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Yesterday was Thursday and all day I was thinking about our CSA box. I was desperate for beets, so when I looked at the newsletter midday (I couldn’t wait it out), I discovered that beets were in the box! This was all very exciting since I was dreaming of a rice salad. This particular incarnation of the rice salad used so many of the items from the box that it’s a real winner. Since Storkbite was having a meltdown due to the heat that is gripping NYC at the moment, I had to attend to her quite a lot so it was a good thing that the 2 cups of wild and brown rice I made took an hour to simmer in chicken stock. That didn’t do wonders for the heat of my kitchen, but the outcome was well worth it. The contents of the bowl below before I added the rice are as follows - vinaigrette dressing over steamed beets, slivered fennel, zucchini, diced celery, chopped mint and basil. That made for a bunch of really pretty colors and a variety of complex yet complimentary flavors.
Then we added the rice, mixed it all up and topped our plates with crumbled goat cheese. Oh dear, it was a feast! The first of the season’s beets really sent me over the edge. I can’t wait until next week when we get some more.
The Salade Nicoise is another regular menu item here at Storkbite’s house. However, pregnancy and nursing has put the kibosh on the regular consumption of tuna. I tend to cheat once (or twice) a month and have a little. I used to make the salad with sushi grade tuna, but that is definately too expensive for us these days. You can compose this salad any way you like and it looks really pretty when the ingredients are grouped. Last night I used non-traditional ingredients because the tomatoes of late are tainted and I still have a huge stock of frozen vegetables from TJ’s.
On a bed of lettuce and escarole from our CSA, I added tuna (from a can), avocado, previously frozen asparagus, hard boiled egg and olives. I just plain old vinaigrette dressing with added capers over the top and YUM. It was a very satisfying and hearty salad. We added wedges of toasted pita on the side. The great thing about these main course salads is that preparation does not heat up the apartment at all and you can do it in several stages.
Everyone seems to be looking forward to garlic scapes season this year. I saw them on the cover of the NY Time’s dining section a few weeks back. I don’t remember them being that popular before. They are neat looking little things - curly with a crooked neck and bulb on the end. They are delicious when fried up in butter and olive oil. My friends came up with some excellent ideas on how to prepare them, but I didn’t seem to have the right ingredients to follow the same path. Instead I just used good old butter and olive oil in a pan, added my scapes and a small pour of white wine (from my glass). I finished it of with a little more butter at the end to enrich the sauce. We then just poured all our scapes right on top of a big piece of grilled salmon.
What you see here on the side is kohlrabi slaw. I used my food processor to shred the kohlrabi and then treated it just like cole slaw. I made a dressing with approx. 3 tbs of vegetable oil, olive oil, white wine vinegar, dash of salt and pepper, 1 tbs. celery seed, a drizzle of honey. I mixed up the dressing and tossed it on the shredded kohlrabi. It was very fresh and delicious. I wish I added carrots, but we were out - next time.
When we need a pick me up that is creamy and delicious, this family almost always wants two things: Chicken and Dumplings or Fettuccine Alfredo. It’s really as easy a boiling water for pasta - the secret is knowing how to make the white sauce (bechamel). Just remember - equal parts fat and flour.
3 Tbs. Butter, melted in a sauce pan, add 3 Tbs. Flour, mix and cook down until it forms a paste. This is called a roux. Add approx. 2 1/4 cups of milk and whisk together. Bring this up to a boil and then reduce. As it thickens, use your whisk! I added a 1/2 of grated parmesan to this sauce which caused it to thicken faster, but gave it the Alfredo taste. I have no idea how the real Italians do it, but that’s my quick easy short cut way of making Alfredo sauce and not buying that strange tub of white sauce from the store.
I grilled some chicken tenders, sliced them up and layered everything on top of my fat noodles from Trader Joe’s.
When I was younger and had the time and money to travel around on a shoestring and crash on people’s couches, I went to Paris for a few weeks and tried to find the best salade chevre chaud. I found it too, I know exactly where it is and it’s one of the best in Paris. I took my then fiance and now husband to the same little cafe and had it many years later - it was the same. When I had more time in general before Storkbite came along, I used to make this extremely elaborate chevre chaud and it was delicious. It was a very colorful composed salad situated on a bed of greens tossed in a moutarde vinagrette. Shredded carrot, red cabbage and couscous was carefully arranged and to top it all off were the square packets of goat cheese stuffed crepes. This salad rocket my world and I would really give anything (except Storkbite) to go to Paris right now and eat ten of those salads at that very sweet cafe.
