Sassy Radish

I wanted to give you a recipe for an early 2010 before I left for the Dominican Republic (whee!), but my time management skills are lacking. Instead, what you get is a vision of me in my Princess Leia hat, a picture of the one of the cutest kids ever (with whom I’ll be spending some time in DR over the New Year’s holiday) and what I had for lunch the other day. Why my recent lunch? Because I hope that 2010 is a lovely, wholesome and nurturing year for you all, much like this chicken soup I had made earlier in the month and froze for those days when it’s far too cold to go outside.

I hope that your celebrations are sparkling and joyous, that champagne is flowing and the laughter is without a pause. I hope that the year is full of the same joy and exuberance your parties are and that wherever you find yourself next year, you feel loved and cared for. That is my wish for all of you and I can’t wait to share some January-perfect recipes with you in 2010!

Happy New Year! Thank you for being a part of my world and allowing me to be a part of yours!

Well, it’s Christmas Eve. And when they say “not a creature was stirring” they really do mean it. The subways this morning were empty, almost abandoned. City streets were quiet on my walk to work. And there’s a stillness in the air. For the first time in a long time, we have snow in New York on Christmas. It feels very wintry indeed.

I don’t care what anyone says, but I’ve been listening to holiday music since Thanksgiving ended. And I can’t help myself. I also can’t get enough of the sugary treats because in a few days, we’re all going to draft some resolutions – no matter if we stick by them or not, but we’ll have to put some of those sweets aside. So I’m not wasting any time here.

Citrus is my winter go-to fruit. There are lemons and grapefruit and clementines and blood oranges, to name a few. And when there’s so little greenery around us, these yellow and orange orbs brighten any room, cheer up any day. While I’m woefully late on suggesting you give these orangettes out as Christmas gifts, you can still make them for a New Year’s party. Or if you’re Russian – you can give them as a New Year’s gift to friends and family. They’re like little bursts of sunshine in your mouth and while cookies and cakes and brittle and candied nuts are all excellent, sometimes all you crave is a bite of citrus, gently mellowed by dark chocolate. At least that’s what I’m craving now.

I hope those of you celebrating Christmas have a wonderful and joyous holiday! And those of you who, like me, will be indulging in some Chinese food and a movie tomorrow, have excellent feasts as well. Wherever you are, and whatever you do, I wish you a very happy, warm, healthy holiday weekend filled with friends, family, love and a little bit of sunshine, be it actual sunshine, or the kind that comes wrapped in shiny cellophane bursting with citrus, chocolate and frosted with sugar.

Continue reading orangettes.

Last year I got these as a gift from Deb who gave me a generous, pretty jar filled to the brim with these nuts. Not half an hour later, the jar was empty and I was peering inside it trying to figure out who ate all the nuts. Certainly, I couldn’t have done it in thirty minutes’ time. I even stuck my finger in the jar trying to pick up all the sweet bits and lick them off. It was better than nothing, but still, the nuts were gone and I had to face the music: portion control – epic fail.

A week later, I sat my physician’s with a fever and found the recipe in a November issue of the New York Magazine. When the nurse called out my name, I, flustered and achy, accidentally (I swear!) shoved the magazine into my oversized bag, and thus brought it home at the end of the day. I figured the recipe called out to me so much, that maybe, subconsciously, I intended for this issue to be mine. I clipped the recipe and it promptly got lost in my towering recipe pile where it stayed lost until I moved to Brooklyn.

A few months later, I was sitting at Hill Country and eating brisket. And ribs. And some serious sides. And drinking a beer. But I digress. Not a half an hour after the brisket was placed in front of me, it was gone. And I was, you guessed it, licking my fingers once again. Ladylike? Who, me? Believe it or not, my parents did raise me with table manners and taught me things like how to use a fork and knife, keeping elbows off the table, and not talking with a full mouth, just to name a few. And yet, here I was, licking my fingers. In public.

I suspect my lapse in manners isn’t entirely my fault. I hold Elizabeth Karmel, the executive chef at Hill Country and creator of these nuts, partly responsible. Her food has a certain power over me (and I suspect over logs of others as also) in that I am compelled, whenever in the presence of her food, to lick my fingers and the plate the food came on. I consider it a very good thing, good, ladylike manners aside, that someone can consistently put out food that makes your forget your surroundings and it’s just you and your dinner. [Pan camera Matrix-style 360 degrees around you and the plate.]

