purée of romaine soup

I had a couple romaine hearts that were a little less than fresh — unsuitable for a caesar, but also a pity to toss. As with all veggie leftovers, I reached for a soup pot. Lettuce soup? Yeah, why not!

Inspired by Bittman’s French-style chilled lettuce soup recipe, I concocted this surprisingly delicious vat of sauteed, then puréed romaine. You’ll be stunned at how much flavor comes from these simple leaves seasoned only with onions, garlic, and stock — plus an old Italian secret ingredient: parmesan rind.

Instead of cold, I decided to serve my soup warm using cooked rice to create an extra thick and creamy texture — almost like a cream of broccoli. A zip of lemon juice finishes things off, or you could toss in croutons or crispy bacon bits to fancy up your lettuce soup. Fancy or not, you’ll be ecstatic to discover this deliciously clever way to use up old greens.

purée of romaine soup
because older greens are wiser greens

* 1 tablespoons butter
* 1/2 medium onion, chopped
* 3 cloves garlic, chopped
* 3 stalks of green onion, chopped
* 2 cups good chicken stock (half-water, half-broth would work, if using the parmesan rind)
* 1/4 cup cooked rice
* 2 large hearts of romaine, chopped into 1/2-inch strips
* 1 parmesan rind (recommended, if you’ve got one)
* Salt and freshly ground pepper
* 2-3 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice

In a saucepan cook onion in butter over medium heat, stirring, until softened but not browned, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, green onions, and parmesan rind. Cook for 5 more minutes, or until garlic and onions are soft, but not browned. Stir in romaine and cook, stirring, until wilted. Stir in broth, rice, and salt and pepper to taste and simmer soup 10 minutes.

Remove parmesan rind. In a blender or with an immersion blender (off heat), purée soup in batches until smooth. Stir in lemon juice.

Garnish with croutons or bacon bits.
Serves 2 – 3.

the great indoors: zucchini with mint and red pepper

While running on Lake Street this evening, I passed by a couple tending to their petite sidewalk garden. The white-haired man wore a khaki vest with too many pockets and posed quite contently with a hose in-hand over his trough of flowers.

It reminded me of my grandpa and how he’d spend hours every afternoon watering the yard — the front yard, the back yard, the court yard, the orchids, the vegetables, the strawberries, the ferns, the protea, the bonsais, the cacti, even the ditch (an old irrigation ditch we grew marigolds in). I never thought of it as odd, but that was a serious amount of time spent on plants!

How much time do I spend on plants? Only as long as it takes me to cook them. Someday when I live in a city that actually experiences summer, I will have a garden and spend ridiculous hours tending to my plants. Until then, I will celebrate summer from the great indoors.

zucchini with mint and red pepper
grill pan makin’ it happen… real grill, even better!

* 5 medium-sized zucchini
* 1/2 cup olive oil, divided in half
* 1 1/2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
* a dozen large mint leaves, finely sliced
* 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (more if you like)
* salt & pepper

Preheat your grill to medium.

Cut each zucchini in half crosswise and then cut each half into 1/8″ planks. In a very large bowl, toss the zucchini with 1/4 cup of the olive oil. Lay the zucchini on the grill and cook for about four minutes per side, keeping the heat moderate so you’re sweating them and not really giving them a ton of color. Turn the heat up to high and grill for about a minute more on each side to mark them. Depending on the size of your grill, this may need to be done in batches.

Remove the zucchini to a large platter. Whisk together the remaining 1/4 cup olive oil with the vinegar, mint and red pepper flakes. Drizzle this over the zucchini, being sure to evenly distribute the pepper flakes, sprinkle with salt & pepper.

roasted red pepper, eggplant & feta salad

On special occasions, I like to blow a small fortune on cheeses for a fabulous spread… who doesn’t? For everyday cheese eating, I love venturing for a slice of fresh feta from the Mediterranean grocery near my house. Unlike the plastic container of crumbles you normally get, this feta is sold by the pound — delicately sliced to order from a giant brick soaking in brine. It’s perfectly creamy, mild, and not too tart…. perfect to nibble or toss into a salad.

