I’ve always been wary of gazpacho. Bad batches can end up tasting like salsa or tomato juice. Often, you have an urge to over spice it. Tomatoes, some mild veggies, a little bit of salt and vinegar – how could these ingredients be enough for a flavorful, satisfying soup? But if you start adding a little bit of heat or some extra garlic you begin to veer dangerously close to Bloody Mary sans vodka territory. No one wants a virgin Blood Mary. Lots of Americanized recipes list bread chunks or croutons in their ingredients, in order to add a little bit of thickness and texture. Or worse, they leave the soup chunky. This is called salsa. And while it’s better than a virgin Blood Mary, you don’t want to sip on salsa.
I learned something new while preparing to write this post. I learned that Jody Williams has another restaurant in the West Village. A restaurant that somehow I had never heard of (whaaaat). I knew about Buvette, which has previously inspired some home cooked meals, and Via Carota, her collaboration with Rita Sodi. Somehow I missed Gottino, the oldest of the bunch and quite possibly the most understated. It has a cute patio and a long spacious bar. It looks very appetizing compared to the squished “bistro” seating I’ve endured at Buvette, all for the sake of their delicious tartinettes.
There are few foods items I enjoy more than tartinettes (also known as crostinis) – a crusty piece of toast topped with a creative combination of cheese, meat, and/or vegetables. This walnut pesto is one such creation and comes originally from Gottino, but is now served at Buvette as well. Having it at Buvette for the first time, I knew I would love it forever. The rendition Luke and I make at home is very nearly as good. If I could I would eat this for dinner often – several large spoonfuls on crispy toasts with just a simple mixed green salad. Unfortunately, Luke doesn’t consider walnut pesto tartinettes substantial enough for dinner. I encourage you to enjoy walnut pesto for lunch, happy hour, dinner, maybe even breakfast. Our recipe comes from Deb Perelman. I also love this succinct recipe writeup from The New York Times in 2008, which omits ingredient measurements. Jody Williams has been serving walnut pesto for nearly ten years! That is the strongest endorsement of this recipe’s deliciousness.
Ingredients:
1 cup shelled walnuts (optional: toast and let cool)
1/4 cup grated parm
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed or grated
fresh thyme (strip a few sprigs and give ’em rough chop)
salt, to taste
splash of red wine or sherry vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
2 TBS minced sun dried tomato (oil packed or dry will work, if using oil packed can go a little lighter on the olive oil)
sliced baguette
Directions:
Using a mortar and pestle or food processor, grind walnuts, cheese, garlic, thyme, salt, and vinegar. Stir in olive oil and tomatoes.
Toast your baguette slices (cut fairly thin, 1/2 inch or so). Heap a generous spoonful of pesto onto your warm slices and enjoy immediately.
Pesto can be stored at room temp for up to a week.
Dijon mustard is one of the most versatile ingredients in your fridge. Sadly, the small Maille or Grey Poupon jar often sits in condiment asylum with months-old bottles of ketchup, mayonnaise, and salsa. It’s time to break your mustard loose from hot dog hell. The world of marinades, dressings, glazes, slaws, and sauces awaits! A grainy Dijon mustard plays a starring role in this roasted pork loin recipe. Used along with brown sugar and herbs, the mustard glaze gives the meat amazing flavor and texture. To double-down on the Dijon, make a quick side salad of arugula dressed with a mustard vinaigrette. Previously unused and unappreciated, your jar of Dijon will definitely be feeling itself after this meal.
This marinade comes from Marian Burros of the NYT. The overnight marinating is not mandatory but definitely recommended. We opted for pork loin instead of pork tenderloin, as called for in the original recipe, and modified the cooking time. But this works really well for pork tenderloin too! And if you’re curious about the difference, read more here.
Ingredients:
2 lb pork loin
3 TBS brown sugar
2 TBS grainy Dijon mustard (if you don’t have grainy Dijon, smooth Dijon will suffice, you’ll just lose some of the texture)
2 tsp rosemary and/or thyme, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 TBS cooking sherry or red wine vinegar
Directions:
Make the marinade. In a small mixing bowl, combine brown sugar, mustard, rosemary, thyme, garlic, and sherry/vinegar.
Place pork loin in a plastic bag or shallow bowl. Pour the marinade over the meat and turn to coat well. Let the pork loin marinate in the fridge overnight. If you’re pressed for time, you can marinate for as little as 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a medium-sized baking sheet with foil. Place the loin fat side down unto the baking sheet. This can also be done in a well oiled cast-iron skillet.
Roast for 25 minutes. The fat side will have developed a nice crust. Turn fat side up and roast for another 25 to 30 minutes. To test doneness, you can insert a thermometer into the center of the loin. The internal temperature should read 155°F.
Remove from oven and let loin sit for 10 minutes. Cut crosswise into thin slices.
