Tag Archives: butter

Roasted Artichokes – 30/67

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I am not really an animal person. I don’t ooh and ah over dogs passed on the street or with their owners on the train (RIP going anywhere). I hate movies about animals, I think zoos are dumb, and I would gladly never watch a cat video again on youtube. I don’t really like the term “fur baby” or “dog mom” because… how could an animal be like a baby? It never learns to talk or read, it will always get in the way of vacations, and kids eventually wipe their own butts. I love my friends and family who love their pets, and so I give as much love as I can to their pets. I don’t dislike them! I promise! I just didn’t really get the point. 

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This is not a popular opinion. It doesn’t make you liked at parties. In fact, it makes people think you’re a psychopath. 

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I’m not a psychopath! I just didn’t grow up with animals. I may have been slightly traumatized by a friend’s giant Newfoundland in first grade and a dog bite or two in elementary school. Animals don’t really like me either, so ha. 

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And so it is slightly incongruent that I have now found myself the owner of a very cute cat. I have officially had a cat in my house for one week… and I like it!

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A couple things incited this progression. In our old garden unit apartment, we had a bunch of strays living in the backyard. And oh my lord were they adorable. They just kept breeding and breeding, so there was a new crop of kittens every few weeks. They played and climbed and stared at us through our window. They warmed my cold, animal-averse heart! And then I started spending more time with a friend’s two adorable cats. I found myself wanting to hang out with them. The cats! Not just the friend! So we began to talk about fostering. 

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And then this whole quarantine thing happened. Now was the time! We signed up to foster with 4 different agencies and — there were no cats left in NYC. Sigh. Good for the kitties, bad for us. But then, lo and behold! Our friend Becky was one of those lucky fostering ones, and she happened to have a wonderfully cute and friendly and curious cat who turns out she was allergic to and did we want her?? 

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And this is how I’ve found myself a new card carrying member of the I Have A Pet club. And I am totally smitten with Sadie Pumpernickel! She’s a little love. I can’t stop taking pictures of her. And poking her when she’s sleeping so she’ll wake up and play with me. I’m not sure I’m at “cat mom” level yet, but I get you, loved people, who want to talk about your animals a lot. I don’t blame you. Let’s send each other pet pics! This little cat is breaking up the monotony of isolation and bringing us so much joy. I’m so glad she’s here. 

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This artichoke recipe came from my friend Erin, who I’ve likely offended in the past with my pet feelings. I’m sorry, Erin! Your dog is a total sweet face! I promise it wasn’t personal. I have you to thank for seeing a wonderful, committed pet owner in action. And also for forever changing the way I’ll make artichokes. These are so great, so permeated by the garlic and flavorful after basting in their own juices. These roasted artichokes are the purest, highest calling of one of the most magical vegetables. Make them now, it’s artichoke season y’all!

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Roasted Artichokes

from my friend Erin, thanks!

fresh artichokes
some peeled garlic cloves
lemon juice
olive oil
kosher salt

melted butter
mayo thinned with lemon juice
toast

Preheat oven to 425F. Cut off the top third of the artichoke. Snip any pointy leaves. Cut down the base. Rub all over with lemon juice to prevent browning. Pull back inner leaves of the artichokes, stab with a knife, and stuff with whole garlic cloves. At least 2-3 each. Drizzle all over with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, and add a final squeeze of lemon. Wrap tightly in two layers of tin foil. Roast for an hour and twenty minutes, until the bottom is soft when pricked with a paring knife. Remove from oven and let sit til cool enough to handle. 

Spread garlic on toast. Dip bottoms of leaves into your sauce of choice. Or not! They’re so delicious even without. Don’t forget the heart, the best part. Avoid the choke.

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Hermits a la Grandma

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Shall we talk about something generic like how long January felt? Or how frustrating your commute was today? Or the raging primary and how Klobuchar beat(?) Elizabeth Warren? Or about how I haven’t updated this blog since November? 

