Almost No Cook Spicy Peanut Veggies Over Noodles

Posted on May 30, 2013 by jacky grace

Hello heat wave.

Here in New York, we’ve got those 3 H’s in town.

Hazy, Hot and Humid.

When they’re around, the last thing I want to do is cook.

But a girl (and her boyfriend) has got to eat.

So here’s an almost-no-cook dinner to help you beat the heat.

Spicy Peanut Veggies Over Noodles.

This is my own spin on some of my favorite Thai flavors.

For some reason, summer makes me think vegetarian. Piles of vegetables and fruits in the grocery make me wonder why I would ever need meat in my diet (then I think about mom’s meatballs or a burger from The Smith and I forget about my vegetarian conversion).

This is also one of my favorite kinds of meals to prepare because it all just goes into one big bowl and then gets dished out.

You will need:

3 tbsp Peanut Butter
Chili oil (or hot sauce) to taste
2 tbsp Rice Wine Vinegar
2 tbsp soy sauce
Egg Noodles
Veggies (We’re using cabbage, broccoli, cucumber and scallions)

We’re going to start with the cook part.

Bring a pot of water to boil.

I don’t want the broccoli to be raw, so I’m going to toss the florets, chopped up into bite-size pieces, into the boiling water for a minute. Not even a minute.

While the water is coming to a boil, pull out a large bowl and combine the peanut butter, rice wine vinegar and chili oil. If the mix is a little thick, don’t fret. We’re going to toss hot egg noodles in and the heat and the water that is bound to make its way into the bowl will thin it out some.

When the water’s boiling and the peanut sauce is mixed, toss in the broccoli.

You want to have the sauce done because the broccoli is going straight from the pot into the bowl.

Just cook enough to take away the rawness. If you want, you can leave your broccoli raw. I’m just not a fan.

Scoop out the broccoli and transfer to the bowl. Pour the egg noodles into the water now vacated by the broccoli. Why waste water? Why dirty two pots?

Cook according to the directions on the package.

While they cook, add your other veggies to the bowl. I used a few handfuls of the bagged coleslaw mix with cabbage and carrots, some chopped cucumber and some sliced scallions.

Toss the veggies with the peanut sauce.

When the noodles are cooked, add to the veggies mixture.

The heat from the noodles will melt the peanut butter and will warm the veggies.

Scoop heaping spoonfuls into bowls.

Top with some chopped peanuts if you like.

The bowl goes in the dishwasher, making this a one pot to wash dinner.

Which is necessary in this heat.

Who wants to stand in an itty bitty kitchen, scrubbing a stack of pots on a lazy summer city night like this?

Leftover Veggie Crustless Quiche

Posted on May 29, 2013 by jacky grace

Friday night’s calzones left me with a half a bag of spinach and a container of mushrooms in my fridge.

Much as I wanted to stop at the store and peruse the produce section ( I like grocery shopping. I know. I’m strange), I knew I had food to use in my fridge.

I hate having food go to waste.

Usually when I have leftover veggies, I sautee them up and toss them over pasta.

Unfortunately, we just had pasta last night.

So I racked my brain.

And came up with this.

Leftover Veggie Quiche.

This is a crustless quiche so it’s super quick to prepare and needs only a few ingredients:

some veggies (I’m using spinach and mushrooms and some scallions)
parmesan or another shredded cheese (optional) (I also scooped in some ricotta because the sell by date’s approaching)
4 eggs
milk
butter (to grease the pan, you can use cooking spray too)

Sautee the veggies in some olive oil and black pepper over medium heat. Remember they will cook some more in the oven, so don’t cook them all the way.

Meanwhile, grease a pie pan or a baking dish. You can use whatever you have on hand – glass pyrex casserole, a brownie pan – I’m using a pie pan because I have one and because it’s dishwasher safe. One less pot to wash!

When the veggies are cooked, dump them into the greased pan in an even layer.

I, for whatever reason, cooked the spinach first, put it in the pie pan as my bottom layer, then cooked the mushrooms and laid those on top of the spinach. I tossed the chopped scallion over.

