Category Archives: Food

One of the first dishes I learned to make for my husband (first and few) was this easy Penne a la Vodka. It sounds more grown-up than it actually is (and everyone knows most of the liquor burns off before anyone can get the remotest bit of a buzz going). I forget where I saw the recipe – something on the Food Network probably. It calls for chopped onion, but the chef who prepared it said her kids didn’t like onions in their food, so she would simply cut one in half, let it cook with the sauce for a bit to give it flavor, then take it out and they never noticed the difference. The same trick could be used to fool my grandma, who swore she couldn’t eat onions. (She loved Andy’s sauce so much she never noticed how much garlic and onion was actually in it.) If you didn’t tell her something had onions in it, she would eat it happily and not notice a thing except how nicely flavored it might be. But if she saw an onion, all bets were off.

On medium heat, in a medium sized pan, saute the onions and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add the tomatoes and cook down for about ten minutes. Add the vodka, let simmer for a few more minutes. Add the cream and cheese, let simmer again, then add the basil and salt and pepper to taste. Total cooking time should be about half an hour. Serve with penne pasta, garnish with fresh basil. I added some shaved parmesan cheese on top as well, because one can never get enough cheese.

(Please note that the measurements listed are approximations, as the original recipe has been lost, so if you think they should be adjusted, don’t hesitate to do so. This is a pretty fool-proof recipe and can take some fluctuations.)

Our summer cooking consists mostly of grilled goods, as I can’t abide a live oven or stove-top in the summer. Luckily, Andy is a grill master, so he fires the shiny metal thing up, and I’m free to concentrate on marinades and skewers and neatly folded packets of aluminum foil. I’ll grill just about anything once, to try it, and some notable successes have been corn-on-the-cob (somehow much more flavorful when the golden rows aren’t leeched by a vat of boiling water) and wedges of cabbage (slathered with butter and garlic salt and pepper). In both instances, the vegetables benefited from not having their flavor sucked out by water or steam.

Of course, the grill is used mostly for meats and fish, and for this dish I marinated a couple of chicken breasts overnight in a mixture of soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sesame oil, worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, a few cloves of minced garlic, a dash of fresh grated ginger, and freshly-ground black pepper. You can’t go wrong with those ingredients, and the proportions are as you like them. (Generally one part of the soy sauce, vinegar, olive oil and sugar, and less of the sesame oil and worcestershire sauce.) The mark of a good recipe, for this non-chef, is how forgiving it can be – and this one is very much so.

For the quinoa, I followed the instructions of a friend and simply cooked a batch in the rice cooker, then added olive oil, fresh parsley, salt, and pepper. The broccolini was equally easy, but I’ll include the online recipe for accuracy since it came out so well. (This too seems like a pretty forgiving one, but lemon can sometimes seem deceptively innocent, and zest especially is no joke.)

Broccolini with Lemon Dressing 

Ingredients
1 pound broccolini
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
Pinch of freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Wash and trim the broccolini and steam for 5 minutes, until it is crisp yet tender. Drain.
In a small bowl, whisk together the oil, zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Drizzle the dressing over the broccolini and toss to coat.
(Note: variations: 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper instead of black pepper or 3 tablespoons toasted hazelnuts chopped sprinkled on top.)

My latest culinary obsession is quinoa. It’s a grain that can be cooked in the same manner as rice, but for this recipe it was amended with much more. Fresh red peppers and a red onion imbue some purple and red to the scene, while the fresh cilantro packs a vital punch. Black beans lend the dish a heartier aspect, making this enough of a light meal on its own. I like it for summer, as it’s meant to be served chilled (and the cool down time in the refrigerator allows for all the flavors to meld and bleed into one another). Recipe follows.

Black Bean & Quinoa Salad With Cilantro Lime Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

Starting at this time of the year, I do not want the oven or the stove-top to be on. Nor do I want hot soup or steaming vegetables for lunch or dinner. For this light lunch with JoAnn, we started with a glass of cucumber water. I got the idea a number of years ago when we traveled to Virginia for a family wedding. After a flight and a taxi cab in the high heat of a Virginia summer, we stumbled into the hotel lobby, tired and sweaty and, at least on my part, grumpy as hell. Plopping down on a couch, I looked up and saw a large carafe of icy water, through which the cloudy visage of floating cucumber slices and watermelon pieces could be seen. I poured myself a cup, quickly downed it, and poured another. It was such a refreshing treat, the notion of a fruit-festooned pitcher of ice water has remained a source of relief from summer heat.

For the salad, a friend recommended thinly sliced fennel on a bed of arugula, with a simple Dijon vinaigrette (utilizing that wondrous white balsamic vinegar).

A few slices of cherry tomatoes for color, and a topping of grilled chicken (not done on the grill, but purchased already cooked from the Fresh Market – because when it’s 95 degrees out you don’t even want to grill).

