Archive for March 2009

EVENT: Necklace Return; Writing Group
TYPE: Repentance; Using Repentance’s Leftovers
GOODS BAKED: Lotus-Necklace Blondies, Writing Group White-Out Cake

Like any good older sibling, I enjoy borrowing my sister Kate’s possessions with or without her permission and holding on to them far longer than sanctioned (if, of course, sanctioned to begin with).

She has this necklace that I covet—a gold chain with little lotus leaves dangling off it—and, being the generous individual she is, she lent it to me for six months. The only problem…

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White-Out Cake
Makes 1 loaf cake

I started making this cake while I was living abroad in Paris. I’d read about it on Chocolate & Zucchini (the author is French), and I was delighted by how you could measure the flour, oil, and sugar in empty yogurt containers once you’d put mixed the yogurt in.

Since then, I’ve been consistently amazed by how flexible this recipe really is. I’ve substituted applesauce for the oil, nuts for some of the flour, used extra yogurt and fewer eggs or skimped on…

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TYPE: Weekday Detox
MENU: Green Goddess Soup with Zucchini, Chard, and Cilantro

You could say my mother instilled in me at an early age a love for vegetables. But really she just made me a food snob, exposing me to haute baby food by asking the waiter to run her leftover veal scallopini through a blender to bring home to me or ordering the vichyssoises at family dinners out instead of cutting up baby pieces of bland chicken breast for my ease of consumption. Having grown up with my grandmother’s green beans with hollandaise sauce (one…

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Mag Club meets in the Middle East: Michelle’s Tzatziki Two Ways, with Kate’s Hummus Behind

EVENT: Mag Club March
VENUE: Cara’s Apartment, Park Slope
SIZE: Seven
MENU: Colorful Southwestern Salad (C); Corn and Barley with Chive-Mint Vinaigrette (P); Leora’s Baked Tofu, Roasted Broccoli with Pine Nuts, and Caramelized Caprese; Sarah’s Summery Angel Hair; Kate’s Peanut Butter Hummus; Michelle’s Tzatziki Two Ways; Jordana’s Cheese (and Love)

If you haven’t noticed yet on BGSK, we love hummus. It’s fast and easy, uses mainly pantry ingredients, and transports itself like a dream from places…

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broccoli (top), roasted tofu (bottom)


EVENT: Mag Club March
VENUE: Cara’s Apartment, Park Slope
SIZE: Seven
MENU: Colorful Southwestern Salad (C); Corn and Barley with Chive-Mint Vinaigrette (P); Leora’s Baked Tofu, Roasted Broccoli with Pine Nuts, and Caramelized Caprese; Sarah’s Summery Angel Hair; Kate’s Peanut Butter Hummus; Michelle’s Tzatziki Two Ways; Jordana’s Cheese (and Love)


As promised in yesterday’s introduction to the Magazine Club Potluck’s copious

…

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EVENT: Mag Club March
VENUE: Cara’s Apartment, Park Slope
SIZE: Seven (we missed the rest of you!)
MENU: Colorful Southwestern Salad (C); Corn and Barley with Chive-Mint Vinaigrette (P); Leora’s Baked Tofu, Roasted Broccoli with Pine Nuts, and Caramelized Caprese; Sarah’s Summery Angel Hair; Kate’s Peanut Butter Hummus; Michelle’s Tzatziki Two Ways; and Jordana’s Cheese (and Love)

“Magazine Club” is simultaneously the silliest thing we do and one of the most satisfying. It was invented by Kate and Cara one Sunday…

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Cornbread Croutons

Of course you can use your favorite store-bought bread or muffins for the croutons, but I was itching to bake the day before the potluck, so I whipped this up, then cut it immediately and gave the squares 24 hours to get stale, which they did very well. Thus, if you’re planning just to eat the cornbread, it’s best to do so right away. We made these for this Southwestern Salad for Mag Club. Read the original post here.

Ingredients
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2…

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Corn and Barley Salad with Chive-Mint Vinaigrette
Serves 6
Because it wouldn’t suffice at Mag Club to say my inspiration for this dish came from Cara, who’s been making a lot of seldom-used grains lately, I’ll draw my parallel from the April issue of Teen Vogue. Usually I would not publically admit to reading this magazine, but I found the spread below—springtime for teenage hillbilles, as I would call it—very inspiring at work, where they pay me to think like a 15-year-old girl. Anyway, it seems like the March frost has

…

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EVENT: Coworkers (sort of) over for dinner
VENUE: Phoebe’s Apartment, Flatiron
PARTY SIZE: 5
TYPE: Casual Weeknight Dinner
MENU: Roasted Tomato Soup with Crispy Pancetta; Pesto Grilled Cheese; Bistro Salad

Part of being a big girl in New York is coming to terms with the fact that your time (and life, by extension) is not your own. Second is learning how to manage your budget so the meager time spent out of the office can be enjoyed to the fullest without breaking the bank. In…

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Bistro Salad
Makes 4 Servings

I’m a firm believer that a salad is only as delicious as its dressing. I’m a total condiment junky, so this makes sense. Unless you are planning on serving a salad as the main component of your meal, there is no need to get too crazy by adding everything but the kitchen sink. I rarely use more than two extra ingredients for my side salad (usually just tomato and avocado), and the one below is solely composed of good quality greens. You can easily add anything you like, but the power is in…

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