Let me be clear – these make an awesome holiday gift, be it Christmas or Hannukah (totally belated, I know, but I’m a delinquent gift-giver!), or any other holiday for that matter. And as an added bonus, during this crazy-busy holiday time when we constantly feel two steps behind, these nuts are also a cinch to make, requiring mere minutes of hands-on time and just a quick peek in the oven to stir and rotate your baking sheets. What comes out of the oven is so good, that I teetered on keeping these to myself instead of giving them away. But ‘tis the gift-giving season and I like presenting people with tiny cellophane bags with little red bows.

Not that I haven’t ripped open a few for myself. I would never!

Continue reading sugar-and-spice candied nuts.

It dawned on me this weekend that Christmas is but a week away. A week. That’s seven days to be exact. Because that’s what a week is: seven days. And I had yet to start my holiday shopping. Talk about leaving things until the very last minute. And this is so unlike me, to procrastinate like this, I’m usually way ahead of schedule – I start planning Thanksgiving in July! But this year, I’ve been remiss. There’s a fatigue that’s been slowly setting in for the last few months and, somehow, I barely have enough energy for work and this lovely space here. But holidays? Presents? I am overwhelmed just thinking about it.

Truthfully, I can’t wait to turn the corner with 2010. I am itching to get the new year under way. To think of how emotionally wrought this year has been, dealing with death and cancer in the family, just to name a few things, I’m hoping that 2010 really turns around. It has to, right? Adding to that, 2009 carried with it the reverberations of markets’ turmoil of 2008 – which has been emotionally draining as well. So is it any wonder that I now wake up at 3:30am unable to go back to sleep only to hit a wall by 10am later in the morning? That tropical umbrella drink with my name on it is slightly over a week away, but it cannot come soon enough. I’m ready for some sun, sand and friends.

But what though this year brought its fair share of stresses; it delivered beautifully in the friends department. I have met and gotten to know some truly lovely people, and as result, my world is richer, brighter and I’m evermore grateful for these blessing in my life. They are my silver linings this year. And no matter how stressful things got this year, they were my safety net, letting me know that if I fell, they would, indeed, catch me.

So it might sound silly, but I can’t think of anything more sincere than handmade thank you gifts this season. I feel like the last couple of years, as we watched our 401k plans plummet, have really reminded us of truly valuable things: that money and physical goods can come and go, but our family and friends are the things that mean something, everything. And so for the next three days, you will see my handmade gifts unveiled here one by one. First up – the salty cashew brittle, courtesy of Karen DeMasco.

This brittle has been floating around for a few years. I’m oftentimes not the brightest star and hadn’t realized that the recipe I used from “The Craft of Baking” was, essentially, the same recipe seen here and here. Oh and also here (I had made it and didn’t even realize it). Which should tell you just how slow I can be sometimes. But no matter. This is good, gift-worthy, indulgent. It’s the kind of thing you want to share with your friends because it’s a little decadent and fabulously festive. Simple and straightforward, you will spend half an hour on this baby and look like candy-maker extraordinaire. Decadence and simplicity in one? I’ll take some in a heartbeat.

Continue reading cashew brittle.

I often joke that my friends no longer allow me to attend their parties without baked goods in tow. Cupcakes – to be more specific. Cupcakes topped with frosting generously slathered on, or piped in tiny dots, or with semi-Impressionist-looking flowers. But cupcakes in their most shining glory – a tiny, single-portion cake made just for you. It’s cake – personalized and it doesn’t get better than this. Somehow, in its miniature form is just that much cuter than its bigger cousin, but then again, baby anything is much cuter than its adult version.

To put another way, here’s my definition for a cupcake, aside from the generally accepted dictionary one:

cupcake: \ˈkəp-ˌkāk\ a single serving of an antidote to a case of the grumpies; something beautiful and sweet that makes it impossible to continue having a bad day.

I think my definition should be added to dictionaries world-wide – dietary habits aside, who doesn’t like a bit of cake? Really? Who?

My feelings for cake border on fervent. I need dessert, like I need water. Dessert is to dinner what the period is to the end of the sentence. (I did very well on this portion of the SATs!) I love the ritual of eating a cupcake, and yes, for me it is a ritual. I love tasting the frosting; love its lingering taste on my tongue; love carefully peeling the cupcake lining off to make a tiny plate around it. Somehow, I feel super-indulgent, but not overly guilty because they’re pretty small and there’s only so much damage I can do. Unless I’m having several.

