Tag: recipe

Great Aunt Margaret’s Chocolate Frosting

Aunt Margaret (right) and my great grandmother, on my mother’s graduation day from kindergarten. Their three vastly different expressions are curious, and priceless. My son just celebrated his very first birthday.  I was naturally flooded with an enormous range of huge emotions.  But, instead of being very weepy and nostalgic for the entire month prior,… Continue reading Great Aunt Margaret’s Chocolate Frosting

Put it on Toast. 25 ways to start Thanksgiving.

Help!   Thanksgiving is 72 hours away and while you have been dog-earing cookbooks for weeks, shopped the weekend before, and even managed to avoid the elbow to your shoulder by the feisty octogenarian who was going to in NO WAY let you have the store’s last quart of whipping cream (this actually happened to me… Continue reading Put it on Toast. 25 ways to start Thanksgiving.

Rhubarb and White Cherry Ice Pop

I’m back. My hands have been very, delightfully full these last many months, but I feel like we are all finally starting to figure out a good rhythm together.  And being a mom is, well, utterly remarkable, and it is hard to not devour every minute. Even with our full hands, we did manage to… Continue reading Rhubarb and White Cherry Ice Pop

Pumpkin Seed Brittle

If you are going to rot your teeth out with sweets on this Halloween, why not do it with a sweet, savory, nutty, homemade confection, that also makes use of the often discarded remnants of jack-o-lantern carving?? There are many recipes for pumpkin seed brittle out there, but most use the raw, hulled seeds (or… Continue reading Pumpkin Seed Brittle

Leek Bacon and Gruyere Tart

This frenchy-french-french tart has the lusciousness of fall written all over it.  Spectacular for breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, it is also glorious with a crisp green salad.  And it freezes really well.  So with it almost taking as much work to make one as to make two, do just that and stock yourself with… Continue reading Leek Bacon and Gruyere Tart

Buttermilk Honey Wheat English Muffins

  I don’t know about you, but I am a tad worn out from all of the high-spirited holidays that have been crammed into the calendar as of late.  Earth Day, Easter, Passover, National Eggs Benedict Day (I wish I was kidding), Arbor Day, May Day, Cinco De Mayo, and even a wedding of the… Continue reading Buttermilk Honey Wheat English Muffins

Homemade Butter

Ever since the first time I whipped my own fresh whipped cream, I have kept my gaze obcessively glued to it, in dreaded fear of over-whipping and having it turn into butter.  The horror!  Imagine!  And so to this day I anxiously sweat that critical make or break, stiff peak to useless butter, moment. But… Continue reading Homemade Butter

Homemade Mango Lime Soda Syrup

Here is another soda syrup recipe to accompany yesterday’s homemade ginger soda syrup.  Super refreshing and light, making me crave flip flops and sunscreen.  Try mixing a little of both syrups together for mango-lime-gingerlicious beach blanket bingo in a glass.  Who says it’s only april?   HOMEMADE MANGO LIME SODA SYRUP by Catie Schwalb makes… Continue reading Homemade Mango Lime Soda Syrup

Homemade Ginger Soda Syrup

Perhaps because of the few (very few) days of slightly decent weather we’ve had lately, my attention has recently shifted from hot teas and afternoon hot mochas to cold, effervescent beverages. We are not big soda drinkers in our house, almost none at all, for all of the obvious reasons (high fructose corn syrup, chemicals,… Continue reading Homemade Ginger Soda Syrup

Anandama Bread: 33 % whole wheat, 100 % comfort.

I’m covered in flour and the entire house smells like warm bread.  A good day by all standards. With slender baguette pans, gurgling jars of sourdough starter, and an array of silky flours, my father was a talented bread baker.  One of his specialties, the one I hold dearest, was Anadama Bread.  As a kid,… Continue reading Anandama Bread: 33 % whole wheat, 100 % comfort.

Blog-y’s first birthday!

My mother and grandmother, 1951. Just a year ago today I published my first blog post.  There have been a bunch of changes over the year (including the name and url), but I am so thrilled where I have landed and am so excited for all that is ahead. In the past twelve months I’ve… Continue reading Blog-y’s first birthday!

