game day snacks

I am, in general, a pretty big sports fan. As a child, I may have asked my grandma to read me recipes instead of stories, but once I learned to read I also used to pour over the sports sections of Newsday every morning, obsessing over baseball standings.

So obviously, giant game-day feast, combining two of my earliest loves, hold a special place in my heart. Above, you can see my spread for Super Bowl Sunday, which Laura and Jess so kindly helped me to prepare. I basically made everything delicious and decidedly not healthy that I would want to eat at my ideal Super Bowl party, plus the markedly more elegant brie en croute. I don't know about you, but for me the menu would include guacamole, taco dip, penne alla vodka, swedish meatballs and spinach dip.

squash and polenta two ways

Polenta has become one of my go to meals. It's quick, easy and filling, and it takes on delicious flavors from other ingredients really well. I've talked a couple of times about how it's fabulous with sausage (which reminds me that I should make polenta with chorizo again soon), and there's no mistaking how well it pairs with cheeses, like parmesan, goat or blue. Polenta also plays nice with lighter add-ins, like the time I chopped up and added maybe a half cup or so of parsley, which is often thought of a garnish but actually is delicious in its own right. Today, I have two very different takes on polenta with winter squash.

steak with cilantro pesto/duck fat potatoes

This is a nice medium rare steak with some cilantro pesto sauce and a side of delicious potatoes cooked with duck fat. It was a pretty good dinner, but the potatoes were definitely the star, even if the steak fanned out over the bright green sauce is considerably more photogenic.

creamed corn two ways/warm corn and tomato salad with sesame oil and soy sauce

It's still pretty warm here in New York. Yesterday it was like 65 degrees, and as I sat outside in a blazer at lunch and read my book, and I could almost imagine it being a cooler June day! But alas, it is November, and the holidays are rapidly approaching, and beautiful fresh summer corn is a distant memory....

But I am still going to talk about it. Three different recipes for it, no less.

andalusian gazpacho/cold tomato soup with corn guacamole

Gazpacho is a little tricky. You might think that you could just throw some peppers and onions and garlic and bread and a whole bunch of tomatoes in the blender, let it chill in the fridge for a couple of hours and call it dinner. But if you're not careful, that's when you get bland watery gazpacho, or a pulpy granular mash with very little liquid, or gazpacho so potently pungent from raw garlic and onions that you'll be scrubbing the taste off your tongue for days. With something so simple as a raw soup, it's extremely important that you strike a nice balance with your ingredients, because it's the simplest things that are easiest to mess up.

caldo verde

My friend Tony suggested I make a caldo verde soup with all my food co-op kale. My only regret was that it took so long to follow his advice.




My family came over for dinner after work one night back in July, right before I left for a glorious two and a half weeks of vacation in the California sun. I thought that this soup would be super easy and ready in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, the potatoes decided to be difficult and take two hour to cook, which was bizarre, but other than that this dinner came together quite nicely.

Caldo verde is a Portuguese soup or stew, and I used this recipe from Mario Batali. I spent the night before simmering a big pot of chicken stock and getting all my potatoes and kale chopped up and ready to go, so the next night all I had to do was chop and sautee the onion and garlic, and then add the broth and potatoes and let that pot go to work.

cumin lamb stir fry/melted leeks

Sometimes it's good to make something a little different, and when you work until 6:00, it's good if that something different is also something EASY. That's where Mark Bittman comes in, with his seemingly endless supply of fast, cheap, tasty meals from all across the globe.

Nathan picked out this particular dish from Bittman's last Bitten column, in which the writer had compiled a list of his 25 favorite recipes published over the years. It's a damn good reference and I really should look to it more when trying to decide what to make.



I don't do a lot of stir frying, so that made this Asian inspired lamb dish a bit of a departure for me from the start. When I cook meat, it's more often than not on the bone, or cut into large steaks or filets. Here, the lamb shoulder is cut into cubes, which is a great way to cut down on cooking time in the evening.

