Kitchen Confessions and an Update

Long time no blog. For this girl at least.

It’s been strangely busy at work with all kinds of lovely goings on I can’t discuss (God bless the confidentiality agreement) so I simply haven’t had time to write a sentence on here. The other main factor of lack of blogging this week has been that every new recipe I’ve tried this week has been quite disastrous. Crab cakes – disaster. Various pasta dishes with too many steps – disasters. Roast pork sandwich – disaster. I have no idea what is going on with me but I am completely off my game for some reason. No fires were set, nothing was burned, but still disastrous all around in the kitchen lately. Even the dog didn’t want what I was making. Turned his nose up and walked away.

DIVA.

And then (this is very important news) I broke my last beautiful martini glass. And I almost cried. It was my favorite cocktail glass, once a set of six, and was the last man standing after two years of drunken gatherings with friends and family. And now she’s gone. Broken, shattered, never to be sipped from again. And I am in mourning.

In Christmas news, my Mom will be arriving Christmas day and I think the general plan is to be completely lazy together. Homeland marathon, Dexter marathon, Christmas movies and not much else. I’m hoping to take her to my favorite little Cuban place in Brooklyn and perhaps to Tertulia for Spanish tapas if we can muster the energy to go into Manhattan at some point, but overall, the plan is catch up on sleep, spend some quality time together and hang at home. Sounds oh so lovely. There will also be cooking, hopefully a new recipe here and there so I can post them here and confirm that my newfound cooking curse is over. Please let it be over.

In other news, I published two articles for My French LIfe/Ma Vie Francaise this month. The first is a short round up of Francophile favorites for Christmas and New Years. To see it, click here. The second focuses on Mon Petit Cafe, one of my favorite little French bistros tucked away in Manhattan. To see that article, click here.

So there you have it. I may or may not be blogging until after the New Year. We’ll see if motivation strikes me while I’m at home in my sweats watching TV and drinking a cocktail at two in the afternoon…I doubt it.

Keeping Up with Cooking – Pasta with Sausage, Basil, and Mustard

Oh Julia…you really do make a girl want to do better in the kitchen.

As I mentioned in a previous post there have been quite a few kitchen fails lately. Not an enormous amount, but enough where I’m becoming a bit too dependent on my go to dishes that I know I can’t fuck up. And once that pattern starts you just start to get lazy…and that, I have discovered, is the kitchen curse. Laziness leads to boring food. Boring food leads to zero motivation to cook. And zero motivation to cook leads to nothing but take out meals.

UNACCEPTABLE.

So despite my lack of motivation I rallied this past weekend and made a pretty decent dish. To be fair, the level of difficulty was quite low. First of all, it was a pasta dish. Never too complicated. And the additional elements didn’t require too much effort or ridiculous timing. As per usual I had to cut the recipe in half (which still resulted in leftovers) but this is a great dish for 3 or 4 people, or a small family.  And it’s delicious. Heavy for sure but really, really good if these are the types of flavors that generally appeal to you.

I got the recipe from Food and Wine – which has kind of become my go to lately for new things in the kitchen – but here it is in full:

Ingredients:

1. 1 pound penne or medium shells
2. 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
3. 8 hot Italian sausages, meat removed from casings and crumbled (about 1 1/2 pounds)
4. 3/4 cup dry white wine
5. 3/4 cup heavy cream
6. 3 tablespoons grainy mustard
7. Pinch of crushed red pepper
8. 1 cup thinly sliced basil

Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente; drain. Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large, deep skillet. Add the sausage meat and brown over moderately high heat, about 5 minutes. Add the wine and simmer, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom, until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Add the cream, mustard and crushed red pepper and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove the skillet from the heat, add the pasta and basil and toss to coat. Serve at once.

Here is the finished product in the pan before serving:

DELISH

This dish is extremely fall/winter friendly. It makes the kitchen smell all lovely with the sausage and the mustard flavors coming together and it fills you up fast. Gotta love it. Definitely worth a try if you’re looking for something that’s a whole lot of flavor without a whole lot of effort.

