February 2012
2 posts
2 tags
compost cookies
Hot damn these cookies are good. I used to have an uncontrollable habit of marching into Momofuku Milk Bar anytime I was within a 10-block radius and picking up some of my favorite things there: a slice of chocolate chip cake (back when they used to sell cake slices), a volcano, a blueberry cookie, and/or a compost cookie. I found the recipe for that last item online and figured it would be a...
3 tags
weekend oatmeal, revisited
I’ve posted about oatmeal in the past, but this topic deserves an update. I’ve done savory oatmeal here and there, but my favorite is still my (almost) weekly bowl of steel-cut oats with fresh fruit. My current combination of toppings is a spoonful of almond butter, some plain yogurt, apples or pears cooked in brown sugar and cinnamon, and a big drizzle of maple syrup. Delicious...
January 2012
2 posts
3 tags
shanghai noodles with bacon and eggs
After returning to New York, I immediately went on a shopping spree in Chinatown to stock up on Chinese New Year supplies and other things that I hope will help me cope with how much I miss the food in Taiwan (when I can’t get out to Flushing, that is). Funny though, I also got a shipment of nice-looking bacon in the mail. What to do?
Jumble everything together, of course.
about 8 ounces...
3 tags
rice porridge
Okay you guys, I am back from a spectacular vacation that included a wedding in California and a family trip to Taiwan and Hong Kong. No (publicly noticeable) jet lag, but I am suffering from that warm, fuzzy, wistful feeling that comes with missing the family members and friends who are practically family members I spent time with. Also, I miss the food in Taiwan. This is the first time...
December 2011
3 posts
3 tags
pomegranate molasses butter cake with candied...
Pomegranate molasses was called a “power ingredient” awhile back. Kind of a funny description, but I do understand what they’re getting at because I have a sticky, half-empty bottle of it in the back of my cupboard. I’ve mixed it into seltzer, salads, and now an easy little cake that is perfect for, say, potlucks. It’s buttery but not too rich, and unexpectedly...
3 tags
chicken and pumpkin baked pasta
What do people do with leftover pumpkin from Thanksgiving (yeah ok I’m lagging on some of my leftover ingredients)? I toyed with the ideas of pumpkin biscuits, pumpkin pajeon, and pumpkin dumplings of sorts, but settled on gooey baked penne pasta.
5-6 ounces whole wheat penne 2 teaspoons olive oil 1 teaspoon butter 1 small onion, chopped 1 garlic clove, minced 1/2 jalapeno pepper, minced...
2 tags
apple-pear butter
Turns out apple butter is pretty easy to make. It just takes some patience to wait for everything to reduce. I threw in a few Bosc pears because they were here and on the verge of rotting into a brown mess. Spread this stuff on toast, biscuits, whole wheat muffins (like I did), pancakes, nut butter sandwiches, meaty sandwiches, melted cheese sandwiches, bagels with cream cheese, vanilla ice...
November 2011
8 posts
1 tag
thanksgiving recap
Last year I hosted Thanksgiving for the first time and told my friend Jamie it was going to be “the biggest cooking event of my life so far” (she snickered appropriately in response). It turned out fine and was pretty low-stress. No disasters, no drama, and the food was decent.
This year I stuck to the same procedure of doing as much as possible ahead of time, a little bit each...
1 tag
roasted nuts with herbs
Happy day-after-Thanksgiving everyone! I will share my big meal with you soon, but for now, I’m just posting this photo of nuts (as I’m snacking on them to wash down the leftover homemade ice cream and cookies I had for lunch). I made them on Wednesday, along with these lovely flatbreads. They were a nice accessory to all the good beers we had (I am thankful for Sixpoint in 16 ounce...
4 tags
butternut squash and apple soup with fried sage...
More soup for me! And you, if you’re up for it. This is a smooth and soothing soup I made with butternut squash and apples, two things I’ll be lugging home from the farmers’ market every week. It’s a little sweet and a little tart (depending on how sour you like your apples), and the sage leaves add that woodsy “ahhh… fall” finish.
