Cooking Away the Post Mexico Blues

After 10 days in Mexico, we returned to NYC earlier this week to freezing sleet. I quickly retreated to my recent memories of lounging on the beach and eating seafood for breakfast, lunch and dinner along with cold micheladas and tequila…for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Last night I couldn’t bring the sun back, but I could at least cook up some saltwater delicacies. I opted for scallops with spinach and lemon risotto since I didn’t want to compete with the tasty fish, shrimp and octopus ceviche we had grown accustomed to.

I used the lemon risotto recipe from Bon Appetit but I skipped the extra butter and parsley at the end. It also made enough for six so next time I would half the recipe.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Lemon-Risotto-106451

For the scallops and spinach, I followed this recipe from the Unemployed Chef. I liked their hint about not moving the scallops around in the pan so that they get that nice carmelized color.

http://theunemployedcook.blogspot.com/2006/03/seared-scallops-over-wilted-spinach.html

After finishing our meal, we didn’t plunge into the ocean and nap under a palm tree. Instead we had ice cream and watched The Wire. In other words, time to go back to Mexico.

Tackling Gnocchi

During one of my precious nights out a few weeks ago, I had the Gnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce at Malatesta in the West Village. I rarely order gnocchi as they are often defrosted lumps of goo, but I needed something to soak up the wine in anticipation of an early morning baby wake up. Surprisingly, they were amazing and reminded me that gnocchi can be spectacular when done right.

Coincidently, Rupal called me a few days later and suggested we try making gnocchi in my little kitchen that night. She was inspired by the recipe in this article:

http://thedailycure.wordpress.com/2011/02/15/gnocchi/

She brought over some fresh eggs from an urban farming project she visited earlier in the day and after picking up some flour and potatoes, we were ready to go. There was something deeply satisfying about really making a meal from scratch. We riced the potatoes (more physically demanding than expected), kneaded the dough, rolled it out into little gnocchi snakes, and then cut them into little pillows. We laughed at the fact that we had bought six potatoes since we ended up with enough dough to feed 30 people. (See previous entry about being measurement challenged.)

The gnocchi weren’t perfect. I would add a bit more flour next time. But as we surveyed the mess of raw ingredients around us, we both felt ridiculously proud of our truly homemade meal and ourselves.

Measurement Challenged

I have no sense of distance, size, weight or anything else that requires estimating with numbers. To the amusement of Ryan, I’m constantly underestimating how many people live in NYC, how long the bike ride was or how heavy Xavier is. My obsession with frequent flyer miles has helped a bit with getting a sense of distance but other than that, I’m pretty useless. Not surprisingly then, when a carrot cake recipe calls for two cups of chopped carrots, I have no idea if that is ten carrots or three. (For the record it’s closer to 3.) To make a long story short, after making carrot cake for Valentines Day, I had more than a few leftover carrots.

I already wrote about carrot soup so I was hesitant to include this recipe but it’s awesome. And this is coming from somebody who hates cooked carrots. It’s called Moroccan Carrot Soup and I followed it almost exactly except I used ground cumin instead of toasted cumin seeds and I substituted nutmeg and cinnamon for the all spice.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Moroccan-Carrot-Soup-357911

I still have left over carrots.

Valentine's Day Without Chocolate

Normally when I want to make a ridiculously indulgent dessert, I can only think chocolate. (See previous post titled Sour Cream-Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Peanut Butter Frosting and Chocolate-Peanut Butter Glaze to get an idea.) Lately, however, chocolate has lost some of its allure because I eat it everyday.

Since I have been on maternity leave, I make a daily trek to Chelsea Market to buy fresh produce, grab a cup of 9th Street Espresso or pick up some local, sustainable, organic (read overpriced) meat at the butcher. I convince myself I need spinach, caffeine or sausage but in reality I walk the two blocks west to grab a free sample at Kitchen Witch brownies. Kitchen Witch is generous with their samples, a marketing ploy I can only assume they use to get people hooked on their brownies. Unfortunately for Kitchen Witch Co., it simply satisfies my chocolate cravings and sets me free to explore other desserts such as Carrot Cake with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting.

