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.

I went to Foodstock (check out photo #12), which was fantastic and inspiring and full of culinary greats. I’ve been taking lots of photos on Instagram. I’m learning everything I possibly can about wedding cakes (the variety!). I got a Photoshop layout tutorial from Sarah, the results of which you’ll see tomorrow in a fun new feature. I decided it’s finally time to learn some coding.

The upshot of all of these activities puts extra emphasis on a super tasty but super quick dinner over which Alex and I can relax and connect. And so, I made this pasta. It’s more than the sum of its parts–seafood, pasta, herbs, and garlic–and a bowl of linguine with clam sauce acts as bridge between childhood me and and busy 2012 me. Only now I eat the clams.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Linguine with Clam Sauce
Serves 2

Ingredients
16 littleneck clams, scrubbed clean and stored in a large bowl of salty water in the fridge
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
5 cloves garlic, minced
About 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/2 teaspoon salt
Freshly ground pepper
6 tablespoons dry white wine
1/2 pound linguine

In a large, heavy pot with a lid, bring about an inch of water to a boil. Add the clams and cover the pot. Steam for 3-5 minutes, then check to see if the clams are opened. Remove any that are and put in them in a bowl. Recover the pot and give any closed clams an extra 5 minutes or so to open. (Any that don’t open after that were probably dead when you put them in, so just toss them.) Reserve the water/clam juice left over from steaming. When the clams are cool enough to handle, remove the clams from the shells and set aside in a small bowl.

In a large saucepan, warm the oil. Add the onion and stir over medium-low heat until very soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 2 more minute, stirring pretty constantly. Add 1/4 cup of parsley, the salt, and a few grinds of black pepper, and stir until the parsley is wilted, then add the wine. Turn the heat up and bring to a boil, simmering so the wine mostly cooks off, about 4 minutes. Add 1/2 cup of the reserved clam juice and bring to a gentle simmer.

While the sauce is cooking, bring a large pot of salted water to boil for the pasta. When it boils, add the pasta and cook until al dente, according to package directions.

About 5 minutes before the pasta is done, add the clams to the saucepan. When the pasta is done, drain it, then add it to the pan with the clams and the sauce. Mix well, adding a bit more of the clam broth as needed to incorporate the onions and clams into the linguine. Taste for salt and add more as needed.

Divide between two pasta plates or bowl and eat immediately.

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

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 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.

Though there are some restaurant meals I will attempt to recreate days after eating them, this one’s taken years. I remember the last time I had a Veggie Planet CBCC. It was the day after graduation, and my roommates and I were packing up our suite to move out. Amid the mess, emotional and physical, we spread our pizza boxes and went at the Caesar and at the Big Cheesy Croutons. Graduation was five years ago–almost exactly. Eek.

So in the name of nostalgia and good salad and cheese-covered pizza crust, I bring you today’s recipe, a wrap that’s a variant on that old favorite, and every bit as satisfying.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Caesar Wrap with Tofu Croutons and Broccoli
Makes 4 sandwiches

If you’re vegetarian, you’ll obviously want to omit the anchovy from the dressing.

Ingredients
1 box tofu
2-3 tablespoons safflower or canola oil
Salt
3 cups broccoli spears from 1 medium head of broccoli
1 large head romaine lettuce, trimmed, washed, and torn into bite-sized pieces
Caesar Dressing (recipe follows)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
4 large whole wheat wraps

Starting at one of the short sides, cut the block of tofu into 6 even rectangles. Arrange several layers of clean dish towels or paper towels on a cutting board and place the tofu in one layer on top. Top with more towels and another cutting board. Weight with some thick cookbooks or a cast iron pan and set aside for at least 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the broccoli: in the bottom of a pot fitted with a steamer basket, bring a few inches of water to boil. Place the broccoli in the basket and steam the broccoli for 5 minutes, under tender-crisp. Sprinkle with salt and set aside.

When the tofu has drained/pressed, remove the weights and the towels. Cut each rectangle into eight bite-sized squares. Sprinkle them with salt.

Heat the oil in a large nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Add the squares of tofu–only enough so that they cook in one layer with about an inch of space between them–and cook for 5 minutes without disturbing them, until golden brown. Flip the squares with a spatula and cook another 5 minutes, until the second side is golden too. Remove to a paper towel, and repeat with the second batch, adding a little more oil if needed. Sprinkle all the tofu croutons with salt.

