a few of my favorite (& least favorite) things

I haven't cooked anything new or bl*g-worthy lately (e.g., tonight's dinner was marinated, baked tofu and brown rice—jealous?), so I thought I'd share with you ten of my favorite GFD recipes from 2010. These aren't necessarily the most epicurean or elaborate items from the archive, but they're the foods (and a drink) I find myself returning to again and again—some because of demand (the chocolate-chip cookies may be the primary reason I'm ever invited anywhere for dinner), others for ease (avocado toast, anyone?), and all because they're delicious.

That's correct, I find raw kale delicious. Not just nourishing and healthful, but also comforting and scrumptious. Raw Tuscan Kale Salad was my refuge from the fat-fueled, boozy sugar high that is the last couple weeks of December. When running from event to event shoving white food in my face finally overwhelmed me, I donned my fleece and retired to the couch, where I caught up on Gossip Girl (why can't Blair and Chuck just be together?) and ate this salad. The holidays are over (praise Jah), so you can skip the office parties and family gatherings, the chips and dips and roasts and cookies and punch, and move straight to the trashy TV and garlicky, peppery salad.


Other foods that I like to eat on the couch in front of the television include...well, all foods, actually. But especially soups. There's nothing like a warm bowl of soup and the blue glow of the television to help a girl forget that it gets dark at 4 p.m. Bright, lemony Red Lentil Soup With Lemon was featured on this bl*g in 2010, but I've been cooking it for years and never tire of it. Unlike winter, which I'm already so sick of I could (and do) cry.

Asparagus, Rice, and Pancetta Soup, on the other hand, I made for the first time in 2010, and then went on to make it a second, third, fourth, and fifth. Right now it has me pining for spring, when the asparagus tips will begin peeking through the soil. Because that's pretty much the only springlike event in Vermont, unless you count mud, barren trees, gray skies, and daffodils dusted with snow. But once that asparagus shoots up, I'll combine it with salty pancetta, loads of Parmesan cheese, fresh thyme, and white rice, and eat a warm bowlful while I watch the m*therf%ck!n' snow continue to fall.


If and when summer finally arrives, I'll make Chilled Thai Squash Soup, a cold, spicy slurp of a soup that's perfect for cooling off on a hot day (something I cannot even imagine right now as I sit at my computer wearing long underwear, fleece pants, a long-sleeved shirt, wool sweater dress, sweater, and scarf, an outfit that in some states is grounds for divorce). Also perfect for cooling off on a hot day are Creamy Raspberry Popsicles. I didn't discover these until late last summer, at which point I made a batch every week until raspberries went out of season. Some days I ate a popsicle for breakfast, another for elevenses, one for dessert after lunch, one for mid-afternoon snack, and one after dinner but before walking to the lake to buy a creemee and watch the sun set (at 9 p.m.). My god, I love summer.


I'm not sure when avocados are in season, but I eat No-You-Don't-Need-a-Recipe Avocado Toast year round. Before you judge remember that I live in Vermont, where being a localvore would require surviving on beets and turnips from October through April and forgoing most fruit save berries and apples. So I supplement my diet with avocados that are flown in from some tropical location I'm thinking I should move to. Mashed with the juice from a lime that I hope for the sake of my carbon footprint arrived on the same plane as the avocado and sprinkled with salt from France, this snack is about as unlocal as I can get without trotting over to McDonald's, and far more delicious than a Chicken McNugget.

While I haven't actually stepped foot in a McDonald's for years, I have been known to walk catatonically around Costco, which is where I buy one of the ingredients for Sun-Dried Tomato and Pistachio Pesto. Not the pistachios


the sun-dried tomatoes. Although I usually come home with, in addition to the tomatoes, a migraine and a mega-supply of something I don't need, the trip is totally worth it. Even if you don't like sun-dried tomatoes. Or pistachios. Or Costco. Make a double batch of pesto and freeze portions to eat on those winter nights when you can't bring yourself to do much more than boil a pot of water for pasta but need to eat something delicious to remind yourself that life is worth living.

If that doesn't work, drown your sorrows in a few It Was a Dark and Stormy Nights.

For the drowning of the sorrows I also recommend Possibly the Best Chocolate-Chip Cookies Ever. Unfortunately, they require 36 hours of lead time, and I don't know about you, but when I'm ready to drown my sorrows, I need to drown them RIGHT NOW, not in a day in a half. Fortunately, Possibly the Best Chocolate-Chip Cookies Ever freeze well, so you can make the batter when you're not in the throes of depression and bake a cookie whenever you need a little pick-me-up. They're also good for winning friends and influencing people.


I should probably end this post here, with dessert, but instead I'm going to close out this look back at 2010 GFD recipes/diatribe against winter with salad dressing. I'm generally a fan of shortcuts in the kitchen, but I just can't abide store-bought dressing—olive oil and a little lemon juice or good balsamic vinegar are preferable to anything sold in a bottle. Sometimes I'll get fancy and add fresh herbs or make dressings that require a blender, a recipe, or more than four ingredients, but since I had it for the first time last spring, this simple Red-Wine Vinaigrette has been the most common accompaniment to my greens. The ingredients are few and all staples, the effort required just barely more than unscrewing the greasy cap to that bottle of Wish-Bone that's been sitting in your fridge door for god know's how long. And when viewed from above in the right light, a jar of this dressing resembles the sun, something I haven't seen in so long I can't remember what it looks like.

guest post: my greek stepmother

[This is the first of a few guests posts you'll be seeing over the coming months, this one from my Greek stepmother, one of the best cooks I know.]

I’ve been fixated on sour cherries since last year when some friends told me they make the most delicious cobbler ever. I scored two quarts at a farmers market, baked that cobbler, and was in love. But when I returned for more, their short (two weeks? two days?) season was over.

