God, That's Good

Where does the time go?

2011-03-17T10:59:00.007-04:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day! I'm cooking a big thing of corned beef and cabbage (yum!) because I love making holiday themed food for no reason. I realized that you still haven't seen my New Orleans food pictures! And this seems to be a good a time as any, as I wait to hear from our realtor if she's made us any appointments for the day and the beef simmers away on the stove.

In case you don't already know, the food in New Orleans is a-frickin'-mazing. While we went to many fancy places, I limited my pictures to informal food, as I hate being that girl in a fancy restaurant trying to take pictures and bothering people. Here are some class New Orleans dishes that you don't want to miss.

1. Beignets at Cafe Du Monde

I'm getting the obvious out of the way. There was not a single friend, guidebook or website that did not tell me to go to Cafe Du Monde. Despite being "touristy," it delivers like nobody's business. Here's an order of beignets (fried dough with mountains of powdered sugar) and an iced cafe au lait.

Imagine amazing, warm doughnuts. Now put yourself outside where street musicians are playing, it's a warm sunny day and you're laughing at your husband futilely trying not to get covered in powdered sugar. These are a classic and not to be missed.

Zack thought we could split an order (um, NO). He's funny like that.

2. Muffletas at Central Grocery

These too are a New Orleans staple. They're in all the books. I never thought of Italians being a large presence in New Orleans, but they are for sure (if you ever have extra time and a rental car, for god's sake, go to Mosca's and get Oysters Mosca. You'll thank me later). But back to the sandwiches.

They're stuffed with Italian deli meats and cheeses and olive salad. I'm not normally an olive fan, but I'll give anything a try.

It was good - juicy and tangy. The olives aren't overpowering, they play nicely with others. It's a good time.

3. Fried Chicken Livers with Pepper Jelly at Elizabeth's

I made Zack walk all over New Orleans to get to this place. We didn't really know where we were going, we were hungry, tired, our outdoor buzz was wearing off and then finally, we turned a corner and there it was. This was the first thing we ordered and I am now obsessed with it.

These are chicken livers that have been battered and fried like fried chicken! Creamy and sharp, they just melt in your mouth, surrounded by delicious batter with a sweet/spicy kick of jelly. Amazing.

4. Boiled Crawfish and Oysters - anywhere

I am a huge fan of oysters. People are scared to eat Gulf oysters and other seafood after the oil spill, but don't be! The Gulf is clean and the economy needs you. That's right. You should eat oysters to support the local economy.

We'd never had crawfish before, but I was determined to find some and "suck de head and de tail."

These were boiled in a mixture of Zatarain's and Old Bay (from Maryland - Zack was so proud). I love "interactive" food, so I went nuts for these. Delicious.

5. Po' Boys at Domilise's

Zack saw this place on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations and decided we had to go there. I'm thrilled whenever Zack shows an interest in food, so off we went. These sandwiches are a New Orleans tradition, their twist on a submarine sandwich.

We had one filled with fried oysters -

- and one "sausage" where they took breakfast sausage links and threw them in the deep fryer. It seemed unbelievable but it tasted great.

I also got a "red creme" soda which I've never seen before. Is this a Southern thing?

All in all, it was an amazing trip. We went to so many great places (and gained so much weight). I'd go back in a second. Until next time!

My new favorite city

2011-03-01T21:18:00.008-05:00

Welcome to New Orleans! Zack and I just got back from our trip and it was amazing. The Crescent City is my new favorite place - the food, the people, everything was just great.

We lucked out on our trip. It was the first weekend of Mardi Gras! That means parades galore. We saw a few parades with really impressive floats, but my favorite thing was the Krewe of Barkus - or the dog parade.

I know, I know. You're shocked. My 17 year old self is breaking the time/space continuum to slap me in the face. But this years Mardi Gras theme was the Best of Broadway! Dogs dressed up as Broadway shows! Even I have my limits. I took about 200 pictures, but here are my favorites. See if you can identify each show! Put it in the comments.

Some of these are really obvious - there were a lot of Phantom dogs and Cats dogs (weird), but I love more obscure ones - some of my favorite shows are in there.

Like every good New Orleans parade, there were amazing bands -

- and beads everywhere. Next post will be about the food, I promise!

Eating for one

2011-02-20T18:29:00.003-05:00

Zack was out of town all last week, so I spent most meals doing something I never do - cooking just for myself. I usually overcook and make a bunch of leftovers so that Zack can take them for lunches, but it didn't make sense for just me. I had to invite a friend over just to help me get rid of all the spaghetti and meatballs I made last weekend. So the rest of the week, I ended up making myself this:

And it was so amazing, I made it over and over again. I hope it doesn't look complicated - it's really very simple.

Sausage, grits and vegetables for one

First, make one serving of instant grits. I boiled one cup of low fat milk, added 1/4 cup grits and a pinch of salt, covered the pot, lowered the heat and simmered for five minutes. At the end, I stirred in some grated cheddar cheese (not too much - just enough to make it a little tangy).

While that was happening, I broke up a sweet sausage and sauteed it in a little olive oil. Sometimes I threw in a chopped shallot as well. When it browned, I threw in some halved cherry tomatoes and then a handful of spinach. Add a little salt, maybe some chopped garlic and you're done.

Put the grits in a bowl, pour the sausage and veggies on top and you've got a meal! It took me eleven minutes flat every time. If you had other vegetables or meats in your fridge you can vary your options, but I didn't, which was fine with me. It's a great full meal - a little bit of meat, a little bit of grain and as many vegetables as you can stand to eat. It's warm and satisfying.

I could eat this every day. And I pretty much did all last week.

Okay, go.

2011-02-14T17:21:00.004-05:00

For whatever reason, I am just not getting onto the computer as much lately. Well, not whatever reason - because all I do is work away from my desk all the time and when I get home there are 23 new emails that I have to answer right away and it's a little bit stressful. So sometimes when things are stressful, you need to eat cheese.

I made this for a party the other day. It's a big hit down in Texas (or so I've read), but this is the second time I've tried to serve it in New York and no one seems to like it except for me (and Meredith). I mean, some people ate it. But it wasn't a huge sell for some reason. I think it's because it looks kind of icky, but believe me, eat it with some Ritz crackers and you'll be happy as a Texan clam (are there clams in Texas? I'm not sure).

First, get some pimentos.

Yay Goya! I love Goya products. Drain and chop your pimentos. Grate a pound of cheddar cheese (seriously) and add it to a bowl (or in this case, the tupperware you're taking it with) along with 1/2 cup of mayonnaise, two chopped garlic cloves and 1/2 - 1 tsp of cayenne pepper (depending on how much heat you can take). Do not try to make this low fat. That's just ridiculous.

Chill for a few hours and serve with Ritz.

See, it doesn't look pretty. But I love how it tastes. It's cold spicy cheese dip. I think it's great. Make it for a party if you're not with snobby New York people.

A rocky start to a new year

2011-01-30T15:31:00.005-05:00

Good lord, it's been a while. I apologize for the lack of posting. If I could go back and start 2011 over again, believe me, I would. And what's great when your new year sucks? Cookies. Lots and lots of cookies.

I saw this recipe awhile back on many different websites (homesick texan and smitten kitchen to name a few). Since I had several bags of coconut and 2 pounds of pecans leftover from holiday baking, I bookmarked it for January use. So, here we go~

Hello Dolly Bars, adapted from everywhere

1 1/2 cups crushed cinnamon graham crackers (about 8 graham crackers)
2 cups of chocolate chips
1 1/2 cups of shredded coconut
1 1/2 cups of chopped pecans
1 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup of butter

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (or you know, whatever I can get my stupid oven to get to these days. Can I move yet?).
Melt your butter and pour it directly into an 8x8 cake pan. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs into pan, and mix well with melted butter to form a crust. Layer on chocolate chips -

- then coconut -

- then pecans.

Pour the can of condensed milk over everything.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the top turns brown.

Let cool in pan for at least half an hour, cut into bars and serve.

Aren't the layers pretty? These were super easy. I thought I wasn't wild about them at first, but then I ate the whole pan over a few days time. They have a nice down home taste that was simple enough to make and was really satisfying. I recommend cutting them into small squares - otherwise they can be overwhelming.

More to come soon, I promise!

One last post of 2010

2010-12-31T22:40:00.000-05:00

As 2010 draws to a close, I can't help but notice that it's been a pretty good year. Sure, no one cured cancer, or global warming but overall, I feel good about life in general. I also cooked some awesome things this year, one of which was a goat cheese cheesecake for my friend Becky who is deathly allergic to cow's milk.

I think my friends could tell you that I am very accommodating to people's food allergies. It makes me feel like I'm in my own version of Iron Chef: Allergy edition (people could also tell you that I am not so accommodating to picky eaters. If you're not eating something for no reason, I have no patience for that and you can't come to my house for dinner). So when Meredith made this cheesecake a few months back, I thought immediately, oooh, I can make this for Becky.

My one thought about this recipe is that it had the consistency of a souffle rather than a cheesecake. But Meredith told me it's because I forgot to chill it for four hours first. Whoops.

Goat Cheese Cheesecake - adapted from here

Butter and granulated sugar for the cake pan (or oil if butter makes you break out in hives)
Graham Cracker Crumbs and a light tasting oil - for a crust
11 ounces fresh goat cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Grated zest of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
6 large eggs, separated
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 pint blackberries (about 1 cup) (I skipped these)
1 pint raspberries (about 2 cups)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Press some graham cracker crumbs into the bottom of a 9 inch springform pan. Drizzle olive oil on top and bake for about 10 minutes. Let cool.

Put the goat cheese, sugar, vanilla, lemon zest, and lemon juice in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until smooth.

Mmmmm, cheese.

Stir in the egg yolks two at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the flour until incorporated. If you're at your mom's house and don't have access to a stand mixer, use a hand mixer instead. It'll be fine.

Put the egg whites in another mixer bowl, fit the mixer with the whip attachment, and whip on medium speed until soft peaks form.

Using a spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the goat cheese mixture. I used to be totally afraid of folding egg whites. Now I have confidence and these egg whites folded appropriately. Woo!

Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool to room temperature.

To serve, run a knife around the inside edge of the pan to loosen the cake, invert a platter on top of the pan, and then invert the plate and pan together. Lift off the pan (or, you know, just take the springy part off the springform pan).

Top with the berries and serve. Chill to get the consistency all creamy like a cheesecake. If you don't, it's still good.

It's a great option for those who can't have milk! Happy super belated birthday, Becky and have a happy new year everybody! See you in 2011.

People really like these

2010-12-21T09:56:00.004-05:00

Last night, I stumbled across a great idea. Want to see a picture of it?

That, my friends, is an individually sized candied bacon cheesecake with a gingersnap crust and chocolate drizzled on top. Madness, you say? Maybe.

My friends Anna and Alan come over for a Post-Thanksgiving/Pre-Christmas dinner every year where I get to make all the holiday dishes that I don't make for my family. It's really awesome. I was going over my menu ideas with Alan this weekend and I mentioned that I'd make some candied bacon last week but that it was too sticky to sell or give out. "Why don't you put it in a cheesecake?" Alan suggested. Brilliant. So I did.

First, I made a crust out of Trader Joe's Triple Ginger Snaps, by putting them in a ziploc bag and whacking them with a hammer. Then I melted butter and added it to the crumbs. I pushed it into four individual springform pans (Thanks, Chris!!!!!) and baked them for about ten minutes. Then I let them cool.

Then I mixed a package of cream cheese, an egg, 1/4 cup sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla in my stand mixer. I chopped up my candied bacon (which had been drizzled with chocolate) and threw it in. I baked it until it was firm and chilled it. Then I put melted some chocolate and used a spoon to make pretty lines of chocolate.

The responses I got to this dish (which I admit, I was a little nervous about) were fantastic. Everybody loved it! I only wish I'd taken more pictures. If I'd known it would turn out so well, I would have taken more. Next time!

Sweet baby Jesus, this cake is good...

2010-12-12T20:19:00.003-05:00

...or so said the first person who tasted it. At least, that's what the good people at Vesta Vino (my favorite restaurant in Astoria) told me and why should I not believe them?

I am totally obsessed with this cake. Sometimes I order it when I'm already full and then I feel sick, but it's so good I don't care. It's also so easy to make. This would be a great and appropriate Christmas cake - but Jews like it too! I can say that with confidence. It went over very well at my house this year.

This cake is unbelievably sticky and moist. If you think you don't like dates, you'll still like this cake.

Baby Jesus Cake
6 servings

1 cup dried dates, rehydrated in 1 cup water
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons softened butter
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1½ cup flour

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9" square baking dish.

Rehydrate the dates in hot water. Add baking soda and puree in food processor.

In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and mix well. Add the vanilla and baking powder. Mix in the date puree, then flour. Pour into baking dish. Bake for 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted is free of cake.

Pour hot sauce (recipe below) over cake and serve with vanilla gelato and unsweetened whipped cream.

Baby Jesus Sauce
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter

Melt together until emulsified.

This is not emulsified yet. But it was a hectic picture taking time.

I mean, seriously, how easy was that? Now it's just amazing sticky goodness.

Everybody loves soup

2010-12-06T10:23:00.004-05:00

Today, there are little snow flurries outside my window. It makes me feel like eating warm soup and sitting on the couch with a snuggie. That's not quite in the cards for me, but at least I can share this soup recipe with you. My family has made it for the past few years as a first course on Thanksgiving. My dad likes it, even though it has cream, cheese and butter in it (small amounts of each, don't worry).

Butternut Squash Soup adapted from Pie in the Sky

I double this recipe for Thanksgiving and other large occasions.

1 2-lb. butternut squash
1 t. olive oil
1 t. sea salt
fresh-cracked black pepper, to taste

1 large shallot, coarsely diced
2 T. plus 1 t. salted butter
1 t. chopped fresh sage leaves, plus 5-10 fresh sage leaves for garnish
1½+ cups chicken stock (or vegetable stock, if you're cooking for my parents. Safeway Select Organics is a good one and so is Kitchen Basics. Under pain of death, do not use Trader Joe's brand. I love Trader Joe's, but their vegetable stock tastes like feet)
1/2+ c. heavy cream
1/4 cup fresh-grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 t. freshly grated nutmeg
Salt and pepper, to taste

Cut squash in half and scoop out seeds. light oil cut sides of squash; sprinkle with salt and place cut-side-down on baking sheet. Bake at 370 degrees for 40-50 minutes, or until squash is very tender when pierced with a fork. Cool slightly; scoop out pulp, discarding the skin.

Mmmmm, orange squashy goodness. I could eat it now, but then there wouldn't be any soup.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a small sauté pan over medium heat. When butter begins to froth, add shallots; cook three minutes; add chopped sage. sauté for 2 more minutes, or until onions are tender and translucent.

