Happy Bastille Day

Being as it is July 14th, I had to take a moment to wish everyone but especially my cousin Aaron a happy Bastille Day!!!  For those of you that don't know, Aaron is my partner in all crazy things, the other half of my brain because we think so much alike and as my mother once dubbed us "you and that one".  Aaron threw a Bastille Day dinner party for the first time 5 or 6 years ago where he served coq au vin for all of his friends and the tradition has stuck.  I've been along for the ride for 4 of those crazy, insanity filled Bastille Day dinner parties and they have truly been some of the best parties that I've ever thrown or even been at. Each year has taught me so much about the way I cook and entertain and the memories that I have from each of them are so priceless.  Some would say that after my first year of cooking in the hot, non-air conditioned sweat box in Atlanta where we had the brilliant idea that we could pull off crepes for 30 I would have been scarred for life but each year we would dive further into channeling our inner Julia Child and throwing a fabulous party.  Some years we would change up different elements of the menu and the party now takes place in Philadelphia where Aaron lives but as long as we have lots of wine and a bunch of people around, you are bound to have an amazing time. This year life got in the way and we are taking a hiatus from our Bastille Day dinner party but I know next year we will be back on the bike of the party (I had to throw a tour de France reference in there).  

I couldn't let Bastille day pass without any fanfare so I whipped up a roasted tomato tart before I went to work today.  The first time I had this tart, Aaron and I were at this great French restaurant in Philadelphia and the tart was so delicious that I started badgering the waitress for the recipe because I knew this was something that I wanted to make myself.  She set me up for success with what was in the tart and then I kind of ran with my own imagination.  I usually make bite-sized ones to serve at a dinner party but today I made a large one and it came out great.  Here is the recipe so you too can have a little bit of France in your life.  

Roasted Tomato Tart

In a small saute pan throw in 2 pints of grape tomatoes, a few gulgs of olive oil, 2-3 cloves of chopped up garlic, a quick drizzle of good balsamic, and salt and pepper.  Let it saute for a good 10 minutes, stirring once in and a while so that the tomatoes start to break down.  After another few minutes, mix in a tablespoon of tomato paste to help thicken the filling and continue to let it cook until most of the tomatoes have burst or are soft.  At the end, stir in a few tablespoons of chopped up basil along with 2-3 tablespoons of goat cheese.  Right here you can stop and just enjoy the tomato mixture like it is as a warm bruschetta with a big baguette or you can continue with the tart.  

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Roll out one sheet of puff pastry into a 9 inch circle and place into a pie dish.  Prick the puff pastry all over with a fork so it doesn't puff up and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes.  Usually my puff pastry still puffs up but I just push it back down with the back of a spoon.  Spoon your filling into the pie dish over the pastry and bake for another 15-20 minutes until your tart has set up.  Serve warm with a simple green salad on the side.         

So the family is coming for lunch...

I had a great weekend spending time with my family since my cousins were in town from California and Philadelphia and it was a lot of fun to hang out and catch up.  Friday night, we hit up Modern in New Haven for pizza so the California crew could get their NH pizza fix for the year and I don't know if it was because I hadn't been there in a while but it was especially a good round of pies and we literally took no prisoners as we all devoured it up!

Today I decided to have everyone over for lunch before people headed out and what better way to enjoy a Sunday in July but with a lunch of all the summer classics on the deck with 13 of us.  Here is the menu run down and I've included links or references to most of the items: 

•  Yogurt marinated cilantro chicken (I don't like to repeat recipes so quickly but when you found a good one, take advantage of it!  We christened our chimney starter today as well and it makes such a difference...strong work Andrew with setting everything up) 
• Dry rubbed baby back ribs 
• Potato Salad
• Coleslaw (with my CSA cabbage) 
• Corn and Roasted Red Pepper Salad 
• Orzo with Spinach and Grape Tomatoes (I feel like I have to put a disclaimer on this one: This is actually a Rachael Ray recipe and I for one find her extremely annoying and refuse to buy into all of her 30 minute meal and "evoo" BS but I had this salad at someone else's house a few years ago and absolutely love it!  I add a good amount of Parmesan cheese to mine and it always comes out so good.)   
• Tossed Green Salad with Grilled Watermelon and Pignoli Nuts. 