A simple pan-sauce can be made by deglazing the meat juices in a skillet or saucepan. Luke’s special recommendation: use leftover meat to make a classic roast pork sandwich the next day.
Details: Serves 4 or 2 for dinner plus 2 for lunch sandwich leftovers.
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.
This recipe, which we sourced from Nigella Lawson, has made its way around the web a bit. You can find a version from Deb Perelman of Smitten Kitchen. Martha makes a similar recipe with just two additional ingredients – lemon zest and fresh dill. It’s a tried and true recipe that is welcome to a little tinkering. And like Romeo and Juliet or Jay-Z and Beyonce, buttermilk and chicken are an illustrious couple, most famous of course for the wondrous results of frying buttermilk brined chicken. Buttermilk is such an amazing marinade because it not only imbues flavor, but its acidic composition also tenderizes the meat – double win!! As long as you can remember to whip together this super simple marinade the night before, this chicken recipe comes together real quick and yields flavorful, tender meat with salty, crispy skin. Enjoy with a green salad and some bread to sop up the chicken juices. You’ll feel like you’re seriously spoiling yourself for a weekday dinner.
Ingredients:
4-6 chicken bone-in thighs (or a mix of thighs, drumsticks, wings – important to have bone-in chicken, whatever you choose!)
2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup + 2 TBS veggie oil (we used canola)
1 TBS freshly ground black pepper
1 TBS sea salt
2 TBS freshly chopped rosemary
1 TBS honey
2 cloves peeled and crushed garlic + garlic cloves with skin on for roasting (optional)
Directions:
The night before, marinate yo chicken! Place chicken in a large freezer bag. Add buttermilk, 1/4 cup oil, salt, crushed garlic, rosemary, and honey. Seal bag securely, mix contents around, and store in your fridge. Chicken can be marinated for up to 2 days.
Remove chicken from marinade and place on rack so excess can drip off. Try to let your chicken rest at room temperature for 30 minutes, or an hour ideally. This will allow your chicken to dry off a bit and come to room temperature, which ensures even cooking and crispiness.
Preheat oven to 425°F. We opted to cook our chicken in our cast iron skillet, but you can also cook on a tinfoil lined roasting pan (tinfoil makes for easy cleanup). Drizzle chicken with 2 TBS of oil. Sprinkle with a bit more sea salt and freshly cracked pepper. Throw the couple cloves of garlic in the skillet as well, if you’d like (they turn soft and are great spread over a slice of bread). Place in oven and cook for 20-25 minutes, or until when chicken is pierced the juices run clear.
Remove from oven and let rest for about 5 minutes. Then enjoy immediately!
Details: Serves 4-ish. Maybe we’re gluttons, but we have a hard time eating just a single chicken thigh per person.
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
Cauliflower is a versatile vegetable. Cauliflower can be steak. It can be mashed potatoes. It can even be pizza. Cauliflower rice is sneaking into recipes everywhere, turning carbohydrate laden meals into gluten-free miracles. But cauliflower is also delicious just as cauliflower. It needs no Hollywood movie before and after transformation. This recipe, courtesy of The New York Times, highlights cauliflower’s inherent sweetness and adds some kick. When cooked perfectly (which is easy to accomplish), you’ll have beautifully browned florets, tender but with a little bit of crunch. Quick and simple to make, we’ve been enjoying this recipe as a healthy weekday veggie meal. It’s also great as a sneakily addicting and seriously impressive side. Take a night to celebrate cauliflower for being cauliflower! It’s a star vegetable, all on its own.
Ingredients:
1 cauliflower head
2 TBS olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
1 garlic clove, grated or finely minced
1/2 tsp freshly chopped rosemary
1/4 cup chopped parsley
zest of 1 small lemon
1 red fresno chile, thinly sliced (optional, for a spicy garnish)
extra lemon, for serving
Directions:
Quarter the cauliflower and cut out the core. Cut the quarters into 1/2-inch thick slices. Chop down the larger slices so that they are all about floret size.
Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add cauliflower, tossing to coat in the olive oil. Season generously with salt and pepper.
Continue to stir and flip the cauliflower, letting the slices brown as they cook. Watch the heat – you want to keep the cauliflower pieces sizzling but not scorching. Cook until tender and can easily be pierced with a fork, about 10 to 12 minutes.
Add crushed red pepper, garlic, rosemary, parsley, and lemon zest. Stir well to coat and cook 1 minute more. Garnish with sliced chile, if you like spice, and serve with lemon wedges.
Details: Serves 4 as a side, 2 as a main. Can easily be doubled to serve more!
