You know that surprisingly chewy steak that’s been sitting in your fridge since last weekend? Slice it thin against the grain, fry it up in a cast iron skillet along with your leftover onion jam and some lacinato kale, nestle it in a couple of corn tortillas, and top it with a sweet and spicy salsa. Boom, a delicious lunch in under 10 minutes.
I am neither a South Carolinian nor a vegan.
Monday morning I received an email from an acquaintance who had accidentally purchased an eighth of a cow and was looking for people to split it with given her limited freezer space. The cow in question came from Grimaldi Farms, a grass-fed, free-range, organic farm in the Hudson Valley. How could I say no?
Seven hours later, Marissa and I met up for a drink and a cash-for-cow exchange. My $50 bought me a whole lot of meat. Three pounds of ground beef and a giant hunk of bone went into the freezer for a future use. Last night I tried my hand at beef liver–a dish I’d never actually eaten before. I soaked the liver in milk and pan-fried it with a light dusting of flour mixed with salt and pepper. Oumar and I ate it with a red onion jam, arugula in a lemon dressing and pillowy egg tagliardi with a pan sauce that included butter, garlic, shiitake mushrooms, parsley and lemon zest.
This was good stuff, to be sure. But a rich, restaurant-style dinner (and, possibly, the after-dinner bourbon) took its toll. I have 24 hours to regain my strength. My cow share also included half of a five-pound top round roast. Rather than divvy it up, we decided to have dinner together. Tomorrow night Maureen, Kevin, Sara and I will be tucking into pot roast.
So tonight it’s a lowcountry vegan meal for me.
Grits with Shiitake-Seitan Gravy and Braised Collards
This recipe makes enough for two people. I just polished off half of it to steel myself for tonight’s birthday party. Given that the festivities are at a dive bar walking distance from my house, I imagine the second half will make an excellent breakfast.
It is beyond cold here in New York City and across most of the nation. As I type this, it’s nine degrees in Brooklyn–and that’s without factoring in the wind chill. I made the morning commute in no less than 18 articles of clothing.
Had I to do it over, I would have added leg warmers and a second scarf.
It was the (please, oh please, let this be true) coldest day of the year and the heat was out in our office due to a leaking valve. Adding insult to injury, the building is in the final stages of a multi-year facelift; concrete bricks and plaster are currently all that separate us from the elements. The staff toughed it out in knit caps, scarves and sweaters until 3:00 when I sent everyone home. I stuck around for another hour in the hopes of guilting the building staff into figuring something out before heading home myself. The temperature was holding steady in the single digits, but the wind had picked up. For some reason my knees–buried under silk long underwear, jeans and a down coat–suffered the most.
I had a hankering for something warm and comforting. I also had a hankering to take my brand new Global knives for a spin.
The fridge held chicken thighs, potatoes, carrots, red cabbage, and some sorry-looking cilantro. On the counter I had onions and some red wine left by my cat sitter. I also had a baggie labeled Dukkah, which the internet tells me is an Egyptian blend of crushed spices and nuts. This particular mix, which I received as a gift from an old friend, is from My Spice Sage and contains coriander, cumin, fennel, thyme, marjoram, black pepper and sesame seeds.
Red Wine-Braised Chicken Thighs with Dukkah
The resulting dish was comforting in the extreme, with a rich broth and warm spices.
The knives were even more satisfying.
These supremely sexy pieces of cutlery feel light but powerful in the hand and cut through an onion like it’s butter that’s been left on the counter. They may just be the best gift I have ever received.
As any regular reader will have intuited, I have a deep and abiding affection for leafy greens–the darker, the better. The winter months can be rough for green lovers who live in northern climates, but hearty collard greens seem to fare well. They also hold up nicely in the refrigerator, unlike some of their more delicate relations.
Collards are a traditional New Year’s food throughout the American South. I rang in the new year with good friends and cuddly cats in Baltimore.
The 20 or so guests were no match for the truly insane variety of taco fixings that were on offer. Homemade corn tortillas swaddled red chicken mole, grilled gulf shrimp, carnitas, chorizo, mushroom and corn rajas, pickled cow’s tongue, refried beans, Coca-Cola braised beef, and black mole goat (not pictured, because it was simmering away in the crockpot). There was a whole other table of salsas, cheese, veggies and the like.
