Cooking For One

Last week, I’d finally had it with the old, super-tiny photo of me that I’d been using as my internet avatar and in the about section of this site. In the image, I’m not even looking at the camera, and my poor cropping job has severed my lower arms. Call me vain, but as someone who uses the word “I” about fifty times in every post, I can’t blame a reader for wanting to see an image, to figure out who that “I” person is. I certainly do when I visit other blogs.

Rima Campbell, photographer and founder of bkstyled - a site she started with the lovable mantra “because I believe in Brooklyn” - was kind enough to come by and take some new photos of me in my small kitchen, and that shoot has become this post, because I love how the images came out.

I decided to pose in front of my overstuffed bookshelf, a piece of furniture emblematic of the small kitchen’s perpetual war with clutter. The shelves once held actual books but now bear the weight of jars of flour and beans, my two LeCreuset pots, my cake stand, and my old-fashioned analog kitchen scale, plus my substantial napkin and dish towel collection-both clean and dirty.

For the shoot, I decided to prepare two simple open-faced sandwiches. One, with avocado and radish, is an old favorite. The second, a newer combo, is made up of two condiments easily whipped up in the food processor: white bean spread and arugula-walnut pesto. That pairing was really delightful, light, almost springy, like a vacation from gloomy February. It reminded me how much I love white bean spread, which is insanely simple to make. (I don’t need to be reminded of my affection for pesto.)

Since the tartines turned out more exciting than I expected and because Rima shot gorgeous photos of the food, I decided to celebrate the arrival of my new about photo, which’ll be appearing as well on a slightly revamped sidebar soon, by sharing the recipe for them with you.

So. We’re off to Thailand on Friday. I have a new striped maxi dress, a hat with SPF50 fabric that somehow still manages to look stylish, a plan to see Chiang Mai, Angkor Wat, Bangkok, and Krabi, and Not Derby Pie‘s recommendations for eating khao soi, pad kee mau, lard na talay, and kai jiew pu. I can’t wait for the food (and everything else, too. . . like the beach and the ancient temples).

I’ve scheduled a bunch of new content to go live while we’re gone - round-ups and some yummy recipes - but the posts won’t exactly be newsy. I’ll report back on the trip, the noodles, and the curries when I’m back, of course. In the meantime, you can probably follow along on instgram. I’ll aim to take some pictures on my phone, since, for a change, I’m leaving my dSLR at home and aiming not to open a laptop. Wish me luck, and don’t have too much fun on the web without me.

Before I go, I’m sharing this easy one-pot dish I often make for breakfast, lunch, or dinner when it’s just me at the table. I crank the oven up and toss potatoes with olive oil, then get them crispy for a while. Before long, I crack a couple of eggs on top and cook them. In this version, I made a lightened pesto dip to dollop on top. You could also use salsa or your favorite chutney. This dish of Baked Eggs with Tomatoes and Smoky Potatoes is another awesome variation.

Sometimes, when I walk into our apartment building, I can smell someone else’s broccoli cooking. This does not bode well for my own appetite. Broccoli, let’s not forget, is cruciferous, and cooking the vegetable can evoke cabbage in the least flattering way. But the scent of other people’s broccoli-as well as other people’s delicious, delicious bacon-is the price of crowded city living, the indignity we suffer to dwell on a cute corner in a beloved neighborhood in everyone’s favorite borough.

Ever since I read this no-nonsense tip from Reading My Tea Leaves, I’ve worried less about preventing pervasive food scents, for my neighbors or myself. (Alex does have a system of opening windows and plugging in fans for when I’m going to get the kitchen really smoky.) Cook something a little stinky, then cook something wonderful. Caramelize onions (I despise their after-smell), then bake a batch of granola (the finest way to make an apartment smell like home).

The preparation for this pasta starts with roasting broccoli. It’s not that strong a smell-I don’t want to turn you off. But then right after you take the broccoli out of the oven, you brown butter on the stove. And I always want the scent of brown butter, nutty and rich, to linger. Mixed together with spaghetti, these few fragrant ingredients become a rich, homey weeknight dinner that leaves the place smelling great.

Continuing on in my journey to celebrate four years of blogging by posting fantastic old Big Girls, Small Kitchen recipes that have less-than-awesome photos, we come to this incredibly easy, immensely satisfying Sweet and Sour Tofu, formerly known simply as New Favorite Tofu. Yes, along with an understanding of light and dSLR lenses, I have become acquainted with search engine optimization and the art of choosing at least mildly descriptive names for the food I cook.

Am I allowed to call myself adorable? Because if so, then I’d like to admit that the post that originally accompanied this recipe is really cute. In my introduction to New Favorite Tofu, I detail the email exchanges between my friend Marc’s Aunt Sara and me. Sara sent me this recipe with notes of praise so actionable that I made the tofu within a few days of getting her email. I couldn’t believe how good the tofu was, but I was also awed at the power of the internet to connect two people who liked to cook vegetarian food and let them share good recipes.

“I know this is going to make me sound like a naive 86 year-old,” I wrote, “but I think the Internet is really amazing.”

It is, isn’t it?

But the internet runs at high speed, and in the whirl of creating and posting new recipes, I haven’t returned to this sweet-and-sour tofu as often as I’ve craved it-just like the Creamy Squash Rigatoni I posted on Monday.

