For Thanksgiving this year I did not make Apple Pie. I’ve never been the biggest fan of Apple Pie. I’m actually not the biggest fan of making any kind of pie that requires two crusts (a top and a bottom). Though I consider myself a pretty adept crust maker, it’s still a laborious and nerve inducing process. I especially dread rolling out the dough and then transferring it to the pie tin. While I roll, Luke watches carefully and provides words of encouragement. Together, we flip the crust a couple times, re-flouring the surface between flips, to avoid sticking. We roll the dough up onto the rolling pin at the end to transfer it to the pie tin. We patch up the sides; the crust is never perfect. It’s always a relief when it’s in the tin. Having to do the process all over again with the top…oof.
Have you ever made a grain bowl at home and fancied yourself a chef? Your fridge was filled with a mishmash of leftovers, including a grain. You roasted up some veggies, whipped together a vinaigrette, maybe added a protein (or a fried egg) and voilà! You just made dinner, a grain bowl of arguably Sweetgreen quality, without even using a recipe.
When planning our meals for the week, Hillary and I always keep an eye out for the shrimp sale at Whole Foods. Any opportunity at double-digit discounts shouldn’t go to waste, especially on these precious prawns. In order to always take advantage of the sale, we have an eclectic roster of shrimp dishes to satisfy any particular craving. The first (and easiest) recipe in this trio of dishes provides the dry spice of cumin, paprika, and cayenne. Next is the butter+oil+garlic+wine+lemon formula for classic shrimp scampi. The last dish, a Thai inspired yellow curry, takes some more time and ingredients, but will probably end up being the star of your weekday menu. Not surprisingly, these three recipes, along with the previously shared Hot n Honey version, come from true masters of the weekday dinner: Mark Bittman and Melissa Clark. We hope you share our excitement next time you see “YOU SAVE: $11.99 /lb” on some fancy shrimp at WF.
The Simplest and Best Shrimp Dish – Mark Bittman
¼ cup olive oil
4-5 garlic cloves, cut into slivers
1 lb shrimp, peeled, deveined, and dried
Salt and ground black pepper, to taste
1 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp hot paprika
½ tsp cayenne (optional)
¼ tsp turmeric (optional)
Chopped parsley for garnish (optional)
Prep spices on small plate and make sure shrimp are dry.
Pour oil into a large skillet, swirling the oil so that it covers the bottom of pan. Turn heat to low and add garlic. Cook until the slivers turn golden, about 2 minutes.
Raise the heat to medium-high and add the shrimp. Add your plate of spices to the pan. Stir to evenly distribute the spices and then leave alone. Shake the pan a couple times over 5 minutes. Shrimp will be nicely coated and pink.
Garnish with parsley and serve with white rice.
Shrimp Scampi – Melissa Clark
2TBS butter
1TBS extra-virgin olive oil
3garlic cloves, minced
⅓ cup dry white wine
½ tsp salt
Pinch of red chili flakes
Pinch of fresh ground black pepper
1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined
¼ cup chopped parsley
Juice of half a lemon
Pasta or bread
Melt butter with olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add garlic and stir constantly until fragrant, about 1-2 minutes.
Add wine, salt, chili flakes, black pepper and bring mixture to a simmer. Let it reduce by half, while stirring. This should take just 1-2 minutes.
Add shrimp and saute until just pink, about 2-4 minutes. Add parsley and squeeze in lemon juice and stir to incorporate. Enjoy with pasta or bread!
Shrimp in Yellow Curry – Mark Bittman
2 TBS neutral oil, veggie or canola will do.
1 cup finely chopped onion
1 TBS minced garlic
1 TBS minced ginger
1 tsp red pepper flakes or fresh chilies
1 TBS curry powder
13.5 oz can coconut milk
1 lb medium-large shrimp, peeled and deveined
Salt and ground black pepper to taste
2 TBS fish sauce
¼ cup minced cilantro/mint leaves for garnish
¼ cup chopped peanuts for garnish
Prep onion, garlic, ginger, chilies and make sure canned coconut milk is stirred.
Pour oil into large, deep skillet and turn heat to medium. Add onion, garlic, ginger and chilies and stir frequently making sure veggies don’t burn. After 5-8 minutes, the mixture should be soft and pasty. Add curry powder and cook for another minute.
Pour in coconut milk and raise the heat to medium-high. The mixture will get nice and bubbly. Stir occasionally until almost all liquid has evaporated.
Add the shrimpy’s and salt + pepper. Stir frequently, the shrimp will release their liquid, making the mixture more curry-esque again. Cook until shrimp turn pink.
