Archive for January 2012

Since the day we founded Big Girls, Small Kitchen, cooking and entertaining questions have arrived in our inbox and our comments section. At first we were like, “who? us? advice?” But after more than three years of solving culinary problems, we can honestly say we’re here for you. And since you might want to know the answer to other quarter-life cooks’ questions, we’re unveiling this new, ongoing q&a section to highlight your queries and share our responses.

If you’d like to ask us anything about quarter-life cooking, shoot us an email with your question to bgsk [at] biggirlssmallkitchen [dot] com!…

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Now I know dried beans are cheap and good, and I do buy them from the bulk bin occasionally and take the time to cook them up. But not as much as I’d like. To make a pot of beans, you have to commit to being around for a while. You more or less have to watch the beans cook (and we all know what happens to a watched pot, right?), tasting them every 30 minutes to monitor their consistency, removing them from the heat when they’re neither too hard nor too soft. It’s hard to time this perfectly,…

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It’s slow cooker week here on BGSK and SKC! All week long, we’re teaming up with Kelsey Banfield, The Naptime Chef , to bring you the first ever Slow Cooker Challenge. Don’t forget to enter the giveaway, and read on for another great slow cooked recipe!

For a lot of quarter-life cooks, store-bought tubs of hummus are subsistence-level forms of nourishment, akin to cereal and peanut butter, or, in Alex’s case, sardines.

For the slightly more domestically inclined, we’ve offered loads of hummus and hummus-like recipes that entail just opening a can or two and blending.…

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In preparation for our talk next week at Franklin and Marshall college, we chatted with Lancaster’s local journal to give them a sneak peak of what we’ll be telling the Writer’s House on Tuesday, Jan. 24th. Hint: it’s about feeding your creativity. Read more here, and if you are in the greater Lancaster area, come out for the talk!

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It’s Slow Cooker Week here on BGSK!

We’re co-hosting a Slow Cooker Challenge (remember the awesome brown bag week we did over the summer?) with Small Kitchen College and Kelsey of The Naptime Chef and bringing you fabulous low and slow recipes all week long. Make sure to stop by SKC to enter to win a fabulous Delonghi slow cooker, courtesy of BigKitchen.com. And we hope you’ll join us on Wednesday at noon for a live twitter chat along with Food52, The Daily Meal, Punchfork, Fine…

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If you’re thinking about investing in a slow cooker or you own one but it’s tucked away on a shelf, this week is tailor made for you.From Monday til Friday, here, on Small Kitchen College, The Naptime Chef , and the sites of our wonderful partners, we’re plumbing the depths of the electric slow cooker, as well as slowly cooked food (in the oven, on the stove) in general. Slow-cooked food gets incredibly tasty, tough meats grow rich and soft, and soups come away with extraordinary flavor. You have to plan ahead, but you get…

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Slow-Cooker Beef Stew with Red Wine • Egg Noodles • Spinach Salad with Avocado, Red Onion, and Toasted Pecans • Cowboy Cookies

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Two glorious weeks in Peru bridging 2011 and 2012 brought Alex and me into close contact with (in alphabetical order): alpaca meat, Arequipa, Cusco, Jenga, juice, La Mar, Machu Picchu, markets, not ordering cuy, overnight buses, pan con huevo y mantequilla, pollo a la brasa, potatoes galore, soup, steak, and trekking. We had adventures in about five different places, met nice Peruvians and adventurous backpackers, saw cities and small towns, hiked at high altitude, endured strong sun, pounding rain, and snow, and woke up more than once at the very crack of dawn.

Starting in Cusco, we took a…

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I use this dip as a nice base for some flavorful white bean burgers, but it’s also grand on its own. A simple eggplant is transformed by a roast in the oven and a bunch of good olive oil into a rich, flavorful spread or dip. Thanks to my mom for this recipe-she used to make it all the time, before she perfected the roasted eggplant slice.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Roasted Eggplant Spread
Makes about 2 cups

See the original recipe here.

Ingredients
1…

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BEANS FOR DINNER: Cheesy White Bean Dip; Moroccan Chickpeas; Smoky Chipotle Vegetarian Chili; Stewed Greens with White Beans

One of the earliest recipes I wrote for the blog was called Squash and Sweet Potato Pancakes and was essentially a chickpea burger made with mashed-up sweet potatoes and squash. Soon after, I wrote about the joys of eating a just-made lunch in my apartment, and these black bean burgers, inspired by those at a now-closed Nolita cafe, became one of the most sought-after vegetarian recipes on our site.…

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