Cleanup

I have a backlog of photos and stuff to post about -- we cooked this week and I haven't been doing the blogging justice.
No more, I tell you. No more.

On Tuesday, we had Ginger Chicken Noodle Rice Bowls. This is something that I love to make and to eat. It reminds me of when I lived alone, because I probably entertained with this 3 or 4 times in the first few months I lived in Williamsburg. And I definitely would make pots and pots of it to sustain me over the week. Plus, Hylton hd a Le Creuset red Dutch Oven, which is the perfect pot to make this in.
I've changed up the preparation of this soup into many varieties. I prefer to use boneless skinless chicken thighs, because they're cheap and aren't as dry. When I lived alone, a package of chicken thighs could get me through two soup pots, which is the basic reason I love them so much. The original recipe calls for Chinese 5 spice, ginger, cumin, carrots, garlic, stock, vermicelli and scallions. The basic plan is to brown the chicken, cut into bite-sized pieces, in a little vegetable oil, then add 2 or 3 cloves of fine-chopped garlic, an inch of ginger shredded, and the 5spice and cumin, salt and pepper. Once that gets all friendly, you're supposed to add carrots, shredded, and then stock -- when it all comes to a boil, you add in the vermicelli. A few minutes later, the scallions, sliced into matchsticks.
I've definitely switched this one up. I now use Garam Masala, which is basically Chinese 5spice only a little Indian-afied. I didn't use ginger this time, because the ginger root that I had in my fridge was all wrinkly and nasty. And since I used chicken in several preparations this week, we used chicken breasts instead of thighs. This recipe is very malleable.
I won't lie. I added a little bit of Miss Salsita to the soup pot, because the soup was missing a little something. This is the kind of thing that you can do with this receipe. You can mold it to fit YOUR tastes. In fact, in a flash of brilliance, I added a blob of coconut milk to the bottom of our bowls before I poured in the soup, which lead to something AMAZING!!! I'm glad I remembered this recipe, and that it was as good as I remembered. :) mmmmm

Thursday, we had Honey-Lime Glazed Salmon, with warm black bean and corn salsa. No big whoop. The salsa is amazing - red onion and garlic sauteed for a few minutes, then some chopped red pepper. Once that gets all friendly, you splash in a little chicken stock, let that bubble away with some cumin, red pepper flake, hot sauce, until it's all fabulous and tasty. And then you throw in some defrosted frozen corn, and black beans.

While all that magical yum is happening, You're glazing your salmon with lime juice, honey, chili powder, salt and pepper.... and then you're cooking it on your really hot grill pan, until it's done and delish. The result is a party. You should most definitely try it.
IF you can read my handwriting....

Friday's dinner, I have no words for. The closest I can get: Grilled Hangar steak with Blue-Cheese butter. Roasted Asparagus. The rare side of Medium Rare. Drooling.
Mmmmm.

And yesterday. Yesterday we made a chocolate cake together. Jesse has been cooking wtih me lately, which is fabulous!! And so we made a chocolate cake to accompany our macaroni and cheese. Behold!!!!
Inn'it preeeeety?

Back at it

After a few weeks of sporadic grocery-ordering and menu-planning, we're back on track. And we're probably going to have some input from Jesse coming in the near future, since I'm going to be working after work to maintain the girlish figure while still cooking the delectable foods you readers (and Jesse) have come to expect.

Tonight, we had Rachael Ray's Honey-Nut Chicken Fingers, with roasted asparagus and brown rice.
Of course, I'm a bit of a weirdo, so I had to mess with things. I couldn't find Honey Nut Cornflakes from FreshDirect, so I audibled and went with Honey Nut Chex. I don't have paprika, and don't really see any reason for it, since I'd rather use cumin just about every time. So...I used the cumin instead of the paprika. And instead of grill seasoning, I used straight-up salt, pepper, and garlic powder.
I roasted the asparagus with just olive oil, salt and pepper. And of course... brown rice is brown rice. We all love it. Jesse and I probably love it more than most. Especially since I make it with chicken broth and water, instead of just water. And because my rice cooker does literally ALL the work. God bless whoever invented the rice cooker. Seriously.
The food was nommy. It was all baked/roasted. I like this, because it means that I can eat some of it for lunch tomorrow as fuel for the "Cardio Body Sculpting" class I'm taking.... oh joy.
We'll be back with more tomorrow, although Jesse might be blogging in my stead if I'm temporarily dead. :)

It's good to have friends

Friday March 13th was probably the best day ever for me. Seriously.

I rarely say these kinds of things, but this one I most definitely mean. From adorable little girls waving at me on the train to minor and major work successes, to the amazing events that occurred from 4:30 onward.

My former nanny bosses recently opened a restaurant. I heard about it from a Daily Candy e-mail. I knew that they had the space, knew that they were working on the place, but didn't know the open date until I opened my e-mail on Monday and saw the Daily Candy about Scuderia. I was so excited!!! It was finally happening for them!
Friday evening, Cara called to ask if I wanted to come to dinner with her, and Jesse as well. I was pretty ecstatic and pretty honored because this was FIRST FRIDAY!!!
We went to dinner.
It was amazing.
Cara basically ordered several plates, to pass around, and then we picked our entrees. I'm not going to lie, this is the only way to dine, and the next time I have several hundred extra dollars, I'm totally rolling this way.

We tried the arancine, which were sent over by Alex. The polpette, which were pretty good, although Alex said that the chef had "fucked them up" that night. Tasted like amazing meatballs to me!
The mussels, and the arugula salad, were both delicious. I love arugula, seriously. Especially with sweet cherry tomatoes and salty parmesan. Tomato season is coming -- try it sometime. Soooo good.

