About jacky grace

I grew up in an Italian house with big meals, big flavors and big voices. My husband comes from an even bigger Greek and Armenian house with even bigger food and voices. Here in our tiny city kitchen, we adapt our family recipes for our small space without sacrificing any of the flavors, traditions or love.

Green Chili Mac and Cheese

Posted on August 5, 2015 by jacky grace

Last month we took a quick trip to Austin. Music City USA! Home of fantastic dive bars, endless options for live music and barbecue.

The barbecue was insanely delicious. Pulled pork, brisket, ribs. There was definitely a meat coma.

But as good as the meat stuffs was, I can’t say it was my favorite thing, or the best thing or the thing I am going to crave from this trip.

I’m a sides girl. Pinto beans, cole slaw, potato salad. These are the best parts of getting good barbecue. But the absolute best of the best was the green chili mac and cheese we had at Roaring Fork.

We weren’t interested. The waitress told us to trust her.

And boy am I glad we did.

I make a pretty mean mac and cheese. SO I had to try and make a green chili version that would at least come close to satisfying the craving for the one at Roaring Fork.

So I took a basic mac and cheese recipe and amped it up with some green chilis.

For this recipe you will need:

2 cups of milk
1 small can of green chilis
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
8 oz sharp white cheddar, grated
1 pound pasta, any shape (i used mini shells)
Optional, crushed crackers

Preheat the oven to 400.

Basic mac and cheese starts with a roux. Butter, flour and milk.

You melt the butter and add the flour, whisking, and cooking out the raw flour taste.

Then you add the milk. And here is where this becomes green chili mac and cheese.

Into a blender goes the milk and the can of green chilis. Blend. You will now have green chili milk.

Add to the butter and flour slowly. And whisk until it starts to thicken.

Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil and add in your pasta. Cook according to package directions, drain and set aside.

When the milk and flour mixture has thickened (it should coat the back of a spoon) add in your cheese and stir until it melts.

Remove from the heat. Dump in the pasta and stir until it is all coated.

Pour into a greased 9×13 baking pan.

This next part is optional but recommended. Take half a sleeve of crackers (I used Ritz), place them in a bag, and whack away until you have crumbs.

Sprinkle atop the mac and cheese in the baking dish

And bake for 20-30 minutes. The crackers will turn golden, the cheese will melt and bubble and it won’t turn orange. I don’t know what happened to the lighting there. Sorry guys.

You get the warmth from the heat of the chilis and the smooth creaminess of the cheddar.

A match made in mac and cheese heaven.

Trust me. You won’t miss the brisket when you have a big bowl of this for dinner.

Florentine Carnival Cake (Orange Cake)

Posted on June 29, 2015 by jacky grace

I love Italian food.

I love cooking channel’s Deb and Gabriele

I love the beautiful and simple Italian food in their cookbook Extra Virgin.

New York’s been having some strange weather so far this summer. It’s been 100 and humid and it’s been 65 and a bit chilly.

So to make it feel like summer, no matter what it looks like outside, I though I’d make a bright, citrusy dessert to at least give us some sunshine on our plates.

This recipe is ridiculously easy. You probably already have all of the ingredients. Oh and the bright orange burst in this light and fluffy cake is out of this world.

You will need:

1.5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1.5 tablespoons baking powder
3 eggs
.5 cup warm milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
zest and juice of one orange

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 9×13 pan.

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. (That’s right. everything into the bowl. No wet and dry ingredients, no separating eggs, no sifting. Just dump it all in.)

Whisk until combined.

Pour into your buttered pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes.

Allow to cool. You can dust with powdered sugar or, you can serve with sliced strawberries and some whipped cream.

Food Truck Style Falafel Platter

Posted on April 28, 2015 by jacky grace

I love falafel.

Like most New Yorkers, I first discovered falafel when I was a broke college student roaming around the East Village and trying to save a few bucks for the cover charge at the Bitter End so I could watch my friend’s band play, and hopefully find someone who would buy me a beer.