So far so good, for sure, but fairly boring I'll admit. What makes this dish exciting is the bold flavors that come from toasted cumin seeds, scallions, cilantro and red chili pepper flakes. The lamb should marinate with the cumin and red pepper, garlic and soy sauce before being cooked briefly over high heat with the scallions. It tastes great over rice and is ready in minutes.



I served it with some leeks that I tried to caramelize. They were good, but Bittman's lamb was certainly the star.

scallops with avocado, tomato, scallions and cilantro

Every time a new month rolls around, I remind myself to write a blog post. It stems from the hope that I'll be able to blog every day for a month, like I did twice last year, but I don't really have it in me these days.

Anyway, I have a great summery dish for you today: scallops, avocado, scallions, lime, tomatoes and cilantro, all served up in a giant cocktail glass. This is actually something my mother usually brings to Christmas Eve dinner as one of the compulsory fish courses, and the picture below is from last year's celebration. My brother's godmother, Julie, has this fabulous giant cocktail glass that she serves this in every year, but you could just as easily use individual margarita glasses or make due with less flashy bowls. Even though it's part of our Christmas tradition, I want to share this with you all now as the ingredients certainly lend themselves to warm weather. I definitely would love to make this with the summer tomato crop!



A cold seafood salad of sorts, this is almost akin to ceviche, although the scallops are briefly cooked before being doused in citrus. What makes it a likely choice for hot weather its ease of preparation. As long as you don't mind a fair bit of chopping, this dish is a breeze– with less than two minutes of actual cooking time, you won't even have to break a sweat. Once the scallops have been simmered, you just toss it all together for a bright, colorful and delicious dish.


Scallop-Avocado Appetizer
(from USA Weekend, Eat Smart, by Jean Carpenter, 2006)

1 pound dry-pack small bay scallops (preferably those that have not been frozen)
1 cup chopped tomato
1 cup sliced green onions
1 avocado, cubed
1 cup chopped cilantro
6 tbsp fresh lime juice (two lies)
1 tbsp olive oil
½ tsp hot pepper flakes, or to taste
¼ tsp salt, or two taste

In a small pan, bring 4 cups of water to a boil. Add scallops, reduce heat and simmer 1½ minutes– do not overcook. Drain and refrigerate for 2 hours. Combine all ingredients. Serve in cocktail glasses.

roasted potato salad with poblano mayo

poblano potato salad with bacon crumbles

Today I drove 4 and a half hours, largely in stop and go traffic on a stick shift. There were serious leg cramps involved, and I am tired and not exactly in the mood to blog about some potato salad I made over a month ago. But here I am, blogging just for you. And National Blog Post Writing Month, obviously.

There is a common thread in much of my writing here on the blog– "I got x vegetable, so I made x." This will start to trail off in the weeks to come, as I only have two more pick ups before the end of the season, but today's entry is another one in that mold.

I had a) potatoes, b) cilantro, c) poblano peppers and d) garlic. The obvious solution to the problem is Rick Bayless's potato salad. The potatoes and garlic are roasted, and then mixed with an olive oil based roasted poblano pepper mayo that you make in the blender. Then you add chopped scallion and cilantro, and plenty of crumbled bacon.

Of course, this was way way too spicy for me because I am a wimp, even though I used far less poblano than the original recipe called for. Also, the mayonnaise totally broke. So much for the foolproof blender method. Personally, I've never failed with a whisk and a slow drip of oil, but this go around with the blender totally confounded me. There was definitely a big puddle of oil on the bottom of my salad. I love Mexican genius Rick Bayless, but I count that as two big problems with this recipe, or at the very least my rendition of it.

Of course, there were a lot of things that were yummy tasty about this dish. Crispy potatoes and bacon, bright green scallions and plenty of roasted garlic. All good things. But the overly spicy peppers and too much slick and oily dressing really killed this potato salad. Don't get me wrong; I still ate it, but I felt like my own parent, bribing myself to eat just three more bites before I could have a cookie.