In a bowl, crack four eggs, pour in some milk, sprinkle in some cheese, scoop in a spoonful of ricotta, add a few grinds of black pepper if desired and whisk away.

When the yolks are broken and well combined, pour the egg mixture over the veggies.

Bake in a 350 degree oven until the eggs are set. About 30 minutes.

Slice, serve with a side salad and some crusty bread.

I’m starting to notice just how often I type the words crust bread, and, subsequently, just how often I eat crusty bread.

I think I have a problem.

Is there a crusty bread eaters anonymous?

Wait.

This is a crustless quiche.

No crust means no bread. An otherwise breadless meal.

And I need carbs.

I did have yogurt today for lunch. And fruit.

Totally healthy. And totally breadless.

So, I’m perfectly entitled to my crusty bread tonight.

What say you, Rachael Ray, is that the correct girl math?

I was always bad at math. I’m an English major.

Oh well.

The math I can handle? Dinner ready with only five minutes of prep + a nice long hot shower during the thirty minutes while the quiche bakes + only one pan to wash = a very calm and relaxed girl ready to settle in for some Game 7, Blackhawks vs Red Wings old school hockey!

#Becauseitsthecup

Linguine in Clam Sauce in a Flash

Posted on May 28, 2013 by jacky grace

I thought the song was Manic Monday?

Well, today’s Tuesday and boy was it manic.

Why is it that the day after a long weekend is always crazy? Shouldn’t everyone be coming back into the office nice and calm and relaxed?

Well, that’s unfortunately never the case.

So after a long weekend of lazily preparing meals and relaxing with wine, I’m coming home from a busy day, ravenous and in need of an easy dinner.

This is also what comes to mind when I’m in need of comfort food.

Comfort food is different for everyone. It totally depends on what you grew up eating and what will transport you back to mom or grandma’s house. For you it may be meatloaf or mac and cheese or spanikopita.

For me, it’s a big bowl of pasta. Comforting, warm and easy.

This dinner is so easy, I even have the time to make a quick appetizer.

Linguine in clam sauce.

The real world way.

Yes, if I had the time, I’d prefer to use fresh clams. But I don’t have the time to stop at the store, nor do I have the patience right now to cook clams.

I didn’t get to eat lunch today, and I know that if my day were that hectic, then my boyfriend’s was probably at least three times worse. And he’s probably hungry. And he gets cranky, and a little angry when he’s hungry.

Like his dad says, an angry man is a hungry man.

Hangry. That’s what men are when they’re hungry and angry from the hunger.

You don’t want a hangry boyfriend on your hands after a long day.

Get this recipe started by bringing a pot of water to a boil. While the water starts to bubble, make the sauce.

This sauce is a great friend of the itty bitty city kitchen because 1. it’s made entirely of pantry staples and 2. it doesn’t take a lot of assembly – chopping garlic then the rest happens in the frying pan.

1 can minced clams, drained of juices (this is the real world way to make the sauce, replace with fresh clams if you have time)
2-3 cloves of garlic, chopped
olive oil
white wine
black pepper

This is the easiest sauce you will ever make.

Drizzle a pan with olive oil and add the chopped garlic; turn to medium heat and let the garlic start to brown.

Add the drained clams, pour in the white wine and cook until the alcohol is gone. Or cook just a little and leave some of the alcohol if you had that kind of day.

Add a few grinds of black pepper and let the sauce hang out on the stove over a low flame. Odds are, the sauce is done and the water hasn’t boiled yet.

Which gives you the perfect amount of time to make an appetizer. Also known as something to hand to the hangry man at the door to quell the hanger.

Bruschetta is one of those highly versatile and highly underrated foods.

There’s nothing better than crispy bread in my book. Crispy bread topped with some fresh and yummy accouterments (you like that word, don’t you?) is even better.

For a really quick bruschetta, slice a baguette and toast the slices at 400 for a few minutes. If you don’t have time to preheat the oven (or forgot like me) throw the slices on a foil-lined cookie sheet and pop under the broiler for a few minutes. Just watch the bread because it can burn quickly.

Peel a garlic clove and slice in half.

