E is for Eats

Have you missed us? I sure have missed you. I've missed sharing our menus with you and picking my favorite recipes to share with you as well. Craig's been busy baking up a storm (pancetta and cheese bread, olive loaf, olive and truffle oil bread, his first baguettes. The man is on a serious roll. And I'm developing serious rolls). I'll nag him to write about it - it's been a lot of fun to watch him learn and experiment and I think you'd enjoy reading about it. I've been busy with....well, not with anything fun, food related or worth writing about. But starting right now, that's changing! Starting right now, I'll be busy cooking and writing about cooking. At least for the next two weeks. After that, we are off on our second annual European Christmas Vacation and you will most likely not hear from us for a while. But that's then and this is now. And now, I want to share with you what we have planned for this week (did you see our new chalkboa...

Fixin' to be Soup When my friend  Tracey was out last month, we spent a day hanging out, crafting and watching movies. We also intended to spend some time in the kitchen and Tracey suggested a carrot ginger soup. While we ended up going out for ramen instead, I've been thinking about this soup ever since. And since I keep saying I'm going to post the recipe, here it is: Spicy Carrot Ginger Soup Serves 4-6 2 Tbl butter, unsalted 1 medium onion, chopped 1 clove garlic, minced 1" knob of ginger, peeled and minced 1 tsp curry powder 1 tsp ground cumin 1/4 tsp red pepper (preferably Utica Grind ) 1 bunch of carrots, peeled and chopped 1 cup butternut squash puree (optional, I just happened to have in the fridge. Feel free to omit) 4 C stock of your choice Salt & Pepper to taste In a large soup pot over medium high heat, melt butter. Add onion and saute until soft and golden. Add garlic, ginger, curry powder, cumin and red pepper. Stir well to ...

Can you believe Thanksgiving is just a few days away? I can't - I have no idea what happened to November. As I'm sure everyone else in the country does, we have a fun-filled, packed week ahead of us. Craig's mom is coming out to visit us for the first time since we've lived in Brooklyn and we are hosting Thanksgiving this year for about 10 people. But that doesn't mean that we don't have time to cook dinner! Only three meals planned this week, what with Thanksgiving and all of the leftovers that follow. Here's what we'll be having: Pasta with Cauliflower in a Tomato Sauce Leek & Potato Soup Turkey Burgers, Corn Salad and Beans In addition, we'll be spending the day baking and canning. Craig's making  more bread , this time whole wheat. If I'm lucky, he'll also be testing a Pancetta Bread in advance of Thanksgiving. And I'll be putting up some apple sauce (or maybe apple butter, I haven't decided yet) and some cranber...

Phew, am I glad that week is over! I'm happy to report in that we actually made everything on the plan this week . Here's the run down: Meal 1: Carrot and Ginger Soup   I made this Sunday night for us to eat through the week. It was really good - the right amount of spice and heat. I'll post the recipe soon. Meal 2: Beef Stew & Cheese Rolls We broke out the slow cooker for this one, the first time in a long time. Slow cooked beef, it doesn't get easier or more delicious. Craig made a ridiculous loaf of Cheese Bread. He's turning into quite the baker. My taste buds love it; my waist line, not so much. Meal 3: Ravioli with Tomato Sauce Over the 4th of July, Craig played a show in Asbury Park and we spent the weekend in NJ with some good friends. On our way back home, we stopped at the Red Bank, NJ Farmer's Market.  It was a nice little market with a handful of farmers stands and some prepared food vendors. Once of the vendors had frozen ravioli ...

Last week was such a blur, I don't remember if  we ate, much less what ate, so there will be no check in from last week's menu . But I've got big plans for this week, and boy am I hungry! Here's what's on deck for this week. Carrot and Ginger Soup (I've been dreaming of this soup ever since my friend Tracey was visiting) Beet & Couscous Salad Beef Stew & Cheese Rolls (some of my friends from work are coming over for a mid-week meal, Craig is treating them to some homemade rolls...yummmmmm) Ravioli with Tomato Sauce Mostly comfort food, as you can see. Just what the fall season calls for. I hope you have a great week and check back through out the week for some of the recipes above.

