Category Archives: Cooking

Name that Noodle

Posted on by

I still have pasta on the brain after last week’s post about Caputo’s. With over 400 shapes of pasta floating around out there, are you worthy enough to be a pasta insider? Prove yourself with this little puzzle. If you can name all the unusual shapes of pasta pictured below, you can share my marinara any time. Extra points if you can say what each name means in Italian! Hint: The answers appear in alphabetical order.

Don’t click this until you’re ready for the answers…

Continue reading →

Hidden Valley Shakin in its Pleather Boots: Jay’s Garlic-Dill 5 Minute Salad Dressing Recipe

Posted on by

I’ve never been much for creamy salad dressings.  As revelator(ily) awesome as Cool Ranch Doritos were upon their debut in middle school, the taste of their dressing counterpart has always seemed to me merely gloppy, as if the gloop factor is the primary taste as well as texture.  Blue cheese dressing is yummy because blue cheese is yummy, but as an adult I’ve generally stayed away because of the fat and the general feeling that Hidden Valley and its mega cousins merely dump some cheese chunks in a vat of mayo and call it a day.  I’d rather gnaw on a hunk of good blue cheese when I’m in the kitchen alone.

But my creamy salad dressing, now that’s the cat’s pajamas.

I’ll see your cream factor and raise it a fistful of taste complexity and a hint of heat.

My dressing will erase your student debt, enliven your sex life, and talk your way out of a speeding ticket.

It’ll clock Wayne LaPierre in the kisser and cause Eric Cantor to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

It will also, on a regular night when you’re wiped from work, provide in 5-minutes prep time a vastly superior alternative to the bottled dressing you’ve got in the fridge and a nice change of pace from the oil-&-balsamic routine. Continue reading →

Potato Weather

Posted on by
potato head

Hark! I have come to save Europe!

It was around the same time that the wind turned nastily sharp that Jason and I decided that there weren’t enough baked potatoes in our lives. Surely, the main reason that potatoes are a central component in cold-weather cuisines is that they grow best in places with relatively cool springs and summers. But it seems to me that potatoes warm the eater, too, their starchiness bolstering us through harsh winters. I once had a history professor, an elderly, tweed-jacket-and-leather-elbow-patches sort of fellow, who passionately preached the glory of potatoes, claiming they were “the crop that saved Europe.” (His point, as I recall, had to do with the fact that all those fiefs could survive a long time on potatoes alone because of their carbohydrates and abundant vitamins, far longer than if they were eating only, say, barley.) Anyway, if they’re good enough to save Europe, they’re good enough for me.

They’re also a breeze to make: a little oil, a little salt and pepper, a couple jabs with a fork and they’re ready to go in the oven. While they bake for about an hour, you can dream up fun things to put on top, like broccoli or chili or leftover Indian takeout.

But if you want to mix it up a little, here’s a potato recipe that I always begin to crave at around this time of year. We call them Brad’s Potatoes because…well, because my cousin Brad likes them. (This is standard naming procedure in my family. We also have Bobbie Kay’s Pasta Salad, Marilyn’s Cookies, Louise’s Potato Candy, and on and on.) Believe me, they’re far tastier than French fries and maybe even a little better for you. Continue reading →

Nogging in the New Year

Posted on by
egg nog

Never mind the taste; few words are so pleasing as "nog."

After days of consuming rich holiday treats, Jason and I were pretty sure we didn’t need to add to the load. Yet there was one recipe that we hadn’t gotten a chance to try over Christmas, and we couldn’t resist giving it a whirl on New Year’s Day. The New York Times had run a recipe for Nog, the Hard Way in December, and we have a known weakness for things that are a) alcoholic and b) more difficult than they really should be. And so we put the black-eyed peas on to boil and got down to the business of nogging.

