Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category
Saturday pig roast
I promise there’s a valid reason for the slowness in posting, but I’ll leave that for later. Yesterday D and I hosted a pig (shoulder) roast to celebrate two friends’ birthdays. It really wasn’t my idea; a friend suggested it and we agreed despite my warnings that I wanted nothing to do with the pig. […]
Getting to know kale
Kale was one of the ingredients in our third CSA box that I wasn’t too familiar with. Everything else — canistel, black sapote, scallions, red leaf lettuce, dill, watercress, arugula and green peppers – seemed pretty manageable, which I’ve found increases our odds of using it. Last week, for instance, we got oranges, lettuces, […]
Turnips, check. Cilantro, check. A CSA update.
The week has been extremely hectic for me but surprisingly, I’ve been able to make use of a decent chunk of my produce, so I thought I’d give a quick update with links to recipes (since I have little time).
I cut up the turnips in cubes, placed them in a roasting pan with cubed apples, […]
Getting to know Halloumi cheese
Rub your fingers across your teeth for a few seconds. Hear anything? Squeak-y, squeak-y. That’s a little bit like the sound and feel you get when you chew cooked Halloumi cheese. Unique to Cyprus, Halloumi is a semi-hard cheese made from sheep’s milk or goat’s milk — or a mix of both — seasoned with […]
Rioja-style potatoes with chorizo
Sometimes D greets me with a few printed recipes that “we should try.” For some reason, we rarely make them. We either forget them when we go grocery shopping so we don’t know what we need to buy or they just sit there and get buried under a pile of mail. Last night, we didn’t […]
Mango: The comfort fruit
Once during my brief stint in culinary school I applied for an internship at a New York food website. As a test, they asked me to write about a fruit or vegetable. I chose the mango and deemed it my comfort fruit. I wrote of memories of hot beach days biting into a ripe mango […]
Beet it
Lately I’ve been into beets. I know. It’s odd. Beets are not the most popular vegetable out there. Of my mom’s five siblings, she is the only one who will actually eat them. Her siblings cite school lunch memories of white rice stained by beet juice as one of the reasons why they can’t stand […]
Cooking on 4th of July?
Staying in at home with family and friends is probably one of your best bets tomorrow. Who likes crowds anyway? If you’re still looking for what to make, here are some yummy ideas from around the web.
* Grilled hot dogs with mango chutney and red onion relish [Epicurious]
* Grilled pork tenderloin with guava glaze and […]
Mango and cucumber salsa
I’m a big fan of salsas, especially fruit salsas. On Saturday, I made this one for a BBQ. My mom gave me the recipe a while back. It’s great with salmon and grilled chicken. I personally like eating it by itself too, and it can be prepared in 10 minutes. (It might be an option […]
Feliz Cinco de Mayo!
Many people have a dish associated with them. One they make really well. There’s grandma’s torta de menudo, mom’s arroz con coco … Well, it seems like Paula’s guacamole is gaining some traction. The invitation to two friends’ birthday barbecue last weekend went something like this: “We’re finally having the barbecue this weekend, but you […]
From me, with love: Penne alla vodka
I’m not one who likes to go out to dine on Valentine’s Day, mainly because I have to share my dinner with the other hundreds of couples doing the same thing. Plus, I don’t like to deal with crowded restaurants. Truth is, going out to dinner on this day is overrated, but you still have […]
Scrambling for recipes? Try these sites
Earlier this week a coworker stopped by my desk and asked if I could recommend good recipe Web sites for his sister. I wrote him a quick email with my favorites not really planning on sharing its contents here. But when a friend in Chicago left me a voicemail last night asking for some sites […]
Thanksgiving a la criolla
I know, I know. Thanksgiving was almost two weeks ago but I still wanted to post something about mine. I traveled to Houston to see my family and had what my uncle aptly called a Thanksgiving a la criolla. (Criolla — literally creole — can be used to describe something characteristic of Hispanic culture or […]
Sonoma Chicken Salad
Just as I was absent from my blog, I had been absent from the grocery store and my fridge was very empty. That meant lots of money spent on eating out, but I finally made it back to the grocery store and packed one of my favorite chicken salads for lunch this week. This recipe […]
An ode to edamame
I’m not really going to write a poem here. The title of this post just aims to convey the sense of admiration I have for this, the so-called wonderveggie. What is it, oh green one, that makes you so addicting? In fact, there may be no real point to this post except to share my […]
Zucchini bread
I’m not much of a baker.
No reason in particular, I just rarely bake anything. In culinary school I hated my baking class, especially bread baking. Maybe it’s because everything has to be so precise, — you just can’t decide to throw in a little more yeast or flour and expect something good to happen — […]
Mango, tomato and avocado salad
This recipe is easy and the salad fresh and tasty. I served it with grilled chicken breast at lunch today. It’s almost like a salsa so it’s a good complement to grilled chicken or fish.
Healthy Mango Malai
Malai is what they call clotted milk or Devonshire cream in India. In Spanish, we call it nata. This recipe, however, is in the words of its author a little “perverse” because it uses non-fat yogurt instead of malai. I tried it this afternoon; it is incredibly simple and takes no more than 10 minutes to make.
Dinner tonight: Pasta with a lemon splash
“You’re making that pasta again?”
I heard those words out of my friend Kim’s mouth quite often a few years back when I first discovered Martha Stewart’s Spaghettini with Lemon Zest and Chives. Basically, the fact that I could look like the cooking queen with such little effort made me want to make it over and […]
Asparagus and red bell pepper scramble (for one)
Simple egg dish for when cereal and milk start to get old.
