MITCH IN THE KITCHEN

compost cookies

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:17:56 -0500

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 good contribution to an event that is (for me, anyway) all about over-consuming fatty, salty, crunchy, and sugary things to wash down lots of beer in front of a televised sports event featuring expensive commercials.

The recipe calls for rolled oats, graham cracker crumbles, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coffee grounds, potato chips, and pretzels. In the true spirit of composting, I dumped whatever other cookie-appropriate leftover stuff from my pantry into the mix: pecans and shredded coconut. If you choose to make these cookies less enormous than the recipe calls for, make sure you reduce the baking time accordingly.

weekend oatmeal, revisited

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 11:48:40 -0500

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 enough to get me out of bed on chilly mornings.

shanghai noodles with bacon and eggs

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:05:31 -0500

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 fresh Shanghai (thick) noodles
3 strips bacon
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2-inch segment of ginger, minced
3 dried shiitake mushrooms (soak them in water for several hours beforehand), or a handful of fresh ones, or a mixture, sliced
lots of baby bok choy, halved lengthwise
1 scallion stalk, cut into 1-inch segments
3 eggs

for the sauce:
1 teaspoon corn starch
1 cup water or broth (or the water you soaked the dried mushrooms in)
1 tablespoon soy sauce (I mixed the dark kind and the light kind)
1 teaspoon rice wine
1 teaspoon sesame oil

Combine sauce ingredients and set aside.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook noodles according to package directions. When noodles are done, drain them and toss with a bit of sesame oil so they don’t stick together. (I try to time things so that the noodles are done cooking riiiight when I need them but this doesn’t always go as planned. But it’s always worth a shot.)

Meanwhile, cook bacon in a large pan over medium-low heat until crisp (but not burnt!). Set aside on a paper towel. Remove most of the bacon fat, leaving enough to barely coat the surface of the pan.

Turn heat up to medium. Add garlic and ginger. After a few seconds, add mushrooms and stir them around. Cook for a few minutes or until mushrooms are lightly browned (if you’re using fresh ones). Add bok choy and cook until the leaves are a bit wilted.

Cut bacon strips crosswise into 1/2-inch pieces. Add to vegetable mixture, along with scallions and sauce. Add noodles and coat them evenly with sauce. When sauce begins to thicken, push noodles aside and add the eggs to the pan, scrambling them a bit. Scrape them around. When eggs are mostly cooked, mix them into the noodles.

rice porridge

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:52:16 -0500

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 I’ve come back from vacation completely un-excited to return to my usual way of eating. I thought I’d have wild cravings for a good slice of pizza, a crunchy bowl of my favorite homemade granola, cheese on everything, and maybe Indian and/or Mexican food. Not so much. What (John and) I want more than any of these things is more warm, sweet, freshly made soy milk with egg pancakes and shao bing for breakfast, a cheap bowl of minced pork and stewed eggs with rice for lunch, and a humble serving of rice porridge with an array of small dishes for dinner like I had one evening at a bustling little eatery whose location I’ve forgotten.

Between six people we shared a big pot of plain rice porridge (aka congee, “jook” in Cantonese, or “jou” in Mandarin) and something like 10 small dishes of bite-sized things like three-cup chicken, crispy small fish with boiled peanuts, strips of tofu with bamboo shoots, marinated seaweed, fried wheat gluten, scrambled eggs with tomatoes, and the requisite plate of lightly sauteed greens (pea leaves, sweet potato leaves, and water spinach are among my favorites) that were ordered with every meal. The meal was light but satisfying, everyday but memorable.

It just occurred to me that this is sort of a metaphor for how I feel about this whole trip and visiting my family. We are enormous in number; my mom has 10 siblings and my dad has 11. I lost track of how many first cousins I have so I just did a count and the grand total is 45. We live all over the world, in California, New York, Wisconsin, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, and France. But when a bunch of us are together, it’s like putting a whole mess of different dishes that came out of the same kitchen on the same table for a night, and there is a palpable sense of harmony. Leaving all that great food in Taiwan gave me unexpected pangs of longing, but being there with my family (with my very own newish 2-person family as a subset) gave me a very hard-to-describe deep sense of belonging that I will never miss, despite the double-digit hours of air travel time and a bit of a language barrier that separate us (I probably have the Chinese vocabulary of a 6-year-old minus all the up-to-date slang… and then I turn around and try to translate things to John). I am beyond fortunate and beyond grateful.

