Finally, A Kitchen!

Yes, I picked out the greens and oranges from two bags of M&M’s. Such measures are perfectly applaudable on or around St. Patrick’s day.

These chewy, bite sized peanut butter cookies were exceptionally complimentary to the flavor and shape of classic M&M goodness. Needless to say, they were almost gone from the tray so quickly that I had to hunt down the host of the party that I attended to make sure he got to try one.

I left the very last one for my boyfriend on a notebook on his desk, and shortly thereafter all that was left were the buttery remains:

Over all, these were delicious and easy to pull-off; a classic wet ingredients/dry ingredients cookie recipe that I adapted from TheCurvyCarrot, which they had adapted from someone else, who had adapted it from someone else, who probably adapted it from a recipe that they found right on a bag of M&M’s in the first place. Classics like this don’t need much tweaking, so long as the secret ingredient is love (and a bit of holiday cheer). Erin Go Bragh, from your favorite nice Jewish girl in her East Village kitchen!

I am not much of a sports fan, but I love my cousins and was excited to visit with them to watch the Superbowl this year. The nachos usually associated with this annual American event have so much potential to be so delicious, but are often oily, salty and greeeea-zy in execution.  I love cooking with Mexican flavors, so I volunteered to make some homemade nachos for their party.

I left a quarter of the nachos without salsa, because as my cousin will tell you, she is a self-proclaimed “bad Mexican” and does not like spicy food! These nachos were not incredibly spicy, they just delivered a tangy slow burn, and the crunchy texture of the chips with the homemade blanco cheese sauce was outrageous. And the chicken! The shredded chicken on it’s own was some of the best I’ve ever had, no joke. Great for tacos or sandwiches.

I am making homemade granola today and you could be, too, if you try out my simple recipe. I love the flavor combination of herbs and tart, sweet dried fruit. The more fruit and nuts you add, the more beautiful it looks- in a glass mason jar, it makes a lovely present. I gave a jar to my brother’s girlfriend for the holidays, and she loved it so much that she asked me for the recipe.  I love to have this granola in the morning with warm goat’s milk- don’t knock it till you try it! Yum.

Also, if you are super interested in other delicious recipes with rolled oats, check out my previous posts for oatmeal and granola bars.

I’m back! Want to know how I survived what will have been my craziest semester of graduate school, without caving in and ordering take-out every night? With recipes like this one, that didn’t take me more than a half hour to cook. Steamed fish and vegetables in parchment paper packets- if you are someone who is usually scared of making fish, you should just try this because all you have to do is assemble this and set a timer. Also, this recipe is a wonderful option for those of us who cook for one most nights of the week. I served mine with a side of brown basmati rice, and a homemade soy-ginger sauce.

What does one do with a $20 Groupon credit at Whole Foods? Purchase some locally sourced, grass-fed, humanely-raised veal shanks of course, perfect for making a big pot of osso bucco. This is generally a special occasion kind of meal; it is rich and decadent, and often culminates in the slurping of marrow straight from the bones. It is best cooked low and slow, so if you’ve got the time try out a non-fussy recipe like this; it’s truly worth it to try this at home and not save it for a restaurant night. I served the osso bucco with farfalle pasta and a side of my roasted green beans with garlic.

I had a ton leftover, so picture me at my internship, which this year is at an elementary school, sitting at a tiny desk on my lunch hour and enjoying an elegant lunch of osso bucco. Re-heated in the microwave, the residual clove essence lit one of the school’s hallways with a lovely and unexpected fragrance.

Please just don’t forget to suck out the marrow- that’s the best part!

Who doesn’t love a big bowl of soup when it starts to get cold out?

This is a ridiculously easy recipe for curried butternut squash soup. Despite the fact that it is a meatless, dairy-free recipe, this soup is creamy and substantial, and it will fill you up on a blustery late-autumn day. I doubled the recipe last week and made a gigantic vat of it; it has a pretty good shelf-life in the fridge because it’s made from 100% vegetables. I would suggest using a hot curry powder, but if you don’t like too much heat, then yellow curry will do just fine.

Do you have an immersion blender? If not, I highly recommend buying one- using one to puree all of the veggies together right in the pot gives this soup a wonderful thick texture, and is a million times cleaner than transferring batches back and forth from a food processor. This is the one that I have in my kitchen; it’s very affordable and works great. It will change your soup-loving world.

My internship this year is situated out in Brooklyn between several housing projects and a large park. Read: there is nothing to purchase in the way of lunch without embarking on a 25 minute round-trip excursion. I am there for 7 1/2 hours, 3 days a week, so I must bring a lunch each day that I work there. This crustless quiche fit the bill, packed with a huge punch of protein from the eggs and feta cheese, and chock-full of the nourishing goodness of spinach and mushrooms. A healthy slice of this quiche can power me through to till dinner time.

After the first week of school, I came down with an annoying cold. I am only starting to learn a bit about Ayurvedic healing, but both my yoga teacher and my acupuncturist suggested that my immune system was being compromised by the recent change in the season, and that it would be a good idea to switch from raw vegetable salads every day for lunch to eating cooked veggies instead.

This recipe was based on a Martha Rose Shulman gem from the NY Times a few years back. I added the layer of basil goat cheese and the yellow peppers- they add another dimension of sweetness. Doesn’t it just look gorgeous? It was super healthy, hearty, and way more filling than a salad could ever be in the middle of my day.

My cold is now long gone and I feel really great, which probably has to do with more than just this eggplant dish, but to me there is pretty much nothing better than cooking food that is both delicious and makes me feel great when I eat it.