining comfort and satisfaction with warmth.

I certainly wasn't giving summer a second thought at the time, let alone the idea that I might be a bona-fide resident of NYC by the time the season rolled through again, so I was pleasantly surprised by my recent discovery that pizza transcends seasonal parameters and is actually the perfect food all year round. It was a revelation sparked first by a decadent pie-on-the-promenade in Brooklyn Heights (see above), and then fully solidified by a hasty grease-fest on the LIRR coming home from Long Beach yesterday afternoon. After gorging at the latter, we all laid back, hands comfortably resting on newly-inflated belly's, to satisfactorily contemplate the greenery idling by our windows.

If I thought that pizza was good when it was cold out, it was only because I was utterly clueless to the delight of pizza when it is quite literally BOILING out. As far as slices go, I'll admit that the Long Island wedge was a simpleton...bubbly cheese crested with grease and ringed with a slim, attractively golden crust, but of a quality smartly bolstered by its consumption on such a perfectly hot summer day. It became the perfect accessory to my already overblown sense of adolescence. (A sense wrought upon me by the coming of every June, let me remind you, an academic hangover of sorts from my still habitual expectation of summer vacation.) It's just so easy to pretend I'm still a kid on a summer day when I'm toting around a massive hunk of dripping, cheesy pizza. Sigh! If only Miss Julia could see me now...

craving

2008-06-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel like I'm just a few gestation periods shy of being a full-on pregnant woman. My cravings for certain foods are so strange, sudden, and intense that the only possible explanation must be preggers. Sorry, Mom & Dad! But the Cheese Must Be HAD!

Enjoy Every Sandwich!

2008-05-27T18:40:00.000-07:00

I am partial to a good tuna sandwich. But sucks to my as-mar, my definition of good tuna never seems to coincide with the vision of mayonnaise and limp meat that makes up deli-counter tuna. If I want a good tuna sandwich, I gotta make it myself. I will, too! In the morning/before work/in my underwear...my favored method, as has been previously discussed. To make your own version of the beast pictured at left, I have included the recipe below as exactly as I can recall it from its spontaneous concoction in my mid-morning kitchen. Of course, if you're also of the crowd that dislikes mayo-drenched tuna, this recipe is applicable to all kinds of exhilarating situations!

You Will Need:
1/2 can of tuna
2 Slices Rye Bread
Handful of Pea Shoots, coarsely chopped
A Few Slices Tomato
A Few Slices Onion
A Few Slices Cucumber
Lemon Juice, Black Pepper, Ginger Powder (to taste)
1 tbsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. mustard

To Make:

Mix the tuna and the tbsp of olive oil in a small bowl, well enough so that the tuna is coated and cohesive. Then mix in a dash of lemon juice, black pepper, and ginger powder.Only the faintest touch of the ginger is necessary, mind you. It's mostly the lemon juice and black pepper that will make good company for the tuna taste. Stir everything up nice, then smash it down onto one slice of mustard-slathered rye bread. Pile your tomato, cucumber, and onion on top of the meat. Then comes the finishing touch: a pile of chopped pea shoots. Smash the other piece of rye bread down over the whole she-bang and immediately transfer the finished product to some kind of holding cell (plastic lunch bag, tin foil--whatever is your preferred method of food transportation). Viola! LUNCH!

for the love of burgers

2008-05-26T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well, after twelve long years of abstinence, and a level of what some could even have called 'self control' (my least exhibited quality in cases ranging from most to all), I have begun eating hamburgers again. And HOW I have begun eating hamburgers again! I am in carnivorous heaven. I forgot all about them--the chin-dripping juice, the sumptuous flavor, the complete satisfaction--it's been a whirlwind tour of Burger NYC ever since. Thankfully, many of my friends have been very accommodating of my mission to reconquer the humble beef patty. They have allowed me to haul them around to each and every last den of city-based, meaty fame without complaint or question. I am keenly aware that the trade-off for these outings would be much more satisfying for them if I spent less time cramming my face with oozy, juicy burger and more time talking to them and/or even looking at them. But I can't help it! I'm rolling with king Burger now.

Pictured above is the notorious West Village burger joint Corner Bistro, shown in accompaniment is Nani (as tiger).

Expect more burger reports to follow. Huzzah huzzah!

Know Your Chickpea

2008-05-11T10:02:00.000-07:00

This recipe was inspired by the fact that I recently unearthed three jars of tumeric in my cupboard without the slightest clue as to a.) how they got there or b.) what they were for. I'm also obsessed with chickpeas, and have been tossing sauteed and browned versions of them into just about every single dish I've made over the last few weeks. Yesterday I didn't feel like getting out of bed or moving at all, so I warmed up this little dish and crawled back in with it to self-contentedly eat and continue watching old movies. As is per my standard, it is quick to make/easy as pie and ever-so-tasty.