What I learned on my quest is that the salad was made differently everywhere I sampled it. Sometimes I didn’t even like the salad at all. If I hadn’t had the best one ever first then I may never have liked it. My personal salade chevre chaude has deteriorated over the years. Now it’s really nothing more that toasted goat cheese on bread over salad. I make it differently every time - knowing that it’s completely OK to do so.
So for tonight’s chevre chaude I toasted some bread with olive oil and salt. I cut my goat cheese (it works better to cut it with dental floss) and coated the rounds in store bought bread crumbs. I popped them into the freezer while catering to Storkbite’s every whim. Once I got back I tossed greens in vinagrette and sliced some cherry tomatoes. I heated butter and olive oil in a pan and then put in the little chevres. Just a couple minutes on each side - too long and the chevre will melt.
Arrange them on the toast and you done. It’s a very quick process and to me this salad is equally as comforting as baked mac n’ cheese.
It’s Thursday and that means that we get our box of organic CSA vegetables and the challenge to use them all before the next box begins. Tonight we received more rhubarb than I knew what to do with. I decided to process it immediately and give the rest to our neighbor who is an excellent baker so I could see what she comes up with. I first thought I would make a pie, but Storkbite was being rather unpredictable and I didn’t think she could handle momma making both filling and pastry crust. I settled on a crumble. I have never used a receipe for a crumble so it’s always an experiment. Since rhubarb can be quite tough, I sautéed it in a couple tablespoons of butter until it got this nice creamy texture.
I removed the rhubarb from heat and added slices from four apples and a handful of cut strawberries. I stirred the fruit to combine. I added a couple tablespoons of white sugar and flour to this mixture and combined with fruit.
To make the crust, simply add a half stick of cold butter (in chunks) and approximately a quarter cup of each: brown sugar, white sugar and flour. I then added a handful of walnut segments to this crumble crust and sprinkled it on top of the fruit.
I baked this at 350 for about 30 - 40 minutes. I’m not sure because I forgot this in the oven while performing Storkbite’s bedtime ritual. When I came back into the kitchen I was overwhelmed by the sweet smell of rhubarb and apples. We ate this while it was still warm drizzled with fresh cream.
Dinner was take-out tonight, but dessert was delicious and homemade.
‘Tis the season for more leafy greens. As I said yesterday, I have a hard time eating what is good for me. However, on one salary I am strictly compelled to use every single bean in this house and vegetable in our refrigerator to keep this family running strong. So that means, I have to find a way to process those greens - every last piece of lettuce will get consumed this season!
Last night my brain was dead and I didn’t have any ideas of what to do. I needed a new protein besides fish, so I followed a friend to our Irish butcher and bought pork chops. I always splurge on the family pack so Storkbite’s Papa can have a wholesome lunch at work the next day.
I hit the pork chops with olive oil, salt and pepper and put them on my trusty grill pan. We didn’t have any bread in the house and I’m kind of sick of rice, so I made polenta fritters on the grill pan. I buy the rolls of polenta in the refrigerator case at Trader Joe’s and keep them for months. I also steamed the rainbow chard and covered it with oil and white balsamic vinegar just before serving. For an extra kick, dust the polenta fritters with Parmesan cheese. It’s decadent and delicious. Not bad for being a bit brain dead in the kitchen!
I have a love hate relationship with leafy greens that are good for me. Storkbite’s Papa loves them all, but I need to find ways to disguise the pungent flavor. The kale that we got from our CSA last week had a very delicate flavor and it was recommended to process it very little so not to disguise the taste. For me that means steam it and then toss it with olive oil, garlic and add the leftover grilled mushrooms. I put everything on my grill pan tonight. We don’t have any outdoor space so our grill pan is as close as we can get to a BBQ. This was a very simple meal. The salmon just got hit with oil, salt and pepper and went straight on the grill pan. Then the greens got tossed on the grill pan after receiving the treatment described above. Papa made some rice and we were eating after just a few minutes.
It’s a challenge to try and use the entire CSA box every week. It’s only the second week, the boxes are still small and I’m already slightly overwhelmed. The weather is unseasonably hot here in NYC and I want to stay away from my kitchen as much as possible. Last night was Friday and I wanted to make something special, but what to do with mushrooms, arugula and strawberries?
On hot nights a sandwich is really the way to go. While Storkbite sat in her bouncy seat in the middle of the kitchen, I cleaned the mushrooms and coated them in a garlic, olive oil and white balsamic vinegar marinade. Then Storkbite started to loose it, and Papa was running behind schedule so I had to abandon our dinner preparations and restart the process later.
During bath time I was able to get myself back to those mushrooms and grill them on a very hot stove top grill pan. It didn’t take long until I was called away again so I turned off the stove and let the mushrooms carry-over cook on the grill.
