Archive for the ‘cooking’ Category

We all deal with stress differently. Some work out, some go to a gun range, some have a cocktail. Me? I bake.

When I lived in Boulder one of my usual habits was coming home, throwing aside my bag, turning on the oven, and grabbing things from my pantry. I’d throw myself into a recipe with abandon, forget everything else about my day, and just bake. Last Thursday was one of those days. Not enough hours in the day, everyone was tense and overworked, surprise reshoots sprung on us, etc. I came home totally stressed, turned my brain off, and made cinnaswirl bread.

There’s nothing quite like the smell of cinnamon sugar caramelizing on fresh toast, so you can only imagine the awesome smell that permeates every inch of your apartment (or kitchen or house or what have you) when you bake this bread. I will warn you, it is an extremely drawn-out process (almost 4 hours of proofing total, plus 40 minutes of baking, plus 30 minutes of kneading/general prep), so don’t just start this bread without time to finish it. But please finish it. Trust me. Whether it’s for stress relief or just stuffing your face (or both) – it’s well worth the wait.

I love having guests. Whether it be for an evening or a weekend, taking care of those temporarily staying at my place has always been a favorite past time. During high school my nickname was “The Hostess with the Mostest” for my love of party-throwing and general affection to having people stay at my house. In college I found myself cooking for our newspaper’s fellow staff workers and making dinners every weekend at my friends’ apartments. Now, being the grownup I am (/sarcasm), I get to entertain guests staying at my apartment!

My oldest sister D visited me last weekend for a little overnight getaway and I had this delicious and light appetizer waiting for when she arrived. Creamy ricotta mixed with pungent goat cheese and lemon zest spread on garlic toasts. Something great to nosh on while she freshened up after her car ride but not too filling with the knowledge we’d be going out to dinner in a few hours. Not too fancy but the perfect thing to make your guest feel special.

After a couple miserable months of unending heat and rain, we finally – finally - caught a break last Sunday. The temperature (and humidity) dropped, the sun was still out, and it was as if everyone took a collective sigh in my city. I turned off my AC, opened the windows, and decided to make something hearty and warm for dinner. Kielbasa, sauerkraut, and potatoes roasted in the oven. An old family favorite from growing up. Too easy really to post for a recipe, but since the weather was just nice enough, I decided to froufrou it up and bake some fresh bread to go alongside it.

I’m a caraway fanatic. Growing up, I was obsessed with rye bread – specifically making sandwiches on those obnoxious little loaves of cocktail rye. You can easily see this is not rye bread (no rye flour, for one thing), but caraway seeds are the gateway to rye flavors, and by steeping the water used to make the bread in caraway seeds, it’s a nice mild profile, without the dark earthiness of rye. Total disclosure – I didn’t feel like going to the store to get rye flour and wanted to use what was in my cupboard. Let’s just call this bread a happy product of good weather laziness.

Man, I didn’t even realize it until recently but I have been in a serious cooking rut this summer. I know I’ve complained about the heat and not being hungry due to work and blah blah blah on here, but it was only this past weekend that I realized I had kind of lost my excitement and joy for cooking at home. I used to get a little jolt of glee in my stomach every time I found a new recipe to try or idea that would come up. That just hasn’t been happening the past 2 months. I blame it on spending all my creative juices at work coming up with recipes on demand and focusing so much on that. The home cook in me was exhausted. Cold cereal, yogurt, take-out… it was a lot of assembling – not cooking. But last week something changed.

I was making scrambled eggs for breakfast because I had a few extra minutes before work and realized I hadn’t done it in months. I used to love actually making breakfast every day before work when I lived in Colorado, and I just stopped doing it when I moved. So all week I made breakfast. Egg sandwiches, waffles, bagels w/cream cheese and lox. No yogurt. Cooking – not assembling. It felt so good.

And suddenly, the jolt was back. The yearning to cook and bake everything I was going to eat instead of gorging at panel at work and then snacking for dinner. I wanted to save space and make dinner. Screw my kitchen being boiling and being exhausted at the end of the day. It’ll be worth it. And this dish is worth it.

When I saw this recipe my stomach did the familiar little somersault. Perfect summer tomatoes, perfect summer herbs, all nestled in a flaky pastry dough and topped with creamy goat cheese. Pure summer and dead simple to boot. I knew I would make this and love it. And I did. I hope you do too.

Pickles.

It’s borderline insane and almost bizarre that I have yet to write about pickles, considering they are my all-time favorite food. Dill cucumber pickles, to be exact. Sechler’s Polish-style dills to be even more exact. But alas, I’m not trying to better the best today. I’m all about pickling other things. Like carrots.

I think I made these pickled carrots at least 30 times last year. Addiction is such a… strong word, but sometimes it is fitting. They’re just so damn tasty. No other way to put it. Not only are these quick pickled carrots dead easy, they’re so unbelievably refreshing and crisp and my mouth is literally watering as I type this. Not even kidding.

For anyone who’s ever been afraid to pickle or even worse, preserve and jar things, these are for you. Since they’re refrigerator pickles they just sit in the brine in your fridge which means they’re quick – but also means they don’t last more than 5 weeks. Not that it matters because they’ll be eaten long before then.

Trust me.