Next, we had pizzas and pasta. Cara picked the Pizza Scuderia, which is the most amazing thing I ate that night, without doubt. Fig Jam, which I absolutely loved, blue cheese, and speck, which I've never had before but deeply love now. I only had 2 pieces, because otherwise I would have ignored my whole dinner. But seriously, this was amazing. If you are ever in New York, if you ever eat at Scuderia, pick the Pizza Scuderia as your appetizer. Sweet plus tangy plus salty/porky = sigh. glee. Love.
We also had the Pizza Piccante, which was nice and spicy, but not TOO spicy, and had a topping of nice peppery arugula, which again, I loved. We also got a pasta with sausage, peas and cream that was tasty at room temperature, and if we had all stopped talking enough to eat it hot, would have been excellent. Not the pasta's fault.

The entrees came, and I have to say that I picked the best thing on the menu. I know how to order. I will never steer you wrong. Jesse got the grilled rabbit, which I tasted and it was delish. Cara got the mixed fried fish, which had a nive tempura batter and was remarkably crispy. The house tartar sauce that came with was also delicious. And the tempura green beans that came as sides to both her meal and Jesse's meal were outstanding. My meal, though, was the best choice and that is saying something, believe me. I ordered the seafood stew.
If you have ever heard of cioppino, you will know something of what this was like. The broth was tomatoey, spicy, salty, insane. The seafood was all perfectly cooked, and I defnitely had shrimp, mussels, fish, and possibly lobster, I'm not sure. Cara said that he chef at Scuderia uses the lobster shells and heads to make the base for the broth. It was excellent. It came with two pieces of toasted bread in the bowl, and I only wish I'd had room in my stomach to eat it all. Seriously, it was that good.

For dessert, we had a nutella and mascarpone pizza, and the Coppa Scuderia, which is a PBJ ice cream sundae. It was delicious. My dirty vodka martini was delicious. The wine we drank with dinner was delicious.

Even more wonderful was the company. It's diffiuclt to explain how wonderful it is to see Cara and Alex in a setting other than employer/employee. It's wonderful to get to talk to them, and it's wonderful to see them so happy. They were so excited to see me, to have me around, and Alex proposed having brunch or dinner later when the weather was better, and bringing their daughter along. I'd love to see her, love to see them more. It was so wonderful to eat the food and hang out with Cara and talk to her and see how things were going. I loved it. I love seeing Alex having so much fun in his own restaurant and basically... it was wonderful.

I'm really happy, and I hope that they have incredible success. And honestly, I'm really really effing happy that on the First Friday, I got to eat there with Cara, who I think will become a real friend, and Jesse, who I obviously love a lot.
It was a great night.

Well, that was.....interesting.

***Apparently the comment box was not working for some people. Silly Blogger. This time, I'm editing it so maybe it will work. Fingers crossed, leave me love!!!***


I'll admit it: I'm slightly disturbed.
I'm a pretty savvy cook at this point. In the past year, I've cooked a lot of dinners. And I've roasted a lot of chickens. And I don't think I've ever really photographed the process. But, tonight probably shouldn't have been the night that I started taking photos. Or at least, not with this bird.I get what I deserve, I know, when instead of just buying one of the pretty little 3-pound Purdue chickens that are debeaked, fed animal products, and left in a cage all the live-long day, I decided to buy something labeled...... well....
Fowl. That's right. And it was a MONSTER. I was assuming it was just a chicken who y'know, got to hang out a little bit before it was killed and wrapped and sent to my grocery store. However, I have since realized that this is probably not the case. My first misgivings came when I unwrapped the .... we'll just keep calling it a chicken, because it's not a duck or a turkey, and it's too big to be much else. SO, when I unwrapped the chicken and found the neck attached, but no giblets, I was a little concerned. Then, the skin concerned me. It was very thick. However, it's been a long while since I've roasted the chicken, and the last time I did I had consumed a fair quantity of Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka with Alyssa first, so I'm not exactly sure that it's the best frame of reference. Regardless, I salted it, stuffed butter and garlic cloves and bay leaves inside the skin, and shoved a lemon, an onion, and various herbs in the cavity, as per usual:

When it was time to cook, I heated the oven to 425, with the roasting pan inside. I rubbed the chicken down with olive oil and added salt and poultry seasoning to the outside. Then, when the oven was hot, I put it in, breast-side down, for about 15 minutes, then flipped it to breast side up for 15 minutes. This helps improve the brownness of the skin.
Then, I reduced the heat to 400, dumped the potatoes, carrots and onions in, and sat the beastly birdie on top.
After about 40 minutes (total cook time, 1 hour 10 minutes) I did all my typical tests -- stabbed it to see how the juices ran, listened for the crack of the skin, wiggled the leg, and eventually decided the beast was done.
(Why, you may ask, didn't I just use my probe thermometer, which would have told me precisely whether it was done or not? Becuase the battery finally died and we're out of AAA batteries, of course.)
I pulled it, let it rest, and added a little flour and stock to the veggies left in the pan, to turn them into a gravy-esque thing.
Here is the beautiful beastie, looking just about right:









See? Golden-brown skin, nice and shiny. Actually, the most gorgeous chicken from the outside I've ever created.
But then.... I tried to cut it open, and I couldn't cut through the darn thing. It took TONS of effort to cut through the legs, the skin was either perfectly crispy or absolutely inedible. It wasn't cooked all the way through even though it got half an hour at a 25-degree higher temperature than I normally ever roast a chicken at. I'm not sure what this beast was.... but I do know it's heading toward the soup pot, because there's nothing else I can do with it. It's not a chicken. It might be a mutant. It might be a half-chicken, half moose. I'm not sure. But this beast was not a chicken. I know how chickens react.

That being said, one of the more boring things about the "eating alone" tendencies I harbor is this: I could eat the same 6 or 7 things, in rotation, for the rest of my life. Obviously I would like some variety now and then, but basically, if I could eat roast chicken, macaroni & cheese from the box, tomato soup/grilled cheese, chicken fingers, cheeseburgers, scrambled eggs, pizza, and I'm sure there are a couple others, I'd be a happy camper. I'm very basic.