New Year’s Day found us watching a trashy movie while dining on stuffed ham, black-eyed peas, and collard greens braised in coconut milk with some black cardamom I’d picked up at Union Market while passing through Washington, DC. I used this recipe from Serious Eats as a starting point for what turned out to be a damn tasty variation on a classic dish.
It is January 5th and I’m on a bit of a collard bender. Thursday morning, I poached an egg in some of the leftover greens before hopping a train back to NYC just ahead of a snowstorm. Friday I bundled up to check out the winter wonderland and get some more greens, which I sautéed with soy sausage. Yesterday I ate the collards braised with roasted delicata squash and red onion.
This morning I went with a hash that requires just one skillet and feeds one individual who stayed out a little too late, drank a little too much red wine, and spent more than she had intended in the live auction. (Luckily the proceeds benefit Just Food, an amazing organization that connects New Yorkers to fresh, locally grown food.)
Sweet Potato and Collard Hash
Red onion and sweet potato hash with chipotle powder topped with scrambled eggs and swaddled in corn tortillas will keep you warm when the snow is piled up and temperatures are in the single digits. It will not, however, do anything about the lack of hot water when you need to take a shower.
I’m headed out of town for a mid-Atlantic tour visiting friends and family. Between finishing up the semester, spearheading the year-end fundraising push at my job, and planning and attending various holiday events, my apartment has become something of a way station. Snow boots and shoes litter the floor. Root vegetables, fondue forks and half-unpacked boxes are stacked on the dining table. The bench in my bedroom is piled high with clothing of indeterminate cleanliness. But it’s the refrigerator that calls out for my attention.
As thanks for his services, I’ve invited my cat sitter over for dinner along with a few friends. (Dinner parties are way more fun than packing.) I will be gone for nine days and there are lots of odds and ends to use up before then. For breakfast, I had a fried egg atop pan-fried butternut squash, onions and fennel. But that still left a couple of pounds of cheese lifted from my office holiday party, two giant leeks left over from last weekend’s oyster extravaganza, an assortment of winter greens from my CSA share, dairy products of assorted “sell by” dates and more butternut squash.
A few months ago, I took my mom to Marcus Samuelsson’s Red Rooster, where we had his sinfully tasty Mac & Greens. A childhood friend has long touted the delight of macaroni and cheese with butternut squash. And so this dish was born.
Butternut Mac and Cheese with Winter Greens
This paired nicely with a spinach and red onion salad with a Dijon and red wine vinaigrette. The recipe makes enough that five grown people can go back for seconds–and you’ll still have enough leftovers for your cat sitter to enjoy a home cooked lunch for another four or five days. As if hanging out with this adorableness wasn’t reward enough.
Saturday night Sarah hosted the third annual Holiday Oyster Extravaganza, in which we prepare and consume 100 oysters (along with a liberal dose of booze). Shucking 100 oysters is no easy feat, but Mark once again rose to the occasion. As usual, I was in charge of the oyster accoutrement. This year’s raw oysters got a toasted fennel mignonette and a beet and horseradish relish.
The roasted version featured a fennel-saffron cream.
The Blue Points were delicious, but I’m here to talk eggs. Much as I love eggs in all their forms, I’ve had trouble keeping up with the share I get from my CSA, so I had resolved to prepare deviled eggs for Saturday’s party.
On Thursday night I wrapped up my third semester in NYU’s Food Studies program and went out with friends to toast a month of pleasure reading. I got home late and tipsy, but determined to get a head start on prepping for the party. Rooting through the fridge for a snack while my eggs cooked, I stumbled on some beets that were looking a little worse for the wear. This got me thinking.
A few years back a friend and I spent a weekend checking out Pennsylvania’s Amish Country. We had occasion to dine at a smorgasbord, where I stumbled on the delight that is a beet-pickled boiled egg. As previously confessed, I am a sucker for a hard-boiled egg. Throw in tangy flavor and an outlandish pink hue and I am putty in your hands.