Place the romaine in a large mixing bowl with the broccoli and tofu squares. Toss with the Parmesan and about half of the Caesar dressing, adding more dressing to suit your taste. The dressing is thick, so use two big spoons or your hands to coat the vegetables. Taste for salt and pepper, adding more as needed.

Place a whole wheat wrap on a microwave-safe plate covered with a slightly damp paper towel. Microwave for about 20 seconds, until the wrap is pliable. Remove the paper towel and place about a quarter of the salad (make sure to get plenty of broc and tofu) on one half of the wrap. Roll the wrap away from you, tucking in the sides as you go. Make the roll pretty tight.

Repeat with the remaining wraps. Cut each in half and serve.

Caesar Dressing
(adapted from Twenty by Michael Ruhlman)

Ingredients
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 clove garlic, coarsely chopped
1-2 anchovies (optional)
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
1 large egg yolk
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup safflower or other neutral oil
Freshly ground pepper

Combine the salt and garlic in a mini food processor. Pulse to chop the garlic. Add the anchovy and pulse again. Add the lemon juice and egg yolk and pulse again until totally smooth. Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and pulse again, the pour in the rest of the olive oil and process to emulsify the dressing. Pour in the safflower oil, and process until creamy. Grind in lots of fresh pepper.

This will keep several days, covered, in the fridge.

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. I gravitated towards greens, beans, and pasta (in the form of cous cous), all ingredients I might have paired with sausage one by one. Together, they turned the sausages into a meat-lite one-dish supper that I packed for lunch for about the next four days but managed not to get tired of.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Cous Cous with Sausage, Kale, and White Beans
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups cous cous
Salt
1 bunch kale, trimmed of the thick stalk in the middle
Olive oil
2 mild Italian sausages
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons white wine
Large handful of basil leaves, chopped
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese

First, make the cous cous: bring 1 1/2 cups water to boil in a small saucepan with a lid. When it boils, add the couscous and 1/4 teaspoon salt, give it a good stir, turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let sit for 10 minutes, or until the other components are ready.

Next, make the kale. Bring a big pot of water to boil. Add a couple teaspoons salt and the kale. Boil for 12-15 minutes, until the kale is tender. Reserve 1 cup of the water, then drain the kale. When it’s cool enough to handle, chop it into bite-sized pieces and set aside.

Onto the sausage. Remove the sausage from its casings and break into small chunks. Heat about 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the meat and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sides of the sausage are golden brown, about 5 minutes. Scoop up the sausage and transfer to a plate.

Reduce the heat to medium and put in the garlic. Cook for about 1 minute, just until softened (but keep a careful watch, since the pan will be hot from cooking the sausage). Add the beans. Add the wine and stir to scrape up any bits of sausage stuck to the pan. Let the wine simmer and reduce til it just films the pan, then add 1/2 cup of reserved kale water and reduce again.

Add the sausage back in, then add the kale. Stir the cous cous in its pot to get rid of any clumps, then add that too. Add the basil and the parm, stir the whole thing together. Serve hot or room temperature.

SPRING DRINKING: Gin and Gingers; Iced Chai Tea Latte; Lemonade, Spiked or Sober

As any northerner worth her flannel will tell you, iced tea should not be sweet. Below the Mason-Dixon line (and in Morocco) Southern types apparently drink tea so sugary you’d think it was mixed for a hummingbird. Up here, we relish black tea that borders on bitter and register utter dismay anytime we find out that a restaurant serves its house iced tea laced with sweetener.

Expert in coconut cake and shrimp and grits, perhaps the Southerners could school us in the pleasures of sweet iced tea as well. Or maybe we could school them about why a glass of unsweetened green tea beats sugar water any day. Or perhaps we should all meet in the middle–somewhere around southern Virginia–and toast to the United States with cool Mason jars filled with slightly sweetened iced green tea flavored not just with sugar but also with strawberries.

I figured if we were going sweet, we might as well go there with gusto, and so I made a strawberry syrup that I’ve been doling out into glasses of iced tea on the pre-summer but very warm afternoons we were having in NYC until this week, when April Flowers turned to May Showers.