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Oooh! Or we could talk about TV. That’s fun, people like talking about TV. We’re watching Schitt’s Creek, which is only getting funnier as it develops. And Killing Eve, that’s a good show too. Daniel’s getting me to watch Old Star Trek so I can appreciate New Star Trek. And the Oscars, they happened too! White male rage, amiright? Thank goodness for Parasite. 

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When someone asks “how are ya”, like a barista or a coworker, these are all very good things to bring up. But they don’t really answer how I AM. They talk about how the world is. They’re so much easier than looking the person in the eyes and talking about fear and grief. Of being vulnerable and open and sharing stories. 

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So, because many of us are internet strangers, and strangers don’t do sadness so well, I give you this recipe without much story. We ate them at my grandma’s house growing up, and I miss them. Endish of story.

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I used her recipe and, though they’re close, they’re not perfectly right. But they are delicious and easy and perfectly seasonal. And perhaps when you try them, you too will hear the sound of the harp in the background, and wrinkle your nose about needing to finish dinner before dessert. Or you’ll eat them and think — I know what’s missing, a bowl of strawberries with sugar on top! And tiny vases of fresh cut flowers all over my kitchen. And maybe you’ll hear a creaky old rocking horse in the basement and smell fresh laundry drying in the breeze. I don’t know how to be honest about feelings, but I do know taste memory is real. These bars transport me and comfort me, and I’m glad they’ll live forever on this site. 

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Now, read any good books lately?

one year ago: sicilian stuffed eggplant roll-ups
two years ago: gochujang roasted squash pasta salad
three years ago: miso ginger kale salad
four years ago: kasha bowl with roasted tomatoes
five years ago: bengali egg curry approximation

Hermits a la Grandma

Makes enough for two people to snack on all week, easily double it for more

6 tablespoons butter, at room temp
½ cup sugar, plus extra for topping
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons molasses
1 cup + 2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground cloves
pinch of salt
½ cup raisins (if old, rehydrate in hot water for 10 minutes before using)

Preheat oven to 375F.

In a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until fluffy. Pour in roughly half of your beaten egg (toss the other half or reserve for tomorrow’s scrambled eggs) and the molasses. Mix on medium speed until incorporated, scraping down the bowl as needed.

In a separate medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Add to wet mixture and mix on low speed until incorporated. Stir in raisins. 

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Wet your hands. Scoop up half the cookie batter and form into a long rope, one inch thick, on the baking sheet. Flatten the dough just a bit. Sprinkle with extra sugar. Repeat with other half of dough. 

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until sides are starting to brown but centers remain pliable. Slice on a diagonal when cool. They keep for a very long while in a covered container at room temp. 

 

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This is the recipe my mom found and attributes to my grandma. It’s her handwriting at the bottom! A quick google revealed zero hermit recipes from Ruth Reichl, so… who knows the origin of this one.

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Peach Blueberry Cobbler – 19/67

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How I did the heatwave on Saturday:

  • Woke up early to bake cobbler 
  • Blasted the AC
  • Until Daniel tried to vaccuum at the same time and we blew a fuse and then couldn’t find our fuse box and our landlord was on the West Coast and also didn’t know where our fuse box was and finally we found it in our downstairs neighbor’s apartment, unlabeled. It was eventually fixed. (By my husband.) (He wanted me to add that). 
  • Also made caponata (similar to this recipe), capusta (coming soon!), a cucumber salad, and sangria. Daniel made amazing spicy caramel peanut brittle. Busy kitchen day.
  • Took the train to Queens to see the play I directed in a festival
  • Hosted 10 people at our apartment for a potluck party
  • Bought and consumed lots of ice cream

It was a great day but it was not ideal heatwave activities.

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So, how I did the heatwave on Sunday:

  • Sat inside, ate leftovers, washed dishes
  • Consumed lots of ice cream

Sunday was a good day.  