Obviously this would be the most boring blog in the world if I ate those 7 things all the time, so we are always looking for new things to do with food. But, in the end, I'd probably rather roast a chicken sometimes.

A real chicken - no more of this "Fowl" business.

Oh Laurie Colwin...

I'm sitting on the couch, post-hot yoga, and it occurs to me that I definitely missed out on one of the finest things about living alone, when I lived on my own.
Eating whatever weird shit you want, without worrying about feeding it to others.

I'm currently eating about 4 spoonfuls of cold rice, with left-over aji verde from Pio Pio, mixed in. It's delicious. It's amazing. I'm sad there's not that much rice left, not that much aji verde left. I'm holding until Jesse gets home, so I can make a pizza. But for now, I'm eating rice with aji verde.

I remember being ashamed about eating those boxed noodle soups by Taste of Thai. I should have just enjoyed it. You are only 22 and single and living alone in New York for a finite amount of time. And that means eating Lucky Charms for breakfast, eating Salsita Chipotle on everything, eating boxed noodle soups and boxed risotto if you really want to. And making wonderful things when you want to, but still. I never got to indulge the ridiculous side of me who loves to eat salad with hot sauce, anything wtih balsamic vinaigrette on it, loves anything ramen-esque (but not ramen) and will eat anything as long as there are scrambled or fried eggs involved. Or cheese. I'll eat anything cheese-related.

But now, I think about wholesome foods, or at least foods that I can feed to someone else without worrying that he'll die of malnutrition. Like I won't make the delicious french fries with cheese and gravy and roasted garlic that I found on Serious Eats until we're both exercising. Even though let's face it, that sounds like heaven.....

Regardless.

It is now time to wait, and to make real dinner when I can. nom.

We have had a casualty.

I'm obsessed with cumin, among other things.
I love it. It's so nice and warm, while not being too spicy. It brings the warmth to indian food that I always try to recreate in my chili, with great success, happily. Cumin = joy.
Or at least, it was...... until tonight. *sob*





I know it's my fault, but sometimes I overstack things in the spice cabinet - it's an oddly shaped cabinet with only 3 shelves, one of which is too high for me to reach. So I jam spices in and stack them on top of each other and I opened the cabinet and it happened so fast and the cumin just jumped and...



Well, I'm sure you know how the story ends. Cumin all over the crevice between the mixer and the wall. Cumin smell everywhere but no actual cumin anywhere. The lid cracked, and the cumin spilled out, and the jar didn't break (happily) but the cumin is wasted and it was just...... Well, we'll let the picture speak for itself.

Needless to say, I need to replenish my spice stores. Especially since I used up all the curry powder I had trying to salvage the potato-pumpkin Mulligatawny soup I tried to make. Let this be a lesson to all improvisors: Potatoes suck up flavor, and they don't share. Even if you boil them in some yummy broth that is all curry-fied, they will suck up the flavor and not share it with the party. SO if you are making a soup that involves potatoes, don't add 4 if you're planning to puree. Just add 2. TRUST JOHANNA. She will not steer you wrong. So now, I'm hoping that the other woman in my life, Goya Salsita Chipotle (shhh, don't tell cumin), can save this soup. If she can't do it, no one can. Well, presumably a long long simmer can, and some tumeric, and I'm not going to lie, I definitely scraped all the cumin off the countertop to dump into the soup pot. I'm hoping. Because otherwise, I've wasted the end of my pumpkin, and 4 potatoes, and a box o' stock, AND my cumin, and my curry powder. Basically..... I'm really hoping for some magic here. Otherwise, my dinner and Jesse's dinner will be the rest of hte beer and the rest of that tube of cookie dough I haven't been eating since we got back from the store.

As far as you know.


UPDATE: A good long simmer and a good bit of salt and a visit with Miss Salsita definitely did some magic with the soup. Next time... I'm only bringing 2 potatoes to the soup party. And I'm going to conquer curry paste, by shopping in a neighborhood with no ethnic profile - searching for Patak's Curry Paste in a largely Jamaican/Caribbean neighborhood is not fun -- they had 16 brands of coconut milk, 8 million things with Scotch Bonnets in them, but no curry paste. So... unitl I learn to make my own, I'll just buy curry paste. And more cumin. :(
BUT!
The soup is good. Not as good as H&H's but considering I combined 2 recipes and didn't really follow either.... I get what I deserve.
Next time, my dears.

Next time.

Apparently I obsess.

I DID make Carbonara last night. It was just about as good as usual - I wish we'd had a different cut of pasta though. I really favor Orechiette in my carbonara, although everyone else says either penne or linguine. Screw them. Someday (maybe tonight) I'll post the step-by-step. But really, how much do you need to know about Boil Pasta. Crisp Bacon. Sautee lots of garlic, red pepper flake and shallot with bacon, add stock/wine, add pasta, egg yolks and pasta water ,eat as much as quickly as possible.

I mean, other than knowing that vegetarians and vegans are screwed -- there's absolutely no way to make this without animal products or bacon. So people who keep Kosher are screwed too. Sorry guys, I'm usually more sensitive.

Last night I was browsing Tastemakers (I think - I have the site bookmarked, I'll link tonight) and they had a post/picture of an Indian Potato Soup - with curry, coconut milk, potatoes..... and I nearly swooned.

Today, I was perusing the menu at Hale & Hearty Soup, and saw Mulligatawny!!! Glee!!!! So of course I ordered some and devoured it. Out of sheer glee. And while reading last night, and eating today, I kind of got to wondering whether I could add puree'd pumpkin to a curry-flavored soup... because mashed potatoes and mashed butternut squash have similar textures, and pumpkin is a similar COLOR to butternut squash and.... you can see where I went.

Then, after eating my delicious, creamy orangey mulligatawny soup.... I'm totally hooked. I'm totally figuring out how to make Mulligatawny soup and add pumpkin into it and just be..... happy.

Poor Jesse. Hope he likes orange.

Read this article

http://www.slate.com/id/2212816/

No really. I mean it. Read this.

