Archive for May 2012

QUICK DINNERS: Cous Cous with Sausage, Greens, and White Beans; Baked Shells with Tomato and Mozzarella; Chicken Sausage and Ravioli Soup

I go through phases: sometimes I’ll plan a week’s worth of dinners, do the shopping, and make meals according to my schedule. And sometimes (really, more often), we eat by the seat of our pants. With just two un-picky mouths to feed, seat-of-the-pants works out okay, usually.

But truth be told, I love meal planning almost as much as I love cooking, and I’ve been thinking about sharing with you some of the ways I go about making sure that we’ve got home-cooked breakfasts, lunches, and dinners ’round here almost every day of the week. Meal planning for the quarter-life set. Would you be interested??

I love making fish for dinner, but it does involve more carefully planning, than, say a quesadilla. Fish goes bad after a day or so, and while I’ve been known, occasionally, to let a bundle of greens wilt or a mango rot, I’m not going to leave my $10.50 per pound cod to the same fate. Which means when I buy fish, I’m basically devoting myself to it. (And look-this dish uses up that mango!)

ENVIABLE BROWN BAG LUNCHES: Caesar Wrap with Tofu and Broccoli; Grilled Ratatouille; Teriyaki Soba Salad; Fried Chicken Salad with Black-Eyed Peas and Buttermilk Dressing

Hope Memorial Day was relaxing, warm, beachy-or whatever you wanted your three-day weekend to be. I hung out at the beach with my family, Alex, and Finn and a new game of ladder ball. With the exception of the ride out on the LIRR, where I was packed between my bike and about a million other commuters, it was perfect.

(Ladder Ball!)

For lunch on the train, I packed a homemade Caesar salad-I can’t stop eating homemade Caesar since I made these-I tossed butter lettuce with the creamy dressing, Parm, celery, and some croutons. Hungry, I was shoveling it in when I noticed that the two women sitting diagonally across from me were pulling their lunch out of one of those Thermos bags.

Homemade fried chicken.

My favorite food in the world. I got serious food envy. And I got a little mad: my Caesar salad had seemed perfect, moments before. On twitter, @EatinistBitch advised that I “liberate a piece of their fried chicken and add it to your caesar salad.”

1. Pesto Potato Salad | 2. Arugula Salad with Roasted Chicken, Black Quinoa, and Lemon-Tahini Dressing | 3. Lemony Kale and Roasted Mushroom Salad with Pecans | 4. Roasted Beet Salad with Ricotta Salata

Summer entertaining starts this weekend, and one of the easiest ways to feed lots of people is to make a whole host of salads in advance and line a whole buffet table with the colorful bowls. Put out bread and olive oil, then let guests fill their plates.

To put together a salad buffet, you’ll want to find some balance. I like …

DINNER PARTY DESSERTS: Amazingly Easy Rich Lemon Tart; Coconut Budino; Whipped Mint Ganache and Blackberry Tart; Nutella Soufflé

My new favorite night for dinner parties is Sunday. Alex and I had friends over this past Sunday, and I have to say, cooking and socializing did a much better job of closing out a weekend than pasta, TV, work, and Monday dread.

Traditionally, Sunday nights are for Alex and me to eat pasta and get ready for the week. If we had AMC, Sundays would be for watching Mad Men. But though I find that it’s tempting to anticipate Monday-make To Do lists, draft emails, finish work-it turned out that seeing friends trumped all of that. We relaxed, sitting around over a simple dinner with some white wine (though not a ton-it was Sunday) and chatting. Dinner made the weekend feel long.

Plus, it gave me two luxurious days to figure out a menu. The whole meal came out great, so even though this post is about dessert, a crisp, I figured I’d tell you about the rest of dinner, too. First, we ate a white bean dip Leora had made. Then I served the Roasted Salmon with Herb Vinaigrette from The Essential New York Times Cookbook, using Arctic Char instead of salmon. It’s a fantastic dinner party dish-uber-pretty presentation, but hardly any last-minute work. I’m going to be making it a lot this summer.

FUN FINGER FOOD: BBQ Chicken Satays; Herb and Lemon Buttered Popcorn; Heirloom Tomato Brushetta; Sweet Pea and Crab Crostini

It’s a sad truth of NYC life is that hardly anyone just drops by, at least not without a phone call, email, g-chat, or text. It’d be nice if people did, but friends live all over the city, and I can’t imagine many of them winding up outside my door unannounced.