This summer, when I spied trees laden with tart cherries at a local farm, I bought all the farm stand would sell me (believe it or not, there was a waiting list for those cherries)


and spent the next 24 hours pitting, cooking, and freezing the little darlings (frozen, pitted cherries are nearly as delicious as fresh), in hopes that maybe, possibly, this year I will eat my fill.

The chore was not easy. I mean, it’s not like lifting heavy rocks, but it still left me with a stiff back and neck. Each one of those soft, tiny orbs needed to be stemmed and the pit removed, preferably without damaging the fruit’s fragile shape. This job requires patience, at least three back-to-back podcasts of This American Life, and a superior ability to multitask so that when your granddog escapes out the front door midway through the process you can launch a search party (I’m looking at you, Chester Arthur Miller).


I acknowledge that I am one of those people who enjoys the obscure, the hard-to-get, the fleeting. That tiny character flaw has brought me more trouble more often than I would like to (or will) admit.

Sour cherries, however, are completely worth it.

As a reward for pitting all those cherries, I treated myself to a Sour Cherry Gin Muddler, courtesy of last week’s NYTimes.


Then I made Sour Cherry Clafoutis, a light, airy dessert that was perfectly complemented by the presence of tart cherries—delicious.

By the time you read this, the ridiculously short, fragile sour cherry season will probably be over, and I will be harvesting my freezer to try Claudia Roden’s Little Meatballs With Cherries.

Just to be completely clear, my freezer is chained and locked.

Note: I used Montmorency cherries, a variety of tart cherry that is bright red with clear juice; the other type is Morello, which are purple with dark, staining juice and more sour. Both are delicious and will work in these recipes; just wear a rubber apron when you pit the Morellos.

Sour Cherry Gin Muddler
From Melissa Clark at the New York Times, who calls this a cross between Kat Kinsman’s sour cherry cocktail and a classic aviation cocktail. I call it a delicious way to drink gin, which, to be completely honest, is perfect straight from the bottle.

1. Place three pitted sour cherries and a thin lemon slice in the bottom of a rocks glass. Add half a teaspoon or so of sugar and muddle until the cherries are smashed up but not pureed.

2. Pack the glass with ice and top with gin. Float a teaspoon or two of maraschino liqueur on top (or the juice from a jar of maraschino cherries, assuming you have high-quality ones without a bunch of dye and additives; which of course you do, if, like me, Manhattans are your winter drink of choice.)

Sour Cherry Clafoutis
From Gourmet Magazine, May 2008, created by Dana Cree of Veil, in Seattle

5 egg yolks
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup Amaretto
½ cup flour, sifted
½ teaspoon salt
3 egg whites
¼ cup sugar
1 cup heavy cream
About 2 pounds (1½–2 quarts) fresh sour cherries, stemmed, and pitted

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly butter a large baking pan (round is nice if you have one) and cover the bottom with cherries.

2. With a stand or hand mixer (I used a stand mixer, which was quick and easy), whip the egg yolks and sugar to a thick pale ribbon. Whisk in Amaretto until combined. Fold in the flour and salt. Set aside.

3. Whip the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Add the sugar and continue whipping until stiff and glossy. (I did this first because I was too lazy to wash the egg yolks off the beater, but if you, too, are lazy, proceed quickly with the rest of the whipping so it doesn’t sit around very long.)

4. Whip the cream until it forms soft peaks.

5. Fold the cream into the yolk mixture in two batches. Fold the meringue into the batter in two batches.

6. Cover the cherries with clafoutis batter, pressing slightly as you spread and encouraging the batter to fill any crevices between the fruit. Bake 20–25 minutes (more or less, depending on the size of the pan), until golden brown and set. Serve immediately (best) with vanilla ice cream, or even cold, which is surprisingly good as well.


[Hello, bitches, it's me again, here to let you know that I was lucky enough to both taste the clafoutis hot out of the oven and eat a leftover piece cold the next day. For breakfast, if you must know. I highly recommend it either way. Or even better, both.]

this time with pasta

I don't have a lot of original ideas right now, because I'm too busy proofreading other people's original ideas. So this weekend when I finally had a spare hour to cook, I opted for an ingredient combination I've relied on heavily this spring, asparagus and pancetta.


Asparagus and pancetta! Two great tastes that taste great together! You've got your crisp, fresh vegetable and your salty, cured pork; your green stem and your pink flesh; your vitamin provider and your artery clogger. We know they pair well in hash, they're delicious together in soup, and I can now vouch for their union in pasta.

But the dish I made on Saturday wasn't just any pasta (keep reading, my vegetarian friends, my asparagus-hating frenemies, there's something here for you, too!), it was absorption pasta. Perhaps you've heard of it? Sometimes referred to as cooking pasta "risotto style," the absorption method uses a small amount of stock instead of gallons of water, which produces creamy, al dente pasta in a flavorful pan sauce. I chose this particular recipe because of my lack of originality, but the pancetta and asparagus could be substituted with just about anything edible—I found recipes online for absorption pasta made with everything from mushrooms and chicken to chocolate and zucchini. The recipe I worked from suggested using pancetta and asparagus in the spring; roasted squash, sage, and walnuts in the fall; sausage and kale in the winter; heirloom tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella in late summer. What I'm getting at here is that the technique is versatile.

And the technique is easy, too. Calling it "risotto-style pasta" is misleading, because making risotto is a pain in the ass, while making risotto-style pasta is not. There are variations, but here's the gist: heat some oil in a pan; add and sauté shallots or garlic or onions; add the dry pasta and a cup or two of liquid (broth or water);


bring the liquid to a simmer and cook, adding more liquid as necessary, until the pasta is done to your liking.

