Smoked salmon pasta

Betsy and I were having an evening wherein work pressures and life annoyances had driven us to consume something extraordinarily creamy and rich. This pasta fits that kind of day perfectly. Make it on some evening when you know you'll have enough people over for dinner to eat it all because it isn't one of those pasta sauces that keeps well. This will easily serve 4 people, more if you are doing small portions for a first course. It's really easy to make and would be great with a green salad tossed in a bright vinaigrette to contrast with the creamy sauce--of course the other day when I made this we were feeling sorry for ourselves and didn't scare up any green vegetables at all. Betsy showed up and said "well, I didn't bring any salad stuff...but look! I brought brownies! And wine!" Which, if you think about it, is even more awesome than a salad, especially on cruddy days.

You will need a chunk of good smoked salmon--I used about 8 ounces but it's a pretty flexible thing. The better the salmon is, the better your sauce will be. Use a knife or a fork and flake up your chunk of salmon into little pieces and set aside. Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil and saute 1 small minced onion over medium heat until lightly caramelized and all soft and golden, about 8 minutes. Turn your heat up to medium-high and add 1 cup white wine and let it sizzle for a second to burn off the alcohol. Add 1 6-ounce can tomato paste and saute with the onions and wine for 1 minute then add 1/2 cup tomato puree (note: you can use any kind of canned tomato at this point as long as it isn't more tomato paste or nasty premade tomato sauce. Diced tomatoes are fine, or whatever else you happen to have in your cupboard). Add 1 8-ounce package of cream cheese in chunks, while stirring the sauce gently to make sure the cream cheese melts--it should turn a really pretty light pink color. Add in about 3 tablespoons of half-and-half (or milk or cream) to smooth it out. When the sauce is smooth, add your flaked smoked salmon and 2 teaspoons fresh black pepper. Taste it to see if it needs salt--smoked salmon is pretty salty already so it might be OK. If it seems too rich and creamy you can add a tablespoon vodka or a drizzle more white wine or some more tomato puree if you want it less pink. Either way, boil up a pound of penne pasta (or something else if you like it better), drain it lightly when it is al dente, return it to the pot you boiled it in and toss it together with your salmon sauce. Serve immediately with wine and brownies and stop worrying about your job.

Beet tzatziki and flank steak

So this whole dinner came about because of a beet tzatziki that I made and didn't know what I should do with once I'd made it. I made the tzatziki because I couldn't resist buying these gorgeous candy-colored beets at the Morningside farmer's market and they needed to be used up. Aviva and Ali and I had our porky tofu dinner the other night and we were just sitting around and chatting afterwards, so I decided to make this because I was roasting the beets anyway and wanted to do something with my hands while we talked besides drink wine (beet tzatziki--the solution for my incipient alcoholism?). It is an amazing color; a bright pink that seems impossible to occur in nature, but it totally does, y'all. I packed it up in the fridge in tupperware and thought about it for a day or so until I decided it would be great with flatbread, grilled flank steak and an assortment of other vaguely mediterranean dishes (see the last 2 posts if you are curious). A note about the type of yogurt used in tzatziki--it is sort of a special kind. It's a thick, greek-style yogurt which means it is creamier and thicker than regular yogurt and makes a revelatory sauce. So go get yourself a nice piece of beef, grill or broil it simply, and use this amazing hot pink sauce as a condiment. If nothing else it makes a great conversation starter.

Trim the greens down to 1 inch from 4 small beets, and lay them on aluminum foil in a pan to roast in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes-1 hour. The aluminum foil is just to keep the beets from staining your dish--if you don't care, don't use the foil. If you don't have small farmer's market type beets, just use 1 huge one instead. When they are soft, take them out and let them cool until you can handle them. Take the skins off (this is easy once beets are cooked, usually they just slip right off with the aid of a sharp knife) and grate the beets into a mixing bowl. Add 1 minced clove garlic, juice from 1 lemon, a drizzle of olive oil, salt and pepper. Let it sit for 5 minutes to mellow, then add at least 1 cup of thick greek-style yogurt and mix it up really well. It will be the most intense, shocking pink you've ever seen, like a cracked out Victoria's Secret window display. You may have to look away for fear of searing your retinas. Taste it and add more yogurt if it is too candy-sweet (beets are, like, pure sugar), you can add up to 1/2 cup more yogurt, if you like. Stir in some dill--1 tablespoon minced if it is fresh, or 1/2 tablespoon if it is dried.

Now for the steak. I rubbed a 2 pound flank steak with a mixture of 3 tablespoons olive oil, 3 cloves minced garlic, 2 teaspoons paprika, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, sea salt and fresh black pepper. Let this sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes, then turned on the oven broiler and stuck my grill pan in to get hot for a minute. Put the steak on the grill pan and broiled it--about 7 minutes per side. Cut into it and check after you flip it to see if it is done to your liking. You can also just throw it on the grill rather than broil it--I probably would have but I think my grill is still on Mel and Jeremy's porch. When it is cooked the way you want it, pull it out and slice into thin strips across the grain. Pour the pan juices over the slices and serve with the beet tzatziki sauce and flatbread.

Spiced couscous

This went along with the previously mentioned green beans and the not-yet mentioned flank steak in our dinner the other night. Melanie, Jeremy and Ali were all over and it was fun--especially as Melanie brought her mom's chocolate pound cake and Ali brought over chocolate-caramel covered matzoh. I'm always excited when other people bring desserts--it's just not something I do well, in case y'all haven't noticed. Anyway, Jeremy was sad that this was small-grain "normal" couscous, rather than the large pearl couscous that I usually make, but I thought it was a better accompaniment to the pan-mediterranean style dinner that I had going on, so he just had to deal with it. This is a very highly flavored, pretty side dish with a subtle Morrocan/Sicilian feel to it. It would be good either hot or at room-temperature, which makes me think it would be perfect to take on a picnic.