Rick Bayless's roasted poblano potato salad

Rick Bayless is still the man, but I definitely need to adjust his recipes to better suit my wimpy palate.

central park picnic

Look how awesome my summer was before I broke my stupid mouth:



That's me eating a delicious Viennese cucumber salad in central park before taking a free canoe ride on the Harlem Meer.



That's the salad before I packed it up to bring to the park. It was easy and light and summery. I tried to score the cucumbers with the tines of a fork, but it didn't come out quick as neat and pretty as I had hoped. The taste, however, came through in full force.



I sliced the two cucumbers as thinly as possible, and then tossed them in a colander with a tablespoon of salt. I drained that in the sink for an hour, and then rinsed with cold water and squeezed out the excess. I mixed ⅓ cup white-wine vinegar, 1/4 cup water, 2 teaspoons sugar, and a teaspoon of dillweed and heated it on the stove until the sugar dissolved. There was also supposed to be a crushed clove of garlic, but I forget to add it, (*GASP!*), and I actually didn't even miss it. I quickly cooled the liquid in the freezer, and then poured it over the cucumber, and let that pickle overnight. It was tangy and delicious, and not too vinegary. It was a nice thing to eat outdoors on a summer's day.



And look at me eating it! What a mouthful! It's kind of weird how I happened to take all these extremely "LOOK AT ME, I'M EATING WITH MY MOUTH OPEN" photos immediately before breaking my jaw. I miss that freedom. I miss that food. And that's not all there was either.



There was pesto, because that's what I make whenever I have basil, and it's always delicious.



And my handsome boyfriend, eating a corn salad with tomato, cilantro and black beans, all from the food co-op and the Mount Morris Park farmer's market. The two ears of perfectly sweet and crunchy corn were raw, the cup of beans was simmered for a couple of hours and it was all tossed with half a large tomato, a small handful of chopped cilantro, and some salt and pepper. It was tasty, but even better when I grabbed half a lime and added the juice the next day. Gotta love that acid.



I loved it all, but Nathan wasn't crazy about the spread I put together. He felt our lunch was a bit too light and not filling enough. He also apparently doesn't like corn off the cob. First, boy is crazy, and second, I'd give just about anything to be able to eat a lunch like this right now. This is the last entry I have of my life before my jaw is broken, aside from some much earlier stuff that Nathan was supposed to blog about but probably won't. I'm not sure what shape the blog will be taking from here on out... Stay tuned to find out what a food blogger does when she breaks her jaw...

syrian beet salad

So while there are many wonderful things about having a food co-op share, it can be a bit rough at times. The amount of vegetables can be simply overwhelming, and all too often something beautiful and fresh wilts and rots before you can use it. Very sad. This is even more likely to happen if the veggie in question is not something you are particularly familiar with or even like. For instance, neither Laura nor Nathan nor I can ever seem to muster up any enthusiasm for beets. I don't hate them, but they're just not something I generally cook with. I have no idea what to do with them.

Luckily, beets can stay for months in the refrigerator and reemerge little worse for the wear. Last season, I honestly did my best with the beets. I pickled them, I made borchst, I roasted them with sage for Thanksgiving dinner... but by the time winter rolled around, I was burnt out on beets. While I don't dislike them, persay, they really do very little for me, and I was flat out of ideas and inspiration. Judging by the fact that we've had two big bags of them in the crisper since at least February, I think it's safe to say that Laura feels the same way. My apologies to Dwight Schrute, but I think I've had enough of nature's candy.

However, with the summer CSA season now in full swing, I started to feel pretty bad about the winter veggies taking up room in the fridge, and resolved to remedy the situation. Enter A Bushel of What?, a fabulous blog detailing one woman's attempts to use up all the strange produce she gets from her food co-op. It's interesting reading, it's got good recipes, and she's got plenty ideas for using stuff like beets and kale, vegetables that generally stump me. Basically, it's a god send.