When the bread is toasted, pull from the oven and rub with a garlic clove half. The heat from the bread will melt the garlic, and the crusty texture will provide an abrasive surface that will rub the garlic flavor off onto the bread.

You can sprinkle with some olive oil and parmesan cheese and pop it back in the oven for a minute and, ta-da, garlic bread.

You can also take it a step further and chop up some tomatoes, toss them in a bowl with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and set on the table with the garlic bread for a make your own tomato bruschetta station.

This should keep your hangry man occupied while you cook the linguine.

Linguine takes like four minutes to cook, so it’s the best option here.

A side salad with a simple dressing, tomatoey, garlicky bruschetta and a steaming bowl of linguine topped with the winey, oceany, peppery clam sauce. A sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

Dinner on the table in under ten minutes.

And there’s nothing more satisfying or comforting than a steaming bowl of pasta.

Hangry man be gone.

Taco Taco Taco

Posted on May 27, 2013 by jacky grace

Memorial Day Weekend is the unofficial start of summer.

It’s also the official start of grilling season.

Dads start rolling out the grills from the garage. People gather for backyard barbecues. Food Network has Grilling Week, a whole week dedicated to specials and shows and recipes centered around the grill.

There’s nothing better than a juicy burger, hot off the grill and tasting of open flames.

Except, if you have an itty bitty city kitchen, there’s nary a grill in sight.

Yes, I know, there are grill pans for indoor use. But I don’t know if it’s just us or if any of you had the same problem, we totally smoked our kitchen out using one. We have to go college-smoking-in-the-dorm style and bag our smoke detector to grill chicken or a burger.

Then the whole apartment smells like smoke.

Seriously. I showered the next day and when I dried off with my towel, I was basically rubbing smoke all over my newly cleaned self.

So for us, the grill pan is out. And anyway, the grill pan doesn’t mimic the char that you get on your burger when you cook over an open flame. And if I can’t have it the right way, then I’d rather not have.

So instead of trying to concoct ways to participate in the ultimate day for grilling, we went a different route.

Beef wasn’t optional.

But the bun was.

Who says you can’t celebrate Memorial Day with taco night?

I will admit that taco night is one of the more challenging nights in the life of an itty bitty city kitchen, but if you’re prepared and organized, it’s totally doable.

I’ll share with you our ingredients, but feel free to add and subtract toppings to suit your tastes.

romaine lettuce
tomatoes
black olives
shredded cabbage
taco cheese
salsa
Greek yogurt with a squeeze of lime (in place of sour cream)
flour tortillas

So here’s what I mean by being organized. We’re going to set up a make your own taco bar, which means each topping will be chopped up, put in its own bowl and lined up on the counter. It could easily overwhelm a little kitchen. But we’re going to be methodical.

First, pull out enough bowls for each topping and stack them up on the counter.

Get the cutting board and a knife.

Okay, here’s the key. Start with your least messy ingredient and then work your way to the messiest.

Think about it. You cut the tomato first and then move onto the romaine and you either have to rinse the cutting board and knife first or you wind up with tomato juice all over your romaine.

So, start with your romaine. Chop, place in bowl and then move the bowl out of the way, either off to the side or into the fridge to keep cold. I did the olives next, followed by the tomato. Then the cutting board went into the sink.

Spoon out a couple tablespoons of Greek yogurt into a bowl and spritz lime juice over.

When everything is assembled, it’s on to the meat.

For the meat, I used ground beef, chorizo and half a yellow onion. But you can use just ground beef, chicken breast, steak, whatever you like. Taco night is all about taste and tailoring it to your tastes and cravings.

Drizzle olive oil in a pan and add in the chopped yellow onion and some chorizo, diced. I’m using the chorizo in place of taco seasoning here, mostly because it’s on hand and because the flavor is so much more complex than what you get from a seasoning packet.

Cook the onions and chorizo over medium until the onions are translucent and the chorizo starts to brown.

Add in the ground beef and brown.

Pour the meat into a bowl and add this to the taco assembly line.

Grab a plate, grab a tortilla and build your taco.

It’s not the traditional Memorial Day celebration, but it works for us.

We’ll start a new tradition.

Cheers!