On the other hand, if it’s after 5pm (that’s 11am on weekends), you might want to nix the green tea and stir tablespoons of strawberry syrup into flutes of champagne. Then you can toast to drinking the girliest glass of bubbly you’ve ever seen (its pink hue might make it seem to be appropriate only for baby showers and bachelorette bashes, but if you can overcome the color, it’s good anytime).

From my kitchen, embracing sweet tea, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Iced Strawberry Green Tea
Serves 4

Ingredients
1 pound fresh strawberries, washed, trimmed, and quartered
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
zest of 1 lemon

4 cups iced green tea (or champagne, or seltzer, or ginger ale, or the cocktail makings of your dreams)

Combine the strawberries, sugar, water, and lemon zest in a small, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and cook for about 25 minutes. Strain, pushing down on the strawberries to extract all the juices. Place in a covered container and completely in the fridge (store extras in the fridge, too).

Add about 3 tablespoons of strawberry syrup to a cup of green tea. Stir, and taste to see if you want more syrup. Serve over ice.

Thank you for sharing your amazing local-made dishes with us as part of the Full Circle Home Giveaway! I can’t wait to try my hand at your creations: carrot pancakes, ramp pizza, and quinoa chili.

The lucky reader taking home a whole bunch of green cleaning goodies…Nicolette!

Here’s what Nicolette had to say:

I love making a dessert with fruits from the farmers market, like a pound cake with fresh strawberries.

Stay tuned for great local produce recipes (especially now that summer is on its way), and more opportunities to win great products!

–Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

MORE PANCAKES: Pumpkin Pancakes; Root Vegetable Pancakes; Sweet Almond Pancakes with Fresh Raspberries; Apple Pancakes; Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with Raspberry Sauce

My family has never been much for Mother’s Day. In the past, we’ve sometimes let my mom get away with claiming that “every day is Mother’s Day” and not having a particular lunch or brunch or dinner to celebrate. But as my grandmother has gotten older, we’ve conceded the win to the [Hallmark] holiday. I like the change, since getting together means the chance to see my grandma, my aunt, and my cousin. And to celebrate my mom, and maybe even bring her some little gift if she’ll accept it.

Back then, mom was right about every day being Mother’s Day. My sisters and I were good kids, and we appreciated mom –in particular, her cooking. We listened to her, helped her out, were more or less obedient. But now that I live in Brooklyn, more than a entire subway line away from where I grew up (and my sisters live beyond the reach of NYC public transit), every day isn’t Mother’s Day. And since my mom is as awesome now as she was back then, I figure we should at last, make use of the long-scoffed-at holiday.

So the end of the story is that we’re all going to be up in Westchester on Sunday at a restaurant. But if you’re lucky enough to be able to host your mother (or grandmother, or aunt, or kids) this weekend, these savory corn cakes would be a great centerpiece for breakfast or brunch. If you’re making a big batch, you can make them a little bit ahead of time and then reheat them in the oven.

From my kitchen, loving mom, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Savory Buttermilk Pancakes with Corn
Makes about 10 pancakes

Ingredients
1 cup buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup white cornmeal
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
3/4 teaspoon sugar
2/3 cup corn kernels (frozen are fine, just defrost under some running water and pat dry)
Cilantro, for garnish
Sour cream or yogurt, for topping
Maple syrup, for topping

In a medium bowl or large measuring cup, combine the buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter

In a separate small bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour through sugar). Sprinkle the dry ingredients over the wet and in as few strokes as possible, mix them together. A few lumps are fine. Fold in the corn.

Heat a cast-iron skillet or pan for 5 minutes over medium heat. Lightly brush with butter or oil. Cook batter by 1/4 ladles, letting each pancake firm up, show bubbles on top and turn golden on the bottom before flipping. Cook on the second side. Serve with cilantro, extra corn, and a dollop of sour cream or yogurt for garnish, or go the sweet route with maple syrup. Bacon should definitely be served on the side.

Cheesy White Bean Dip with Smoked Paprika Toasts

Chicken Marbella

Green Salad

Coconut Budino

1. Rich Chocolate Cake

2. Hot Raisin Bread

3. Matzoh Balls

4. Soft Scrambled Eggs

5. Corn Muffins

6. Brisket with Slow-Cooked Onions

7. Fried Noodles

8. Chicken Parmesan

The last time I shared pictures of my kitchen was back when I lived in my Park Slope studio, the kitchen where this site was started. It was basically a closet – the “Small Kitchen” of the blog’s title.

