About
My name is Michelle but my friends call me Mitch. I live in New York City. These are my adventures (and boring weekday evenings) in home cooking.Find
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. Still delicious.
Despite what the greatest hits on this blog may have you believe, the best tasting stuff from my kitchen does not require a lot of time and labor. Case in point: the old standby of pasta with beans and greens. No advance preparation is required, and you only need one pot and one pan. I love crinkly dinosaur kale an awful lot, but any kind of kale would work in this.
In a pot of boiling salted water: Cook pasta (I used whole wheat penne) and frozen baby lima beans together until both are tender.
In a saute pan: Heat olive oil over medium heat. Add minced garlic and stir it around. Add red pepper flakes. After a minute or so (don’t let the garlic get all burnt) add chopped dinosaur kale (aka Lacinato kale, Tuscan kale, cavolo nero) and saute for a few minutes. Add lemon zest, salt, and pepper. I also added chopped kalamata olives because I had some. Drain pasta-bean mixture and add to pan, along with a bit of the pasta cooking water. Toss everything together and top with a drizzle of olive oil and grated Parmigiano cheese (optional).
I am a sucker for multi-colored anything at the farmers’ market. Case in point: red, purple, yellow, and yes, orange-hued carrots. This year’s food issue of the New Yorker featured a story about root vegetables, and that pretty photo in the article makes me want to produce my own tray of beautifully roasted turnips, potatoes, carrots, celery root, radishes, beets, and other earthy things being ignored in my vegetable drawer. Maybe with a roast chicken or some braised short ribs?
For now, I’m working on the pretty carrots. Roasting seems to be my default cooking method, but this whole combination could also be done with carrots prepared any other way: sauteed, steamed, poached, shredded raw. Or even glazed in some kind of honey-lemon liquid. It’s a little sweet, a little salty, a little bitter, and a little tangy. You know, enough to keep you interested all through winter.
Roasted carrots: cut (if necessary) into sticks or chunks. I like to give them a good scrubbing first, but you can also just peel them. Toss with oil, salt, and pepper. Roast in a 425-degree oven until wrinkled and lightly browned, about 20 minutes.
Mix: lemon juice with honey, salt, and pepper (and olive oil if you’re using un-oiled carrots).
Top with: mint leaves and feta cheese.
I came up with this one to go with a Sunday night chicken dinner made even more fun with a bottle of white wine. I die for the smell of fresh lemon zest and the scent that lingers on my fingers (mostly John’s fingers since he’s seriously the best citrus zester in the world). Pretty much any kind of vegetable would be good in this (I dare you to think of one that wouldn’t), making it an easy year-round thing to do. And it packs up for lunch nicely, especially with some leftover chicken shredded into it. Or chickpeas if you’re going meatless.
1 cup orzo
1 small shallot clove, minced
zest of 1 small lemon
1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons yogurt
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and black pepper
fresh herbs, chopped (I love love love fresh thyme)
bite-sized fresh vegetables, lightly cooked if necessary
grated parmesan cheese (optional)
Cook orzo in salted water according to package directions.
In a medium bowl, combine remaining ingredients except vegetables and cheese. Add cooked, drained orzo, vegetables, and cheese. Toss to coat evenly. Drizzle extra olive oil on top if things look dry.
Back to that ice cream sandwich idea. Here’s one we whipped up with lemon ice cream and gingersnaps. I love love love the combination of lemon and gingery baked goods (I used to keep a box of Carr’s ginger lemon creme cookies at my desk, and we’d eat these whenever we could in Berkeley). The lemons were grown by a friend in San Diego, and hand-imported in economy class by my personal fruit smuggler. The hardest part about making these is not eating all of the cookies and ice cream before they’re ready to be sandwiched together in perfect harmony.
<00, Mitch
These pretty Meyer lemons are from John’s trip to San Diego last month. They’re a cross between true lemons and some type of orange, so they taste a little sweeter than “regular” lemons. While I’ve made limoncello, hot toddy ice cream, and lemon-shaped lemon pancakes with lemon curd in the past, I thought I’d try something different this time: lemon meringue pie. I used this recipe, which calls for an un-fussy graham cracker crust. Then I put everything in a 9 by 13-inch pan instead of a pie plate and called it “bars” instead of “pie”.
The result? Weepy, under-whipped and under-baked meringue. Sigh. I’ll have to take another shot at this sometime.
I guess I’m all about breakfast this week. I never order pancakes at restaurants (I’ve always stuck to the savory side of the brunch menu), but sometimes I get kind of excited about making them myself at home.
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 large egg
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3 Tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
1 cup blueberries
Combine dry ingredients (everything down to and including lemon zest on that list) in a bowl. Beat egg and combine with milk and yogurt. Pour milk and egg mixture into dry ingredients bowl. Add melted butter. Stir just until combined.
Heat a large skillet or pan over medium heat. Brush some reserved melted butter on it. Pour 1/4 cupfuls of batter on the pan, then drop some blueberries on top. When the tops of the pancakes begin to bubble, and the bottom is golden brown (should take only a few minutes), flip and cook on the other side for another few minutes. Serve with warm maple syrup.
