Pink of Perfection

It’s definitely cheating to use the photograph from the New York Times to illustrate this recipe, but my reasons are twofold: 1) my stew did not look nearly this photogenic and 2) I ate it all before I snapped a picture. Well, that happens sometimes.

You would never guess from such an unassuming pantry-staple list of ingredients how wonderful this is. I loved it like crazy, and it’s become my favorite spring weeknight recipe. It’s rich with smokiness from the paprika, creamy from the fava beans, and felt like a tonic of nourishing spring health. And though it’s not a nod to seasonality, I’m a big fan of the frozen fava beans from Goya for their ease. Because let’s be real: fava beans really are one of the most tedious characters in the vegetable kingdom, second only to artichokes. This recipe, in my book, more than justifies the slow process of popping each bean out of its inner sanctum. I called up my mom and chatted with her during the task, but you could just as easily listen to the sound of the rain falling outside your window or put on the blues and sway your hips from side-to-side for awhile; it sure feels good to bow out of the mad dash.

Photo: New York Times

Continue reading “Fava Bean Stew” »

Because it is snowing––again––today seems like a perfect day to tell you about this shepherd’s pie. But first, I think, I should tell you about the cookbook I made it from.

Cooking with Shelburne Farms is one of those cookbooks that fully transports you to a place. In this case, by cracking the spine we travel to a large old farm in Vermont. We meet foragers who know how to find the best wild mushrooms, we see “caramel-colored cows with soft, patient dark eyes” milked by schoolchildren on a school trip. Flipping the pages, you can practically feel a plaid blanket over your lap and a crackling fire at your side. For a girl in a one-bedroom apartment in a gray urban landscape, this is bucolic catnip like none other. The recipes offer up page after page of lamb and rabbit, maple syrup in granola, on scallops, honeyed apple tea bread and fine aged Vermont cheddar. Pretty much the cookbook embodiment of a warm heart and a thermos full of hot apple cider, it is the coziest cookbook I own.

I’ve had my eye on this shepherd’s pie recipe for years, but I finally had the opportunity to make it one cold Friday night last month. We were having date night at home, and I had plenty of time to go about the separate components of the recipe–brown the lamb, mash the cheddar potatoes, caramelize a pile of onions–while drinking a glass of red wine and listening to Nina Simone.

When I cook something that I’d potentially like to feature on the blog, Sebastian and I have a unofficial judgment process. We each get situated with napkins, salt, and forks. We take a couple bites. If he turns to me first, this is a good sign. This means he approves heartily. But if I have to turn to him and ask what he thinks, it usually means it’s something I like more than he does. Put another way, it’s healthy and he can tell. If I don’t turn to him, and he doesn’t turn to me, and we just eat in silence watching C.J. rule the press room and Sam bumble around, the recipe silently falls to the cutting room floor, never to be seen again.

Sebastian turned to me immediately when I served him this shepherd’s pie and said it was one of the best things I’ve ever made, right up there with that tart from this fall and those scallops from last spring. One for the annals! The multi-step process makes this weekend fare for blustery cold nights and fierce, post-snowshoeing appetites. But the richly delicious results make it well worth the effort. I’d venture to say that this recipe, if you’re looking for a reason to keep slogging through the snow and slush, is a reason to love winter. Would be brilliant with a toasty English ale.

Continue reading “Shepherd’s Pie with Caramelized Onions and Cheddar Mash” »

All my old ideas are dying hard. First there was the discovery that puréed cauliflower is good enough to fool even a meat-and-potatoes-loving husband. And now this! I used to feel categorically against spaghetti squash in place of proper noodles. It always struck me as the sort of extreme, no-carb trickery that I just can’t get behind. But here’s the thing: it’s good. And when you’ve got a bowl of meatballs and tomato sauce, it turns out the spaghetti itself isn’t––at least for me––the main attraction.

Have I sworn off real spaghetti and meatballs? No way. But this supper still has all the warm, homey connotations of a big bowl of pasta, but won’t make you need to unbutton your pants afterward. Always a plus.

Continue reading “Turkey Meatballs with Spaghetti Squash” »

Here it is: long-awaited, hoped-for 2011. We rang you in with rich meals eaten with friends and families, drinks, more drinks, staying up too late and sleeping in. And now, of course, in our extreme-like fashion, we’d like to continue the welcome by boomeranging into Ultimate Health and Well-being.

We are nuts for these new beginnings, aren’t we? I’m so in favor of a fresh start that I’m sitting here with a green smoothie as I write this, day one of a here’s-hoping-I-feel-shiny-and-vital-at-the-other-end-of-this detox. But before I start ruminating about the new year, I thought I’d give you something to eat.

Which leads me to this salad. Inspired by its festive color palette, I called this Christmas salad. But you probably don’t want to eat Christmas salad on January 3. In fact, you probably want to get as far away from Christmas, carols and wrapping as you can. Give this salad a shot though, and call it by its more pedestrian name until next year. Alongside some of the darker, earthy flavors of winter, this bright, fresh salad feels so right, and is a wonderful way to make savory use of pomegranate seeds. We had it twice in one week at my house: first alongside walnut crusted chicken breasts (heaven) and again on Christmas day itself.

I am kicking around some bigger ideas that I want to talk about with you––it does seem the season for it, after all––but until then I leave you with the wise Mary Oliver and a recipe or two.

