Tag Archives: spicy

easy but good: broccoli (they’ll actually want to eat) with chili flake, lemon, and garlic

Posted on April 18, 2013 | 6 Comments

broccoli they'll actually want to eat, roasted up with garlic, chili, and fresh lemon

When I sheepishly tell someone that I write a blog focused mainly on food and cooking, the inevitable next question is if I blog everything I cook or make to eat.

I think (hope?) you know that the answer is definitely not.

organic broccoli crown

It’s a totally valid question – there are a lot of “food bloggers”* out there who make it their prerogative to document each and every morsel that goes in their mouth – but unfortunately, if you saw a good majority of the things that I call “Dinner” around here, quite frankly, you might never come back again.

*Can we agree that the label ‘food blogger’ makes one sound like the most annoying human being, ever? File it right up there with “Foodie.”

broccoli stems peeled and ready to be cut

I’ve been known to consider a bowl of cinnamon puffins and almond milk a fine supper (with sliced strawberries if I’m feelin’ real fancy), and while James needs decidedly more structure when it comes to the last meal of the day, he never winges or whines when I present him with a bowl of reheated leftovers over toast gussied up with some hot sauce, or even when I freak out over the half-full odds and ends in our refrigerator and/or freezer, and present him with a “tofu-scramble-surprise.”

slivered broccoli stems

I gotta be honest with you though, my tofu-scramble-surprises aren’t half bad.

Trust.

broccoli florets

So no, I do not snap pictures and write about everything I cook. Sometimes because those things barely constitute a meal, and sometimes because I think what I am making is so simple and straightforward it’s boring. Like this broccoli. This broccoli shows up at our table at least every couple of weeks, because it’s easy, it’s healthy, it’s cheap, and, perhaps most importantly, it’s super tasty. It’s just roasted broccoli though – just that vegetable that everyone loves to hate, and just the type of barely-even-a-recipe thing I’m sure you don’t want to hear about.

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Posted in side dish

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as you like it: make-your-own black bean bowls

Posted on January 7, 2013 | 16 Comments

black bean bowls - healthy vegetarian dinners that you can customize with your own toppings

There are many dishes that remind me of my childhood – twice baked potatoes, burgers off the grill, and pastrami and swiss grilled cheeses with grainy mustard, to name a few – but perhaps the one that has made the largest imprint on my culinary psyche is something that my family called “curry.”

black bean bowl black beans

Totally indiscernible as such by anyone who has ever had what I consider now to be a “real curry” (that is, a thick and creamy Thai or Indian coconut milk based stew that is heavily spiced and served with thinly sliced meat or seafood and lots of veggies), our version of curry was sort of a 1970′s style Americanized amalgamation of things that you would never find in what I now know to be the more traditional type.

black bean bowl avocado

black bean bowl rice

Our curry consisted of lamb that was spiced, roasted, and shredded, and then accompanied by the most exciting part of all: a dazzling array of condiments nestled into tiny glass bowls that from which we were able to pick and choose ourselves.  There was always a heaping bowl of white rice, and of course that lovely lamb, but then in these smaller bowls that dotted the table there was canned crushed pineapple, chopped hard boiled egg, crumbled and crisped up bits of bacon, shredded coconut, plump raisins, shelled salty peanuts, and, my favorite treat of all, mango chutney.

black bean bowl jicama

As a child, the actual lamb was perhaps the least exciting part – I could barely wait to saddle up to the table and start customizing my plate with whatever my little heart desired, usually leaning towards a lot of rice, pineapple, raisins, and huge scoop of that sweet and sour chutney.

black bean bowl toppings

But it didn’t matter; it was curry night, and no one was about to tell you exactly how you had to eat yours, thankyouverymuch – that was the whole point.  A couple of weeks ago while I was on one very long flight, traversing the Pacific Ocean, traveling back to the States from Sydney, I was thumbing through a special issue of Gourmet, and came across the idea for these black bean bowls.

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Posted in entree, lunch, salad

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simple, fresh, friday: avocado greek yogurt salad with jalapeno + cilantro

Posted on July 13, 2012 | 11 Comments

Granted by coming to you with yet another vegetable based dish I’m taking the risk of sending you running for greener pastures; pastures that are filled with more carnivorous delights, like, oh, say, succulent barbecued ribs or juicy grill-marked burgers – you know, those things we’re all supposed to be making in high July.  But honestly, around here lately, that’s just not exactly what we’ve been eating.

