Featured - - Page 31

by gansie

Appetizers All Night

My back hurts. Really hurts. I have no idea how chefs stand for that many hours in a row. I just finished my most recent catering gig. This was with 80P’s mom again. I conducted many, many brainstorming conversations (thanks: Maids, Romeo, El, WestCoast, BS, 80P…) but because I’m so used to Eating Down the Fridge (using up ingredients in my fridge/pantry and not shopping for new food) that I could only fathom working with items already in my possession, or ones I knew I could pick up while working at the farmers market.

Fortunately, I was recently in Philly for work and had some spare time before dinner (ate at Monk’s–mussels, fries and stout–with BroadAndPattison). I found this adorable nut shack: Nuts to You.

I’m not even kidding, I was in that place for 45 minutes browsing the 4 aisle store filled with nuts, dried fruits, grains and candies. I walked out with, and I’m still not kidding, FIVE pounds of food, which I then had to drag around as I wasted more time checking out Banana Republic, Lacoste, Williams-Sonoma (don’t get me started on their uni-tasker inventory; they have 6 instruments alone to peel and chop garlic) and this weird all-natural soap and lotion place with the perkiest staff of all time. Soap that smells like pine nuts and lavender, no thanks.

I left Nuts To You with: dried dates (pound), dried figs (pound), quinoa (pound), mixed bag of almonds, cashews, peanuts, hazelnuts and walnuts (pound) and cashew butter (pound). Yes, not peanut butter, but cashew butter. And I saw them make it. There was this crazy looking glass machine with some peanut oil in it and the salesperson dumped a pound of cashews into the machine and then out oozed cashew butter. No salt, no preservatives, no corn syrup. Just nuts and oil. A-mazing.

Anyway, with that in the cupboard, here is what I proposed to 80P’s Mom:

Dates and figs (either or both) stuffed with cheese (either ricotta, goat cheese or quark) and herbs. This can be served warm or room temp and can be stuck with a toothpick for serving
Sweet potato disks with cashew butter and chili powder spread ( Can spread the cashew butter on top of the chips or let people dip it)
On a toothpick: cube of roasted winter squash, cube of feta, cube of squash
Cucumber slice with Greek yogurt, lemon zest and quinoa
Artichoke, olive and caper crostini
Radish, cashew butter and broccoli (Or the broccoli can be cooked)

80P’s Mom selections after the jump.

by BS

Hot Carb-on-Carb Action in the Buff

It’s an unwritten rule of lunchtime that whatever food you’re eating should be somehow encased in a layer of bread or alternate form of carbohydrates. Yet despite the waning popularity of the Atkins diet, few establishments are bold enough to up the ante and serve lunch encased in two layers of said carbs. You wouldn’t wrap a quesadilla in a taco shell, throw a bagel sandwich on a sub roll, or stuff spaghetti inside a bread bowl. OK, well at least most of you wouldn’t do that last one.

Fortunately, Jamaicans (well, specifically the Jamaican Buff Patty lunch counter by my house in Brooklyn) observe no such standards of carbohydrate restraint. I was shocked/delighted to learn that their patties — which come with beef, veggies or jerk chicken inside — are not only surrounded by a crispy fried shell, but that shell is then wrapped inside a hefty hunk of coco bread. Insane? Genius? Both, I say. You get crispy carbs and doughy carbs in each and every bite. Now that’s what I call a lunch.

PS – this concoction costs a whopping $2.50 — cheapest lunch ever.

PPS – Yes, I went for a 5-mile run afterwards. No, I don’t think that burned off all the carbs I consumed.

in Featured / Restaurants 3 comments

by gansie

Cupcake Ice Cream Cones

How cute is she! Madeline is my friend Debbie’s daughter. And she happens to be allergic to peanuts.

I don’t know much about this phenomenon. When I was little I can’t think of one friend that had this peculiar intolerance. But recently, my mom has at least one child with this allergy in her nursery school class every year. And more than 3 million people have this same allergy.

Sometimes it’s really serious—the child can’t even be in the same room as a peanut. Others simply can’t ingest a peanut. But they also can’t even eat non-peanut food (for instance a Hershey’s chocolate bar) simply because it has been in the same processing plant as peanut filled food (although I think some of the big manufacturing companies now operate peanut free facilities.) Parents, teachers and other adults in their life have to be incredibly vigilant with this allergy and be trained to use a life-saving EpiPen in case of an attack.

But all this no-nut business doesn’t mean there aren’t tons of treats available. Deb’s always finding ways to entertain her kids (I particularly admire their interest in nail polish and lip gloss) but this creative and fun dessert made me wish for the days of carefree sugar indulgence.