Cupcakes are easier to make and frost than a cake, somehow feel and look more festive, take less time to serve (no cutting involved) and leave no cake stand to wash afterward. And while sometimes occasions call for cake, big, multi-layer, beautiful cake, around this time of year, cupcakes somehow seem more appropriate. They even had a National Cupcake Day a few days ago, and while I was trying to get this post out on time, work got the best of me and I had to postpone. But I guarantee you, if one of those babies was in my hand during the week, I would have made good on my deadline – cupcakes have that power of giving you extra strength, and maybe creating a few extra hours in the day, during a holiday season generally associated with being a bit overwhelming. Perhaps I just found an antidote to the holiday stress? I’d like to think so.

These are very holiday-appropriate: white chocolate base with a white chocolate buttercream-cream-cheese frosting. The tiny silver dragées and a single raspberry makes them feel so Christmasy and festive. These cupcakes come from the new Karen DeMasco’s book, “The Craft of Baking”, which I love love love and cannot wait to make just about everything from the book. I made a few notes in the recipe (below) which I implore you to read – as they’ll make this recipe, along with cooking from this book in general, a smoother experience.

Continue reading white chocolate cupcakes with white chocolate buttercream-cream-cheese frosting.

This is not a cake for the faint of heart. No. This cake is bold, serious, intense, brooding. Yes, brooding. A cake can brood, you see. This one does. Trust me. And if you’re the kind of person who only likes yellow cake (not that there’s anything wrong with that, I love yellow cake myself) then this cake might give you pause. Because this is a cake for those who like their sweets scaled back. It balances bitter and spice and adds a doze of restrained (we like our sweets restrained) sweetness. It’s complex, yet comforting; dark, yet not heavy and it’s a candidate for your Christmas morning coffee partner because it tastes better the day after you make it. And who doesn’t love a make-ahead cake?

This recipe comes courtesy of Claudia Fleming, she of “The Last Supper” book, and formerly of Gramercy Tavern, and currently of The North Fork Table and Inn where she signed the aforementioned book for me while I stared at her in star-struck awe. I know how to make a lasting impression, and being mute while standing in front of a dessert chef I so greatly admire is certainly a way to cement ties. But I digress.

My coworkers proclaimed that this cake tasted like Christmas, which were my thoughts exactly, but don’t take it from this Hannukah-loyal household. They would know better than I. They’re a good and kind bunch at the office, dutifully consuming whatever baked good I bring from home, always, always eager audience. They even didn’t mind that I brought them the “ugly” cousin of this cake because I got a little over-zealous with flouring my bundt, and what came out as a result was white-spot studded ginger cake.

Which would have been fine had I not been making this for the Bon Appetit magazine bake-off party where the Bon Appetit Editor-in-Chief Barbara Fairchild and the one and only Francois Payard were two of the judges. At eleven o’clock at night, take two of the cake commenced and this time I was much smarter – instead of sprinkling the pan with flour, I used unsweetened cocoa powder thus avoiding any chances of white spots. Take two – great success. Take one was gleefully consumed by a new and very lovely friend Alice of Savory Sweet Life (have you seen her blog and stunning pictures?) and her husband Rob as well as my office mates.

And here we are less than two weeks away from Christmas, in the throes of Hannukah frenetically shopping for our nearest and dearest, planning our holiday parties, preparing for our vacations (Hello, Dominican Republic and that teeny tiny bikini!) that any cake that’s a cinch to make, tastes better the next day, and has the quiet sophistication of a navy cashmere sweater, has a gold star in my book. Serve with a poached pear compote and unsweetened whipped cream for a special holiday dessert, or just eat it plain accompanied by a cup of coffee. Because if there’s one thing we don’t get enough of this time of year, it’s that quiet moment at the table with coffee, a good book and some comforting, holiday cake. So let us eat cake, and let us be still for a moment – we definitely earned it!

Continue reading guinness stout ginger cake.

Oh mid-December with your mercurial weather! I cannot figure you out! Are you freezing cold with temperatures nearing zero or are you the kind of December that lingers in the forties, rainy and damp, like this morning? Do I put on a pot of soup and curl up with a book dressed head to toe in fleece, or do I just go into deep hibernation mode? Because either of these choices is making me want to stay indoors and make lovely things in the kitchen and then eat them, but there’s also deep desire to make good friends with my couch is just sooooo overwhelming. Not terribly ambitious, am I? You see, inside my head, I am cooking all kinds of things for the holidays: cookies and cupcakes and brittles and toffees. But in actuality, I can’t even bring myself to put the book down and wash my dirty pot from last night. I promise, I’ll do it as soon as I post this.