There are few things in the world better than shallots and butter.

Melt additional butter in pan; add 1 cup stock and bring just to simmer. Remove onion mixture from heat and stir into squash pulp; puree in food processor in batches, adding more broth as necessary.

Pour pureed mixture into medium saucepan. Over low heat, stir in heavy cream, nutmeg, parmesan, and salt and pepper to taste (be sure to salt after adding cheese, which is salty itself!). Remove from heat.

I rarely do this next step because I get hungry/lazy. But you feel free! Melt remaining teaspoon salted butter in small sauté pan over medium heat; lay whole sage leaves in butter and fry until frizzled and slightly brown. transfer to paper towel to drain; garnish soup with crispy sage leaves. (Hint: frizzle ribbons of prosciutto with the sage for a special garnish!)

I could eat a lot of this soup. I like to keep it in a jar in my fridge and eat it when I'm too lazy to cook.

I refuse to acknowledge Christmas yet

2010-11-30T16:21:00.006-05:00

I am still firmly in the fall. It is still November and therefore, not time for Christmas yet. That being said, these pumpkin cinnamon rolls would be an amazing breakfast on Christmas morning. They were a great Thanksgiving morning treat in my house this year.

You know you want to eat that.

I saw this recipe online a while ago and immediately resolved to make it for my sister, who loves pumpkin things. They were a big hit with children and adults alike. My sister ate several before we saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (our Thanksgiving tradition is to go to the movies. It stems from before the days when I could cook). She also stole my camera and took some pictures of herself making funny faces. Here's one now!

Be warned, these take a while to make. But it's not difficult. You can do it!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls - adapted from the Kitchen

For the dough:
1/4 cup water
1 scant tablespoon yeast (1 package)
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling:
1/2 cup butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

For the glaze:
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar - I used way less than this. Maybe half a cup. But I'm not sure.
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Sprinkle the yeast over the water and let it sit a few minutes until the yeast is dissolved. My mom was super impressed that I was using yeast to make bread. Your mom will be impressed as well.

Meanwhile, warm the milk and butter in a small saucepan on the stove top until the butter is melted. Combine this with the sugar in a large heat-proof mixing bowl and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Let the milk mixture cool until it is just warm to the touch - NOT HOT. Then stir in the yeast and the pumpkin. Add the salt and five cups of the flour all at once, stirring until all the flour has been absorbed. Squish it between your hands if you’re having trouble incorporating the last of the flour. The dough will be sticky, but should come together in a shaggy ball. If it's still more the consistency of cookie batter, work in an additional 1/2 cup of flower. Mine was fine, so I just went on.

Cover the dough and let it rise for 1-3 hours. It has to be in a warm place, or it won't rise. I put mine in the warming drawer of the oven. You can also turn on the oven to 150 degrees for a few minutes and then turn it off and put them in there. During this time, it should double in bulk. Here's mine!

At this point, you can punch the dough down and refrigerate it overnight or continue shaping the rolls. I put mine in the fridge so that I could wake up early and everyone could have freshly baked rolls. I'm nice that way.

Okay, now it's the next morning. I am so excited for Thanksgiving that I wake up at 6:40am without an alarm and get up right away. My family thinks I am crazy, but they appreciate how excited I am and go with it (once they wake up, that is). Here's the dough now!

To shape the rolls (either immediately or with the refrigerated dough), sprinkle your work surface with a little flour and dump the dough on top. Pat it down into a rough rectangle and then use a floured rolling pin to roll it into a rectangular shape about a half an inch thick, longer than it is wide. If the dough gets sticky, sprinkle a little more flour on the dough’s surface and on your hands.

Melt the butter in the microwave and stir in the brown sugar and the spices. I wouldn't melt it completely - just soften it so that it doesn't squirt everywhere when you roll it up. Spread this over the rectangle of dough, leaving an inch of bare dough at the top.

Starting at the edge closest to you, roll the dough into a cylinder and pinch it closed at the top.

Rub a tablespoon of soft butter into the bottom of two 9x13 baking dishes, two 9-inch cake pans, or a combination (I used many many pans). Using a bench cutter or a sharp knife, cut the cylinder into individual rolls 1 - 1 1/2 inches thick. Place them into your baking dishes so they have a little wiggle room on all sides to rise.

Cover them with a clean kitchen towel and let them rise until they fill the pan and look puffy, 30 minutes for already-warm dough and 1 hour for dough that’s been refrigerated. It's amazing to actually have clean kitchen towels. And an oven that works. And pretty lighting in the kitchen. Sometimes I think my brother had the right idea, living with my parents. But my house is okay too! I have DVR. That's something.

About 20 minutes before baking, begin heating the oven to 375°. When the rolls are ready, bake them for 20-25 minutes, until the tops are golden and starting to look toasted around the edges. Rotate the pans halfway through cooking.

While they are baking, prepare the glaze. Combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, butter, and vanilla in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat until smooth. Or, you know, just use a spoon and some upper arm muscles and do it by hand. That's what I did.

Let the baked rolls cool for about two minutes and then brush the glaze on top. Eat them immediately.

Don't they look professional? You should be really impressed now.

Leftovers will keep for several days and are best reheated for a minute in the microwave. These are incredibly good and you should make them for your family. Or for yourself. The pumpkin flavor is really subtle but adds some great dimension to a basic breakfast. The only problem is now my sister says I have to make them every Thanksgiving. Argh!

Sometimes life is just against you

2010-11-22T07:30:00.003-05:00

This weekend I'd planned to do two things: volunteer for three days at the Arts for All Book Fair and attend Abby and Adam's Alternate Thanksgiving Party (where everyone brings a dish that their family wouldn't eat). Unfortunately, a nasty stomach virus wiped out all my plans entirely. Fail.

Sadly for me (but happily for Zack), I'd already made the dish I'd planned to bring to the party. He wasn't going to be able to attend because of work, so the silver lining of all this is that he got to eat the food I made. He seemed happy about that part at least (but sadder about me moaning in pain/falling asleep for 45 minute bouts all day).

Sweet Potato Sourdough Stuffing

4-5 pounds of sweet potatoes (I still have like 10 pounds left. My CSA went sweet potato crazy)
1 onion
3 cloves of garlic
half a bunch of sage
half a pound of bacon
olive oil
salt
pepper
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk or cream
2 cups chicken stock (or more if you want your stuffing super moist)

Peel and cube the sweet potatoes. Put on a baking sheet (covered with foil to make the clean up easier), cover with olive oil, and sprinkle on some salt and pepper to taste. Roast in the oven at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until tender (my oven is all wonky, so monitor these closely - my times may not be right).

Fry up some bacon. If you like it crispy, make it crispy. If you like it less crispy, that's up to you. Drain it on some paper towels until you're ready for it.

Add some olive oil to the bacon drippings in the pan. Mmmm, bacon fat. Chop the onion, garlic and sage to the pan and saute until soft (about 5 minutes). Add a pinch of salt and pepper if you feel so inclined.

Tear up a loaf of sourdough bread. I love the tangy contrast that the sourdough gives to the sweet potatoes. You could take the crust off if you want, but I like it.

Combine everything in a baking dish. Beat the eggs and milk in a separate bowl and pour over the stuffing. Pour the chicken broth over as well. Bake for 25 minutes at 400 degrees or until the top is crispy but the middle is still kind of gooey. You don't want your stuffing to dry out.

I love any savory sweet potato dish. I often find sweet potatoes too sugary, but the onion and bacon really bring out some darker notes that are awesome. This is a great nontraditional stuffing (or dressing, if you want to get technical about it) that would be welcome on my Thanksgiving table anytime (but not my parents. They're anti-bacon).

In need of Thanksgiving recipes?

2010-11-19T18:04:00.003-05:00

Here are a few of my favorites that I pulled from my past entries. I hope they help you plan your dinner!

Pre-meal nibbles:

Really good roasted red pepper dip - yummy and health concious.

Candied Pecans - Addictive. You could add them to a salad as well! Or on top of sweet potatoes. Or just eat them straight like my family does.

Pecan Goat Cheese Balls - a fancy twist on a classic nosh.

Parmesan Prociutto Stuffed Mushrooms - Everybody loves these. Except vegetarians.

Soup:

Acorn Squash Soup - I love starting the meal off with soup. It's so warm and yummy.

Turkey:

My only turkey recipe on this blog - ridiculously indulgent and amazing. It calls for truffle butter. Enough said.

Sides:

Chestnut Leek and Apple Dressing - a fun, slightly different dressing (or stuffing if you want to put it in the bird - but don't do that).

Zucchini Gratin - you can get local zucchini in parts of the world that aren't the Northeast right now. And nothing says Thanksgiving like drenching green vegetables in cheese and cream.

Quinoa with Sun Dried Tomatoes - Great for the gluten free and super healthy (like my dad).

Braised Cabbage - Did you know that some parts of the country serve sauerkraut at Thanksgiving? This is a little more universally pleasing.

Sauteed Swiss Chard - Quick, simple, healthy. And it tastes good!

Simple Turkey Giblet Stock - great for making gravy!

Quick Glazed Root Vegetables - very appropriate for fall.

Pie:

Alli's Peanut Butter Pie - If you like peanut butter dessert, this is a great way to go.

Mixed Berry Pie - A classic.

Sweet Potato Pie - Incredibly good, and a nice change if you're sick of pumpkin.

I'll post some more this week as well, I hope! Get ready to eat!

It's almost time for my sister's favorite holiday

2010-11-15T16:33:00.007-05:00

That's right, folks. It's almost Thanksgiving and like every other food blogger in the nation, I am rolling out some recipes that you can make on the big day. Here's a great new side dish that is vegetarian friendly (unless the vegetarians are cheese/taste averse - like my family).

Creamed Haricot Vert and Corn Casserole - from Food and Wine magazine

Note: I halved this recipe and it was pretty big. So if you don't have a lot of folks coming over, maybe scale back.

1 1/2 pounds haricots verts, cut into 1 1/2-inch lengths
1 stick plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 pounds oyster mushrooms, thickly sliced - also, I may have used different mushrooms. It was still good.
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1 large sweet onion, very finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
Two 10-ounce packages frozen corn, thawed (4 cups)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 quart whole milk - I used skim milk. That's all I have.
6 ounces Gruyère cheese, shredded (1 1/2 cups)
Freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 cup panko (Japanese bread crumbs) - I used regular fresh bread crumbs
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Preheat the oven to 350°. In a pot of boiling salted water, blanch the haricots verts until crisp-tender, about 2 minutes. Drain and cool under running water. Pat dry.

In a very large, deep skillet, melt 4 tablespoons of the butter. Add the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and cook over moderately high heat, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, 6 to 7 minutes. Add the onion and garlic and cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the corn and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture is dry and the corn is just beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Add the haricots verts and keep warm.

Mmmm, vegetables.

In a large saucepan, melt the remaining 6 tablespoons of butter. Add the flour and whisk over moderate heat until fragrant and lightly browned, about 4 minutes.

Whisk in the milk until smooth and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to moderately low and simmer, whisking constantly, until very thick, about 5 minutes. Remove from the heat. Stir in the Gruyère and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

Pour the sauce over the vegetables and stir well. Pour the mixture into a 4-quart baking dish (I cheated and left everything in my dutch oven. I didn't want to wash another dish). In a small bowl, combine the panko with the Parmigiano (or just sprinkle some bread crumbs and then cheese. Again with the dishes!) and sprinkle over the vegetables.

Set the baking dish on a rimmed baking sheet and bake in the center of the oven for 30 minutes, until bubbling. Turn on the broiler and broil the casserole for 3 to 4 minutes, until the top is golden and crisp. Let the casserole rest for 10 minutes before serving.

I ate it all on its own. It was a nice full dish, creamy and savory. I would gladly eat a bowlful.

And I did. Zack liked it a lot as well. I got a text in the middle of the day saying "The mushroom/corn/green beans thing is delicious." Compliments without prompting = good food.

I wish I had some of these right now

2010-11-11T10:38:00.004-05:00

I love making aggressively Jewish food. I didn't really grow up eating it all that much. Our family staples pretty much included pesto pasta, corn tortillas with refried beans and cheese, Chinese food and salad. Now that I'm in control of my own food production, I like to make things that I can pretend my grandmother used to make.

I made these for the first time last Christmas to give away as gifts. I liked them a lot. I'm a sucker for a good cream cheese dough.

Rugelach!

8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2-pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling
Filling of your choice - I like jam or melted chocolate
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon milk, for egg wash

Add the cheese and butter to the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until light. Add 1/4 cup granulated sugar, the salt, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour and mix until just combined.

If you don't have a stand mixer, you can still beat this together by hand. But it won't be as easy. And you won't have an awesome stand mixer.

Dump the dough out onto a well-floured board and roll it into a ball. Cut the ball in quarters, wrap each piece in plastic, and refrigerate for 1 hour.

After it's been chilled, roll it out on a flat surface with some flour. Spread the filling of your choice over it. This is the jam that my sister made in VT.

Cut the whole circle into 12 triangles, like pie wedges.

Starting with the wide edge, roll up each wedge. Arrange the cookies, points tucked under, on a baking sheet(s) lined with parchment paper (or a Sil Pat - don't use tin foil. They will stick like nobody's business). Chill for 30 minutes.

Brush each cookies with egg wash and sprinkle with a little sugar (you can mix in cinnamon as well here). Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Yum. I love how flaky the dough is. The cookies (like all cookies) are amazing when they are warm and fresh out of the oven. Maybe I will make you some for the holiday season.

Back to work, guys!

2010-11-01T08:00:00.002-04:00

No more dressing up in whimsical costumes and eating a lot of candy (or drinking a lot of booze) - it's Monday morning and you've got to get back to work. I hope you all had a fun and safe Halloween weekend. I spent mine sitting around in my pajamas, cooking and watching Sports Night on DVD. This is what happens when I work at four different places all week long. It makes me tired.

One of the best things about fall vegetables is that they are instant comfort food. Mostly they revolve around things like potatoes and squash and they delight in being warm carb-y goodness. This recipe was given to me by my friend Alex many years ago, back in the days from when she knew how to cook and I didn't at all. She made this for me once and I loved it so much, I demanded the recipe and found it again recently, scribbled on the back of an old IRS form in the midst of my bookcase that collapsed (luckily, not on me).

Alex's Butternut Squash Pasta

1 small butternut squash, peeled and cut into a large dice (or one package from Trader Joe's)
8 shallots, peeled and halved length wise (I sliced mine)
1 or 2 Tbs brown sugar
2 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 Tbs fresh sage, torn
Parmesan cheese

1 package pasta of your choice

This is super simple, even I could do it before I could cook.