You Will Need:
1 can Of Stewed Tomatoes
1 cup of Chickpeas
1 medium sized Onion
2-3 cloves of Garlic
1 tbls. tumeric
1 med. sized Zucchini
2 tbls. olive oil
Salt+Pepper to taste

To Make:
Using a medium sized pan, warm the two tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Once it's a-sizzlin' toss in the cup of chickpeas in along with a good dose of salt and pepper. Let the chickpeas hiss and pop for four to five minutes in the oil, until they are nice and toasty brown around the edges. Then toss in the onion, garlic, and tumeric, mixing everything together thoroughly so it is all coated with oil and letting it cook down for another three to four minutes. Next toss in the zucc's. I used both yellow and green in my recipe, to aesthetically counteract what would eventually be the overwhelming red glop of the stewed tomatoes. Cover the pan and let the concoction cook down for another few minutes, stirring occassionally and adding more salt+pepper as you see fit. Now it's time for the tomatoes! Add the can slowly, mixing it in with the vegetables and onion so that everything is coated. Put the heat on low, cover the pan again, and let the dish simmer until the zucc's have cooked all the way through. Then remove from heat and serve (over grains: brown rice or red quinoa goes best!)

soup kitchen

2008-04-20T09:46:00.000-07:00

photo credit: (click)

My friend Jacky and I don't see each other much. This is the understandable way of two girls in New York City who have multiple jobs and very little time to spare, but our rare and always magnificant collisions have unearthed a little remembered (and even more rarely employed) architecture of total contentment. It is a flawless structure thus far; a wordless affirmation that when times are hard, bliss is still available to be assembled on a case-by-case basis. Or, in this case, a "can"-by-"can" basis...Waka waka waka.

What we do is make soup. Then we kick back inside one of the monstrously comfortable cushions of her couch and watch an old movie. By the end of the night, everything bad has dribbled off to rest their haunches in some other anxious cave and I'm left to peaceably toe the line between sleep and consciousness. Of our sessions, this recipe for split pea soup has become my most favorite. It begins with an incredibly easy-to-make base of peas and onion, and can then be fleshed out with whatever happens to be in your fridge. (Jacky had spinach and carrots, but honestly anything will do just fine.)

You Will Need:
2 cups of split peas
2 onions, diced
2 carrots, diced
1 Bunch Spinach
2 tbsp olive oil
4 cups of water
1 lemon

How To Make:

In a large pot, big enough to accommodate the eventual soup, warm the 2 tbs of olive oil with the 2 diced onions for a few minutes, until the onions soften. Add the water and peas and bring everything to a boil, then lower the pot to a simmer. Add the carrots and spinach and simmer for twenty-thirty minutes until everything is soft. At this point you can puree or not to puree, whichever way you prefer your soup (once again---peanut butter: chunky or smooth?) Add the juice of the lemon to taste, along with salt and pepper and paprika and VOILA, a hearty, vegetable garden of split pea soup. It's that easy. Amazing! And suddenly your total mental and physical well being is right at hand.

Side-note: I have also found out that it is nearly impossible to take an attractive photo of Split Pea Soup, so forgive me the lack of.

Seasonal Affective Disorder

2008-04-16T07:06:00.000-07:00

Asparagus is in season! Starting! Right! NOW! So eat a BUNCH.

Ten Minute Tasty Asparagus And Brown Rice
Asparagus Bread Pudding
Spring Veggie Tart

a thing i've found and am fond of looking at

2008-04-07T13:13:00.001-07:00

It has recently come to my attention that mashed potatoes can be served in bar form. At first I thought this was an ode to mess hall days, as in big troughs of pillowy white potatoes served up in endless variety; a frothy celebration of starch and mash. I was wrong. It literally meant bar form, as in that dark dungeon of delectable sin where one dwells to shut out the light and knock back self-indulgently absurd amounts of artistic poison. This is literally a mashed potato martini.

Mashed Potato Martini, Sir?

vaguely related to things vaguely related to food

2008-03-27T08:36:00.001-07:00

I remember dinners with my family being a lot like the first few moments of this video: the curious gravity, the warmth, the ceremonial and quiet gifting. It seems sad now in my remembering of it, but only in the peculiar way that anything seems sad when it has succumbed to a little time and a great distance.

A Picture of Our Torn Up Praise:Phosphorescent

sugar high

2008-03-24T15:10:00.001-07:00

"'I don't want to be a girl, Uncle Tom. I want to be a boy. A girl's all kissing and dolls. I don't want to be a girl. I don't want to.'" -Mary by way of John Steinbeck's East of Eden.

There are very few foods out there that have absorbed as much emotional bankruptcy as the cupcake.They seem to be uniquely capable of assuaging the wounds of the sexually rejected. When the omnipresent “HE” has ceased calling, stopped dropping by, or begun committing whatever other crimes a disinterested man is capable of, the cupcake is a go-to. I have also found them to be an adept tool at combating job loss, parental disagreements, unequivocal self loathing, seasonal blues, and general boredom. Why should the cupcakes role as the ultimate emotional salve be important at this particular moment? No reason! Let's just say that I was justifiably intrigued by an invitation to experiment with cupcake batter from an ambitious wanting-to-open-a-bakery friend. I appeared promptly at her doorstep, aching to lose myself in the girlish oblivion of powdered sugar and flower petals.