This isn't just a slightly more complicated way to cook your spaghetti. Pasta made this way tastes different than the kind that's boiled in a vat of water—better, in my opinion. Closer to the texture of fresh pasta, and much more flavorful. The pancetta and asparagus didn't hurt, either, of course.

Absorption Pasta With Asparagus and Pancetta
Adapted from a recipe by Kate Flaim on design*sponge

2 tablespoons olive oil
3 slices of pancetta, chopped
2 shallots, finely sliced
¾ lb. penne
3–4 cups stock [I used Imagine's No Chicken Broth]
1 pound of asparagus, woody ends removed, cut on the bias into penne-sized pieces, with the tips kept separate


zest & juice of 1 lemon
feta cheese
s&p

1. Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven or large saucepan over medium heat. Add the pancetta and cook until crisp. Remove the meat with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel.

2. Add the shallots or onion to the warm oil (and um, rendered pork fat) in the Dutch oven and cook until soft, just a minute or so. Throw in the pasta and stir to coat with oil.

3. Add 1–2 cups of stock to the pot, enough to not-quite-cover the pasta. Bring to a simmer but keep from boiling.

4. Cook, stirring frequently and adding more stock in half cups as necessary: The pasta should be neither soupy nor dry.

5. Begin tasting the pasta after 5–7 minutes. When it is tender but with a tiny bit of crunch, add the asparagus stalks. At this point, you'll want to stir quite frequently and monitor closely so the pan doesn't dry out, continuing to add liquid as necessary. When the pasta is nearly finished, add the asparagus tips and cook another minute or two until the pasta is done to your liking (keep in mind that it will continue to cook after you take it off the heat, and err on the side of al dente).

6. There should be some reduced stock at the bottom of the pan: When tossed with the pasta it becomes a silky sauce. Add the pancetta, lemon zest, and 1 tablespoon of lemon juice (or more to taste). Add freshly ground pepper, but taste again before salting—the pancetta added plenty of saltiness to mine, and keep in mind that you'll be adding feta, which can be salty, as well.

7. Serve topped with feta cheese.

the mark bittman minimalist club: asparagus pesto; hmmm...

If not for the fact that I am its founding and only member, I might just quit the Mark Bittman Minimalist Club right about now. But not only am I the sole member, I am also the club's president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. So I will carry on—for the sake of the club, for Mark Bittman, for the children, for the "Clubs, Associations, and Secret Societies" section of my résumé, and, dear GFDers, for you.

Asparagus. So delicious. Why not turn it into pesto? I'll tell you why: Because the pesto will taste mostly like Parmesan cheese. Or mine did anyway. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it's not so good that it's worth buying a very expensive pound of local asparagus, hauling out the Cuisinart, and repeatedly pressing pulse.

Mark Bittman says the pesto should taste like "asparagus with additional punch." He also says that "pesto means paste." Mine tasted more like paste than extra punch. Perhaps I did something wrong?


In my role as the Mark Bittman Minimalist Club's senior recruitment officer, I would like to invite you to join this elite society. Here is your initiation rite: Make Mark Bittman's asparagus pesto, but don't follow the recipe exactly, and taste as you go along. Puree the asparagus, half the amount of called-for cheese, the oil, the pine nuts, the garlic, the s&p. Taste. Add more cheese, asparagus-cooking liquid, and s&p, as needed. Finish off with a generous squeeze of lemon juice. When you've completed this ritual, we'll meet in a firelit cave (I'll be the one with the paper bag over her head), you'll spread pesto in stripes across your cheeks and take a vow of lifetime loyalty to the club and its president, and then I will teach you the secret handshake. Good luck! And by the way, how'd that pesto turn out?

Asparagus Pesto
From the New York Times

Salt
1 pound asparagus, trimmed and cut into 2-inch segments
1 clove garlic, or more to taste
¼ cup pine nuts
¼ cup olive oil, or more as desired
¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
Juice of ½ lemon, or to taste

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil and salt it. Add the asparagus and cook until fully tender but not mushy, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain well, reserving some of the cooking liquid, and let the asparagus cool slightly.

2. Transfer the asparagus to a food processor and add the garlic, pine nuts, 2 tablespoons of the oil, Parmesan, a pinch of salt and a couple of tablespoons of the cooking liquid. Process the mixture, stopping to scrape down the sides of the container if necessary, and gradually add the remaining oil and a bit more of the reserved cooking liquid to moisten if necessary. Add the lemon juice and season with salt and pepper to taste, pulse one last time, and serve over pasta, fish or chicken (or cover and refrigerate for up to a day).

no gruel for brunch

I have some strong opinions about brunch. For example, I don't like the term brunch, which reminds me of hotel buffets and eggs Benedict. I also don't like hotel buffets or eggs Benedict. Which is not to say I have anything against fancy food at brunch. In fact, in my strong, and usually pro-gruel, opinion, there's no place at the brunch table (or counter) for gruel.

This appears to be one of the few areas of culinary common ground the yachtsman and I share: No gruel for brunch. We are not a yogurt and granola people. We'll pass on that fruit salad, thank you very much. Pancakes? Perfect, if they're of the buttermilk or, even better, gingerbread variety; the only whole wheat at brunch should be in the toast. Other than that, we're up for most anything: greasy egg sandwiches; fried chicken and waffles; cheesy scrambled eggs; huevos rancheros. We love coffeecake and pancakes, cornbread and biscuits, waffles and French toast. Potatoes are key, of course: home fries, hash browns, latkes. And the yachtsman will eat just about any breakfast meat, though I've never seen him take out a slab of scrapple, and that's probably for the best.