Falafel trucks abound by Washington Square AND you can get a really good falafel for like 2 bucks.

No joke.

So now the question. What is falafel?

It’s basically chickpeas mixed up with some parsley and spices, deep fried and then served in a pita as a sandwich or on some lettuce as a platter.

It is one of my favorite foods of all time. I could definitely subsist on falafel and pasta for the rest of my life and be happy.

Thankfully, falafel was as easy to make as pasta!

You will need:

1 15oz can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
handful of parsley
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
vegetable oil for frying

Throw everything but the vegetable oil into a food processor.

Blend until smooth

Place the mixture in a bowl and pop in the fridge for about 20 minutes. This helps it set up a bit so it doesn’t break apart when you fry it.

Now, on to the frying.

You want about a 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a heavy-bottomed pot. Bring it up to 350 degrees. I don’t have a thermometer, so I use the wooden spoon trick. Dip the handle of the wooden spoon into the oil; if it pops and bubbles you’re good to go.

Using two tablespoons, form the falafel mixture into balls and carefully drop into the oil.

Fry on one side for 2-3 minutes and then flip and let cook another 2-3 minutes. They will be golden on both sides.

Place on a paper towel-lined plate and continue to form balls and fry until the mixture has all been cooked.

You can take these little guys and stuff them into a pita pocket with some lettuce and cabbage, or you can make a platter, which is what we did.

Iceberg lettuce, pickled cabbage and cucumbers (By the way, the cabbage is just barely pickled. Shred some red cabbage and toss it in a bowl with two tablespoon olive oil, 4 tablespoons champagne vinegar and a tablespoon of sugar, and let it sit in the fridge overnight)

Add your falafel

And finish it off with some tzatziki, hummus or tahini.

Derby Pie

Posted on April 27, 2015 by jacky grace

My Family, if you’ve been reading this blog you will know, is really big on food.

We’re also really into football and hockey.

But the other biggie for us is the horses. An Italian family into betting the horses?

I know. Shocking.

Well, this weekend is the biggest event in horse racing, for those of you virtuous types who don’t follow the ponies. That’s right, folks, it’s almost Derby Day!

The Kentucky Derby is the first race in the triple crown, which consists of the Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont. Win all three and you win the triple crown. The races are only open to 3-year-olds so horses only have one shot at the prize.

Secretariat won the triple crown in 1973, Seattle Slew in 1977 and Affirmed in 1978. Since then, nothing. It’s been one heck of a dry spell.

You may remember the big hubbub surrounding California Chrome last year, but he just couldn’t pull out the win at the Belmont.

Anyway, I digress.

With the Kentucky Derby coming up, I’ve been thinking about a childhood favorite dessert that we used to get down the shore and that has been off the restaurant’s menu for over a decade: Derby Pie.

It was essentially a chocolate chip cookie in pie form. But there was something a little different about it. I did some testing and I figured it out. What would make it a derby pie? Well, the Derby is run in Kentucky, right? What’s big in Kentucky? That’s right. Bourbon.

Sub the vanilla for bourbon and you have yourself the makings of a delicious Derby Day dessert.

The recipe is super simple, but ridiculously delicious.

You will need:

12 tablespoons butter, room temperature (1 and 1/2 sticks)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
3 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 tablespoons bourbon
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips (I mixed milk and dark)
1 pie crust (store bought or homemade)

Preheat the oven to 275.

Roll out your pie crust and place in your pie pan.

In a bowl stir together the butter, sugar and flour.

Add the beaten eggs and the bourbon and stir until combined.

Add in the chocolate chips and stir again.

Pour the mixture into your pie crust

And bake at 275 for about an hour and a half.

Let cool before you slice otherwise you will have melted chocolate everywhere.

Top with whipped cream or ice cream if you’re feeling extra decadent.

You may not know which horse to put your money on, but I can tell you that you’ll want to put your money on this pie.