One of the recipes Nicole posted was for a Syrian beet salad. I liked the idea of jazzing up with beets with cilantro and scallion, and I had gotten both of those in my summer share, so I was excited to try it.


syrian beet salad

I halved my beets, (they were tiny), and boiled them for ten minutes. Then I peeled them simply by pushing at the now-softened skin with my fingertips. I smashed up a small clove of garlic, sliced up half a scallion, and chopped up my cilantro. I tossed all this with salt, pepper, olive oil and a generous squeeze of lemon juice. As instructed, I let this sit for a half an hour so that the flavors would meld.

It was good, but it still didn't blow me away. I was happy to taste the bolder flavors of the lemon, garlic, scallions and cilantro, but the beets were still a little bland. I suppose it could be that they were so old, but I think it's also just a matter of personal taste. Beets, in my opinion, are just alright. I doubt I'll ever be a true beet enthusiast. That being said, if you are, then you should give this recipe a shot. It's definitely an unusual and tasty take on the vegetable.

cilantro lime coleslaw

coleslaw with a kick

This was my first foray into the world of slaws, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This mammoth bowl of coleslaw is only half of what I made. A head of cabbage goes a long, long way!


a brightly colored slaw

I decided to make this coleslaw because there was a big old head of red cabbage languishing away in the back of the fridge. Back when Nathan and I made our second bagna cauda pasta dish, I had been in charge of the grocery shopping. I was tired after a long day of work, so when I went to my local Key Food I half hoped/half believed that the red cabbage they had on display in the produce section was actually radicchio. When Nathan arrived he quickly set me straight, and was so kind as to head back out to try his luck at Fine Fare. We both feared the mission would prove fruitless, but he inexplicably found two lonely radicchio heads, sitting in the produce case as if they were waiting specially for us. Indeed, the cashier had no idea what they were, nor how to ring them up, and the manager was equally flummoxed. After much discussion, it was determined that they must be runty red cabbages, so they ended up costing about fifty cents collectively.

That worked out great for the bagna cauda dish, but it also meant that I wound up with a totally superfluous head of red cabbage. Fast forward to my first food co-op pick up a few weeks later, and I've got a fridge full of veggies and a barbecue to attend at my dear friend Christine Jones nee Flood's house. I know I want to bring something to eat, and when I remember I have the cabbage, coleslaw is the obvious choice. I also still have winter food co-op carrots that aren't getting any younger, so I'm thinking this is perfect.


coleslaw close-up

When it comes to finding a recipe, I turn immediately to the smitten kitchen, where Deb has a well established love for slaws. This basic Ina Garten recipe seemed like it would work well enough, but then I dug a little further and discovered this cilantro-laden variant. Since I had gotten a bunch of cilantro from the co-op, I decided to go in that direction.

I chopped up a full head of red cabbage, about half of a small red onion, and then I peeled and thinly sliced 7 or 8 little carrots. This took forever and a day, but I like to think my newly acquired knife skills would now speed up this process considerably. I also decided to add some garlic scapes, which I sliced into little rounds. Then I chopped up some of the cilantro. After all the slicing and dicing was completed, I packed all my chopped veggies into the biggest tupperware I had, which was fit to burst.

I brought this home to Long Island and dressed it the next day, about a half an hour before the party. I was in a bit of a rush, so I ignored the recipe's measurement and just mixed together some mayo, salt, pepper, sugar, lime juice, cayenne pepper and dijon mustard. This only lightly coated my slaw, which was actually what I was aiming for. At this point I realized that I had enough coleslaw to feed a small army, and that only about half of it was going to fit into the largest salad bowl my parents had. Needless to say, I had a lot of leftovers. This slaw is great, but it gets soggier and more liquidy as the days go by, so unless you're having a party of 20 people, stick to half a head of cabbage. That being said, cilantro and lime are a kick ass way to jazz up a typical slaw. It was a great take on a traditional summer dish, and I would certainly make this again.