I’ve recently taken an interest in baking. Specifically, baking bread. Bread is another staple that, until recently, we always bought at the store. My first foray into baking bread came a few weeks ago when we were having sloppy joes for dinner (Gabrielle should post about the sloppy joe recipe she has, it’s really great). I started the joes and then realized that we didn’t have any bread or hamburger buns. I was just about to head out to the store when I decided to see if there was a recipe for buns online that looked fast and easy. I found one on allrecipes.com . I gave it a try and had pretty decent buns in a little over an hour. I was so encouraged by the results that a few days later we headed to the bookstore to look for bread books. I really had no idea where to start. Gabrielle had read about Jim Lahey’s “no knead method” and luckily Greenlight Books had a copy of his book. The book, My Bread , is well written, informative, and loaded with simple recipes an...

Tempting, but there aren't actually any cupcakes on the menu this week I know it seems like I've been mentioning how busy work is lately. But it really has been! And this coming up week will be busy as well. It's Market Week, the week that our customers from all over the world visit our showroom to see what we are offering for the next season. Market Week means back to back appointments, lunch with clients, late nights and the occasional business dinner. Now, don't get me wrong. I really enjoy Market Weeks. I'm just giving you a little background info on this week's "menu". Since I won't need lunch and I'm not sure what nights I'll be home for dinner, we are spending today preparing and pre-cooking some basics. The thought being that we can take what we are cooking and throw together some meals as needed. We are making the following: ~3 pound beef brisket ~Mayacoba beans (similar to Northern Beans) ~Bread and rolls ~Cabbage coleslaw ~Roast ...

We did much better this week than we did the week prior . Really, Craig did much better as he ended up bearing the brunt of most of the cooking responsibilities this week. If it's even possible, it seemed like this week was busier than last. Work continues to be a bit crazy and in addition to our weekly French class, we also took a Knife Skills class at Brooklyn Kitchen on Tuesday. Thanks to some clever advanced planning on Craig's part, we actually followed most of the meal plan. Meal 1: Creamy mushrooms with polenta, green salad Craig made this later in the week, one of my late nights at work. I was craving comfort food, which usually means pasta for me. So while Craig ate his mushrooms over polenta, I ate mine over pasta covered in grated parmesan. For some reason, Craig really dislikes making green salads, so no leafy greens with this meal. Meal 2: Turkey sausage and potato hash, collard greens We had this after our class at Brooklyn Kitchen. We didn't get home until 9:...

Radish and Corn Salad A couple of weeks ago , I went a little nuts buying radishes. Thinking that they wouldn't be at the greenmarket too much longer, I bought quite a few bundles. Usually, I snack on radishes throughout the week, but given the amount I bought this time, I knew I was going to actually have to make something. I started flipping through Carol Gelles 1,000 Vegetarian Recipes . When Craig and I first moved in together, he was still a vegetarian. I bought this book then, to familiarize myself with some of the more common vegetarian recipes. I've used this book for years, but I don't think I've ever made a recipe from it exactly as specified. It's a great book to use for inspiration, and it seems to make it through every one of my annual cookbook purges. So, flipping through the book and looking at the frozen summer corn in my freezer, we put the following salad together. Radish and Corn Salad adapted from Carol Gelles "Red Radish Salad" serves...

Wild Rice Salad Last year for Thanksgiving, we went to Idaho to visit with Craig's parents. My mother-in-law made a delicious wild rice salad. She sent me the recipe and I immediately ran out and bought a box of wild rice. And then I never made the salad. The wild rice sat in our pantry for almost a year and I finally decided to do something with it. But there was a problem - I couldn't find the recipe! So, I took a peak at what we had on hand, and threw a very simple salad together in its place. This was super easy to make and very satisfying to eat. There are just a handful of ingredients, but the salad is chewy and crunchy, slightly sweet and slightly sour, two of my favorite combinations. In fact, I made it a few weeks ago and I've been thinking of it since. Wild Rice Salad serves 4 3 cups cooked and chilled wild rice (or mix of wild rice and white rice, that's what I used) 1 serving red wine vinaigrette (about 1/3 cup) 2 oz feta cheese, crumbled 1 oz...