Yet somehow knowing that I have the ingredients to create an impromptu cocktail munchie (and an impromptu cocktail) should a friend buzz up unexpectedly makes me feel incredibly empowered, hostess-wise.

So if and when my neighbors and friends decide they’ll come by, I’ll have these easy cheese-covered crostini to serve them.

Last week, when I posted a recipe for Iced Strawberry Green Tea, I felt like kind of an idiot trying to write instructions for how to make iced tea. Because I’m sure you all know how. But I actually do have a trick I learned from my mom to streamline iced tea making so you don’t have to worry about boiling water or dilution ratios or brewing time. I call it Sun Tea, because the sun does the work, but since sun is actually not required, you could just call it “cold-brewing.” (You can cold brew coffee, too!) If I had the counter space, I’d get one of these so I could guzzle quantities of sun tea all summer long.

SEAFOOD PASTAS: Spicy Tomato Stew with Spaghetti; Shrimp Angel Hair; Egg Pasta with Saffron, Shrimp, and Peas; Mediterranean Catfish Spaghetti; Sardine Linguine with Sundried Tomatoes and Olives

If I was six and you asked me what I wanted for dinner, I would probably tell you that I wanted Linguine with Clam Sauce-hold the clams. (I liked the briny flavor but not the chewy texture.)

Weird, I know, But all kids are weird, right? Or so I hear.

Anyway, me as an adorable young kid with nearly white eyebrows and blond curls and a shyness so intense I couldn’t order my own dinner in a restaurant is not really what I wanted to talk about today. Though, to be honest, what I have to say today is hardly more interesting because life is still so busy I can’t be relied on to finish a thought.

There’s a redesign for the homepage in process. I’m working on cool new partnerships. My mom and I have been checking wedding to do’s off our list with CEO-like efficiency. Makeup. Dress. DJ. Food.

VEGGIE WRAPS AND SANDWICHES: Spicy Crunchy Hummus Wrap; Grilled Swiss and Roasted Fennel Sandwich; Roasted Eggplant Sandwiches with White Bean Spread and Chive Pesto

Salad or sandwich? How about a salad sandwich? Here’s the story:

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, there is a restaurant called Veggie Planet. It’s a hippie place of the best kind. The specialities are vegetarian pizzas with funny names like Dinner for Henry, toppings like goat cheese and roasted squash arranged on a chewy whole wheat crust. In the evenings, folk musicians hold concerts.

When I was in college, I was always searching for satisfying meals, since nothing from the dining halls ever left me feeling like I’d eaten - I mean eaten something proper, soul-satisfying in addition to just plain calories. So, any time I could come up with an excuse, I would trek the couple blocks to Veggie Planet and order a Caesar on a Big Cheesy Crouton to go. In the best case, my roommate would be in the mood for a Caesar, too. But I loved that pizza so much I didn’t mind going alone.

The CBCC (Caesar on a Big Cheesy Crouton) was exactly what it sounded like. Melted Parmesan covered the whole crust. On top, the chefs piled several handfuls of romaine dressed in a Parmesan-laced Caesar and punctuated by just barely cooked broccoli, chopped black olives, and squares of fried tofu. Seriously, satisfying.

GOOD GRAIN MEALS: Quinoa with Roasted Tomatoes, Avocado, and Pesto; Chipotle Barley Salad with Corn, Zucchini, and Radishes; Cous Cous with Blue Cheese and Pears; Vegetarian Fried Rice with Shiitakes and Cashews

Just dropping in to share the kind of recipe you, too, might make if you found yourself on a Thursday with a reasonably well stocked pantry, a lot of kale (or other greens you picked up at the farmers’ market back on Saturday), and two sweet Italian sausages that you bought from the very same farmers’ market for way too many dollars and which are threatening to go bad if you don’t find a way to integrate them into this week’s meal plan, a meal plan that has already incorporated more meat than you really like to eat.

When I make grain dishes, they’re usually vegetarian throw-together meals modeled, to some extent, off of the unexpected combinations of grains and veggies and nuts and dressings that Heidi at 101Cookbooks throws together so well. So when I committed to finishing the package of sausage, which, admittedly, was not a big deal, (it was excellent sausage), I decided that I’d balance out the flavorful meat with a selective handful of lighter components.