Start with 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. Add ¼ cup minced onion, ¼ cup minced carrot and one de-seeded and minced small serrano pepper. Any tiny slightly hot green pepper will do fine (jalapeno, cubanelle, whatever) just be sure that it is not large (about 2 inches long is fine) and make sure to de-seed it first. Saute in the butter-oil mixture until tender, then clear space in the center of the pot and add 1 teaspoon chile powder, 1 teaspoon paprika, ½ teaspoon cumin to bloom in the oil. "Blooming" your spices in heat is the best way to bring out their full flavor and potential--mostly in spice mixtures like curry powder or chile powder. What it does is release the oils and intensifies the flavor of the spice, which they do not get the opportunity to do when you just dump them into a liquidy mixture. They need full contact with a hot pan. Anyway, heat your spices and mix them in with the sauteeing vegetables, then add ½ teaspoon tumeric and 1 ¼ cup couscous (I'm just guessing on the additional ¼ cup part, all I know is that I had a little bit left in the container so I just added it. Definitely at least a cup though). Mix everything well together and add 1/3 cup golden raisins and 1 ¼ cups chicken stock, bring to a boil, cover, and turn off the heat. Let it steam covered and off-heat for 5-8 minutes, then add 1 tablespoon each minced cilantro and mint. You can use parsley instead if you want, I just happened to have these in my fridge. Fluff the couscous with a fork, mix in the juice of 1 lemon and serve hot or cold.

Agrodolce green beans with pistachios

Let me just tell you right now, this is delicious. Agrodolce sauce is good with many things although I think traditionally it is served with meat or fish. It is usually composed of thinly sliced and somewhat caramelized onion or shallots in a balsamic vinegar-sugar mixture. It is the sweet-and-sour sauce of Italy. Well, I'm a fan of green beans right now, especially the beautiful ones we are currently getting in the market up from Florida, so I decided that the sweet-sour-oniony treatment is just what they needed, plus a crispy, salty topping of pistachios to really highlight all that tangy sweetness. These went really well with a couscous and flank steak dinner we had last night, for which the recipes will be forthcoming.

First, I trimmed the ends off about a pound of attractive green beans, washed them well and set aside. I sliced up two very small onions--first in half and then crosswise to form thin half moon segments. You can use shallots or red onion if you prefer the flavor--I just didn't have any on hand. I melted together 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat, added the onions and allowed them to cook for about 10 minutes until golden and lightly browned in parts. At that point, I added 4 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon brown sugar and 2 teaspoons raw sugar. Use whatever type of sugar you like, just not too much. You could probably try making this with honey also. Stir the vinegar, sugar and onions all together to form a syrupy sauce and try it to see if it needs any tweaking. I decided mine was too sweet so I added some white balsamic vinegar to temper it (the dark kind is naturally sweeter). Add a few cranks of salt and pepper, then set aside the sauce. Wipe out the pan, turn the heat up to medium-high and toast 1/4 cup of chopped, salted pistachios until crispy, then take them out and set aside. Add about 1 cup of water to your pan (I just kept using the same pan because I hate washing too many at the end) and get it boiling over high heat, then dump in your green beans to steam-saute. Let them get bright green and crisp-tender (about 4 minutes) then drain them. Toss the green beans in a serving dish with the agrodolce sauce and scatter the toasted pistachios over the top to serve.

Tofu with shitakke mushrooms and pork

So the New York Times had a neat sounding recipe about tofu and pork together! It reminded me of something Marilyn might make so I thought I'd try a version of it. Also I had just purchased some really great, locally farmed pork sausage at the Morningside Market from the good looking meat man with the bright blue eyes (seriously, you can ask Betsy for verification, he was really handsome). Tofu does not necessarily need to be vegetarian, especially when pork makes it so damn delicious. Although if Ariane or Jocelyn wanted to make this, just omit the pork, increase the amount of mushroom and use veggie stock instead, and you'll have yummy vegetarian stirfry with crispy tofu (albeit, one that neither Ben nor Nick will eat, but whatever). Anyway, Aviva and Ali came over for dinner and gossip and this is what we had:

Start out with a 1 pound block of firm tofu and drain it in a colander or something to get some of the water out. Cut it into chunks (new york times said "slabs" but whatever size you like is fine). Heat up 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large nonstick pan and let your tofu chunks/slabs get golden and crispy without stirring--about 4 minutes per side. You might need to do this in 2 batches. Remove the tofu once it is golden and crispy and let it rest on paper towels to drain the oil off. Go back to your now-empty pan and add in the following: a package of shittake mushrooms that you have sliced into thin strips, the white and light-green parts of 4 thinly sliced green onions (I used green garlic since they had it at Morningside), and between 4-5 ounces of pork sausage. Like I said, I had the stuff from the farmer's market and it was all ground up, not in casings or anything like that. I don't actually know how much I used--probably a little more than half of a six-ounce package. You can also slice up chorizo or any other kind of pork sausage that you like. So, I crumbled in my sausage, mushrooms and green garlic and sauteed until soft, then added 1/4 cup chicken stock, 4 teaspoons soy sauce and 2 tablespoons sherry. This is pretty much straightforward and from the New York Times recipe, but I bet there would be more delicious sauce ingredients to add if you wanted to. Stirred it all together for 2 minutes and let the sauce get a little thicker, then added the tofu back in to reheat and served over brown rice.

