Posts Tagged ‘spicy’

It’s time for… Oscar Oscar!

This year I’ve gone all out. I mulled over the idea of throwing an Oscar party and finally decided to go ahead and do it when I found this recipe for Popcorn-Raisinet Cookies I just about died over. Me being me, I had to embrace my old nickname of The Hostess with the Mostest and really have fun with the menu. The fact that the majority of my guests tonight will be my coworkers (aka great cooks but also junk food indulgers) made it extra fun. I wanted to theme everything served around a Best Picture nominee and here’s what I came up with:

…or as I like to call it “The dinner I throw together exhausted after driving home and unpacking post-Christmas.”

This is one of those gloriously easy, delicious, and hideous dinners you can throw together in 10 minutes and it is just so damn tasty. Just make a quick spicy tomato sauce, crack a few eggs into it, pop the lid on, and poach away. If you’re really ambitious you can toast some nice bread and rub a few garlic cloves on it to ensure extra awesomeness.

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Sriracha is one of those running jokes amongst people in the food & beverage industry. You can walk into any kind of restaurant kitchen – Italian, French, Latin American, etc, – and more than likely, a bottle of the green-lidded fiery red sauce will be found somewhere. For some, it’s a substitute for everything from ketchup to mayonnaise, and will be poured on any and everything they eat. I always think of the episode of Top Chef when Casey put it into her Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. I’m not that hardcore, but it is delicious. It’s simply a paste of chili peppers, vinegar, garlic, sugar and salt. Spicy, sweet, and commonly seen with Thai or Vietnamese food, it’s well-loved (and rightly so).

So when I saw a recipe for buttermilk sriracha salad dressing a few months ago I kept it in the back of my mind, waiting to use it until the right idea struck. And finally, it did.

I’m a big fan of indulging in spicy chicken wings dipped in ridiculously rich and cooling sauces, so the idea of chicken drumsticks dipped in this srirarcha buttermilk ‘ranch’ seemed perfect. Making a Vietnamese-themed marinade (I know I know srirarcha is Thai but it’s right there on the table at any Vietnamese restaurant, too!) and grilling the chicken makes this a fresh and fun summer dish and great to serve at parties. You can go with wings and legs (or even breasts), just use whatever chicken you like best. It’s all good.

Yesterday at work I was chatting with one of our photographers on the merits of soup as a meal. He argued soup can never be filling, but I disagree. Seinfeld jokes aside, I love having soup for dinner, especially chilled soups during the summer. Cold borscht, gazpacho, vichyssoise – they may not be hearty, but when it’s 90° and humid, the last thing I want to do is sit down to a huge piece of roasted meat and potatoes. Especially when I have air conditioning in only one room of my apartment.

I got excited when I saw this recipe in the latest issue of Bon Appetit because it has all my favorite things. Thai curry paste, squash, cilantro… to me, those are incredibly refreshing flavors and ideal for a chilled summer soup. This recipe makes a nice big batch and is actually quite satisfying by stirring in some thick and creamy Greek yogurt plus an extra little sprinkle of cilantro. If you wanted to bulk it up you could easily keep some of the squash from being pureed and stir it in once you chill it, but I think the puree itself is just perfect.

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This past weekend was a whirlwind of activity, much of which required favors being received and thank yous being doled out in spades. Buying a couch, borrowing a friend’s truck, asking a neighbor to help move said couch, etc, all warranted more than just a verbal acknowledgment, so I of course baked some delicious treats as an extra thank-you.

Snickerdoodles (which by the way, is the most fun cookie name ever) are one of those easy, but special things to make and eat. You don’t see them often enough at bakeries or coffee shops, despite the fact they’re delicious, simple, and can last for days if properly stored. I had been craving them the past few weeks and then suddenly they popped up in my Martha Stewart Cookie-a-Day newsletter. C’est parfait!

These are insanely good eaten warm so I recommend either eating them fresh from the oven (which believe me, I did… in great quantities) or microwaving the cookies for 15 seconds before devouring. Don’t worry, the amount of fat in the dough prevents them from drying out. It’s a good thing.

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