Combine all the ingredients except cheese and pasta in a baking dish (the kind with raised sides - not a sheet).

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes at 475 degrees. While this happens, cook your pasta. Take the squash out of the oven and combine with your cooked pasta.

Top with cheese and serve.

This is so good. If you're into the whole salty-sweet thing, this is the dish for you. It's warm and comforting and super flavorful. Thanks to Alex for teaching me how to make it! It is really delicious.

Texas Food

2010-10-29T19:47:00.006-04:00

Meredith and I had the chance for about three meals in Texas, so she showed me some iconic Texas cuisine: Mexican food, BBQ and "nuevo Texan food." First up: Mexican at Joe T's.

I may have disparaged it in the past, but I am here to eat my words. Tex-Mex is AMAZING. Who knew that hard taco shells could be delicious? I sure didn't.

Yes, that is rice and beans with two enchiladas and two tacos. And a margarita. I was really hungry. Meredith had chicken fajitas.

I'm sure they were good too.

Many hours later, we tried real Texas BBQ at Cousins.

I had brisket - very different from how I make it (haha).

Check out the pink ring around the edge. That means it's good. Meredith had ribs.

I've never been a ribs person, but I may be reforming. I love eating with my hands.

We had black eyed peas, fried okra and green beans on the side (not to mention the BBQ sauce). I don't really like BBQ sauce (at least not from a bottle), but this was good. Nice and tangy without too much smoky flavor.

Also, they have giant goblets of beer.

We then moved on to brunch at Tillmans.

I had skirt steak with a poached egg over smoky gouda grits.

It was absolute heaven. It's like all my favorite things together - runny eggs, juicy steak and cheese. Amazing. Who could ask for anything more?

All in all - Texas food is just super great. Especially when you have a wonderful guide like Meredith. Thanks for the great trip!

Lena and Meredith go to Texas!

2010-10-27T21:18:00.003-04:00

9 years ago, Meredith visited me in California. I promised I would visit her the following summer, but one thing led to another and I never did. So, when she moved to Texas (temporarily), I flew down to finally see what the Lone Star state was all about.

First of all, they have cowboy hats.

And real working, albeit touristy looking stockyards.

There were real cowboys there! Meredith assured me that they were real and non-ironic.

I bet you didn't know you could get wine tastings in the stockyards. But you can at the Cowtown Winery.

We did the robust red flight. It was nice! Authentic Texas wine....with grapes grown in California. Oh well, what can you do?

On to the food very very soon, I promise.

Oh and Meredith took all these photos! She's the best.

Must cook greens

2010-10-21T22:28:00.004-04:00

My CSA (that's community supported agriculture, or a farm share if you don't know) has been giving me an onslaught of collard greens lately. Being a nice Jewish girl from California, I had no idea what to do with this ultimate Southern green at all. Once I tried slicing them into slivers and sauteing them quickly with bacon (Gourmet said it was okay to do it that way), but Zack wrinkled up his nose and said "That's not how you're supposed to cook these" (He's from South of the Mason-Dixon line). So I threw in the towel and ordered a ham hock. What's a ham hock?

That's a ham hock (post boiling for over an hour). I am honestly still not 100% sure what part of the pig it once came from. But they sure made for some nice collard greens.

Lena's Ridiculous Not Southern Collard Greens

3 large bunches of greens (I used two bunches of collard greens and one bunch of turnip greens), tough stems cut away
lots of water
white vinegar (about 1 Tbs)
1 giant ham hock
a little salt

1. Wash your greens - mine came from a farm and so were kinda dirty.

2. Put the ham hock in a giant pot of water - I used my Jewish grandmother's dutch oven. I'm sure she's rolling in her grave as I type. Add the vinegar and greens and bring to a boil.

3. Bring the heat down and simmer for at least an hour. Add a little salt if you think you need it. I added it because I can't resist tinkering.

4. That's it! Shred some of the meat from the ham hock and add it to the greens if you can't bear to think you paid a bunch of money for a giant piece of ham and now you're just throwing it away. Keep plenty of the water you cooked the greens in as well. It's super good. There will be way too much of it to save it all, but that's okay. This is how much I had leftover (after storing like 3 cups of it with the greens).

Full disclosure: I had no idea what to do with the ham hock once the greens were done boiling. I called my friend Danny and promptly blurted out "This is a weird question, but I'm asking you because you're from the South, even though you're Jewish," to which he replied "ham hock?" That is totally why we're friends. Amazing. He told me I should throw it away, which absolved me from keeping the weird boiled pig bone in my refrigerator for a week for no reason.

The greens are good, I think! I have no reference point for them at all, but I ate them happily. Or to be more precise, tasted them happily and stored them in my fridge until I make a main dish to go with them. And possibly some cornbread.

People want homemade dessert late at night too

2010-10-19T09:00:00.000-04:00

My friend Katie and I were having a great night drinking wine and watching Julie and Julia (if you haven't seen it, I'm pretty sure this movie is about me). Earlier in the evening I thought I'd make us a pie, but I got lazy. As the night went on, I really wanted pie, but I didn't want to wait a long time for it to cook or to chill the dough or all that rigamarole that comes with pie making. What's a girl to do? Make tiny pies of course.

Katie and I peeled and diced an apple and divided it into two small ovenproof dishes. We squeezed some lemon juice on the apple pieces and sprinkled some cinnamon on top. Then I melted a few tablespoons of butter in the microwave and mixed in a few tablespoons of flour, sugar, and a pinch of salt. Then I glopped the flour/butter/sugar/salt mixture over the apples.

It's not pretty but it's gonna taste good. I turned the oven on and it would only go to 550 degrees (that happens sometimes. Gah). We threw the tiny pies in the oven and baked them for about ten minutes.

Anytime you can make a homemade dessert that you can eat warm right out of the oven is a good time. These were super quick easy and went surprisingly well with the cheap dessert wine we were drinking. Impromptu baking is the best.

I stained my shirt

2010-10-16T20:58:00.006-04:00

Let's say it's a Saturday night. You've worked all week at jobs that you love but that are totally exhausting. Your husband is at work, leaving you all alone to empty the dishwasher and clear out your DVR. As you're trying to throw a Tupperware lid onto a top shelf, it falls to the ground. You lean over to pick it up and as you're standing, you crack your head on the very sharp edge of the microwave that never quite fit into the nook you tried to stuff it into. You end up on your knees on the floor and when you stand up, your head hurts. So you put your hand to your head and when you reach back and look at it, it's covered in blood.

After applying pressure to your head with a dishtowel that you're never going to use again, you figure that the only thing to do is make a bittersweet chocolate and pear cake.

True story.

Don't worry, I'm totally fine, except that now I have both dried blood and cake batter in my hair. Sometimes I think that my grandmother's mental illness really has manifested itself in my brain (my hair?).

This is one of those recipes that I glanced at online and decided it would be easy to make since I have a thousand pears and I don't like them very much. When I started making it, I realized it was a super crazy recipe. But I soldiered on.

Bittersweet Chocolate and Pear Cake - via (where else?) Smitten Kitchen

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, at room-temperature
4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 pears, peeled, in a small dice
3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks (I used Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips. They are my favorite things ever. If you've ever had a dessert I made, I probably used them)

Preheat the oven to 350°F (or just turn it on and pray if your oven is demented, like mine is). Butter a 9-inch springform pan and dust with flour.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside (or ya know, don't. I didn't).

Using a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the eggs on high speed until pale and very thick. (In a professional Kitchen Aid, it takes at least five minutes; on a home machine, it will take nine minutes to get sufficient volume. This step is crazy cool. I love using my stand mixer).

While the eggs are whipping, brown the butter. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan (because it will foam a lot) and cook it until the butter browns and smells nutty (about 6 to 8 minutes). It helps to frequently scrape the solids off the bottom of the pan in the last couple minutes to ensure even browning. Remove from the flame but keep in a warm spot. Mine got all foamy and had little brown flecks. I think it's okay though. This isn't it - this is my butter pre-browned, but I didn't get a chance to take a brown picture. Whoops.

Add the sugar to the eggs and whip a few minutes more.

Just as the egg-sugar mixture is starting to loose volume, turn the mixture down to stir, and add the flour mixture and brown butter. Add one third of the flour mixture, then half of the butter, a third of the flour, the remaining butter, and the rest of flour. Whisk until just barely combined — no more than a minute from when the flour is first added — and then use a spatula to gently fold the batter until the ingredients are combined. It is very important not to over-whisk or fold the batter or it will lose volume. Full disclosure - I left my mixer on high by accident. We'll see how it turns out.

See the little brown flecks from the butter? Yum.

Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle the pear and chocolate chunks over the top.

I love it when you make a cake where you put stuff on top and then the batter rises and covers it. Bake until the cake is golden brown and springs back to the touch, about 40 to 50 minutes or a tester comes out clean.

This cake tastes really good. It's really light and the outside is all crisp but the inside is warm and cakey. Pears are the best when you add chocolate to them. Put some fresh whipped cream on top for an amazing end to a stupid bloody evening.

For my mom

2010-10-10T21:29:00.004-04:00

This evening, Zack and I sat down to a home cooked meal and he said "aaaah, food. You haven't cooked food all week." "That's not true!" I sniffed indignantly. "I cooked food on.......huh." Unless making Annie's mac and cheese and mixing in frozen peas count as cooking, I really haven't cooked in a week.

I made these last week for my Mom's birthday. My mom really loves marzipan (god knows why - I think it's kinda icky). Sometimes in the past, I've sent her a big box of See's Candy custom filled with marzipan. But this year, I figured I'd give it a shot. I've only had about 50/50 luck so far with candy things, but the recipe made it seem totally feasible (thank you Smitten Kitchen. You are the best).

Marzipan for Mom - adapted from Smitten Kitchen

8 ounces blanched almonds (I only had 6 oz, so I adjusted accordingly)
1 3/4 cups confectioners’ sugar (I used 1 1/4 cups)
1 tablespoon almond extract (I left this the same)
4 tablespoons corn syrup (ditto - gotta make sure it lasts as I ship it across the country)
Bittersweet chocolate - less than one bag of Ghiradelli chips will do it

Grind the almonds in a food processor for about two minutes: it will first become crumbly, and the crumbs will get successively smaller until it is more of a fine powder. Keep it going through this stage, and when it nearly forms clumps, that’s when you’ve got it right.

Mine actually formed clumps. Whatever. It'll be fine.

Add the confectioners’ sugar and almond extract, then the corn syrup, processing until well-combined. Turn the mixture out onto a work surface and knead until it makes a smooth dough. If the dough seems too sticky, knead in a little more confectioners’ sugar. If it seems too dry, add more corn syrup. At this point, the dough can be tightly wrapped in foil (I rolled it into a log) and refrigerated until needed.

I did that (whoops, no pictures) and melted some chocolate in a double boiler. Then I rolled the marzipan into balls and dipped them in the chocolate (I used two spoons - that's a good method. You don't want to touch it with your fingers and leave weird chocolate fingerprints everywhere). Let them cool in the fridge and you've got candy!

Yay! I did it. It tasted pretty good (as far as I can tell - who knows with marzipan), but I guess we'll have to wait and see if my mom likes it. Hopefully she'll let us know in the comments.

Happy Birthday Mom!

I've been waiting on these

2010-09-30T21:53:00.004-04:00

I am deeply ambivalent about these candies - on the one hand, they are delicious. On the other hand, they burned my finger and I had to sit with it soaking in an ice bath for two hours because it hurt so bad. But ultimately, I decided that you deserve to know about it. Also I have no other pictures of anything to post. I suck lately.

Chocolate Covered Almonds - from Serious Eats

1 1/2 cups whole almonds
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
4 ounces semisweet chocolate
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

These are great because they're so much more complex than just regular chocolate covered almonds. The cinnamon sugar level is truly addictive. They make a great snack.

Preheat oven to 325°F and toast almonds on a baking sheet for approximately 6 to 8 minutes.

In a medium saucepan, cook the warm almonds, sugar, water, salt and cinnamon over medium heat until the almonds begin to have a dry and sandy sugar coating. Be sure to stir the almonds constantly to prevent them from caramelizing. I'm not sure I ever got to the dry sandy coating place - but they still were fine.

Spread the sugar-coated almonds onto a baking sheet and place in the refrigerator to cool, approximately 20 minutes.

By no means should you touch one of the hot almonds with your finger to see if they're cool yet. They're not and you will probably get a super painful second degree burn on your finger like I did because I am stupid. Oh well.

While the almonds are cooling, melt the chocolate over a double boiler (or you know, a pot of simmering water with a metal bowl in it. Or the microwave. Whatever).

Transfer the cooled almonds to a large mixing bowl and add the melted chocolate. Gently stir until completely coated with chocolate, then spread onto a baking sheet. Cover the baking sheet with parchment paper for easy clean up.

Place the chocolate-covered almonds in the refrigerator to set, approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Once the chocolate coating has hardened, transfer the almonds to a large mixing bowl and add the cocoa powder (or put them in the jar you're going to keep them in, add the cocoa powder and shake it). Gently toss the nuts until well coated. Store in the refrigerator or a very cool, dry place until ready to serve.

I know they don't look like much, but these are great. I kept them in the fridge and kept eating one or two as a special treat - which is kind of dangerous in a way. Whoops. But they're gone now. Problem solved.

Really good dip

2010-09-24T14:21:00.004-04:00

So a while ago, I had some friends over for dinner and I served chopped liver as an appetizer. I've done this in the past and certain friends are never too thrilled about this. I guess not everyone likes organ meat as much as Zack does. Crazy people. But in deference to them, I decided to make another dip that is liver-free - roasted red pepper dip. Also, I had about five red peppers in the bottom of my fridge that I need to use.

1 15-ounce can of white cannelini or navy beans
1 small jar roasted red peppers, or about 1 cup, drained - or roast your own red peppers!
3 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 clove garlic, minced
Juice from half a lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

If you want to roast your own peppers, it's super easy. Just heat your over to 400 degrees, throw your peppers on a baking sheet and roast them until soft (about 45 minutes). Once they're soft, just throw them in a bowl and cover the top with a plate or a lid. After about 15 minutes, the steam will have loosened the skins and they'll be cool enough to remove the skins (just use your hands. It'll be fine). But if you don't want to do that - just buy a jar and go nuts.

Take all the ingredients and throw them in a food processor or blender. Blend until smooth and garnish with some fresh herbs like parsley or chives to make it look pretty. Serve with crackers.

I promise to update soon....

2010-09-17T20:16:00.001-04:00

....if you donate to Arts for All. I have to raise $1000 so that tiny children can see an amazing play and be enriched artistically. You know you want to help me.

