Rather than watering it down with milk and cream, or confusing its flavor with a tomato-laden broth, this soup is all about broccoli, from its florets to its stems to its leaves. You’ll get a big burst of the broccoli with each spoonful of the stuff, and that’s a somewhat new way to experience a vegetable that’s been around (and has been disdained, in many cases) for all our lives. It starts out with roasting the pieces to concentrate their … Read More
Anyone who’s a real purist of pasta is going to take one look at these misshapen dumpling-like things and sneer. Can’t blame me for being a little over-ambitious for a weeknight meal, but you can for exaggeration in calling these “orecchiette.” Well, I’m just not sure what else to call them. But they taste alright — especially when tossed in a buttery, fresh lemon sauce and surrounded by spicy broccoli rabe.
Two ingredients thought to be past their prime — the broccoli plant, once it’s gone to flower, and bread, a few days since baking — revitalized. I do love using up food scraps. This recipe came after a few rounds of making really good bread pudding. Could anyone have conceived of a better way to use stale bread than that? I wondered. Then I began to think of French toast, and how custardy and warm the centers of those thick … Read More
Forgive the excessively esoteric sound of this dish’s name. I had tried coming up with other things to call it: Roasted Cauliflower and Broccoli and Braised Broccoli and Cauliflower Greens with Navy Beans and Creamed Potatoes? Too long. White Cauliflower, Cheddar Cauliflower, Broccoli and Their Combined Greens Braised with Navy Beans and Roasted Red Pepper and Served on Creamy, Truffled, Mashed Fingerling Potatoes? Too specific. Stuff That I Got From My CSA This Week, Cooked and Piled Ceremoniously Together on a Plate? That … Read More
I was going to call this recipe “Kitchen Sink Soup,” since the standard household equipment is a common way of describing anything that could be anything in the way of food. Kitchen Sink pizza, salad, pasta — we’ve heard it before. But you know what? “Kitchen sink” just doesn’t conjure very appetizing images to me. I’ll admit something’s not right with my drain these days. It’s probably clogged up with all those random foods I’ve been tossing on pizzas.
A room filled with the scent of garlic-infused olive oil. A warm oven that sputters with the occasional spillover of sauce inside. A cutting board of cheeses within easy reach. Fresh basil aflutter. Beer. Several able-stomached friends. There are few things more soothing than a pizza party in someone’s home. And while almost any toppings for these treats suffice, there are likely few things more satisfying to a garlic lover than this saturated slice.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who has this tendency: to fall in love with a certain vegetable for about a week’s worth of nonstop eating at a time, then move onto the next affair. A few weeks ago this happened with beets. Afterward, it was sweet potatoes, roasted simply, with no salt and their skins intact. Now it’s broccoli. Not sure why. We’re old flames, though, a well-established on/off pair throughout the decades. We understand each other much … Read More
Submissions close for the first-ever Ugliest Gourmet blogging contest in about ten minutes, and I scramble to bring you this humble entry. I contemplated plenty of visually off-putting dishes in the past weeks, but in the end, this simple vegetable side seemed to be the most to-the-point: Butter, broccoli and Parmiggiano-Reggiano — what’s not to love? Oh yeah, that gross green muck that it turns out looking like.