To make basic rice porridge:
Bring 1 part short-grain white rice and 7-9 parts water to a boil in a large-enough pot. Season with a bit of salt, then lower heat and simmer partially covered, stirring occasionally, for about 30 minutes or until rice is softened. You can also toss in brown rice (might take a little longer to cook), peeled chunks of sweet potatoes or taro root, mung beans, or other dried beans at the beginning of cooking. Since rice porridge is wet and unflavored (okay fine, bland), I think it makes sense to have it with dishes that are on the dry side (as in not eaten with big puddles of sauce), crispy and/or fried, and a little heavy on flavor (spicy, salty, tangy, fermented, yes!). At home (in the photo) we had pressed tofu and peanuts with soy sauce and hot chiles, sauteed mustard greens with edamame, a basic omelet with scallions, and store-bought fried tiny fish coated in sesame seeds.

And finally, Happy Lunar New Year! I will be celebrating on the first night with the usual vegetarian dinner.

pomegranate molasses butter cake with candied walnuts

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:20:44 -0500

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 perfect for cutting into hand-held squares to be passed around and eaten like brownies.

Another thing: the recipe makes more glaze than you’ll need, so go ahead and make doughnuts, cookies, or even more cake to use it up.

chicken and pumpkin baked pasta

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:40:23 -0500

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
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
salt and black pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
a few sprigs of fresh thyme (or a pinch of dried thyme)
a few sprigs of fresh oregano (or a pinch of the dried stuff)
2/3 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups shredded cooked chicken (or turkey, if that’s still an issue)
3-4 ounces fontina cheese (or more if you really wanna go nuts), sliced or shredded
toasted pumpkin seeds, chopped scallions, chopped parsley, and grated Parmesan cheese to garnish

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Cook pasta in boiling salted water for 2/3 of the cooking time listed on the package.

While pasta is cooking, heat olive oil and butter in a pan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and jalapeno. Season with salt and pepper. Cook until the onions are translucent, about 7 or 8 minutes. Add pumpkin, paprika, and herbs. Heat through for a few minutes, then add broth and milk, stirring to mix evenly.

Mix pumpkin sauce with drained pasta and shredded chicken. Pour in a baking dish and top with fontina cheese. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until cheese is lightly browned. Garnish with all the other stuff.

apple-pear butter

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 14:15:55 -0500

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 cream… you get what I’m getting at.

about 4 pounds (10-12 medium or so) apples and/or pears
1 cup apple cider
small cinnamon stick (optional) or some other blend of warm spices
1/3 cup sugar
a few squeezes of lemon juice

Peel the apples and/or pears and cut them up into chunks. Combine with apple cider and cinnamon stick in a pot (it should be filled about halfway up). Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer and cook until the fruit gets soft, about 30 minutes. Remove cinnamon stick. Pureeing is optional; you can make your fruit butter as smooth or chunky as you’d like. Add sugar and lemon juice to the pureed fruit. Cook mixture over low heat, stirring occasionally, until it has reduced and thickened. This may take a few hours. Be careful towards the end, because you don’t want scorched apple butter stuck to the bottom of your pot. You can do some real canning after this, or you can just store it in a jar in the fridge.

thanksgiving recap

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 23:22:00 -0500

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 day over 4 days or so. Thanksgiving seems to be the only time I am calmly ahead of schedule, which is remarkable and makes those close to me wonder how they can get me to treat all events like a big holiday dinner. Ingredient motifs this year were pork, apples, maple syrup, and pecans, which was nice because it kept the shopping list manageable.