These days, Alex and I have a one-bedroom in up-and-coming Prospect Heights (a store selling only mayonnaise just opened a few blocks up from us – if that’s not up and coming, I don’t know what is). Besides the location, the kitchen definitely sold me on this apartment. It doesn’t have a lot of counter space, and it doesn’t have a dishwasher. But new Ikea cabinets and appliances, bright sunlight, and a black marble countertop make it a chef’s kitchen all the same.

And our upgraded kitchen has become the receptacle for a lot of new kitchen gear, a little bit of it from friends and family who’ve started giving us wedding and engagement gifts from our registry. (I hated registering, by the way – it felt acquisitive even though I tried to think of it as helping out guests who might want to give us presents. But so far what we’ve gotten has truly come in handy!)

Anyway, I thought I’d share five new kitchen and home favorites that have come to inhabit my kitchen. Here’s the new gear!

OXO Containers -  made of BPA-free material, they’re excellent for stacking in the fridge in a way that makes leftovers look organized and appealing

Emile Henry Ramekins, recently seen with these Coconut Budinos

Cake: A Global History (the same series also published books called Curry, Pizza, and Pancake)

Logitech Wireless Mouse (a gift from Alex: it’s infrared, which means you don’t need a mousepad on most surfaces, comes in cool colors, and keeps my wrist intact when I work all day at my laptop)

 Rancho Gordo Beans (l-to-r: Christmas Limas, Yellow Eyes, Good Mother Stallards), a gift from my future sis-in-law, Lissa Ivy

And, a bonus, the cards we’re using for engagement and wedding thank you notes! (I got them at Lion in the Sun, in Park Slope)

As you juggle the various Tex-Mex possibilities you might serve to guests at the annual Cinco De Mayo shindig this weekend, you’ll probably think about chili, you’ll think about make-your-own tacos, you’ll probably think about black bean dip and guacamole. All easy to make – even make ahead – and awesome fare for a crowd.

You might rule out serving nachos though. Maybe you think of the cheese-covered chips as junk food beyond repair, salty chips and artificial dip only eaten in the dark of a movie theater. Or maybe you think of them as a TV-watching snack for one, artfully made in the microwave.

But actually, nachos are fabulous party food. People love them. And they’re easy. All I did to make these was scatter sturdy-ish chips (I used Food Should Taste Good sweet potato flavor) on a couple of parchment-covered baking sheets and grate tons of fresh cheddar on top. Then I added some refried beans (you could add spicy ground meat, pickled jalepeños, or chicken as well), and put the baking sheets in the oven fifteen minutes before I wanted to serve them.

When the cheese was nice and melty, I started lifting the nachos off the sheets and onto a big platter, alternating the chips with my toppings: avocado and seasoned tomatoes (but you could throw in sour cream or scallions or olives too). The pile-up is messy, but the prep is surprisingly simple, as you just saw.

And the result is totally crowd-pleasing.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Nachos
Serves 4-6, easily doubled or tripled if you’ve got oven space

I’ve pared the nacho down to a mimimalist form here. Feel free to add more of your favorite toppings, such as: sautéed ground meat or chopped green chiles (with the refried beans) or sour cream or scallions (dolloped on with the tomatoes and avocado).

Ingredients
5.5 ounce bag of Food Should Taste Good or other sturdy chips (super thin ones can break when you pile up the nachos)
6 ounces freshly shredded cheddar cheese
1 avocado
1 medium-sized plum tomato, cut in a 1/4-inch dice
juice of 1 lime
1 clove garlic, minced with 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup refried beans or mashed black beans

Preheat over to 375°F. Scatter the chips in one layer on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle the cheese on top. Dollop large spoonfuls of refried beans across the cheese-covered chips.

Bake for 10-15 minutes, until the cheese is melted and oozing.

While the cheese is melting, mash the avocado in a small bowl with 1/2 the minced garlic and half the lime juice. Taste for salt, adding more as needed. Add the rest of the garlic to a small bowl with the diced tomato. Squeeze on the rest of the lime juice and mix. Taste for salt, adding more as needed.

Lift about a quarter of the chips onto a large serving platter. Dollop with mashed avocado and sprinkle with the diced tomatoes. Place another layer of the chips and dollop with more avocado and tomatoes. Repeat until you’ve used up all the chips, and finish with tomatoes and avocado. Eat as soon as possible.