1 tablespoon unsalted...
5 tags
pickled fall vegetables
I was brainstorming things to have around as snacks in the stomach-gurgling hours before Thanksgiving dinner (oh yes, I am hosting a family Thanksgiving again). I came up with a lot of cheese. And bread and crackers. And spiced nuts. But I needed something to provide a little relief from such things. Something… pickled, it turns out. So I went on a long stroll through the Union Square...
1 tag
winter salad with lemon-yogurt dressing
I feel weird devoting a post to “just a salad,” but I’ve eaten some version of this so many times in the past few weeks that it almost feels weird not to share. It started with a recipe I found while trying to figure out what to do with kohlrabi, but I don’t think it’s a recipe you really need to follow closely. It’s more of a framework for how to make...
5 tags
eleven madison park granola
This granola is fantastic and I will probably make it over and over, especially because the recipe is easy and so very straightforward. It’s unconventionally salty and crisps up in olive oil instead of butter, but I eat it in the most conventional of ways: sprinkled heavy handedly on top of plain yogurt or shoved straight into my mouth by the fistful. I never thought I’d say this...
3 tags
sunchoke soup with toasted pumpkin seeds
I may be getting into homemade soup these days, now that autumn is in full swing and now that this recipe has won me over. It’s the most velvety smooth soup I’ve made in awhile. I think it looks fancy and tastes expensive (John’s palate puts a flattering but outrageous $10 price tag on it), but is good and unfussy enough for everyday dinners (using an immersion blender helps)....
1 tag
homemade celery salt
Here’s another way to not waste leaves (previously: carrot top pesto), one of many many great ideas I’ve picked up from 101 Cookbooks. A tiny bit of effort for a whole lot of seasoned salt that you can sprinkle on almost anything to give it a bit of toasty celery flavor.
October 2011
5 posts
3 tags
roasted fennel with raisins, walnuts, and parsley
I kicked off this blustery week with a new take on fennel, a vegetable I usually have raw and thinly shaved in salads. The difficulty-of-preparation-to-deliciousness ratio is very low. You cut up some fennel and while it’s roasting in the oven, you combine raisins, walnuts, parsley, lemon juice, and olive oil. When it’s all done, you get softened, licorice-y pieces of fennel coated...
2 tags
easy pasta with prosciutto, arugula, and sundried...
This is something I’ve found myself making a few times over the past week in some form or another. A few nights ago I found myself bumbling around the kitchen at 9:30 pm, wondering what to eat. I tossed some pasta with leftover cooked vegetables, chickpeas, garlic, sundried tomatoes, and cream. On a more recent weekday afternoon, I found myself wearing my “house clothes”...
3 tags
whole wheat yogurt cake with almonds
Continuing my baking spree… That first yogurt cake I made was great and all, but I wanted to revise it into something less spongy, less greasy, and more breakfasty. I wanted it to be something I could eat with hot coffee during class, without getting translucent oily-finger spots all over my notes. (Or in transit without greasing up the handrails because I am a train pig occasionally.)
...
2 tags
grape focaccia with rosemary and pine nuts
It was finally time to deal with the grapes sitting in my fridge. After you’ve had a fresh Concord grape, you realize it’s what all the artificially flavored grape stuff is trying to mimic. Delicious as the grapes are on their own, I’ve been baking a little more than usual and felt like keeping it up.
Schiacciata con l’uva is a little something they do in Tuscany with...
6 tags
apple gouda oatmeal cookies
One glimpse at this recipe and I knew I had to try it. Are these cookies supposed to be eaten for dessert? Breakfast? Late-night snack?
Who cares, they’re delicious. I want to start carrying them around in my pockets so I can eat them whenever I want.
A few notes: I didn’t peel the apples and I finely chopped them instead of grating them. I ran out of golden raisins so I added...