For this recipe, you will need:
1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon kosher salt
3 large eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
¾ cup whole milk
1 tablespoon rosewater
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
A handful of individual rose petals
A bit of powdered sugar

To Make:

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat the muffin tin with cooking spray and set it aside for later. It is important to get this stuff out of the way immediately, as in your emotionally decimated state you may begin to cry irrationally when you realize you have to wait an extra ten minutes before you can start to bake.

Mix the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a small bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar. Add the dry ingredients to the large bowl, a bit at a time, and beat steadily until smooth. Bring the milk and rosewater to a boil in a small pan, then add the warm mixture to the batter in a slow stream, beating continually. Stir in the butter and vanilla. Make sure that all the ingredients are well combined.

Pour the batter into the muffin tin, and slide the cupcakes into the oven for about 15 minutes. The time that it takes the muffins to bake and then cool upon eventual removal is perfect for preparing the decorative rose petals. For this part, having a few fresh roses on hand will do the trick just right. Carefully peel the petals off (he loves me, he loves me not, etc). Rinse them with luke-warm water and pat dry. Brush each individual petal with egg whites, using a pastry brush and an extremely delicate touch. Once they are evenly coated, dust them with finely powdered sugar and lay them out to dry for at least an hour. When the cupcakes have finished baking and have been iced, place a few petals atop each frosty mountain for a nice finishing touch.

favorites

2008-03-10T19:25:00.000-07:00

A Fruitless but Well-Intentioned Attempt at Imitating a Garden Party circa 1967

Rachel Scott; summertime 2006

I Got My Eye On Your Sack Lunch

2008-03-10T14:15:00.000-07:00

(1) Quarter up your slices of zucchini.

I know I'm in a minority that barely registers on the Richter scale of social acceptability when I say that I love to cook in the mornings before I go to work, but it's the truth. I even set my alarm twenty or thirty minutes early to ensure that I have time do it. Is that embarrassing enough yet? If so, stop reading now. It only gets worse from here. The sleep I sacrifice for my unsightly morning ritual (I do it in my underwear) is negligible compared to the level of sanity-maintaining pleasure that it provides. It’s the only time during the day that I can allocate for something other than the practiced cadence of work and going to work, a compulsory attempt at perpetuating the grand illusion that I have any measure of control over my time. I'm also broke, and packing lunch beats eating out every day for reasons of both cost and quality.

This particular recipe is a time-tested favorite, unearthed after cookthinking my craving for couscous. It's handy for dinner parties/pot lucks/any communal event requiring large amounts of good food be made on the cheap, but I find that it takes very little time to just throw it all in some tupperware and call it a lunch. She of gingerbread-cookie-chiding fame,Siri, has mentioned it as a favorite before, and her and her boyfriend now cook it up on the regular. That means you have to try it at least once, right?

(2) As the couscous cooks, sautee the zucchini until it is slightly browned around the edges.

(3) Check out my sweet PJs.

(4) Toss it all together, and you're good to go!

listings: Southside Cafe

2008-03-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

Don’t be fooled by the name, Southside Café boasts a menu heavy with traditional Italian fare and a strong preference for reliability over innovation. A long, low main dining room maximizes the potential of a space suited for no more than 60 or so diners at a time and the décor is a mildly successful gander at pastoral Italian countryside, with exposed brick facades, an upstairs fireplace, and a series of ambiguously bucolic paintings. The food options never deviate from the expected, with moderately priced dishes unafraid to dabble in stereotype: pasta in vodka sauce, lasagna,spaghetti and meatballs, etc. No creative leaps of faith, to be sure, but the kind of standards that will attract a regular crowd savoring routine and consistency (think the 70 and up set). Most dishes strive to impress with hit and miss success; an eagerness revealed in the abundance of oil and butter lavished on what should be delicately flavored side-dishes, namely the bruschetta. The Portobello Alla Griglia, an arugula salad that doesn’t skimp on the mushrooms, is an easy stand-out. Wedges of portobello are charred to crispy perfection, a satisfying accent to the more muted combination of shaved Parmesan and sticky vinaigrette. The main courses are proportioned appropriately for what they lack in creativity: huge, heaping shares of pasta and sauce, mixed fish and vegetables, and towering stacks of lasagna oozing layers of cheese. They make for hearty, well intentioned meals that are favorable in context of some well-selected wine. Dessert is more of the same, but with a surprising success in the form of a cinnamon-infused homemade flan. (www.southsidecafe.com)

side notes: part two

2008-03-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

A very good man, Jay Patel, has done me the honor of mentioning this blog in an article for the Pace Press. It's a wonderful piece and very worth reading, but I don't have a darn scanner. Due to my embarrassing inability to reproduce the article in its original form, I implore anybody who comes across this blog to venture on to pacepress.org and search the archives for Jay's articles. He's tremendous both as a person and a writer!

side notes

2008-02-28T08:13:00.000-08:00

via: http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com, a website that posts daily renderings of Garfield sans its namesake.