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This is the dessert you need to make tonight. It’s so fast, so bright, so perfectly summery. And it seems incredibly adaptable, though I’ve only made it this once. The recipe calls for two cups peaches — I used three peaches, which was a little more. And then it called for one cup of blueberries, which didn’t feel like enough blueberries so I just kept adding a couple more at a time, until I think I ended up doubling it. Oops. It was still perfect. 

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Olivia gave me this recipe with the comment “the bestest dessert”. She is not lying. This thing won the potluck last night. It’s totally worth turning on your oven for, promise. 

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other blueberry desserts: simple lemon blueberry cake with lemon cream + celebration blueberry cake with ginger cream cheese frosting

other peach things (tis the season): peach tomatillo salsa + peach black bean sweet potato tacos

four years ago: collard greens tomato sauce with spaghetti
five years ago: cilantro quinoa soup with seared shrimp and corn

Peach Blueberry Cobbler

thanks to Olivia’s grandma, who seems like a pretty amazing lady, for this one. thanks for sharing your family recipes! 

¾ cup sugar + 2 tablespoons, divided
¼ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch (or potato starch)
½ cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice (from about half a lemon)
2 cups fresh peaches, sliced and peeled if you want to (about 3 peaches)
1 cup blueberries
1 cup flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
¼ cup butter, softened and cut into chunks
½ teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated is best!)

Preheat oven to 375F.

In a medium saucepan, combine ¼ cup sugar, brown sugar, cornstarch, and water. Stir over medium heat until the mixture thickens, about two minutes. Take off of heat and add lemon juice, peaches, and berries. Stir well to coat. Tip into a 2 quart baking dish (is what the recipe said. I used a 9-inch square baking pan.)

In the bowl of a stand mixer, sift together flour, ½ cup sugar, baking powder and salt. Give a quick mix. Add milk and softened butter. Use mixer to mix everything together at medium speed for about 4-5 minutes, until fluffy and few butter chunks remain. (This would be fine with a hand held beater too.) Dollop spoonfuls of this cookie dough over the fruit. 

Mix together remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and nutmeg. Sprinkle on top of cookie dollops. 

Bake in your preheated oven for 40-45 minutes, until top is browned evenly and fruit is bubbling. I served with vanilla ice cream and 9 people devoured it in the blink of an eye. 
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Buttery Gnocchi with Roasted Cauliflower – 14/67

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a night by myself (weekday version)

Come home from work, fight with Alexa to turn Brandi Carlile on
Leisurely wash kale, leaf by leaf
Spend a while perfectly julienning a red bell pepper
Hover by the stove while the water comes to a boil for gnocchi
No rushing, all peaceful, purposeful knife work
No measuring, just glugs and sprinkles and dashes
My kind of meditation.

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Watch an episode of chef’s table or something else food porn-y.
Ravish a bowl of salty buttery carbs AND a big old green salad.
Balance.

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Force Daniel to eat leftovers when he comes home at 10pm because I really don’t think this will reheat well the next day.
(He obliged, but we still had leftovers)
(They were fine, but coulda used some additional brightness on Day 2)

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~~~
Here’s the recipe for that bowl of salty buttery carbs. In a rare move, I made the cauliflower too salty (and couldn’t blame Daniel). Be aware that each part of this dish is salted, so don’t go too heavy handed on any one part. I’m really excited about this easy, filling, quick dinner. A good one to keep in your back pocket.

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some good kale salads from the archives: kale, sumac, and crispy rice salad, honey mustardy goat cheese kale salad, miso ginger kale salad, kale caesar salad, mustardy kale, potato, and green bean salad. Wow, I’ve posted a lot of kale salads. The version I made myself this particular evening had massaged leaves, julienned sugar snap peas, blistered red peppers, and scallions with a basic vinaigrette.