Thanks :)

Computer mishigas

2010-09-12T13:26:00.005-04:00

This week we've been switching computers around, meaning that all my files have been flying around in cyberspace, from hard drive to portable drive and back. I've finally gotten some semblance of my regular set up back, so here we go - it's cookie time.

I've had this recipe bookmarked for ages. Not having a stand mixer held me back from trying it, but no more! I know have everything I could possibly need for baking amazingness.

Dorie Greenspan's World Peace Cookies, via Smitten Kitchen

- a funny side note about these cookies - I had a friend try to make them awhile back and they turned out terribly for him. "This recipe didn't work," he told me. "Why not?" I asked. "Well, I didn't have a stand mixer," he said. "Hmmmm..." My brain started whirring and clicking. "Also, I didn't chill the dough." He admitted finally. Enough said. I am happy to report that with a stand mixer and three hours of dough chilling, these cookies turned out perfect and amazing.

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 stick plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chips, or a generous 3/4 cup store-bought mini chocolate chips

Sift the flour, cocoa and baking soda together (or, you know, skip this step. I totally did).

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, the salt and vanilla extract and beat for 2 minutes more (this is why you need a stand mixer. 2 minutes on a stand mixer is like forever by hand).

Turn off the mixer. Pour in the flour mixture (you know, flour/cocoa and baking soda) - cover your mixer with a kitchen towel or the flour cover that your mixer comes with - pulse the mixer at low speed about 5 times, a second or two each time. Take a peek — if there is still a lot of flour on the surface of the dough, pulse a couple of times more; if not, remove the towel. Continuing at low speed, mix for about 30 seconds more, just until the flour disappears into the dough — for the best texture, work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added, and don’t be concerned if the dough looks a little crumbly. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface, gather it together and divide it in half. Working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate them for at least 3 hours. (The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs into cookies and bake the cookies 1 minute longer.)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F (160°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Working with a sharp thin knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch thick. (The rounds are likely to crack as you’re cutting them — don’t be concerned, just squeeze the bits back onto each cookie.) Arrange the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about one inch between them.

My picture is of the log after I cut most of it. Whoops! I always forget to take my pictures.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 12 minutes — they won’t look done but that's okay! You just have to take it on faith that they are. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies rest until they are just barely warm. Then eat them.

The cookies are delicious, kind of like chocolate shortbread but better. They are a great accompaniment to a train ride up to tomato weekend! They are worth the effort for sure.

Boo to Fall

2010-09-04T12:00:00.000-04:00

As September starts and summer comes to a close, I find myself in a funk. I love summer and I hate winter. I don't mind fall, but I know that winter is just around the corner and there will be no more sunshine, swimming, barbecues or fresh local vegetables. So at this time, I try to make as much of my favorite summer comfort food as I can. This is my all time favorite. I've made it for years, but it's never shown up on the blog. I'm not sure why.

Pasta A La Norma - adapted initially from the Gourmet Cookbook, but i haven't looked at the actual recipe in ages

1 small eggplant (or 2 Japanese ones)
1 28 oz can of whole peeled tomatoes (or several fresh ones, peeled. Oh summer)
lots of olive oil
fresh basil
salt
pepper
pasta of your choice
ricotta cheese

1. Heat some olive oil over high heat. Slice up your eggplant and shallow fry it on each side in batches. You want the olive oil to get soaked up into the eggplant and for the eggplant slices to turn golden brown. You'll have to keep adding more oil as you cook because eggplant is like an olive oil sponge.

2. Salt and pepper the eggplant slices and set aside. Don't skimp on the salt.

3. Add the tomatoes to the pan with the olive oil, turn down the heat to medium and add some salt (you could add a little sugar too, to help the tomatoes break down). They have to cook for a while - about 20 minutes is good, so that they really break down into a rich sauce. You can cook the pasta at this time as well. Stir occasionally and don't let the tomatoes stick or burn.

4. Chop up the eggplant into chunks and add to the sauce.

5. Add the basil on top - torn, chopped, whatever.

6. Add the pasta to the sauce and mix to combine. Serve with a dollop of creamy ricotta cheese.

This is one of my all time favorite meals. It's a great vegetarian entree. The eggplant is meaty and delicious and the fresh tomato sauce is an awesome summer treat. The ricotta is a cool change from salty Parmesan (although that is good too). I would eat this every day.

Tomato Weekend!

2010-09-02T22:36:00.010-04:00

Last year, Zack and I got married. For a wedding present, my friend Blake gave me two jars of homemade tomato sauce. Initially, I'll admit, my first thought was "well, I can make tomato sauce." But then I tasted it. My next thought was "how do I get me some more of that?" When I said that out loud to Blake, she invited me (and Meredith!) to what she called "tomato weekend" where her family and lots of other Italian people get together for a whole weekend to make tomato sauce, eat amazing food and drink wine. There was no way I was missing that.

Here's my basic rundown of tomato weekend. On Friday night, you wash 2500 pounds of tomatoes.

That is not even close to all the tomatoes. You dump them in giant basins of water -

- scrub the dirt off with your hands -

- and put them in laundry baskets/bins.

This is also not all the tomatoes. The tomatoes never end.

Then you drink a lot of wine, eat pizza and salad, watch several episodes of True Blood and go to bed.

The next morning, the men wake up at 4:30am and set up all the equipment. At 10:00am, they all start drinking again.

The women seem to wake up around 7:00am and get to work. First, you blanch the tomatoes (in those metal pots in back).

Then you poke them with a really long stick.

Girls aren't supposed to do the poking, but Meredith and I snuck our way in.

Then you push the tomatoes through an electric food mill.

One person pushes with a weird plastic stick thing.

Another person makes sure the machine stays running and clean.

Meredith sat here all day and her pants slipped down a little because she wasn't wearing a belt. Blake's mom gave her this dish rag to cover her butt with. Meredith was embarrassed at first, but then it caught on and she was way proud of it.

We had a special name for it. It's not fit to print.

(Okay, we called it the slut rag. But when the adults asked, we called it a modesty rag so as not to seem crude and slutty.)

Anyway, you have to run the tomatoes through the machine three more times until there's just skins and seeds.

Then the tomato puree that came out of the food mill gets boiled down with basil and salt.

This is all a really messy process. See those stains?

See our hands?

And my foot?

And my ring?

Yeah, it's silly.

Anyways, you put some basil in a jar, pour the boiling hot sauce in them -

- screw the lid on and flip them over so that it makes suction.

Do that whole process for 2500 pounds of fresh local tomatoes and 12 cases of jars. We worked for over 12 hours. Blake's mom was really proud of us and gave us awards.

That's Michael. He got an award too, but not one that was as cool as mine and Meredith's.

Did I mention the food? When you put a lot of Italians in a house together, they cook all this for lunch.

There were amazing stuffed peppers, stuffed mushrooms, caprese salad, calamari salad, chicken cutlets, mussels - I can't even name it all. It was so delicious. And that was just lunch.

This was dinner.

The first sauce of the season with ravioli tasted even better after we worked all day (and drank all day - Italians have crazy stamina).

Thanks to Blake and her family for letting us crash tomato weekend! We had the best time (and now we have three jars each of freshly made sauce - I'm not sharing, so don't ask).

Thank goodness for summer

2010-08-26T21:35:00.003-04:00

Yesterday, I thought to myself "I should probably blog about something, I've been doing a pretty good job getting posts up lately and I shouldn't blow it" and then I realized that I had absolutely nothing to blog about. No food. No pictures. Nothing. What's a girl to do? I headed over to the farmer's market in Long Island City for some summer vegetables that my CSA doesn't provide (like eggplant - something about beetles spoiling their crop - and corn - we got some, but none for the last few weeks) and got to cooking.

My parents have heard me complain a lot about salad over the years, but truth be told, I don't mind salad all that much (if I make it myself. Or if it's from a really good restaurant). The kind of salad that I enjoy usually involves some sort of cooked component (roasted beets, warm bacon, candied walnuts, etc) and no Romaine lettuce. I can't help it. So here's my new salad of the evening:

Warm Corn and Tomato Salad

1 ear of corn
1 red pepper
1 roma tomato
1 shallot
1 clove of garlic
goat cheese
a few basil leaves
a handful of salad mix
olive oil

1. Chop up a red bell pepper, a shallot and garlic.

2. In a large pan, heat up a tablespoon or so of olive oil over medium high heat. Add the pepper, shallot and garlic to the pan and cook until the vegetables soften (a few minutes). Chop up the tomato and add that to the pan. Let the tomato break down a little, but not so much that it all turns to mush. Then cut the kernels off the ear of corn and add those too. Cook until the corn is just warmed through. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

3. Throw a little salad mix at the bottom of a salad bowl. I coated it with a little bit of basil oil and freshly ground pepper, but it's not really necessary.

4. Pour the warm vegetable mixture on top of the leaves. Add some freshly crumbled goat cheese and torn basil on top and enjoy!

This salad was really delicious. The cool goat cheese and warm corn played off each other well. It was a great way to get some end of the summer vegetables into our meal (please say summer's not over! I'm not ready for winter!!!!!!!!!).

Good lord, this cake is amazing

2010-08-23T08:00:00.000-04:00

As far as desserts go, there is nothing I love more than a nice warm cookie and a big glass of milk. I love to make cookies, eat cookies, give cookies to other people, whatever cookie options there are, I love them. However, I've been trying to use all the fruit that I get in my CSA each week and as far as I'm concerned, the more baking I can do, the better. So when I saw this recipe on The Amateur Gourmet, I figured, what the hell. Gotta use that local seasonal fruit.

Good lord, it is amazing. I'm not a huge cake fan, but a slice of this straight out of the oven? I'm kvelling. It rocks.

Nectarine Golden Cake
from Gourmet Magazine (I'm still sad about no more Gourmet by the way. Bon Appetit just isn't cutting it)

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
Rounded 1/4 tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, soft
3/4 cup plus 1/2 Tbs sugar, divided
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/8 tsp pure almond extract
2 nectarines, pitted and cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges - I love it when you don't have to peel fruit by the way. Yay!
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

Equipment: a 9-inch springform pan - I totally have one of these now! Thanks, Alex! Yay for wedding presents.

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F with rack in middle. Lightly butter springform pan.

2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt (Full disclosure: I totally skipped this step).

3. Beat butter and 3/4 cup sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in extracts. At low speed, mix in flour mixture until just combined.

I have a stand mixer now as well! Wedding presents are neat. Marriage is pretty neat as well.

4. Spread batter evenly in pan. It'll be pretty short - but it'll rise later.

Scatter nectarines over top. Stir together nutmeg and remaining 1/2 Tbsp sugar and sprinkle over top.

Bake until cake is golden-brown and top is firm but tender when lightly touched (cake will rise over fruit), 45 to 50 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Remove side of pan and cool to warm.

The cake is delicious. It forms a kind of crust around the edges that gives way to a light airy cake dotted with fruit. The almond extract and nutmeg give it some deep flavor that regular yellow cake doesn't have. It's perfect with a little bit of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream. Make it now. But be careful - I ate about 1/4 of the cake before Zack got home. Whoops.

Alli makes a pie

2010-08-19T19:49:00.006-04:00

Alli sent me this picture from her travels this summer:

And I said "I want one, please." So when she came to visit, she made me one. She's not big with the recipe following and she's not sitting here right now, but I'll do my best to remember all the steps.

First, blitz one bag of Newman's chocolate cookies in the food processor.

You could use Oreos, or chocolate wafers or whatever. I'm pretty sure Alli picked Newman's because she's so healthy. But they were good.

Melt about half a stick of butter, mix it with the crumbs and pat it into a pie pan.

Aren't Alli's nails cool? She's so funny. Anyways, bake the pie crust for 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees.

In my amazing stand mixer (you could just use a spoon - or a hand mixer), Alli mixed 1 cup of peanut butter, 1/2 cup of sugar, one 8 oz package of cream cheese, half a stick of melted butter and 1 tsp of vanilla (I think).

She also whipped up a pint of cream.

Then she folded it into the peanut butter mixture.

She's a happy kid.

Then she poured the peanut butter mixture into the pie crust and we chilled it for a while.

Now it's pie!!!!!!

Doesn't it look good? All creamy and amazing and not too sweet - but you could amp up the sugar if you wanted. Chocolate and Peanut Butter = everybody wins.

Popsicles!

2010-08-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

Here's a little break from pictures of my sister. I've been making popsicles all summer long and there are a billion ways to do it. My favorite way to make a cool summer treat?

1) Mash up some fruit.

Whatever you've got, berries, peaches, melon, whatever. It's all gonna be good.

2) Take some greek yogurt (I use non-fat - healthier) and thin it out with a little bit of milk. Add a bit of honey and vanilla (if you have it. If not, that's okay too). Mix in the fruit.

OR

2b) Just add some juice/water, whatever. Mix in the fruit.

3) Pour the mixture into super awesome popsicles molds!

If you don't have popsicles molds, you could pour the mixture into paper cups and stick popsicle sticks in. That would be fine too.

4) Freeze for 4 hours or overnight.

5) Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!

This one is a peach blueberry yogurt pop. It was delicious but had to be eaten to make way for pureed watermelon with lemonade. Which was also delicious. I love summer.

Montauk!

2010-08-09T12:00:00.004-04:00

I love my parents. A lot. They are great parents and they took me, my sister, Zack and my uncle Steven to a beach house this past week. It was relaxing, warm, and fun.

The one teeny tiny complaint I might possibly have about going on vacation with my parents? They are really healthy eaters (which, you know, is great. And admirable. But not always the tastiest). For several days, I cooked vegetables. And more vegetables. And they tasted pretty darn good, if I do say so myself. But at some point, a girl's gotta sneak off for some homemade ice cream.

John's is a classic beach-y drive in, complete with burgers and shirtless dudes at the counter.

My sister, the all-american outdoors-y type, ordered a strawberry milkshake with homemade ice cream.

I have severe food envy, so I ordered the same thing.

The shakes were cold, creamy and fruity. Alli and I both loved this quick break of sugar and fat. Don't tell my parents!!!! (Sorry guys, you know I love you. Vegetables are great)

It's the most wonderful time of the year

2010-08-06T18:01:00.005-04:00

No, not Xmas time. It's Alli visits Lena in NYC time!!! Every August my sister comes to New York to shop (I mean visit me) and we always have a really good time (see us eat knishes! Or cook eggplant!). Sometimes we try on matching dresses.

And sometimes, we eat ice cream.

The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck is a legendary New York City truck. It travels around the city serving crazy cones like the Bea Arthur or the Salty Pimp. It's not very old, but I've read about it several times this year and this seemed like a great time to try it out.

We both ordered the Salty Pimp - vanilla soft serve with dulce de leche and sea salt, dipped in chocolate.