the charcoal grill in action

"If I ate meat, I would eat this chicken" - from my cousin Allison, a vegetarian

the lunch buffet

Everything came out really good and the lack of leftovers was a sure sign of how much everyone enjoyed lunch.  But really what's the most important part of a meal especially when you are polling the "under 10" crowd but the dessert of course and I knew that homemade ice creams and a big plate of cookies would be a sure winner for a hot summer day.  My cousin Jane informed me on Friday that her favorite flavor was cookies and cream so obviously that is what she got which was easy to make just by crushing some oreos into my homemade vanilla ice cream base.  Vanilla also made an appearance and then I was lucky enough to get another delivery of black raspberries from Maria (I'm starting to think this is a perfect world scenario having fresh picked fruit dropped off at your house on a regular basis) so they got pureed and mixed into the ice cream base for an amazing new flavor.  I know I've made my fair share of good flavors in my ice cream career but I think the black raspberry really takes the award because it was so fresh and summer tasting and the color was this awesome vibrant shade of magenta!!!  In a last minute find, my Mom pulled out these vintage plastic ice cream bowls that were circa 1990 from our cabinet which is somewhat ironic because my mother isn't a saver in the least bit but they added to the excitement for the girls as they picked which color bowl each of them would have along with which flavor of ice cream would occupy the girls.  I on the other hand love to eat my ice cream  "chipwich" style as in slapping a big scoop of ice cream between 2 fresh baked cookies but anyway it goes down, its going to be good. 

"chipwich style"



The Rak girls and I



Picnic leftovers re-made

So we have all hosted a party before where you make too much food and then have a fridge full of leftovers.  Sometimes you are able to pawn off some of the leftovers on your guests that they can enjoy but usually you eat the leftovers for a day or two as they were made originally and then you get to the point where they are the last thing you even want to think about after eating the same thing for 3 straight days.  By this point if things are still leftover they make their way into the trash and I'm sure if you are anything like me, you have a pinge of guilt that you are throwing away food.  Well here is my challenge to you this summer so we all don't hit the point of no return with our leftovers - get creative and make them into a different meal for everyone to enjoy.  Sneaky yes, but I assure you that people will be much happier to see a new and improved version disguised at the dinner table then the same boring thing.  Here is the first dish that kicked off the challenge for me and it actually comes from Noah and Suzanne's leftovers of food that they had at their 4th of July party.   

Corn, Roasted Pepper and Tomato Salad

Obviously your measurements will depend on how much you have leftover but here is some general direction to follow.  Also don't think you are limited to make this only if you have leftovers...it would make a great first run side dish as well.

-Cut the cooked corn kernels off of the cob and toss them into a large bowl.  (If you don't have leftover corn I highly recommend the frozen charred corn from Trader Joe's.  It is one of my favorite things that they sell and is so much better then the regular frozen run of the mill stuff). 
-Chop the roasted peppers up into a fine dice and add them to the bowl (I like to make my mother very nervous by roasting them right on the burners of the stove but a jar of the store bought peppers work well too).   
-Same goes for the leftover tomato and mozzarella salad that you served as a first course.  Chop up the tomatoes and mozzarella to a similar size as the rest of your ingredients and into the bowl they go.  
-If the tomatoes were already dressed with olive oil then you really have to add minimal oil but if not add a tablespoon or 2 of olive oil to the salad along with the same amount of balsamic vinegar.  Finish it off with some salt and pepper and a quick chiffonade of basil and give everything a stir and the leftovers are remade into an exciting new dish.  

the rest of the dinner was pretty damm good as well

And as you'll see in the next post...I couldn't wait for the leftovers and made my own fresh version of the salad!  Thanks Noah and Suz for being creative

   

CSA Week 5: Residing in the Cabbage Patch

Here is what came in the box this week:

-1 greenhouse cucumber

-1 zucchini

-1 bunch of radishes

-2 kohlrabi

-2 heads of cabbage

-1 large bok choy

-1 head of red leaf lettuce

-1 head of romaine lettuce

-1 bunch of curly kale

-1 bunch of beet greens

We are now starting to get into the classic farm stand veggies between the zucchini and cucumbers but are still living in the land of leafy greens for another couple of weeks.  Salads are in full effect in our house and I'm sure that we are really going to miss the lettuce once it's gone.  I actually gave away the beet greens and kohlrabi bulbs to a friend of ours because I knew it was going to be a busy week and I figured let them go to good use in someone elses kitchen instead of going to waste.  We are starting to hit the limit with the bok choy since every week we have been getting these huge stalks that are really good but come on, how much bok choy can you really consume so I knew I was going to have to get creative on this one.  I was browsing through my recipe binders that I keep and I came across Hazel Sy's recipes for the Pork and Cabbage Pan Fried Dumplings (scroll down to the bottom of the link for the recipe) that I had made back in the winter that were really good and pretty easy to make.  Instead of using the napa cabbage that the recipe called for, I used chopped up bok choy instead and the substitution worked perfectly.  Hazel gives you a helpful YouTube video as well on her blog demonstrating how to put the dumplings all together and after 2 attempts at the dumplings, I've learned that my brother Andrew has much more of a knack for folding the dumplings then I do so he came in very handy during the Yankee's rain delay on Sunday.  Once we were finished stuffing and folding the dumplings we made a bunch of them to have for lunch and then froze the rest of them for another meal to have later on.  This is a good project to tackle when you have a few hour time block in your kitchen and it is always easier to do when you have a few people around so it's a good weekend activity when your friends and family are over so that way you can set it up assembly style and everyone can get in on the action.   We bought our dumpling wrappers at the Asian grocery on Whitney Avenue in New Haven which has a great selection of Asian sauces and pantry staples but if you are in a bind and don't have time to take foodie field trips like we do, you can also use wonton wrappers from the grocery store.  Here are a few pics showing the filling process along the way as well as the finished product.

filling goes into the center of the dumpling

fold the dumpling in half so all of the sides meet

fold the ends of the dumplings in into a triangle (this is where things started to get dicey for me)

fold the triangle ends over to the sides to seal everything up



ready to be cooked or frozen



the finished product about to be consumed

Happy belated 4th of July (and a preview of what's to come...)

Hope everyone had a fantastic 4th of July weekend!  With Monday being the holiday, it was nice to have the weekend to celebrate and it was a pretty jammed packed one.  I'm a girl who loves All-American holidays whether it's Thanksgiving, Election Day (when you have a degree in Poli Sci you count this as a holiday!!!) and most importantly 4th of July so I was pretty jazzed to kick back and celebrate.  I've spent the 4th in memorable places all over the east coast whether we were at the Cape, on a Navy ship watching fireworks in the middle of Hudson River in NYC or enjoying a gin and tonic out of a nalgene bottle on the Capital lawn.  This year we went local and started off the 4th of July festivities on Sunday night at the Garofalo's beach house in Milford where you have a prime view of the fireworks that people shoot off over Deerfield Beach that are always spectacular.  Even though it wasn't the most All-American menu, Marc served up homemade pizzas on the grill that were so phenomenal that you didn't miss the classic picnic fare at all.  I have to say this...I've made homemade pizzas on the grill before but Marc's whole operation in doing his makes me look like a complete amateur between the array of toppings that go on, the different combinations that he comes up with, and just the pure business that he goes about in doing it where before you know it there have been 20 pizzas whipped up in no time where I on the other hand would have been lying under the grill in absolute exhaustion.  I'm totally inspired to now to have a large grilled pizza party later in the summer at my own house but here are some pics from the evening to get you hungry:

a small section of the toppings line-up

Upping my grill game

Friday night, I hung out with my friends Deanna and Suzanne and we cooked up quite the outdoor meal.  We all had a very long week, hadn't really had the opportunity to get together and just hang out all month because we had all been busy so I was looking forward to just being able to sit, relax for a few hours, and drink some much needed wine with my friends.  Suzanne hosted us this time on her deck (which by the way: I have to give you and Noah a lot of props for all of the fabulous yard work you have done this year...it looks amazing!!!) but was just getting back from a business trip the day before so instead of having to order take-out, I jumped at the opportunity to pull out a few recipes off of my summer wish list that I have been dying to make and said that I would take care of the cooking.  Deanna volunteered to make the dessert, Suzanne supplied us with the wine and we were ready to dine alfresco.  Let me just say, its also a very beautiful thing when your friends also double as your neighbors because Suzanne happens to live within spitting distance from my own house so the quick jaunt up and down the hill simplifies things even more.  