The whole barbecue was awesome, although I'm sure any Southerner worth his salt would have had a few choice words with us for calling it that. Mrs. Flood served up a typically impressive spread, including amazing brats. Meaghan made some delicious orzo salad with chickpeas, grape tomatoes and basil which would have totally housed Jimmy Bradley's lentil version. It was a delicious dinner, and not bad to look at either— and neither were the lovely guests! It's always a blast to get back together with my high school friends, and I only wish it could happen more often.


it may not be real barbecue, but it still looks like summer to me!

buttermilk carrot pancakes/cilantro ginger and lime marinaded chicken, and orrechiette with bacon, wilted radicchio and cabbage/pork fried rice

These three dinners are quick things I've whipped up in the last few weeks based on what I've had lying around in the fridge. The pancakes were only alright, but the other two meals were definitely winners.


carrot buttermilk pancakes with sour cream

These I made to try and use up some of the extra buttermilk I had after I made Irish Soda Bread. I was in a rush to get out the door, so I was just trying to do something simple and easy. Pancakes are the obvious use for buttermilk, but I wanted to make them a little more substantial for dinner, so I decided to grate in two carrots from the co-op to make them into a sort of latke. I also added two eggs, a tablespoon or so of vegetable oil, and enough flour to make it into a spoonable batter. Fried in butter and served with a hefty dollop of sour cream, these were palatable enough, but I'm sure I could make better pancakes if I gave it another shot.


cilantro ginger and lime marinaded chicken, pasta with cabbage, radicchio and bacon

This was my favorite of the three meals. Laura had cooked some chicken earlier in the week, but there was still one breast in the fridge, begging to be cooked rather than be left to spoil. I had a bunch of cilantro and some limes left over from making spinach dip for my birthday party, and we still have a huge ginger root in the fridge that we are only slowly chipping away at. A little fresh ginger goes a long way. I had an inkling that I could combine the three ingredients with some white wine, sesame oil, garlic, salt and pepper for a decent marinade, as it was similar to a preparation my mom uses. A quick peek in my Flavor Bible confirmed my suspicions. I let the chicken marinade for about 45 minutes, and then I just cooked it in the cast iron skillet. SUCH a good flavor combination. I only wish that I had had more than one measly chicken breast.

Meanwhile, I also had half a head of cabbage leftover, and small amount of radicchio from that bloggers' favorite pasta dish. I thinly diced three or four slices of hearty bacon, and fried that up til nice and crispy. I removed that from the pan and cooked half of my remaining cabbage, a fist-sized head of radicchio and some sliced garlic with salt and pepper in the drippings. I added some balsamic after it was starting to get soft, which reduced nicely. I also cooked some orecchiette, and just tossed that with the bacon, cabbage and radicchio. I think I added a little butter to make sure the pasta was all coated, and to make the dish even less healthy. I probably could have sprinkled on some romano cheese, but it didn't occur to me at the time and it was still pretty delicious. Oreccheiette is a pretty hefty pasta, so it stood up well to the hearty mix-ins. Even though I completely winged this and it seems like a strange dish, I would definitely make this again. More specifically, I would highly recommend cooking radicchio with balsamic, as it loses all its bitterness and becomes so sweet and delicious.

The pork fried rice I did not photograph, but it was very similar in spirit to the Mark Bittman recipe that I featured on the blog last month. Once again, I minced up garlic and ginger and fried them in vegetable oil. I used the sesame seeds once again, but I dry toasted them in the pan, in the hopes they'd be crunchier. I think this worked better than frying them with the ginger and garlic. Next I defrosted an old pork chop and and diced it up, sauteing it with scallions, salt and pepper. Then I scrambled an egg and chopped it up. Finally, I took some old rice from the fridge and cooked that until it dried up and got sticky. I still didn't have soy sauce or sesame oil, but I went out and bought some the next day, and they made a world of difference on the leftovers. Fried rice is a great, versatile dish, and I look forward to experimenting with it more in the future.