The NYT recipe is broken, rather arbitrarily, into five steps, but let me assure you, there are more than five steps. In fact, reading the thing beforehand made Jason (a wee bit hungover) threaten to wave the white flag. But once we got going, it wasn’t so hard after all, and despite a small disagreement over how fast a whisk should be moving before the action can be considered whisking, it made for an excellent tag-team cooking experience. For instance, Jason could stir in the heavy cream while I was preoccupied with cursing the fact that we only had three ice cubes left in the freezer with which to create an ice-water bath for the pan. (We ended up improvising by using an ice pack.)

ice water

Sometimes, you just have to improvise.

Jason was a tad skeptical of the raw egg factor, and we’d splurged on the freshest, most pristine eggs we could find. But regardless, it was amazing to witness how thorough of a transformation the eggs go through. After all of that whisking and beating, it seemed a chemical impossibility that they would be at all slimy or unpalatable.

Would all this intrepid nog determination turn out to be worth it? Continue reading →

Salty Sweet Winter Squash & Apples

Posted on by

I love winter squash.  Summer squashes like zucchini wear me out pretty quick, but winter squashes have stamina.  They’re nutty, buttery, have heft.  They’re full of all the B vitamins and omega 3s and fiber.  They’re a good source of folate.  I don’t know what folate does, but I trust that it’s good, and I’m okay with just eating winter squash and trusting it’ll hold down the folate fort for me.

I found a winter squash recipe at the Union Square farmers market last week.  As best as I can tell, the Natural Gourmet Institute next to the Flatiron Building is laying claim to it.  It rocks.  You should eat it.

You need squash, apples, thyme (fresh, if possible), honey, salt & pepper, butter.

First, get your squashes, let’s say 6 cups-worth or so.  That worked out to be 2 medium-to-small specimens for me.  You can use Acorn, Butternut, whatever is on hand, but you want them hard and you want them colorful.  Unless you are John Ford or Dorothea Lange, color is always good. Continue reading →

Cinnamon Girl

Posted on by
cinnamon tea

Boiling some smaller pieces of the bark

“People think cinnamon, it is like a little twig, but this is not true. Do you know?”

“Sure,” I said, because I was pretty sure I knew what cinnamon looked like.

“No, you do not know,” Veronica said, sighing heavily, because she was pretty sure I didn’t.

As it turned out, she was right, but let’s back up a step or two. Veronica is one of my students at the Bedford Learning Center, a doggedly determined woman who is a few decades older than me and likes to pepper our conversations with bits of wisdom, usually about the differences between men and women. But that evening, she had turned away from gender problems in favor of the flora of her homeland, St. Lucia. A friend visiting from the island had just brought her a new supply of herbal tea-fixings, including the bark of the native cinnamon tree.

“You will see,” she said, and I did, because at our next meeting, she brought me a big Ziploc bag of leaves and nuts and the bark of what looked like a very large tree. In fact, it looked like someone had hacked off a chunk of a sizable oak tree or something and dyed it a more reddish color. It definitely did not look like what passes for cinnamon at any grocery store in America. Continue reading →

Curried Brussels Sprouts and a Vinegar Sop

Posted on by

I surely ate Brussels Sprouts growing up, though I can’t seem to remember them.  They’ve merged in my mind with the steamed cabbage that accompanied corned beef and that I’d drown in red wine vinegar.

Your assumption might be that I turned the cabbage into a vinegar sop in order to liven up a limp, unseasoned vegetable, and you’d be right.  But I also came to view those limp leaves as an excuse to drink vinegar, something I will unabashedly admit I still do with some frequency.  I also clean our kitchen counters with vinegar, (though the white wine kind) and mix red wine vinegar and my buddy Reece’s honey as a tonic before bed.  Shannon’s grandmother’s best friend Naomi (pronounced, in rural Ohio, as “Nee-oh-ma”) drank it nightly without fail, and she made it into her early 90s without being prescribed a single medication.  It’s the wonder food!

I don’t eat much steamed cabbage any more, but I do rock the Brussels Sprouts, and sometimes with vinegar.  They’re a fantastic winter veggie that you should pick up at the market and prepare, possibly, in one of the following two ways.

Cooking and eating these very simple recipes will make you happy.

