Things I'm excited about right now:

          

Downton Abbey Christmas Special - somebody get me a sexy farmer please. Just kidding, my city boy is pretty awesome, but I wouldn't say no to a few chickens... 

Quince - I know I'm late to this party, but they make seriously good pie!

Sunday Suppers - does that not look like the coooolest place to work? I'll be hosting my own friendly supper this Sunday, a Feastival if you will, to practice for Thanksgiving and because do you really ever need a good reason to be merry with friends? No, you do not. 

Also... the NJ Turnpike - Typically I am not a fan, but something about driving home for the holidays with Jeff and Taco and a car full of gifts for everyone makes me feel all warn and fuzzy. I am such a winter baby. Actually they all sound good right about now - trains, plains, automobiles, you name it!  

Not exciting, but worth mentioning:

One of my guitar strings snapped a little while ago and I'm embarrassed to say I've never replaced them (owned the thing for a few years) so someone tell me what to buy!! 

That's all for now :-)

Salmon Salad Recipe

let's all pretend that it's no big deal to give up pasta.

I made a decision last weekend that in order to feel remotely comfortable putting on a bathing suit for the last (and first) time in NYC this summer I would have to cut out all delicious things for a week until Labor Day. This was a silly decision, made on a whim, and I didn't even make it a whole week. But none-the-less, I did get to try out a new great recipe that was tasty and healthy :-)

I've read about countless spice rubs before and always seem to opt for a wet marinade but I figured that most marinades would add unnecessary sugar. Instead I toasted some spices and ground them in my lovely (but often unused) mortar and pestle. 

My Spice Blend included:

• Chinese Five Spice Powder
• Fennel Seed
• Black Sesame Seeds
• Sea Salt
• Crushed Red Pepper 
• Dried Shallot

With a tablespoon of olive oil I rubbed the spices into the salmon and let it rest in the fridge for about an hour. Right before I was ready to sear it, I chopped a few peppers and tomatoes and made a quick salad dressing.

  


Dressing: (all approximate measurements here)

1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive oil
1/4 cup Rice Vinegar
2 Tablespoon Chinkiang Black Vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
sea salt and fresh ground black papper, to taste


and voilà

Dinner!

CSAwesome!!!

Please forgive me - as I fully intend to gush and be annoyingly happy throughout this entire post. 

Some of you know already, but I joined a CSA. Stands for Community Supported (or shared) Agriculture. Basically - I now pay for all of my veggies for a whole season up front - straight to the farmer to help with upfront production costs. And when the food is all grown up I begin picking up weekly shares :-)

Well this past Tuesday was my first pick up!!!

An array of greens I've never seen/heard of, along with some bok choy and garlic scapes...

friendly looking radishes and little baby garlics!!

Even a little visitor! We had to let him go though. 

He's been released into the wild -aka - whatever green things are left in the pots on our balcony

Dinner consisted of sauteed bok choy with garlic scapes and oyster sauce in broth with won tons :-)

Can't wait to see what shows up next week!! 

OCTOPUS!!!!!

Boom

For my dad's birthday my mom really wanted to make a dinner he would love, and hopefully remember :-)

So she scoured through her Italian cookbooks to find a great recipe for insalata di polpo - octopus salad. 

She settled on a recipe from Jamie's Italy, and sent me to Popular fish market in Newark's Ironbound district to retrieve the octopus.

Preparing the salad was much easier than we thought (well, all but the cleaning of the octopus). First we sauteed a bit of garlic, crushed red pepper, and lemon peel in extra virgin olive oil in a large deep skillet. We added a generous cup of dry white wine and once it boiled, added the octopus and reduced to simmer for 15 minutes. We threw in some mussels at the end of the steaming process as well. The rest of the recipe is even simpler - just chop up some veggies! 

For one 3 pound octopus we diced one head of fennel (fronds reserved for garnish), 3 medium carrots and 3 celery stalks. The salad got a quick toss with an herb infused white vinegar and some chopped fresh parsley and was set aside to marinate. Once the octopus was cool enough we had to begin cleaning it, as in removing all the suckers and the purple rubbery outer layer. This was the hard part and luckily my mom tackled it!! Once tossed all together, we added a bit of the steaming liquid and seasoned it a bit more to taste with sea salt. 

My mother chose another Jamie recipe for the pasta dish with - you guessed it - more seafood. Crushed chili flakes added a nice kick to the sun-dried tomato pesto that we thinned out a bit with some of the pasta water.

Fresh arugula and some grated pecorino romano cheese tossed in at the very end added a nice touch and some color contrast. 

For the main course I made stuffed pork tenderloins. After butterflying the tenderloins I started with a layer of prosciutto and added a mixture of chopped spinach, parsley, garlic, and grated pecorino romano cheese. With the help of my mom, we tied them up nicely and browned the pork in a skillet before tossing it on the grill. A makeshift brush of rosemary and sage did double duty by adding extra flavor while applying an olive oil/salt + pepper mixture before grilling. 

- Here's a look at all my February birthday boys -

Dad on the left, Poppy on the right, and Uncle Michael in the back

A Leisurely Friday

As we all well know, Nemo hit Friday afternoon and blanketed the city rather quickly in some heavy snowfall. Since I was lucky enough to leave work early, I stopped at the grocery store and took advantage of the not yet faded sunshine by walking the two subway stops home. Yes, I had a bag of groceries to carry. Yes, it was still snowing. Yes, it was cold. But it was bright and refreshing and the snow was still so clean - I just wanted to enjoy a little bit of New York at it's prettiest. 

