Ahh, fall. Fall is the one thing I appreciate about New England. I love the cool days that seem to demand warm, cozy evenings at home, and the smell of crisp air and fireplaces, and most of all I love the abundance of multicolored winter squashes. I love fall food, and this pasta dish has made it into the pantheon of favorites. It’s so simple, and yet for all its simplicity its packed full of buttery, woodsy, perfect fall evening flavor.
Continue reading Butternut Squash and Sage Pasta
Quiche is one of my favorite things. It’s something I remember my mom making when I was a kid, a special event brunch kind of food. I have memories of mom squeezing and squeezing so much defrosted spinach in paper towels, and I think quiche was one of the first egg-based dishes I ever actually liked. And when Smitten Kitchen featured spinach quiche a few weeks ago, it was all over. I had a craving, and I needed a quiche.
Thank goodness for all that leftover pie dough from my nectarine galette experiment. The pie dough is the only potentially tricky thing about quiche, and honestly? Most of the time I buy it pre-made, because who needs to fuss with that stuff in the morning anyway? Not that I think quiche must be relegated to breakfast. In fact, this quiche made several satisfying lunches and dinners for me. And thank goodness for tart pans. I never thought to make quiche in a tart pan before; I’ve always used 9-inch pie pans. But the tart pan, while it does produce a thinner quiche, halves the cooking time, which made me very happy when I was very hungry. Who woulda thunk it? Oh, yeah, Deb at Smitten Kitchen.
Continue reading Sometimes you just need a quiche
A few weeks ago I rambled on and on here about how great it is to share recipes with people you actually know, to keep a collection of recipes given to you by friends and family, passing on traditions and stories and all that sentimental stuff. And then I admitted that some of the most fundamental things I learned about cooking I learned from the internet. I’m such a hypocrite.
Well, here is another recipe passed along to me by a friend. She knew I like to cook, and one evening she handed me a sheet of paper with this recipe scrawled across it. I thought, “That looks kind of boring,” and I filed it away in my recipe folder and promptly forgot about it. Until last week. Let me tell you, it’s not boring at all. And while it might not be that attractive, don’t let its relative monochrome palette deter you. This stuff is wonderful. It’s both exotic and comforting at the same time. Alright, I might leave out the lentils in the future, and serve it over rice pilaf instead, but serve it again I most certainly will. Even if I’m just serving it to myself.
Continue reading Curried Cauliflower and Potatoes with Black Beluga Lentils
In my last post, I blathered on about the importance of sharing recipes with friends and family, and continuing old school traditions of index cards in recipe boxes. And then what do I do? I turn around and tell you all that almost everything I learned about cooking I learned from the internet. What a hypocrite!
Ok, it’s not exactly true that I learned how to cook from the internet. But this stir-fry recipe is what I always think of when I remember cooking my first real, grown-up meal in college. It’s the first thing I cooked for friends (including the boy I had a big fat crush on), and when I look back at the smudged computer print out, I realize it’s the first time I really learned about improvisation in the kitchen. A lot of my cooking quirks and habits probably originated from this recipe, like serving stir-fry over pasta instead of rice, and putting in any old darn thing I want, even if people say something like “sun-dried tomatoes don’t belong in Mexican food!” And you know where I got this recipe? A random stranger on the internet.
Continue reading Where I learned how to cook: Lan Nguyen’s Ex-Boyfriend Stir-Fry
I think it’s pretty much official that risotto is my go-to dish whenever I’m cooking celebratory meals for others. It’s easy and impressive, and I can talk and sip wine during the endless stirring process. So when I had the chance to steal the kitchen away from my little brother and make dinner for the family, risotto was a sure bet. Of course, I didn’t steal the kitchen entirely away from my brother, and with both of us throwing ideas and ingredients around, this risotto ended up a surprisingly delicious hodge-podge of deliciousness: bacon, mushrooms, leeks, green beans, manchego cheese, basil, parsley, chives, and homemade chicken stock flavored with fresh thyme and oregano. Served with a big Caesar salad (with Patrick’s homemade balsamic Caesar dressing) and goat cheese crostini, this was a perfect, summery dinner to share with my family on my first night home.