I'm afraid this is the next place where crazy stage parents will take their kids - cooking lessons/online cooking shows. Watch the "In the Big Kitchen With Food" thing - just watch how this kid uses a food processor. My food processor's shredding blade came with orange tape over it that said "WARNING THIS BLADE IS SUPER SHARP AND WILL CUT YOU." I was afraid to use it for a while. I'm still very ginger when I handle it. This kid is smashing zucchini into it. I'm terrified for his fingers the entire time - all it takes is one slip, and the foodpro tips over and the blade flies out and slices him.

Also - mom is whispering cues from off-camera. Why are you doing this to your kid?!?!?!

Seriously. Take off the "stage parent" pants and just let your kid be a kid. Let him help you bake cookies and accidentally drop the eggshells in - just wash your eggs first. But don't try and increase his palate or her palate when they have no capacity for it.

And please. No kid really understands the subtleties of foods. I wish they did. But they are pretty much just parroting you back to you. I promise.

dumbasses.

Haiku

Or.... the workin' late, feelin' hungry blues. Packin' it in and heading home soon, look for a catch-up of last night or perhaps my long-awaited carbonara situation later this eve.

Left-over pasta?
Reheat polenta-beef pie?
Or Carbonara?


Indecision leads
to grumbly stumbly, unless
boyfriend makes a choice.


I love canned pumpkin
enough that I will sneak it
anywhere I can.

A long time coming

Two words for you, my friends. Canned Pumpkin.



I'm sure there are more words I could give you, but these are the vital ones. Here are a few more: Sausage, Sage, Cream, Broth, Penne Rigate. Amazing. Outstanding. Delicious. I've been thinking about this recipe for ages. Since June, when I had a chance to make it but missed out because of a random babysitting job.

This is an awesome recipe and it totally goes along with my pumpkin obsession.
Here are a few fun facts about me: I don't really like all things pork related. I mean, I really really like bacon. I'm not 100% in love with most other pig products, although I will try them, obviously. I'm coming around to sausage, in no small part because of this recipe. Browned sweet italian sausage, onion, garlic, sage, chicken broth, and canned pumpkin. Tossed with whole-wheat penne. Basically, it was intense. I even had seconds. Topped with tons of grated parmesan. Even cold, it's delish. Make this recipe. Check it:

Photo Heavy

If you want, go back one entry and click on the link to the Gnocchi recipe that I linked to. Keep it open in a separate tab (you do use Firefox, right???) so that you can refer back. This one is gonna be photo-heavy, with little room for explanation. We'll do our best.

(Meyer) Lemon Gnocchi
"1 pound of potatoes peeled and cut into 2-inch dice."








"Shake over moderately high heat until dry...Rice the hot potatoes in an even layer..."
(Sorry, homey don't own a ricer. BUT, I have a food processor with a grating blade. Last time, Jesse and I pushed the potatoes through a sieve, and that sucked. So this time, the foodpro had its way with the potatoes, and it worked fine. Just make sure they're VERY dry before you start)



"...whisk together the egg yolks with the lemon zest, 1 teaspoon of olive oil, and the salt, and pour over the potatoes..."






"...Gently roll the dough into four 1/2-inch-thick ropes. Using a sharp knife, cut each rope into 1/2-inch pieces. Roll each piece against the tines of a fork to make ridges...cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate."






Paraphrasing the rest, you cut almost a stick of butter into a half-cup of chicken stock, and whisk to make a sauce. Boil the Gnocchi for 2 minutes (about a minute, they'll float, boil 1 minute more) then let them cool, and sautee them in butter.
Really let them pick up some gorgeous color. It'll help them taste better and look prettier.



Then, it's just a matter of adding some chopped parsley to the sauce, and dousing the gnocchi in said sauce. The result is supposedly 8 appetizer-sized portions. But we? We don't need no steeenking appetizers!!!
NoM NOM NOM!!!!
100 posts in. Thanks for reading, kids. I'm hoping to branch out, try some new things, eat som new foods. We're having fancy nibbles/tapas for the Oscars when Leah comes to play, so there's that!! And now, it's getting warm again. We'll have summer and cookouts and beach trips and all sorts of fun stuff to look forward to. GLEE!!!

Wow. Lame.

Ok, so I fully admit. I backed off blogging for an entire 2-week period, despite my month-old resolution to blog 3 times a week.
I was poor. We barely had any food. We were scraping by. But I'm back. And I'm going to update one and all about our fantastic Valentine's Day Weekend meals. GET EXCITED!!

On Saturday, we had a late brunch. And a reprisal of Cafe Lub. Which is the cutest thing in all get-out, just so we're clear.
At Jesse's request, Cafe Lub involved chicken fried steak, biscuits, and mimosas. I think the fact that he dipped the steaks in the egg, and I dipped them in the four made them even better -- most things taste better with teamwork.
Especially things that are really really awful for you, but are so tasty and yummy and come with gravy on top and biscuits to dunk in and fizzy mimosas to wash them down.....


Last night for dinner, we had a wonderful first-try on something that I will be making over and over and over again. Shrimp Scampi. It wasn't as good as Sorrento's, but since Nick would stab me if I ever asked him for a recipe, I'll have to approximate. I used Tyler Florence's recipe, sort of.

1 box of linguine. Boiled in salted water. Drained and about a cup of the pasta water reserved.
1 big shallot and 4 garlic cloves grated on the microplane so all the juice goo stuff was collected. That sauteed for a few minutes in 2 tablespoons of butter and 2 tablespoons of olive oil with a pinch of red pepper flake.
A pound of medium shrimp (tails on, shells off, cleaned, deveined) were seasoned with salt and pepper and sauteed in the buttery garlicky shallotty goodness until they were just pink. They were fished out and reserved keeping them warm -- put them in a bowl and cover with a pot lid. Then, half a cup of dry white wine went into the skillet with some lemon juice. Tyler asks you to squeeze in a whole lemon, but that was too much for me. Start with half. Taste, and decide.
When the wine and lemon juice come to a boil, add in 2-3 tablespoons of butter. I'd vote for 3. It makes a difference.
Once the butter is melted in, add a bunch of chopped parsley, put the shrimp back in, toss, and then add the pasta. The sauce should be a little gloopy. Add about half a cup, tops, of the reserved pasta water. Toss around until the water kind of reduces off a little.... the sauce should be creamy and coat all the pasta and shrimp with lovely buttery garlicky goodness. If it's too gloopy still, add a little more water to thin it out.