Add 1 TBS of the fish sauce and taste. Add more if you’d like. Serve on top of white rice, garnished with chopped cilantro or mint and peanuts. I like to add some chili garlic sauce for an extra kick.
Pancakes? Too sweet. Bacon and eggs? Too greasy. Yogurt parfait? Eh, been there, done that. Oatmeal? Don’t even ask. Sunday morning breakfast can be full of options, but with half of the weekend already over you deserve to be picky. You may want to lay in bed all day and treat yourself to an indulgent breakfast; or keep it lean before a 5 mile run. Hillary usually wants to be lay in bed a little bit longer while I’m gearing up to go…we compromise with a long walk. Whatever your appetite, day’s plan or mood, these whole grain blueberry muffins will surely satisfy.
This recipe comes from Julia Moskin via The New York Times. We omitted the orange streusel topping because we wanted these muffins to still have some simplicity. Filled with carrots, blueberries, oats, walnuts – there’s nothing more you really need. Indulgent, but still healty-ish, it’s the perfect way to start your morning. And if you take sometime to make these on Sunday morning, you’ll have muffin breakfasts for the rest of the week!
Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal (preferably fine-ground)
2/3 cup rolled oats (not the instant version)
2/3 packed light brown sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg (or additional cinnamon)
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 cups buttermilk
1 1/3 cups coconut oil or neutral oil like canola
2/3 cup maple syrup or honey
4 eggs
2 cups grated carrots or tart apple
1 1/2 cups blueberries
1 cup chopped toasted walnuts
Directions:
Assemble all the ingredients on your table / countertop for birds-eye Instagram photo. You are baking on Sunday morning, it deserves documentation.
Heat oven to 425°F. Heavily butter your muffin tin or use paper liners.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flours, cornmeal, oats, sugar, baking powder and soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt
In a smaller mixing bowl, mix together the wet ingredients: buttermilk, oil, maple syrup and eggs.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and carefully mix. Don’t over mix, the batter can be a bit lumpy. Stir in carrots, blueberries, and walnuts.
Let the batter rest for 15-20 minutes. You can use this time to post the earlier “prep” photo to your Instagram story. After resting, give the batter a light stir to make sure it’s thick and fluffy.
Plop enough of the batter to almost fill the muffin indentation. Mound the center so you’ll get nicely rounded tops.
Place tin in oven and reduce temperature to 400°F. Bake for 18-20 minutes. Cool muffins in the tin on a rack for 5-10 minutes and then remove.
Details: Makes about 24 small/medium sized muffins
As if New York in January isn’t dreary enough, we now have Trump’s inauguration looming. Friday, January 20th. How did this date come so quickly? Back in November, I attempted to write an election related post. The draft begins, predictably, with a rehashing of my 24-hour emotional journey, from the morning of November 8 to the morning of November 9. There’s some political correctness. I avoid outrightly bashing Trump supporters and admit to living in a liberal enclave. And then there’s a recount of the meals I ate in the days following. They’re decadent, definitely self-indulgent and all international in origin:
On Thursday, Luke and I had ramen topped with a thick slab of pork belly and a perfectly poached egg, all swimming in a rich, miso spiked broth. Friday night, I ordered in. Chicken tikka masala and samosas, India’s ultimate comfort food. There were no leftovers. And on Saturday, I enjoyed a slightly more than I can afford Italian dinner, complete with a few glasses of Tuscan wine.
On Sunday, Luke and I agreed we had to return to cooking.
For dinner we made Craig Claiborne’s Smothered Chicken. Americana comfort food at its finest, it was a reminder of our country’s wonderful unconventionality. Craig Claiborne, a child of Mississippi, grows up and becomes the preeminent food editor of his time for the most sophisticated U.S. publication, The New York Times. He’s credited with broadening Americans’ food horizons, but he still had a deep appreciation for classic American home-cooked food. Easy, delicious, heartwarming – we finished this meal feeling a little lighter. Not necessarily in calories, but certainly in spirit. Our country no longer felt like such a foreign place.
Remembering this dinner and these days, I’m still wondering how I can do more. And what could that “more” mean? In a muddled way, I’ve thought about “more” a lot and have ended up not doing much at all. Perhaps the answer is to think less and simply act more. Not necessarily through a grand initiative, that takes a lot of toiling to think up, but with positive, incremental actions each day. Make an effort to be consistently informed and accountable. Make an effort to think constructively and avoid defaulting into a pessimistic mindset. Make an effort to be open, to question, to listen. Make an effort to understand. This election, for me, has been a reminder of some personal complacency. And in these next four years I don’t want to be comfortable. So while I may be enjoying comfort food, I’m making it my personal mission to avoid a metaphorical food coma.