Speaking of cheese, Monday night marked the Bachelorette season finale and we couldn’t have been more excited for “the most dramatic rose ceremony ever.”

The gals and I got together to scream obscenities at the TV and enjoy an equally colorful spread of bites — a leafy salad studded with ripe peaches, point reyes blue cheese and homemade candied walnuts, a DIY platter of grilled bread, steak, onions, fennel and homegrown (!) yellow squash, plus an eggplant and roasted red pepper salad made with my favorite fresh feta. We were bored by the bachelorette’s predictable choice of Latin lover, Roberto, but not disappointed by our fab feast!

Roasted Red Pepper, Eggplant and Feta Salad
adapted from Small Bites

* 2 red peppers, quartered, seeds and stems removed
* 3-4 small eggplants, cut into 1/2-inch thick slices
* 6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
* salt and freshly ground pepper
* 1 small red onion, sliced into half moons
* 6 oz feta cheese, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
* 1 tsp cumin seeds
* small bunch of mint lives, roughly torn

dressing
* 1 small garlic clove, crushed
* juice of 1 lemon
* 3 tsp pomegranate molasses
* 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
* 1 tsp each salt and pepper

Preheat the broiler to high. Place the peppers skin side up on a nonstick baking sheet. Place under the broiler, cook until blackened, then transfer to plastic bag, seal, and allow to steam 5 minutes. When cooled, peel off the skins and discard.

Toast the cumin seeds in a dry pan, set aside.

Brush the eggplant with the oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste. Cook under broiler until crispy on both sides.

To make the dressing, place all of the ingredients in a jar and share to combine.

Arrange the eggplant and pepper, sprinkle with onions, feta and cumin seeds. Spoon on the dressing and garnish with mint. Serves 4 as a salad course.

double chocolate espresso cookies

When it comes to cookies, I’m in the soft and chewy camp. When I worked at a big agency, I always looked forward to co-workers’ birthdays because it was an excuse to order that ridiculously gigantic chocolate chip cookie cake from Mrs. Fields…. warm, soft, and a little chewy like a brownie, plus it came in a cardboard pizza box that, once emptied, revealed its evil twin: an enormous footprint of grease.

For my mom’s birthday, I thought about shipping her a giant cookie cake, but breakage was an obvious concern. Instead, I sought out a dressed up cookie recipe worthy of a celebration. These Double Chocolate Espresso Cookies fit the bill perfectly with a description stating, “chewy in the middle with pockets of soft chocolate.” They came out soft and airy, yet decadent as the two kinds of chocolate and espresso would suggest.

double chocolate espresso cookies
from food52.com, a site i adore

* 2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
* 1 cup sugar
* 1 cup light brown sugar
* 2 eggs, room temperature
* 2 1/2 cups flour
* 3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Scharffen Berger)
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 2 tablespoons instant espresso powder (like Medaglia D’Oro, or similar)
* 12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350-degrees.

Cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Then, add eggs one at time, mixing after each addition to make sure they are well combined.

In a separate bowl mix together dry ingredients: flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and espresso powder. I use a whisk to make sure the dry ingredients are well mixed.

With the mixer on low, slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Mix everything until the ingredients are fully combined, but do not overbeat. Using a wooden spoon, stir in chocolate chips.

Line a baking sheet with Silpat or parchment paper. Using a 1 1/2″ ice-cream scoop, or rounded teaspoon, drop dough on the sheet 2″ apart. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Cool on a wire rack and serve.

Makes 50-55 cookies

nectarine and plum crostata

Butter can do no harm. Take for example: crust. Savory or sweet, this golden brown vessel can be your means to a delicious end whether it be a latticed pie, custard tart or quiche.