Deconstructed spicy tuna roll salad

Posted on May 27, 2013 by jacky grace

One of my favorite foods to go out to eat is sushi.

In general, I don’t like going out to eat.

After working all day, I want to come home to the peace of my kitchen and the comfort of my sweatpants.

I don’t want to go to a restaurant where it’s crowded, it’s loud, it’s expensive, and I always feel like I could make the same plate in front of me at home.

Sushi is an exception.

I don’t see me busting out the bamboo sushi mat and picking up sushi grade ahi tuna at the market any time soon. (Though, you never know. My boyfriend recently decided he wanted to learn how to make Chinese food and so went out and bought a wok. Yes. He woks on occasion. Yes, I will try and sneak a video next time.)

If we wanted sushi, we’d have to venture out.

Trouble is, we were both really set on a weekend of sweatpants.

So I started thinking about sushi as components rather than rolls and came up with this deconstructed spicy tuna roll salad. The tuna is cooked, but the flavors are about the same as the roll you’d get at your favorite sushi restaurant.

The best part? This is a one bowl dish. That’s right. Bowl. Not pot. This is an almost no cook meal. Just assembly required.

Really, you’re going to do three steps.

1. Make the dressing

2. Make the salad

3. Cook the tuna.

So first the dressing.

You will need:

2 tbsp Greek yogurt
1 tbsp siracha
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil
juice of half a lime
a pinch of sugar

In a large bowl, whisk together all of the ingredients.

We actually always have all of this stuff on hand. Like I said, he started woking recently and went out and bought a bunch of Asian ingredients. Even if you don’t have them or don’t think you’ll make that many Asian dishes, consider getting them. I’ve made some amazing marinades with soy sauce. And sesame oil adds a really nice deep flavor to sauteed vegetable. And if you don’t have siracha or don’t want to buy it, use whatever hot sauce you like or have on hand.

To the bowl of dressing, toss in your salad ingredients.

We used:

1 avocado, diced
3 scallions, sliced
1/2 cucumber, sliced into matchsticks
1 handful shredded cabbage (like the bag of coleslaw mix)
1 large handful baby spinach
1 large handful spring mix

These can easily be adjusted. Arugula would be nice to add a peppery kick, or even romaine if you want a real cold crispness to cut the hot sauce. I recommend the avocado and the cucumber if you want that sushi roll taste, but really the salad ingredients are up to you.

Toss to coat the veggies with the dressing.

Pop into the fridge so the flavors can, in the words of my dad, fester.

Anytime a recipe calls for something to hang out in the fridge, dad calls it festering.

Now, while the salad festers, it’s onto the tuna.

You will need:

2 tuna steaks
vegetable oil
juice of half a lime
black pepper

Turn the broiler on high and line a baking sheet with foil. The foil gets balled up and tossed in the trash later, making the bowl with the salad the only cleanup for the night.

Place the tuna steaks on the foil-lined sheet and drizzle with vegetable oil and lime juice and a few grinds of black pepper.

The tuna will cook under the broiler pretty quickly, about 4 minutes per side.

This meal is complete with just the salad and the tuna, but we added brown rice on the side to give it the real sushi roll taste.

I confess, I didn’t make the rice. Our favorite Chinese take out place is literally steps from our door (the joys of city living) so while I watched the tuna, he ran down and got a container of brown rice. And maybe two egg rolls. Shih Lee has the best egg rolls. Hands down.

Plate the salad and tuna and add a scoop of brown rice on the side.

When you get a bite of lettuce, avocado, rice and tuna, all coated in the spicy dressing (our version of the spicy mayo of sushi restaurants) your taste buds will be convinced they are down Second Avenue at your favorite sushi place.

But, no. You are at your table, with a huge plate of spicy tuna salad.

And most importantly, you’re still in sweatpants.

Mexican Chili

Posted on May 26, 2013 by jacky grace

The best friend of the itty bitty city kitchen is the one pot meal.

Only pot to make room for on the limited counter space.

And more importantly, only one pot to wash.

This is especially important after a long day at work. It’s even more important on hockey night.

