Apples have never been my favorite fruit. I always enjoy them once I start eating one but it’s just not something I crave. But an orchard brought bags filled with an assortment of their new varieties to the Greenmarket so I figured I’d try a bag and see if anything floated my boat. The upside is were some really good apples in there. The downside is I’m going to have to try to identify the ones I liked by sight next time I go since they aren’t labeled by variety like apples bought at a grocery.
The batch of preserved lemons I started last month was ready this week so I finally got to make this Israeli couscous salad requested by my wife, Terri. The lemons were the only specific ingredient she mentioned so I improvised the rest.
Israeli couscous (also called Ptitim) is completely different from the more familiar North African couscous or instant couscous most of us have prepared. It is significantly larger and is toasted rather than dried which gives it the ability to absorb liquid without breaking down much like a risotto.
A headline in The New York Times reads “Mayor Doesn’t Always Live by His Health Rules.” I read the story and though I may not agree with the mayor on everything I have to stand up for him on this one.
Bloomberg banned trans fats in New York and now has a campaign aimed at sugary soft drinks but according to the article, likes hot dogs, fried chicken and Cheez-Its. Is having some ideals that you don’t always live up to a bad thing? If it is we are all in trouble. On this blog I encourage people to cook at home using real ingredients, preferably organic and local. I go to the Greenmarket every week and cook the majority of our meals at home. But I ordered a pizza on Friday night and I have a favorite Italian sandwich from a deli in my neighborhood that I eat every couple of weeks. Though I don’t buy them often I happen to like Cheez-Its too. Hypocrisy? I prefer to call it balance.
Flawed or not, I like that we have a mayor that cares about food policy and has some ideals regarding what we put in our mouths even if he doesn’t live up to them at every meal.
Link to NY Times article
I thought I’d try to make some peach ice cream to send off both the Jersey peach season which is nearly over and summer which seems to have already left us. I have no ice cream maker and very little experience and I know homemade ice cream can be really bad having eaten what amounted to icy, sugary milk at various summertime gatherings.
I turned to the expertise of David Lebovitz, author of “The Perfect Scoop” who has an excellent blog that he writes from Paris. He’s got very useful info on how to make ice cream with or without a machine and I used his basic, custard-based vanilla recipe minus the vanilla bean to avoid overwhelming the peaches. There is a lot of heavy cream and egg yolks in it which keeps ice crystals from forming since fat doesn’t freeze well. The peaches became a bit icy and I’m not sure what could be done about that without somehow removing moisture from them. It wasn’t bothersome though since the ice cream around them stayed very creamy and was superior to your average pint. I’m sure a machine could do a better job and would be less trouble since I wouldn’t have to mix it up every half hour until it freezes. But it was overall a great success and it’s good to know it can be done without an expensive, space-eating machine.
David Lebovitz’s vanilla ice cream recipe is here.
I’m calling this crostini but I used pretty large slices of bread since this was made for dinner rather than for a snack. I’d call it bruschetta but I didn’t rub the bread with garlic which I think disqualifies it. If I wanted to be less pretentious I would just call it toast but if I weren’t at least a little pretentious I wouldn’t be posting photos of food I cook on the internet, right?
I used long, thin eggplants which were the only variety I hadn’t yet purchased from the Greenmarket. Any eggplant will do though since I haven’t noticed a lot of difference in taste between varieties. The tahini sauce was thick and did a nice job keeping the tomatoes from making the bread soggy and made this heavy enough to be an entree. Hummus could be substituted but the tahini’s strong flavor was the punch in this dish for me.
Read More
I’m a fan of stews but I stay away from them for the most part when it’s hot outside. In late summer when there are tons of vegetables available from local farms I start getting anxious to start throwing them in a pot in various combinations but I resist. This week I couldn’t resist any longer. The weather turned cooler and one of the farmers at my greenmarket finally had some heads of cabbage. I am also serving on a jury so the convenience of cooking a big pot of something we can eat for a few days pushed it over the top.
I’m not a strict localvore and I try to moderate my tendency to get on a soapbox as much as I can, but a one of my favorite fellow NYC food bloggers (Not Eating Out in New York) is running a competition to promote the Let Us Eat Local gala here in New York and I figured this was a good opportunity for me to throw in my two cents about eating local.