One morning of each weekend we eat out: The yachtsman prefers diners, I will never tire of the Penny Cluse. The morning we don't eat out usually involves bagels, but occasionally we actually crack a few eggs and cook something brunchy in our own kitchen. For example, the yachtsman makes a mean griddled egg sandwich, and I make a mean face while I wait for him to finish cooking my food.

This morning, to kick off Aspragus Week here at GFD, I made Asparagus and Pancetta Hash. This is not gruel, friends, it's brunch food: You've got your potatoes, your bacon (the Italian kind), and the one green vegetable glistens with fat. Yes, fat. Pancetta renderings. Also, this dish is salty. Also, it is fucking delicious. Whether you're a gruel lover or player hater, I'm pretty sure you'll like this hash. If you're a vegetarian, I feel sad for you, because not eating this hash is a real loss. And I fear that a vegetarian version of this would...well, I fear it would suck, frankly. See "pancetta renderings," above.

But all you no-gruel-for-brunchers should try this at home: Dice and sauté some pancetta, potatoes, onion, and asparagus. Serve with a sunny-side-up egg on top, as I did for brunch this morning, or eat it unadorned, as I will for lunch tomorrow.


Asparagus Pancetta Hash
From Smitten Kitchen

Makes enough to top with four eggs

¼ pound pancetta, cut into ¼-inch dice
Olive or canola oil
1 pound Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into a ½-inch dice
1 small yellow onion, chopped small
½ pound asparagus, tough ends trimmed and cut into 1-inch segments
s&p

1. Heat a 12-inch or larger frying pan over medium heat. Fry the pancetta, turning it frequently so that it browns and crisps on all sides; this takes about 10 minutes. Remove the pancetta from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain it on paper towels. Leave the heat on and the renderings in the pan.

2. If necessary, add some oil to the pan, enough so that between the pancetta renderings and the oil the bottom of the pan is coated (depending on how fatty your pancetta is or how well seasoned your pan is, you may not need any oil at all). Add the potatoes, season with salt and pepper, and let cook on one side without moving until they’ve started to brown underneath, then begin flipping and turning them, letting them cook again for a few minutes between turns, until they’re close to being browned on all sides, about 15 minutes.

3. When the potatoes are almost as crisped and brown as you’d like them, add the onion (if added too early, the onion will burn). Cook for an additional 5 minutes or so, until the potatoes are cooked through and nicely browned.

4. Add the asparagus, cover the pan, and cook for 5 to 8 minutes, or until the asparagus is tender but still crisp. Remove the lid and return the pancetta to the pan for another minute to reheat. Taste for seasoning and adjust if needed, then serve.

wherever i go, my couch will follow

I'm pretty sure I should call in sick today. You know, to myself. I do have a sore throat. And for days, no matter how much I sleep I'm still tired. Or I think I'm tired. It's possible I'm confusing tiredness and laziness.

Should we buy a house? I walked by this one yesterday while out with C. Arthur Miller. The yard was full of what I think a realtor would call "mature plantings."

I read that yesterday's hard frost may have seriously damaged not only this summer's strawberry and blueberry crops, but next fall's apples, as well. This changes everything, obviously.

The yachtsman won't live in a red state, which rules out the South. He also won't live on the West Coast because he doesn't want to be "three hours behind." This rules out Portland, Oregon, where I've never been, but an online personality-test-type thing I took awhile ago determined I should live there.

The lure of the couch is very strong right now. The couch, a pot of tea, last night's episode of Lost.

On Saturday we went to the first farmers market of the summer. It was freezing cold and raining, and the next day it snowed. There were basically three things for sale: greens, asparagus, and radishes. Also, baked goods and pottery.

Looking at these charts of vegetables and fruits that are in season and being sold at the beautiful farmers market at the Ferry building in San Francisco is not a good idea. And it's not fair, either. It's like comparing apples to oranges. Or, in this case, radishes to cherries.

If we lived in California I'd be eating cherries right now. Actually, if we lived in California I'd still be in bed. Fer shur. However, if we lived in California, Arnold Schwarzenegger would be my governor, which is unacceptable. And if we lived in San Francisco, specifically, I would be forced by law to compost.

So for now, radishes.

As you may recall, last spring I was obsessed with a little shizzle I like to call radish toast, so when I saw this recipe for Seared Radish Crostini, I had to give it a try. Crostini is just a fancy word for toast, after all. And this is basically a fancier, fattier, deliciouser version of last year's radish toast.


The key is the bagna cauda. Did I impress you with that term? In my mind I call it crack sauce: melted butter, olive oil, lots of garlic, anchovies, parsley. So. Good. Spread the bagna cauda on crostini and top with seared radishes, and you have a little shizzle I like to call fancy radish toast with crack sauce.

Fancy Radish Toast With Crack Sauce
from the New York Times

1 bunch radishes
9 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
½ teaspoon kosher salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
4 tablespoons butter
8 anchovy fillets, finely chopped [If you don't like anchovies you could leave them out, but how about trying it first with just one or two?]
4 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
Pinch red pepper flakes
8 thin slices crusty bread, toasted
4 teaspoons chopped parsley

1. Remove leaves and stems from radishes; trim the tails. Cut larger radishes lengthwise into sixths and smaller radishes lengthwise into quarters.

2. Place a large skillet over medium-high heat until very hot. Add 1 tablespoon oil, radishes in a single layer (do not crowd), and salt and pepper. Cook radishes, without moving them, until they are lightly colored on undersides, about 3 minutes. Shake pan and continue cooking until tender, about 3 more minutes.

3. In a small skillet over medium heat, melt butter. Stir in anchovies, garlic, red pepper, and remaining oil. [I wasn’t paying attention and also stirred in the parsley, which I think I’ll do next time, too.] Reduce heat and simmer about 4 minutes.