Two nights ago, the Rangers thwarted the Bruins plans for a sweep, winning game 4 in the series in overtime 4-3. The series stands at 3-1. Bruins win, they’re in. Rangers win, they force a game 6 and hold onto Stanley Cup hopes.

This is going to be an intense game. You’re not going to want to have to wash stacks of dishes.

It’s supposed to be summer. It’s supposed to be time for seafood and burgers and freshness.

But, like I said before, in New York it’s 53 degrees with 23 mph winds.

Dinner calls for something that will warm us up. And be easy to eat during the game.

But after a long, cold winter of soups and stews and potatoes and roasts, I needed something different.

I am so ready for summer, and summer makes me think of Mexican.

Peppers, black beans, avocados, spicy chorizo, a crisp refreshing Corona.

How to take those flavors and make an easy to eat meal (tacos are too messy for hockey-watching on the couch) that will chase away the chill in the air.

This is my Mexican chili

You will need:

1 bell pepper (any color is fine. I used green because those looked the best at the store)
1/2 a yellow onion
2 portabella mushrooms
2 cans black bean
1 can red kidney beans
1 can diced tomatos
1 can corn
olive oil
chorizo (note if you want to make this vegetarian leave out chorizo and add in some taco seasoning instead)

Drizzle olive oil in the pan. I like to use my aluminum pot here.

Add the chopped onion and pepper and cook until soft.

Chop the chorizo and add to the pepper and onion.

Let cook so the chorizo flavors the oil and the peppers and onion.

Add the cleaned and chopped portabella.

When the mushrooms are cooked down, pour in the can of diced tomatoes.

Stir and let come to a bubble.

Wash and drain the beans and drain the corn. When the tomato juices bubble, add the beans and the corn to the pot.

Stir. Cover. Let all the flavors come together.

Serve in bowls and add toppings as you wish.

Some ideas are taco cheese, monterey jack cheese, salsa, my avocado yogurt sauce (see here ) or even some crushed tortilla chips.

Lime. Corona.

Done.

Or, even better, try this little drink concoction.

Panache. (Also called a Shandy.)

This is a fantastic summer cocktail.

You just need any light beer and limonade.

Limonade is a French soda. It’s like a carbonated lemonade.

Going with the Mexican food thing, we used Corona.

Pour the beer into a frosty glass and add some limonade – roughly 2 parts beer to one part limonade. If you want it more citrusy, you can go one to one.

Chili. Chips. Panache.

Done.

Oh. And the game. Don’t forget to turn that on.

Let’s go Rangers!

Hockey Night Calzones

Posted on May 24, 2013 by jacky grace

Meatless Mondays.

They’re great. They get everyone thinking about the effect of meat on our bodies and on the environment. They also help you detox after a weekend of heavy eating and boozing.

I like to go against the grain a little though.

We go meatless on Fridays.

Maybe it’s because with Greek Easter and Easter so far apart this year we had double the Lent. Maybe it’s just in me from years of Catholic school that Friday is a meat free day. But whatever it is, here’s my logic.

Rather than undo whatever you did over the weekend, why not set yourself up for some good choices?

That sounded lame didn’t it?

I’m sticking with blaming Catholic school.

Actually, I can blame my mom.

Now that I think about it, Friday night was always pizza night when I was a kid.

In case you didn’t guess by now, my parents are Italian. Being Italian, my mom and her family used to own a pizzeria. (My boyfriend’s Greek father also owned a pizzeria. Those Greeks just thing they can do everything!)

My mom came home every Friday and pulled out the pizza pan from the pizzeria, that had made hundreds and hundreds of pizzas and that was perfectly seasoned by the brick ovens of the pizzeria.

My friends were always in awe of the fact that she MADE pizza at home for dinner.

It’s not that hard really. I’ll show you some time.

So after a lifetime of Friday night pizza nights, I do admit that I often make pizza or pasta when Friday rolls around.

It being the Stanley Cup Playoffs, pizza is a great option.

But I wanted to mix it up a little bit.

So here are some super simple calzones. Perfect hockey food.