Brussels Sprouts with Curried Yogurt

Ingredients:   Plain, low-fat yogurt  /  Brussels Sprouts (the smaller ones are tastier)  /  One Onion  /  Garlic  /  Chili, either as pepper or power  /  Curry Powder  /  Salt

  1. Trim any woody ends off the Brussels and, if you’ve got those guys that are the size of those big, hollow gumballs, cut them in half.
  2. Steam them, either in some container built to be used with a pot on the stove or in a covered bowl in the microwave with a teaspoon of water poured in.  Remove them when they’re a bright, Easter-grass green.
  3. Meanwhile, slice the onion and sauté it in olive oil until it’s soft.
  4. Meanwhile2, mix half a cup of the yogurt with curry powder to taste. Continue reading →

Red State, Blue State, Red Bread, Blue Bread

Posted on by
Red, White, & Blue Bread slices

Mmmm...bipartisan and delicious

Nothing makes me as tired and hungry as political punditry, and all of those election maps blazoned across TV and computer screens today reminded of a contest-winning recipe we posted a few months back. If you haven’t yet tried the Red, White & Blue Bread recipe submitted by rising Nashville star Andrew Leahey, well…consider it your civic duty to make up for that oversight now. The carbs will keep you going until the votes have been counted, regardless of whether your political leanings are more the color of sun dried tomatoes or a blob of bleu cheese. Be on the lookout for more bread tomorrow as I forge ahead in my efforts to conquer my baking fears.

Hurricane Food: Chili Tips from the Midst of Sandy’s Formidable Clutches

Posted on by

chili!Believe me when I say that I am not trying to make light of anyone’s storm hardships, but let’s face facts: there’s a lot of boredom that goes hand-in-hand with weather catastrophes. Ever since the subways shut down last night, there has been a good deal of thumb-twiddling here in Brooklyn while we count our canned goods, watch storm porn on weather.com (NEW! IMAGES OF SANDY’S WRATH) and wait for the damn thing to finally hit land. An unexpected side effect of that boredom is that Jason and I, unhampered by the burdens of actually earning money this Monday morning, have been eating unusually well.

Jason rescued bags full of basil from the possibly-doomed hoop house yesterday, and then set about producing vast amounts of pesto that we have been gulping down with the last gasp of the year’s tomato crop and anything from the refrigerator that would pain us too much to see spoil. Today I whipped up a big batch of chili. Chili might just be the perfect hurricane food: should the power go, we can warm it up on the stove, and should the gas go, it is not too disgusting eaten cold. Besides, that article in this weekend’s NYT magazine about those crazy-old Greek people indicated that we should all eat more beans. So take that, Sandy!

Here are some chili tips for you, whether you’re in the middle of a hurricane or not: Continue reading →

Pump up the Jam: Cranberry Orange

Posted on by

canningAs favors for our wedding last year, Jason and I decided to make a bunch of different homemade jams and give each guest a jar. Why this occurred to me, when I had little to no experience making jam, I have no idea. But aside from some bad pre-wedding dreams of giving botulism to everyone I loved on the same day, the plan went miraculously well.

So when I realized a couple weeks ago that I didn’t know how to bake, I resolved to make some jam for the Havemeyer Sugar Sweets Festival rather than botching a pie or cake. Jam, to me, is easier to deal with than baked goods because you can taste it and make adjustments before you’re done. Plus, the process of sealing the cans is a little like a mad science experiment. I am always inordinately pleased by that little sucking sound that the lids make when a vacuum forms inside the cooling jars.

For those of you who find the idea of preserving something intimidating, here are the basics: you put some sweet or sour stuff in a jar, you wipe off the rim and screw one of those two-piece canning lids on it, you put the whole thing in boiling water for a while, and then it pretty much takes care of itself. (Okay, there are a few more details you should probably mind, but not many. If you find yourself having botulism nightmares, check out Putting Food By by Janet Greene, Ruth Hertzberg and Beatrice Vaughan as a good resource book.)

Anyway, the fun part is making the jam itself, and for the festival, I went with an autumn theme: apple pie jam and cranberry orange jam. Here’s the recipe for the cranberry variety, which has a yummy sweet-tart thing going and a beautiful ruby hue: Continue reading →