Buttery Gnocchi with Roasted Cauliflower

thanks to Aunt Ingrid for this one, who can always be depended on for a yummy recipe

Olive oil
Coarse salt
1 big head cauliflower, in medium florets
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 scant cup panko
1 pound gnocchi
1-2 tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 425F.

Combine cauliflower, a couple glugs of olive oil, and some pinches of coarse salt. Place on a single layer on a tray (or two). Roast until brown, flipping occasionally. For me this took 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat up another tablespoon or so of olive oil in a big saucepan. Add garlic cloves on low heat. Cook until you can smell them, about 1 minute. Add panko and a sprinkle of salt and turn heat up to medium-high. Cook until panko is evenly browned and toasty, stirring frequently. Remove from pan.

When cauliflower has about 15 minutes left, start heating up a big pot of water. When it’s boiling, add a big pinch of salt and your gnocchi and cook according to package. (I cooked mine til they floated to the top of the pot, about 4 minutes.) Drain.

Melt butter in the saucepan you used for panko. Add gnocchi and cook til browned, stirring frequently. This will take a couple minutes tops.

Serve with gnocchi on the bottom of your bowl, followed by cauliflower, followed by a shower of garlicky panko crumbs. A green salad is a great accompaniment.

 

Tomatillo and Peach Salsa (& a wedding cake!)

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The past two weeks have been filled with a whole lotta love. I had the joyous fortune to witness the marriages of two sets of friends over the past two weeks, and am full to the brim with good feelings and joie de vivre. Not only am I overjoyed at the unions of all these lovely people who I am lucky to have in my life, I am refreshed and renewed by people of all kinds. So often, I go through my day with a stern countenance, wary of strangers, stingy with my smiles. In the past two weeks, I have had my mind expanded and my life momentarily affected by new no-longer strangers from around the world. My friends have the best friends.

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I love that I was able to rehearse and perform a Bollywood dance at Nandita and Alex’s wedding with 20 other recruited newbie dancers. (Also, turns out Daniel has some mad Bollywood skillz…) I can say pretty confidently we Rocked that dance, and the brides beamed and I felt instantaneous camaraderie with my “Zor Ka Jhatka” team. And then, when the reception was over, we held a little after party at our apartment with the 85 beers gifted to us by the caterers and three cabs-full of new friends.

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And then this weekend, after months of planning and taste tests and one bad dream involving emergency outsourced avocado curd (ew), my friend Leah and I made a wedding cake!!!! It was a giant labor of love, and by giant I mean pretty freaking giant — I think the whole thing used at least 40 sticks of butter, multiple bags of sugar, 75 eggs, and two big bags of lemons. The final monster was a vanilla cake from Rose’s The Cake Bible, with Ina’s lemon curd, Martha’s raspberry curd, Sweetapolita’s vanilla bean Swiss meringue buttercream, and hand-holding from Deb. (It takes a village…) The thing itself was transported in many boxes with the help of a kind boyfriend and amused cab driver, and then hastily stacked and decorated amidst ladders and lanterns being hung up, and caterers running around, and someone forgetting their pants and needing to run home half an hour before the wedding started. And yet, it came together beautifully and tastily too. So many strangers wanted to talk about the cake — to say how lovely it was (oh shucks), or about their own baking experiences, or to chat about my (nonexistent) professional baking career.

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Weddings are fun. I love being surrounded by people who have traveled far and wide to share in love. To celebrate togetherness. I like that these weddings happened with the change of the season — a gentle farewell to what was and an excited eye cast towards the future.

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In that light, perhaps you want to make salsa? With roasted tomatillos and the last of summer peaches? This salsa is a great picnic accompaniment and really, much easier than a wedding cake. But it’ll go fast and make people in awe of you anyway because most people just don’t understand how easy it is to make your own dang salsa.