When what matters most is getting a piece of buttery crust into your mouth as quickly as possible, the crostata should be your vehicle of choice. A crostata is a rustic free-form tart — simply a round of dough piled with a mound of fruit with the sides folded over. It’s as easy as pie… only easier!

Recently, my baker friend Rosie made a fantastic crostata with plums and nectarines ripe from her parents’ garden. Tart purple-fleshed plums oozed from a thick buttery envelope of golden pastry dough with every pinch of my fork.

Feeling particularly inspired last Sunday morning, I whipped up a copycat crostata to take over to my 88 year-old grandma. I was running a bit late, so I definitely could have baked the crostata until it was more browned.

nectarine and plum crostata
with super easy food processor crust recipe from Cucina Simpatica

crust:
* 2 sticks cold, unsalted butter
* 2 cups unbleached flour
* 1/4 cup superfine sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1/4 cup ice water

filling:
* 2 cups of nectarines, plums or any other semi-soft seasonal fruit (raspberries, figs, etc)
* 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon superfine sugar (use less, if fruit is super sweet)
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

prepare the crust (1-hr in advance): Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes. Since butter softens rapidly, return cubes to refrigerator for at least 10 minutes while you set up other ingredients.

Place the flour, sugar and salt in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the steel blade. Pulse a few times to combine. Add the butter, tossing quickly with your fingers to coat each cube with flour, taking care not to touch the blade. This prevents the butter cubes from adhering together and helps them to break apart and combine more evenly with the flour.

Pulse 15 times, or until the butter particles are the size of small peas. With the motor running, add the ice water all at once through feed tube. Process for about 10 seconds, stopping the machine before the dough becomes a solid mass. Turn the contents of the bowl onto a sheet of aluminum foil, pressing any loose particles into the mass of dough. Roughly form the dough into a 7-inch disk.

Cover the dough completely with aluminum foil and refrigerate for at least 1 hour. The dough may be refrigerated up to 2 days or frozen up to 2 weeks (defrost for 30-45 minutes at room temperature before use). Makes 20 ounces of dough — enough for one large tart, two 9-inch shells or four little tarts.

prepare the crostata: Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Slice fruit into 1/2-inch slices. Sprinkle sugar and vanilla over fruit mixture and let sit about 20-minutes, until some juice is released. Roll the dough on a lightly floured surface to an 11-inch free-form circle (use about half of the dough from recipe above). Transfer to a baking sheet and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar.

Leaving 1 1/2-inch border all around, cover the dough with the drained fruit mixture. Raise the dough border to enclose the sides of the tart, letting it drape gently over the fruit. Press down on the dough at the baking sheet, snugly securing the sides and the bottom of the pastry; be careful not to mash the fruit. Gently pinch the soft pleats that form from the draping.

Bake the tart for 20 minutes until the fruit has given off some of its juice and the dough is golden. Cool on a rock for about 10 minutes and serve while still warm and aromatic. You can brush the fruit with jam or the leftover sugar/vanilla juices, if the top looks dry.

avocado monster

I’m an avocado monster. This is what California has done to me. Here, avocados are like cheese. You put them in any food that requires assembly — burgers, salads, sushi, omelets, egg rolls… anything goes!

I still enjoy avocados most in their purest form, halved with a bit of soy sauce and a spoon. That’s how we grew up eating them in Hawaii. My grandma would walk down the block every day to check if any of the neighbor’s delicate “pears” had fallen to the ground street-side (i.e. “up for grabs”).

These days, I hit up my local farmer’s market for the super ripe hass avocados — perfect for guacamole making. I’ve been making guacamole for years now with on-par results, but it wasn’t until a couple years ago that I was introduced to the ultimate recipe.