Bacon-Wrapped Maple Pork Loin (recipe)
I was kind of traumatized by last year’s turkey leftovers (the meat and stock I made with the bones had this oily oniony flavor that I just couldn’t stomach for some reason… and I like onions a lot so that was weird) and confirmed that my in-laws are cool with alternative holiday meats, so I took the liberty of choosing pork rolled in pork. It smells as wonderful as you’d imagine, and tastes just as good.

Cranberry, Apple, and Pecan Conserve (adapted from this recipe)
I think cranberry sauce is one of the easiest things to make instead of buy, especially if you really like the stuff and want to have lots of leftovers. I really wanted to work in apples to go with the pork.

Herbed Cornbread Stuffing with Andouille Sausage (adapted from this recipe)
This was a loose, kinda dry stuffing that would’ve worked well with really drippy saucy things. I reheated the leftovers with extra jus from the pork recipe.

Maple-Glazed Sweet Potatoes (recipe)
Hard to go wrong with glazed sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving, even without marshmallows on top (which have never been my thing anyway).

Green Vegetables
As usual, there were Brussels sprouts, this time with carrots, honey, and thyme. There was also a salad with baby arugula, apples, celery, candied pecans, and a mustard vinaigrette.

Around 8:30pm, I blurted out that I felt ready to throw up, something all polite hosts should tell their guests. But I pushed forward.

For dessert we had homemade apple cider ice cream, aided by tips from my friend and ice cream entrepreneur Diana. Also, spiced pumpkin ice cream. And John made gingersnaps (which, several days into their staleness, are having a really good second life crushed up and mixed into either ice cream). And then I went overboard and baked some oatmeal cookies with raisins, cranberries, and walnuts. I know that at least half of my guests skipped breakfast the next day, which I will take as a compliment.

roasted nuts with herbs

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 16:06:12 -0500

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 cans) along with some cheeses and my aforementioned pickled vegetables (they turned out well). The recipe is adapted from Alice Waters.

1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon hot water
3 cups nuts of your choosing
1/4 cup chopped fresh herbs of your choosing (I chose thyme, winter savory, and rosemary)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Dissolve salt in hot water in a bowl. Add nuts and herbs, tossing to coat them evenly. Spread out in a large baking sheet and roast for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring a few times. The nuts should be golden brown on the inside, and the only way to know is to bite one in half. Toss with olive oil while the nuts are still warm. Let them cool completely before storing in covered containers.

butternut squash and apple soup with fried sage leaves

Sun, 20 Nov 2011 23:08:57 -0500

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 butter
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
1 small leek (white and light green parts) chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
about 3 cups of cubed butternut squash
2 medium apples, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
about 2 cups vegetable broth
milk, cream, or creme fraiche if you wanna get fancy
salt and pepper
fried sage leaves

Add butter and oil to a medium-sized pot over medium-low heat. Add onion, leek, celery, and garlic. Sprinkle on some salt. Cook until onions are translucent and soft, about 10 minutes. Add butternut squash and apples, and cook for another 10 minutes or so. Add just enough broth to cover the vegetables, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes. The squash and apples should get really soft. Let it cool for a little bit, then puree with a blender (carefully! it’s hot!). Pour it all back in the pot and add more broth if you want a thinner soup. Season with salt and pepper (white pepper if you don’t feel like seeing little black flecks) to taste. Heat everything back up, then stir in as little or as much of your dairy product of choice.

Serve topped with fried sage leaves. To make them: heat a thin layer of oil in a small pan over medium heat, then fry fresh sage leaves until they turn dark green and get nice and crispy. Drain on a paper towel and season with a little salt. Use the leftover sage oil for dressing or bread-dipping or something.

pickled fall vegetables

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:40:32 -0500

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 greenmarket and picked up a few things that caught my eye: carrots of all colors, green cauliflower, a bulb of fennel, a small orb of kohlrabi, and celery that I need for other stuff anyway. The carrots and cauliflower were lightly blanched before going in the jars with everything else. The brine consists of apple cider vinegar, water, salt, sugar, garlic, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, and black peppercorns. They will hang out in the fridge until Turkey Day (which will be celebrated with pork chez Mitch and John, actually). As long as these taste okay and don’t contain botulinum toxin (don’t worry family, they don’t), I think Thanksgiving will start out quite nicely.