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Daniel’s spicy spicy red pepper salsa recipe to come some day… we’ll wait for me to build my heat tolerance just a bit more.

one year ago: roasted radish, blistered pepper, and olive pizza

Tomatillo and Peach Salsa

This is a more straightforward vessel for chips than my previously-posted mango black bean “salad-alsa”. Might be harder to eat this with a spoon, but don’t let me stop you from trying. Adapted from macheesmo.com. 

1 lb tomatillos
2  big peaches
1 serrano or jalapeno pepper
1 big clove garlic, minced
½ c cilantro, chopped
1-2 T onion, finely chopped
1 lime
s&p

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Remove husks from tomatillos and cut in half. Place on a baking tray, cut-side up. Roast for 20 minutes.

Set a small pan on medium-high heat. Add serrano pepper, turning every minute or so until lightly charred on all sides. Set aside.

Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil. With a small sharp knife, score the bottom of each peach with a small “x”. Boil peaches for one minute. Drain and let cool. Peel peaches with your fingers, starting from the “x”. You will get juicy and messy! Lick your fingers (and then wash your hands). Cut peaches into small bite-sized pieces and place into a medium-sized bowl. Discard (or eat) skins.

In a food processor, combine tomatillos and the serrano pepper. Pulse until there are no pieces remaining, and mixture is homogeneous and slightly syrupy. Add tomatillos to peach bowl, along with the garlic, cilantro, onion, and juice of a lime. Season to taste with s&p.

So Proud!!

So Proud!!

Buttermints

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Candy-making! An ideal Sunday evening post-salsa-rehearsal, post-Ramen-consumption, pre-Arrested-Development-and-popcorn-binge activity. We meant to send some to Daniel’s brother and sister-in-law, who just had a baby (CONGRATS!), but then we sorta ate them. Oops.

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This was a bit of a messy process (UNDERSTATEMENT), as the powdered sugar literally coated every surface of the apartment at the first beater rotation. Next time I would start with softer butter and add the powdered sugar one cup at a time. (And oh my, I just looked at their website and this is exactly what they suggest on their “Cookbook Corrections” page. I’m probably a candy genius.) But the messiness is worth it! These things are just an excuse to eat minty frosting cubes. I’ll let the pictures now speak for themselves.

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Buttermints

from The Liddabit Sweets Candy Cookbook

1 stick (8 oz) unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch cubes
4 cups powdered (confectioners) sugar, plus extra to coat
2-3 T milk
½ t peppermint extract
food dye (optional)

In a large bowl, combine butter cubes and powdered sugar. Using a hand mixer, beat on medium-high speed until no more butter chunks remain. Pause frequently to scrape down bowl and replace fly-away butter chunks. BIG NOTE: This is freaking messy! We got powdered sugar literally over the entire table AND floor AND under the table AND on the adjoining shelf. Cover mixing bowl with a towel. You can easily use a stand mixer for this part, unless you live in NYC and have a ridiculously small kitchen and nowhere to store one. (Next time, for a hand mixer, I would start with softer butter and add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time…)

Add 2 T milk and peppermint extract and continue mixing on medium-high speed until big clumps form. (If necessary, add 3rd T of milk, but keep in mind it will take longer for mints to dry this way!) Keep mixing; mixture should soon form a loose dough. You can use your hands to help along this process.

Divide dough into four parts. Cover each loosely with plastic wrap. If you’re going to use food coloring, now is the time. Take one dough segment and place it on a cutting board covered with powdered sugar. Coat your hands with the sugar as well. Add just 1 drop of dye to dough and knead it with your fingertips until the color is fully mixed in. Add more dye as necessary. Then, keeping hands coated with powdered sugar, gently roll the dough into a log 1/4-inch thick. Using a very sharp knife, cut into 1/4-inch cubes and place on a cookie tray covered with parchment paper. Repeat this process for all 4 dough segments.

Leave out to dry overnight, uncovered and unrefridgerated. Apparently these stay good for weeks. Keep in an airtight container, separated by layers of parchment paper, in a dry place (not the fridge!).

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