Serve. Pepper would probably be good. NO CHEESE. Sorry, kids. You'll thank me later.
I promise.

Tonight, I'm making one of the first recipes I ever tried to make in this blog, or at least one of the first I photographed. I think this time will go better. Maybe I'll even photograph the whole way along, you lucky people!!! :)


I'm back. Maybe for good. I hope. :) Here's to post #99!!!

Blogging is FUNdamental

Here are some fun facts about me, for post # 98.

• I have this interesting habit of playing pretend. If I really want a certain ingredient, like frozen broccoli, but I have another frozen vegetable instead, I will cook in the same manner, using the other frozen veg, and firmly pretending that the other frozen veg is broccoli. I'm always a little surprised when I bite into my food and it's NOT what I expected, but since I was ignoring the facts all along, I get what I deserve.
  
  • Case in point: The other night I tried to make a variation on my Auntie Beth's yummy broccoli-rice casserole. It had to be a variation because it was 10 pm and I didn't have basically any of the ingredients, except rice. So I used my rice cooker and the handy steamer attachment to cook the rice and defrost some frozen spinach, I reduced some milk and a splash of chicken broth, seasoned it with salt, pepper, cumin, and a teeny bit of nutmeg, and shredded the last of my yummy leerdamer cheese. I put some parmesan into the milk sauce, mixed the rice, spinach, and Leerdamer together, poured the milk sauce over, and topped it with parm and breadcrumbs. Baked at 400 for 20 minutes.
  The whole time, I was imagining that my frozen spinach was, in fact, frozen broccoli. I was surprised when it wasn't. Even though I encountered its non-broccoli-ness every step of the way. But it was tasty. And bonus points for being an easily identifiable foodstuff: a casserole.

• I often say in my job that the level of work I've put in has earned me a cheeseburger. Or, "I deserve a cheeseburger". I really believe that payment in cheeseburger would work for me as a bonus incentive. I'm not saying I earned the calories. I'm not saying anything about how food can be earned in the psychological sense. I mean in the strictest physical sense, working till 8pm two nights in a row earns me a cheeseburger, and somebody needs to get on that.
  
  • Case in point: Last night, Jesse and I went to Bonnie's, which is Jesse's burger place from back when he used to live in the neighborhood. My burger place is DuMont Burger, and we are both fiercely loyal. Like, even though Bonnie's is less fancy and has quicker service and more places to sit, I will always prefer a DuMont burger. ALWAYS. Even if Bonnie's is just as good. So last night, sicne Bonnie's is closer to our apartment, and DuMont Burger is in Williamsburg which is close to nothing unless you live IN Williamsburg....we went to Bonnie's after I got out of work at 8pm, and had cheeseburgers. And for the first time in history. Seriously. I finished my entire cheeseburger and the majority of my fries. I would have eaten them all if Jesse hadn't been filching them off my plate, allegedly to scoop up the last of the amazing spicy mayo/french fry sauce they have. It was brilliant. It was delicious. When I took the first bite, I realized that I really, truly HAD earned a cheeseburger. Nom.

That's enough fun facts for now. I'll be back some other time, possibly tonight, with more fun and food.
Inching our way to the big 1-double-oh!!

Full disclosure part deux

I'm not, honestly, 100% sure what I just ate for dinner. I mean, I know what the elements of the food were. I know what went into my food, so empirically, I do know what I ate for dinner.

But knowing what went INTO a dish isn't the same as knowing what the dish......is.
Let me explain, before you all stop reading.

Last night, Jesse and I went out for Restaurant week. I think I've written about restaurant week before, but in case you're just picking me up, here's the jist: NYC loves their restaurants. New York knows that restaurants are expensive. So, to thank the New York faithful who continue to pay tons of money for the pleasure of eating fancy food, the New York restaurants pick a 12-day period in January, and again at the end of July, where fancy famous restaurants offer fixed-price 3-course menus at lunch and dinner.
In the past, we have gone to Steak Frites, Aspen, and Butter. This year, we went to Zoe. It was delicious. I need to give this place its own blog, but regardles, I have to discuss the mussels that I had as a starter. They were steamed in a red curry coconut broth. The broth would have been a fabulous soup all on its own. In fact, when I replicate it, I will serve it with rice and make it a soup. I will make it soup without the mussels. The coconut milk and red curry paste were so perfect, and I've only ever had mussels steamed in white wine, so it was pretty different for me. But it was delicious. I would have eaten just the mussels all night. But, fortunately, we also had delicious entrees and paradigm-shifting desserts. Life is good.

However, Jesse has either come down with a stomach bug, or contracted a mild something-or-other from the restaurant. So he is not eating. I therefore had to fend for myself.
As I've previously stated, I'm not big on cooking for one. Unless that one is Jesse, or someone else that I love. I'm not so good at cooking for just me. I'll usually just make a big plate of spinach and call it a salad, or scramble an egg, or make a grilled cheese if I'm feeling fancy. I'm clearly not very good at taking care of myself. But, tonight I was also starving, and basically needed some food.

So I made.... something.
I started out simple. Hashbrowns. Basically an excuse to eat 2 leetle red potatoes - I have no shame.