My parents, who are hardly left-of-center, eat a lot of food that is as local as it gets since they live in bedroom town outside of Indianapolis and have a huge garden where they grow much of their own food. When I still lived at home I would occasionally look out the window over coffee in the morning and see seven or eight women with their behinds in the air in the garden because my mom would put a “FREE, You Pick” sign in the yard late in the season. My folks also raised chickens for a while and Mom would sell eggs to neighbors. This is, to me, the very simplest and purest local food economy.
I, on the other hand, live in Manhattan in an apartment with no outdoor space and windows that face a brick wall. No garden here. No farms on the island that I know of either. But I have access to a greenmarket only a few blocks away every Sunday so I try to take advantage of it.
The kielbasa for this stew came from Grazin’ Angus Acres, a local farmer with a booth at the greenmarket. They have it all covered – grass fed, no GMO, no antibiotics, no hormones, no cruelty and they use a windmill for a large percentage of their electrical needs. The chicken stock also came from a chicken I bought for them. The veggies came from several of the other farmers at the greenmarket. I bought tomatoes at the greenmarket but Terri and I got tempted and ate several tomato sandwiches before I cooked the stew so I ended up using canned tomatoes I had on hand. Not entirely local but on balance a nice celebration of ingredients from the NYC area at the height of the season.
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp butter
1 onion, diced
5-6 stalks of celery, chopped
5-6 cloves of garlic, minced
3-4 carrots, sliced
2-3 cups chicken stock
1 head of cabbage, roughly chopped
5-6 small new potatoes, cubed
24 oz. can of canned, crushed tomatoes
4-5 oz. of dried white beans soaked overnight or one 15 oz. can
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp salt
2 tsp chili powder
2 Tbsp hot sauce (I like the salty brands like Louisiana or Frank’s)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp soy
dash of fish sauce
1/2 kielbasa (3/4 lb.)
I obviously like to cook but one of my favorite things about stews it that the cooking part is pretty lazy. You saute the celery, carrots, onion and garlic in butter until the soften a little. Then add the stock, potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, beans and all the spices. I seared the kielbasa in a 450 degree oven to brown the casing and I let it cool a bit before cutting it into pieces which I think helped it stay moist in the stew. Simmer until the cabbage and beans get soft. It’s usually edible in an hour but is better after 2-3. Even better the next day.
It’s been years since I have bought boneless chicken breasts but I remember how much of a challenge it was to keep them from getting dry. A whole section of marinades in every grocery store backs me up on this. I haven’t stopped eating chicken of course. I’ve just found that roasting a whole chicken is easy, gives me more (and better) meat and allows me to make stock for other dishes. Plus it is cheaper than the pre-packaged chicken.
I keep it really simple. I remove the giblets, rinse the chicken inside and out with cold water. Then I pat it dry and liberally add salt, pepper and usually some dry thyme to the inside and outside of the chicken. I’ve been trussing the chicken lately. Not the fancy way, I just tie the legs together but it’s not crucial. Then I put it breast side up in my roasting pan and pop it in the oven. The only high-maintenance thing I do is cook the chicken at 450 degrees for the first 15 minutes and then at 375 degrees for the rest of the cooking time. Many cooks cover the chicken in butter or oil. I don’t find this necessary. The hot oven sears the meat which keeps the moisture in and the skin ends up brown and crispy. Twenty minutes per pound or until juices run clear is the rule and it works fine if you don’t have a meat thermometer.
You can flavor the chicken with any number of things – stuffing it with halved lemons and cloves of garlic, using a spice rub of some kind or filling it with sprigs of rosemary. I rarely use anything other than salt, pepper and thyme because I usually use the chicken for more than one dish and this gives the chicken a little flavor without committing it to anything really strong that would overpower.
Once it is fully cooked, I let it rest for at least a half hour so it’s cool enough to handle and to let the juices settle. I pull off the skin and tear off as much good meat as I can. I don’t have any special tips for this. It’s a sloppy but satisfying job and the cook’s privilege is a few samples. I sometimes sort the light and dark meat depending on what I’m going to do with it but usually just throw all the meat in a bowl and all of the skin and bones into a separate bowl to use for stock.