September 2011
4 posts
1 tag
roasted green beans with chile and lime
Ultra-simple directions: toss green beans (or flat-shaped Romano beans like the ones in the photo) with oil, ancho chile powder, cayenne pepper, and salt. Roast in a 425-degree oven for 20 minutes or so, until they get crackly and brown. Finish with a few squeezes of lime.
3 tags
breakfast pizza
Eggs on pizza can be a very good thing, as I learned at ABC Kitchen a few months ago while devouring brunch (mushroom and oregano pizza with a runny egg plopped in the center). I had also seen this and this. I let egg yolks run all over so many of my meals on a regular basis, so why not pizza too? I finally did one lazy and hazy weekday morning sometime during the lull between the end of my...
4 tags
peach, plum, pear gratin
Those of you who are as in love with Joanna Newsom’s music as I am get it. It was that time of year that straddles summer and fall, when my CSA gives us the last of summer’s peaches and plums along with early fall pear varieties like Red Clapp, Bartlett, and Seckel. And the opportunity to allude to a good song while handling food is one I can rarely pass up (it happens in my mind...
4 tags
carrot soup with carrot top and walnut pesto
I came home from a 2-week-long vacation to a freezer full of food. Before leaving, I cooked as much as possible to use up all our CSA stuff and froze the leftovers. We missed Hurricane/Tropical Storm/Potential All-Around Shitstorm Irene, but if we had been stuck in the apartment we would’ve eaten quite well (and probably would have cleaned out the liquor cabinet). Sadly, the storm caused...
August 2011
10 posts
2 tags
basil beer bread
We baked bread because of bad beer (ooh, alliteration) that we didn’t feel like drinking anymore. The recipe is from Real Simple, and as you might expect, it is real simple. My advice is to use a non-stick baking sheet if you have one so that you don’t have to oil a regular baking sheet, as the recipe instructs (thereby making things even more simple). Conveniently, I also had a...
6 tags
fennel, green bean, and carrot salad
Here’s another salad for your viewing and eating pleasure. I pulled out whatever vegetables and herbs were left before my CSA pick-up day and put ‘em all together with a simple mustard vinaigrette.
1 small fennel bulb 1/2 pound green beans 1 small carrot 1 tablespoon finely minced red onion 1 teaspoon grainy Dijon mustard 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar salt...
4 tags
peach frozen yogurt
Don’t let the fact that this is frozen yogurt mislead you. It is rich and thick and coats your mouth the way ice cream does.
5 medium (about the size of a tennis ball) very ripe yellow peaches 1/3 cup water 1/2 cup sugar 1 1/2 cups plain whole-milk Greek yogurt (or yogurt you strained yourself) a squeeze of lemon juice
Peel peaches and cut them up into chunks. In a small saucepan,...
2 tags
pan roasted chicken breasts and legs
There is roast chicken in my (more accurately, our) let’s-find-an-excuse-to-drink-a-bottle-of-wine repertoire, and now there are these. The method is pretty basic: sear bone-in chicken pieces skin-side down in a hot pan until brown and crisp. Then flip ‘em and stick the pan in a hot oven for about 20 minutes. Chow spells it out here. They recommend rubbing olive oil on the chicken,...
5 tags
plum and thyme yogurt cake
Like cake salé, yogurt cake is a homey baked good from France that comes in a loaf pan. No waiting for butter to soften, no need to plug in any mixers, and all you need to start are everyday ingredients (which you can then add to, according to whatever else is spilling out of your fridge and pantry).
I used this recipe from Bon Appétit, minus the glaze and with half as much sugar (it was still...
4 tags
salsa de tomatillo, salsa borracha
This week I came across a lovely article in Saveur about Mexican salsas and Mark Bittman’s New York Times feature about tomatoes (both complete with mouth-watering photos). And now I have two jars of homemade salsa, ready to be spooned over huevos rancheros and dipped into by crispy tortilla chips. Salsa de tomatillo is a no-brainer when my CSA gives us tomatillos. I’ve made it with...
