E is for Eats

The rutabaga before the soup A few weeks ago , I picked up a rutabaga at the farmer's market for the first time. I was kind of at a loss as to what to do with it. So, as usual when faced with a new vegetable, I turned to soup. I poked around on line and through my cookbooks for ideas and inspiration. This recipe from The Inn at Little Washington was actually mentioned in two of my books and on many of the sites I visited. It looked delicious, but all that butter! 2 cups of heavy cream! It was a bit too heavy for a weeknight dinner. And I didn't have the sweet potatoes and squash on hand. I used the recipe as a guide, but made a few tweaks out of necessity. Rutabaga and Apple Soup adapted from Patrick O'Connell's Apple Rutabaga Soup serves 4 to 6 2 Tbl Butter 1 rutabaga, peeled and chopped 1 onion, diced 4-5 carrots, peeled and chopped 1 Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and chopped 4-5 cups of stock, chicken or veggie 1/2 cup of Milk (I used 2%) 1/4 cu...

what a difference a week makes! This is the time of year that it's a serious challenge to eat locally. Even though last week's snow has melted, the sun was shining and the temperature was in the 50's yesterday, it is still winter. Which means slim pickings at the market. And with the damage caused by Hurricane Irene last fall, there are even less offerings than usual. There is one vendor at our local market that has a greenhouse, so they sell greens - they have lettuces, arugula, kale and more. But they are so expensive! The greens are $5 for 1/4 pound. I'll treat us for one meal a week, but it's too much to buy all our veggies from them. I also try to spread my dollars around and make sure that I buy something from each of the vendors. It seems even more important this year, seeing that every single farmer at our market suffered damage from the hurricane. So that means a lot of cabbage, onions and potatoes. To be honest, I'm having a hard time coming up wi...

It's that time again - let's see how we did with our meal plan last week . Meal 1 - Christmas lima beans with caramelized onions and bacon, spinach salad I had been curious about heirloom beans and was poking around on the interwebs when I found the Rancho Gordo site . They have an almost rabid following and I decided to give one of their samplers a try. These are expensive  beans, so I was hoping they would knock my socks off. Either beans are beans or I have a terribly unsophisticated palette, because I truly didn't notice much of a difference between these and other dried beans (now these beans and canned beans, no contest. The Rancho Gordo beans kick canned beans in the .... well, can). It is important to me to support small farms and it's VERY important to keep heirloom varieties around (we don't want another potato famine now, do we?), so I'll probably keep heirloom beans in the pantry along side the conventional dried beans. I would like to find a pro...

My last post about making yogurt provided a basic guide for making yogurt at home. Well, I have really refined the process over the past few months and I thought an update was in order. Also, I have found a simple way to strain yogurt to make thick, creamy Greek-style yogurt. So, here is my revised yogurt making method: 1. Take 6 oz container of plain yogurt with live active cultures out of the fridge. Let it sit on the counter until it's about room temperature. 2. Pour 42 oz of milk into a saucepan. Heat the milk until it's warm to the touch, but not hot. DO NOT bring it to a boil. This differs from my previous post. I found that bringing the yogurt up to 180 degrees and them letting it cool, only consumed a lot of time and sometimes caused the yogurt to have a gritty texture. It did not help thicken it as I had read. 3. While the milk is warming, put the room temperature yogurt into a bowl and gently smooth it out with a spoon or rubber spatula. You want...

the first real snow of the season! It snowed yesterday! Honest to goodness snow! It was so pretty ....... and so f'n cold. But there isn't enough snow that can keep me away from our Saturday Farmer's Market. I figure if the farmers can come down to Brooklyn and stand in the freezing cold for 8 hours, the least I can do is waddle over in my heavy winter coat and buy what they are selling. Unfortunately, they aren't selling much. I was able to get some spinach, but yet again we have cabbage, kale and onions on the menu this week. And I'm back to a meat heavy menu. I was too hungry last week to try to go vegetarian again. Here's what we have planned: Meal 1 - Christmas lima beans with caramelized onions and bacon, spinach salad Meal 2 - Kale, potato and sausage soup, shredded carrots with tahini dressing Meal 3 - Italian turkey sausage and onions over polenta, spicy coleslaw Meal 4 - Red lentil bake, cabbage and corn salsa salad We have some fun pos...