You will need

Frozen pizza dough, defrosted (feel free to make your own, but why?)
1 carton white button mushrooms, sliced
spinach
1-2 garlic cloves, diced
half small onion, chopped
ricotta cheese
parmesan cheese
olive oil
black pepper

I almost always have frozen pizza dough in the freezer. It’s a nice safety net for last minute dinners or for those when you have no idea what to make.

To defrost the dough, place the dough on a floured plate in the morning and cover with a kitchen towel. I suppose you could use a paper towel. But my mom always used a kitchen towel. And as much as us girls hate to admit it, we tend to do things the way mom did.

When you get home from work, preheat oven to 400.

Drizzle olive oil into a pan and add onions and garlic, cooking on medium low until slightly browned.

Add the sliced mushrooms and cook until brown.

While the mushrooms cook (sauteed mushrooms is one of my top 3 kitchen smells by the way. Closely behind cinnamon baking and chocolate melting), divide the dough in half. Roll out each half as if you were making two mini pizzas.

Place the stretched dough on a foil covered cookie sheet. You can grease the foil lightly if you’re scared of sticking.

When the mushrooms are cooked down add a couple handfuls of spinach and carefully stir (otherwise you’ll throw spinach all over your stovetop like I did)

Wilt the spinach and add a few grinds of pepper. I’m adding parmesan later so no salt needed here.

Meanwhile, spread the dough with ricotta cheese, leaving space around the edges so you can seal the calzones.

When the spinach mushroom mix is cooked, scoop half onto each of the ricotta covered dough, making sure to confine the mixture to one side of the dough so you can fold it over in a minute.

Carefully fold the dough over, pinching the edges to seal.

Bake at 400 for about 20-25 minutes.

If you’re making this ahead, you may want to undercook them a bit so you don’t overcook them the night you heat them up.

Grab a beer. Kick up your feet. And cheer on your favorite team.

Zucchini Pasta – or home alone tonight!

Aside

My boyfriend is the love of my life.

He is my best friend, my soul mate, my sous chef.

We live together, play together, laugh together and cook together.

At the end of a long day, all I want to do is hang in the kitchen with him, prepare a nice dinner and then sit down to it with some good wine and some good conversation recapping the day.

I love that he lets me try recipes on him and I love that he will eat almost anything I make.

Except for one thing.

Zucchini.

He hates it. Can’t stand it. Turns up his nose at anything containing it.

I love it.

How could you not like it? I always ask.

It tastes like whatever you cook it with, I argue.

You eat yellow squash, and they’re in the same family, I reason.

Turns out. They’re not the same.

Not for him at least.

Much as it pains me to admit, on this one, he was right.

I was flipping through Good Housekeeping and stumbled upon an article about allergies. Food allergies fascinate me. Thankfully neither of us have any, but they are on the rise today.

Scanning through the article, my eyes see two words: zucchini and ragweed.

People with ragweed allergies often have a sensitivity to zucchini. Not an allergy, just a sensitivity.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

All those times he wrinkled his nose and told me zucchini tasted like a** to him were because of ragweed, not his taste buds.

Damn.

I hate when he’s right.

So, now I don’t argue with him.

I just make zucchini dishes when he’s not home.

This is one of my favorites. And one of the easiest.

You will need

1 or 2 zucchini depending on size and your hunger levels
olive oil
garlic, chopped
salt
pepper
eggs

Cut the ends of the zucchini and peel the skin. With a vegetable peeler or a mandolin, or a sharp knife and a steady hand, peel the zucchini lengthwise into ribbons.

Rotate the zucchini, peeling from each side until you hit the seeds.

Repeat on the other zucchinis.

When you have a pile of ribbons, drizzle some olive oil in a pan and toss in the ribbons.

Turn to medium heat and toss in the chopped garlic.

I put the garlic on top of the zucchini and stir it around because I have a tendency to burn it otherwise.

Sprinkle some salt and grind some black pepper and continue to cook until the zucchini is cooked through. It will start to turn a bit translucent.

If you are using a big enough pan, push the ribbons to the edge, leaving a space in the center.

Crack one or two eggs (depending on hunger again) and cook until sunny side up. Feel free to cook to over easy if you prefer, but you really want a runny yolk on these.