4 tags
bangin' baingan bharta
There is restaurant Indian food, and then there is homemade Indian food. The former typically features menus with deep fried things, tikka masala things, and a flavor that I can only describe as “Americanized sweetness” (you’ll find this at Thai and Chinese restaurants too). The latter is something I came to know a bit in the homes of childhood friends and more recently, their...
2 tags
plum and jasmine tea granita
Check out my new favorite summer dessert. Granita is basically shaved ice, and you can make it with fruit, booze, and even coffee. I used squishy-ripe, beautifully colored plums this time around, but any kind of pureed fruit will do. And you can of course use plain water or some other liquid instead of tea. My David Lebovitz ice cream book also says that in Sicily, they scoop coffee granita into...
4 tags
scallion pancakes, again
As much as I love Chinese-style scallion pancakes, I am taking a break from them. During my most recent practice session, I muttered obscenities at a batch of overly sticky, uncooperative dough and emerged from the kitchen soaked in sweat, defeat, and a greasy oniony smell.
I still have a whole lot of scallions left though, so thank goodness Korean cuisine gave us pajeon. These pancakes require...
4 tags
roasted eggplant and walnut dip
As you can plainly see, this is among the least photogenic edible things I’ve made. I doubt anyone will be reblogging this one on tumblr. What it lacks in appearance it makes up for in flavor: a little sweet, gently garlicky, and brightened up by lemon juice. The recipe can be found here. I found that the roasted eggplant provided enough of its own natural sweetness that I cut the amount...
July 2011
12 posts
4 tags
green bean and potato salad with mustard and dill
I like potato salad, but I really like it when it isn’t loaded with mayonnaise and is full of a bunch of other vegetables. Here’s one I made recently with a tangy mustard, vinegar, and yogurt dressing and a whole lot of dill.
1 pound potatoes, cut into bite size chunks 1/2 pound green beans 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard (I like the seedy kind for this) 1 1/2 tablespoons plain...
3 tags
red currant and vanilla ice cream
I’ve only had Van Leeuwen Ice Cream’s red currant flavor once: the first time I stumbled upon one of their pale yellow trucks in SoHo a few years ago. The ice cream was rich but not too sweet, with tart red currants that popped against a smooth vanilla background. It was the type of revelatory moment that you’d talk up around friends who like to talk about superlative...
5 tags
radicchio, pancetta, and mushroom pizza
I don’t know about the rest of you, but when the weather gets hot, I want to eat. And cook. A lot. I spent most of this last (very brutal) heat wave hiding indoors, soaking up other people’s air conditioning. While the streets of New York felt like an even dirtier sauna than usual, I was quietly slurping down iced coffee and eating chocolate cake, chocolate croissants, and squishy...
4 tags
cucumber peanut salad
I have another fresh, easy, interesting, everything-you-need-right-now salad to share. It’s from 101 Cookbooks, with a few tweaks: lime juice instead of lemon juice, and shredded coconut instead of big flakes. Be careful when toasting the coconut — it will brown pretty quickly.
And now, since it is too hot to even type, I must go lay in a bathtub full of ice water.
3 tags
scallion pancakes
Who doesn’t love scallion pancakes? At their best, they are crisp, not too heavy, and make you want to eat a big stack of them. Their Chinese name, 葱油饼, translates literally to “scallion/onion oil flatbread,” so you definitely need to have enough scallions and enough oil. This was my third or fourth attempt at making these, and though they tasted okay, I don’t quite have...
2 tags
fried squash blossoms
I am a fan of flor de pretty-much-anything: agua de flor de Jamaica, NYC Peruvian-Chinese restaurant Flor de Mayo, the Italian fior di latte, and of course, flor de calabaza. These are squash blossoms picked from summer or winter squash that are eaten before they open up completely. They have a delicately squash-y, sweet, slightly leafy flavor. One classic way to prepare them is fried, with a...