We’ll see what this weekend brings in terms of new recipes. I think I might try to make crab cakes. Yup. No particular motivation beyond that I love them and it would be a fun thing to know how to make. I’m also extremely intersted in trying brussels sprouts this weekend. They seem to be everyone’s new favorite vegetable, including mine. I’ve had some really good brussels sprouts out at dinner here and there and I’m really interested in finding a recipe for home that I love. To be honest, the recipe I want is the Nobu recipe for brussels sprouts because theirs are AMAZING. But of course, a published version of the recipe is nowhere to be found. So instead I’m gonna play with my instincts and a few options some friends have sent me and see what works. From what I hear the key is bacon. Bacon, butter, and garlic. Hard to go wrong.

YUMMMMMMMMMM.

If you have any amazing crab cake or brussels sprouts recipes please send them my way!

Lyrics of the Day

“From the dark end of the street
To the bright side of the road
We’ll be lovers once again on the
Bright side of the road

Little darlin’, come with me
Won’t you help me share my load
From the dark end of the street
To the bright side of the road

Into this life we’re born
Baby sometimes we don’t know why
And time seems to go by so fast
In the twinkling of an eye

Let’s enjoy it while we can
Won’t you help me sing my song
From the dark end of the street
To the bright side of the road

From the dark end of the street
To the bright side of the road
We’ll be lovers once again
On the bright side of the road
We’ll be lovers once again on the bright side of the road”

Bright Side of the Road, Van Morrison

Grilled Steak Sandwich a la Brooklyn

Sometimes the simplest meals are truly the best. Case in point – a grilled steak sandwich.

Normally I do not have grilled steak available to me, as the grill and I are not exactly best friends yet, and it’s been cold. Like actual winter cold. Go figure. But we had a freakishly warm evening this week and so steak was actually grilled on my little Weber grill (the same one I stole off the street – yup, true story) in my awesome backyard. There were of course leftovers and rather than waste them I thought why not attempt to make a good old fashioned sandwich?

My intention was to actually make a grilled steak panini but apparently the universe disagreed because within five minutes of heating up my panini maker I blew a fuse and everything in my kitchen went dark. And in case you were wondering, there’s nothing sadder than the beautiful sound of sautéing peppers and onions slowly fading away. Especially when you are extremely excited about your sandwich.

Fixing the fuse involved going down to the dark scary basement full of things I really did not need to see as a tenant of a building. Afterwards I was so traumatized by the thought of maybe blowing the fuse again that I just toasted the bread and all it’s contents in the oven. It turned out delicious so I suppose I didn’t need the panini maker…but if you have one and do not live in a super old building with dodgy wiring, you can make this with one if you have one. Here’s the finished product (yummmmmmmmmmmm):

So stupidly delicious

Ingredients:

Grilled steak (I used left over tri-tip grilled the night before)

Goat cheese

4 Basil leaves

1 Red pepper

1 Onion

Handful of Shredded mozzarella

French bread

Recipe (sort of):

Heat the oven to 425F

Slice the onion and red pepper and throw them in a pan to cook. Meanwhile cut the French bread to the size of your choosing and cut it down the middle so it opens like a sandwich. Spread goat cheese on the bottom side of the sandwich and place 3 to 4 basil leaves on top of the goat cheese. Place the grilled steak on top of the basil.

Once the peppers and onions are done to your liking, place them on top of the steak.

Sprinkle a handful of shredded mozzarella on the top side of the sandwich.

Place the sandwich open into a baking pan and cook for about 10 minutes. Et voila!

Super easy and super tasty. Definite winner.

Homemade Bolognese Sauce – Otherwise Known As An Entire Sunday Afternoon

the beginning stages of bolognese sauce

So apparently making bolognese sauce from scratch takes a long time. Like hours.

To be fair the “hours” it takes to make it can be filled with other things like showering, watching a movie, cleaning the house, etc as all that’s required in the final stage is that it simmer and be stirred from time to time. But still HOURS.