In honor of this blog’s four-year anniversary week, I decided I’d highlight some favorite recipes from the archives. You see, when we first got the blog going, we knew nothing about food photography. As a result, there are these total gems from the past that just sit there getting dusty in the archives, all because their lead photos aren’t up to to snuff anymore, now that the internet food world is so, well, sophisticated. Now that yellow-y glop doesn’t pass muster on a Pinterest board.

If you’ve hung around here a while, you might know BGSK’s creation myth. A burst of inspiration following Thanksgiving led to this, our first post, about a party Phoebe and I had thrown for our best friend, Jordana. A lot has changed since then, not least the internet’s aesthetic. I hadn’t met Alex, let alone married him, I was a vegetarian, and I’d lived in Brooklyn for all of a month. And I was very fond of sautéing lots of garlic in butter, and then turning that fragrant base into a pasta sauce.

This warm, nourishing bowl of squash and pasta was first published in October 2009, a year into our blogging adventure. I’m not sure I’ve made the dish since then, but I’ve craved it often. It’s formerly known as Inside-Out Ravioli Pasta (a mouthful!), which I even hesitate to link to, because man did I have some lighting and framing issues back then. I apparently had blog formatting issues too. Still, the recipe is a gem.

Damn, could I fashion a delicata squash, a handful of tube pasta, and some milk into a delightful pasta dish in just over half an hour! That I could do then! Now, I followed my old recipe almost exactly to the letter, adding in a couple clarifying directions but that’s it.

I always want to have it all. I have since I was little.

When dessert carts rolled around at those restaurants that had dessert carts, I would try to grab the mousse cake and the apple pie and the flan.

If a dinner party host offers me cake or pie, I ask for a little of each. “Ice cream on your pie?” Yes, please.

All of it.

There are moments in life when this outlook doesn’t get me very far. Having a little bit of everything means not having all of something else. You know, hedging. I’m the queen of hedging. That’s probably why I love dessert. With dessert, there aren’t really opportunity costs. What do I have to lose? A little stomach space, maybe some dignity. No big deal. In life, there are some.

When I go to the farmers’ market, I have a trick that I use to save money. I purposely don’t go to the ATM the day before. Then I take the $20 or $30 dollars left in my wallet (or, er, borrowed from Alex’s) and put the bills in my back pocket. I grab my tote, I grab my keys. I put on my sunglasses. Then I walk to Grand Army Plaza, where I spend my loot on farm fresh eggs, Ronnybrook low-fat milk, and fruits and vegetables.

I’m not against spending my dough at the market. I just know that if I go with more money, I’ll spend more money. And that money will translate into local vegetables rotting in my fridge.

My $20 trick means I have choices. Giving choices to someone who tends to hedge on Saturday morning, before coffee, is not the best idea.

Across the country, 16-year-olds sprint to the DMV for their learners’ permits. In New York City, we meander there, by subway, public bus, and yellow taxi. At least a few of my friends didn’t see a reason to get learners’ permits til they were 25.

I sprinted to get mine. Though I’m from New York City, I didn’t grow up in Manhattan. I lived in a neighborhood where you needed a car - or at least that’s how it felt at 16. As soon as I was equipped with my license, my friends were thrilled, and we planned adventures.

Here’s what we did with our wheels: we traversed two whole miles to get to a cafe where we ordered cappuccinos and cookies. We drove to the nearby deli where we’d been walking to get lunch ever since freshman year, when we first got off-campus privileges.

The deli looks like a deli, but the sandwiches are superheroes (ha). Really, they’re named after superheroes: Superman, Catwoman, and Batman. Jordana and I always got the Batman - smoked turkey, pepper jack cheese, honey mustard, and sliced apple - hold the turkey. Soon, on our drives there, we started tweaking poor Batman, subbing in brie (her) or Swiss (me) for the jack.

The nutty cheese, crunchy apple, and spicy-sweet honey mustard were irresistible, as appealing as the mile drive back to school, windows down, music up.

This simple sandwich has followed me for so long - from my first months as a licensed driver to my college days (it was easy to recreate in the dining hall) to today - that it was the obvious choice when Panera asked me to help spread the word about a sandwich contest it’s hosting. The details for the Panera Bread Sandwich Showdown are here. Basically, you play around with the virtual sandwich-maker app (really fun!) and submit a story about the legendary sandwich you’ve created for a chance to win money ($10,000! $500 Panera gift cards!) and glory (the winning sandwich will be on Panera’s menu for a year!). If you want to share the contest with friends, the hashtag for twitter and pinterest is #SandwichShowdown. Go make a sandwich before the contest ends on Oct. 6!

My update to the Batman turns it from an ordinary (super)hero to an autumnal cousin of the BLT. Apple replaces the tomato, slices of Swiss stand in for the lettuce, and honey mustard moistens the bread instead of mayo. I decided to throw on some apple chips for extra crunch, but they’re optional. The end result is a sandwich I’m thrilled to find in my lunchbox, a sandwich I’d drive even more than a mile for.

I wrote this sponsored post in partnership with Panera, in order to spread the word about Panera Bread’s Sandwich Showdown contest. Thanks, Panera! I occasionally post sponsored posts on the blog - read my affiliate disclosure here if you’d like to know more about how it works.