Beet-Pickled Deviled Eggs
The eggs were a smashing success, as was the party. The guests laughed. The Christmas tree twinkled. The yule log crackled on the flat-screen television. At some point in the night, Prosecco and oysters gave way to rum and hunks of leftover cheese. Eventually, I was forced to brave the elements. A daylong snowfall had turned into freezing rain. The streets were slushy and abandoned.
My newly acquired hat and I got home a little before 3:00am. I had a devilishly good time at this year’s Oyster Holiday Party, but will confess to feeling a bit pickled come Sunday morning.
You know those broccoli florets you lifted from last night’s office holiday party? Roast them with olive oil, salt and red pepper flakes then layer them onto toasted ciabatta along with ricotta cheese sprinkled with nutmeg and a little more olive oil, and you just may recover in time for tonight’s party. ‘Tis the season.
I spent Thanksgiving at my mom’s house in South Florida. My grandparents, who are now 93, relocated to Boca Raton last year. In celebration of their move, the menu featured a Florida theme.
I had intentions of getting photos of the whole meal. But the pressure of producing 20+ different dishes (including the vegan, gluten-free and heart healthy variations not listed above) and a serious burn got the better of me. Suffice it to say that the dishes not pictured were delicious and the mojitos helped ease the pain from my blistering fingers.
We were an even dozen around two tables pushed together. In keeping with the tropical theme, my mom went with colorful napkins and no tablecloth.
She also came up with a stellar floral arrangement.
The exhaustively researched bird was from BN Ranch. It was compact for its impressive heft.
Lacking room in the fridge, I opted to use a cooler to brine the bird.
My stepdad devised a rather ingenious strategy for getting a whole lot of potable water into the scrubbed, bleached and rinsed cooler.
He was also a great help in juicing the citrus that went in the brine along with bay leaves, cumin seed, garlic, cilantro and a whole lot of salt.
The bird spent 36 hours in the brine and another 12 hours air drying before it was stuffed with some of the leftover citrus and garlic and rubbed down with butter.
It started out in a high heat oven before I dropped the temperature to 375. I basted the turkey periodically and, after a couple of hours, draped it in an olive oil-soaked cheesecloth. (Sadly, I failed to get a shot of the Shroud of Turkin.) It cooked faster than expected. Within four hours, this beauty emerged from the oven.
Tony did a bang up job of carving the bird, which was delightfully moist, meaty and redolent of citrus and spice.
The next day, I added the carcass and trimmings to a large pot and let it simmer for a very long time.
The whole house smelled like turkey. Fortunately, we had plenty of leftovers on hand to satisfy any eau de turkey-induced cravings.
Naturally, the day started with coffee and kabocha flan.
I strained the stock into a liquid measuring cup and cooled it so that I could easily skim the fat off the top. 
I then froze the super concentrated stock in a few miniature plastic containers, which I packed in a portable cooler and schlepped back to Brooklyn by way of Miami Beach. Having suffered a nasty bout of food poisoning while in Miami, I gave the stock one more boil back at home before tucking it in my freezer. I see some serious gumbo in my future. In the meantime, I’ll try to get working on a recipe for the Kobocha Flan.
I just got back from South Florida where I spent Thanksgiving with my family. I tacked a couple of days in Miami Beach on to the end of my trip. I was looking forward to checking out the Miami dining and cocktailing scene–as well as the swanky pool at my hotel. Instead, I contracted food poisoning and spent the next 36 hours checking out the pay-per-view selection and the marble-tiled bathroom floor. (While there a few suspects, my money is on the peel-and-eat shrimp.) When I did manage to drag myself to the balcony, this is what I gazed upon.
I made it through last night’s plane and taxi rides without incident, but still felt the need to sleep with a bucket next to the bed. I’m in that awkward stage of recovery when the thought of food nauseates me but so does an empty churning stomach. White toast, white rice, white pasta or Saltines would probably be advisable, but these are not things I keep around and going to the store seems unthinkable at the moment.
As luck would have it, I did have the ingredients below–all of which are easily digestible and/or possess restorative properties. The inspiration came from Blue Hill Yogurt, which is very popular with a certain one-year-old friend of mine.
Tahini-Squash Yogurt (aka Sophisticated Baby Food)
This was tasty and seems to have kept my blood sugar up until well into the afternoon. I do not hold it responsible for the stabbing pain just under my left lower ribs.
the drunken fig 