Finally we got Storkbite in bed and we were free to open the bottle of Rose I was saving for the weekend. I sliced a loaf of bread, layered it with the grilled baby bellas, arugula, orange and yellow tomatoes and smeared on some goat cheese. With a nest of argulua leaves on the side covered in lemon, olive oil and slivered Parmesan cheese it hit the spot on a hot night.
I really like to make an event out of Friday nights and make a special dessert. Sometimes it’s nothing fancy - just a scoop of ice cream. However, this week our CSA came with these sweet little strawberries which were the first of the year’s crop. I almost ate the whole box when I got them on Thursday, but instead I came up with the idea of making a pavlova after seeing the meringues at the bakery earlier that morning. I had seen a picture of this extravagant dessert in a magazine not long ago and decided that I will never have the patience to make it. What I didn’t realize at the time is that the meringues are available at bakeries and all I have to do it whip cream and cut strawberries! Any berry can be used and it’s simple, delicious and a real crowd pleaser.
Meringue for Pavlova - $1 each
Sometimes I get really lazy and find it hard to be clever in the kitchen night after night. Sometimes I run out of time and have a really busy day wrangling Storkbite. On all the days when I can’t take it anymore, I serve BLTs and sometimes BLTEs. That would be the classic bacon, lettuce, tomato and the bacon, lettuce, tomato, egg respectively. I try to sex them up a bit with some olive oil or lime mayo, colorful tomatoes, Texas sweet bacon or whatever. This time the only thing sexy about these BLTEs was that I used red and orange tomatoes and leftover hamburger buns from the weekend. The only secret to a good BLT is to toast the bread!
In last night’s dinner, you will see a reprise of the ingredients from the classic spinach salad. I used some of my hard-boiled eggs, tomatoes and bacon. It’s a great quick meal and can be done in a variety of ways. There is no shame in eating a good old BLT.
One thing I’ve learned is that if it’s popular, do it again. I tend to vary the ingredients slightly and use the same flavors. If you are like me and buy spices when you have a particular dish in mind rather than having a fully stocked collection, then this trick is right for you. First off, I want to say that my favorite of all spices are from The Spice House and their gift boxes make excellent holiday presents.
Everyone here at Storkbite’s house liked the tandoori tilapia from a few nights ago, that I decided to put on a revival with chicken. It’s still really hot outside and all I could cook was a chicken breast rubbed with tandoori. I served it over the last of our delicious red leaf Boston lettuce with a yogurt, curry, vinegar and olive oil dressing. I served some naan on the side which is in the frozen section of Trader Joe’s. It was fantastic!
The best part about this meal was that it took minutes. Storkbite’s Papa gave me a 10 minute warning that he was going to be home for 20 minutes before leaving for a meeting and he needed to EAT. I have no idea how I conjured up something so quick and satisfying, but I did.
There is something about fresh spinach salad with hot bacon dressing that is an early summer treat like no other. It seems taboo to consume a dressing that consists of well… Bacon Grease! I feel entitled to do it now before it’s too late. After we got Storkbite to bed, I went to work on composing what is basically bacon and eggs over spinach.
One of the complications of mothering an infant and cooking is that I can’t seem to prep anything for a solid time period without stopping to nurse or play or change a diaper. So, I find that if I can get little things accomplished while Storkbite naps then we are good to go and we can get straight to eating when we are hungry after bedtime rather than prepping for hours before our meal. For this salad I hard boiled eggs during the afternoon nap. Of course I forgot about them, but fortunately you can’t destroy a hard boiled egg by letting it go too long. You just have a fire hazard! Once I put it all together, I soaked the spinach from our CSA in cold water to remove the grit. Papa went to work on the bacon and I cut the tomatoes, eggs and red onion. The secret to the sauce is that you have to make essentially a honey moutarde vinagrette in the hot bacon grease. I went the extra step of throwing the red onion in the hot grease to cook it a little, then adding honey, a teaspoon of Maille mustard, a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper.
After a quick run around with a whisk, I poured that on the salad spun spinach and plated the salad.
It’s a decadent thing to eat, but so seasonal and delicious. I look at it like my personal right of passage to summertime.
The last thing anyone wants to do after a long car ride home from the country on a Sunday night is cook. Especially since we watched the temperature climb to 99 degrees upon our reentry to NYC. We did our usual stop at Trader Joe’s in Paramus, NJ on our way home and restocked the excellent frozen fish. I was quite certain to do the most minimal food prep and cooking after getting home, unpacking and getting Storkbite off to dreamland. All I wanted to do was enjoy a glass of beer and throw something into the toaster oven to keep our apartment as cool as possible.