In continuing with our back to school coverage, here’s an awesome way to get the kids in the kitchen after a hard day at school.

Cupcake Ice Cream Cones

Deb bought a nut free cake mix from Wegmans and Madeline followed the instructions: eggs, water, vegetable oil, mix, stir and mmmmm batter!

in Desserts / Endless Cupcakes / Endless Ice Cream / Featured / Recipe 13 comments

by gansie

Ten Minute Tomato Soup

Last night I was invited to a cocktail reception by ES blogger LC. We originally met through the non-food part of our lives, and after a few minutes of polite womens’ issues chatter, we quickly started discussing our favorite DC restaurants. I always find food to be a fantastic cocktail party back-up topic (much more delicious than the weather.) Who doesn’t want to share a story of an exotic meal or a kitchen success?

At the after-work function we attended the food was scarce and uninspired. Green mush posing as guacamole sat atop a sweet pastry and rice krispie treat type pellets coated tough shrimp on a stick. Two cocktails in and only a few bites of food left me hungry as I arrived home close to 9pm. And 9pm is that weird time when I do consider holding out until tomorrow. But 80P told me to eat a little something so I poked around the kitchen. I’d been away for a few days and wasn’t sure what held up in my absence. Unfortunately a tomato I bought from my travels had slit on the way home; I knew I had to find a way to use that stat.

I also instinctively took out an egg and butter. But what? I’ve done plenty of scrambles featuring chopped tomato. I’ve also laid a fried egg on top of sliced tomato.

While still figuring out the dish, I sliced the tomato and then cut each slice into quarters, threw them in a pan with butter and sprinkled with salt and pepper. The tomatoes produced plenty of juice, which turned me off from an omelet idea: I’m not a fan of a runny, tomato stained omelet.

How else could I incorporate an egg? Wait, wait a fucking second. Maybe I don’t HAVE TO USE AN EGG. It is crazy. It is insane. Who the hell am I? This is the second non-egg usage in two weeks!

in Featured / Recipe / Veggie 4 comments

by BS

Pine Nut Brittle

I never, ever thought I would be one to make candy. Never even considered it. Too much measuring, timing, and realizing how much sugar is actually in the stuff. Not for me. I’ll stick to wrapping things in bacon and mixing drinks. But then on one beautiful summer day, there it was, circled by gansie in a recent issue of Gourmet she sent my way:

Pine nut brittle.

Genius. I figured I had pretty much thought of every way to use a pine nut, but i had never turned it into a brittle. And why not? I love peanut brittle but had never considered making it at home, much less replacing the peanut with a more exciting nut. And it’s super-easy. No candy thermometer or any of that junk needed — just a pot, sugar, water, and plenty of the p-nuts.

Check out gourmet’s recipe for the deets, but in the meantime here’s a photo play-by-play:

in Desserts / Featured / Photos / Recipe 4 comments

by gansie

How To Revive the Heat in Your…Kitchen

Like my father, I’m a strong believer in not wasting food. But while he will eat 3-week-old lox, I’ll refuse to even eat a tomato that’s been refrigerated.

Along those lines, DAD GANSIE and I also never throw shit out. I feel so guilty about throwing out food that even if I know I won’t eat the leftovers, I let them sit in my fridge for 2 weeks instead of tossing them on the spot. It’s a habit I’ve been meaning to break (and one that 80 is really hoping dies soon.)

I do think, though, he’d be proud of my latest food-rescuing invention, which also uses up plenty of my cabinet inhabitants.

Okay, so at my local 6-aisle grocery store serrano chilies come in packages of 18 or so for under $2. I try to stick them in everything I eat, but after so many meals with my mouth on fire I let the chilies hide in the back of my fridge until gray hair starts growing over their skin. And then they find a home in the trash.

It was different this time. I remembered a trick my friend Tim told me about how he prolongs the lives of chilies: he’ll buy jarred chilies and when the chilies run out, he’ll buy the non-jarred package and stick them in that same salty solution.

Of course, I wanted to do one better and make my own preserving liquid.

in Featured / Recipe 10 comments

by gansie

Americanized Injera

I hate sharing. I hate bartering. I hate compromising.

I want goat cheese, spinach, olives and sun-dried tomatoes on my pizza. I do not care that you hate olives. I do not want to split a plate of anchovies and roasted red peppers. Anchovies make me convulse. I want all of my garlic shrimp. You order your own. I think you know where I’m going with this.

When did these “small plates” become so fucking popular. I don’t want a bite of this or a bite of that. I want an entire fucking steak and I want to eat it all myself. Screw tapas and mezze or any other dish where you have to invoke cloture to place an order. Enough of this sharing shit.

But then there’s Ethiopian.

in Featured / Recipe / Veggie 6 comments