For reasons I can’t explain I chose a bolognese sauce recipe that I found on Oprah.com. Why I decided that was the best bolognese recipe to print out and try, I’ll never know, but I thankfully discovered early in the process of cooking the sauce that the recipe was far too bland for my taste. I was torn between trusting the recipe and trusting my instincts and thankfully my instincts won the war and I added three cloves of garlic, a bunch of chopped basil, and way more salt and pepper than indicated. Overall, it turned out quite good but it needed something…not sure what. It just needed that extra kick . Something to push it over the edge in terms of overall flavor and roundness. I was thinking maybe a bay leaf…but I’m not sure if that’s the solution. But I’m convinced there is some herb, some super special ingredient that could take it from being a completely decent and tasty bolognese to my super awesome bolognese recipe. I just have to figure out what that is…and once I do I will post the official recipe here. For now, it’s still very much a work in progress.

Either way, my first try at it was delicious and a very good start. Voici the finished product – cappellini with bolognese sauce:

A friend mentioned that using a thicker pasta like rigatoni is a more traditional preparation and what the Italians would likely cook with a bolognese sauce. This is undoubtedly true so if you’re going traditional go with a thicker pasta that can soak up the sauce and  handle the weight of it a bit more. I am a die hard cappellini fan (no idea why) so I cheated. But maybe I’ll use rigatoni next time.

If anyone has any awesome ingredient that they think is what I’m looking for please share!

Lyrics of the Day

“The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land
Plumes of smoke rise and merge into the leaden sky
A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers
But awakes to a morning with no reason for waking

He’s haunted by the memory of a lost paradise
In his youth or a dream, he can’t be precise
He’s chained forever to a world that’s departed
It’s not enough, it’s not enough

His blood has frozen and curdled with fright
His knees have trembled and given way in the night
His hand has weakened at the moment of truth
His step has faltered

One world, one soul
Time pass, the river rolls

And he talks to the river of lost love and dedication
And silent replies that swirl invitation
Flow dark and troubled to an oily sea
A grim intimation of what is to be

There’s an unceasing wind that blows through this night
And there’s dust in my eyes that blinds my sight
And silence that speaks so much louder that words

Of promises broken”

Sorrow, Pink Floyd

Cod with Chive Butter Sauce

A few folks have mentioned to me how impressed they are with how well I’ve been doing in the kitchen. How, with zero experience prior to this newfound hobby, I seem to be managing to make things that come out rather well. Now, while I am of course in love with all compliments, I think it’s important to burst the bubble I seem to have created on said blog. Because while everything I post about here has turned out well and worthy of documenting, there are a ton of things I’ve tried that have been full out disasters that I haven’t blogged about. Because why post pictures of ugly food cooked badly? So in reality, there have actually been a lot of frozen pizzas prepared in my kitchen after a recipe gone wrong. It’s true. I am not perfect. Shocking, I know.

Because of this reality, I’ve discovered that in order to make something new during the work week I now have to literally gear myself up for it at least 24 hours before.  I have to mentally prepare myself. Because new recipes are just awkward – it’s a bit confusing, your timing is off, the kitchen turns into a disaster area, and then after a meal that may or may not taste good you have to clean up the apparent bomb that went off in the kitchen. Why go through all that when you can just make that one thing you know how to make that takes ten minutes and will taste exactly as you expect it to?

But exprimenting is key in learning how to cook, so recently I decided to try and make cod with chive butter sauce and the result was pretty tasty. Not amazing. But definitely tasty. I’m not sure if it’s worth what felt like a lot of work, but it’s definitely something I’d eat again. There were too many steps for me to even stop to document the process with pictures so all you get is the finished product. Ta da!

Looks good enough to eat, no?

And it was. Quite good actually. The problem was the numerous steps. Too many fucking steps. You have to manage the sauce that’s cooking, the fish that’s searing, and if you’re like me and want something like rice or potatoes to go with it, you have to time that and keep an eye on it as well. Oh – and then of course you have to deal with and manage the demands of three animals standing in the kitchen watching you lose your mind while trying to communicate to you (i.e. getting in your way the entire time) that they’re hungry and you should really drop everything you’re doing and feed them immediately because, obviously that is all you’re there for.