Then, I steamed the left-overs of a bag of frozen stir-fry vegetables, and melted some butter in a frying pan. I threw 1/4 of a cup of rice in, stired it around a bit, and then added a can of Muir Glen fire-roasted diced tomatoes with green chiles. I added about half a cup of chicken stock, and let it simmer away. I added probably another half-cup of chicken stock over the cooking, until the rice was cooked. Then I stirred in the steamed formerly-frozen veggies, and a whole ton of shredded "taco" cheese.
I put a couple fried eggs and some more cheese on top. I ate it. It was yummy. It wasn't a casserole. With beans it could have been huevos rancheros sans tortillas. With chicken, and baked, it would have been a casserole. My original idea was to make it a scramble, but we only had 2 eggs and that would have been dwarfed by the quantity of other stuff.
I'm going to be eating it tomorrow for lunch, hopefully.

Hopefully Jesse will be feeling better by tomorrow. Because I don't like ie when my love is sick. And of course I don't like cooking for one.

Woohoo!!! Celebrate!!

This is my 100th post.
Just so we're clear on this. That's huge. Because that means that roughly every 3-4 days since I started this blog, I've posted food talkings or food ramblings or recipes. That's a lot more frequently than I talk to my mom, a lot more frequently than I hang out with most of my friends, a lot more frequently than I keep track of putting my clothes away after work.

In celebration:
No, I did not take this in a chip shop. Not even in Chip Shop. This was taken in my own apartment, on my plate, a picture of fish, and chips, that I cooked in my kitchen.
Trust me when I say this. It is worth the effort. It is worth the lingering scent of frying. It is worth the small grease burns I received. The only way it would have been better is if I had let it drain properly, possibly if I had floured before dredging. But basically.... this was fantastic. Delicious. Frying potatoes is worth the time. Frying the fish is absolutely fantastic. The recipe I used wasn't really a recipe. I used 2 cups of flour, salt, pepper, a beer, and buttermilk. Basically, I poured in the beer, the batter looked like a dough, so I added buttermilk until it looked like thin pancake batter. Then, I dunked the tilapia filets, and dropped then in some 375-degree vegetable oil until they were golden brown. About 5 minutes. Tilapia cooks quickly. It's delicious.
The potatoes I sliced about a quarter-inch thick, and then cut them into fries. I fried them for 10 minutes, salted them, and left them to drain on a sheet of paper bag in the oven in a 225 degree oven afterwords.
The whole thing was dleicious with some HP Brown sauce and another Toasted Lager or two. The grease hangover will come. But for now... I am totally happy that I undertook this as my hundredth post.
Tonight, it will be fried chicken. NOT deep-fried. Just my traditional way. Maybe for post 101, I'll photograph the whole process, so you can see what I do and why my fried chicken is so good that my Oklahoma-born boyfriend requests it and calls it the best he's ever had. (He could be just being nice, but he's not like that. Seriously.)
Stay tuned!!


*EDIT* Blogger lied. This is not my 100th post, but my 96th post. Harrumph. Apparently, they count "drafts" as "posts". Even the abandoned ones that are nothing more than a title. So... I lied. But not really. We'll just celebrate again on my ACTUAL 100th post. So there!!

The inevitable slowdown

This week, I have been.... uninspired. To say the least. I've cooked. I've done things. The recipes are mostly out of books. I'm just... not wowed lately.
On Monday, Fresh Direct stretched their delivery policies to the limit. Saying that they will deliver between 8 and 10 has meant in my experience, that they're coming around 8:30, 9:00 latest. This particular Monday, Fresh Direct's drivers arrived at, no joking, 9:57pm. Amazing.
So once we got the groceries, and tucked them away, I set about making dinner. Sauteed turkey cutlets marinated in lemon juice and herbs, and sauteed green beans.
The turkey was pretty straightforward - honestly, it was 2 lemons' worth of juice, some thyme and sage, salt, and pepper, marinated for 10 minutes and then sauteed in olive oil.
As I've mentioned, I have a....problem with overcooked green beans. So I blanched them in salt water, shocked them in ice water, and then sauteed them in butter with lemon zest, salt and pepper.
The turkey breasts got to rest while I made a quick sauce of chicken stock, cream, and a little bit of butter. It was pretty tasty, especially a couple days later on a bed of spinach cold at lunchtime.


On Tuesday, we had miniature meatloaves with gorgonzola gravy, and proscuitto smashed potatoes. I was not wowed by this meal. From now on, I will make my own meatloaf, as opposed to following Rachael Ray's recipes. Because this meatloaf was a lot like a hamburger and not much like meatloaf. It was very intensive and dirtied a lot of pots. I would recommend that if you make this, do not make 4 mini meatloaves, sear them, and then bake it. Make 1 big meatloaf and bake it. It won't be a 30-minute meal, but it'll be better. Then you'll only dirty 1 frying pan, 1 saucepot, and 1 stock pot for the potatoes, and 1 cookie sheet for the meatloaf.

Oy. The meatloaves tasted a bit like hamburgers, only y'know.... made of veal and sirloin.... and drowned in a gravy that didn't really have enough time to develop any flavor. This is a common complaint with Rachael's recipes. I think this one is better done by oneself. Don't follow Rachael's recipe 100% if you're making this. Use it as a guideline, and season. seriously.

Wednesday, yesterday, I made Baked Eggs with Bacon and Tomato Bread Salad.
This is another Rachael Recipe, but this one was pretty good. I tried to beef it up, so to speak, because I didn't have a microwave to defrost the package of frozen spinach. So I added some sliced mushrooms, half an onion, and a couple garlic cloves to a skillet. When they were all nicely sauteed and stuff, I added fresh spinach, and some proscuitto shredded up. That all sauteed for a bit, before adding some chicken stock and cream. However, the double bulk of frozen spinach would definitely have soaked up more of the stock/cream than my 5-ounce package of fresh spinach did. Then, that mixture was seasoned (of course) and spooned into 2 small oval casserole dishes that will someday be used for creme brulee.... 2 eggs got cracked into each dish, the whole thing got covered in cheese, and it was baked for about 12 minutes in a 400-degree oven.