Carrot cake with pistachio-coconut frosting

I ended up making carrot cake because I had made a huge batch of frosting intended to go on top of cupcakes for Paul's birthday (this is Tech Paul, in order to differentiate him from brother-in-law Paul or work mate Paul, or any other Paul...). The cupcakes weren't all that great, so I'm sparing you the recipe, but the frosting was awesome. There was a whole lot leftover and all I could think of to go with it was carrot cake. Fran and Paul (that's brother-in-law Paul now) were due to arrive for a visit last night and it was too late for dinner, so instead they got carrot cake.

Like I said, I made the frosting first and it had to hang out in the fridge waiting for cake for a couple days, so I'll let it go first as a recipe component: Mix up a package of cream cheese until fluffy, then add about 1/2-3/4 cup of powdered sugar (you might want it more sweet). Added in the juice of 1 orange, mixed well, then put in 1 cup chopped pistachios and 1/2 cup shredded, toasted coconut. I happen to like coconut but I realize it is a polarizing ingredient so feel free to leave it out and add more and different nuts or whatever you like instead. Cream these ingredients all together and stick in the fridge until it is time to frost.

For the cake you will need 2 cups of shredded carrots. Do this first and get it out of the way because it is a pain in the ass to shred carrots. Three large ones seemed to be enough, but they were pretty damn big. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups sugar, 1 cup vegetable oil, 4 eggs, 1/4 cup honey, 1 teaspoon orange extract and 1 teaspoon almond extract. Beat it all together with your hand mixer (or a whisk, fork, whatever you have handy). In another bowl, sift together 2 cups of flour, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon cardamom, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Make sure it is all evenly mixed together, then add it to the sugar-oil-egg mixture. Add your 2 cups shredded carrots and mix until well incorporated. Pour it all into a greased baking dish. I used a 9x13 glass pan, you can use whatever is convenient, but if it is deeper than a 9x13, your baking time may be longer. Just keep an eye on it. Pop it in your preheated oven for 30-45 minutes, test it with a toothpick to see if the center is done--mine was done at about 35 minutes. Cool completely and frost gently.

Sorrel and spring pea risotto

Remember when I said 2008 was the year of the risotto? Clearly I meant it. For Easter this year we had Paul, Ryan and Betsy over for dinner. I had been to Morningside farmer's market so I had beautiful frisée salad greens, more watermelon radishes (although that farmer told me that this is probably the end of them for the year, so sad), spring onions and a beautiful bunch of sorrel. Sorrel is a leafy green with a wonderful lemony flavor. It is bright and pretty until you cook it, then it turns a muddy dull color. But it tastes amazing! So I thought I'd make a creamy risotto to go with the bright, snappy sorrel and add some tiny sweet green peas at the end to keep a springtime color.

Minced 2 shallots and the white ends from a bunch of spring onions. You can just use 4 shallots instead, if you have no spring onions at your market. I think regular onion would be too strong here. Sauté the shallots and spring onions in 2 tablespoons butter until softened in a large pot. Add 1 1/2 cup arborio rice and continue to sauté for another 3 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of chicken stock, stirring over medium heat until the rice has completely absorbed it. You will repeat this step (slowly adding 1/2 cup of liquid at a time) for 6 cups worth of liquid. I use 5 1/2 cups chicken stock plus 1/2 cup of white wine to make 6 cups total. Betsy told me a story about how she was once at a professor's house during her undergrad and the guy made a big stink about how hard it is to make risotto and how easy it is to screw it all up unless you are Mr. Awesome Kitchen Guy and blah blah blah. Meanwhile the guy's wife is calmly making the entire rest of the dinner in the kitchen and this dude is going on about how hard it is to do the sole task he's taken on: the dreaded risotto. It isn't that hard. The only thing you can screw up is adding all the liquid at once. Don't do that. Be patient, add it slow, stir it and wait for it to absorb before adding more. That's all. After you have added your last 1/2 cup of liquid and everything is creamy and delicious, stir in a bunch of washed sorrel. De-stem it first and cut the leaves into thin strips. At this point, also stir in about 1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese, salt and fresh pepper to taste. Dump in about 3/4 cup of tiny green peas--I found mine frozen and labeled "petite pois" at Whole Foods. Turn off the heat and cover your risotto. The retained heat will steam your peas to perfection. Stir once before sevring to mix them in well.