4. Brush each slice of toast with sauce and top with several radish wedges. Spoon additional sauce on top, sprinkle with parsley and serve. [I made one up for the photo, but my stepmom had the idea to serve these “deconstructed”—the three separate parts (toasted bread, bagna cauda, radishes) on a platter so everyone could make their own.]

soup no. 1

I recently made a couple of similar soups, both of which feature an early-spring vegetable, rice, and a secret-weapon ingredient. I'd originally planned to pit the two soups and their secret weapons against each other in a match to the death on this bl*g, but I actually really like them both, and why does everything have to be a contest all the time, anyway?

Then I thought I'd take the best of both soups and combine them into a super soup—a souper!—but I'd like full credit for having made them both and am not up for the math and Sophie's-Choice-type decisions involved in combining them. So I present to you no. 1 of 2, Asparagus, Rice, and Pancetta Soup.

[If there was in fact going to be a soup deathmatch, I think this one would win—I'm quite smitten with it, even after eating it for a week straight. It's certainly delicious and good looking enough to serve to guests, plus the flavors are more complex than soup no. 2. I love the little bits of pancetta and grains of rice in every bite, and the cheese adds an unexpected richness. But this is not a contest.]

A few notes:

1. The original recipe calls for a "small bunch of thyme, leaves only." The first time I made this soup I had the yachtsman remove the leaves from the stems of the thyme; there was a lot of complaining, because it turns out this is a very irritating job. The second time I made this the yachtsman was out of town so I had to do my own menial labor, and I was able to get about 2 tablespoons of thyme leaves before I went insane, hence the measurement in the recipe. Do what you can, as the thyme does add a nice flavor.



2. The original recipes calls for chicken stock; I used Imagine's No Chicken Broth, because though I apparently have no problem with the pig (which is, in fact, this soup's secret weapon), I'm still disturbed by poultry. Any good stock will do, but it really should be good, as it's the backbone of this dish.

3. I translated this recipe from the British, however both times I made it I forgot to measure my weighed cheese before I dumped it in the pot. Let's just say it's a lot of cheese. Maybe ¾ cup? Does that seem excessive? Could everyone just buy a scale already? The next time I make this I'll update the recipe; in the meantime, use the power of the Force or the ghost of Julia Child or whoever as your guide. But do add the cheese—the first time I made this I tasted the soup pre-cheese, and it was so good I couldn't imagine the cheese would improve on it. But it does. Just ask Yoda or Julia Child or whoever.

Asparagus, Rice, and Pancetta Soup
Adapted from My Favourite Ingredients by Skye Gyngell



2–3 tablespoons of olive oil
2 red onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh thyme (leaves only)
s&p
5 slices of pancetta, chopped into small pieces
3 garlic cloves, minced
½ cup white rice
4 cups good stock
2 cups water
~15 asparagus spears
75 g freshly grated Parmesan

1. Warm enough olive oil to cover the bottom of your Dutch oven over medium/medium-low heat. Add the onions, thyme, and a pinch of salt


and sweat for 10 minutes or until the onions are soft, sweet, and translucent.

2. Add the pancetta pieces and the garlic and cook for another 10 minutes or so, then add the rice and give everything a quick stir. Add the stock and water, and bring to a simmer. Turn the heat down to low, cover the pan, and cook until the rice is done but still chewy, ~20 minutes.

3. While the rice is cooking, prepare the asparagus. Snap off and discard the ends, then slice the stalks into short pieces. Add the asparagus to the soup and cook for 2–3 minutes until just tender. Add the parmesan and stir. Season with s&p.

buying high, selling low

Things have been hectic this week here at GFD. There was the snow, obviously, which kept me busy weeping and cursing god. And I've been diligently working to re-create the Dark & Stormy I had at the Bluebird on Saturday, which has also been time consuming. I went to a cooking class on Tuesday night, where I like to think I learned to make Chinese dumplings. Plus I've been swamped with proofreading. I do have a couple of spring-vegetable soup recipes I'm excited to share with you, perhaps the last soups of the season. But tonight I recommend a Dark & Stormy.

It Was a Dark & Stormy Night
Ice
Kraken rum


Ginger beer
Lime
Candied ginger

Place ice cubes in a tall glass. Pour some Kraken rum over ice, then add plenty of fresh lime juice* (I use the juice of one lime) and ginger beer. Garnish with a slice of lime and candied ginger. Or, garnish with a slice of lime and eat handfuls of candied ginger while you weep, sip your drink, and curse god.

*Thanks to Mojie & EBids for the research & tip!

who's the picky eater now? huh? who?

If I'm eating out, pasta with sun-dried-tomato pesto is probably the last thing I'll order off a menu. Just before all the dishes that have mushrooms in them, and also anything with meat. And shellfish. I don't eat shellfish. So maybe the sun-dried-tomato pesto would be, like, the ninth-to-last thing I'd hypothetically order off a hypothetical menu in a hypothetical restaurant.

What I'm trying to say here is that there's nothing appealing to me about sun-dried-tomato pesto. In fact, I'm not a big fan of sun-dried tomatoes at all. So it's somewhat shocking to me how much I love this pesto I'm about to tell you about. I mean, I really love it. As in, the second time I made it, I doubled the recipe, froze a little, and then ate the rest, two to three times a day, for a week. I had it for dinner on pasta. I had it for breakfast on toast. I spread it on crackers and dipped tortilla chips in it. I put a little dollop on some rindless chèvre and served it to friends. Some of it may have been eaten by the spoonful while standing in front of the open fridge—you will never know.

So it's versatile, obviously. And a little addictive. Easy to make. It freezes well. Need I go on?