Blood Orange and Clementine Galette

Soon after I finished culinary school a wise and wonderful chef and cookbook author asked me, as I was first meeting her, what kind of food do you cook? I was a little stumped.  I was just out of a year of cooking little other than classical french cuisine.  And a year of cooking predetermined recipes… Continue reading Blood Orange and Clementine Galette

Breakfast for your Valentine

I remember the first year freshdirect.com was operating they offered a somewhat genius valentine’s day package.  It was something along the lines of ready-to-cook surf and turf, fixings for chocolate fondue, a bottle of bubbly, and then parbaked croissants and orange juice for breakfast the next morning.  One click, and you look like an exceedingly… Continue reading Breakfast for your Valentine

Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup

The start of the holiday season in my home growing up was always marked by the arrival of a substantial pile of dogeared food magazines next to both sides of my parents’ bed, as they hunted for recipe inspiration in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving.  That tradition has definitely lived on with me (and… Continue reading Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup

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

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

Put it away put it away put it away now.

Red hot chili peppers.  Sweet orange bell peppers.  Long curly Jimmy Nardello peppers.  Short stubby serrano peppers. All of them. Peppers are still abundant at the farmers’ market, super sweet this time of the season, and the easiest vegetable to put away for the winter months.  You don’t need to peel them or blanch them… Continue reading Put it away put it away put it away now.

Baking with my dad.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my food heritage.  Partly because I have cooked little other than french food for the last two years, and simultaneously have spent more time in Chinatown than ever before.  And in part because as I wade deeper and deeper into a career with food, I am having strong… Continue reading Baking with my dad.

Utterly Chard-ming

First, yes, it is a terrible pun.  But in all honesty, I had a dream about writing this post, and that is the title I watched myself type in the dream.  So who am I to interfere with subconscious inspiration/intervention? Moving on… Our garden is still loaded with beautiful food.  But as is the case… Continue reading Utterly Chard-ming

Herb and Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossoms

Our few small winter squash plants, that I started from seed this year, have taken off, and taken over, and are now literally climbing the walls of the new squash garden we put in.  It is still amazing to me that one tiny 1.5 cm long seed can turn into a gigantic sprawling little-shop-of-horrors-like vine… Continue reading Herb and Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossoms

Ramp Tortilla Recipe

Ummmm…eggs…ramps…potato… When my brother returned from his junior year in Spain, he craved the egg tortilla espanola found on the counter at most tapas bars and eateries.  It also happened to be one of my favorite recipes I learned in my “egg” lesson in my first weeks in culinary school (thank you Chef Justin).  The… Continue reading Ramp Tortilla Recipe

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

Earl Grey and Lavender Granita recipe

A lovely and unexpected flavor combination, that serves as a small sweet forecast of warmer weather ahead. I saw a new stand at the market this week I hadn’t noticed previously. Lavender by the Bay is a lavender farm in East Marion, NY. They were selling a variety of dried lavender sachets and bouquets, but… Continue reading Earl Grey and Lavender Granita recipe

Polenta with Goat Cheese, Shallots, and Greens recipe

On a trip to the farmers market it doesn’t serve you to bring a list or to have rigid expectations.  The most effective shopping there is always done by just discovering what is the very best of this week’s offerings.  As mentioned before, that can sometime be rough in the less produce-friendly times of year.… Continue reading Polenta with Goat Cheese, Shallots, and Greens recipe

Baked Apple Galette

I have some Mutzu apples from a recent trip to the farmers’ market.  These apples are softball-huge and bright lime green, and immediately caught my attention as I was perusing the Migliorelli Farm stand.   They are such gorgeous specimens it seemed blasphemous to peel them and cut them up into chunks—or toss them with a… Continue reading Baked Apple Galette

Homemade Fresh Ricotta

Lately we have been getting the most wonderful fresh milk from Dirie’s Farm, a small family-owned dairy farm near us.  The milk has a whole melody of flavor, that clearly illustrates what people are talking about when they refer to the terroir in wine.  You can taste this area.  You can taste the differences in… Continue reading Homemade Fresh Ricotta

Sweet Potato Pecan Teacakes

Yesterday I received in the mail some adorable vintage aluminum baking molds that I purchased a little while back from the great upcycle shop AntiNu on Etsy.com.  I had sweet potatoes from the market, and got to work. A handful of years ago the Center for Science in the Public Interest did a study comparing… Continue reading Sweet Potato Pecan Teacakes

Winter Chicken “Noodle” Soup, with Dill Parmesan Crisps

After the 3+ feet of snow we had this past week, I find it impossible to believe that I am watching even more flurries outside today.  The blizzard this week caused the farmers, whose work ethic is only outdone by their good sense, to not come to NYC for the greenmarket this Friday.  Union Square,… Continue reading Winter Chicken “Noodle” Soup, with Dill Parmesan Crisps