Holy Moley, it was good. There is almost nothing I love more than sweets with salt. The caramel sauce mixed with the chocolate and salty goodness? I'd eat this every day. But then I'd get fat, so I'll just stick with sometimes. Here it is all eaten down.

And then Alli got some awesome new glasses and ate ice cream and all was right with the world.

Zucchini Overload

2010-07-26T08:00:00.001-04:00

What do you do when you have 7 billion pounds of zucchini and you've already made chocolate zucchini cake (twice) and several kinds of zucchini pasta (okay, really just one kind over and over again. But it's good). Zack and I were watching the Barefoot Contessa and she had a special French themed episode. It totally inspired me to break out my Barefoot in Paris cookbook and make this zucchini gratin. It's creamy, it's summery and it rocks hard core.

Ina's Zucchini Gratin - slightly adapted by me

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, plus extra for topping
1 pound yellow onions, cut in 1/2 and sliced (3 large) - I used cippolini onions that I had in my fridge, so I just used those.
2 pounds zucchini, sliced 1/4-inch thick (4 zucchini)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup hot milk
3/4 cup fresh bread crumbs
3/4 cup grated Gruyere

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

Melt the butter in a very large (12-inch) saute pan and cook the onions over low heat for 20 minutes, or until tender but not browned (I totally browned mine. Whoops.)

(Also I used not a saute pan and later, it was harder to get all the zucchini cooked evenly. Don't be like me. Although it all turned out fine, so maybe it doesn't matter). Add the zucchini and cook, covered, for 10 minutes, or until tender. Add the salt, pepper, and nutmeg and cook uncovered for 5 more minutes. Stir in the flour. Add the hot milk and cook over low heat for a few minutes, until it makes a sauce.

Pour the mixture into an 8 by 10-inch baking dish.

Combine the bread crumbs and Gruyere and sprinkle on top of the zucchini mixture. Dot with 1 tablespoon of butter cut into small bits and bake for 20 minutes, or until bubbly and browned.

Doesn't it look awesome? It tasted great. There's something amazing about taking something really healthy like green vegetables and making them super decadent and delicious. You should try it!

Amazing Miracles

2010-07-24T18:15:00.002-04:00

It's the return of Nurses in New England! It's bigger, better and longer than ever. I'm going to sing and dress up like a nurse. There are EMTs, stuffed animals, lesbians and amazing music. You know you want to see it.

Written and Directed by Tina Satter, with Music by Chris Giarmo
presented by SoHo Think Tank's Ice Factory 2010

Starring Jess Barbagallo, Eliza Bent, Emily Davis, Erin Markey, Annie McNamara, Lena Moy-Borgen, Julia Sirna-Frest and Greg Zuccolo.

With Matt Bogdanow on Drums, Shane Chapman on Guitar / Bass / Ukulele, and Chris Giarmo on Keyboards / Piano.

Andrea Mincic : Set Design
Zack Tinkelman : Lighting Design
Nathan Lemoine : Technical Director
Eliza Laytner : Stage Manager

July 28 – 31, 2010
Wednesday – Saturday, 7pm

The Ohio Theater
66 Wooster St. (btw. Spring + Broome)
New York City

TICKETS : General $15 : Students + Seniors $10

PURCHASE TICKETS ONLINE HERE or call 212.868.4444.

Good lord, this is ridiculous

2010-07-18T19:51:00.007-04:00

It happens against my best intentions. I want to blog, but I work 37 hours a week at school and then I agreed to house manage a show (part time), downtown, really far away from school (travel time is a bitch) and then rehearsals (in Brooklyn! Oy vey) started for the play that I'm performing in and soon, there's nothing left but an empty shell of Lena skin (sorry for the gross imagery - I'm so tired).

But I start getting these emails/facebook posts saying "why don't you blog? Haven't read anything in a while..." in which case I feel a) guilty and b) excited that people actually read my blog and care if I don't update it. So here we go.

Sometimes on my days off, I sleep for 13 hours and then cook all day. One of things I decided to cook all day was pie. I had one and a half containers of blueberries (Zack ate some. Curses) and a container of gooseberries which I had little idea what to do with, except make a pie.

I decided to try a new pie crust recipe from the Pioneer Woman. It called for Crisco and I had just realized how much of that I had in my pantry.

I also decided to use my pastry cutter instead of my food processor (or my fingers). It was use all the random things in my kitchen day.

That was back when I had a manicure. Good times. This pie crust recipe made three discs like this.

I used two and put one back in the freezer. I rolled out one for the pie pan and set the second one aside.

Then I combined my berries, some sugar (enough to coat the berries - gooseberries are sour), a dash of nutmeg, a few Tablespoons of flour (to make the insides of the pie thicker), put them in the pie crust and laid some pats of butter on top.

I covered it with my second pie crust. It broke, but I just smushed it back together and cut a few slits on top so that it didn't explode in the oven.

35ish minutes at 400 degrees later and bam! I had pie.

The crust was amazing - flaky like nobody's business (although I kind of missed the butter taste). The filling was sweet and just a little bit tart. It was juicy and went perfectly with the crust. Look at those pretty berries!

I wish I could say I brought this somewhere to share, but really, Zack and I ate the whole thing (mostly Zack). If you come over for dinner, maybe I'll make it again.

Happy 4th of July!!!!

2010-07-04T12:07:00.001-04:00

This is what I'm doing all the time now - so Happy 4th! Enjoy this musical clip -

- and try to imagine my 12 year old students doing this song. Amazing.

Good Lord, I'm exhausted

2010-06-28T20:08:00.008-04:00

Today, I'm so tired. I feel like I've been run over by a mack truck. But when I looked at my summary of how many people had clicked onto my blog today, well I felt guilty. All those people, clicking over, wanting to be distracted by my blog and what did they see? The same old same-old. Lame! So here I am.

Meredith and I took a wonderful trip to Valencia, Spain. We lay on the beach.

We drank daiquiris.

The waitress had a really hard time understanding what I meant when I said "DAIQ-uri." They say it "dai-QUIR-i."

Don't drink daiquiris and then run for the bus in heels. You will get hurt. I know.

They also had an amazing marketplace that looked like a cathedral.

Inside, there were rows and rows and rows of this:

There were beautiful berries -

- stacks of spices -

- we brought some home with us. I smuggled them in my pockets.

We ate paella - lots of paella.

Paella with chicken.

Paella with garlic mayonnaise.

We couldn't eat it all there was so much.

We ate lots of "salads" that had ham in them and looked like this.

We drank sangria (wine is really really cheap in Spain).

And ate where Hemingway supposedly liked to eat.

I see this picture below of happy relaxedness and I think "ah, good times. Times where I wasn't bone tired with a sore throat."

That's it for Europe, folks! I guess I should cook some more now.

Last post from England!

2010-06-19T14:00:00.005-04:00

Here it is folks - my very last post from England. And it only took me.....almost three times the length of time I was actually there. Whoops.

On our last night in England, Meredith and I decided to eat at Jamie Oliver's restaurant. I've been on a Jamie Oliver kick ever since watching Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution (great show! Way to use the forces of reality television for good, universe. It's not all dancing "celebrities" and wannabe teenage starlets out there). Also, back when I started cooking, The Naked Chef Takes Off was one of the first cookbooks I bought (because it was $1.03 on Amazon. But that's besides the point). Anyways, here we are - at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen.

We were a little early, so we ordered Jamie's version of a Pimm's Cup - gin and fruity goodness.

Strawberries, apples, cucumbers and mint make me happy. You wouldn't think that the cucumbers would work out in there, but they totally do.

We got to our table and started with a big plate of olives.

I used to hate olives, but these are awesome. The color was really striking and the taste? Surprisingly meaty. I don't know how they made a meaty olive but it was really cool.

I started with the risotto - risotto was the first thing I ever made from The Naked Chef cookbook, so I figured I'd give it a try.

It was really creamy with a little bit of bite. The asparagus was great - some of it was more cooked and mixed into the rice and some was crisper and laid on top. There was some creme fraiche as well - it rocked.

Meredith got the ravioli - it was cheesy and amazing.

I can't remember what was in it - I do remember that I wanted to steal it from her. Whoops.

We ended with a pizza. It had mashed potatoes mixed with a soft goat cheese and fresh peas. There were pea shoots on top and the whole thing was really great.

We were too full and rushed to fully enjoy it though. That's my one regret.

Check it out! It's a really fun evening.

Next post - Spain!

Aw man, and I was doing so well

2010-06-15T17:24:00.009-04:00

So it's been pointed out to me that I've been neglecting you a little bit. I'm sorry!

So, believe or not, I've still got London posts to do (which is a little absurd. Meredith lives in New York again now. Whoops). So off we go to Borough Market.

Borough Market is totally awesome. You can get fresh produce -

- meat -

- pig heads -

- or just walk around and graze.

You can drink mulled wine.

Meredith loves mulled wine.

If you get lost, there are helpful humorous signs.

There are also giant meringues -

- piles and piles of truffles of every flavor - including tobacco and various booze.

Best of all? There's cheese.

Wheels and wheels of cheese.

Cheese that takes showers (I'm not sure why).

Beautiful amazing cheese.

I took this cheese home with me. It's from Ireland.

I took some Montgomery Cheddar home as well. My dad, an ardent Anglophobe, really liked this cheese. I knew if I stayed in Britain long enough, I'd find something he'd like.

I'll blog more! I promise.

Why doesn't Macy's have a food hall?

2010-06-03T11:32:00.007-04:00

Some people go to London for the fashion. But since Meredith and I are all about the food, we managed to go into London's largest department store and see nothing but the food halls. That's right, we're off to Harrods!

They had every kind of food you could think of! There's a butcher counter. In a department store. There aren't butcher counters in grocery stores in most places in the US.

There was Indian food -

- weird pretentious fancy foods -

- a giant statue of freaky wild animals with champagne in front of it for no reason -

I mean, there was so much. I can't convey it with these pictures - it's like an entire floor of food halls. Picture the makeup department of Bloomingdales and cross it with an international food market in your mind. Most importantly, however - there are meat pies.

We took two meat pies home with some vegetables for a salad.

We made a lovely salad (lovely - that's British) with beets and peppers and some shallot dressing -

- and ate it with our two meat pies - a traditional pasty and Chicken of Aragon.

They're so pretty when you crack them open. The chicken was especially good. Meredith (a connoisseur of such things) said that these pies are super good and above the normal level of traditional British pies.

We drank them with some Harrods brand beer and a ginger beer (which was really sweet - almost like if ginger ale was alcoholic).

Beer, meat pies, and our favorite television show -

- Yes, it is Buffy the Vampire Slayer. That's how we roll in Britain.

If you're not drinking tea, you're not in Great Britain

2010-06-02T09:00:00.000-04:00

I couldn't leave Great Britain without one of those grand traditions: high tea. Meredith and I made it through Kensington Gardens -

- pretty! -

- and found our way to the Orangery.

The Orangery has little orange trees at each table so that you know what it's named after.

It's super light and airy in here - the room is really open and large.

We got the champagne tea - we're always adding champagne to things when we're on vacation.

I mean, look at it - bubbles make me smile.

The food comes out on a little three tiered stand - so classic.

We pulled the sandwiches out first. Lunch before dessert!

There's cucumber and cream cheese (of course), smoked salmon and butter (yum), cheese and pickle (which isn't pickle at all - it's more like chutney. Brits are so crazy), and ham and mustard. They were very elegant and make me want to say things like "lovely" and "spoonful of sugar."

We moved onto the intermediary between lunch and dessert - scones!

This scone was orange flavored (because, duh) and was really interesting to me. It looked like a biscuit (scones in America are usually all knobby and bumpy looking) but tasted like a scone - dense and sweet and crumby. I'm a big fan of clotted cream and jam. I'd put it on more things if I wasn't afraid of getting fat.

And finally, dessert!

The passion fruit tart was light and creamy and tart and sweet all at the same time. The crust was delicious and the whole thing was pretty much amazing. The chocolate eclair, however, was blah. I didn't even finish it. That should tell you something.

Overall though, very fun and tasty high tea. It's not every day that you get to have tea at a princesses' house. Not that she lives there now or anything...but a girl can pretend.

Oysters and Pearls

2010-06-01T10:47:00.004-04:00

One of the great things about Britain is that the laws for street food vendors are much looser than the ones here. Americans are so uptight about not getting food poisoning that they miss out on eating fresh oysters and sparkling wine while sitting outside.

We put some Tabasco and lemon juice down on our oysters and enjoyed the view.

Slurp! I love oysters. They taste like the ocean.

This really blows hot dog vendors out of the water. Why can't you buy a beer with your hot dog in New York? That would be awesome.

Onto more European adventures.....

I like mushy peas

2010-05-25T20:59:00.005-04:00

Still catching you up on my British adventure, mates! (hmm, "mates" may be more Australian - I never was any good at accents) Another classic British meal - Fish and Chips!

To get some fish and chips, Meredith and I headed off to Borough Market (more on that later). We went to eat at the fish! kitchen - where sustainable fishing and classic fried goodness meet and are friends.

There were lots of choices, but we went with the classic fish and chips with mushy peas. That's the whole point of this excursion, after all. I was doing my best to hit all the great British meals. Just for you, dear readers! Just for you.

We started with some organic beer! Why? Because it was the only British beer on the menu, that's why.

Meredith said that mushy peas and "chips" weren't enough vegetables, so we ordered this "rocket" and tomato salad.

"Rocket" is British for arugula, apparently. It was nice. There seem to be a dearth of fresh vegetables in meals in Britain. I think they're anti-salad (and I can relate. But still).

On to the main course!

The fish was delicious: white and flaky with a crisply battered crust. I was glad we were sharing because I could feel it making me fat as I ate. I passed on most of the chips - British chips are horrid soggy things. Meredith ordered them extra crispy, but they were not crispy at all.

To me, the biggest revelation was the mushy peas! They weren't that mushy - in fact, the texture was great, sort of a puree with larger firm bits of pea. They were very well seasoned (an anomaly in Britain, I hear). Meredith says they're not always that good, which is a bummer. But these were just plain yummy.

Onto the rest of the Borough Market.....

The sun never sets on Britain

2010-05-23T19:42:00.007-04:00

Cheerio, mate, we're still in Britain (if you couldn't tell by the picture above). Besides red telephone booths, Britain is also known for is curry (weirdly enough) (Okay - not that weirdly, Britain has a long standing record of going into bigger countries and trying to colonize them and then eventually people end up in the "mother country" and their food follows - but I digress). So, we headed out in search of some delicious curry.

We found some!

You have to go up a flight of stairs, past a hotel lobby.

It seems like a lot of trouble just to get to the food - but we heard the food was really good, so we braved the back stairway.