Here we are, another crazy week finished. I'm really looking forward to a snowy weekend tooling around the house. But first, let's take a look at the week and see if we stuck to our meal plan this week... Meal 1: Rutabaga and apple soup, picked beet and goat cheese sandwiches This was my first time cooking with a rutabaga (I actually don't know if I had ever laid eyes on a rutabaga before moving to NY). It was a little intimidating, but with a bit of cookbook and internet research I felt pretty confident going in. And really, soup is the easiest thing to make with a new vegetable. I was pleased with the results and I'll post the recipe later in the week. Meal 2: Seared tofu with spinach, ginger-sesame slaw Blech. This was my least favorite meal - it didn't taste all that great and 15 minutes after eating I was hungry again. The ginger-sesame slaw was good, but never again will I make this stupid tofu dish. Meal 3: Creamy mushrooms over polenta, gree...

Now that we are officially in the throes of winter (a high of 23 today!), it's time to start working our way through all of our summer canning. Some of it is easy to use (tomato puree) and some is a bit more challenging (the 4 pints of asian plum sauce I did last year). And sometimes, when you have 4 or 5 pints of the same thing, it can be a challenge to think of ways to use it. Semi-regularly (at least through the winter), I'll share with you how I'm using my canned goods, under the title "Using What You Can". So, today we have Pickled Sweet Peppers from Sherri Vinton's Put 'em Up!  These peppers are actually one of my favorite treats in the wintertime. They are great in salads or even just snacking on through out the day. What else can you do with them, you ask? Well, how about a goat cheese and pepper sandwich? I took one of Craig's freshly baked baguettes, smothered both sides with creamy goat cheese (I'm sure an herbed goat cheese would...

As I mentioned in this week's check in , roasted cabbage with bacon is one of my favorite dishes. The sweetness of the cabbage and onions with the smoky saltness of the bacon just can't be beat. There are a bunch of very similar recipes all over the internet, but I first saw it over at the kitchn . Roasted Cabbage with Bacon adapted (slightly) from Faith Durand 's recipe at thekitchn.com 1 head of green cabbage, outer leaves removed, cored and quartered (I've made this with red cabbage and it's just as good) 2 red onions, peeled and quartered 5 slices of thick bacon, cut into large pieces Salt and Pepper Heat the oven to 450. Place the cabbage and onion in a large roasting dish. Drape the bacon over the veggies. Please in the oven and cook 15 minutes. Flip the cabbage and onion and place back in the oven for another 15 minutes. Check your cabbage - if it's roasted to your liking, toss with salt and pepper to taste and serve. If it needs furth...

fish, it's what's for dinner We are on a bit of a roll, what with two weeks of following the meal plan. So this week, we're getting ambitious. Rather than the 3 or 4 meals we usually have planned, we have 6. You might have noticed that our plan last week  was a bit meat heavy. We'll usually have meat once a week and some of our meals will have a meat component, but last week was totally over the top. So this week, we've reined ourselves in and gone veg heavy instead. On deck for this week: Rutabaga and apple soup, picked beet and goat cheese sandwiches (are you noticing a trend here?) Seared tofu with spinach, ginger-sesame slaw Creamy mushrooms with polenta, green salad Pasta with bacon and cabbage, green salad (I didn't say we were going completely  meat free!) Rice with onions, bean croquettes, green salad Sauteed fish, roasted potatoes, green salad Like I said, a pretty ambitious meal plan. I think we can do it though.....