***

I wanted a quick yet hearty dinner so I opted for roasted potatoes, pork chops and an easy kale salad. 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

First the dry rub:

- 1 TBSP brown sugar

- 1 tsp kosher salt

- 1 tsp garlic powder

- 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

- 1/4 tsp ground cloves

Massage the rub into the pork chops and let them marinate while preparing the potatoes. 

Scrub and slice about one pound of fingerling potatoes and tossed them with the following:

- 1 TBSP olive oil

- 1 scant tsp sea salt

- fresh ground black pepper to taste

- 1/4 tsp garlic powder

(feel free to mess with the measurements as you please)

Lay them out in a single layer in a glass baking dish and put in the lower third of the oven. 

Meanwhile, heat about 2 TBSP olive oil in a cast iron skillet over med-hi heat until shimmering. Add your pork chops to the pan and brown, approximately 1-2 minutes on each side. Once browned evenly, transfer skillet to the upper third of the oven and set a timer for 10 minutes. 

While the pork and potatoes are baking, wash your kale. Make sure to slice off and discard the tough spines and chop the remaining pieces until very fine. Toss about 1 tsp of sea salt into the shredded kale and massage with your hands until the kale begins to wilt, then set aside. 

Dressing:

- 1 TBSP white balsamic vinegar

- 1/4 tsp garlic powder

- fresh ground black pepper to taste 

- 1 egg yolk 

- 2 TBSP extra virgin olive oil

Whisk all ingredients except olive oil in a small glass bowl until fully combined. In a slow steady stream pour in olive oil while constantly whisking until the dressing is light and creamy. The salt already on the kale should be enough to season the dressing but feel free to add a bit more if you'd like. 

At this point your pork and potatoes should be just about finished. The pork is well done when the internal temperature hits 145 degrees Fahrenheit, and the potatoes are done when a fork slides in and out easily. 

Toss your kale with the dressing, tweak the seasoning if you want to, and serve! 

My Nonna's Birthday Cake

This weekend was a blur because I spent it back and forth on NJ Transit. I was severely overdue for things like a hair cut and my yearly physical and a dentist appointment, so I figured I would just schedule them all at once to get them over with. Hence the trains. 

I took a half day on Friday and met my mother in Summit, NJ where we had a quick lunch and then went strait to my first appointment. When I visit my parents I like to also visit all my old haunts as well, but my all time favorite has to be Time to Eat Diner at the Somerville Circle. I had a hefty brunch there with my grandparents in between the dentist and the salon. Soooooo gooooood!!! :-)

The only meals I didn't eat on the go this weekend happened to be dinner. Friday night my mother and I tried out a Thai style sauce similar to Pad See Ew with chicken, mushrooms and peppers. Dad approved - and he doesn't like Thai - so I'll call that a success. 

Saturday was sort of an impromptu early birthday dinner for my Nonna. We had her and my grandfather over for dinner and my uncle and his girlfriend joined us. My mother made a simple chunky tomato sauce with penne and Chicken Marsala for dinner but the real conversation starter of the night was my tiramisu. 

I've been making tiramisu for a few years now. I've worked hard to perfect my recipe. I'm proud of my recipe. What did my Nonna think of my recipe?!     

Wrong.

She saw me putting the finishing touches on it as she arrived and had a list of reasons ready to tell me why it wouldn't come out right. I probably didn't beat the eggs properly, and did I use the right cheese? Just the fact that I didn't prepare it a day ahead was apparently a no no. 

Well. We served it as her birthday cake - what was I to do, it's the only thing we had prepared - and what do you know!? She actually liked it. She was impressed and actually told me that maybe she had been wrong to judge so quickly. 

I can appreciate that she has decades of experience on my few years preparing Italian food, but it was still nice to hear that she liked what I had made her. :-) 

quick salmon for two

Last night I stopped at the grocery store - exhausted after getting out of work late. It was much too cold to venture out to a restaurant so I had to choose something simple yet tasty. I already had a great beet soup ready to go in the fridge (care of my mother) so I decided to go with salmon - quick, easy, and delicious.

(I picked a fillet that came in just under a pound - to share with my boyfriend.)  

I had read in Food and Wine magazine this month about a great Salmon dry rub but I was in too much of a hurry to look up the recipe (usually not wise) so I tried recreating it from memory. 

First I set the rice to steam, as that takes about half an hour, and I turned my oven on to 350 degrees F. 

I toasted some spices, about a tablespoon of each:

Fennel seeds

Whole Black Pepper 

Red Pepper flakes

When they were golden and fragrant I moved them to my mortar + pestle and ground them to a coarse powder along with a teaspoon of each of the following:

kosher salt

garlic powder

ground cumin

I then rubbed the spice mix into the salmon - both sides - wrapped it in plastic wrap and stuck it in the fridge for 10 minutes. 

When the rice was almost finished I put the soup on the stove to heat up. After unwrapping the salmon I rubbed it with about 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil and pan fried each side to make a nice crispy crust. Next I transferred it to a rimmed baking sheet and into the oven it went for 7 or 8 minutes - until just flaking. 

(use a rack towards the upper third of the oven) 

Everything should finish at about the same time - making this a perfect dinner when you're in a hurry - or just don't feel like slaving in the kitchen for hours :-)

All in all it was a great dinner! I still had enough energy afterwards to mix us up some cocktails and boyfriend  loved it which is always a score in  my book!!