St. Patrick's Day 2008

As usual, I celebrated St. Patrick's Day by corning many pounds of brisket and inviting as many people as possible over to drink beer and eat. The party was early because March 17th has fallen on a Monday this year, which is a rough day to get all your friends drunk. The past 3 actual St. Patrick days have all fallen happily on party days (Thursday - Saturday) which really facilitated the drinking and corned beef extravaganzas. I do like to celebrate on the correct day. But, alas, leap year and the normal passing of time conspired to make the party on March 15th this year. Whatever, we still ate a lot, got drunk and wore green. As in all past years, Rick made his excellent Irish soda bread and I ended up corning about 12 pounds of brisket in the fridge for a week, then simmering it up with potatoes and cabbage. If you want details on the corning process, they can be found in last year's St. Patrick's Day post. This year I actually made a dessert: Guinness chocolate cupcakes with whiskey cream frosting. I made a double batch for the party and it produced an insane amount of cupcakes, so if you just want the usual 2 muffin tins worth (about 24 cupcakes), make sure you cut all amounts in half. Or you will be swimming in cupcakes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get out two very large bowls, a hand mixer, cooking spray and 4 12-cup muffin tins. If you don't have 4 muffin tins, you can either 1.) borrow from your neighbors, 2.) bake these in 2 batches (that's what I did) or 3.) cut the recipe in half. First the wet ingredients: in one of the big bowls and using your mixer, combine 2 12-ounce bottles of Guinness, 1 cup milk, 1 cup vegetable oil, and 2 tablespoons vanilla. When these are all mixed up together, beat in 6 eggs,one at a time, then mix in 1 1/2 cups sour cream. Now some dry ingredients: in your other big bowl, combine 1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, 4 cups sugar, 5 cups flour, and 3 teaspoons baking soda. Make sure you get everything all mixed up well together--don't be lazy. Slowly incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, using your hand mixer because it is easier than stirring. Get it all mixed up--it will be sort of thick and a delicious dark chocolatey color. But don't eat it yet! Spray your muffin tins really well with the cooking spray. You could also use little cupcake liner but I think they look more elegant as little cakes, so I just got the tins really greasy so that the cupcakes would pop right out after cooling. Try it! After you have prepped your tins, pour the cupcake batter in with a little space to spare right at the top. They won't raise too much. Stick them in the preheated 350 degree oven for 25 minutes, then haul them out and let cool in their tins. Like I said, if you use cooking spray or otherwise grease well, they should pop right out after cooling for about an hour. Here's a delicious frosting to make while your cupcakes are baking/cooling: beat 2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese with your mixer until it is smooth and fluffy. Slowly add in 2/3 cup heavy cream until fully incorporated then slowly add 1 one-pound box of confectioner's sugar. Keep beating until it is smooth, then add about 3 tablespoons whiskey, or to taste. You don't want it boozy but you do want a hint of it. When the cupcakes are cool, dollop them with the frosting, like a little hat on top. I also had these super cute little shamrock sprinkles from my last trip to Fante's in Philadelphia, so we put those on top. Ali and Tiffany were instrumental in the cupcake frosting process and Charlie was instrumental in the discovery of splitting open a cupcake and pouring Jameson over the halves before consuming. Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Coq au vin blanc

Here is an easy coq au vin that is made with white wine instead of the more common red version. A Riesling would be particularly good, and in fact, there is a good recipe for chicken with Riesling in this month's Gourmet, but I am lazy so I used the run-of-mill Chardonnay hanging out in my fridge. Also it was Sunday and God doesn't like us to be able buy wine for our chicken on Sundays, so what can you do?

Get a chicken and have it cut into 8 or 10 pieces, whichever you prefer. If you don't usually ask your butcher to cut a chicken up, you can buy precut-up chicken pieces instead. Heat 1 tablespoon butter with 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Shake up your chicken pieces with salt and pepper, then brown them in the hot oil-butter mixture. I did mine in batches--I really can't fit more than 4 or 5 chicken pieces in my pot at once, so just fit in what you can, pull them out and set aside. It takes about 8-10 minutes to brown each batch, flipping them over at least once so that both sides become a beautiful dark golden color. Set chicken aside, and at this point you should set your oven to preheat to 350 because this will all end up in there eventually. Chop 2 leeks into small pieces (just the white and light green parts) and swish them around in a bowl of water to clean all the dirt out. Leeks are always sandy and gritty so be sure to do that. Fish out the clean leek bits and dry them off, then add to your now-empty pot to sauté along with 2 more tablespoons butter and one small, minced yellow onion. When the onion and leeks are soft (about 8 minutes) add the chicken back in, golden-skin side up, along with about 3 carrots that you have peeled and sliced into matchstick pieces. Pour 1 cup white wine over all and allow the liquids to reduce over high heat for about 5 minutes. Cover the pot and stick it in your oven at 350 degrees for about half an hour, then pull it out and pour ½ cup heavy cream over everything. Serve the chicken pieces with the delicious cream-wine sauce ladled over the top.

Shredded brussels sprout sauté

In the past I have made a dish with purple cabbage, prosciutto and pine nuts that Melanie really likes, so I tried to do a variation on that theme with brussels sprouts the other day. It's sort of time consuming to shred the brussels sprouts by hand but if you have a glass of wine and someone to talk to it's not so bad. We had this along with a coq au vin made with white wine that I'll write about next.

I bought at least one pound of fresh brussels sprouts, washed them well and cut each one in half and then cut the halves cross-wise into thin slices. Because brussels sprouts are cabbagey and layered, the slices fall apart into a shredded heap which is perfect for sautéing and cooks much faster than whole sprouts. Melted 2 tablespoons butter in a large deep pan until hot and toasted ¼ cup pine nuts until they were golden. Removed pine nuts and set aside and wiped out the pan to remove any overly browned bits. Added in the shredded brussels sprouts and sautéed over medium-high heat for about 6 minutes, until they began to get soft and bright green, then added the pinenuts back in along with salt, pepper, and ¼ cup golden raisins. Continued to sauté all together for another 2 minutes, then removed from heat and mixed in a drizzle each of white balsamic vinegar and hazelnut oil.

Turkey roulade with chard filling

One of my new favorite things ever is roasting a turkey breast that has been rolled up around a delicious filling. I made a version of this a few weeks ago sort of by accident, but this time around it was quite intentional. I found the gorgeous chard at the Morningside farmer's market; it was the beautiful variety known as rainbow chard, with golden, red and white stems topped by perfect glossy green, early-spring leaves. I also found green garlic, which looks a lot like a bunch of scallions but retains the unmistakable pungency of garlic with a mellow, fresh flavor. These were both utilized in my roulade filling but you can substitute whatever dark leafy greens are available for the chard or minced onion and garlic if you do not have green garlic available.