I get compliments every time I make this for a party, and everyone always asks for the recipe. There aren’t any special spices, just well-measured ingredients and traditional grinding (preferably in a molcajete).  I have my foodie friend Christina to thank for introducing me to this guacamole of perfect proportions.

the very best guacamole
adapted from Rosa’s New Mexican Table via Saveur magazine

* 2 tbsp. finely chopped white onion
* 3 firmly packed tbsp. chopped fresh cilantro
* 2 tsp. finely chopped jalapeño
* 1 tsp. salt
* 3 medium-ripe hass avocados
* 3 tbsp. diced tomato
* 1 tbsp. fresh lime juice (or more to taste)

Grind 1 tbsp. of the onions, 1 tbsp. of  the cilantro, jalapeño, and salt together in a molcajete until all the ingredients are well ground. (Alternatively, use a fork to mash the ingredients to a paste in a wide bowl.)

Cut avocados (about 8 ounces each) in half. Twist the halves to separate them and remove the pit with the tip of the knife. Place an avocado half, cut side up, in your palm and make 3 or 4 evenly spaced lengthwise cuts through its flesh down to the skin, without cutting through the skin. Make 4 crosswise cuts in the same fashion.

Scoop the diced avocado flesh into the molcajete. Repeat with remaining avocado halves. Gently fold the avocado into the chile–onion paste, keeping the avocado pieces fairly intact.

Add lime juice, tomatoes, remaining 2 tbsp. of the cilantro, and remaining 1 tbsp. of the onions.

Fold together all the ingredients. Taste and add salt, if necessary. Sometimes I add a dash of soy sauce instead of salt for extra umami!

Serve immediately, directly from the molcajete (or bowl), with tortilla chips.

when it’s hot: the moscow mule

It’s the middle of July and currently 59-degrees here in San Francisco. WTH!!!!!

Beyond our 7 square mile bubble, it is the height of summer and refreshing cocktails are in demand. Recently my New Yorker foodie friend Jenny visited and whipped us up a batch of quenching Moscow Mules. I fell in love with this tangy citrus ginger cocktail, which Jenny served shamelessly in oversized water glasses.

moscow mule
as quick to make as they are to drink

* 1 part vodka (we recommend Tito’s handmade vodka)
* 1 part fresh lime juice
* 2-3 parts ginger beer
* ice
* giant glass

Mix, sip, repeat.

walnut pesto, riviera dreams

A couple summers ago, I took a trip to the Cinque Terra in Liguria, Italy. I snapped this photo of Vernazza from the hiking trail that connects these five picturesque coastal towns. The castle tower in the distance was built to watch out for pirates (yaaaargh!). Just below the tower, I enjoyed a fantastic meal of frutti di mare and pesto lasagna at the restaurant with orange awnings.

Memories of that heavenly, melt-in-your-mouth pesto lasagna — infinite layers of handmade pasta, white sauce, cheeses, no tomatoes or meat — came rushing back after reading a recent Bittman article about Pra, Liguria’s famous basil-growing town.

Pesto is pesto, and it’s pretty difficult to botch up a handful of nuts, cheese, basil and oil. On the other hand, if you’ve had truly great pesto made with the best Italian-grown ingredients, you know it can be an utterly transcendent experience in shades of green.

Here in San Francisco, Farina is the hands-down pesto champ, but they don’t do a lasagna! Until my next trip to the Italian Rivera, I will continue to dream of pressing my fork greedily through a piece of fantastic pesto lasagna. In the meantime, I will take the basil California gives me.

walnut pesto
tasty but not like in Liguria… walnuts are a fine alternative to pine nuts when that’s what you’ve got

* 1/2 cup walnut halves
* 2 cups lightly packed basil leaves
* 1 large garlic clove, thinly sliced
* 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
*1 /2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
* Salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 350°. Spread the walnuts on a baking sheet and toast for 8 to 10 minutes, until they are fragrant and lightly browned. Let cool completely.