The salad was amazing. A couple slices of bacon, and some proscuitto, sauteed until crispy. 4 slices of bread, toasted up and then rubbed wtih a garlic clove and buttered. Then, cubed up, tossed with halved cherry tomatoes. The bacon drained and a quarter of an onion sauteed in the bacon grease and a little olive oil. Bacon tossed with the tomatoes and bread chunks. 2 tablespoons of balsamic went into the skillet with the onion and bacon grease. Then, a lot of black pepper and 2 tablespoons of olive oil.
The dressing got thrown into the bowl with the bread, bacon, and tomatoes... NOM!!!

Now tonight, I think we're having pasta with burst cherry tomatoes, green beans, and garlic. Tomorrow, Fish & Chips. Saturday, Fried chicken. CHECKIT!!

Here we are again!

Last night, I had cooking school!
Marla came over and I taught her to make Walnut Crusted Chicken, which I cooked for her almost a year ago now. Instead of the Goat cheese mashed potatoes I made last time, I used gorgonzola. Otherwise, incredibly similar.

We were incredibly classy, drank some Bud Light, and played a little Rock Band after the flour flew and the chicken cooked. :) It was a lovely night, and now Marla can cook this dish for several of her friends who are excited about it. I'm glad to hear that people are excited about Marla's explanation of my food!

Tonight, we used up the left-over walnut chicken breast, as well as a bigol' can of crushed tomatoes that was in the cabinet from last week's Tortilla Soup situation. I made a simple tomato sauce -- 3 garlic cloves, 1 shallot, the can of crushed fire roasted tomatoes, salt, pepper, and a teaspoon of sugar. I boiled some whole wheat pasta (Barilla. It. is. deeeelicious.) and when the sauce was all bubbly and yummy, I threw the cut-up chicken in. When the pasta was done, I drained it and mixed it in with the sauce, chicken, and some cheese. I've suddenly learned how to take decent photos of my food with a crappy camera, so we'll see more photos with some actual quality. Get excited!!

Full disclosure

I like cake batter more than I like cake. I like it a hell of a lot better than I like cupcakes. I'd rather just take the cake batter, and a spoon, and go to town. That being said....
these ones were pretty good, if I do say so myself. And oh-so-simple. Yellow cake, and, I'll admit it, Chocolate Fun-Fetti icing.
Enjoy. :)

I make good

Mid week post. Here we go.
I love planning recipes. I love figuring out what we're going to eat. I love sitting with Jesse and talking about the week's food, because he has some interesting ideas about flavor, about texture, about food in general. The last time we ordered groceries, Jesse decided that we should have Chicken Tortilla Soup. Mind you, he had never consumed said dish, nor had he any idea what was in said dish. But he requested it. And I live to serve. OR at least, to come up with 7+ meals a grocery trip.

Sunday, January 11
So Sunday, it was Chicken Tortilla Soup. I used a recipe that I found on Epicurious -- which reminds me, if you're not a member of Epicurious, shame on you. Shame shame shame. Join now. NOW.
I didn't really do the recipe the way it said to. I didn't want to buy chiles. I didn't want to buy fresh tomatoes. I don't know what on earth epazote is. So.... I went old school. I bought canned fire-roasted tomatoes with diced green chiles (I suppose this would be the spot for Ro-Tel?), I used homemade chicken stock, I used parsley, and I used tortilla chips. I'm a rebel. I'm a half-asser. I'm a crazy lady. You love it.
I did some shoddy math and I'll admit that. I used a whole 28-ounce can of crushed fire-roasted tomatoes. AND a 15-ounce can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes with green chiles. You should use JUST 1 15-ounce can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes with green chiles (or Ro-Tel) and NO BIG CANS. So I just mixed together the cans of tomatoes with the appropriate amount of other ingredients (couple-two-tree big sprigs of parsley instead of whatever epazote is) and let it go. I crumbled in tortilla chips. I used the blender. I used my own stock instead of stock-in-a-box but you could totally use the boxed. I just happened to have a big orange bowl of it in the fridge.
I don't know what cooking the tomato mixture in the oil did for it. But I fully respect that it was supposed to do something. In the end, it was way more tomatoey than it was, I feel, supposed to be. But I still enjoyed it. Garnished with chopped avocado, shredded cheese, and tortilla-chip crumbs, and served with cheesey biscuits, it was ..... well.... nom.

Monday, January 12
This was risotto night. As we all know, I love making risotto. I will put anything in a risotto that I can think of. Monday, it was beef broth (boullion cubes.... don't judge), marsala, red chard, sauteed mushrooms, cannelini beans, and gorgonzola. It was amazing. I didn't take a picture. I was too busy eating. I'm sorry.

Tuesday, January 13
Again, I'm sorry, no photo. Quiche. Pie crust was made in my new food pro from a few entries back, and I love it. So easy. So fast. So wonderful. My favorite thing about pie, or quiche, or tart, is always the crust. This crust was lovely. The filling was not my best, but by far not the worst. Caramelized onions, thick-sliced rind-on bacon, swiss cheese, egg, cream, parsley. Pretty good. Even better with HP Brown Sauce the next day. No lie.

Wednesday, January 14
There's some saying that necessity is the mother of invention, and invention is the necessity of mothers. Invention is also the necessity of girls who have nearly-empty fridges and don't want to have "Mus-go" night (when my mom would have left-overs for dinner, she called it mus-go night, becuase everything must go). So... as any 20-something would, I reached for the peanut butter. For my birthday last year, my mom got me a 6-pack of PeanutButter & Co.'s gourmet peanut butters. One of them, which we never opened, was their "The Heat Is On" -- spicy peanut butter. So tonight I made spicy peanut-garlic noodles. I boiled roughly 3/4 of a pound of whole-wheat spaghetti, and minced 3 cloves of garlic. When the pasta was almost al dente, I sauteed the garlic in olive oil for a few minutes -- 2 or 3 tops. I added the garlic to about 3/4 of a cup of the spicy peanut butter, which you can make by taking plain ol' smooth peanut butter and adding hot sauce, chili powder, cumin, and red pepper flake to your taste. Then, I added a cup of the pasta water, and the drained pasta. I shredded in a few leftover baby yellow carrots, and called it dinner. :)
I know, it looks like beige pasta. It looks boring. I assure you, it's not. It's spicy and delicious and it's almost like cold sesame noodles, which I (not-so-secretly) secretly love. Try this. Seriously. And bonus points for mixing your own spicy stuff with plain peanut butter, because then it's exactly as you like it.
And we all love that!!