Ingredients:
1 whole chicken (the smaller the better), spatchcocked
salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
2 TBS unsalted butter
2 TBS all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups chicken broth
Directions:
We maybe should’ve started this post with a disclaimer…Craig Claiborne insisted that a cast iron pan be usedfor this recipe. But, we won’t discourage you from trying it out with a large skillet! Start by making sure the chicken is at room temperature and thoroughly dried off. If your chicken has been in the fridge, season with salt and pepper, and then let it rest on your counter for 30 minutes before preparing. After 30 minutes, pat the chicken dry with paper towels.
Melt the butter in your cast-iron skillet. Add chicken, skin side/breast side down. Fold the wings under the breasts to secure. Cover the chicken with a plate and the on top of the plate place a brick or 2-3 heavy cans – something heavy to weigh the plate down. You want good contact between the chicken and the skillet. Cook over low heat undisturbed until skin is nicely browned, about 25 minutes.
Once browned, remove the weight and plate. Turn the chicken so the skin side is up. Replace the plate and weight and continue cooking for 15 minutes more.
Remove the chicken and pour off fat from the skillet, leaving about 2 TBS in the pan. Add the flour to the fat and stir with a metal whisk over medium heat. Then gradually add chicken broth. When thickened, return chicken to the skillet, skin side up. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cover with plate and weight and continue cooking for 20-30 minutes, until the meat is exceptionally tender. Finish by spooning the sauce on top.
Cut into serving pieces and enjoy immediately! We served with mashed potatoes, though rice, biscuits, or crunchy bread would also be tasty. Anything to sop up the gravy!
This chicken soup recipe is very apropos. Why? We’ve got three compelling reasons. Reason one, winter is here, aka cold season. Maybe you’ve got some sniffles already. Or feel the flu coming on. Chicken soup is the OG penicillin. Reason two, it’s the New Year and you’ve made some New Year’s resolutions. Like cook more. Or, stop eating so much processed garbage. Put this homemade goodness in your body and you’re satisfying both of those resolutions. Reason three, it’s January, the drabbest month of the year, and all you want to do is sit in front of your SAD lamp. Make this chicken soup this weekend and you’ll have an excellent reason to sit on your couch and watch Netflix all day. Tell your friends you have amazing, homemade chicken broth simmering on the stove and can’t leave your house. Foolproof excuse.
This homemade chicken soup fulfills all your current life requirements. And it’s delicious! Julia Moskin provides the original recipe (with a beautiful video), which we did some slight tweaking too. Enjoy!
Ingredients for broth:
1 chicken, 3 to 3 1/2 lbs (or the smallest you can find in your supermarket) with skin on, cut up into 8 pieces
3 celery stalks, cut into chunks
2 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks
1 onion, quartered
1 parsnip, peeled and cut into chunks (optional)
handful of parsley springs
10 or so black peppercorns
2 bay leaves
2 tsp kosher salt
Ingredients for soup:
reserved chicken fat (up to 3 TBS)
2-3 leeks, rinsed, trimmed, halved lengthwise, and sliced into thin half-moons
2 shallots sliced thinly
2-3 celery stalks, diced
2-3 carrots, peeled and diced
1-2 TBS freshly chopped herbs (parsley, tarragon, thyme, dill all work wonderfully)
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Making the broth is easy, just start a day in advance. Place cut up chicken (here’s a how-to), vegetables, salt, peppercorns, and bay leaves in a large soup pot. Cover with cold water by 1 inch.
Bring to a boil over high heat. Once boiling, turn heat all the way down. You want hardly any bubbling. Cook uncovered for 1 1/2 hours. Alternatively, you could turn the heat all the way off, cover, and let the chicken sit in the warm pot all morning and/or afternoon.
Once the broth has cooled down, remove the chicken and place in a separate container. Notch up the heat just a little bit and let the broth simmer. You want it to get concentrated and flavorful. An additional hour should suffice. Just don’t let all your broth cook off! Then strain your broth through a fine sieve (colander lined with cheese cloth also works well). Discard solids.
Refrigerate chicken and broth separately for at least 8 hours (up to 3 days) until a layer of yellow fat has risen to the top of the broth. Once ready, skim the fat and set aside. You can also now shred the chicken into bite size chunks. Shredding the 2 breasts should yield enough chicken pieces. You can reserve the dark meat for something else.
You are now ready to make the soup. Place 3 TBS of chicken fat (+butter, if necessary) into a soup pot. Add leeks and shallots and cook over medium heat until leeks begin to fry and shallots are translucent and soft.