First I prepared the filling for the roulade. I washed and chopped up a bunch of rainbow chard, making sure the stems were diced quite small, and then sliced the leaves into thin ribbons. Minced 1 bunch of green garlic (substitute ½ minced onion and 2 cloves minced garlic) and sautéed for 3 minutes in 3 tablespoons olive oil. If you are substituting regular onion, it may need more like 6-8 minutes to saute. Add ¼ cup pine nuts and continue to sauté until they have colored lightly, about 2 minutes. Add in the chopped chard and sauté until it is wilted, then add 2 tablespoons sherry and ¼ cup golden raisins. Sauté until the liquid has evaporated somewhat and the filling is not too wet, about 2 more minutes. Add salt and fresh black pepper to taste, then set aside. Take a boneless, whole turkey breast and pound the fat end a bit more flat. There is always a skinny pointy end and a fatter thicker end. I need a meat pounder because slapping around a turkey breast is rough on a girl's hands. Anyway, just try to get it a little bit more flattened out on the thick end. Lay your chard filling out down the center. If there is too much filling for the size of your turkey, don't overdo it, just keep the rest for another use (maybe tossed with pasta? delicious!). Wrap up your turkey breast around the filling, starting with the fatter end and use the skin if necessary to keep it all together. Cut 3 lengths of kitchen twine and use them to tie the roulade together to keep it rolled up. It should look pretty cute. Salt and pepper the top then pop it into the oven at about 400 degrees, flip it over after 20 minutes, flip it back over again after another 20 minutes, then turn the heat down to 350 and let it roast for about an hour. Check the temperature after 40 minutes--depending on the size of your turkey breast it may be done sooner or later than that. Mine actually got pretty toasty, so I had to tent it with aluminum foil about halfway through to prevent scorching. You want the temperature to hit 165 degrees but you can take it out when it is 160 as it will rise while it sits out of the oven and that will prevent the roast from becoming too dry. I guess it could take up to 2 hours to be done if it is a large roast, so plan accordingly and be sure to use your meat thermometer. Slice it up and admire the lovely spirals of the chard stuffing.

I made roasted fingerling potatoes with rosemary to accompany the turkey roulade--it is an easy side, especially as you have the oven going already. Fingerlings are very cute and tiny and look nice when they are sliced lengthwise, like tiny golden boats. Slice them and toss with 2 tablespoons olive oil, salt, pepper and 2 teaspoons dried rosemary. They can roast at any temperature and are done when they are golden and slightly crispy. Toss them often as they cook, which may take about 40 minutes.

Curried winter squash soup

Much like the last post, this is a recipe of seriously bright color. The batch I made last night featured my favorite winter squash, kabocha, but you can use whichever variety you like best or happen to have lying around the house. Butternut would probably be pretty good. My dad happened to be in town last night, swinging through with his jetsetting lifestyle to socialize with us for an quick evening before heading on his busy way. He said he liked the soup, so if it's good enough for an international xylose fermentation superstar, it should be good enough for the rest of us.

I sautéed 1 large minced onion in 2 tablespoons olive oil and 2 tablespoon butter. When they were getting soft, I added in 1 teaspoon garam masala, 1 teaspoon yellow curry powder and a pinch of paprika and stirred it all up together. The onions continued to cook for about 10 more minutes. You want them to get very soft but not browned, so keep the heat on the low side. Meanwhile, I chopped in half and de-seeded one large kabocha squash. I peeled up the squash and cut it into small chunks of about 1 ½", then peeled 2 apples and cut them into the same size chunks. Stirred both the squash and the apples into the pot to cook alongside the onions for about 5 minutes, then added 3 cups of chicken stock. Brought it to a low simmer and let it cook until the apples and squash were quite tender, about 25 minutes. At this point I stirred in ½ cup of plain yogurt, ¼ cup sherry, a pinch of red pepper flakes, 2 teaspoons salt and a very healthy grinding of black pepper. Then I turned off the heat and got out my fantastic immersion blender that I love more than life itself, and blended hell out of the soup. It turned a sunshiney bright yellow with the curry and the squash and the flavor mellowed out beautifully with the yogurt. You may find it needs a touch more salt, so taste it to see. I allowed the now-smooth soup to chill out on a back burner covered at a low simmer until my dad showed up, then I added a couple tablespoons of finely minced parsley to finish.

Blanched winter vegetable salad

This is a cheatery recipe because it is really easy. There's nothing particularly seasonal about these vegetables--it's just that they're readily available in the wintertime (thanks southern hemisphere!). They taste crunchy and fresh when prepared this way, and the bright colors are a technicolor medicine for winter doldrums, so give it a shot.

Cut one small head of cauliflower into florets of no more than 1 ½" in size and set aside. Do the same with a head of broccoli, reserving the stalks for another use (I deeply love broccoli stalks and can't imagine throwing them away, in fact I used my reserve of them last night for a delicious brown rice-tofu-broccoli stalk stirfry). Take three large carrots, peel and cut into rounds of about ¾" in width. Try to get each vegetable cut into equal sizes. Get a big pot of water up to a hard boil on the stove. While you're waiting for it to boil, fill a bowl of water with cold cold water and at least one tray of ice cubes. You are making an ice bath for your veggies! When the water is boiling merrily, put your broccoli florets in for exactly one minute. Fish them out with a wire mesh colander (or whatever, just don't drain the boiling water because you are going to keep using it) and dump the broccoli into the ice bath. This will instantly stop their cooking which will preserve the crunchy fresh flavor and the brilliant green color. Swirl them around to cool off, then fish them out and place in the fridge. Meanwhile, hopefully your water in the pot on the stove is back up to a boil again, so add in your cauliflower and let it boil for just under 2 minutes, then repeat the fish out/dump in ice bath/stick in fridge routine that you just did for the broccoli. Do the same exact thing for your carrot rounds, also letting them boil for not-quite 2 minutes. You might need to add a few more ice cubes to the ice bath to keep it chilled between vegetables. When all the vegetables are done, store them in the fridge until it's time for dinner. Serve the mixed vegetables either tossed with a delicious vinaigrette or drizzled with the Trader Joe's goddess dressing (it has tahini in it!). This also makes a great lunchbox addition or colorful finger food for little kids.

