May 2012 Archives

Like many of my greatest ideas, this one came to me in a dream. A beautiful beautiful dream. Making an extra large ravioli has been on my list for a while, but I had no idea what would be in it. I woke up immediately trying to tell anyone who would listen about this amazing burger that I ate in my dream. Well sometimes dreams do come true kids. Two of my favorite foods became one on the very next day.

The first 6 or so times I made candy, I was able to bring sugar to a precise temperature without the use of a candy thermometer. I know now that I was just getting lucky, but at that time, I of course arrogantly thought that it was my cray cooking skillz. Anyways, a failure to reach the soft ball stage on the sugar for some marshmallows was the reason that not one but two recipes failed this past weekend. The first was a simple rice krispy treat that was studded with potato chips. The second was a s'mores brownie.

This holiday weekend I had a really nice time out in Western MA hanging with my family. I knew steak was on the menu, being a big grilling holiday and all, so I wanted to cook a twist on the classic steak and potato combo we all come to expect at an event like this. My younger sister loves broccoli cheddar soup, so I decided to base the flavor profile on that. I recruited everyone to help out when it came time to roll all the gnocchi so it wouldn't take all day!

It isn't often that I get cooking inspiration from a wedding dinner, but that exact thing happened just this past weekend. There was a chicken dish that was stuffed with a tasty polenta, studded with pine nuts and cheese. I found myself wanting to eat the polenta on it's own, and I really couldn't wait to stuff something with a similar doughy corn mixture at home. I ended up doing sort of a mexitalian spin on the idea, using a tamale dough and stuffing the whole thing into a cubanelle pepper.

The last time I went to the Somerville Winter Market (FYI - there are 2 more Saturdays before it's over for the year!) I was lucky enough to find Pork Jowl at the Austin Brothers Farm stand. I have a history with Austin Brothers, I actually drove out to their farm in Belchertown, MA to buy pork belly when I made my own panchetta. I knew I had to buy the jowl and figure out what to do with it later. Don't you love impulse buys? A craving for pork buns a few days later was all I needed to get going with this recipe.

The last time I visited new york, I was lucky enough to literally stumble into a blogger event at an Indian restaurant near Madison Square Park called Junoon. Because I know the secret blogger handshake, I was able to sit at the bar tasting many of their creative cocktails and small bite appetizers. My favorite was a fried cauliflower that was tossed in a sweet and sour sauce. The owner described it to me as Indian-Chinese fusion. When I was attending a party last weekend and needed an alternative app that was also vegetarian, this was the first thing that came to mind.

Mystery Meet is a fun event in Boston where you sign up ahead of time for a dinner reservation, but you don't know where you will be eating or who you will be eating with until the night before. I have attended in the past, but it actually went away for almost a whole year. Earlier this week was the triumphant return of the event and I was lucky enough to attend a fun dinner with a great group of people at Church of Boston, a bar and restaurant in the Fenway neighborhood. We dined of 4 courses of pretty fantastic stuff, but for some reason the mushroom cannelloni stuck out to me as something I wanted to make myself. It's been a bit since I broke out the pasta maker, so I dusted it off and went to work.

Jalapenos seem to be monstrous at the grocery store compared to their size from a few years back. I used this large size to my advantage, and was able to case a whole hot dog and some cheese inside a couple of cut jalapenos. The fun thing about this recipe is that you could make a whole dozen of them easily, pop em into a zip lock, and head out to your nearest B.Y.O.M. party (Bring Your Own Meat), camp fire, or other communal grilling situation.

A quick and healthy dinner that was still comforting to the soul was on the agenda this past Monday night, as a friend and I got together to try and unwind and detox ourselves from a particularly long week and weekend. To me, this usually means at least one of three things; vegetarian, spicy, and filled with noodles. This dish was all three. I was at the Asian market that day anyways to get some quail eggs(Aside: quail eggs are awesome, recipe coming up next week on tablespoon), so this recipe had some Asian connections, but was mostly influenced by what was on our minds and what was in his pantry, namely butter, worcestershire, and vinegar.