But, here’s what I really want to do. I don’t to tell you about poached pears. No. But, I do want to invite you over, sit you at my table and serve these pears to you still warm from the stove, in a deep, pretty bowl. With a soup spoon at your side. Because a dessert spoon just won’t do here. Instead of telling you about this pear compote, I want to eat it with you, share it with you, rather than wax poetic about how amazing the house smells when you cook it. You can read about the smell, but you can’t smell it in real time, right? Nor can you lick the screen of your monitor and really know what it tastes like, either. And I so hate being a tease.

What can I tell you about these pears? Well, for one, pears are one of the few fruits that truly look alluring at the market this time of year so you should, as they say, make hay while the sun shines. Perhaps because so much of the other fruit is so meh right now, I am finding pears impossible to resist. I like to think of them as a true winter fruit – they’ve got a flowery sweetness combined with a woodsy earthiness. And ever-so-versatile, pears lend themselves well to standing in as a snack, sneaking into a cake, or brightening a salad. Or just letting themselves be gently poached and served as they are, or as an accompaniment to a very wintry cake.

You might even forget the gray, rainy skies outside while you’re having it. It’s that good, that comforting and so easy to make that you might just find yourself returning to this recipe over and over again. I know I certainly will be. And while we can’t all sit at my dining room table eating these out of deep bowls with soup spoons, we can at least pretend that we can, bound together by this simple dessert, across stateliness, country borders and oceans. It’s the next best thing.

Continue reading pear compote poached in vanilla bean and star anise.

Face it, there’s only so much eggnog you can drink before you’ll need to loosen that belt one notch. I’m not one to count calories – I drink my milk whole, braise my brussels sprouts in cream, and never ever skip dessert. I’m a girl who likes to indulge, albeit in moderation, but I find that life restrained is not for me. I like balance, but I like to have my fun too. Clotted cream? Why, thank you! Bacon with my pancakes? But of course! And when real-to-goodness-made-from-scratch eggnog is offered to me, I, mostly, can’t say no.

However, I have to be prudent. A drink made with eggs, heavy cream and milk can only be considered a protein shake for so long. Yes, I’ve actually referred to it as such, but I’m prone to stretching definitions. Also, there will come a time in every holiday season, when I look at a perfectly respectable eggnog, lovingly garnished with freshly grated nutmeg, and I want to gag. This usually happens a few days before Christmas when I’ve been liberally indulging in the holiday spirit and start wearing leggings, sweater dresses and outfits generous enough to hide a food baby. But indulgences aside, sometimes eggnog just is too rich for my taste. Sometimes, I want a holiday cocktail that’s light and effervescent and smells of Christmas. Please take that Christmas tree, shove it in my drink and serve it forth!

I’d like to present to you with such a drink – the Rosemary Gin Fizz. Now, doesn’t that sound celebratory in and of itself? Just saying fizz makes me feel festive, like I want to put on a flapper dress and one of those cute hats and go dance a foxtrot. Never mind that I don’t know how to dance a foxtrot; it’s the spirit of the idea, well, you get the point. A Fizz is actually a cocktail dating back to the 19th century, and the Gin Fizz is the most famous Fizz variation. The Gin Fizz is supposed to contain gin, lemon juice, sugar and carbonated water – and is to be served in a highball glass. The version here, infused with rosemary, is kind of a genius idea – highlighting the woodsy, green notes of gin, and deviating from the traditional, expected gin and tonic citrus notes. Here, gin matures and steps up in sophistication. I like to think of it as a gin’s cotillion, when it finally steps out in society.

When I first had the Rosemary Gin Fizz, it was years ago, at a colleague’s holiday party, and I was beside myself – it was the kind of clean, crisp, wintry taste you immediately take to and think to yourself, “Where has this cocktail been all my life?” It’s an instant, immediate friendship. And if one could become besotted with a cocktail, then I certainly was. I must have consumed a goodly amount of the made-to-order cocktail. My colleague’s then-girlfriend, now-wife, worked for Food & Wine magazine, and got the recipe from their holiday entertaining issue. The secret, she told me, was a rosemary-infused simple syrup. Add to that some gin, a little club soda, some fresh lemon juice and a sprig of red currant (missing from the pictures here because when I made these for my housewarming party in October, red currants were nowhere to be found) – and you got yourself a very festive cocktail. One that smells just like Christmas in a glass!

I had much to learn. At the time, I didn’t even know what simple syrup was, never mind one infused with an herb.

Well, tipsy and giddy, I diligently (or so I thought) copied the recipe down. You can only imagine my penmanship after half a dozen of these babies. In the morning, upon looking at my scribbles, I couldn’t read a thing. Embarrassing, as I could barely remember the act of scribbling itself. I felt like a pest and didn’t want to bother my colleague about the recipe again, but the cocktail swirled around in my mind each holiday season. And each holiday season, I would forget to make it. And so the years flew by, until my housewarming party in October, when I decided to make Rosemary Gin Fizz for my guests.