Craig likes his popcorn with butter, sriracha and nutritional yeast Popcorn used to be one of my most favorite snacks. When I was a little kid in the 80's, everyone had one of those air popping machines at their house (do you remember those? They were always yellow and white, and they had a little compartment to melt the butter). I loved watching the popcorn pour out of the spout and then pouring melted butter over the whole bowl. Then, of course, came microwave popcorn. No cubicle filled office is complete without the smell of artificial butter wafting from the kitchen area. Unfortunately, we haven't had a microwave for years, so no popcorn for us. But! Did you know that you can make popcorn on the stove top, with just a big pan and a lid? Yeah, you probably did. I think everyone knew about this but me. We made it last night and I was giddy with excitement. Craig looked at me like I came from another planet. Just in case you are the only other person who didn't ...

The veggies at this week's greenmarket As you may have heard, the east coast got hit by a freak October snowstorm yesterday. Usually I look forward to the first snowfall of the season like a giddy school girl looking forward to her first school dance. But that's also usually in December! There were nothing but grumbles all around yesterday when the snow hit. And the poor farmers at the market - they looked cold and miserable and all of the produce was covered in snow. Needless to say, we ran through the market as fast as we could, grabbing produce willy nilly. The only plan in mind was the plan to get back to our warm apartment. When we got home and I surveyed what we bought, we actually did pretty well. Between the left over veggies from last week's meals that never were , we had the makings for a delicious week. Here's what is planned: Meal 1: Creamy mushrooms with polenta, green salad Meal 2: Turkey sausage and potato hash, collard greens Meal 3: Butternut...

We were so bad this week. Really, I was the instigator of our naughtiness, but Craig was a willing participant. I set a perfectly lovely menu for the week, but somehow we managed to eat out three times. Not only does this fly in the face of eating from scratch, home made goods, but it's a serious drain on our wallets as well. Truthfully, it was a very busy week at work for me - most nights I wasn't home before 9. The last thing I want to do at that point is cook dinner. Excuses, excuses, I know. But if I can identify why I end up eating out instead of making dinner at home, maybe I can plan around it. Anyway, here's how we did last week. Meal 1: Pot Roast, boiled potatoes, steamed romanesco, green salad Yes! I spent most of Sunday afternoon making the pot roast. I mentioned that I was new to the world of roasts and would be looking for a good recipe. I ended up using Bittman's recipe from How to Cook Everything . I followed it to a T, not changing a thing. And holy hel...

This is only my second summer canning and pickling, but boy did I go nuts. I think we spent at least one day each weekend in the kitchen. So I have pint after pint of different pickles, relishes and salsas. It can be a challenge to think of new ways to eat the same thing over and over. This weekend we went to our friend's birthday party. We were asked to bring something for a potluck and I knew that I wanted to bring sandwiches. I also knew that I wanted to use some of our bounty from this summer. One of the sandwiches that I decided on was a pickled beet, arugula and goat cheese sandwich. It was simple, but so good! Pickled Beet, Arugula and Goat Cheese Sandwich Baguette 4 oz goat cheese, peppered 1/2 cup baby arugula 1 pint of pickled beets Take one full baguette and slice lengthwise. Don't cut all the way through the bread. Hollow out the insides a bit (and save those yummy pieces for breadcrumbs later!). Spread each side with goat cheese. Layer the arugula a...

If you are trying to get away from pre-packaged, processed foods, salad dressings are the easiest place to start. Any dressing can be made at home, from a simple vinaigrette to a creamy blue cheese. My current favorite is a red wine vinaigrette. This couldn't be easier to make and I always get a ton compliments on it when I serve it to guests. Here is a rough guide (it's not exact enough for me to really call it a recipe - adjust the amounts depending on how much dressing you need at the moment). Red Wine Vinaigrette garlic, one clove roughly chopped salt dried oregano dried basil fresh ground pepper red wine vinegar olive oil The trick to making a yummy salad dressing is starting with a garlic paste, using a mortar and pestle. Place the chopped garlic and a few pinches of salt in the mortar. Using the pestle, grind into a paste. It should look something like this: Once you have your garlic paste, put in whatever container you are going to use for storing and serving the dressi...

