We all know that ground turkey is the new hamburger if you’re looking to go easy on your heart. But I never found this a satisfactory replacement unless it was used in a sauce or stew of some type — in which juices from all kinds of ingredients run free and wild as piglets in a pen. A turkey burger? Not even close… but ground turkey in chili? Seconds, please. Besides, you’re bound to end up draining most of the … Read More
Ah, the good ol’ two-step. Like the dance, this one carries a myriad of variations. Then again, I never did learn the dance, in any style, and now I kind of wonder what happened to that swing and formal dance revival that took hold of the city several years ago. For that matter, what happened to any kind of dance craze? There has been a bit of a granola craze going on as far as I can tell — everywhere … Read More
I got an ice cream maker. I was watching the episode of Good Eats all about premium ice cream and how simple it was to make, and the next day I ran out to buy an ice cream maker. For $50 I’ll never have to go to the corner bodega to grab a pint of Haagen-Dazs again — sweet. The first batch, a basic vanilla ice cream made from the recipe in the Cuisinart machine’s instruction booklet, was refreshing, sweet, … Read More
Since the no-knead bread-off at the Brooklyn Kitchen last week, I haven’t been able to stop making bread. Thoughts of forging a foccacia from the technique, or elegant dinner rolls have been clouding my mind as well. At least one of those urges had been released the other night, when I tried to make a French baguette from the recipe. Knowing well enough that the bread needs to cook inside a dutch oven, or other large, covered vessel able to … Read More
I am convinced that stuffed peppers, like soup, are a true leftover invention, and that’s just what I stuffed my poblano peppers with for these chile rellenos. In most cases the preferred grain would be rice, but since I had some potatoes I used them along with some leftover chicken. I’ve also come to suspect that most anything when stuffed inside a smoky, roasted poblano pepper will taste good — that is, if you like smoky, roasted poblano peppers.
Congee, you know what I mean? Except not. First, I’ll admit that this was not the most convenient meal to make on a weeknight–but it can be done. Just remember to pop the squash in the oven as soon as possible, then begin the rest of your preparation and cooking. That way it should be soft enough by the time the risotto is ready for it to be added. Timing is everything.
In celebration of “soup month” February and all the cold, soup-worthy weather we’ve been having recently, here’s my contribution to Soup’s On at A Veggie Venture. It’s funny how much the texture of warm chickpeas can parallel that other vegetable commonly paired with leek in a soup–the potato. While leeks cook up insistently savory, the chickpea balances as a more neutral, slightly nutty accoutrement. Thinking more or less of hummous, a little cumin went into this, soft roasted garlic, a … Read More
This is probably two days past the point to bother saying, but I don’t really do football. I just don’t watch it. And I don’t feel left out of an annual popular culture event by not going to a Super Bowl party, sitting on a friend’s couch and routing for a team, catching the first glimpse of all the “great” commercials, and snacking on endless bowls and mountains of appetizers: tasty fried, stuffed, dipped, blanketed morsels. Okay, maybe I feel … Read More
I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never picked up a fennel bulb and cooked with it, and am not quite sure if I’ve tried it before. I had a leftover fennel bulb after using some of the sprigs for a jarred experiment I’ve been working on (more on that to come), so it was high time.