This is a rich, luxurious, and even slightly healthier take on a classic blue cheese dressing. It certainly marries beautifully with a big old bacon-scattered wedge salad, or as a spread on a tomato and wheat toast sandwich. But also try it alongside grilled zucchini, eggplant, and even grilled peaches. Blue cheeses tend to… Continue reading Salad Dressing of the Week: Yogurt Blue Cheese
Category: Salads
Salad Dressing of the Week: Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette
I love this dressing and use it all year long–but particularly in the summer over a bowl of fresh sliced cucumbers, or a batch of quick-blanched fresh broccoli or green beans, or sauteed greens, all from the garden. Toasted sesame oil, one of my most favorite pantry staples ever, is widely available, but if you… Continue reading Salad Dressing of the Week: Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette
Salad Dressing of the Week: Avocado, Lime and Cilantro
I made this quickly in the blender this week, to go over a cold rice salad with shredded poached chicken, local corn, a few early tomatoes and chunks of avocado. Mostly the goal was to distribute the little bit of avocado I had on hand as much as possible throughout the salad. We loved the… Continue reading Salad Dressing of the Week: Avocado, Lime and Cilantro
Salad Dressing of the Week: Roasted Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette (with a hint of white pepper)
Make this right now, with all those plump ephemeral strawberries lurking around. (If you are making this out of season–gasp–consider adding a small pinch of sugar to the berry puree to help boost the flavorless winter berries). If you can make it past eating it directly from the mixing bowl, serve this dressing… Continue reading Salad Dressing of the Week: Roasted Strawberry Balsamic Vinaigrette (with a hint of white pepper)
Salad Dressing of the Week: Sherry Vinegar and Hazelnut Vinaigrette
Last night I was having dinner with some of my favorite lady friends, and we were talking about salad dressings, as you do with your lady friends. They were saying that they each always make their same standby dressing, and were enjoying this new blog feature to help get out of their ruts. We shared… Continue reading Salad Dressing of the Week: Sherry Vinegar and Hazelnut Vinaigrette
How to deal with Rhubarb
I love rhubarb. I love it for it’s old fashioned vibe. I love it for it’s color, striking tartness, and even for it’s moderate shelf life. I also love it for showing up so darn early in the spring and sticking around for several months. And I too was at first intimidated by those long,… Continue reading How to deal with Rhubarb
Salad Dressing of the Week: Fresh Oregano and Dijon Vinaigrette
For another step in my continued fight to close down the salad dressing aisle in grocery stores, I’ll offer you a homemade salad dressing recipe each week. Fresh oregano certainly has a pronounced flavor, but actually so much more mellow and herbal and complex than what dried drab green flecks and pizza restaurant shakers have… Continue reading Salad Dressing of the Week: Fresh Oregano and Dijon Vinaigrette
Pitchfork Diaries is part of the Foodie.com 100!
Last month I was asked to be one of the Foodie 100 on the new Foodie.com beta site. It is a very pretty, very full, social network-y site with, among others, 100 great food writers and bloggers as contributors. I have three recipes on the site now, that I created just for them. Check… Continue reading Pitchfork Diaries is part of the Foodie.com 100!
One more bit of cherry tomato inspiration with which to send you off into the weekend…
I just discovered the Telepan TV channel on youtube. Bill Telepan is one of my most favorite NYC chefs, who I had the great, great pleasure of cooking with for many months that the start of his inspirational and important Wellness in the Schools school lunch campaign. He has started to put together videos, sharing… Continue reading One more bit of cherry tomato inspiration with which to send you off into the weekend…
Roasted Nectarine and Zucchini Salad
Here is a quick recipe I dreamt up, while on my roasted produce kick this week, using what is in abundance in the gardens and at the market. Thankfully, it turned out to be heavenly, lick-the-bowl-clean good. There is a magical, sum is definitely greater than it’s parts, result here, as with many very… Continue reading Roasted Nectarine and Zucchini Salad
Technique Tuesday: Using Edible Flowers
These weeks the gardens are bursting with flowers. Not the flower gardens, but the herb and vegetable gardens. Some of the flowers I planned on (nasturtiums and chamomile), some are part of the journey (pole bean blossoms which will become bean pods), and some are a result of me not harvesting fast enough and… Continue reading Technique Tuesday: Using Edible Flowers
Cornmeal Crusted Soft Shell Crab with Buttermilk Apple and Chive Coleslaw