Continue reading “Back to Healthy: Bulgur Wheat & Pomegranate Salad with Walnut Crusted Chicken Breasts” »

Now, I’m no Italian donna. I grew up on tomato sauce in a jar and spaghetti cut with a knife. So I’ll freely admit up front that I’m no bastion of Italian tradition. Be that as it may, I do know that a bowl of pasta e fagioli is one of the most comforting dinners on earth, even for a Scotch-Irish girl like me. Homey and rich without being heavy, this is a supper that fills the house with good scents and makes you really feel like you’re doing something for your own good. Ideally, a mother would make this and bring you a bowl on the couch, along with a cup of milky sweet tea or a glass of wine and ask if you’d like a blanket or need the pillows behind your back rearranged. But as is, just made and served by you, it is still a comforting wonder.

Let us not overlook that the comfort comes not just at the end, when you’re leaning over the bowl and lifting a spoonful of fragrant broth to your lips. It begins at the cutting board, when you are standing there chopping (hacking?) away at carrot, onion and celery. I find that’s a good a way as any to dissolve the anxieties of the day.

Continue reading “$5 Dinner: Pasta and Bean Soup” »

All summer long, our living room was shaded by the big, green-leafed tree outside, and now, in the wake of a hail storm, it’s turned yellow and half-clothed. In the mornings, the living room is nearly bright again. It all feels so sudden, and in a way, shocking. I resist and resist and resist the changing seasons, and then it somehow surprises me that the new one’s ushered in anyway.

My resistance gives way to an embrace with beets and apples. They’re hard to resist, I find. Don’t you love the big wooden crates at the farmer’s market, filled with jonagolds, mutsus, and honeycrisps? Choosing fruit from there feels almost as authentic as real apple picking. It’s all such fun, wearing a light coat again and crunching through leaves, that I’m beginning to like these cool, overcast days. Though I’m not sure where my mind’s been this week. I showed up at the drugstore without my wallet the other day, and get sucked into tasks only to look up, hours later, to remember the rest of my to do list. I’ve been a bit of a half-wit.

The one area in which I have been a total and bona fide genius this week, though, has been in the kitchen, which is a quite a way to be welcomed back to cooking. Sebastian declared this, somewhat surprisingly to me, one of the best things I’ve ever made. Which is particularly nice to hear when a recipe is easy-peasy, don’t you think? You grate some cheese, slice some apples and some beets, and plop them on pre-made puff pastry. Bake until the tart is golden around the edges, and serve with a nicely tart green salad to cut through all that richness.

I hope you all have a lovely fall weekend! Bring on the pumpkins!

Continue reading “French Friday: Beet, Apple, and Gruyère Tart” »

I’ve had lobster on the brain all weekend. For starters, I blame a friend who waxed poetic about the glorious deals that could be procured at the Red Hook Lobster Pound. So when I found out these guys would be dishing out rolls at the weekend’s food truck festival on Governor’s Island, I couldn’t look up the ferry schedule fast enough.

Here’s what I can tell you: the ferry to Governor’s Island departs Manhattan from a really beautiful building. The ride there is positively lovely and free. Governor’s Island is filled with old historic buildings and looks a lot like Harvard Yard. You can rent bicycles and settle in for a picnic at the point. It’s all exceedingly pleasant.

But if you arrived hungry on Sunday, you may soon have been hangry (hungry meets angry). People waited in line for hours only to see trucks run out of food or be closed down by the health department. People were not happy. My lunch was Cheez Doodles from a vending machine. So we boarded the return ferry back to the main land and ate hamburgers.

But I could not get these lobster rolls out of my brain! So I suggested to Sebastian on Labor Day that we go buy two and be just like Annie and Alvy. Turns out my husband has a soft heart and doesn’t like the idea of throwing live crustaceans into boiling water. My fix would need some fixing.

You know what’s a heck of a lot cheaper than lobster and way easier to deal with? You got it: shrimp. So we made these fantastic shrimp rolls instead. I’ve long loved the idea of this adaptation for the budget-minded, and I’m happy to report these were crazy delicious. Serve with sliced tomatoes and corn on the cob for one of my new favorite summer meals. Craving: sated.

Continue reading “Tarragon Caper Shrimp Rolls” »

One thing I can tell you about Argentina is that they’re not so into their salads. Rather, they are into their meat. And that’s a good thing––a really good thing. What is vacation for if not eating one cut of red meat after another and kicking back glass after glass of blood red wine? I’m not sure how this national diet would feel in the summer, but on South American winter days spent wobbling on cobblestones in long-forgotten tights, it was just the right thing.

That said, returning to a wall of New York humidity requires slightly different fare. As does my wardrobe, should I ever expect to slip into a pencil skirt or slim-waisted dress again. Ahem. (Learn from my mistake: Do not, I repeat, do not, schedule a bridesmaid’s dress fitting immediately upon your return from an over-indulgent vacation.)

What a delight to return to summer (especially raspberries, sweet raspberries) and all it’s green growing things. I’ve had my eye on this particular salad for awhile, but it seemed a perfect mix of hearty/filling and fresh/light. If such a combination can exist. I’m still a little unsure of the dressing, to be honest. I think my fatal mistake was skipping the feta cheese. Again, learn from my mistakes; don’t do that. The feta adds a sharp, slightly sour balance to the dark, smoky paprika. If you do make it, I’d be interested to know what you think. As usual, the reviews on epicurious are a little divisive.

Ah, chickpeas––it’s so nice to see you again.

PS I thought of you guys teasing me for my love of lentils at the Eva Perón museum when I saw this display of legumes.

Continue reading “Quinoa, Chickpea, and Spinach Salad with Smoked Paprika Dressing” »