winter salad with lemon-yogurt dressing

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 19:54:26 -0500

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 nutritious, filling, un-boring chopped salads. Start with a variety of leafy, crunchy, sweet, and bitter vegetables. Mix with beans, salty olives, and some ripe avocado. Toss with a creamy, tangy homemade dressing and some toasted nuts or seeds. And hey, if you have leftover cooked chicken, hard-boiled eggs, crumbly cheese, roasted beets, or orange segments, add them (all of them!) too. And I looove using a piece of bread to wipe every last smear of dressing and avocado from the bowl.

eleven madison park granola

Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:50:18 -0500

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 about something as… granola as granola, but this stuff has upgraded my weekday breakfasts to something a little more alluring than usual.

sunchoke soup with toasted pumpkin seeds

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 17:21:00 -0500

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). You can make a big batch and save the rest for later. My favorite-smelling part of the whole process occurs at the beginning, when leeks, onions, and garlic cook in butter. I modified the recipe a bit by using milk instead of cream (and more of it) and adding a few squeezes of lemon juice.

Sunchokes, by the way, are also called Jerusalem artichokes. Guess what: they’re not from Jerusalem and they’re not even artichokes. The sunchoke is a sunflower tuber whose Italian name (Girasole) sounds like “Jerusalem” and whose taste resembles that of the artichoke. I found mine at the farmers’ market for a few bucks a pound.

And finally, a warning: sunchokes may give you (rather horrible smelling) intestinal gas. Plan accordingly.

homemade celery salt

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:00:39 -0400

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.

roasted fennel with raisins, walnuts, and parsley

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 23:13:45 -0400

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 in a bright lemony dressing, chewy raisins, and crunchy walnuts. It’s probably obvious by now, but this is a simple and worthwhile fall vegetable side dish to try out, in my opinion. The recipe is from The Meatball Shop, featured in New York Magazine.

easy pasta with prosciutto, arugula, and sundried tomato

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 13:55:00 -0400

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” (you know, old t-shirts and sweatpants), bumbling around the kitchen yet again thanks to a canceled meeting. So I made the same pasta again, this time with some prosciutto that I was going to save for pizza later in the week. Minimal cooking, chopping, and vegetable-washing are involved, thanks to the convenience of cured meat and pre-washed baby greens.

To make it: Cook pasta (I used whole wheat linguine) in boiling salted water. Drain and set aside. Using the same water-less pot the pasta was cooked in, add a little knob of butter, some chopped garlic, and a big splash of cream. Season with a little bit of salt and a lot of black pepper. Let it heat through for a couple minutes. Add chopped sundried tomatoes, torn prosciutto, and pasta. Toss everything together to coat the pasta well. Turn the heat off and add baby arugula or spinach, tossing until greens are wilted. Finish with grated cheese.

whole wheat yogurt cake with almonds

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:58:21 -0400

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.)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup neutral oil such as canola or grapeseed
sliced almonds and sugar, for topping

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8 1/2 x 4 1/2 inch loaf pan.

Combine flours, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. In a small bowl, beat eggs then add sugar, yogurt, and extracts. Mix in oil. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and mix gently just until batter is completely moistened. Pour into pan and sprinkle sugar and sliced almonds on top. Bake for 50 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean and the top of the cake is lightly browned.

grape focaccia with rosemary and pine nuts

Sat, 15 Oct 2011 15:11:53 -0400

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 leftover wine grapes from the harvest. I ended up baking a version of this grape focaccia with (a very limited amount of) pine nuts and rosemary, which is exactly as delicious as it sounds. You could also try it with a bit of grappa.

apple gouda oatmeal cookies

Tue, 11 Oct 2011 19:53:00 -0400

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 dried cranberries. Chill the dough before baking to get chewy, tall cookies. Best when fresh and gooey and crisp on the outside, in my opinion.