On the menu was Yogurt-Marinated Grilled Chicken and an Orzo with Everything Salad that my cousin Allison made for us last year when we were in California which is super easy to throw together and a great side dish to almost any grilled meat.  The chicken marinade was really easy to throw together since you literally just dump all of the ingredients into the food processor, blend them all together and then it gets poured over the chicken in a large ziploc bag so there is no mess later on.  Do not be intimidated by the large number of ingredients in the marinade.  A lot of the ingredients I had lying around my kitchen so there was minimal things I actually had to go out and buy.  You can also make a double batch and then have it in the fridge ready to go for another quick weeknight meal when you don't have an extra 30 minutes to play with your food processor on a Tuesday morning when you are trying to race out the door to work.  The orzo salad can also be assembled beforehand as well and actually tastes better when it gets to sit for a few hours where all of the flavors have an opportunity to mesh together and really play off of each other.  

CSA week 4

This is our fourth week on the CSA and here is what came in the box:
-1 bunch green onions
-1 bunch radishes
-1 bunch hakurei turnips
-2/3 lb bag of baby leaf lettuce mix (There was a choice between this and Asian mix.  After 3 weeks of the Asian mix, I was happy to take a break and consume some more lettuce)
-1 head of butter leaf lettuce
-1 large Bok Choy
-2 bunches curly kale
-1 small bag of sugar snap peas
-1 2inch parsley plant


Ok, let me start off by saying these bunches of green onions that you get in the box are NOT your grocery store scallions by any means.  They are massive and if green onions could be on steroids, these would be it.  Imagine seeing a 2-3 foot spiky palm perennial in your backyard and that would be a pretty good description of the onions at first glance.  Needless to say we are still going through the bunch from week 3 so we haven't even touched week 4 yet and I'm going to have to get creative very quickly.  Can you actually freeze green onions for future use (or would that be one of those ideas that turns into a forgotten treasure in the back of the freezer 8 months down the road?)  If you live close and are need of some green onions, don't you dare go buy them...I will be more then happy to share! 


The hakurei turnips were the gem of this weeks box.  I hoarded my bunch from week 3 and cooked them along with the week 4 bunch and they were so good!!!!  If you are at a farmer's market or happen to to stumble upon them at a speciality grocery store, buy them up immediately.  All I did was cut off the green leaves, trim the bulbs up and quarter or half them depending on size.  In a small saute pan, melt a few tablespoons of butter and toss the cut up turnips in.  Let them saute until soft and starting to brown in spots (about 10-15 minutes) and then sprinkle a teaspoon or two of sugar on top and let them caramelize in the pan for a few minutes longer.  Super easy and so delish (so much so they I actually bought another bunch on Wednesday at the New Haven farmer's market. 

We had another batch of stir fry one night for dinner that I used some of the bok choy, snap peas, and green onions in and this is fast becoming one of our go to summer meals.  Another night's dinner was a big salad with rotisserie chicken which we all love as well and I used one of the bunches of kale on the quiche I made in week 2 that was for lunches.  Finally, Tuesday nights dinner was a big winner across the board and another great way to use the kale in a very easy pasta dish.  I'm sure at this point, you must be saying to yourself "How the hell does this girl whip up these ridiculous, gourmet sounding meals most nights after coming home from working in New York City all day?" but I promise this literally took 25 minutes start to finish from walking in the door.

Rigatoni with Sauteed Kale and Ricotta
-Boil the pasta. (Look I'm not giving instructions on how to boil pasta, plain and simple.  You can handle it.)
-In a large frying pan, saute torn up pieces of kale with a few gulgs of olive oil until wilted or tender.  Season with salt and pepper. If kale isn't going to happen in your kitchen, throw in spinach instead but give it a shot.  To save even more time, this is one of those steps that can be done when you have a free 15 minutes during another point in the week and the sauteed kale can also be used on pizza, quesadillas, eggs or just be itself as a colorful green addition to your plate.   
-Once the kale is ready to go, add a few cups of your favorite tomato sauce to the pan and let cook on low for a few minutes until heated throughout.  Toss the cooked pasta into the pan with the sauce and let everything cook together for a minute or two until all of the flavors blend and the pasta is evenly coated. 
-Finish the pasta off with a few tablespoons of fresh ricotta and some chopped up fresh basil and dinner is on the table. 

 
If you are looking to inundate your diet with kale like I have, here is a another easy recipe for a kale and white bean soup that my fellow CSA-er Maria shared with me as well that was really good.