Monday, August 19, 2013

easy does it

The other weekend, I somehow managed to make one of the best dinners I've made in awhile. If I sound a little bewildered it's because I didn't really do much at all. That's the brilliant thing about late-summer cooking. All this wonderful stuff is right there for the taking, all you have to do is bring it home (and uh, $hell out for it at the farmer's market), dress it up a little bit and let the compliments roll in. Seriously, the less you do, the better.


Here's what you do:

Monday, July 8, 2013

summertooth

Summer is one of my favorite times of the year. The sun sets around 8:30, allowing the neighborhood to linger on their stoops and at sidewalk cafes. Gardens explode with flowers wild and cultivated. The good tomatoes start appearing at the farmers market. And friends come out of hiding, wanting to grab dinner, have a picnic, come over for brunch. As you probably know, I complain a lot about the mass exodus of our friends, but suddenly my calendar got really full, really fast. Which meant lots of cooking, of course. Here are a few standouts from the past month or so:

In the category of "fake it 'til you make it," I have a fun recipe made for apartment dwellers without access to a grill or campfire, or people who don't want to cook with fire. It's hot, I don't blame you.

Monday, May 13, 2013

something old, something new

So that backload of fun dinner parties (er, brunch parties) I was going on about the last time I posted? Well, it all came to a screeching halt pretty soon after my friends and I finished that bottle of prosecco.

Monday, March 11, 2013

a tale of two brunches

I go a few weeks without posting and suddenly I have a backlog of recipes to tell you about! Although not of the dinner variety. Our house has been brunch party central recently and it got me thinking about cooking in the morning for people. Things like individual omelets or pancakes are best left to diner professionals. Don't go down that path. You really only have two courses of action if you don't want to run in the bathroom and hide before everyone's second round of mimosas.

Monday, February 11, 2013

cold comforts

I'm back in the dinner party saddle and have a real winner to share. 

I'm not the biggest fan of salmon, and Dan doesn't like potatoes (I know, right?), and yet, thumbing through the new (and very first) Epicurious cookbook, I paused at a recipe for salmon chowder. It was light pink with big flakes of fish throughout plus corn kernels, baby potatoes, crispy bacon and lots of chives on top. A bowl of creamy chowder seemed like the perfect thing to eat on an icy winter night. Potatoes be damned.

Monday, January 28, 2013

this and that

So far, this has been a dinner party-less January, but I've still been doing a lot of cooking for myself and Dan. And Mabel when things fall on the floor. Here is a look at what's been in heavy rotation.

Stir-frys
At the risk of sounding...I don't know, like a recent visitor from the 1980s, I am on a big-time stir-fry kick. I like dinners that can be made in one pan, that include all of the things that form a complete meal: starch, protein, vegetables. I have tried one with greens, chicken and peanuts, one with chicken and cashews (adding bell peppers and bok choy), and a very-tinkered-with variation of this one, with ground turkey and have enjoyed them all but feel like I haven't cracked the stir-fry code. I haven't yet found one that I want to make again and again. Any suggestions?

Monday, January 7, 2013

instant fancy

I wish you could stand in my apartment and inhale with me. It smells so good. And I'm not even cooking anything! Well, cooking anything edible.

I'm not a DIY kinda girl, but I recently pinned a recipe for a three-ingredient room fragrance that Williams-Sonoma supposedly uses in its store to entice people to buy, I don't know, stand mixers. I couldn't remember what Williams-Sonoma actually smells like (Peppermint bark? Apple cider? Overpriced small appliances?) but the ingredients: a handful of rosemary, one sliced-up lemon and vanilla extract sounded like a delicious combination. I might not be able to upholster my own headboard, but I can handle dumping three things into a pot with a few cups of water and turning on the heat.

And now, as these magic ingredients bubble away on my stovetop, I am hooked.

LinkWithin

Blog Widget by LinkWithin