There is a little bakery across the street that consistently makes the Jamaica Plain’s Best list as the best local bakery, and frankly, I have no idea why. Sure, they make vegan cupcakes, and JP is just the sort of neighborhood where people will swoon for a vegan cupcake. And yes, there is a shortage of places to get a cup of decent, non-Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. But nothing, I tell you nothing about this bakery has ever impressed me. The pastries and pies look sloppy: I could frankly do a better job in my own kitchen. The croissants are not proper croissants, but more like bread dough shaped to masquerade as croissants. I ordered a sandwich once and the bread on which it was served was stale. At a bakery! And I won’t even get into the abysmal service.
For reasons unknown to me, however, I still occasionally visit this bakery, as though somewhere I can’t give up hope that my previous bad experiences were flukes, each and every one. I can’t account for my actions sometimes. What is they say about crazy people? On my last visit (the visit of the stale sandwich), I noticed some roasted red pepper, spinach, and caramelized onion scones in the display case, and the hamster wheels in my little brain immediately started spinning. “What a brilliant idea!” I thought. But I was not about to buy one of their scones (vegan, of course) only to be disappointed. No, I decided to go home and make my own.
Continue reading Sun-dried Tomato and Caramelized Onion Scones
While my chocolate creme brulee may have been a triumph, since then I’ve experienced nothing but culinary catastrophes. “But that food doesn’t look catastrophic,” you may be thinking. That just goes to show that my new camera has more talent in the kitchen than I do. That, my friends, was a burned vegetable, bitter sauce disaster. In fact, the original sauce is NOT the sauce pictured above. The original sauce had to be thrown away because it was horrible and could not be salvaged with all the spices in my gigantic spice rack. I ended up using basic tomato sauce, because I needed something to cover up the taste of burnt asparagus.
I hate it when meals I’ve been anticipating turn out to be completely not rad.
Continue reading Polenta and Vegetables with Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
I’m not really sure why this is called a flan. It didn’t really seem like flan to me, but perhaps I didn’t make it quite right. Still, it was delicious, and I highly recommend you make room on your plate for this dish as soon as possible. Like Chicken Florentine, this side dish can pretend be very healthy, what with all the vegetables. However, beneath its green and vitamin-filled-seeming appearance lurks decadence: creamy, cheesy, wonderful decadence.
I first came across this recipe a few years ago. A housemate at the time discovered it in the May 2005 issue of Bon Appetit, and she raved about it non-stop. She made it at least three times in the short few months I lived with her, and when I moved out, she realized she hadn’t copied the recipe and begged me to email it to her. Yet despite her raves, I never thought to make it myself. I was still feeling undecided about cauliflower, so I promptly forgot about it. And for some reason I have yet to understand, a few weeks ago I remembered it. My feelings about cauliflower had since become decisively positive, so I decided I had to try it out, to see what all the fuss was about.
Continue reading Cauliflower Broccoli Flan with Spinach Bechamel
Boston is finally showing signs that spring might appear sometime soon. The trees are budding, the crocuses are blooming, and last Thursday the temperatures hit 72 degrees and I got to leave the house without a coat. The first warm days of the year fill me with a kind of joy I can barely express. I feel instantly lighter. Boston winters are HARD, especially for a wimpy California girl like myself, and I sometimes forget that they’re ever going to end. That first day of sunshine and light breezes gives me hope, and although I know it’s not quite over yet, that winter doesn’t truly end in Boston until mid-May, a 65 degree day here and there is like getting a little gift.
I celebrated the first warm day of the year last Thursday by making an excellent fresh vegetable and herb risotto. I adapted the recipe from something I saw in a recent Bon Appetit: a spring pasta full of vegetables and topped with a blend of parsley and lemon. I thought instantly it would make a great risotto. So I opened up the windows, put some music on, poured myself a glass of wine, and set about making the first risotto I’ve made in months.
I’m not always a big fan of tofu. The texture can be kind of funny, and if you aren’t liberal with the seasonings, you pretty much have a plate of bland. But I came across this recipe a few weeks ago and felt drawn to it, probably because I am drawn to anything that has the word Southwestern in its title. And I liked it so much that I actually made it twice in two weeks, which is something that just does not happen in this kitchen, as Miss Crystal can well attest.
I will admit, however, that the first time I made it I changed it up a bit, and the second time, I followed the recipe pretty exactly. And frankly, it was a little bit disappointing the second time, even with the addition of homemade quacamole. I don’t know what I was thinking, fiddling with something that was so perfect the first time around, but you can bet I’ve learned my lesson, and I’m here to provide you with the altered and (to my mind) perfected version. Aren’t I just so kind and generous? (Ha!)