A few notes:

* The first time I ate this it was on some gnocchi my stepmom prepared. She'd learned to make both the pesto and the potato pasta at a cooking class taught by Lee Duberman of Ariel's Restaurant in Brookfield, Vt. But since then I've eaten it with other pastas (mostly spaghetti, and mostly whole-wheat spaghetti, if you must know), because in spite of having my own personal lesson, I'm scared to try making gnocchi on my own. But I still employ the technique my stepmom used to toss the gnocchi with the pesto: Cook the pasta (to al dente if it's not gnocchi) in very salty water and reserve a cupful of the water before draining. Drain the pasta, heat a frying pan over medium-high heat, throw in a hefty dollop of the pesto and a splash of the pasta water, stir them together while they sizzle crazily, then toss in a serving or two of pasta, mix it all up, add more pesto or cooking water as needed, and eat.

* Like I said, the pesto is versatile. Eating it on tortilla chips is probably not for everyone, but at room temperature on top of goat cheese it's a real crowd pleaser.

* The recipe calls for pistachios, which my stepmom complained about having to shell. They do sell them unshelled, but hazelnuts might make a good substitution. Try it at least once with the pistachios; they're really not that much work.


* At the cooking class Lee Duberman apparently suggested a particular brand of sun-dried tomatoes, from Costco. I bought some, but I imagine any SDTs in oil would do.


* Rumor has it that Lee Duberman has a cookbook coming out soon, which I hope is true. In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a trip to Ariel's, which I've never tried, though Mark Bittman appears to be a big fan...

* And lastly, it turns out I really like to take pictures of pistachios, so I'll get another one out of the way here:


Sun-Dried-Tomato and Pistachio Pesto
From a cooking class by Lee Duberman

½ cup sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil
½ cup shelled pistachios


1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
¼ cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese
½ teaspoon salt, or more to taste
¼ cup oil from the tomatoes
¼ cup olive oil

Place all the ingredients except the oils in a food processer or blender.


Turn on machine and purée ingredients for about 1 minute. With machine still running, slowly drizzle in both oils.


Store pesto in the fridge for up to 1 week or freeze.

leftovers, last of

I've had bad luck lately with red lentils. Which is better than having bad luck with men, bad luck with the law, or a trick knee, but still. It's been disappointing: the mediocre dal, a delicious meal of red lentils and pasta I ate in Maryland over the holidays but was unable to re-create at home. So I turned last weekend to an old standby, a red lentil dish that has never let me down.

I'm surprised I've never written here before about Red Lentil Soup With Lemon, as it's been one of my favorites since I made it for the first time a couple years ago. At first glance it might not look particularly special, but unlike that deadbeat dal or the red-lentil pasta dish I just can't master, this soup is a sure thing.


This may be a lentil dish, but it's an elegant one: If the lentils are the backbone of the soup, the cumin and chili powder are its little black dress, the lemon and cilantro sparkling accessories. It's definitely suitable to serve to guests, which I did last Saturday, and makes great leftovers, too, which I ate all week, natch.

Red Lentil Soup With Lemon
From the New York Times

3 tablespoons olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 teaspoon ground cumin
¼ teaspoon kosher salt, more to taste
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
A pinch [or two] of ground chili powder or cayenne, more to taste
1 quart chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup red lentils
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
Juice of ½ lemon, more to taste [I use closer to a whole lemon, depending on how juicy it is]
3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro [don't skip this; it's more than just a garnish]

1. In a large pot, heat 3 tablespoons oil over high heat until hot and shimmering. Add onion and garlic, and sauté until golden, about 4 minutes.

2. Stir in tomato paste, cumin, salt, black pepper, and chili powder or cayenne, and sauté for 2 minutes longer.

3. Add broth, 2 cups water, lentils, and carrot. Bring to a simmer, then partially cover pot and turn heat to medium-low. Simmer until lentils are soft, about 30 minutes. Taste and add salt if necessary.

4. Using an immersion or regular blender or a food processor, purée half the soup [or more, I usually purée closer to three-quarters of it] then add it back to pot. Soup should be somewhat chunky.

5. Reheat soup if necessary, then stir in lemon juice and cilantro.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend. The yachtsman is off to Vegas, where he's going to bet our life savings at the craps table, while I stay home, proofread, and bake cookies. Seriously. I've been thinking about these chocolate chip cookies for over a year, so I think I can wait the 36 hours between making the dough and baking the cookies. And if I can't, no one will be the wiser.

lake, kale

Awhile ago I was eating dinner out when a beautiful woman walked into the restaurant. Everything about this woman was eye catching: Not only was she beautiful, she was tall and statuesque, elegantly dressed, perfectly coiffed. Throughout the evening I found my eyes wandering to where the woman sat, first at the bar, then at a nearby table. And I wasn't the only one: Everyone in the restaurant watched her, some people staring outright, others glancing over every few seconds, like swimmers coming up for air.

I've had a similar feeling lately about our lake. There's just about no place I'd rather be than Vermont in the summer, but our lake is at its most beautiful during the darkest days of winter, and I've found myself wanting to look at it as much as possible. I take long walks back and forth along the bike path that runs next to it, I explore the streets that border it hoping for a glimpse, I loiter in the park on the hill that overlooks it, I bring my poor dog down to the pier and we shiver and watch the waves crash against the breakwater. Basically, I'm stalking the lake.

Stalking the lake has taken me down several streets I rarely walk, and while I was out one day recently, I noticed that there is lacinato kale growing outside the Burlington Police Station.

Lacinato kale is the opposite of a drop-dead gorgeous woman in a restaurant, or a violently beautiful lake in winter. Kale is not pretty to look at and something most people don't want to have think about, let alone see on their plate.