To add further color, and another side dish of cool flesh, we repeated that simple take on tomatoes that so enraptured me earlier, with a yellow heirloom that made all the difference.

Heirloom tomatoes are known as much for their unique, and quite varied, style as they are for their taste, and are best left without some additional crazy-ass culinary adornment. At the local Price Chopper (consider the source) they rang up as “Ugly Tomatoes” which seemed rather mean-spirited. I think they are beautiful, especially when the red and yellow pigments do battle in a riot of circus-like stripes, and the puckered ribbing leaves wavy designs along a cut slice. Give me gorgeous, flawed, natural imperfection over perfectly-proportionate precision any day.

Originally I was going to cut them up and add them to a salad, but they were too pretty to get lost in that wilderness. A friend advised that I keep them separate on their own platter, slicing them and arranging them as seen here, then amending just slightly with some basic ingredients.

A light drizzling of olive oil was a good place to begin, but it was the second addition that was the real revelation: white balsamic vinegar. I thought I might get away with a champagne wine vinegar, but was advised it wouldn’t be quite as sweet. This turned out to be true. The difference was profound. Sprinkled with some salt and pepper, a few chives from the garden and some sliced almonds, the tomato dish was complete.

Garnished with a sprig of pesto basil (also from the garden) and the foliage of a fennel bulb (coming up), it was ready to serve. It’s the perfect summer accompaniment, but substantial enough to stand alone as a light meal. For swimsuit season, that’s exactly what is needed.

This is the gift from our friend Eileen, put to its intended use as a sushi platter. The beauty of the dish speaks for itself.

In an effort to curb my ever-expanding waist, I’ve taken to eating one healthy meal a week. (Hey, it’s better than none!) So the other evening I stopped at Fresh Market and picked up a couple of salads – seaweed and sesame noodle. With a middle of rice, it made for a decent dinner meal, a rare meat-free selection that somehow filled me up.

Finished off with a few pieces of candied ginger – which is no joke – it was a nice spring collection, with hints of the Eurocentric-named Far East, and whispers of the sea.

This past St. Patrick Day’s weekend, our friend JoAnn was in town, and we went as far from Ireland as possible, creating a Thai dinner that began with a Siam Sunray and ended with coconut cake and slices of pineapple and mango. In between was my first attempt at a vegetarian Pad Thai (that turned out rather well) and Andy’s always-excellent yellow chicken curry. Plated up with some jasmine rice, it was a filling meal, perhaps at slight odds with the green and orange insanity surrounding such classic events as the ‘Kegs and Eggs’ parties going on around the world. (Lord knows what state the condo will be in after my brother spent the weekend there.) For our part, we kept it clean and relatively-well-behaved. When you have the company of good friends, there’s less of a need to go completely crazy.

We began with the requisite cocktail – in this case the aforementioned Siam Sunray – which had just enough of a red chili pepper bite to keep us warm, and a citrus-shaded tempering of lemongrass and Kaffir lime leaves to keep it fresh. JoAnn had asked about a red pepper dip I made a while ago, so I had that on hand too. It was actually a Red Pepper Relish, to which I added cream cheese to turn it into a dip. (When in doubt, add cream cheese and you can call just about anything a dip. If you want, you can substitute plain yogurt for one of the cream cheese packages for a slightly healthier version, which is what I did this time.) The recipe follows:

Red Pepper Relish Dip

{The key to this recipe is the cooking time: you cannot rush it. Set a timer for the half hour, and let it boil that entire time, stirring occasionally. When it’s done, the consistency should have changed remarkably, at which point you can turn it down and add the cream cheese and yogurt. The amount of red pepper flakes is up to you, but this is meant to be a hot dish, so don’t wimp out.}

Ingredients

• 2 red bell peppers, chopped
• 1 sweet onion, peeled and chopped
• 1 cup white wine vinegar or rice vinegar
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 2 packages cream cheese, softened at room temperature

Directions

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, mix together red bell peppers, onion, white wine/rice vinegar, sugar and crushed red pepper flakes. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to strong simmer. Stirring occasionally, cook 30 minutes, or until thickened. Turn down heat and add cream cheese until combined. Pour into baking dish and serve while hot. It can be refrigerated and heated up at a later time – it can also be served cold, but will be much thicker and more difficult to spread. It works well on pita chips or whole wheat crackers, but any serviceable carrying-craft will do.

In our house, we do a lot of things from scratch, but pasta isn’t one of them. And if Trader Joe’s is going to offer lobster ravioli already made, why even bother feeling guilty about it? For this simple dish, the woman at the register gave me the idea of using a lobster bisque as the base for a cream sauce, and, after arming Andy with the information, I set the dinner plan into motion. For my part, I did the lemon zest garnish, which, in my self-serving opinion, truly makes this dish. Okay, Andy’s excellent cream sauce with its lobster bisque richness, aided in putting it over-the-top. The best thing he ever learned was how to make a white cream sauce.