We ordered some giant Asian beers (I guess you can't tell in this picture - but they're like 40 oz) -

- and some food! We've got some sort of spicy chicken curry, "dry vegetables," and a masala dosa.

Dosas are like crepes filled with mashed potatoes. They are delicious and come with little bowls of lentil soup and coconut paste. You can also see our poori (fried bread).

Maybe I'm spoiled living in New York - I mean, the food was great! But is it better than the food we get in Jackson Heights? I don't think so. It still was great though. I'd go back.

Pip Pip and Cheerio Old Bean

2010-05-19T18:10:00.005-04:00

That's right, folks. I'm back from Jolly Old England (which is the official name for across the pond). I took lots of pictures just for you! After my trip to Paris, I was so racked with guilt about my poor food documentation (trying to enjoy my honeymoon and all), I vowed to do better next time. This is that time! Also, Meredith is a great photo helper. She reminds me to take pictures and then takes them in better angles/light than I do.

For our first photo stop in London, I'm starting with the most important meal of the day - breakfast. Brits each a lot of breakfast. Meredith and I wanted the best English breakfast possible. We weren't sure where that was, so we headed to Inn The Park, which is (unsurprisingly) the Inn in St. James park.

We went on a Monday so that there would be no one else there (except a couple with a screaming baby that the waiter sat RIGHT NEXT TO US. Awesome). There was a beautiful view out the window -

- crazy British condiments -

- and a zillion pounds of food.

That's two eggs, baked beans (British style - which apparently means really sweet), a grilled tomato, some griddle flatbread thing, a giant grilled portabello mushroom, pork and leek sausage, British bacon (which I think is like Canadian bacon, i.e. not really bacon at all), and black pudding (which is made out of blood - it sounds gross but is really good). Also, you get a mountain of toast.

We also got some English Breakfast tea - we drank a LOT of tea this trip. You'll see.

That's Meredith's picture - that's why the angle is more interesting. But you can't see as much of the food.

We're both big eaters, but neither of us could finish all this food (Meredith did better than me - she's more British). It's a crazy amount of food to eat first thing in the morning, but I guess you have to remember that Brits used to just eat breakfast and supper - so they really had to make breakfast last (and then they added Afternoon Tea - but more on that later).

When we were leaving the Inn, we walked past this:

Just in case you weren't sure that you were in Great Britain - the redcoats are a bit of a giveaway. Lots more soon!

Whoops

2010-05-10T16:18:00.003-04:00

I've got some great pictures of red velvet cupcakes and baked pasta, but they will have to wait until I get back from London! And Spain!

That's right folks, I'm off across the pond. I'll take lots of pictures and be back next week!

Silent Auction and Cabaret this Sunday!!!

2010-05-07T11:11:00.003-04:00

Come watch me sing and support arts funding for New York City schools! You know you want to....

Be A Hero! Support Arts for All!
Cabaret & Silent Auction

May 9th at the Flea Theater
Silent Auction at 1pm and 6pm
Performance at 2pm and 7pm

Come bid on great items like vacations, fancy dinners, voice lessons, cooking classes, theater tickets and more! Bring your mom for Mother's Day and she'll receive a special gift.

Featuring: Robin Cannon, Clayton Colwell, Jeb Colwell, Paul Martin Kovic*, Megan Jimenez*, Nick Lehane*, Jenny Long*, Sean Loutzenhiser, Kymberli McKanna, Nanci D. Miles*, Lena Moy-Borgen*, Alan Ostroff*. Anna Roberts Ostroff*, Harriet Picker, Jason Rosenbaum, Adam Shorsten*
* appears courtesy of Actor's Equity Association

Suggestion Donations:
$25-49 - stagehand
$50-74 - artist
$75-99 - director
$100 + - producer

Tickets are available at the door, or send a donation and reserve in advance: info@arts-for-all.org/212.591.6108

Cash or Check only!

More dessert - sorry, Dad

2010-05-02T15:22:00.008-04:00

The other day I found a few sad stalks of rhubarb at the farmer's market. Even though they looked a little pathetic, I took them home and vowed to bake something. I've already made strawberry-rhubarb crumble and pie and I decided I needed to do something a little different. Since I'm feeling good about mastering a simple pie crust, I figured I should try something new. While flipping through Martha's cookbook (she scares me, but she certainly knows what she's doing), I settled on pate sucree - a sweet crumbly tart dough. I made it in the food processor super quickly. It was a snap.

Martha's pate sucree

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 Tbs sugar
1 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 large egg yolks
1/4 cup ice water

Put the flour and sugar in a food processor and process for a few seconds to combine. Add the butter and process for about ten seconds, or until the mixture resembles "coarse meal." In a small bowl, beat the egg yolks and water together. Add in a steady stream through the feed tube with the machine running, and process until the dough comes together.

It's a snap. Seriously. Divide it in half, press into disks and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill for at least an hour.

I bought a few lemons the other day (you always need lemons). I was worried that I didn't have much rhubarb to make a filling on its own, so I figured I'd make some lemon curd to sass things up a bit.

Lemon Curd - adapted from Alice Waters

2 lemons
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 Tb milk
1/6 cup sugar
pinch of salt
3 Tbs butter, cut into pieces

Zest one lemon and juice both of them. Set the juice/zest aside. Mix together the egg, egg yolk, sugar, milk and salt. Add the lemon juice and zest and mix. Add the butter.

Cook over medium low heat, stirring constantly until it is thick enough to coat a spoon. Don't bring the heat up too high or the eggs will curdle - like scrambled eggs (full disclosure - mine curdled a little. Whoops. It's still good).

I poured it into a bowl so that the hot pot wouldn't keep it cooking.

Pretty! I also cut up the rhubarb and added a little bit of lemon juice, sugar and ground ginger to the bowl.

I rolled out my pate sucree and pushed into a tart pan. I baked it at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

I poured the lemon curd in....

And topped it with the rhubarb.

Then I baked the whole thing for another 15 minutes or so at 375 degrees (you don't want to under cook rhubarb - it's poisonous when it's raw).

It turned out really nicely. It's a little tart and the textures are really neat - the crumbly shell, the creamy custard and the fruit just melts in your mouth. I love playing around in the kitchen.

I need to cook

2010-04-27T17:34:00.006-04:00

Sometimes I get an overwhelming urge to cook something. It doesn't really matter what, and in fact, it's usually quite random. So when I read this post and realized that I had all the ingredients in my fridge RIGHT NOW I had to make it.

Salted Caramel Sauce - from The Amateur Gourmet

I am obsessed with salted desserts now. I love the complex flavor. It rocks.

1/2 cup sugar
1/8 cup water
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
3/8 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 teaspoons gray sea salt, crushed (I just used regular sea salt...and that's okay)

I halved the recipe. Can you tell?

In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar, water and corn syrup and bring to a boil.

Woot! We're swimming along now. Boil over high heat until a deep amber caramel forms, about 6 minutes. I love caramels that don't need candy thermometers.....yay.

Remove the saucepan from the heat and carefully whisk in the cream, butter and salt. Let the caramel cool to room temperature (or start eating it immediately if you're me. If you let it cool, it thickens up some).

Yeah, it's amazing. I tried to make a rule that I only eat it on ice cream, but I keep walking by the fridge and sticking my finger in it. It's great on ice cream, and I kind of wish I had a cake or something to pour it on. But thank God I don't.

It keeps covered in the fridge for two weeks, I hear. But it's not making it that long around here.

Whatever's in your fridge...

2010-04-26T18:53:00.003-04:00

I have found that if you keep your fridge well stocked, you can make a nice meal at a moment's notice. For example, I had some ramps, frozen corn, green beans, tomatoes and whole wheat spaghetti in my fridge. But Meredith and I turned it into gold!

Okay, well it's not gold. It's food. But it sure was good.

Crack open a bottle of wine and watch I Love You, Man and you'll pretty much emulate my weekend.

Sometimes it all works out

2010-04-20T22:36:00.006-04:00

Meredith is here!

(James is here too - but he lives here.) She's been in London at graduate school, so she hasn't appeared much on my blog lately. But this week she's visiting and through some dumb random luck, we ended up with a reservation for four for the Momofuku Fried Chicken dinner (Gwen and I went as well, see?).

Meredith and I have been to Momofuku before (read about it here!) and we liked it well enough. However, last year (just before Meredith went off to London), Momofuku started a fried chicken dinner, which is (in their words) two whole fried chickens, one southern style and one Korean style, mu shu pancakes, long spicy peppers, baby carrots, red ball radishes, shiso leaves, bibb lettuce, four sauces and an herb basket. It cost $100 for the whole thing (not per person) and usually reservations are made up to four weeks in advance (and only online - oy vey). I've been wanting to try it (Serious Eats rated it very highly and I trust them), and the gods must have intervened, because with a minimum of fuss, we ended up at a table (at 5:30pm, but one can't be too picky).

First, just to tempt us apparently, came a bowl of lettuce, carrots and radishes and four different sauces (a pickled jalapeno, a bimbimbap(?), some kind of scallion ginger and hosin sauce).

We eagerly awaited the chicken. And oh good lord, did it deliver.

Yeah, that's a lot of chicken. What? You don't think it's that much? Here it is from a different angle.

Yup, it's a freaking ton of chicken. And it's amazing. The southern style is unbelievably moist. I actually said out loud "how can the insides be so moist and the crust be so crusty?" (Yeah, for reals. Gwen laughed at me). We all dug into the chicken with crazy gusto.

Some people may have said it was the best fried chicken they have ever eaten. Others may have nodded in agreement. If you like Old Bay in fried chicken, this is the place for you (and if you don't, well then, more for me).

The Korean style was equally good. Hot but not overpowering, the flavors were clean and addictive. I had an excellent time making fried chicken tacos that reminded me of Peking Duck except twice as awesome.

The waitress kindly brought us a bowl for our chicken bones, which was practical and funny.

We tried to finish it, but to no avail. My stomach is still full as I type this hours later. However, Zack is reaping the benefits of our stuffed bellies, as he has leftovers in the fridge.

We squeezed in a bit of soft serve - Momofuku is famous for it.

Today's flavors were olive oil and pickled cherry - sounds disgusting but was very refreshing and a nice palate cleanser.

I highly recommend going! Get a reservation and maybe bring more people - or at least bring bigger people and less tiny girls (not that tiny girls don't love fried chicken). And don't eat too much before you go. You'll thank me later.

The power of suggestion....

2010-04-16T14:30:00.009-04:00

My dad has long made fun of me for reading about something and then feeling like I HAVE to do it, right now! He still claims that the whole reason I wanted to live in New York was based on multiple readings of The Babysitters Club: New York, New York! (He's one to talk - one year he kept saying he wanted a new Lexus because all the dads were getting one. When pressed, he confessed that the dads who were getting them were on TV.....in the Lexus commercials.)

So I suppose it should be no surprise that while I was re-reading Julie and Julia (for like the thousandth time) and I got to the part about her crepe making escapades, I was seized with an overwhelming desire to make Gateau de Crepes a la Florentine, like RIGHT NOW. Gosh darn it, I was going to make a savory cake of crepes filled with cream cheese, spinach and mushrooms. I HAD to. It called to me like the outdoors on a nice day.

Luckily, Abby was coming over to drink wine and watch Buffy. I had idly promised to make her something from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol 1 when she gave it to me as a wedding present and this seemed like a perfect time to make good on that. So here we go!

Gateau de Crepes a la Florentine!

It's a pretty dish, yes? Spoiler Alert: It is really good. How does it come to be? Well, I'll tell you.

First, you put 1 cup cold water, 1 cup cold milk, 4 eggs and 1/2 tsp salt in a blender (I broke out my blender from what I am now calling "present corner." I'm scared to unpack too much in fear that we're going to move at any moment and I'll just have to pack it all up again. But I really wanted to use the blender. Caution be dammed). Then I added 1 1/2 cups flour and 4 Tbs melted butter. I blended it for 1 minute, scraped the excess down the sides with a sparkly pink spatula and blended again for a few more seconds. I stuck the whole thing in the fridge and went to the gym. And the grocery store.

When I got back, it was time to make crepes. Julia says to rub a skillet with a piece of bacon and set it over moderately high heat until it's just beginning to smoke.

Yeah, yeah, I can already hear my dad saying "why do you have to post pictures of disgusting meat and ruin nice vegetarian dishes with bacon?" To him and his supporters I say "just use some oil then! This is my blog. We do things my way around here."

This part is hard to explain and a little tricky. Remove the pan from the heat and pour 1/4 cup of batter into the middle of the pan. Tilt it around so that the batter is spread out thin and evenly. This all happens really fast - a few seconds. Return it to the heat for about a minute or until the edges slightly crinkle up.

Flip it over and brown for about 30 more seconds. This side will brown more spottily than the first side, but that's okay.

Move it onto a rack to cool...

Then stack the finished crepes on a plate.

I was expecting the whole process to be stressful and complicated, but honestly? It was kind of a breeze. I got into a crepe flipping zone and I felt really calm and happy. Of course, then I felt a little weird about feeling the best I've felt all week while I was doing a massively complicated cooking project for no reason. There may be something wrong with me.

Anyways, next you make a Sauce Mornay which is a fancy name for a white sauce with cheese.

Cook 5 Tbs flour and 4 Tbs butter in a pot for 2 minutes. You don't want it to brown - just meld together.

Take it off the heat and add 2 3/4 cups of boiling milk (I heated mine up in the microwave because I was out of small pots) and 1/2 tsp salt, 1/8 tsp pepper and a big pinch of nutmeg. Return it to the heat and boil it for one minute while stirring.

Reduce it to a simmer and add 1/4 cup cream one tsp at a time. Then stir in 1 cup of grated "Swiss" cheese. When Julia says "Swiss" she does not mean gross white cheese with holes. She means Gruyere or possibly Emmental. I had Gruyere in the fridge, so that's what went in my sauce. It was really thick.

YUM.

Next you make the fillings. This is quite the long process. There's a reason people don't cook like this anymore - it takes several hours and every dish you own. But it's worth it.

Saute a chopped shallot in 2 Tbs of butter. Add 1 1/2 cups blanched, chopped spinach (or a thawed package of frozen spinach if you're a lazy bastard like me) and 1/4 tsp salt and cook for about 2 minutes. Add 1/2 - 2/3 cup of the Sauce Mornay. Cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes. That's one filling done. Also, I forgot to take a picture - shhhhhh.

Mash up 8 oz cream cheese with an egg and salt and pepper. Set aside. Saute 1 cup of minced mushrooms (I used shiitake) and another chopped shallot in 1 Tbs butter and 1/2 Tbs olive oil. Mix them into the cream cheese. You're also supposed to add 1/3 to 1/2 cup of the Sauce Mornay to the whole thing, but I didn't because I wasn't reading the directions closely. But it still tasted great in the end.