It’s been more about simplicity, and ease of execution.  Much more about instant gratification and much less about intricate steps and complicated processes.  Or — let’s be honest here — much more about getting to that glass of wine on the couch, and much less about standing in the kitchen while enviously gazing over at one boy and his pug stretched out watching re-runs of Seinfeld.

(Especially if it’s the chocolate babka episode.  Or the chicken roaster.)

It’s easy to fall into a rut of simplicity, relying on dishes that you know deep down you only can take half-credit for, in that most of their deliciousness is completely dependent on the incredible quality of the ingredients you were lucky enough to stumble upon. It is Summer, after all, peak season for all but the best of mostly everything.

And on a day like today – a sunny, uncomplicated Friday with little on the agenda but a looming pit stop at the gym and a date at a new Boulder restaurant – there should be no muss and no fuss when it comes to lunch. A few quick slices here and stirs there that yields something healthy, fresh, and completely oven-free?

Where do I sign?

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Posted in lunch, salad

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a shift in the tide: carrot + ginger soup with yogurt and cilantro

Posted on July 10, 2012 | 4 Comments

As if one needed any further proof that a woman can truly change a man, over here in this household I’ve got one husband who is not only eating vegetarian this and vegan that because it’s what is put in front of him, but because he actually enjoys it.

Imagine that?

And this is the same husband that just a couple of short years ago was still a boyfriend, and one that I had to beg and plead to try a fantastic vegetarian joint I stumbled upon on Eighth Avenue, one that I’d attempt to pull the wool over his eyes and direct straight into the West Village outpost of a popular falafel ball restaurant, and one that gave me nothing but the dreaded wrinkled-up-nose-of-displeasure when I’d get caught secretly trying unload a block of tofu from my tote bag.

Back then, in our house (err…apartment), a meal simply wasn’t a meal unless it had some type of animal protein, and a sandwich that contained anything along the lines of tempeh, tofu, or any other manner of that vegetarian mambo-jambo nonsense was for the birds.

(Specifically the hordes of bedraggled pigeons that just love to congregate on every street corner in New York.  Blech.)

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Posted in appetizer, lunch, soup

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on falling apart: charred corn + jalapeño hummus

Posted on June 13, 2012 | 12 Comments

Did you know that I graduated from college with a degree in fashion?

Yes, fashion.  More specifically, I graduated with a degree that was to hopefully and eventually help land me a dream job as a buyer in the coveted woman’s departments of Barney’s, Saks, or perhaps even – if I was really, really lucky – Bergdorf’s.  Senior year, I managed to land myself an internship at the tony boutique department store Henri Bendel, and in February of 2005, at the ripe old age of twenty-two (and still with a few months left before graduation), I packed up my suitcases and headed to the Big Apple.

I arrived, wide-eyed and bushy tailed, still very much a little girl full of wonder and excitement.  And I interned – I fetched, I zipped, I folded, I steamed, I juggled steaming lattes and sixteen individual salad orders at Hale and Hearty, and I learned exactly how unglamorous anything below entry-level could actually be.  There were perks – a 40% discount on clothes that my bare-bones-intern-salary could never afford anyway (but hey…I was lucky even to be paid at all!), run-ins with celebrity shoppers and tickets to velvet-rope events, and, most of all, the experience of cutting my teeth in the industry with some of its top performers.  I had no illusions that any success of mine would take time – I was, after all, still the lowly intern whose name ranged from “hey….you in the navy sweater” to simply responding to finger snaps  - but I decided to take a chance and call the big city my permanent home, and I attempted to piece together my fledgling career.

A famously glamourous woman once said “…sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together,” and after one miserable gig at a boutique fashion PR firm (I had a boss who actually emailed me to ask me to fetch her lunch – when I was sitting no more than an arms length away), I found myself working at another firm (which I really liked!), that was unfortunately closing its doors for good in just a few short months.  I assessed my situation, pondering the ups and downs and goods and bads of what I had seen and experienced over the first six months of my ‘professional’ career, and after a bit of investigation, I decided to go out on a limb.  A really long, spindly, and wacky limb, that is.

Over these first months, I had met people – mostly guy friends – in the city who worked for major financial firms, and thought that though they rose at ungodly hours and seemed to speak in tongues when recounting tales of that day’s ‘ripping market’ or ‘new IPO’, they always seemed to have money in their pockets for happy hour and were proud of what they were doing.  I wanted to take a stab at it, and sent my resume off to a few friends, friends of friends, and friends of friends of friends who might just know somebody who was looking to hire a fashion girl at a financial firm.  Right.

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Posted in appetizer, dip, life, side dish

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