If your pan is too small to accommodate, just put the ribbons into your bowl and cover to keep warm.

Top with the fried eggs.

Sprinkle some parmesan cheese over the top if you wish.

Run your fork through the egg, cracking the yolk, and letting the yellow gooey center seep over the green ribbons, forming a sauce for your “pasta.”

The slightly crunchy, tender zucchini that’s a little sweet and a little spicy from the pepper.

The rich warmth of the egg coating the ribbons.

This is spring in a bowl.

If you want to make this a vegan recipe, leave out the egg and parmesan. Squeeze some lemon juice to make a lemon garlic sauce. Or, treat the zucchini as you would pasta and add your favorite tomato sauce.

Lazy eggs

Posted on May 17, 2013 by jacky grace

So I had one of those days.

I had to be at work at 7.30 this morning for an early morning seminar we were hosting.

Let me repeat that. At 7.30 this morning, I had to be dressed, wide-eyed and ready to perkily greet the insane early birds who signed up for a 7.30 am seminar.

Needless to say, I wasn’t so perky when I got home.

By a gift from the gods, my boyfriend wasn’t coming home for dinner tonight.

Not that I don’t want to see him after a long day, and not that I don’t enjoy cooking to decompress after a long day.

But today was one of those days. When all I want to do is slather a hunk of crusty bread with butter and sit on the couch, bread in hand, with a glass of wine and then wash it all down with chocolate cake.

I already had the bread in the oven. Warm crust bread, butter melting into the air pockets, sips of red wine… I could taste it. The couch was calling me.

But no.

I can’t do that.

I’m an adult. And, as an adult, I know my body needs more than bread and wine.

Also as an adult I know that my body will be angry with me in the morning if I only feed it bread and wine.

So I opened the fridge and rummaged around.

Here’s what I make on the nights when I only want bread but know I need to feed myself more.

Drizzle some olive oil in a frying pan.

Take a handful or two of baby spinach, throw in the pan and turn the flame to medium.

Let the spinach wilt down and then push it to the side.

Crack two eggs in the space previously occupied by the spinach. The eggs will cook in the oil from the spinach and pick up a little bit of the fresh grassy flavor. Cooking eggs in olive oil also gives them these wonderful, brown crispy edged. The crunchy bits against the fluffy whites. Yum!

I sometimes throw in another handful of spinach as the eggs cook. I tell myself that it’s so I get a nice textural difference in the spinach with some sauteed down and some still a little crisp. It’s about the texture. It sounds cheffy.

But, that would be a lie.

In truth, I suck at judging spinach. A giant pile of leaves cooks down to nothing. How am I supposed to know how much to put in the pan?

So more spinach in the pan if you desire. Cook the eggs as you like. I do sunny side up because i love cracking the yellow yolk over the vibrant green spinach, the goopy eggs mixing with the spinach.

Some black pepper. Some parmesan cheese (I tend to use this in place of salt, but feel free to salt away.)

Scoop the spinach onto a plate and slide the eggs on top.

Crusty bread, hot from the oven, butter, and a glass of wine.

The perfect meal to curl up on the couch with.

Hopefully my boyfriend will be home by the time I finish my wine, so he can cut me a piece of cake.

Chicken with Tomato and Fennel, Stuffed Mushrooms

Posted on May 16, 2013 by jacky grace

This is a one pot meal.

Okay a one pot and one cookie sheet meal, but we’re going to cover that with foil, so no clean up there.

A one-pot-to-clean-up meal.

For this recipe you will need:

a container of white button mushrooms, washed
bread crumbs
olive oil
parmesan cheese
one fennel bulb
two tomatoes
two chicken breasts
white wine
salt and pepper to taste

Most of the recipes on here are for two but can easily be doubled or tripled as needed.

You don’t have to make the mushrooms with the chicken, but I bought two containers of mushrooms over the weekend when I really needed one, and so have some spare mushrooms laying around.

Let’s start with the mushrooms, because once they’re assembled and thrown into the oven, we’ll make the chicken and our timing will be so spot on that we’ll be turning the burner off on the chicken and pulling the mushroom out of the oven and putting everything on the table piping hot at the same time.