But here in our utopian little city, people feel differently about kale. It's grown outside municipal buildings, apparently, and a local restaurant has a neon sign advertising when kale is being served inside.


In spite of its popularity in my little hometown, though, I was slow to convert. My few experiences being served kale (steamed, usually) epitomized everything that can be wrong with gruel when cooked by the wrong hands: It tasted like health food, and not in a good way. So when I first tried the dish below, I used a mix of greens, as the original recipe suggested, usually one bunch of kale and one of chard. And it was good, but I noticed that my favorite bites were the ones that contained kale, and I found my fork seeking it out in the bowl.

Braising brings out the best in this hearty green—when cooked properly it is tender but toothsome and slightly sweet. The chick peas are a nice addition both for flavor and a bit of protein, though the dish would be good without them if you're not a fan, and the lemon juice adds a splash of sass.

What I'm trying to say is that while kale may not catch your attention, this dish is worth taking a look at.


Braised Kale With Chick Peas
adapted from Orangette

2 bunches of lacinato kale, ~1½ pounds total
3 tablespoons evoo
2 large cloves garlic, minced
½ medium yellow onion, minced
1 can (15½ ounces) chickpeas, drained and rinsed
Salt
Freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. Trim the central ribs from the kale and discard them. Wash the leaves and drain well in a colander. Don't bother to pat them dry; they should be slightly damp when they go into the pan. Stack the leaves a few at a time, and slice them crosswise into ¼-inch-wide ribbons.

2. In a large skillet that has a lid that fits, warm the oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and onion, and sauté until the onion is soft and just translucent, about 5–10 minutes (stop before they brown). Add the chickpeas, and stir to mix. Add the kale to the pan, season well with salt, and stir to blend. You will most likely have to add the kale in batches, letting it cook down slightly to make room. Cook, stirring occasionally, until you've added all the kale and can cover the skillet.

3. Once the pan is covered, lower the heat so that the kale is braising gently, and cook until it is tender, 10–15 minutes. You'll want to taste as you go to ensure you don't overcook the greens, removing them from the heat when they are tender but before they are mushy.

4. Remove the kale from the pan and drizzle with fresh lemon juice to taste (I usually use the juice of half of one lemon), add more salt if necessary.


This dish can be served warm or at room temperature, as a side dish or the main course (as long as you're not feeding the yachtsman). It makes great leftovers, which I keep in the fridge and often eat cold for lunch, or, if I'm patient enough, I let them come up to room temperature. Since the yachtsman is not around to make gagging noises, I think that tomorrow I might try them warm with a soft-boiled egg on top, after which I'll head out for my morning gawk at the lake.

warm soup, winter's night

Today was the first real storm of the season, pinpricks of dry snow whispering through the trees this morning, big, wet flakes at midday, rain this evening. It was overcast and cold, but beautiful, too, the landscape a rich palette of grays and blues and white. I went for two long walks, and after my second came home and made lentil soup.

I've been thinking about this lentil soup for a long time. Years, in fact: A friend of the yachtsman's mom's brought it to the house the night the yachtsman's stepdad died. As I remembered it, the soup was deeply flavorful and very comforting, but I've never been sure if it was really that good or if its magic was in the need it fulfilled, the way a mediocre meal can taste amazing when you're famished—perhaps I had eaten it on a night when anything warm and sustaining would have tasted good to me.

But I can tell you now that the soup lives up to my memory of it. The secret ingredient, I think, is the red wine, and I used Rapunzel bouillon, which I swear makes the best non-homemade vegetable broth out there. The recipe calls for a garnish of grated cheddar cheese and can be made with beef or chicken broth, but the version I made tonight was vegan, yet had the rich tenor of something that contained meat.

I'll post a photo tomorrow after I've reheated a bowl for lunch. For now, here's the recipe for Winter Comfort Lentil Soup.

Leftovers for lunch.

Winter Comfort Lentil Soup

2 tablespoons evoo
2 medium onions, chopped
3 carrots, coarsely grated
¾ teaspoon marjoram, crumbled
¾ teaspoon thyme leaves, crumbled
1 28-ounce can peeled, whole tomatoes with juice, coarsely chopped
7 cups broth
1½ cups dried lentils
s&p to taste [the salt will not be necessary if you use Rapunzel bouillon]
6 ounces dry red wine
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley

1. If you're using bouillon to make a broth, do so to make a quantity of 7 cups. I used 4 Rapunzel bouillon cubes with 7 cups of water, 1 cup less than would have been called for had I followed the directions on the box.

2. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven or other soup pot, and sauté the onions, carrots, marjoram, and thyme, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes.

3. Add the tomatoes, broth, and lentils. Bring the soup to a boil, reduce the heat, cover the pan, and simmer the soup for about 1 hour or until the lentils are tender. Be careful not too overcook the lentils, or they'll turn to mush.

4. Add the salt, if you're using it, pepper, wine, and parsley, and simmer for a few more minutes.

I went full gruel tonight, and served the soup with a loaf of All Whole Wheat bread from August First, the new-ish bakery a couple blocks from my house; my Greek stepmother whipped up my new favorite salad of spicy greens with a lemony vinaigrette.

the mark bittman minimalist club: do you like pina coladas?

I made this citrus rice salad because I'm leaving tomorrow to spend a couple of weeks at my mom's house in Florida. Why not wait to make it until I'm at my mom's, where I can pluck fresh citrus fruit from the trees in her backyard? Because I'm counting on the fact that once I arrive in Florida my mom will do all the cooking. Naw, I'm just kidding: My sister will probably help her out.


