Super-Tasty One-Pot Squash Soup

I had to get one of my wisdom teeth pulled the week of Thanksgiving. For two days before that, my mouth was in indescribable pain. Eating was fraught with complications, unless it was during a window of about one hour when my painkiller was cranking at its best. After the surgery, it wasn’t all roses, either. But in the process of catering to my particular eating restrictions, I came up with the best-ever method of making a creamy, pureed squash soup. The “silver” … Read More

Potato Leek Soup with Salmon and Spinach

I know most people don’t have an extra piece of fresh salmon sitting around, leftover, too often. I don’t either. But oh, when you do have some leftover salmon, life is good. You need to get yourself into this situation more often. Let me help you finagle the way in.

Eggplant Coconut Curry

When the farmers market still looks like summer but the air starts to feel like fall (and I absolutely love it when and if this happens), it’s a good time to make a slow-simmered vegetable curry. We’re not quite in winter squash season, and lord knows we make all sorts of wintery stews with those. And roots? They can wait in the ground for now. So let’s enjoy the harvest’s final hurrahs of a certain nightshade that must be cooked … Read More

Cauliflower and Sweet Corn Bisque

The first cream of X soup (or “bisque”) I ever fell in love with was cauliflower. My mom and I ordered it at a diner in New Jersey once when I was little; we ate the whole cup full and had to order another (should have gotten the bowl). That creamy, white velouté was something exotic to both of us, I think, but mild and unassuming at the same time. I found an appreciation for dairy, which my young palate had been … Read More

Persian Chicken Barley Soup (Soup e Jo)

Barley. How did we come to this? Just about the only times I encounter the ancient grain, long a staple of the Western diet, are when it’s malted and fermented in beer. And though we’ve been rekindling old fires with farro, spelt, and quinoa, barley seems to be largely left out of this next-wave appreciation, perhaps due to its containing gluten.

Tomato Bisque with Coconut Milk

What a chilly, rainy start to 2015 in New York. Yesterday found me stomping through the city in a sleeping bag-esque coat that collected flurries, hail, and splatters of freezing rain like moths around a flame. Alright, I guess the precipitation hit everyone else on the streets, too. But my fate seemed sealed toward making tomato soup when I got home–perhaps with toast, or grilled cheese.

Leftover Turkey Chili

I’m thankful for leftovers this week. A big day of eating has come and gone, and as usual, the fridge seems to be more full than depleted afterward. The prized item in this cache of Thanksgiving leftovers? The roasted turkey carcass. With it, the opportunities are endless. You can make a soup, or just stock to use for things like making risotto or braising vegetables. But along with that carcass—and with most leftover Thanksgiving meal caches—is plenty of leftover turkey … Read More

Winter CSA Challenge: Cranberry Bean & Spinach Soup and Beet Herring Salad

What do you do with one whole week’s CSA share for a single meal? My friend Wen-Jay, who runs Local Roots CSA, decided to put me to this challenge to help kick off the winter CSA season. I was up for the challenge, but had another to contend with: what do you do with a big batch of food when you live alone and have no other mouths to feed? I eventually determined it would be a soup, and salad—preferably … Read More

Chickpea Squash Tagine

For me, fall is the right time for entertaining. I spent a languid weekend preparing for two back-to-back dinner parties, post-Halloween hullaballoo (I was Kate Middleton for that, did you think you saw her walking down the street in Brooklyn?). It was the perfect antidote to a candy-strewn holiday, and one of the dishes I served for my friends was this vegetarian option, which I’ve been eating for lunches since. Like most long-simmered stews and soups, it just gets better … Read More

Chilled Fava Bean Soup

Ah, fresh fava beans. Who else first heard of this legume via Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs? If so, it was a most disturbing way one can be introduced to a new food (and I am amongst those). No, I didn’t eat fava beans for a good long time after seeing that movie, but it wasn’t because I was afraid. It was because I never did encounter them, least of all fresh and whole still in their pods, until … Read More

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