as you know, i love really involved recipes. as it happens, i’ve had a yen for spaghetti and meatballs for some time – comforting, savory but slightly sweet, altogether delicious. it is also, however, a cold-weather food, but luckily for me the weather complied […]
one day, a pound of bacon walked into the kitchen. it accidentally walked into a skillet, but jumped out after getting a little toasty. some onions took its place with a little thyme, and the whole group took a dive into pasta, finding eggs and […]
i was disgruntled because i hadn’t cooked all week; if you know me, i get kind of grumpy and unsettled when this is the case. so since i had no plans for the weekend, i decided to make chicken cacciatore. i had made the joy of cooking version with rocco a few weeks back, and it didn’t require much in the way of ingredients beyond mushrooms, tomatoes, herbs, and some chicken stock and wine. i decided, as i often do, to make a labor-intensive version of it. i looked at my joy of cooking – which i have to say, in my kitchen, serves more as a reference than a real cookbook – and noted the ingredients, then looked online at epicurious to see what the range of ingredients was from recipe to recipe. i found one that roasted the vegetables, which sounded really excellent, but the thing i liked a lot about the one rocco and i made was the thickness of the sauce – ie, the vegetables and the sauce are equally important.
essentially, i combined the two recipes, and modified them to the proportions that i like. i used a combination of fresh and canned tomatoes, to try to balance flavor versus my pocketbook. luckily, it’s summer, so tomatoes are cheaper than they usually are. i also probably doubled the mushrooms: i like mushrooms. especially sliced thickly, which doesn’t usually happen – most restaurants either use tiny mushrooms that don’t need to be sliced, slice them thinly, or slice them in half. and i like mine sliced thickly. i also increased the amount of onions, because onions are good… (more…)
no, not speed with respect to the homemade ricotta, but rather, with dinner made from the ricotta. however, despite the lengthy instructions, the actual production of the ricotta is very easy and short. most of the work is prep work. the best ricotta i have […]
carrie: and when we go to star, we could get – me: pork loin! carrie: yeah, that too…but i was thinking of ice cream. (24 hours later) carrie: last night i had a dream about rare meat…i think it was the pork loin. * * […]
the day before i had my last paper due, i decided i needed a break, and sent myself off to miriam’s and josh’s pre-hannukah party with the bottle of champagne that lauren dropped off. said bottle of champagne, incidentally, went to toast the impending end of finals, and miriam’s new job at nelson/nygaard (much thanks to lauren).
if these smallish informal dinner parties are what real life consists of, i’m more than ready for it. in honor of hannukah, we had latkes and doughnuts (sufgiyanot, i believe the proper spelling is…) at the kitchen table, which, on occasions like this, is pulled away from the wall, the leaf put in, and chairs of all kinds pulled around it – it’s kind of like eating in the galley of the ship. close quarters – fridge, stove, and sink all within an arm’s reach – and thoroughly enjoyable. we also had roasted broccoli and pot roast, the latter having been bought at star on a whim (supermarkets are so good for those). (more…)
first, before i forget, the recipe for pasta i made a while back: pasta with bacon, onions, + tomatoes 1 pkg bacon 1 lb pasta (preferably shells) 1 1/2 lbs plum tomatoes, chopped (i suppose you could use 2 cans of diced tomatoes, drained, if […]
fettuccine with eggplant in a tomato-onion cream sauce 1 28-oz can whole tomatoes 3 onions, halved and sliced 1 medium eggplant, cut into 2″-3″ long strips 2T olive oil 1/4c cream 1/2c parmesan cheese, grated salt to taste 1 lb fettuccine [1] heat oil in […]
it’s been a long time since I last wrote, pretty much because it’s been so darn hot that turning on the stove and/or oven just isn’t an option. however, the past couple of days have been quite favorable towards cooking, so I got back into swing pretty fast. wednesday, v and i made carrie’s smothered chicken, stir-fried cauliflower, and lemon granita; last night nora and i made a bolognese sauce to go with our pipette pasta, roasted carrots, and indian pudding. not the most adventurous of outings, but pretty solid on new experiences.
carrie’s smothered chicken is well-traveled territory, ever since I got the recipe from her. it was intended for my sister, firsthand, but then i had the recipe myself, naturally. since then, i’ve made it twice. sorry to those who want the recipe; I don’t think it’s up to me to give it out, but here is a basic description, since “smothered” can mean so many different things, food-wise. chicken thighs (I still haven’t figured out if it would be better to skin them; do NOT use boneless anything) get browned, then baked in a mixture of barley, peppers, onions, spices, chicken stock, and, with my variation, sliced mushrooms. there is always leftover barley mixture that gets cooked on the stove (probably because of the added volume of mushrooms), and it always surprises me that the leftover barley tastes so different from the chicken barley. who would have thought that some chicken bones would make such a difference? (more…)