To counteract my dismal dahl doings (and combat a few days of the dreadful BRAT diet), this is a successful kitchen creation story with a super happy ending. While laid up with the nasty stomach flu, I tortured myself by watching the Food Network and seeing all the things I couldn’t eat. (It’s a little thing I do.) On ‘The Barefoot Contessa’ (is she even a real Contessa? What is a real Contessa anyway?) Ina was having some of her favorite chefs give out the recipes for what they liked to cook after a day of hard work at their respective restaurants – so these were supposed to be good, but relatively quick and easy. Chef Julia Turschen explained her Kimchi fried rice dish that looked so good, and simple, I knew I’d have to try it as soon as my stomach allowed.

Here is the recipe – it worked so well you just need to follow it word for word:

Kimchi Fried Rice with Fried Egg

• 5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 1/4 cup finely chopped yellow onion

• 1 small garlic clove, finely minced

• Coarse salt

• 1/2 cup finely chopped very sour kimchi

• 1 teaspoon soy sauce

• 1 cup day-old cooked rice, at room temperature

• 1 very good egg

• 1 scallion, white and light green parts only, very thinly sliced

• 1 generous pinch coarse Korean chili powder

Directions:

Heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring now and then, until the onions begin to soften and just begin to brown, about 10 minutes. Turn the heat to high and add the kimchi and cook for 2 or 3 minutes until it begins to crisp on the edges. Add the soy sauce and rice and stir thoroughly to combine. Cook until the rice is warmed through and beginning to brown, about 5 minutes. Transfer the rice to a warm, shallow bowl and set aside.

Wipe the skillet clean with a paper towel and add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to the pan and return it to the stove set over high heat. Crack the egg into the skillet, sprinkle it with a pinch of salt and immediately cover the pan with a lid. Cook until the egg white is cooked through and the yolk is barely set. Slip a spatula underneath the egg and transfer it on top of the rice. Scatter the scallion over the dish and sprinkle with the chili powder. Eat immediately, being sure to break the yolk and let is act like a sauce over the rice.

I doubled the recipe (if I’m going to invest the time and effort into cooking something, it better damn well feed more than one person at one sitting), and went a little heavier on the rice (about three cups, cooked) because I wasn’t sure how much heat I could take (kimchi is no joke). It was said by the chef that kimchi totally changes once it is cooked – and this proved true. When it first hit the pan, I wasn’t sure. That initial aroma is intense, and some might find it off-putting, but after a few minutes it transforms into pure goodness, and by the time the rice is added it all comes together in almost-miraculous alchemy.

The double dose of fried egg was killer – and this dish is all about that fried egg topper. (I sent the recipe to Suzie, who tried it before I could, what with a working intestinal track and all, and she agreed that it was the egg that sent it spinning.) I used cayenne pepper for the Korean chili powder and it seemed to work just as well, if a little less coarse. Don’t skip out on the scallions either – they’re much more than a simple garnish here. All in all, this is one supreme recipe that even Andy enjoyed. (And he’s not easy to please.)

Everyone said dahl would be an easy recipe – and it was. The problem may be that I just don’t like it. Some might joke that I don’t know my way around the kitchen – and if you’re talking about making pancakes from scratch without the aid of something like Bisquick, you’re right. (And, okay, I occasionally forget that the stove-top is on until the smoke alarm goes off, and some things have unintentionally burned – NEVER food though, just pans or cork trivets or plastic ladels). But for most everything else, I’m pretty damn serviceable. If you’ve graduated from high school, you should be able to follow a recipe. (Those are always my famous last words before a cooking disaster.)

Sometimes though, either the recipe is off, or mistakes are made, or a lack of professional training comes in as far as flavoring and tasting goes. I’m going to blame the recipe this time. I wanted to make a simple dahl. I got the recipe online (which is always going to be a crap-shoot no matter how many stars or reviewers have glowingly rated it) and I liked it because it did away with the coconut milk.

In this case, the taste was just off. Well, maybe not off so much as unimpressive. It reminded me a little bit, in its blandness, of the mung bean dish that I used to try, and hate, at family dinners. Maybe that’s what dahl tastes like, but with all the spices involved (coriander, cardamom, turmeric, cumin, cayenne, cinnamon, and fresh ginger) I expected more. At that point, I could have added a ton of salt and pepper, but that always seems like cheating to me. If a recipe’s no good without having to add a shitload of salt to it, then the recipe’s no good. This one was bland, and bad.

Never one to dismiss anything before it’s plated up properly, I poured the dahl over some rice. It looked good. It looked hearty. It looked like how I wanted it to look. Unfortunately, it still tasted the same. If anything, it was more disappointing because the appearance was so at odds with the lack of flavor. I was bummed. Andy was kind and blamed it on the recipe. I chalked it to up to a failure not quite on a par with pancakes from scratch, but a waste nonetheless. However, my next cooking adventure would prove far more successful…