Broiled shrimp

I actually think the name of this recipe should be Wintertime Shrimp because Byron's reaction to "do you wanna come over and eat shrimp?" was something like "Shrimp? What? It's February! Shrimp are for summertime!" Hopefully he was convinced and maybe these will be the kind of shrimp you can see yourself consuming in the depths of winter (actually it was, like, 65 degrees out, so it's not actually all that cold). Unlike the shrimp Byron was thinking of, these aren't cooked up with potatoes, corn and sausage like a low country boil. They're still in the shell so you must peel-and-eat, which makes for a fun communal meal (actually, Josh LeF. described it as "primal" so maybe that's it). Also, all the stuff you broil the shrimp in makes an amazing buttery sauce to dip bread into and that might be the best part of all.

I got about 4 pounds of shrimp for 6 people. I bought 2 pounds of the 21/25 counts and 2 pounds of the 26/30 counts. I probably would have gotten all of the bigger size (easier to peel) but they were running out. 4 pounds of shrimp in these sizes will require the use of 2 baking pans (the jelly roll style cookie sheets with a lip on the edges) and you'll probably have to do them in 2 batches in your broiler. Obviously, if you have fewer people and only do 2 pounds, you can fit it all on one sheet and make them in one batch. Wash your shrimp really well and spread them out on your baking sheets. Drizzle each batch with 1/4 cup olive oil, then get your black pepper grinder and grind pepper all over them. Like ALOT of pepper, just keep grinding and grinding until they are liberally covered in a blanket of pepper. Sprinkle salt over the top,probably 2 teaspoons per sheet of shrimp. Then pour about ½ cup of Worcestershire sauce over each batch. Squeeze the juice from 3 lemons over each batch (a total of 6 lemons for 2 batches). Cut about 3 sticks of butter into chunks and dot the shrimp with the butter pieces so that you have at least 1 ½ sticks of butter per batch. OK, so you have shrimp, black pepper, a little salt, worcestershire, lemon, and butter. Now stick it under the broiler for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, cover your table or wherever you'll be eating in newspaper and get out a bowl to put empty shells into. When the shrimp are done, haul them out of the broiler (if you're making two batches, stick the second one in now) and pour the shrimp and all the delicious sauce that has formed beneath them into a large bowl. Make sure you have one or two loaves of good crusty french bread to dip in the sauce, try to stick it in the oven to heat up ahead of time. Call your friends over and begin to eat. You'll probably burn your fingers but it is worth it.

The only accompaniment these delicious shrimp need, besides the bread, might be a good green salad. I had beautiful lettuce from the Morningside farmer's market, with watermelon radishes, cucumbers and a hazelnut oil-champagne vinegar dressing. We had discussed ahead of time that Abita beer is proabably the most delicious libation for shrimp, so we had those and Jeremy also brought a really nice pinot noir. And we drank a bunch of other red wine because that is how I roll, no matter what I am eating for dinner. Unfortunately, you will probably not be able to replicate the awesomeness of having Sara as one of your shrimp eating guests. She brought the most amazing chocolate bundt cake and it was ridiculously good.

Golden risotto with chicken and butter beans

More risotto! 2008 has a theme thus far. I suspect I'll back off after this go-round, but this was a great way to use my roast chicken leftovers. I wanted something that was creamy and delicious, like wintertime comfort food. And risotto totally delivers. It sort of makes me think of an old-fashioned chicken-and-rice recipe. If you don't have butter beans you should use tiny green peas, in fact it might actually be better with those, a little more elegant.

Begin with a whole lot of chicken fat on the bottom of a pan. I was trying to make gribenes, which are chicken skin crisps fried in chicken fat. It was just for fun, because I had a lot of chicken fat left over and a whole chicken skin so I was trying it out. Didn't really work, but I had a tablespoon of chicken fat in my pot afterwards and some delicious golden chicken fat sticking, so I just started my risotto there. Sautéed one small minced onion in the fat until soft and golden, then added 1 cup arborio rice. Continued to sauté for about 3 minutes then began slowly adding 3 ½ cups of chicken stock. As before with cooking a risotto, add the liquid only ½ cup at a time, stirring until it is all absorbed. If you have some white wine, replace a ½ cup of the chicken stock with wine--I didn't have any open on hand so I didn't do that this time. This will not be pure white like a risotto sautéed in butter and wherein you don't allow the onions to color. That's why I'm calling it a golden risotto--possibly it is unorthodox, but whatever, it's tasty. Anyway, after your risotto has absorbed 2 cups of liquid, stir in a ½ cup of butter beans or tiny green peas along with about 1 cup of chicken meat, cut into small ½" pieces. Stir these in along with the remaining 1 ½ cup of liquid, still going only ½ cup at a time. When you are down to your last ½ cup of liquid, add in ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese, then continue adding liquid until all has been absobed and the rice is creamy and delicious, which it should be by that point. Season with fresh black pepper and enjoy.

