Archive for February 2012

Last night, we had our 42nd meeting of Mag Club. Or something close to it - we’ve been meeting almost monthly for three and a half years!

Phoebe wrote about these Crispy Pimenton Chickpeas with Spanish Rice and Mag Club’s recent predilection for bean dishes. It’s not all that surprising that beans appear often, considering we do try to keep things vegetarian. But you don’t really want to be feasting from a buffet full only of beans on a regular basis, even if some are in hummus form, others part of a simple sauté.

This salad is what I …

It’s funny how in the last month, Pinterest has captured the attention of reporters, who have analyzed and unpacked it from all different angles. Funny in part because the people I know went through the angst and the confusion about the visual social media network (or whatever you want to call it) many moons ago, back when we joined in August.

It’s not that I’m a super techie early adopter types. It’s just that Pinterest and I had a bunch of mutual friends. Sarah, one of my best friends from high school, blogs over at the beautiful Chevrons and Stripes…

Vegan dinners are admirably flexible. I sometimes like to think of them as the dinner plate version of a well-executed bento box: a little bit of this and a little bit of that. This is partly because there isn’t an obvious center to the meal, especially if you skip the tofu. Yet this Indian-inspired vegan meal actually mixes the bento approach with a real, non-tofu centerpiece, a lovely rice pilaf flavored with coconut, almonds, spices, and vegetables. To round it out, we start with another wonderful coconut-based dish, a carrot soup. And for extra crunch, there’s a pickled cabbage salad, which works as a cooling condiment. Pack leftovers into a bento box for lunch tomorrow!

I love a good salad, but I haven’t always: a forkful of greens used to give me the chills! In my youth, I discovered that if each bite of salad were paired with a bite of something with a less leafy texture, it was much easier for me not just to get my salad down but to enjoy it. That non-leafy addition? Cheese, avocado, crunchy raw vegetables, rich roasted vegetables, croutons, or even plain grilled chicken.

Even now, I prefer a salad with toppings to one that’s just greens. And these are some of my favorite salad toppers: choose one …

Creamy polenta has always seemed like a rather daunting dish to serve a crowd of guests. It takes longer to cook than one would imagine, and in my experience, it can transform from a soft, pillowy cushion into a rubbery, coarse brick in seconds. Because of this, I’ve always intentionally gone for the brick version for dinner parties.

Recently, I came across this Bittman article and discovered a different way of preparing polenta. Instead of pouring the cornmeal into boiling water in a steady stream and whisking furiously to prevent any lumps from forming, you start by creating a slurry …

Alex and I started The Wire on hurricane weekend (that’s August 27-28 for those of you not on the East Coast). We were glued to the TV for at least an hour a night, sometimes more, til December. We watched the last episode not long before Christmas. I was heartbroken (spoiler alert!) at the unresolved trouble that had befallen 98% of The Wire‘s characters. But I am not unhappy to be unglued.

Full disclosure. I’m not a TV person, not even necessarily for the Oscars or the Super Bowl. I grew up under an iron rule: no more than …