In a food processor, pulse the walnuts with the basil and garlic until the walnuts are finely chopped. With the machine on, add the olive oil in a thin stream and process until the pesto is almost smooth. Add the cheese and pulse until just incorporated. Season with salt and pepper.

mint chocolate cupcakes, metrics mayhem

At Christmas time, Trader Joes makes a special candy cane version of their Joe-Joe cookies (fake Oreos), which happens to be a favorite of my friend Mariel. So, when asked to make birthday cupcakes for her 30th, I set out to find a recipe that would mimic that oh-so-festive mint and chocolate combination.

Unfortunately, a search for “mint chocolate cupcakes” returns surprisingly slim pickings. However, one recipe stood out with a description stating “like an AERO chocolate in cupcake form.” If you’ve ever had an AERO bar, the titillating sensation of bubbles of chocolate bursting on your tongue immediately springs to mind. I was definitely going to make this recipe.

Of course as AERO would suggest, this recipe comes from the UK, specifically from the kitchen goddess herself, Nigella Lawson. While I am a huge fan of Nigella, she does live in the land of metrics and I am total crap at mathematical conversions. But… I will do just about anything for the sake of a cupcake.

Here is my metrics conversion masterpiece. Perhaps a tad bit off, since the cupcakes turned out slightly more concave than convex…. all the more room for butter cream frosting!

mint chocolate cupcakes with butter cream frosting
adapted and converted from Nigella

batter:
* 1 2/3 cup self raising flour (not the same as AP flour, but you can find it at Safeway)
* 4 tbsp cocoa powder
* 1 tsp baking powder
* 1 1/8 c super fine sugar
* 2 sticks unsalted butter
* 4 eggs
* 1 tsp peppermint extract
* 3/4 c plain choc chips

icing:
* 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
* 1 2/3 cup confectioners sugar, sieved
* 1 tsp peppermint extract
* green food colouring

Preheat oven to 325-degrees.

Place 18 paper wrappers into muffin tins.

In a bowl sieve flour, baking powder and cocoa. Beat butter and sugar together in another bowl. Add eggs one at a time and beat together.

Add flour mixture gradually. Stir in the mint extract and chocolate chips. Spoon mixture into cases and bake for about 25 mins.

To make icing, beat icing sugar and butter in a bowl stir in the mint extract, and just enough food coloring to turn the icing mint green.

Ice the cooled cupcakes and decorate with chocolate chips or sprinkles.

Did I mention our cowboy party theme?

modern cartography

One of my nerdy pleasures of late has been building custom Google Maps for summer trips. Call it anal, but I appreciate knowing exactly where I’m going from hotels to bakeries to hiking spots. Moreover, who would visit a place like Portland, Maine without mapping the twenty best restaurants in town?

Memorial Day Weekend Maine Food and Hiking tour. I love the customizable location icons — fork and knife for food, backpackers for hiking, plus you can include driving directions from one place to the next.



Favorite meal of the trip? Besides dinner from the farm at Primo in Rockland, our best home-cooked feast included grilled Maine lobsters purchased live from Three Sons Lobster & Fish, sweet summer corn, and a sour cherry pie from Two Fat Cats Bakery for dessert.

Grilled Maine Lobster

* 4 live lobsters (1 – 2 lbs each)
* 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted
* 2 teaspoons chopped parsley
* 2 teaspoons minced chives
* Sea salt and pepper
* Lemon wedges, for serving

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Prepare an ice-water bath. Generously salt boiling water and return to a boil. Plunge lobsters headfirst into boiling water and cook for 5 minutes; immediately transfer to ice-water bath to cool.

Meanwhile, light charcoal grill. In a small bowl, mix together butter, parsley, chives, and 1/2 teaspoon salt; set aside.

With a large knife, cut cooled lobsters in half lengthwise. Place cut side up and brush cut side with butter mixture.

Transfer and grill until lobsters are cooked through, 6 to 8 minutes. Sprinkle with sea salt and serve immediately with lemon wedges.