Lacinato kale, watermelon radishes and baby turnips

Actually, this post should be entitled "I am a Late Adopter: The Delights of Morningside Market." My friend Katie pointed out to me, as others have done, that there is a really great farmers market up North Highland. I haven't been and I haven't been and finally I saw firsthand some of Katie's vegetables procured there and I went immediately. And guess what--it is indeed great, although not large. There are about 5 stalls, most are vegetables, there seemed like a bread one and then also a meat one, which is really exciting. I don't know if there will be more in the warmer months or not. Anyway, I found these wonderful tiny turnips and gorgeous dark lacinato kale...they are so tender and perfect. And these amazing radishes! Outside they look like big tough balls--they're about the size of baseballs, which is large for a radish--but when you slice them they are beautiful, bright red with a pale green rind. They look like watermelons, especially if you slice them into half moons. I drizzled them with hazelnut oil (olive oil is perfectly fine too) and sprinkled with salt and pepper for an appetizer when Charlie and Colleen came over.

The lacinato kale was very delicate and small--the leaves were not longer than 3". I sort of braised/sautéed them, first swirling around in a hot pan with olive oil, then adding a tiny bit of minced garlic, and then about 2 tablespoons each pinenuts and dried cranberries. Then I added about ¼ cup chicken stock and cooked until it was absorbed and the kale was soft but still bright green. It would have been even more delicious if I had toasted the pinenuts first, so be sure to do that if you think of it.

The baby turnips were wonderful. They had long, perfect greens attached so I sliced those off, leaving about 1" atop. This was at a different dinner than the kale so I cooked up the turnip greens pretty much exactly the same way as described above. The turnips themselves I tossed together in a pan with a head's worth of peeled, whole garlic cloves and 2 teaspoons of sugar. These roasted at 400 degrees underneath a chicken that was roasting already for dinner. It's important to remove a lot of the drippings before you put turnips in the roasting pan beneath the chicken, otherwise the vegetables will get too greasy. You may also need to use the baster to draw some of the juices out as they go along. They'll cook up happily along with the chicken--they need about 40 minutes, give the pan a shake now and then to redistribute.

Chicken milanese

This is the sort of thing my grandmother always seems to be making us for lunch at her house, except I think she usually uses veal cutlets rather than chicken. I think it's completely delicious and for some reason it always feels quite genuinely Italian to me, probably because both my mother and my grandmother can make these in their sleep as their most basic meat preparation skill. I could eat them any day of the week they're so tasty and so much like comfort food. For a variation, they'd be good on top of a salad of lightly vinagretted baby greens. The most important thing to have on hand is the lemon--it wouldn't seem authentic without it.

I had 3 skinless, boneless chicken breasts on hand, you can make as many as you like. Take each chicken breast and slice them in half lengthwise as evenly as possible with a sharp knife to make 2 thin cutlets. You might find this easier to do if you stick them in the freezer for 5 minutes first. After halving the chicken breasts, flatten them, either with a meat pounder (which I do not own, sadly) or with the palm of your hand (which I do own). Get all the cutlets to an even width. Combine 2 tablespoons water and one egg in one bowl, beat them together and set aside. In another bowl combine ¾ cup of fine bread crumbs with salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons minced parsley. Get a skillet ready and hot with 2 tablespoons olive oil. Dip each chicken cutlet into the egg-water mixture, and next dredge it in the breadcrumb mixture. Sauté in the hot oil until very nicely browned, then flip over and brown the other side, then remove to a plate. You'll probably need to do these in batches and might have to keep adding oil. When all the cutlets are done, serve them with large wedges of lemons and insist that everybody squeeze them liberally over their chicken before eating. Do not take no for an answer.

Farro risotto with cremini mushrooms

Farro is a type of Italian wheat--it is very long and elegant looking with a distinct nutty flavor. It remains firm after cooking, unlike wheat berries or spelt, and this texture makes it particularly enjoyable. I had never seen it just hanging out on store shelves before but last week I found it at the DeKalb market and so picked some up to try making it at home myself. Because it has a very hard exterior, you are supposed to soak it before cooking, so if you remember, do that. I of course did not remember, but it turned out OK. This is cooked like a risotto, but unlike a real risotto it doesn't get super creamy. It is, however, incredibly delicious.

Rinse well 1 cup of farro and boil it in about 8 cups water for 30 minutes. Drain the farro and set aside. Melt 2 tablespoons butter with 1 tablespoon olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat. Add 1 package of sliced cremini mushrooms and sauté until they are golden, about 8-10 minutes. Add 1 clove minced garlic (or 2 minced shallots instead would be tasty if you have them, which I did not) and continue to sauté 1 minute. Add in the preboiled farro and 1 cup white wine. Simmer until almost all liquid evaporates, stirring frequently, about 5 minutes. Add in a total of 2 cups chicken stock; stir the liquid in slowly, ½ cup at a time, simmering until each ½ cup addition of liquid is absorbed. Do this until all 2 cups are added in and the farro is tender, which will take about 15 minutes. At the end, if you like, stir in a couple tablespoons of parmesan cheese and a little more butter, plus salt and pepper.