Well, it was a hit.

No. That would be an understatement. I didn’t leave my kitchen bar area all night because I kept making more batches for my thirsty friends. It was beyond a hit. In fact, people still talk about that cocktail and apparently rave about it to friends and family. I suppose, in the spirit of the holidays, it’s time for me to share it with all of you. Because, like I said before, there’s only so much eggnog an individual can take. And since it is the season of giving, I suppose I should finally put my money where my mouth is.

Continue reading rosemary gin fizz.

A few weeks ago, a funny thing happened: my wallet was stolen. It didn’t feel quite so funny at the time as calling and canceling your credit cards is a painstakingly long process, but in looking back, this incident wasn’t without a silver lining: it prompted me to make this tomato soup.

I could have made this soup any day, week or month. Nothing was preventing me from making it as soon as I dog-eared the recipe in my October Gourmet. But I’m often easily distracted and October was giving us such gloriously sunny days I dared not think soup. And in the following weeks, I kind of forgot about it. It wasn’t until I was sitting in my apartment, sans cash, credit cards or even a metro card to my name, and quite hungry, that I remembered this soup and, more importantly, realized I had all the ingredients on hand!

This whole stolen-wallet-and-no-cash-at-home incident is one big cautionary tale. Don’t be like me and have an emergency cash and credit card stashed somewhere. Keep both of these on hand and you won’t find yourself under involuntary “house arrest”. The loss of my wallet not only rendered me cashless and credit-card less, but also landlocked in Brooklyn, unable to even take the subway into the city, since my metro card also lived in my wallet. Thank goodness it was Sunday and I didn’t have to go in to work. And thanks to lovely Jane who saved the day by showing up with cash and a metro card in tow. With such lovely friends, I’m one lucky girl.

However, there are silver linings when you have nary a nickle to your name. There are fewer decisions to make and that can feel liberating. You can take yourself on a walk, accompanied by coffee you made at home. You can take your camera and your keys (no wallet since it’s gone!) and just wander around snapping pictures without a care in the world. No temptation to buy anything because can’t even have that budgetary dialogue in your head! And after the walk, you come home and rummage around in your pantry, find your needed ingredients and get to work.

Somehow, being in a sort of a lock-down mode makes life seem a bit simpler and the simple act of chopping an onion in your kitchen becomes more comforting than rudimentary. You become aware of every cut, every little morsel that falls onto the cutting board as I diced away. You then slowly sauté your onion until pale and translucent before adding cumin and curry paste. All this stirring and sautéing creates a lovely paste of softened onions and spices that smell, well, sublime. And when you add the remaining ingredients and let the whole thing cook for 15 minutes or so. In that time you are free to go about as you like. In my case, it was calling various credit card companies and asking for replacements, but I can think of time better spent like reading a book perhaps, or watching the news. Either of these things is exponentially more exciting than calling credit card companies. But such is life and sometimes we do what we must and not what we’d prefer.

But mere 15 minutes later, after a quick whir of your immersion blender and a drizzle of fresh lime juice, you have your soup ready for you. And while your wallet is still at large and your friend is en route with some cash to carry you over, somehow this is a soup that makes you feel better. You taste it and think, it is all going to be okay. The power of one’s pantry can be measured in these moments – when you can rummage around, find a few ingredients and whip up not just any meal, but one that is truly outstanding. You not only have a winning recipe on your hands; you’ve just demonstrated to yourself that you can be resourceful with the ingredients you have on hand. Somehow resourcefulness in the face of desperation is more appreciated. When you have no other choice, but to cook only with what you have at home, this accomplishment seems so much grander.

And so in looking back, I’m glad I hadn’t made the soup the second I saw it in the magazine; I don’t don’t think I would have appreciated it, or my well-stocked pantry, even half as much were I not hungry and without any cash to my name. The ingredients, coupled with the time it takes to make this soup, make for a simple and comforting weeknight meal, an impromptu lunch friends, or a soothing supper if you’re stuck at home with a cold. And while the amount of effort it takes to make this soup is minimal, the results are anything but. I would even dare say – they are glamorous. Plus, and this is a bonus, the ingredients can be easily found hanging out in your pantry. Which is perfect for those days when your wallet goes missing and you haven’t got a penny to your name and, inevitably, hunger strikes. And what’s a girl to do?

Continue reading thai-spiced tomato soup.