I’ve been making this meal since college. It’s inexpensive, healthy, easy, and quite tasty. And with the sweet potato’s recent growth in popularity (in 2015, farmers produced more sweet potatoes than in any year since World War II) this recipe turns out to be in vogue as well! For Luke and I, sweet potato tacos are a reliable weekday meal. We often neglect this recipe, as it’s almost too basic. But, when we made it recently and spruced up our tacos with a couple extra fixings we looked at our plates and both said, “Damn! These tacos are kinda good looking!” Like, cover of a magazine good looking. We decided they’re worth sharing. This recipe is somewhat of an original, though the black beans are a riff on a Goya recipe, courtesy of the back of the can. Shout out to Goya Foods!
Ingredients:
2-4 sweet potatoes (depending on size), cut into 1-inch pieces
olive oil
salt & pepper, to taste
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 can black beans
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 red bell pepper, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 jalapeno finely chopped (optional)
1 TBS red wine vinegar
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1/4-1/2 cup water
8-10 soft tortillas
cilantro, finely chopped (for topping)
feta cheese, crumbled (for topping)
Directions:
Begin by roasting the sweet potatoes. Preheat oven to 425°F. In a bowl, mix the sweet potatoes with 1-2 TBS olive oil, cumin, chili powder, and 1 tsp salt and pepper. Move sweet potatoes to a large baking sheet and spread evenly. It’s best if each sweet potato has some breathing room. You don’t want them overlapping! Roast for 30-35 minutes, making sure to check halfway through. Give em a shake so they get a little brown on all sides.
While sweet potatoes are roasting, make the beans. Heat 1-2 TBS olive oil over medium-high heat in a medium saucepan. Add onions, bell pepper, and jalapeno. Cook for about 6 minutes, or until onions are translucent and peppers are soft. Add garlic and cook 1-2 minutes more. Pour in the beans, with their juices. Fill the can with water a little less than halfway. Stir water around to make sure all the contents of the can are loose and pour into saucepan. Add red wine vinegar, oregano, and 1 tsp salt. Bring beans to a boil and then simmer uncovered. Simmer for 15-2o minutes, or until sauce has thickened.
When sweet potatoes are finished, mash slightly on the sheet. You want them to be a little chunky.
While everything is finishing up, we advising warming up your tortillas. Either for 1 minute in the microwave, or a little nicer, individually in a skillet (this will give them a bit of charring).
Assemble your tacos to your liking! We start with a base of sweet potatoes, a scoop of beans, a few drops of Valentina Salsa Picante, some freshly chopped cilantro, and a scattering of feta cheese.
Details: Serves 2-4. You’ll have plenty of beans, so roast more sweet potatoes if you’re trying to feed a few more mouths!
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!
Citruses make the winter much more manageable. When December roles around, I’m always happily surprised to see lemon, orange, and mandarin dishes populate restaurant menus and appear on my favorite food blogs. They’re so cheerful and bright, I forget their best time is wintertime. Of all the citruses, the blood orange is an easy favorite. Tangy, sweet, and aesthetically delightful, its color adds a lovely pop to any plate. I’ve been intrigued by olive oil cake as it sounded like a dessert I could enjoy, without guilt, at all times of day. It is also incredibly easy to prepare. Our fav Melissa Clark provides the recipe for this cake. Don’t skip using good olive oil. It makes the cake more flavorful. And stock up on blood oranges! There’s no reason to be skimpy, they’re in season.
Ingredients:
butter (for greasing the pan)
3-6 blood oranges (more if you’d like to make compote)
1 cup sugar
approx. 2/3 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt
3 large eggs
1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tsp honey (optional, for compote)
whipped cream (optional, for serving)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF. Grease a 9-by-5 inch loaf pan (we used a 9-inch round pan, 8-by-8 square pan works well also). Grate zest of 2 oranges and place in bowl with sugar. Fully incorporate the zest and sugar, using your hands to rub the ingredients to ensure even distribution.
Supreme 2-3 oranges (these you will mix into the batter, so supreme more if you like more fruit chunks). To do this, cut off the bottom and top of the orange so it can stand upright on your cutting board. Then, with a sharp knife, cut away peel and pith, following the curve of the fruit. Cut the orange into segments along its connective membrane and let fall into a bowl. Set aside.
Squeeze juice of 1-2 oranges into a measuring cup. Add yogurt or buttermilk to measuring cup until you have a little less than 1 cup of liquid. Mix and then add to bowl of sugar, whisking to fully incorporate. Whisk in eggs.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the dry to the wet ingredients, a bit at a time, whisking to incorporate. Switch to a spatula and then slowly add the olive oil. Fold into the batter and be mindful to incorporate before pouring in more. Fold in orange pieces. Pour batter into a pan.
Bake for 55 minutes, or until a knife/toothpick inserted into cake’s center comes out clean. Cool on rack for 5 minutes, then unmold and cool at room temperature until ready to serve. Tastes even more delicious when served with whipped cream and honey-blood orange compote.
To make compote, supreme 3 more oranges and mix with 2 tsp of honey. Let sit for 5 minutes then stir once more.
Pig n' Pie - Food recipes and adventures 