I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t know what celery root (or celeriac) was before making this. It’s like I’ve been cooking all these years and just discovered the tomato or something. It’s hard to miss it on the shelf with its wrinkly skin and snarl of dirty roots so where have I been? When I decided to cook some I suspected I might have to visit several stores but found a pile at my first stop so apparently it’s common. Or I just got lucky. Either way, it’s turned out to be a happy discovery and makes me wonder what else I’m missing.
I used un-peeled red potatoes thinking they would add some color to the very brown and white gratin, which they did. They also held up very well, not falling apart like softer, more starchy potatoes might. My wife, Terri thought more starchy potatoes might be better since they would soak up more of the sauce and would contrast more with the texture of the celery root. She is probably right but it was gratifying fare with the red potatoes, as I’m sure it would be with almost any variety. Read More
Between the availability of fresh, summer vegetables and the oppressiveness of the not-so-fresh summer heat, I haven’t been cooking a lot of heavy food. But it cooled off a little and my wife, Terri had been working really hard so I was feeling like I should cook something really substantial. No roast or stew—especially since I waited until late in the day to even consider dinner. I figured pasta would work so I made a version of carbonara.
I skipped the eggs and though this would probably be better with all fresh ingredients, I have nothing against canned tomatoes or artichokes in a pinch so the only things I chopped up for this were some basil, garlic and shallots. You could definitely make this in 30-45 minutes with a quick trip to the grocery on the way home from work.
Ingredients:
28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes with juice
10-15 pitted black olives (kalamta or some dark variety)
4 cloves minced garlic
about a Tbsp. of capers
black pepper to taste
13.5 oz. can artichoke hearts, drained
1.5-2 Tbsp. of chopped fresh basil or dried basil
2 shallots (could substitute half an onion)
4-5 slices of prosciutto a couple of slices of bacon
linguini
Throw the tomatoes, olives, capers, minced garlic, basil and a little salt and black pepper into a saucepan to start simmering, covered. Go easy on the salt since the pork and olives add so much. Break up the tomatoes a little as they begin to cook. In a skillet, brown the prosciutto or bacon breaking it up as it browns (drain off excess fat if using bacon). Saute the shallots in the pan with the pork for about a minute. Add the artichoke hearts to the pan and saute until they start to brown a little. Remove from heat and set aside. Cook and drain the linguini. Add the linguini and sauce to the skillet along with some more black pepper and cook the mixture together for a few minutes, scraping the brown bits from the bottom.
Terri ran late the night I made this and I think the sauce benefited from some extra cooking time. I’m positive it would have been good even if the sauce only cooked for 30 minutes. It’s a great thing to cook if you don’t know exactly when dinner is going to be served. The sauce simmered, the artichokes and prosciutto sat covered and some hot water waited for the pasta until she was home. I dropped in the pasta and within 15 minutes we were eating.
I say I’m not much of a baker but the fruit selection has been so good in New York lately that I’m feeling inspired to at least try a few things. This week I bought a whole bunch of apricots, thinking I’d try to make an apricot upside down cake. Pineapple upside down cake is one of my few favorite desserts and it seemed like apricots should work well too. I did an online search and, as usual, was reminded that I’m a home cook and not an innovative chef. This is not a terribly original idea. There were plenty of recipes out there and many sounded very good. But when I remembered seeing a lot of cakes in one of my grandmothers’ recipe books I decided I’d give Gramz (her spelling) a shot.
I have no idea where she got the recipe. She was diligent about crediting recipes in her notebooks, a name in the upper right hand corner of most hand-written pages. But this one had no attribution and she passed away in 1990 so she gets the credit until I hear otherwise.
The cake sounded a little complicated, especially for a novice like me but it came together quickly and turned out perfect despite the fact that I had to substitute all-purpose flour for the called-for cake flour. It looks a little like an angel food cake on the top (eventual bottom) but is much more dense and holds up well even with all the liquid from the apricots. I’m pretty sure this is my first scratch cake and it turned out so well I may get into this baking thing yet.