I followed the recipe below with only a few small exceptions. Instead of grating the carrots, I just threw them in the food processor and used some of the carrot gratings as sprinkles. Add the powdered sugar to the icing slowly and taste it (good excuse!) as you go along to make sure it’s not too sweet.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2008/12/carrot-cake-with-maple-cream-cheese-frosting/

The Return of the Dinner Party

Having an infant around has changed a lot of things in my life including when I sleep, how high my heels are, and the apps on my iphone. For me, however, one of the biggest adjustments was the sudden absence of friends crowded around my coffee table for weekly dinner parties. Over the past few months my early bedtime and exhaustion have made it impossible to muster up the enthusiasm to poke around recipe websites let alone get my act together enough to chop garlic and shallots.

Surprisingly, I have missed these evenings and the satisfaction that comes with a well-prepared meal far more than crazy late nights out in the east village. (Give me a few weeks for the latter!) Thankfully, last night – 3 months to the day from when this whole journey started – I broke the trend of dining on frozen tamales before diving deliriously into bed.

To celebrate the occasion, Ian and PWT came over at 6 pm. (I still knew I would be diving deliriously into bed before 10). Ryan and I picked a recipe that was new and challenging but not too complicated in case at least three of our four hands were tied up bouncing the bambino.

The recipe is called Chicken in Almond Sauce on Epicurious and it goes something like this:

1. Grind one cup of almonds in a food processor until coarse but not pasty.
2. Mix with 2 teaspoons oregano, 1 teaspoon cinnamon or a cinnamon stick, and 4 bay leaves or some juniper berries. Toast mixture in a large skillet until almonds are golden. Remove and set aside.
3. Add a few tbsp of oil to the same pan and sear 6 chicken breast halves (2 lbs). Remove and set aside.
4. Again, using the same pan (my dishwasher is small), fry up 3-5 slices of bacon until crispy. Add two chopped onions and 6 cloves of garlic. Sautee until soft. Add almond mixture and 2 cups of chicken broth. Stir for one minute scraping up any bits from the bottom of the pan.
5. Add chicken back to the skillet and simmer for 5 minutes until chicken is cooked through. Salt and pepper to taste.
6. Serve with rice, bulgur wheat, or some other grain and some simple greens.
7. Jump into bed.

Moose Memory Cookies

One of the last trips that Ryan and I took before Xavier was born was to Stockholm where I bought a moose cookie cutter in anticipation of my annual Christmas cookie bake off with my godmother. During the first few weeks following Xavier’s birth, I clung to the memories of Sweden as a way to remind myself that my world wasn’t going to revolve around a nursing pillow forever.

Xavier is ten weeks old today and while I’m still not out exploring the streets of northern Europe, I venture beyond the confines of our tiny apartment at least once a day regardless of the January winds. Over Christmas I trudged through two feet of snow to spend a few peaceful hours (alone!) with my godmother baking cookies using our favorite recipe from a 2003 Bon Appetit. We have caught up every year over cookie dough since I was old enough to hold a cookie cutter. This year among the familiar lopsided Santas and angels with missing wings of years past was the moose.

http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2003/12/christmas_cutouts_with_vanilla_icing

Digging into the Freezer

Since the arrival of Xavier two weeks ago, our microwave has probably gotten more use than it ever has. Ryan has been a bit more ambitious than I have and presented me with Chicken Parmesan the other night as I lay comatose on the couch. But for the most part, we have eaten our fair share of frozen Trader Joes tamales while trying not to drop the steaming bites onto Xavier’s head. We have also dug even deeper into the freezer and pulled out a few dishes I had stashed away in the last months of pregnancy in anticipation of Chelsea take out overload. A few nights ago we defrosted one of my favorite soups that I’ll be making many times this winter. It only has four ingredients – pumpkin or butternut squash, coconut milk, Thai chili paste and butter – but it’s incredibly satisfying...as is getting your two week old to pose in soup pot.

Try it out:

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/001525.html