Technically, this is two posts in one.

So I missed 3 posts in one week, but not really. Y'see, nobody counts Mondays as posting days -- especially not the first Monday back to work after a long break. And anyways, Saturdays shouldn't count, especially not this past Saturday, because I was cleaning. I did laundry. I picked up my floordrobe and put it all in the closet or the chest'o'drawers. That's gotta count for something, even if it's not actually blogging.
So this is the third post of last week, and the first post of this week. Sunday's a good day to start things over, right?

Wednesday, January 7
Our friends Steele and Laura came over for dinner!! I got to use my food processor!! I got to make ORZO!!! And Steele brought some of his amazing HOMEBREW!!!
It was a good night.

For dinner, I cooked a variation on Chicken Kiev, and orzo with spinach pesto. Mmmm....
For the compound butter, instead of shallot, garlic, and thyme, I used minced onion that had been rehydrated (why chop an onion when you're only using a tablespoon?), I think a small garlic clove, parsley, salt and pepper. And Butter. Obviously. I whirled it all around in my food processor Tuesday night, so that the flavors could get all comfy with each other overnight in the fridge. Then, I wrapped it up in parchment paper and let it sit.
Wednesday, Steele was incredibly helpful and smashed the crap out of the chicken breasts for me. I put 2 rounds of compound butter, a few spinach leaves, and some swiss cheese inside the chicken breast, and then rolled them up and proceeded as usual. They got to sit in the fridge for about an hour while we waited for Laura and Jesse to show up... which I think only helped things, because the recipe actually tells you to let them sit for about 4 hours after you've rolled them up - but who the hell has that kind of time??
They were baked as usual. WHile they were in the oven, I boiled the orzo and made the spinach pesto - about 2/3 of a bag of spinach, 1 garlic clove, some parsley, and salt, pepper, and cheese. Olive oil. A little lemon zest. WHIIRRRRLLL in the food-pro with some olive oil drizzled in until it was all delicious.

Thursday, January 8
Beer and pizza were required for watching the BCS title game -- Steele's homebrew, my cast-iron skillet pizza, and the Sooners..... sad. :(
The pizza, however, not sad. Delicious. I made my traditional pizza dough, no beer added because as much as Steele's delicious beer makes me want to bake, I wanted to drink it, not waste it in pizza dough. So, the crust got some flavor punch instead from some garlic powder and dried parsley. After it rose, I heated up some olive oil with 3 cracked garlic cloves, some red-pepper flake, and more dried parsley.
Once I formed the dough in the skillet, I brushed the bottom crust with the oil (which I never remember is not a good idea unless you're GRILLING the pizza - always makes it oily.), then topped it with sliced mozzarella, sliced tomato, spinach, thinly sliced shallot, more of the flavored oil, more torn mozzarella, and shredded parm. I baked it, sprinkling more parm over the crust at various intervals, and then.... finally.... nom!!!
Too bad the Sooners didn't do as well as the pizza. There's always next year, and at least I got to see the Sooner Schooner run around once! :)

Friday, January 9
This dinner was seriously whelming. So whelming, in fact, that I didn't want to take photos. The side dish was delicious and I will definitely make it again, but the chicken part wasn't as awesome as I was hoping.
I took 2 chicken breasts and seasoned them with salt and pepper, poultry seasoning. I cut pockets in both, and stuffed them with swiss cheese and sauteed mushrooms. I wrapped bacon around them at put them in to bake. Then, I sauteed some shallot and garlic, and added some chopped-up Red Chard. When it was all soft and darker green, I added about a cup of total liquid, which is too much. 1/3 of a cup of chicken broth, and 2/3 of water. I let that simmer away for a while, and then added about half a can of cannelini beans, with the liquid that was attached to the beans. And of course, salt, pepper, some red pepper flake. Usual suspects for when I make greens.
It simmered away until most of the liquid was reduced. I added about a tablespoon of butter and some grated parm, and served it with the chicken breasts.
I need to cut a bigger pocket in the chicken, I need a more flavorful filling, and I need to season more. Probably a stronger cheese. Maybe use skin-on chicken breasts if I can find them, I don't know. Something to work on. Jesse just suggested butterflying the chicken breasts, then stuffing and folding them over like a book. This is a good plan. We won't abandon this one just yet.

Saturday, January 10
The good old standby. RoniCheese. I used pre-shredded "seriously sharp" Cabot cheddar, and pre-shredded Kraft "nondescript swiss" cheese. I used tri-color radiatore. You may not know this about me, but I have some negative history with tri-color pasta. When I was in college, every time I'd buy the tri-color cheese tortellini from Barilla, I'd boil them in broth and eat them as a sort-of soup. And every time, the spinach ones would be undercooked. Spinach pasta and I have been at odds for a long time.
This time, however, the spinach pasta knew its role, and knew it was destined for some delicious cheese sauce bathing, so it cooked up properly and was pretty darn delicious. DuMont Burger uses radiatore pasta in their heavenly Mac & Cheese - the one that inspired me to make my own so I didn't have to pay 14 dollars every time I wanted some.... which is all the time.
I think I prefer the old standard of Cavatappi pasta, gruyere and ementaller cheese -- although the Leerdammer we had last time I made it was spectacular, so maybe we'll go with that instead of ementaller in the future.
In any event. This one was pretty good, and I can't complain. Especially because I'm about to go eat the left-overs. NOM!!!

Until next time. :)