I’m a few days late, but happy spring! I am so ready for sunny days and leisurely walks. I have a super happy picture to share with you today in honor of springtime. What you see above is a picture of a plant that I did not kill. Yup, I thought it was a goner, but no way jose, it’s back and ready for spring! Woohoo!
I really love the magazine Edible Brooklyn. Every time I pick it up I learn so much fun and interesting information. This edition has a great article on underground supper clubs and restaurants. It totally makes me jealous of anyone who has participated in any of these events and definitely makes me want to seek one out.
Here’s my favorite excerpt from the article about a group called FISHA:
“That said, gaining entry to a Sunday feast at this Fort Greene under-
ground restaurant takes a little doing. Once you’ve snagged an
invite—either by tracking down Mr. FISHA’s e-mail or being put in
touch with him by a luckier friend—you’re e-mailed a set of instruc-
tions directing you to a wine store in Fort Greene. The wine seller
rings up your choice from a preselected variety of inexpensive bottles
and gives you the address; for this first dinner, the wine acts as both
password and entrance fee. “
Does that sound awesome or what? So, if you know Mr. FISCHA’s email address, please feel free to float it my way. In the meantime, I’ll be doing a little research into supper clubs.
If you live in Brooklyn, you can pick up a copy of Edible Brooklyn for free at a variety of locations. If you don’t live in Brooklyn, maybe there’s an Edible Community where you live too!
I think it’s safe to say that Murray’s Cheese is “The” cheese store in the city. I’ve been visiting their web site every now and then, dreaming about which cheese class I should take, but until last weekend, I’d never visited their store in Greenwich Village.
Oh boy, I was in dairy heaven. It’s a fairly small shop, but it’s packed with goodness well beyond just cheese. They’ve got sauces, pasta, dips, a small selection of meat and other goodies. I indulged a bit and walked out with a couple cheeses, sun-dried tomatoes soaked in oil, pasta and some fancy butter.
I don’t recommend waiting as long as I did to get there. The store is filled with all sorts of treasures that are hard to pass up and the neighborhood feels much the same way.
There’s something about pesto that I just love. It’s so simple, so tasty and so easy to make. When we went to Amorina a while back we had pizza that used a sun dried tomato pesto instead of tomato sauce and it gave the pizza an extra little punch. I was intrigued, so I found a recipe for sun dried tomato pesto and got to work.
All the recipes I found called for tomatoes soaked in oil so that’s what I used, but I think next time I’ll just use regular dried tomatoes because I think they have a tangier flavor. I simply tossed all the ingredients in my food processor and viola, I had my very own sun dried tomato pesto.
I used it on a whole wheat pizza crust the other night and it was good, although I wish it had a slightly deeper/tangier flavor. I’m planning on using the remaining pesto in a pasta/sausage/ricotta mixture one night this week. I think it’ll do the trick.
I just saw that Lotta Jansdotter came out with a new book called “Lotta Prints” and it looks fabulous! The book is a guide on how to print with “anything from potatoes to linoleum”. Ohh, I can’t wait to get my hands on this!
When I was at the greenmarket this weekend I saw these pears and thought they looked pretty so I bought them. I didn’t have a recipe in mind, but figured I could find something tasty, and boy did I. I saw this recipe for roasted pears with pecorino cheese and thought it sounded like an interesting combination, especially when I noticed caramel was involved.
I used my fancy new dutch oven to cook the pears and make a caramel sauce on the stovetop, then I popped it all in the oven to let the pears soften a bit. Once the pears were soft enough, I put some caramel in a bowl, then placed the pears over it and topped it all off with a slice of pecorino cheese. Not only did the dessert look beautiful, it tasted amazing and nearly melted in your mouth. It’s a super simple recipe that makes a delightful end to any meal.
This is so exciting. I was browsing ebay last week and got bored with looking at vintage cookbooks, so I typed in one of my favorite illustrators, Charley Harper, and what do you know but a cookbook was at the top of the list. Apparently Betty Crocker’s Dinner for Two was one of his first jobs way back in 1959. The illustration on the title page is the best, but there lots super fun ones scattered about in the pages. Not only is it full of one of the amazing illustrations, but it has some pretty good recipes too.
I picked up bon appétit for the first time last week and kind of fell in love. It brought back memories of when Chow was a magazine. It looks like they recently went through a redesign. I would have never looked twice at the old magazine because it looked really outdated and studgy but I really like the friendliness that the new magazine has, it makes cooking feel more fun rather than stuffy. Most of the recipes are achievable while still being interesting and the photography sets a nice laid back tone. One of my favorite sections of the design is a section in the back called Prep School (pictured above). It illustrates techniques that are used in the some of the recipes. This isn’t to say that there are some things that could use some help, but I think that this magazine is doing something others in the field aren’t.
Mmmmm. It’s making me drool just looking at it. Isn’t caramel just plain awesome? I think so. That’s why I was bummed when I continually failed at any attempt to make caramel. Either I let it cook too long and the sugar mixture dried up or I didn’t cook it long enough and it came out looking like melted butter. I finally had enough and buckled down to try this recipe.
I think the key is knowing how long it’s suppose to take for the mixture to caramelize. I was diligent about standing over the pot, occasionally giving it a swirl and keeping tabs on it’s color. After about 13 minutes, my sauce turned a medium amber color and I poured in the cream. Then I patted myself on the back because finally, finally I made caramel! And let me tell you, it is spectacular. Especially when poured over bacon ice cream.
blueberry ginger muffins
If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you may have noticed that I love ginger. I’m always looking for ways to sneak it into recipes, and my latest attempt was delicious. I loosely followed a muffin recipe from my Joy of Cooking cookbook to make blueberry ginger muffins.
The result is a moist muffin with subtle hints of ginger and of course tasty blueberries to sink your teeth into. I love the way ginger really accentuates the other flavors and gives the recipe a little more depth. I can’t wait for the summer fruits to arrive at the farmers market this summer… mmm so many fruits to experiment with.
Here’s my modified recipe:
In a large bowl, combine:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
In a different bowl, combine:
2 large eggs
1 cup milk or cream (I used half of each)
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
fruit:
1 cup blueberries
2 tablespoons fresh diced ginger
1
Preheat oven to 400°. Line a 12-muffin pan with liners or grease the pan.
2
Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and mix just until dry ingredients are moistened.
3
Add the fruit in and lightly stir.
4
Spoon the batter evenly into the muffin pan and put in the oven.
5
Bake for around 17 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.