We also had these great sirloin steaks that Melanie's parents had sent them around Christmastime. Mel's parents are very smart--they know the best gift of all is a freezer full of meat. I made a port wine sauce for the steaks--pretty much just 3 tablespoons melted butter with 1 clove minced garlic, then add a cup of port and bring it to a simmer, then add in 1 cup chicken stock (better with beef stock but I didn't have any) and then boiled until it all reduced down to 1 cup and got thick. We also had roasted green beans, mostly because I wanted to try making a vinagrette with this hazelnut oil I'd purchased. Hazelnut oil is amazing. It smells fantastic and the flavor is delicate yet full at the same time. I roasted a pound of trimmed green beans in a 425 oven for 8-10 minutes until they were bright green but with a few caramel patches on them. Then, while they were still hot, tossed the beans in a vinagrette made with 1 tablespoon champagne vinegar, 3 tablespoons hazelnut oil, 1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard, salt and pepper. It was great.

Mixed roasted root vegetables

This weekend we celebrated Burns Night at Charlie and Colleen's house. This Scottish holiday traditionally features a haggis, in order to commemorate the stirring Robert Burns poem "Address to a Haggis" (if you want to read it, you can find it here). It's sort of ridiculous good fun and we tried to keep things as Scottish as possible. Charlie made meatloaf instead (a particularly fantastic one) but Katie made a vegetarian haggis so that we could sort of get it right, but without all the intestines and sheep stomachs that go into real haggis. I brought some things for a charcuterie plate--pâté, salami and a delicious goat cheese called Purple Haze that has lavender and wild fennel pollen in it. I also made a batch of particularly well thought out roasted root vegetables. Usually I just chuck whatever I feel like cutting up into the oven without too much thought, but this time I actually spent a lot of time picking out veggies and considering their needs, so it really turned out pretty well. As things are wont to do, if you just take a little patience and time with them. The More You Know!

I selected 1 large rutabaga, 1 large turnip, 3 parsnips, 1 garnet sweet potato, a bag of tiny literally pebble-sized Yukon Gold potatoes and a bag of miniature carrots that still had a bit of green on top so they looked whole but were only maybe 2 ½" long. The tiny potatoes and carrots were really cute and I think they elevated this basic dish into something a little more festive for a special occasion. Oddly, this time I ended up going to Whole Foods for my vegetable shopping rather than my beloved DeKalb Market and they seem to cultivate their own adorable tiny carrots, so if you want to find them yourself, try looking there. I sliced up a bit more than half each of my enormous turnip, rutabaga and sweet potato saving the rest for something else. I ended up using half each of the bag of tiny Yukon Golds (picking out the ones that were tiniest of all) and adorable tiny carrots. You want to keep a balance between the vegetables and also I think it would have made way too much. I left the carrots and Yukon Golds whole, sliced the parsnips and sweet potatoes into matchsticks and cut the rutabaga and turnip into half-moon slices about ½" thick. The goal is to make sure everything is more or less the same width so it will cook at an even rate but also to keep some visual interest with different cuts between the veggies. Tossed all the vegetables together with about 10 whole cloves peeled garlic (it will become soft and mellow as it roasts), 5 tablespoons olive oil, 2 teaspoons sugar, 1 teaspoon each red pepper flakes and cumin, 2 teaspoons salt and a healthy grinding of fresh black pepper over all. I took them over to Charlie & Colleen's, divided them into 2 pans, and roasted for a little while along with the meatloaf and vegetarian haggis at about 350 (I think?). Then after the other things were removed from the oven we cranked it up to 425 and continued to roast. They probably went for about 20 minutes at the lower temperature and then about another 25 at the high one. Shake the pans or stir them often to redistribute the vegetables to ensure even cooking.

Chicken satay, sort of

Like I said, I had all this leftover peanut sauce in the fridge from the soba noodle thing the other day so I decided that we'd have chicken satay at some point. Melanie seemed really enthusiastic about it when I broached the topic at the Tupperware party that we all attended (and, no, that's not code for a sex toy party, we actually went to a real, live tupperparty with a tupperlady and everything. Ariane can verify). So I gave it a shot.

I had just shy of 2 pounds worth of boneless, skinless chicken breast. Mark Bittman says that chicken thighs work better for satay because they don't dry out and he's probably right but I happened to have breasts so breasts it was (whee!). Sliced them into thin strips of about 1 ½ " width (this is easier if they are a little bit frozen so you can stick them in the freezer for five ten minutes). Put the strips into a big (non-tupper) plastic bowl for marinating and added the juice from one lime, 1 tablespoon sesame oil, 2 tablespoons olive oil, ½ teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, 2 crushed cloves garlic, a drizzle of rice wine vinegar, 2 tablespoons minced cilantro, salt and pepper. Tossed it all really well together and left it in the fridge for about 5 hours, giving it a stir every now and then to distribute the marinade. When it was time to cook dinner, I confess I did not end up putting the chicken strips on bamboo skewers and grilling them. That would have been awesome and delicious and maybe I'll do that one of these days. But I hate getting the grill all going just for one little thing and I didn't have any veggies or anything else to use the grill for so I skipped it. Also, as it turns out and as Jeremy later pointed out, my grill is actually sitting on their porch right now, all covered in street grime. So, whatever. I got my cast iron grill pan and heated it up super hot with a thin film of sesame oil on it. Lay the strips of chicken on the very hot grill pan and let them go about 3-4 minutes per side, at least until they were well-marked with brown grill lines. My grill pan is not huge so I had to do this in several batches, keeping the finished strips warm in the oven. I heated up the remaining peanut sauce (about ¾ cup) very gently with a few tablespoons of water whisked in to smooth it out. I sort of got careless and it burned on the bottom because I was toasting sesame seeds for the broccoli and got distracted. Don't let it happen to you! Poured the peanut sauce into a small bowl in the center of a platter surrounded by the grilled chicken strips and let everybody grab their own and pour the sauce over the top. Not as much fun as if it had been on skewers, but pretty delicious anyway.