Okay, here comes the fun part. Take a round deep baking dish and butter it. Lay one crepe across the bottom.

Spread a layer of mushroom filling over the crepe.

Put another crepe on top of it and spread the spinach filling over it.

Repeat until all the crepes and fillings are gone.

Yeah, it's tall. Now here comes the insane part - pour the rest of the cheese sauce on top of the crepe stack and dot with butter and some more grated cheese.

At this point, I freaked out and was sure I made too much sauce and/or ruined the dish. But I baked it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees and lo and behold.....

IT WAS FREAKING AWESOME. The layers were super pretty, all green and cheesy and delicious. I mean, look at those layers.

Abby really liked it. We ate half the dish. And a bottle of Prosecco. Whoops. And then we ate some jam tart - but that's a post for another day.

Okay, sorry, I can't help myself. Bon Appetit!

Let the sunshine in!

2010-04-14T14:30:00.003-04:00

A few weeks ago, the sun started to shine in New York City. I was really excited about it, except for one thing - it wasn't really spring because there were still no vegetables at the farmer's market. Every time I saw another apple picked last fall, I just wanted to scream. "Where are all the spring vegetables?!?!" my brain would say. "Can't eat more potatoes........aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Well halle-freaking-lujah, ramps and green garlic have arrived in Union Square. I came home with some treats:

There's a mix of microgreens, ramps (like onions/garlic/scallions mixed together) and a tiny gold medallion of chocolate covered goat cheese.

I might finally be inspired to cook something now.

Bread!!!!!

2010-04-08T19:20:00.005-04:00

Okay folks, Passover is over. No more not eating bread. Or pasta. Or rice. Jeez, that sucked.

So to celebrate, here's a post about yummy yummy brownies that have cream cheese in them! I'm kind of obsessed with cream cheese lately. Especially desserts that have cream cheese in them - it makes my heart so happy (if not my stomach).

These are easy to make, but kind of hard to make look pretty (at least for me - I'm not that artistic).

Cream Cheese Marbled Brownies!

First make the batter from here. Just add an extra egg (and don't add mini-eggs. Obviously).

In a separate bowl, beat an 8oz pack of cream cheese, 1/2 cup sugar, one egg and 1/4 cup flour.

Plop spoonfuls of the cream cheese mixture over the brownie batter and swirl it with a knife. The less you swirl, the prettier it is. I think I swirled too much.....

I threw some white chocolate chips on top (regular chocolate would have been better, but I didn't have any).

Bake for 35-40 min at 350 degrees.

Cut them into squares and bring them to your friends while you eat sushi and watch Gossip Girl. Everyone will be happy.

A new Passover recipe

2010-04-01T15:28:00.005-04:00

How could I let Passover go by without making something new for you all? You know I love an excuse for themed food. So yes, it's Passover time, that time of year where millions of people go Atkins to prove their devotion to God. I've seen people make this over the years and I decided, what the heck, it's time for me to try it.

Chocolate Covered Caramelized Matzoh Crunch! - adapted from David Lebovitz

(yeah, you read that right. Boo-yah)

4 to 6 sheets unsalted matzohs
1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup firmly-packed light brown sugar
big pinch of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips (I used bittersweet, but semisweet would work too)

Line a rimmed baking sheet completely with foil, making sure the foil goes up and over the edges. Cover the foil with a sheet of parchment paper. You'll thank me later when the clean up takes two seconds and not a hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Line the bottom of the sheet with matzoh.

In a small heavy duty saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together, and cook over medium heat, stirring, until the butter is melted and the mixture is beginning to boil. Boil for 3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Remove from heat, add the salt and vanilla, and pour over matzoh, spreading with a heatproof spatula.

Woo hoo! This part tastes really good. Put the pan in the oven and reduce the heat to 350 degrees. Bake for 15 minutes. As it bakes, it will bubble up but make sure it's not burning every once in a while. If it is in spots, remove from oven and reduce the heat to 325, then replace the pan. Mine didn't burn at all - but my oven is weird, so don't take my word for it.

Remove from oven and immediately cover with chocolate chips.

Let stand 5 minutes, then spread with an offset spatula. This way, the chocolate melts and makes it easy to spread.

You can sprinkle it with salt or nuts or something if you want. I left mine plain. Let it cool and break into small pieces. Store in an airtight container.

In the interest of full disclosure, mine is still not cooled. The chocolate is all runny. But oh man, it tastes good.

Happy Passover!

2010-03-30T10:57:00.003-04:00

I hope you're all out having nice Passover sedars this week (even if you're not Jewish. Sedars are fun. And very educational). If you need to bring something to your sedar, here's a few Passover recipes that would be tastier than kosher wine (never drink an entire bottle of kosher wine in one sitting. That's just a friendly little tip from me to you).

Matzo Ball Soup (not from a jar)
Mo's famous Macaroons

I make these macaroons every Passover. I will be making them later this week for our family sedar in Boston! Everybody likes them.

I'll try to find some more Passover recipes to try this week (which will be nice for you gluten free folks as well).

Happy Pesach!

Isn't it spring yet???

2010-03-24T17:48:00.007-04:00

Today I walked through the Farmer's Market in Union Square and saw thousands of apples. "It's March!!!!!" I thought to myself. "Apple season is over. OVER! I don't want any more freaking apples!" And then I remembered that I still had four apples in the bottom of my crisper, leftover from a trip that Zack's dad took to an orchard. "I have to use those apples," I berated myself. "But how?"

One trip to the grocery store later, I decided I was too lazy to make a pie crust and picked up some frozen puff pastry. "Ina Garten (the Barefoot Contessa) uses it," I rationalized. "It doesn't make me a bad person." And so, there are now seven apple turnovers in my kitchen (there were eight - but I ate one).

Apple Turnovers

3.5 apples (I had to throw half an apple away - too brown - 3 would have been plenty though)
1 lemon (zested and juiced)
3 tablespoons sugar, plus extra to sprinkle on top
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Pinch kosher salt
1 package (17.3 ounces, 2 sheets) frozen puff pastry, defrosted
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water, for egg wash

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Hope that your oven isn't retarded like mine is and won't randomly stop working for no reason.

Peel and chop your apples. Add the lemon zest and juice so that they don't turn brown. Add sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Mix it up.

Roll out each sheet of puff pastry into a 12x12 square. Cut each sheet into four squares. Put some filling down on half of each square.

Brush your egg wash on the edges of the squares (this is so they will stick together). Fold the squares into triangles.

Push down all the way around with a fork.

Brush the remaining egg wash over the top of each triangle. Sprinkle some sugar on top. Cut two little slits with a knife across the top of each turnover so that they don't explode while cooking.

Bake for 20 minutes or until they are nice and brown.

See how how flaky and delicious they are? Yum.

Make them for breakfast. Or a snack. Or dessert. Or whatever.

Yup, they're good

2010-03-20T22:00:00.005-04:00

Cadbury Mini Eggs were made by the devil. I love them. You know that. My previous attempt at baking with mini eggs was satisfactory, but still not the ultimate in baked goods. But if at first you don't succeed, bake some brownies and call it a day.

The basic brownie recipe is from the Baker's chocolate box. I don't care. I love it.

Mini Egg Brownies

4 squares Baker's unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cup (1 and 1/2 sticks) butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
one large bag mini eggs (if you eat some first, I won't tell), broken into bits

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13x9 inch pan with foil and butter it. Don't skip this and just grease the pan. This is so much easier. Genius.

Microwave the chocolate and butter together for 2 minutes (or you could use a double boiler on the stove. But this is way easier). Stir until the chocolate is melted and add the sugar.

Don't eat it yet. It's grainy and sugary and wonderful. But don't eat it.

Add the eggs and vanilla and blend well. Mix in the flour.

Now you have brownie batter!

Don't you love brownie batter? I sure do.

Mix in some of the mini eggs. Yum yum yum. Pour into the pan. Sprinkle the rest of the eggs over the top.

Pretty pretty. Don't eat it yet! Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Let them cool (if you can) and cut into squares. Try not to eat them all in one sitting because it will make you sick.

A break for your arteries

2010-03-17T08:00:00.002-04:00

I realize that I get a little sugar/butter/chocolate heavy sometimes and that not everybody appreciates it (Dad). Also, Zack may have been complaining lately that I am making him fat. So, being a kind and understanding wife, I accommodate and try to cook something delicious and nutritious at the same time.

I had a pretty intense craving for creamed spinach the other day, but there were a few problems standing in my way:

1. I don't want to gain any more weight and eating a side dish that is almost entirely made of cream seemed like a step in the wrong direction.
2. I was out of cream.

So I searched the Internet and devised a low-fat version of creamed spinach that was not exactly the same (you can't really replace cream, no matter what anyone says) but fairly satisfying nonetheless.

Fake Out Creamed Spinach

2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup chopped onion or shallot
10 ounces baby spinach
1 tablespoon butter (yeah, you still need a little bit)
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk (I used skim because that's all I have)
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan or Pecorino Romano cheese

Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the onion and saute until softened (a few minutes). Add the spinach and wilt (another few minutes). Turn off heat and set aside.

In a small pot, melt one tablespoon of butter.

A little butter is okay. You can't beat the flavor and only a small bit of butter won't kill you. This is for the whole dish! Not just you. The healthiness of the spinach will counteract it for you. No worries.

Add the flour and stir it into the butter. Let it cook over medium heat until it turns golden. You want the flour to cook and not taste raw anymore. Ick.

Pour in the milk and stir rapidly or whisk so that all the flour mixture melds into the milk. Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg. Now you've got a little "bechamel" sauce, which is French for white sauce.

Stir in the spinach and cheese (again, just a little bit of cheese to boost flavor. It's okay. Just think about the cup and a half of heavy cream you didn't use).

That's it! Eat and feel virtuous.

Feeling much better now

2010-03-15T08:00:00.006-04:00

Recipes call out to me for different reasons. Some have nothing but ingredients that I love. Some remind me of wonderful food I ate once. And sometimes, I see a recipe and I have to make it, just to prove that I can. And that's how it was with this Smitten Kitchen recipe: Homemade Oreos.

I like oreos as much as the next person, but they've never been a particular favorite of mine. I don't really have childhood memories of eating them much (the only store bought cookies I remember eating as a kid at home were Pepperidge Farm Milanos....yum), nor am I really into cookies that are filled with hydrogenated oils. But when I saw the opportunity to make oreos (from scratch! at home!), well that just spoke to the crazy part of my brain and I had to do it.

Smitten Kitchen's Homemade Oreos

For the chocolate wafers:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 to 1 1/2 cups sugar (use 1 cup of sugar for a more authentic less sweet oreo cookie - use more if you want)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

For the filling:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) room-temperature, unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable shortening
2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Set two racks in the middle of the oven (this is already how the racks in my oven are! I love it when I don't have to do anything). Preheat to 375°F.

In a food processor, or bowl of an electric mixer, thoroughly mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, or on low speed, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.

This took way longer than I thought it would. I initially thought, hey, I must have fucked this up! Darn it! The oreos are triumphant and I am a loser. But then I just let it run for a minute while I went to the other room to kick something and when I came back, it looks like cookie dough. Bliss.

Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately two inches apart (you really want to keep it to a teaspoon, other wise the cookies get too big and it's weird and not very oreo-like). With your hands (I love recipes where you have to use your hands to touch food), roll the dough into a little all and then smush it with the palm of your hand.

Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool.

To make the cream, place butter and shortening in a mixing bowl, and at low speed, gradually beat in the sugar and vanilla. Turn the mixer on high and beat for 2 to 3 minutes until filling is light and fluffy (as you can see, I used a wooden spoon. I am super old school).

To assemble the cookies, in a pastry bag with a 1/2 inch, round tip (do you have a pastry bag? I sure don't, but I have a ziploc bag that I cut a hole in the corner of), pipe teaspoon-size blobs of cream into the center of one cookie.

Place another cookie, equal in size to the first, on top of the cream. Lightly press, to work the filling evenly to the outsides of the cookie. Continue this process until all the cookies are oreo sandwich cookies!

I wish I could say I would share these with you, except that Zack ate them all (except for the six I saved for Asha). They tasted remarkably like oreos (Zack said they were better than oreos, but he's my husband and can't quite be trusted on these matters). Asha liked them too though.

Make these! Then you too can say "I can make oreos at home! Bow down to me Nabisco, for I am the Queen of everything." It's a good feeling.

Argh

2010-03-11T17:56:00.003-05:00

You know what really falls by the wayside when you have a week long stomach virus? Food blogging.

I'm still down for the count, but rest assured, I've got some great stuff saved up for you, including turkey chili, homemade oreos, mini egg brownies and more. Don't hold your breath, folks! I'll be back soon.

Before winter ends

2010-03-08T09:00:00.006-05:00

I have been scared of this post for months. It is long and complicated and I have a bunch of pictures. But as the weather warms up (finally! I hate winter. Except for the holiday bits), I realize that soon this post will become ridiculous as this is a cold weather dish that would be totally overwhelming in the summer. So there goes nothing: Chicken and Dumplings.

This is a bit of a weird choice for a nice Jewish girl from California to make. It's one of those classic Southern dishes that I literally have no experience with. But as I flipped through the Smitten Kitchen website (totally obsessed. Love her!), this dish popped up over and over again. I could make this, I thought. And so I did. Several times.

The first time I made this dish was for my friends Elana and Katie - a fellow California hippie and a Yankee from Massachusetts. They didn't know what to make of this either, but it was below 20 degrees and January, so they warmed up to it fast.

Chicken and Dumplings adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Smitten Kitchen warns you not to use fat free or low fat milk in this recipe. I couldn't agree more.

Stew
5 pounds bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs
Table salt and ground black pepper
4 teaspoons vegetable oil
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
2 medium leeks , white and llight green parts only, cut in half lengthwise and then into 1-inch pieces
1 large onion, minced
6 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup dry sherry
4 1/2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon minced fresh thyme leaves
2 bay leaves
1 cup frozen green peas
3 tablespoons minced fresh tarragon leaves

Dumplings
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon table salt
1 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons reserved chicken fat (or unsalted butter)

For the stew: Pat the chicken dry with paper towels, then season with salt and pepper. Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add half of the chicken and cook until golden on both sides, about 10 minutes. Here it is on one side...

And then the other.

Transfer the chicken to a plate and remove the browned skin (I have made this a few times now and just noticed this step. Whoops! I always just removed the skin later. It worked fine). Pour off the chicken fat and reserve (use this later to make the dumplings!). Return the pot to medium-high heat and repeat with the remaining 2 teaspoons oil and the remaining chicken. Pour off and reserve any chicken fat. It took me way more than two batches to cook the chicken. But that's okay! You don't want to crowd the chicken or it won't brown right.

