Archive for the ‘Recipes’ Category
Limonada (limeade) for the summer heat
My blender has seen the light of day more in the past two weeks than in the past few months. Blame it on the hot summer days that have inspired me to make refreshing juices almost daily. A watermelon agua fresca was a big hit with family last week but this week I was really [...]
Belles calas
Calas, calas! Belles calas! Touts chaude, madame.
Such went the cry of the calas street vendors in New Orleans. It means: calas, calas, beautiful calas, very hot.
If you haven’t heard of these fritters prepared with leftover rice, you’re not alone. When New Orleans chef, cookbook author and Slow Food New Orleans leader, Poppy Tooker, recently asked [...]
Getting to know Dragon Tongue beans
I’m not going to lie. It was the purple flecks. That’s what got me to buy these beans, known as Dragon Tongue or Dragon Langerie. The beans’ beautiful dappled exterior makes them hard to ignore as they sit among monochromatic green and yellow beans on the market stand.
As I paid for a bag at the [...]
Lomo al trapo
One of my resolutions this year is to do a little more cooking. I’ve always liked to cook but last year I didn’t do nearly as much of it as I would’ve liked. This week’s project is “lomo al trapo,” which my dad and I made for D’s birthday last week.
Dulce de Leche Oatmeal Cookies
This weekend’s kitchen project was making Sofia’s Dulce de Leche Oatmeal Cookies as a little welcome gift for my parents. I had forgotten how finicky these cookies can be. Making them takes quite a bit of care and patience. Don’t, like I did, decide to write a blog post while they’re in the oven or [...]
Weekend Project: Making dulce de leche
Apparently the holidays have put me in the cooking spirit. Last week, I randomly remembered these thin dulce de leche and oatmeal cookies I used to make. Since my parents are coming to town next week for the holidays, I decided I’d have some ready for them.
First I had to make the dulce de leche. [...]
Thanksgiving for Two: A recap
Thanksgiving this year was an unusual one. Not a bad one, just not the usual. It was a Thanksgiving for two.
“Well, enjoy your newlywed Thanksgiving,” one friend said. “What? You guys are doing a romantic Thanksgiving?” said another.
Not really. Let’s just say it happened that way.
We started off our day very early at the Turkey [...]
Savory Mini Cheesecakes with Red Pepper and Green Tomatillo Chutney
When I read food writer Monica Bhide’s (@mbhide) tweet calling for participants for a virtual potluck, I was curious. I had never heard of Monica or her work before but I wanted to find out what this virtual potluck entailed. She was calling on bloggers to each cook a dish from her latest cookbook release, [...]
My go-to quesadilla
In the past few months, I’ve tried to cut down on my trips to dine out — at least to dine out at pricey establishments. Not only am I in frugal mode, but I have a wedding to pay for. I can’t say I’ve been making up for that by cooking elaborate meals, but there [...]
Learning to make fresh pasta
Making fresh pasta is one of those things I’ve never really had the urge to try. Seeing people on TV throwing eyeballed amounts of flour onto an empty counter, digging a little hole in the middle and mixing in the eggs, just seemed complicated. Without planning for it, however, I ended up making fresh pasta [...]
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 [...]