Reduce heat and add celery, carrots, and a heaping TBS of herbs. Sprinkle with salt. Cover pot and cook until vegetables are tender, about 5 minutes. Don’t brown! And don’t worry. They will cook more in the broth.
Add broth to the pot and heat to a simmer. Add noodles and continue simmering until noodles are cooked through. Add the chicken chunks and salt and pepper, to taste.
Serve with a sprinkling of freshly chopped herbs on top.
We loveMelissa Clark. And Melissa Clark loves lemon, anchovies, garlic, capers, and chile flakes. Though not all chronicled here, we’ve made enough of her recipes to know these are her go-to pantry ingredients (see Salmon with Anchovy Butter, Fried Lemon Pasta, Seared Lamb Chops). And when a couple, or all, of these elements are combined, they do make for an incredibly quick, simple, and flavorful dinner. This chicken dish is so easy to make it’s almost shockingly delicious. Boring old boneless, skinless chicken thighs are transformed into succulent, tangy, salty, addicting goodness. Enjoy with a hunk of bread to sop up all that amazing pan sauce and you’ll be overwhelmingly satisfied.
Heat oven to 350°F. Season chicken thighs with salt n’ peppa.
Prep garlic, anchovies, and capers. Heat a large, ovenproof skillet over medium-high heat, then add the oil, smashed garlic cloves, anchovies, capers, and chile flakes. Let cook for 3-5 minutes, until garlic has browned around the edges. Stir with a wooden spoon to break up the anchovies (they will disintegrate).
Add the chicken thighs and cook until nicely browned on one side, 5 to 7 minutes. Flip the chicken, place the pan in the oven and cook for an additional 5 to 10 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through.
When chicken is done, remove from the oven. Transfer chicken to a plate and return the skillet to the stove on medium heat. Add the minced garlic and lemon juice and cook for 30 seconds. Return the chicken to the skillet and garnish with parsley.
Details: Serves 2-4 (maybe Luke and I were just really hungry but we each had at least 2 chicken thighs)
We like heavy pastas in our household. Ragù. Spaghetti and meatballs. Pasta alla Gricia. We love the slow simmer, building of flavors, and richness of these dishes. And, yes, pasta is carbs. Carbs are comfort food. So why not, while you’re already eating something deemed “unhealthy,” pile on the prosciutto, guanciale, and sausage? But this vegetarian pasta, recipe courtesy of Mark Bittman, holds its own against our meaty favorites. Staring eggplant, it makes for a delicious, refined, and relatively quick dinner. And with a grating of ricotta salata and a sprinkling of freshly chopped herbs, it has an unbeatable fresh flavor. Enjoy as you’re easing out of summer! Save those heavier pastas for the upcoming cold.
Ingredients:
1 large eggplant, cut lengthwise into thin slices (bit thinner than 1/2 inch)
salt & pepper
lots of olive oil, up to 1/2 cup
1 TBS chopped garlic
2-3 tsp chili flakes (depending on spice preference)
1 28-oz can whole peeled tomatoes
1 tsp dried oregano
1 pound long pasta
1/2 cup chopped parsley or basil (or combo)
1/2 cup ricotta salata (or, if you must, pecorino Romano)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400°F.
Sprinkle eggplant slices with 1-2 tsp salt and let drain of excess moisture. We do this by layering the slices in a colander and then placing a small plate weighed down with a can or big glass of water on-top, pushing down on the eggplant. We’ll let this sit for 20 minutes, patting the eggplant with paper towels afterwards. There are some other methods! This will prevent your eggplant from being soggy and bitter.
After drying slices, arrange on a large, well oiled baking sheet. Brush with more olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast in oven for 20-25 minutes flipping at least once. You’ll went the eggplant slices to be nicely browned, soft, but with a good crisp.
While eggplant is roasting, make the sauce and bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. In a large, deep skillet heat 2-3 TBS olive oil over medium heat. Once shimmering, add garlic and chili flakes, cooking until garlic has browned a bit and is fragrant. Add the tomatoes and juice, squeezing the whole tomatoes with your hand to crush, and oregano. Add a bit of salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then simmer while eggplant and pasta finish cooking.
Cook pasta until al dente. While cooking, cut the eggplant slices into strips. Transfer 1/4 of slices into simmering sauce. Set the rest aside.
Add cooked pasta to tomato sauce.* Dress with remaining eggplant strips and a generous topping of freshly grated ricotta salata, basil, and/or parsley.
Details: Serves 4-6.
*Note: We like to keep the pasta and sauce separate and let people prep their own plates according to their sauce to pasta ratio preference. Not so traditional of us, but we are sauce-y people!