And maybe they will make this dish, which is from a column on rice salads Mark Bittman did last year (the piece also featured Indian, Japanese, and pad-thai-style rice salads). It's one of the recipes I was referring to earlier this week that could easily be either gruel de la semaine or a component of a meal that you might actually serve to other people. I think we all know which option I chose; see my serving suggestions after the recipe.

Citrus Rice Salad
from the New York Times

1½ to 2 cups any rice [I used 1 cup of uncooked long-grain, brown rice, which made ~2 cups of cooked rice.]
s&p
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed citrus juice, or more to taste (lemon, lime, orange, tangerine, grapefruit, or a combination [I acutally used all five])
2 tablespoons grated citrus zest
1 tablespoon sugar or honey [honey]
1 cup chopped citrus flesh (or whole segments, if small)
½ large red or mild white onion, minced [I minced half of a smallish red onion and didn't even use all of it; the raw onion could easily overpower the other flavors.]
½ cup chopped fresh mint
½ cup or more grated Parmesan [or not; see notes below]
chopped almonds or pecans, optional [pecans, definitely]


1. Cook rice in abundant salted water, as you would pasta, until it's just done; white rice will take 10 to 15 minutes, brown 30 or a little longer. Drain, rinse in cold water, drain again, then put in a large bowl. [I cooked the rice according to the directions on the package and didn't do all of the draining and rising at the end.]

2. Combine olive oil, citrus juice, zest, sugar or honey, salt and pepper in a blender and turn the machine on; a creamy emulsion will form within 30 seconds. Taste and add more citrus juice a teaspoon or two at a time until the balance tastes right to you.

3. Drizzle vinaigrette over rice [do this to taste; I didn't use it all]. Use 2 big forks to combine, fluffing rice and tossing gently to separate grains. Stir in citrus flesh, onion, and mint; taste, and adjust the seasoning or moisten with a little more dressing.

4. Serve, sprinkled with Parmesan and chopped nuts, at room temperature, or refrigerate for up to a day, bringing salad back to room temperature before serving. [See my serving suggestions, below.]


I, of course, made a batch of this on Sunday and ate it for lunch all week. But because variety is the spice of life, I tried it two ways. Sometimes I ate it as directed, with grated Parmesan. But on a couple of days I went rogue/tropical, skipped the Parmesan, and added avocado instead, which is about as exotic as things get around my house. Either way, this makes for a nice gruel de la semaine; the bright citrus flavors are perfect on a gray fall day, and both the Parmesan and avocado give the salad a richness that balances the tang.

As a component of a fancier meal this would serve quite nicely as a bed on which you could lay a piece of fish, which you could then top with an avocado salsa. This kind of bold nüfüsion cüisine will surely impress your friends. It would impress me, anyway, and we're friends. Right?

Citrus rice would also go well with the yachtsman's famoüs French Chicken in a Pot, if you eat those nasty birds (I'll try to get him to whip one up while we're in Florida so my mom can take the night off and I'll have something to bl*g about). And there's something a little risotto-ish about this dish (could be the rice, I guess)—it might be nice topped with shrimp, if you like pieces of fishy rubber for dinner.

Actually, the risotto idea is a good one; perhaps I'll ask my mom to make a citrus risotto with chunks of fresh fruit added at the end, plenty of Parm, possibly some asparagus, served sprinkled with pecans. And then I will hope that I'm not sent to my room without dinner.

how i roll

This is how I roll: In general, three deep. Culinarily, I like to make myself a big batch of something on Sunday and eat it all week. You, however, do not need to do the same. If you're the kind of go-getter who regularly changes out of pajamas, the type of high achiever who takes hours or days, not weeks or months, to reply to e-mails, then you just may be up for taking a recipe for gruel and transforming it into a course or side dish for your next dinner party. The one you will invite me to via smoke signal, the dress code for which will be black fleece.

This week I will be featuring a couple of recipes that can be either eaten as gruel de la semaine or served as a component of a fancier meal, depending on how you roll.


Let's start with beets, which may be ugly (frightening, in fact) on the outside, but when roasted and peeled are not only pretty but delicious, perfect for a dinner party. They also have a long shelf life, perfect for a week in my fridge. This roasted beet salad has a secret ingredient: almond butter, a smear of which on the bottom of the plate transforms a somewhat common salad into something quite special, a salty, sweet, savory, addictive first course suitable for guests, or for lunch alone in pajamas. Because even slothful people deserve something special for lunch, don't we?

No, seriously. Don't we?

Roasted Beet Salad With Almond Butter and Gorgonzola
adapted from this recipe, which appeared in Gourmet

½ cup toasted, slivered almonds
½ garlic clove, chopped
pinch of cayenne
¼ cup + 2–3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
5 or 6 medium-to-large beets

2 tablespoons Sherry vinegar
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallot
3 tablespoons finely chopped chives
baby arugula
Gorgonzola or blue cheese

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut off all but ~½ inch of beet tops and carefully scrub beets. Wrap each beet in tin foil and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 45 minutes to 1½ hours, or until you can slice through the beets easily with a sharp knife. If the size is not uniform, beets may not all be done at the same time, so pull them out as they're ready. When they're cooked, peel off the foil, let them cool, then peel and cut them into ½-inch wedges.


2. While beets are roasting, grind almonds to a paste with garlic, ¼ teaspoon salt, and cayenne in a food processor. With motor running, add just enough oil to make a silky paste.

3. Whisk together vinegar and ½ teaspoon salt in a bowl, then whisk in oil. Add shallot and chives and toss some of the dressing with the beets (I used about half with my six medium beets—plenty to coat the beets and then some. Lightly dress arugula with remaining dressing.

4. Smear a spoonful of almond butter on the bottom of your (or your guests') plate(s), top with beets, arrange a dainty little circle of arugula around the edge, and sprinkle with blue cheese.