I bought these handy Salmon Roulettes and Brittany Beans at TJ’s. They did the trick! The roulettes went into the toaster oven at 350 along with some BBQ roasted potatoes from the night before. I tossed the defrosted Brittany Beans in some butter and olive oil on the stove top and voila we had a delicious instant dinner. I served a bowl of amazing red leaf Boston lettuce from our CSA share on the side with bread and it ended up to be a great little dinner that just took minutes to heat and eat.
On a night we would have normally ordered take out, we had this wonderful little meal for a quarter of the cost.
Salmon Roulettes - $3.99
The thrilling part of getting your very first CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share of the year is the brand spanking new baby greens. Last week we got baby arugula and it was to die for. After several soakings in cold water I finally got the sand off of the leaves. Our farm is called Golden Earthworm Farm and it’s located in Jamesport, NY on Long Island. Since it’s only about a mile from the sea, the soil is sandy and perfect for growing arugula and spinach.
Our dinner on Thursday night paid homage to the tasty aromatic green. I didn’t have anything in the refrigerator except some Parmesan cheese and prosciutto. I used a half box of Barilla thin spaghetti, boiled it then chilled it with cool water. I added thin slivers of prosciutto, fresh arugula, olive oil, Parmesan, salt and pepper.
It was quick delicious, and best of all it didn’t heat my little kitchen up too much on a hot summer night.
I took a little trip to Jackson Heights with Storkbite and a friend yesterday. We ate at one of the best Indian buffets around - Jackson Diner. I had to bring home some local flavors to Papa who doesn’t get to go on as many adventures as we do. I bought some delicious chicken and vegetable samosas which are in the center. In addition I made Tandoori Tilapia with more of my Trader Joe’s stock and Haricot Verts in curried coconut sauce. Papa was happy to have some of the flavors brought home to him.
I rubbed tandoori seasoning on the tilapia then pan fried it in butter and oil. I mixed a little tandoori into plain yogurt for the sauce. The coconut curry green beans need to be fine tuned a bit, but it was also easy. I added yellow curry powder to one can of coconut milk then simmered until it reduced. Once it reduced I added defrosted green beans. We served basmati rice and the samosas that I picked up in Jackson Heights. It was quick, easy and delicious. Total time start to finish was 20 minutes.
Here at Storkbite’s house we have been eating a lot of fish. There are two reasons for this: the first is that it takes 10 seconds to prepare and cook after Storkbite goes to bed, and second we have a huge stock of frozen fish from Trader Joe’s. I got hip to Trader Joe’s frozen fish and vegetables because it’s a great value and can be stocked in my freezer. With a new baby I found that all my fresh foods were going bad before I could conjure up ideas. I decided that before our summer CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) share starts, I would turn my efforts to frozen foods. One of the outstanding frozen veggies at Trader Joe’s is the large bag of haricot verts (French green beans). They are delicious. You will see them make daily appearances at our table. This was Monday night’s feast –
1 dozen Dover Sole pieces - breaded with store bought bread crumbs. Pan fried in butter and olive oil.
Haricot verts - defrosted and then quickly pan fried in butter and olive oil after we finished all the fish.
In addition to the fish and beans, I made a sour cream and chive sauce (thinned with plain yogurt) for the side. It was cool and delicious. We also had some crostini which was toasted with olive oil and salt.
This entire meal took approximately 15 minutes start to finish.
Having a little baby with an early bedtime has given my husband and me the gift of having Saturday night dinner again. We no longer have a social calendar and we aren’t expected anywhere but our own table. We also have the luxury of having one of the many New York City Greenmarkets right outside the door of our apartment building. Every Saturday morning we make the trip across the street to buy the freshest ingredients and I look forward to the event all week. There is a fisher that comes in from the Hamptons and he brings these little gems - Peconic Bay scallops. We look forward to the weekly arrival of these scallops. As a new mom I’m always trying to cut corners when it comes to prep time. Tonight the meal was simple, easy and delicious!
1 lb. Scallops wrapped in prosciutto (held in place with a toothpick) - salted and peppered
1/2 lb. Mixed baby lettuces
Fresh made moutarde vinagrette (Maille mustard, oil, honey, salt, pepper, white balsamic and MIX)
Crostini (any bread toasted with olive oil and salt)
All I did was sear the prosciutto wrapped scallops on a hot Le Creuset frying pan in oil and butter. About a minute on each side. I tossed my mixed baby lettuces in the moutard vinagrette and served a big pile of those on a plate with salad and crunchy crostini.
It was a restaurant quality meal - as fresh as possible - right here at home.
Cost: Scallops - $10 / Baby Lettuces - $3.50
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