Oof. It turned out to be a pretty exhausting preparation for what is actually a very simple meal. If you’re interested in the recipe here it is (taken from the Food Network):

Ingredients

• 4 (6-ounce) cod fillets
• Panko bread crumbs
• 2 eggs, for egg wash
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 4 tablespoons grapeseed oil
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 sprig fresh thyme
• Butter Sauce, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Place the fillets on a sheet tray or rack so the fish can release its natural juices.

Place the bread crumbs into a shallow dish. In a separate shallow dish add 2 beaten eggs. Season both sides of the fillet with salt and pepper. Once seasoned, brush the belly side of the cod with the egg. Dip the egg side into the bread crumbs.

In a cast iron skillet add grapeseed oil. Before placing fish into pan, make sure the skillet is very hot. Sear only 1 side of the fish (the side with the bread crumbs). Once 1 side is seared, place the skillet in the oven for about 3 to 4 minutes until cooked.

Once the fish is cooked, flip it over and add the lemon juice, butter and sprig of thyme. Let melt and baste the fish with the juice.

Pour over the Butter Sauce and serve.

Butter Sauce:

• 2 cups white wine (recommended: Chardonnay)
• 2 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 shallot, sliced
• 2 clove garlic, smashed
• 2 tablespoons heavy cream
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 2 tablespoons cold butter
• 3 tablespoons chopped chives
• Freshly cracked black pepper

In saucepan, add wine, sprigs of thyme, shallot and garlic. Set on back burner to allow the wine to reduce. Once the sauce is reduced to a syrup, strain and add the heavy cream, and lemon juice and bring to a slight simmer.

Whisk in cold butter and once melted add the fresh chives and season with black pepper.

Happy Cooking!

Lyrics of the Day

“How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the skyWake up the dawn and ask her why
A dreamer dreams she never dies
Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you when we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

Cos people believe that they’re
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we live and die
The world’s still spinning round
We don’t know why
Why, why, why, why

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

Cos people believe that they’re
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we live and die
The world’s still spinning round
We don’t know why
Why, why, why, why

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
We were getting high
We were getting high
We were getting high
We were getting high”

Champagne Supernova, Noel Gallagher, Oasis

Lyrics of the Day

“You thought that it could never happen
to all the people that you became,
your body lost in legend, the beast so very tame.
But here, right here,
between the birthmark and the stain,
between the ocean and your open vein,
between the snowman and the rain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.
The women in your scrapbook
whom you still praise and blame,
you say they chained you to your fingernails
and you climb the halls of fame.
Oh but here, right here,
between the peanuts and the cage,
between the darkness and the stage,
between the hour and the age,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

Shouldering your loneliness
like a gun that you will not learn to aim,
you stumble into this movie house,
then you climb, you climb into the frame.
Yes, and here, right here
between the moonlight and the lane,
between the tunnel and the train,
between the victim and his stain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

I leave the lady meditating
on the very love which I, I do not wish to claim,
I journey down the hundred steps,
but the street is still the very same.
And here, right here,
between the dancer and his cane,
between the sailboat and the drain,
between the newsreel and your tiny pain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.

Where are you, Judy, where are you, Anne?
Where are the paths your heroes came?
Wondering out loud as the bandage pulls away,
was I, was I only limping, was I really lame?
Oh here, come over here,
between the windmill and the grain,
between the sundial and the chain,
between the traitor and her pain,
once again, once again,
love calls you by your name.”

Love Calls You By Your Name, Leonard Cohen

Amelie Wine Bar – A NYC French Gem

photo courtesy of yelp

My latest article for Ma Vie Francaise/My French Life is up! The focus this month is my favorite wine bar (on both coasts) Amelie. It’s my go to end of week place for happy hour drinks with my dearest friends and a MUST visit for any francophile, French expat, or happy hour loving person in NYC.

To read the full article, click here.

Merci!