There’s still time – tomato season isn’t over yet! This is a perfect end of summer salad. It combines some of our favorite seasonal ingredients, tomato, cucumber, and basil, with year-round essentials, namely cheese (mozzarella) and bread. On self-respecting nights, when we manage not to finish off a whole baguette, we let a portion go stale and make this delicious Tuscan bread salad the next evening for dinner. Traditional panzanella calls for stale bread, uber ripe tomatoes, a dressing of olive oil and red wine vinegar, and sometimes onions and basil. This oomph-ed up version comes from our favorite lady Melissa Clark. The cucumber adds freshness and crunch and the mozzarella makes it a heartier salad, worthy of eating as a main meal instead of a side. Make sure to enjoy this salad before summer is officially over!
Ingredients:
1/3 of a baguette or rustic loaf (preferably stale) cut into 1-inch cubes
6 TBS olive oil
1 tsp salt
3 tomatoes, use a mix of varieties and colors!
6 oz mozzarella, cut or torn into bite-sized pieces
2 shallots (or 1/2 red onion) thinly sliced
2 garlic cloves, grated to a paste
2 TBS red wine vinegar
1 TBS chopped fresh oregano or thyme (or a combination)
pinch of red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 cup Persian or English cucumber, cut into thin quarter pieces
1/2 cup torn basil
1/4 cup roughly chopped parsley
1 TBS of capers, drained
Directions:
Heat oven to 425ºF. Spread bread pieces onto a baking sheet and toss with 2 TBS olive oil and 1/2 tsp salt. Bake until golden brown and dried out, about 7-15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.
Cut tomatoes into pieces just a bit smaller than the bread cubes. Put them into a large bowl and then thinly slice the shallots lengthwise.
Add the shallots into the bowl and use a microplane to grate 2 cloves of garlic into a paste. Along with the garlic paste, add 1 TBS vinegar, oregano or thyme, 1/4 tsp salt, and red pepper flakes.
Cut up the mozzarella into bite-sized pieces and add to the bowl, toss everything together and set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine 1 TBS vinegar, mustard, 1/2 tsp salt, and black pepper. While continuously whisking, add 4 TBS olive oil one-by-one to the dressing. Stir in cucumbers, basil, and parsley.
Add bread pieces, dressing, and capers to the large bowl and mix well. Let it sit and soak for at least 30 minutes, up to 6 hours. You can keep chilled in the fridge. Add extra oil, vinegar or salt if needed!
Cinco de Mayo came a little early for Luke and I this year. Up until recently (currently, the NY forecast is rain rain rain), spring had been treating us very well. For two weekends in a row we enjoyed clear skies and 70 degrees weather -ahhhmazing! When the weather is nice, I drink margaritas (and Luke by default). Always on the rocks, with salt. And nothing goes better with margs than tacos. So last Saturday night for dinner, we made these simple and delicious chicken tacos. The chiles in adobo are critical – their amazing smoky, spicy flavor makes the meal. It took a little bit of searching the supermarket aisles to find them, but besides that it was smooth sailing! Enjoy these tacos for Cinco de Mayo and all summer long.
Ingredients:
4 bone-in chicken thighs
3 scallions, left whole
1 thyme branch
5 black peppercorns
3 allspice berry
2 cloves
salt
3 TBS olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp cumin
2-4 chipotle chiles in adobo, chopped
3 TBS adobo sauce, from the can
1/2 cup broth (use broth from simmered chicken)
corn tortillas
Onion, thinly sliced radishes, avocado, queso fresco or feta cheese, cilantro – all excellent garnishing options!
Directions:
Put chicken thighs in a saucepan and cover with 3 cups water. Add scallions, thyme, peppercorns, allspice, cloves, and 1/2 tsp salt. Simmer for 30 minutes, then remove chicken and let cool. Shred chicken with your fingers or with a fork, discarding the skin and bones. Strain broth and reserve.
Put olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the diced onion, season with salt, and cook until softened and a bit browned, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cumin and cook for 1 minute more. Add chopped chipotle chile and adobo sauce and stir to combine. Add shredded chicken, salt lightly and stir to coat in sauce. Add chicken broth and simmer for 2-3 minutes, until the sauce has thickened a bit.
Heat the tortillas however you like, we find that cooking them in a dry skillet, about 1 minute on each side, works well.
Build your tacos while the chicken is still warm! Garnish however you like. This time, we chose avocado (nicely balances the spice), feta, cilantro, radishes, and a spritz of lime.
Details: Makes 4 servings, about 2 tacos per person.
Pig n' Pie - Food recipes and adventures 