I'm a little late in writing this, as it was back on October 8th that I actually started making the jelly, but hey, better late than never - right? For a few weeks our market was overrun with concord grapes. The grapes were so sweet and so potent that they were covered in bees, greedy for their nectar. We bought a few pints with jelly in mind. I was a bit nervous, as my first foray into jelly making last year almost resulted in a kitchen fire. But I was determined to get over my jelly phobia and I was looking forward to a winter full of grapey goodness. Of course, I turned to my trusty copy of Sherri Vinton's Put 'em Up!   to find the perfect recipe.  You are probably sick of me saying this, but really, this is a great canning book. Out of respect to the author, I won't reprint her recipes. But, once you buy the book, turn to page 207 and start making some jelly! There are really just a few steps to making the jelly. Here are some of the highlights. Bringing th...

Again, nothing to do with the post, but pretty all the same! Now that you know how we did last week , it's time to list what's on the menu this week. This week is the first time it's truly felt like fall, with temperatures dipping into the low 50's. With the beginning of fall, I always feel like roasts and stews, so we picked up a few pounds of top round from Rexcroft Farms at the market yesterday. I'm still relatively new to the world of roasts, so I tend to follow recipes pretty closely. I'll let you know how it comes out in our weekly update. And if you have any pointers, please share! Keeping with the autumnal theme, we also picked up a butternut squash. My usual go to for butternut squash is soup, but our meals have been pretty soup heavy lately ( here , here and here just to name a few!). This week I think we'll keep it simple, and just stick with simple, roasted squash. Meal 1: Pot Roast, boiled potatoes, steamed romanesco, green salad...

It's been a busy week and the numerous posts in my head never made their way to the keyboard. How did we do with our weekly menu though? Actually pretty well. Usually our biggest challenge is Monday night - that's the night we have our French class and we don't get home until 8:30. At that point, the last thing we want to do is cook. I kept that in mind when I planned out the week, and planned the pork chops for dinner that night. Firstly, it was a super quick and easy meal (I think dinner was on the table within 45 minutes of getting home) and secondly, how can you not look forward to pork chops for dinner? The only night we missed was Thursday. I ended up going out for dinner for a friend's birthday so we skipped it (and since I had way too much wine that night, the next day called for greasy fried chicken. I did say that I would confess when I gave into a craving for Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich....). Meal 1: Red lentil bake, radish and corn s...

Craig took this when we went apple picking. It has nothing to do with the post, but it's so pretty I had to use it. A fairly straight forward way to keep yourself on track when you're trying to change your eating habits is to plan ahead. It sounds easy enough, right? Truthfully, it can kind of be a pain in the rear. And you know what they say about making plans (actually, I don't know. I tried to google it, but couldn't find anything...). Anyway, I've been planning out our weekly meals for a while now. I plan the dinners, generally 4 to 6 servings each meal and then we take leftovers for lunch. Sometimes we stick to it, more often than not we don't. As we try to get further away from convenience and prepackaged foods, I thought it would be helpful if I published our menu every Sunday (I'm clearly off to a late start this week). Then at the end of the week, I'll check in and let you know how we did. If there are any recipes that we loved, we'll ...

A few weeks ago, we went apple picking and came home with 50 pounds of apples. I had a few dishes in mind that I wanted to make, and this was one of them. I made pickled apples last year, and loved them. Of course, I didn't note the recipe or the source of the recipe. I searched high and low, but every single recipe I found used red hots (yup, the candy) as a flavoring. Well, that kind of goes against everything we are trying to do (not to mention, it sounds kind of gross), so I kept on looking. Still, no luck. Using the red hot recipes as a guide for safety, I paved my own road. Ok, more like repaved a road that many had previously traveled, but still.... The final product turned out great, taste wise. I had a very difficult time canning these suckers though. The apples just did not want to stay put. I'm talking serious float. I haven't been canning that long and I'm still super clumsy when it comes to canning fruit. It seems like no matter what I do, it all floats. U...

Our stovetop yesterday morning amused me, so I had to share (don't judge me for the dirty stove top, we were clearly busy). On the front right burner, I was cooking up some concord grapes for jelly. On the front left burner, Craig was making mint syrup for sodas. On the back left burner, I was making turkey stock and on the back right burner was our nearly empty coffee pot. If only we had two more burners, we could have been making breakfast at the same time.