5 tags
oatmeal muffins with fresh apricots
Lazy weekends are meant for baking sweet things for breakfast while sipping hot coffee and catching up on music podcasts. I found this recipe on 101 Cookbooks (an ever-reliable source for healthy-but-not-boring food). The muffins are sweet but not too sweet, and you can add whatever fruits (dried or otherwise) and nuts you’d like. I halved the recipe and gently folded in about a 1/2 cup of...
3 tags
zucchini carpaccio
This is some of the freshest, easiest shit you can make yourself this summer. And it even looks pretty enough to present to, say, a ladyfriend or manfriend you are trying to impress. Or people who read your food blog. You can even dump it all in a bowl, where it will look ruffly and still pretty, and take it to a potluck or picnic. It takes literally a few minutes to put together if you have a...
3 tags
creamy garlic and herb noodles
I had a whole bunch of fresh CSA herbs piling up, and a garlicky buttery cream sauce was the perfect repository for them. These noodles were lightly slick with cream, not creamy in the gloppy, mouth-coating, fettucine Alfredo kind of way. Basically, they’re not so heavy that you’ll need to unbutton your pants and take a sweaty nap afterwards, which is great because there is sunshine...
3 tags
white pizza with garlic scape pesto
Homemade pizzas are never as perfect as the stuff you get at all the well-known pizza places here in New York (I recently spent 15 minutes describing Di Fara pizza to someone… there was a lot of chest-clutching on my part), but hot damn are they fun to make! You can make them whatever size you want, pile on a bunch of vegetables, and make ridiculous/inappropriate-in-restaurant designs and...
4 tags
pistachio vinaigrette
This week’s issue of New York Magazine has a delicious recipe from ABC Kitchen (a new favorite) for a simple salad with lettuce, radishes, olives, and a nutty vinaigrette. Perfect for enjoying summer radishes and all the beautiful frilly lettuces piling up at the farmers’ market and CSA shares around here. I used basil instead of tarragon and skinny green onions instead of chives....
3 tags
rhubarb-almond bars with ginger
Before making this, I tossed around several ideas for what to do with several stalks of rhubarb I had collected several weeks ago from the farmers’ market and my CSA share. I thought about making a rustic galette or braised chicken, but ended up making little dessert bars late one humid, sticky weekend evening to bring to a July 4th picnic in the park. I used a pastry blender and cold...
June 2011
8 posts
6 tags
cold and spicy sesame noodles
I’m still on this cold/picnic/unintentionally vegan food kick. Cold sesame noodles are a classic Chinese takeout dish that easily please. They also make good use of leftover cooked noodles and warm summer days spent indoors poring over class lecture notes (no one has to smell my spicy garlic breath). I like my sesame noodles extra spicy and without peanut butter. Strips of cucumber add a...
4 tags
shredded tofu salad
I’ve always had a thing for tofu in all its forms. I kind of forgot about shredded tofu until I came across a small bag of the stuff at a supermarket in Chinatown. The noodly strands are served as a cold appetizer dish (sometimes for free) at casual Chinese restaurants here and there. I don’t remember exactly where I’ve had it, but the most memorable version had rice vinegar,...
7 tags
lentil and bulgur salad
Here’s a lentil salad I threw together for a weekend trip/beach picnic in Montauk. I scraped up some French green lentils from the back of the pantry and combined them with leftover cooked bulgur, chopped artichoke hearts, crisp radishes, minced red onion, lemon juice, olive oil, and lots of fresh scallions, mint, and parsley. (Tip: add a tiny splash of plain white vinegar to the cooking...
5 tags
arugula, strawberry, and radish salad
My lifelong dining companion has said that he “could eat this salad everyday.” Not gonna happen, but we’ll keep having it as long as these adorable little farmers’ market strawberries are in season. Fruit salads aren’t really our thing, but fruit in salads is something we find marvelous, especially when there are nuts and cheese and crunchy things involved. This was...