Posts Tagged ‘vegetables’

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.

A quick Friday post for a quick Friday dinner!

These zucchini and squash ribbon salads are so hot right now.  (Hansel… so hot right now).

It’s a super easy and refreshing dish using summer’s best produce and it gets bulked up with some toasted pine nuts and creamy goat cheese, 2 of my favorite things. You can easily throw this together in a few minutes and if you want to be super ambitious, make it the side to a great piece of grilled chicken or a steak. Either way, it’s good (and easy) eats.

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Another quick post for a quick Friday dinner!

I think it’s this warm weather finally getting under my skin. I always eat so much lighter (see: healthier) when it’s warm and sunny, and the other day it was in the low 70′s and sunny. I had a big ol’ bulb of fennel lying in my fridge and most of the other ingredients on hand (a special trip for proscuitto but well worth it) so I whipped this salad together for a nice light supper.

Crunchy and refreshing fennel and apples with salty satisfying proscuitto, this whole dish just feels clean and oh-so-springish. Adding some walnuts (or even goat cheese would be nice) bulks things up a bit, but feel free to add some grilled chicken breast or serve it with nice hot crusty bread.

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Ok, this dish did not start as kluski kapusta po at all. I had this recipe of ribs cooked in cabbage and kraut bookmarked for ages and realized I had all the ingredients except the actual ribs (which were on sale at my grocer) and cabbage,  which is also cheap, so I went ahead and made it.

And sadly, I was glad I didn’t spend much money on the dish. It wasn’t bad per se, just good. Okay. Fine. The cabbage-kraut mixture was surprisingly mild (see: bland) and the ribs were nice and tender, but really fatty. The (small amount) of meat I did get off them was very tasty, but it’s one of those dishes where you have to eat a little bit of everything in one bite for the dish to work. The components on their own were just okay, but together pretty good. So an idea came to mind.

I decided to make an omnivore version of kluski kapusta po, a traditional Polish noodle-cabbage dish where onions and cabbage are cooked in butter and tossed with hot noodles. For my version, I shredded the pork, heated up the cabbage-kraut mixture, stirred in some sour cream, and then tossed the mixture with hot egg noodles. And it finally worked! So I thankfully don’t have to tag this a failure – more like a salvage. Victory is sweet! (and delicious!)

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