Note: this has never happened, but I tend to cook things that are forgiving when (every night) this doesn’t happen.

OK, mushrooms. Preheat the oven to 400.

Assembly line is the best way to go in a small kitchen.

Cleaned mushrooms, bowl, foil-lined cookie sheet (or pizza pan- whatever you have). Twist the stems from the caps so you have a mushroom cap turned bowl. Caps go on the baking sheet, cup side up, and stems go in the bowl.

Ready? Go!

Okay, when you have all the caps lined up on the sheet, get ready to get your hands dirty.

My mom pulls out a cutting board and chops up all of the mushroom stems, but I just don’t have the space for that. (I do. I have my over the sink cutting board. But after a hard day at work, mushing up the stems with your hands is so much more satisfying). Before you dig in to mash them up, be sure you have bread crumbs, parmesan cheese and olive oil handy. I’ve forgotten this step before. It results in bits of mushroom on cabinet pulls and refrigerator handles.

Break up the stems into small pieces. You don’t have to go crazy, just break them up. Add some bread crumbs and some olive oil to get a wet sand consistency. There’s no real measurements here. It’s just by feel. Not too dry, not too wet. Like the perfect sandcastle building sand. Stir in some parmesan cheese. (you can leave the cheese out, or you can switch up the type. I’ve used feta, provolone diced up, or mozzarella. Use what you like, just don’t use too much. You just want a subtle little bit of cheesiness to break up the mushroom woodiness).

Using your hands or a spoon (I always go for hands), mound the mixture into the mushroom caps.

These are ready to go into a 400 degree oven for fifteen to twenty minutes.

I’m going to throw the bowl in the sink and move the cookie sheet to the side for now. I’ll put it in the oven when I put the chicken in the pan and cross my fingers everything gets done at the same time.

Two chicken breasts, washed and patted dry come out of the fridge along with two tomatoes and the fennel. I keep ingredients in the fridge or cabinet until I’m ready for them to be used to save space.

Chop up the fennel and tomatoes. I go for a fairly chunky chop because I like big pieces of each ingredient on the form. Up to you, though. As big or as a small as you like. If you’re in a pinch, you can replace the fresh tomatoes with a can of diced too. You can even mix it up with a can of diced tomatoes with basil or with garlic or with whatever. These aren’t recipes to follow precisely. Heck, I don’t even give you precise measurements! These are just ideas and what’s bubbling in my kitchen.

Drizzle some olive oil in your pan. You can use a frying pan that’s a little deeper if you want. Or a wide bottom pot on the shallow side. I use this aluminum one for like everything. Toss in the fennel and tomatoes and cook over medium heat. You want the fennel to start to soften and the juices from the tomatoes to start to run in the pan. Add a splash of white wine (You can leave out, of course).

While this is simmering, put the mushrooms in the oven. Season your chicken with salt and pepper and place in the pan, nesting in the tomatoes and fennel.

Cook through, flipping to cook both sides. About twenty minutes.

If you find the chicken isn’t cooking through in the center, don’t hesitate to throw it in the oven with the mushrooms. I do this sometimes when I have to do a million things and don’t have the time to babysit the chicken on the stove. This is why I go to this aluminum pot- it’s oven-safe.

The chicken is cooked through when the juices run clear. The tomatoes and oil and wine will make a wonderfully acidic and tangy sauce for the chicken that’s balanced by the anise fennel.

The mushrooms add a nice richness, a nice pop of almost butteryness and fattyness as a juxtaposition against the freshness of the chicken.

Add a side salad and a glass of wine and you’re in business. Crusty Italian bread to sop up the juices for those of you not counting carbs is also recommended.

One piece of chicken per person, fennel and tomatoes scooped on top.

Mushrooms on a plate in the center of the table for popping. A crisp romaine salad on the side.

The pot goes into the sink. The foil lining the sheet gets tossed.

And the day slips away in a haze of red wine.

Itty Bitty City Kitchen

tiny kitchen, BIG CULINARY ASPIRATIONS

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Chicken with Tomato and Fennel, Stuffed Mushrooms