Comfort Kitchen

If I were to open a restaurant, I’d make the joint a place that focuses on a single perfect dish and then serves tons of variations on the theme. Grilled cheese a thousand ways, grain bowls in a million iterations, chicken wings tossed with any sauce you can imagine.

This is nothing original. We’ve got specialized restaurants all around New York, and a lot of them aren’t even gimmicky (burrito places, banh mi stores, sushi restaurants). But, it would be fun to sit around menu planning and taste testing for my hypothetical french fry joint (there will be chili fries, cheese fries, poutine, and nacho fries, I can tell you that).

At home, we all get to be the head chefs in our small kitchens, and in our domains, this whole variation-on-a-theme tactic happens naturally. Once you master the flavors and process of one dish, you’re likely to want to make it again, yet without being boring. So while people don’t think me as the queen of baked pasta, if you come for dinner and there are more than four people present, you’ll probably be eating some riff on lasagna or mac ‘n cheese. Sorry in advance.

Not every recipe is as blank a canvas as a baked potato, but mac is. That’s why, today, I’m sharing a recipe for completely classic, absolutely perfect mac ‘n cheese. Yes, you can follow the ingredients and instructions exactly: you will come out with a rich, gooey, orange casserole. But I’m really hoping you take this as a formula. Keep the proportions of pasta, cheese, and sauce, but vary type of cheese and mix-ins, and you can create the mac of your cheffy dreams. Some ideas:

• Pesto, Peas, Proscuitto & Mozz
• Spinach & Blue Cheese
• Butternut Squash with Cheddar & Sage
• Bacon & Aged Gouda
• Broccoli & Parmesan
• Pickled Jalapeño, Black Bean & Monterey Jack
• Basil, Tomato & Smoked Mozzarella

Comfort me with lentils. Comfort me with a big bowl of little beans, scented with herbs and a little bit of meat, and served over mashed potatoes or grilled bread drizzled with olive oil.

So humble! The lentil cooks more quickly than most other beans, but the pot still simmers long enough to imbue the earthy-tasting legume with heavenly flavor.

That flavor, in this case, comes from sausage, an easy way to add undertones of fennel seed and hot pepper and oregano to your final dish without actually shaking any spices in. The flavor also comes from red wine, lots of it. The alcohol cooks off but leaves an umami residue, that taste that only reduced wine can give a dish. That taste makes these lentils stand out.

The red wine you use doesn’t have to be particularly awesome, or even all come from one bottle. This is a great recipe if your real mission is to dispose of remaining half glasses sitting in any number of lingering bottles.

In Thailand and Cambodia, Alex and I got really into eating savory breakfasts (among other delicacies). When possible, he always ordred Thai khao thom, a rice soup similar to congee that’s flavored with little bits of pork or chicken, garlic, scallions, and egg. I oscillated between a couple different types of noodle soups. Even when I thought I was craving Western-style breakfasts, eggs or croissants or whatnot, I was amazed at how good the hot broth and starchy noodles felt going down.

As we settle into a jetlagged week and aim to reset our body clocks to a the polar opposite time (Thailand is 12 hours ahead of New York), I’m making comforting foods like these lentils, which we can eat at any time of day, whether it’s 5am breakfast or 6pm dinner, before we crash at 8pm. Don’t invite me to any parties just yet.

I’ll write more about our trip soon, but first, a few mentions you may have missed while I was gone: a fun feature on me on the Martha Stewart Living blog, BuzzFeed‘s round-up of one-tray baked dinners including my potatoes and eggs with pesto yogurt, and a nice slideshow of comfort food on The Glitter Guide that calls BGSK’s tomato-basil soup perfect for those who hate to cook.

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.

 When we first “met” Kelsey, The Naptime Chef online (I think it was through Food52, where she ruled the dessert contests for a while), we immediately connected over the parallel between cooking for quarter-lifers (our niche) and cooking with a little kid around (hers).

When we first actually met her, over pretzel croissants and hot chocolate at City Bakery, we figured out exactly why that parallel was so telling. See, new moms are pressed for time, because they’re juggling an extra aspect of life, aka a child. Quarter-life cooks are pressed for time because we’re juggling a developing career, roommates, …

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…

Check out my beloved Grilled Cheese Pinboard!

My apologies: it’s the second to last day of January, and I’ve yet to post about grilled cheese. It doesn’t mean that 2012 isn’t a year of eating and writing about my favorite sandwich, er, meal.

Fortunately, it’s a good one, a classic inspired by the rich French soup, and perfect for winter. It’s also incredibly simple. Just two ingredients make this sandwich, a red onion jam created by Merrill over at Food52 and first seen on BGSK in another simple dish, a fried egg sandwich.

When I re-made this …

BIRTHDAY-WORTHY BREAKFASTS: Apple Pancakes; Toasted Pecan Oatmeal Scones; Oversized Chocolate Chip Muffins; Grits with Old Bay Frizzled Shallots and a Fried Egg; Sweet Almond Pancakes with Fresh Raspberries

When your birthday falls on a weekday (as birthdays so often do), high expectations can fall a little flat. Answering emails and going to meetings do not constitute a celebration. The simplest way to avert birthday disappointment, and one I think I learned the hard way after years of birthdays that left me a little let down, is to lower expectations. When you’re over the age of 12, …