Pesto Farro

Posted on April 24, 2015 by jacky grace

Lately we’ve been trying to up our lunch game- up the nutrition, up the flavor and up the wow factor- without upping the prep time.

Enter the grain bowl trend.

It’s pretty brilliant actually. Take a grain – think brown rice, quinoa, cousouc- add some vegetables and protein and boom, lunch. Even better? Easy to make in bulk. Boom, lunch for the week.

We discovered farro a few months ago while watching Extra Virgin on Cooking Channel. It’s an ancient grain with a somewhat nutty flavor that you can treat sort of like pasta.

I buy the kind that you cook just by boiling in water for about 20 minutes.

I whipped up some basil pesto

boiled the farro

sliced some tomatoes and black olives

And poured it all into a big bowl

stirring until the pesto coated every grain.

Portioned out in tupperware containers, this was an easy grab and go lunch for the week.

Croque Madame

Posted on April 22, 2015 by jacky grace

The very first meal we ate in Paris was croque madames while the hotel got our room ready.

That was when I learned about the French way- your room being ready upon arrival really means your room being ready after the maid has had her nap.

So, tired after the train ride from London, we took our bags to the closest cafe and ordered two pernods and two croque madames.

A croque monsieur is essentially french ham and cheese sandwich. It becomes a croque madame when you add a fried egg.

You will find these sandwiches on the menus of every cafe lining Paris’s streets, and, if you have one you’ll know why. They’re so simple, yet so incredibly delicious with the toasted bread, the buttery, melted cheese and the salty ham. The runny egg yolk is la piece de resistance.

I’ve had a travel itch lately, so when that happens, I tend to recreate meals we had on our travels, to give myself the illusion of being elsewhere.

For the croque madame you will need

Bread
ham
cheese (traditionally gruyere but anything that melts well will work)
butter (because what’s a French dish without butter?)
eggs

A traditional croque monsieur or madame is made with a beschamel. That’s lovely when you’re on holiday, but a little too heavy for everyday eating. So I eliminated the sauce and made something a bit more akin to a grilled cheese.

Start by using a biscuit cutter or a glass to cut a whole in two slices of your bread.

Butter a skillet and toss the two slices with holes and two more slices into the melted butter. Cook over medium heat until browned.

Once browned, flip the bread and carefully crack an egg into each hole- sort of like when you make egg in the holes. Okay, exactly like when you make egg in the hole.

Once the egg is cooked but still runny, top the non-egg bread with slices of ham.

Remove the ham side from the skillet and place on a foil-lined cookie sheet. Top the ham with shredded cheese and pop under the broiler to melt the cheese.

It only takes a minute or two to get the melty gooey perfection, so don’t go anywhere.

If you want to be extra decadent, you can also top the egg-bread with cheese and pop under the broiler.

So that when you make your sandwich, you have two doses of cheese.

Egg-in-the-hole-meets-grilled-cheese-meets-taylor-ham-sandwich.

My version of a croque madame.

C’est Magnifique.

Lemon Chess Pie

Posted on April 21, 2015 by jacky grace

Bright Sunshiney days make me think one thing: beach.

But, since we can’t get to the beach yet, sunshine’s got me thinking about bright bursts of citrusy flavor.

In the form of a lemon chess pie.

Chess pies are super Southern and consist of eggs, butter, sugar and vanilla. It’s a great recipe to know because you usually have the ingredients on hand and can whip this up if guests unexpectedly will be arriving soon.

This recipe comes from Southern Living. Instead of using vanilla, I used some lemon juice to give the pie a more summery twist.

Start with a pie crust. You can use store bought or homemade.

This little beauty was made by my husband. Following my grandmother’s recipe.

I love that. Him reading the recipe written in her handwriting.

So, once you have your pie crust baked and cooled, it’s time for the filling.

You will need:

4 eggs, separated
1/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350.

Separate the eggs, placing the yolks in a big bowl

And the whites in a not as big bowl

Using an electric hand mixer, beat the whites into stiff peaks. See how there’s a little point of egg white standing up on the mixer? That’s a stiff peak.