It's been a while since our last post, as our friends Gabriel and Tracey were visiting from San Francisco last week.  They are two of our most favorite people; smart, funny and fun to be around. If you get a second, you should check out Tracey's blog, warm as toast . She writes tidbits about her life and things that inspire her. It's the first thing I look for when I log in to google reader. While you're at it (and while I am shamelessly promoting my friends), check out u-dot music to listen to some of the music Gabe has worked on. Gabe and Tracey love food as much as we do, so we spent the better part of the week drinking a bit too much and eating way too much. To counterbalance the week of excess, I was in need of something nutritious, earthy and easy. The answer: mushroom soup and green salad with red wine vinaigrette (if you are looking to move away from packaged/processed/pre-made foods, salad dressings are the easiest place to start....more on that later). I...

Have you ever seen parsley root? I hadn’t. Always curious about new foods, I asked the farmer at the stand the best way to cook and eat it. He said that his favorite way to eat it was as a soup. It was fall-like outside, so soup sounded good. As I was paying for the parsley root, I asked him if the greens were edible. He looked at me for what felt like 5 minutes and said very slowly, “yes ma’am……it’s parsley”. So, once I wiped the egg off my face, I went home and made some soup. It was a very simple soup but quite tasty. I didn’t write down the exactly what I made, but below is a rough guide of what I threw together. Sautee some garlic and onion in butter. Throw in the parsley root, chopped (I peeled it, but I’m not really certain that it’s necessary). Cover with veggie or chicken stock. Let it simmer until parsley root is tender. Puree with immersion blender. Add salt and pepper to taste and garnish with parley leaves. Yummmmmmm.

For the first 7 years of our marriage, I was constantly pestering Craig to go apple picking. He always said he wanted to go, but somehow we never made it. Finally, he gave in last year and we went to Dressel farms . It was a little late in the season, but we still came home with a half-bushel of delicious apples. This year we wanted to go earlier in the season and we wanted to go to one of the farms from our greenmarket.  We decided to go to Wilklow Orchards , in Highland, NY.  Wilklow is at our market year round – they are a sixth generation family farm that brings us city-dwellers delicious produce, meats, baked goods and jams. We were excited to see the farm and we weren’t disappointed. We spent a few hours in the orchard and picked a full bushel of apples. We picked Macoun, Cortland, Red Delicious, Macintosh and Jonamac. I’ve been eating about two apples a day, usually slathered with almond butter. This weekend, Craig has his work cut out for him peeling apples. L...

Peach, Honey and Mint Jam (using instagram to mask my inability to take a good picture) A few weeks ago, we bought a half bushel of peaches from Wilklow Orchards . Lots and lots of peaches. We put up gingered peaches, peaches in honey syrup and we froze a few bags of sliced peaches. For the first time, I also made a jam. I made the Ginger Peach Jam from Sherri Brook Vinton’s “Put ‘em Up!” (This is my FAVORITE canning cookbook right now. All of the peach recipes I used were from her book. Seriously, if you can or want to can or are thinking of canning, buy this book!).  For my first go at jam, it turned out pretty well. I only made a handful of half-pints of the jam, so the next weekend, I bought a few more pounds of peaches. We had some mint from the market and Craig was kind of over the ginger, it was time for a different recipe. I had a specific idea in mind, but I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. Using the guidelines for developing your own recipes in the Pom...

Homemade yogurt, with Gabrielle's granola. Last year we decided to buy a slow cooker. In looking up recipes for our new appliance, we found a basic recipe for making yogurt in the slow cooker.   It made sense to try to make yogurt because we were spending so much on it every week and we had about a million of those quart-sized, plastic yogurt containers. Truthfully, I don’t remember the exact recipe I used but it was probably this one: crockpot365.blogspot.com “Plug in your crockpot and turn to low. Add an entire half-gallon of milk. Cover and cook on low for 2 1/2 hours. Unplug your crockpot. Leave the cover on, and let it sit for 3 hours. When 3 hours have passed, scoop out 2 cups of the warmish milk and put it in a bowl. Whisk in 1/2 cup of store-bought live/active culture yogurt. Then dump the bowl contents back into the crockpot. Stir to combine. Put the lid back on your crockpot. Keep it unplugged, and wrap a heavy bath towel all the way around the crock for insulation...