This remarkably quick meal is a colorful and crunchy way to use the insanely good soft shell crabs that are coming into season right now. I made this for my husband and I a few nights ago, and was so pleased with the speed to wow ratio. But in addition it was so so so… Continue reading Cornmeal Crusted Soft Shell Crab with Buttermilk Apple and Chive Coleslaw
Pan-Seared Sea Scallops, with Pickled Watermelon Radish and Microgreen Salad
Here’s a great little dish using those irresistable watermelon radishes and microgreens now growing at a farmers’ market near you. Ready in under a half hour, this would be a deceptively easy, super impressive first course for a local-chic dinner soiree. Or triple the scallops, and pair it with cool buckwheat soba noodles dressed… Continue reading Pan-Seared Sea Scallops, with Pickled Watermelon Radish and Microgreen Salad
Market Watch: Microgreens
Micro Mesclun from Windfall Farms, Union Square Greenmarket, NYC. Spring is here, and the farmers’ market offerings are slowly transitioning from squash, root vegetables, and cold storage foods to fresh spring produce in the weeks ahead. One of the first fresh spring finds to look for are microgreens. Microgreens are similar to hippy, 70’s sprouts,… Continue reading Market Watch: Microgreens
Ode to The Minimalist
It was announced yesterday that Mark Bittman’s weekly column in the New York Times will end its thirteen year delicious, informative, enthusiastic, and encouraging run. I have learned many lessons from Mr. Bittman’s column. Starting in 1997, a year after I graduated from college, I cooked recipe after recipe from his writing and suggestions and… Continue reading Ode to The Minimalist
Wild Rice Stuffing with Cranberry, Apricot, and Scallion
My friend, and great cook, Cathy Elton asked me to contribute to a thanksgiving recipe series on her heart-healthy blog “What Would Cathy Eat?“. One recipe she requested was a “stuffing made without meat or butter”. Not an intuitive leap for this French Culinary Institute-trained, duck-fat-loving chef. I started musing on wild rice. Deeply flavored,… Continue reading Wild Rice Stuffing with Cranberry, Apricot, and Scallion
Indian Spiced Winter Squash with Goat Cheese and Pomegranate
My dear friend from graduate school, January LaVoy, just opened her luminous performance in Arthur Kopit’s Wings, off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theater this past weekend. When I had the chance to see the show, I thought, “Anyone can bring flowers…I’ll lug down a just-picked squash from our garden.” I mean, who wouldn’t want to… Continue reading Indian Spiced Winter Squash with Goat Cheese and Pomegranate
Use those apples
Though apples are excellent long-keepers, and will be around for months at the markets, they never taste better to me than right now–sun still warm in the sky, “transition” jacket getting pulled out of the closet, leaves crunching beneath my feet, and halloween fast approaching. Grab a few extra apples at the farmers’ market this… Continue reading Use those apples
Green Beans with Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette Recipe
As a follow-up to my previous post about all things salad dressings, here is a recipe for another rock-star of a vinaigrette, following the same formula: 1 part acid + 3 parts oil + seasonings and flavoring ingredients. This is dynamite tossed with fresh blanched local beans, perhaps adding soba noodles for downright craveable homemade… Continue reading Green Beans with Sesame Ginger Vinaigrette Recipe
Salad Dressing 101
Just about four years ago, Mark Bittman wrote a great piece in the New York Times; A Well-Dressed Salad Wears Only Homemade, and it got me thinkin’. Why did salad dressings feel like such a mystery? Why is there usually a huge amount of grocery store real estate devoted to them? Why are they so… Continue reading Salad Dressing 101
Roasted Cherry Tomato Vinaigrette
Our 52 heirloom tomato plants are in their final days, but have heroically yielded hundreds of pounds of beautiful fruit this year. A very triumphant relief, following the yield of six (yes, just six) tomatoes we got from the same number of plants last summer in the throws of the huge tomato blight. We are… Continue reading Roasted Cherry Tomato Vinaigrette
Spicy-Tart Pickled Ramp Recipe
This past weekend friends who live near us upstate, on an area overrun with ramps, graciously invited us over for our second annual swap of all-we-can-pick ramps for a pick-up truck full of our “like gold” sheep manure for their garden. (So very cutting-edge-hipster-locavore. Then again, poop for weeds…) After a very muddy morning,… Continue reading Spicy-Tart Pickled Ramp Recipe
Pea Shoot, Celeriac, Apple and Hazelnut Salad
One of the toughest parts of eating almost exclusively locally in Upstate, NY, is the lack of bright, refreshing, crunchy, raw foods and salads in the colder months. We are overflowing in hearty carrot and squash soups, but there are definitely days I would kill for the snap of a thick slice of fresh cucumber.… Continue reading Pea Shoot, Celeriac, Apple and Hazelnut Salad