Add the butter to the Dutch oven and melt over medium-high heat. Add the leeks, onion, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.

Cook until softened, about 7 minutes. Stir in the flour. Whisk in the sherry, scraping up any browned bits. Stir in the broth, milk, thyme, and bay leaves.

Nestle the chicken, with any accumulated juices, into the pot. Cover and simmer until the chicken is fully cooked and tender, about 1 hour.

Look at my beautiful Le Creuset. I'm not bragging or anything. Okay, maybe I am. But I love it so much.

Normally I don't make a lot of stuff that has to sit for this long. But man, it was worth it.

Transfer the chicken to a cutting board.

Yum, chicken. Discard the bay leaves. Allow the sauce to settle for a few minutes, then skim the fat from the surface using a wide spoon. Shred the chicken, discarding the bones (and skin if you haven't already). Try not to burn your fingers. Use a fork or something. Return it to the stew.

For the dumplings: Stir the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Microwave the milk and fat in a microwave-safe bowl on high until just warm (do not over-heat), about 1 minute. Stir the warmed milk mixture into the flour mixture with a wooden spoon until incorporated and smooth.

Return the stew to a simmer, stir in the peas and tarragon (I never used tarragon because I never had any. I just added some dried basil instead), and season with salt and pepper. Using a soup spoon, drop golf-ball-sized dumplings over the top of the stew, about 1/4 inch apart (you should have about 18 dumplings).

Reduce the heat to low, cover, and cook until the dumplings have doubled in size, 15 to 18 minutes. The dumplings taste like biscuits. It was super tasty.

This is a great dish to take to your friends who just had a baby. It sticks to your ribs and it's so filling. It will make a Southern afficiando out of girls who have never been below the Mason Dixon line.

Channelling the obsession

2010-03-05T12:00:00.001-05:00

If you know me, you know that I am pretty much obsessed with Cadbury Mini-Eggs (I blogged about it here last year ). It's such a well known problem that this year, I had not one, not two, but THREE separate friends who texted me photos when they spotted the first mini-eggs of the season this year. I feel like some sort of deranged chocolate guru.

To try and stop myself from eating a full bag of candy in one sitting, I channelled my chocolate obsession into another more productive obsession: Baking.

Here for your holiday enjoyment (you know how much I love themed food) are my first batch of Cadbury Mini Egg cookies. These are by no means the be-all-end-all recipe that I will come up with. But it's a start.

1 stick butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 Tbs milk
1 and 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
as much of a 10oz bag of mini eggs as you have left over....I ate some. Whoops. Then I wacked the rest into tiny bits to work out my aggression/make the mini eggs into a good cookie bite size. Six of one....

First I just made my basic chocolate chip cookie dough - melt the butter, mix in the sugar, then the egg, vanilla and milk (you could cream the butter and sugar together - but I'm super lazy. Plus, I've been doing it for years now and I like the texture). Then slowly mix in the dry ingredients (I mix in 1/2 cup of flour at a time).

Now here comes the best part.....

Are you ready.....?

BAM!

Yeah, that's good stuff.

Um, you should probably mix the eggs into the batter now. Otherwise, you'll just eat them all. Or I will.

Scoop out the dough in cookie size increments (whatever that means to you) and bake at 350 degrees for ten minutes.

Not only do they taste good, the colors are so pretty and spring-y. Now if only it wasn't still winter.

Not for the health conscious

2010-03-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, back when the Super Bowl was happening, I thought to myself, "Amazing! What a perfect opportunity to make the Pioneer Woman's Bacon Jalapeno Thingies!" And I bought all the ingredients and psyched up my friends.

Cut to the morning of the Super Bowl, when I am kidnapped by my husband and put on an early morning train to Washington DC and forced to watch the Caps/Penguins game (it was an awesome game. But still). So the Bacon Jalapeno Thingies were never made.

A few weeks later, it was the USA/Canada Olympic hockey game (not the gold medal one) and my hockey league was meeting at a bar to watch and yell and drink beer and stuff. This seemed pretty similar to the whole Super Bowl thing, so I decided to make the Thingies and bring them.

The Pioneer Woman's Bacon Jalapeno Thingies

Jalapenos (as many as you think you may need)
Cheddar Cheese (I used Cracker Barrel's 2% milk kind - no need for the fancy stuff here), grated
Cream Cheese (I used 1/3 less fat kind)
a few green onions, chopped
bacon!

Ok, this is super easy. Put the cream cheese, cheddar and green onions in a bowl.

Mix them up!

Slice all the jalapenos in half and scrape out the seeds and ribs with a spoon.

I'm in front of my computer watching TheWB.com. Don't judge.

Be careful when you touch the insides of jalapenos because they will make your fingers burn. Then if you touch your eye (or wherever), that part of your body burns.....So wear some gloves, or just wash your hands a lot.

Fill the jalapenos with the cheese mixture.

Wrap the cheese stuffed jalapeno with a piece of bacon (you will probably cut a piece of bacon in 1/2 or 1/3 for this, depending on how long your bacon is). Secure it with a toothpick.

You're going to put a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet and place all the jalapenos on it to bake. This way the bacon fat will drip below and not get everything all gross.

Bake at 375 degrees for 20-25 minutes. You want the bacon to look kinda browned. The Pioneer Woman advises you to just throw them under the broiler for a few minutes if that's not happening.

Take to a group of sports fans and hope that they like them.

Purim!

2010-03-02T12:51:00.006-05:00

So this weekend was the Jewish holiday of Purim. I've had a hamantaschen recipe (the traditional Purim cookie) earmarked for some time now, but when it came to the day, Zack forgot to get eggs from the grocery store and I didn't get to start these until the holiday was essentially over. But cookies are good anytime, so I forged ahead.

Purim, for those of you not in the know, is the holiday where the Jewish people living in Persia were saved from extermination. The villain, Hamen, wanted to exterminate the Jews, but they were saved by Esther (she spoke to the King on behalf of the Jewish people) and today, everyone celebrates by dressing up and sending out gifts of food. Some people like to call it the Jewish Halloween. The cookies symbolize Hamen's pockets, or ears, or his hat, depending on who you ask.

(Ironically, the first place I read about Purim was in a children's book at my friend Alison Criss's house - my only Christian friend in elementary school - but that's neither here nor there)

At any rate, I wanted to make some cookies. And so I did.

Hamentaschen (adapted from Smitten Kitchen - my current obsession)

8 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3 ounces cream cheese at room temperature
3 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange zest (I used Meyer Lemon zest - it was great)
1 1/3 cups plus 4 teaspoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

Jam, pie fillings, what have you. I used the Kahn family blueberry jam (amazing!), strawberry jam (from Smuckers. Substandard) and homemade poppy seed filling (because I am an overacheiver). Get the recipe I used here.

Cream butter and cream cheese together until smooth (I still haven't set up my stand mixer, so I used a wooden spoon.

Power to the old fashioned cooking methods!). Add sugar and mix for one minute longer, then egg, vanilla extract, orange (or lemon) zest and salt, mixing until combined.

Finally, add the flour. I added it 1/3 cup at a time and that seemed to work very well.

Form dough into a disc, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least an hour.

I was out of plastic wrap, so I used a ziploc bag. Then I left it over night in the fridge because at this point, it was almost 10pm.

Okay, now it's Tuesday. I had to wake up early and meet with a mortgage banker and wear nice "I'm such a responsible grown up don't you want to lend me hundreds of thousands of dollars" clothes. I'm ready for some damn cookies. Preheat oven to 350°F. Realize your oven didn't turn on, go back to the stove and kick it.

To form the hamantaschen, roll out the dough on a well-floured surface until it is about 1/4-inch thick.

Using a round cookie cutter (or a biscuit cutter! I have fancy biscuit cutters now from Miyoko. Yay for getting married and people giving me kitchen stuff!), cut the dough into circles.

Spoon a teaspoon of you filling of choice in the center.

Fold the dough in from three sides and firmly crimp the corners and give them a little twist to ensure they stay closed. Leave the filling mostly open in the center.

Bake on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake until golden brown, about 20 minutes.

My cookies turned out fairly misshapen. But you know what? They tasted good. The dough was really flaky and the homemade jam was a great filling. Like all Jewish cookies, they taste best warm.

Happy Purim!

For my dad

2010-02-24T19:04:00.007-05:00

So, I made this last week when I was on a health kick but I didn't post it because my dad was on vacation and I couldn't bear the idea of him missing the healthy vegetarian meal I made and coming back to pictures of steak or chicken and dumplings or something.

My dad and I were talking on the phone the other day, and he was telling me about how he cooked up some red quinoa.

Quinoa is one of those super healthy grains that has protein and fiber and stuff that makes vegans sing songs about how eating meat is evil and killing the planet and stuff. I don't know from that, but I know it makes good alternative spaghetti! I figured I'd give it a try.

I saw this recipe online and I had all the ingredients on hand except feta cheese. I gave it a try but I don't really recommend making it without the cheese (unless you're my dad - in that case, go ahead).

Quinoa with Sundried Tomatoes and Feta

1 teaspoon olive oil
8 sundried tomatoes, chopped
2 minced shallots
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cup vegetable broth (or any broth), or water
1 cup dry quinoa
Pinch cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper
Feta cheese, as much as you'd like

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add the tomatoes, shallots and garlic and sauté for 3-5 minutes until the shallots are soft.

Add the stock and bring to a boil. Add the quinoa and cayenne pepper.

Bring back to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. The liquid should be fully absorbed. Stir in the salt, pepper, cilantro and feta(if using) and serve.

It tasted super healthy. I thought that the cayenne pepper made the broth taste kinda weird, but maybe the feta would have balanced it out.

My dad would have totally loved it! If you're into hippie vegetarian food, knock yourself out with this.

Sunday....

2010-02-21T14:11:00.003-05:00

Like many New Yorkers, I love brunch. However, unlike many New Yorkers, I have a husband who pretty much refuses to leave the house on the weekends before 2pm on pain of death (barring some work-related crisis). To get him to wake up at a reasonable hour, shower, put clothes on and leave the house (all before eating) would be nothing short of a miracle. So how to have brunch?

Make it at home!

This morning, after flipping through the smitten kitchen website (I love love love that website), I decided to make Edna Mae's Sour Cream Pancakes (and also some bacon). I decided on this recipe for a few reasons: the total cooking time was about ten minutes, I had some sour cream in my fridge and I'm down to about 3 Tbs of butter so I can't bake anything and I've been itching (ITCHING!) to cook.

So here ya go: make your own brunch. It rocks. Plus, whoever lives in the house with you will totally love you (unless you refuse to share).

Note: I halved the recipe because I only had half a cup of sour cream and it fed Zack and me perfectly well. The full recipe is below.

7 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/ 2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream (I used reduced fat sour cream and it was totally fine)
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Butter
Maple syrup

Stir the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt together in a bowl. Add the sour cream in on top and stir it together. Whisk the eggs and vanilla in a separate bowl (normally I would just dump it all in the same bowl, but I didn't want to screw up the consistency of the batter) and stir them into the sour cream mixture. Don't overmix.

Melt about a tablespoon of butter in your skillet or griddle and pour the batter in, a scant 1/4 cup at a time. Cook for about 2 minutes on the first side, or until bubbles appear all over the surface, flipping them carefully and cooking for about a minute on the other side. Repeat with remaining batter.

Stack up about three of them and put a lot of maple syrup on top. Serve with bacon and watch your husband plotz.

Cookies!!!!!

2010-02-18T11:55:00.003-05:00

Cookies are pretty much my favorite things ever. I love to make them. I love to eat them. I love the way the house smells when they're in the oven. They rock. So when I see a new cookie recipe (especially one that doesn't take much prep time - I want the baking-to-eating time to be pretty short), I make it.

I saw this recipe on The Amateur Gourmet. I was especially excited by the name "Lucy Alibar." Why, you may ask? She was in my graduating class at the Experimental Theater Wing (that's NYU talk for those of you not in the know). Plus, I think she's peachy keen. She's fun and a heck of a writer. So I thought, I will make Lucy's cookies! And then I will bring them to my friend Bryn's house for her and her husband Paul to eat.

And that's what I did.

Lucy's Salty Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookie

1 cup creamy peanut butter (use a commercial brand, "natural" peanut butter won't work here - I used Skippy and it was swell)
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 Tbs vanilla extract
a pinch of sea or kosher salt
orange zest (not too much, maybe a tsp or so)

Combine all these things in a bowl!

That sure was easy, wasn't it?

Scoop out batter with an ice cream scoop (or just a spoon) and lay a piece of chocolate across the top. I broke up a Hershey bar and it was great. I also used one piece of fancy chocolate, but I thought the Hershey/Skippy combination was just perfect. Save the fancy chocolate for another day.

Sprinkle a little bit of sea salt across the top of each cookie. I love salt.

Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Now you've got cookies!

They were creamy and delicious. I loved the hit of orange flavor from the zest. Another fun note - these are gluten free! So if you have a gluten-free friend, make these for them.

Thanks, Lucy! These cookies are great.

Another year, another fancy meal

2010-02-15T12:12:00.009-05:00

You totally wish you were my Valentine. If you were my Valentine, you would have gotten this lovely 5 course homemade meal.

I pulled out all the stops. I put down place mats. I even made a tiny candle holder out of a shot glass and orzo.

I'm so inventive. As you saw before, here was the first course - a salad made of avocado, mango, blood orange and strawberries.

It was followed by Angel Hair with homemade Pesto. I love pesto.

Next came lamb rib chops with turnip gratin. See the nice plating? That's from watching a lot of Top Chef.

The turnip gratin had cream, garlic and gruyere cheese. Look how yummy it looks.

Yeah, it's good.

Then we had a cheese course (we're so French).

The cheese was from the Essex Street Market. Very fancy sheep's milk from a local dairy. Love it.

We ended with Panna Cotta with raspberries. I marinated the raspberries in meyer lemon juice and sugar. Panna Cotta was Zack's favorite dessert when we were in Paris, so I thought that would be nice.

He's pretty happy about it.

He brought me fancy chocolates. We were too full to eat them, but it was very nice.

I hope you're having a 3 day weekend! I'm not and neither is Zack. Whoops.

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-14T17:17:00.004-05:00

I wasn't going to say anything. No one is reading the internet today, right? Everyone is off with their Valentine or enjoying their 3 day weekend or moping around because everyone is off being couple-y and you just want to punch them in the face (been there, my friends).

So here's the start to my Valentine's Day meal - a little salad with avocados, blood oranges, mango and strawberry.

And yes, I did cut a piece of avocado into a heart. I am a dork.

Happy Valentine's Day! More food to come.