For the second week in a row, we've been well behaved and stuck to our plan. This may just be a record. Meal 1 - Carrot and cilantro soup, pickled pepper and goat cheese sandwiches We had a bunch of cilantro on hand and I had soup on my mind. A quick internet search pulled up this link to a recipe from Alice Waters. This soup was a-m-a-z-i-n-g! In fact, the next day I went online and bought Chez Panisse Vegetables.  It's a beautiful book and I really like her style of writing. I don't yet have any additional dishes planned, but you'll be the first to know when I do. Meal 2 - Roasted cabbage and bacon with couscous This is one of my favorite winter dishes - it seems decadent yet healthy and comforting all at the same time. And it's pretty quick and inexpensive for a mid-week meal. I'll be posting the recipe later this week. Meal 3 - Greens with Italian turkey sausage and green salad About half of the farmers at our market are gone for the winter, but t...

baguettes for sandwiches Well, it's the second year of the new year and already the holidays and our vacation are a distant memory. And even though it's January, winter hasn't really hit us here yet (it was 60 this weekend! In New York!). Regardless of the unseasonal weather, I have the post vacation blues and I'm craving wintery, comfort food. Here's what we have planned for this week: Carrot and cilantro soup with pickled pepper and goat cheese sandwiches Roasted cabbage and bacon with couscous Greens and hot sausage & green salad Smoked pork chops, roasted red potatoes & green salad I have an event one night this week, so just four meals this week. Have a great week and don't forget to check back on Sunday to see how we did.

It was a short week for us, so this is a short check in. How'd we do? See for yourself .... Meal 1: Sauteed curried chicken, sesame noodles & green salad I used the recipe from cooking light . The only change I made was to add onion with the bell peppers. For the sesame noodles, we tossed some rice noodles with sesame oil, soy sauce and green onions. Along with the green salad, it was a delicious meal (and super quick and easy to make, dinner was on the table in about 30 minutes. Just call me Rachel Ray. Actually, please don't). Meal 2: Turkey burgers, oven fries & green salad With the  curry ketchup  for the fries, pickled sweet peppers from our summer canning and fresh made bread for the turkey burgers, this was truly a home-made meal. I'm not going to lie, we were pretty proud of ourselves when we realized that the only thing not made by us on the table was the mayonnaise and mustard. Meal 3: Fish, baked potato & steamed broccoli Well, almost...

Our homemade version Our first night in Bruges, but fourth night in Belgium, we finally had an order of frites. Rather than the standard mayonnaise we opted for the house special sauce - mayonnaise, curry ketchup and raw onions. It was crazy good. And the curry ketchup blew me away. Had we not been in public, I would have licked the plate clean. In between the mouthfuls of fries, I kept telling Craig that I had to try to make the ketchup when we got home. And yesterday I did. Before I go into details, a quick aside: If you are an American woman in your thirties, you probably remember how popular Cabbage Patch Kids were. And you might remember that they were also ridiculously expensive. I wanted one soooooo bad. Finally, one of my grandmothers caved in and gave me one. Well, a homemade version of one that she bought at a church bazaar anyway. My little 8 year old self was so disappointed. Why, you are probably wondering, am I telling you about Cabbage Patch Kids when I should...

Just two of the many Belgian beers we tried on our trip Hello and Happy New Year friends! Given that it is a new year, and resolutions are an expected topic of conversation, I thought I would talk about mine quickly (feel free to skip past this, my feelings won't be hurt. Hell, I won't even know). I've never been one to really make a list of resolutions - it felt kind of silly and trite to be perfectly honest. This year though, I have one grand resolution: to take better care of myself in 2012. Yes, it's ridiculously broad. And yes, it covers the expected "eat better" and "exercise more". But it also includes working less (cutting back on those 12 hour days that I experienced throughout November and December), saying "no" more frequently (no more overextending myself) and spending more time and energy on the things I truly enjoy (like cooking and sharing our cooking experiences here).  Hopefully that means that you can expect to se...