Leave those whites for a minute and turn to the yolks. Add the melted butter, sugar and lemon juice and stir.

Now, gently tip the whites into the yolk mixture and fold them in.

You’ll get this beautiful, pale, buttery yellow.

When fully combined, pour the mix into the crust.

Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes, until set.

Let cool in the fridge, and then pile high with whipped cream.

When you slice it, I love the contrast of the lemony yellow against the glistening white whipped cream.

Served icy cold, this pie is like a glass of lemonade on a hot summer day: refreshing, tart and sweet and so satisfying.

Garlic Lime Rice and Old Bay Shrimp

Posted on April 20, 2015 by jacky grace

After an incredibly brutal winter filled with sub zero temps and lots of snow, New Yorkers were so ready for the 70 degree day we were graced with over the weekend.

Rooftops were crowded, tables were dragged out onto the small sidewalk spaces in front of restaurants and, yes, ice cream trucks abounded!

The first warm day is my favorite day in New York. Not just because the sun feels glorious after a long winter of my face being buffetted by wind (why is the West Side so much windier than the East, by the way?) but because of the beauty of watching the city emerge from its chrysalis.

Al fresco dining. Rooftop cocktails. Breezy dresses. And finally, lighter cuisine.

I love the comforting pots of soups and chilis in the winter, but I crave the bright, fresh flavors of spring.

This dish begs to be made on a sunny day when margaritas are the only logical choice of drink.

This recipe is great for those warmer days too as there is little time at the stove and few ingredients needed, so if, you know, some friends find out you have a rooftop and happen to be in the neighborhood, you can feed them. If you want to.

I made this for my husband and I but wound up with leftover rice for lunches for the week, which was my intent. So feel free to half the rice recipe if you don’t want leftovers (but I don’t know what kind of person you would be if you didn’t want leftovers. Sorry no judging in this house)

For the rice:

2 cups rice (I used arborio because that’s what I had, but you could use white or brown or whatever)
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
juice of 2 llimes
4 cups water
olive oil

Drizzle some olive oil in a high-sided skillet and toss in your onions and garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes or so on medium heat, stirring so garlic does not burn.

Add your rice and let it cook for 2-3 minutes. It will toast a bit and pick up some of the onion and garlic flavors.

Season with salt and pepper. Add the water and the lime juice. And bring to a boil. Once boiling, lower to a simmer, cover and let it cook for about twenty minutes, or until the liquid is absorbed.

You’s have fluffy rice, studded with red onion and garlic, and the scent of limes will be wafting in the air.

This is a great side dish for tons of main courses, but when it’s warm out, all I can think about is some shrimp slathered in old bay.

Simply toss frozen (straight from the freezer, no thawing), deveined shrimp (peeled or not, but always tail on) into a big skillet and douse it with old bay seasoning. Cook over medium until shrimp are done (they’ll turn pink).

Serve the shrimp alongside the rice. The rice will cool down the heat from the seasoning.

Then again, so will an ice cold beer.

Huevos Rancheros

Posted on April 16, 2015 by jacky grace

There is no food in the house.

You can’t make a delicious and satisfying meal

You must order takeout.

Have you found yourself in this frightening situation?

It usually hits just at the time when your favorite take out place is about to close and you end up debating being that jerk who places an order just before closing and makes the delivery guys work late (you will give him a good tip, you promise) and just taking a second look in the fridge.

9 times out of 10, I do actually have some ingredients that I can toss together and make into something.

Usually, it’s huevos rancheros.

Really, all you need is onion, peppers, beans and eggs. I tend to have all of these ingredients on hand. This time, there was also chorizo and some shredded cheese in the fridge. Score.

Chop up your onion and pepper and chorizo (if you have it) and toss into a pot with some olive oil.

Cook over medium heat until the veggies soften.

Add in your beans. I had refried pinto beans in the cabinet, but you could use black beans, pinto beans, refried black beans, kidney beans. Really, whatever you have.