my mandoline is delicious

weeknight cooking...still so hard for me sometimes - particularly this week! Had a big client meeting today (a final presentation for one of my projects) and so the whole week we were crunching data and putting slides together. and while i was able to do some of it from my couch, i was still up late each night. ugh so tired. BUT i did manage a bit this week...AND i managed to use everything from my CSA share (except the fruit but it hasnt gone bad yet so it doesnt count). anywho, i had some potatoes to use up, and decided to make potato chips! i sliced up the potatoes with my beautiful beautiful mandoline (a christmas present. i <3 kitchen toys.)

so, i coated the slices in oil and roasted them. delicious...except that i think i put a bit too much oil on them, and while they were cooked long enough to be delicious, i think they could have used maybe 2 more minutes in the oven to crisp them up a bit. next time! i see many more potato chips in my future. maybe even celeriac and parnip chips this week, now that i think about it, based on this week's CSA share.

i also had tons and tons of romaine to get through this past week...and so, i bought some cold cuts, olives, sharp cheese, and made antipasto! this is a christmas eve tradition for my family, that everyone looks forward to each year. incredibly delicious, with all the cold cuts, the saltiness of the olives, the sharpness of the cheese (which is literally called "sharp cheese" - i asked my dad because i thought it was provolone, but no, its sharp cheese and its delicious!) and then the amazing amazing sauce. when dad makes it at home, in a mason jar, the crushed garlic makes up ~ 1/3 of the jar. then there are the other secret ingredients in secret proportions which i cannot reveal because family secret!! but father filled me in, and i made it this week, and it was absolutely delicious. i even have this new, adorable little jar for salad dressings. <3 crate and barrel. probably the best salad that exists.

the adventures of joining a CSA!

so a few weeks ago, i was in a very healthy new kick on life type of mood, and decided to join a CSA! figured it would help me cook at home more, eat better with fresh produce each week, etc. i found one that still had winter shares open, and even includes some fun recipes with the weekly newsletters. conveniently they also have a pick-up location right by work! so i now have a small share with Enterprise Farms. I signed on up a few weeks ago...though i had to wait a few weeks for my first share, and by then i missed avocado season. so sad!

Anywho, this past thursday, i picked up my first share. among lovely things included were beets, red potatoes, romaine, spinach, boy choy, carrots, onions (which had unfortunately gone bad), pink grapefruit, apples, and plum tomatoes. so exciting! i started planning out what i need to make...and i am going to need to cook at home most nights so that i eat it all... i guess that was the point!

anywho, tonight i decided to make braised bok choy (another recipe from epicurious). it was...quite simple! 4 ingredients, and maybe 10 minutes, and there is a tasty greeny side dish! its amazing how wilted greens shrink so much!

for dinner, i paired it with some leftover beet risotto, and then made a quick salad with some of the spinach, tomato, carrot, and leftover roasted beets. i may have overdone it a bit with the spinach...i am so bad at judging salad amounts! i always end up making too much! yum yum yum yum at least i love salad! i guess i'll be eating a lot more of it these days, with salad greens coming every week!

i like bright things

so, a few weeks ago, i was out on a coffee date, and i said something like "i like bright colors and bright things" because if you have ever seen my apartment (or my dorm room in college) you'll know thats true. i mean, my bathroom is bright plum pink right now. and the guy looked at me, wearing a dark grey and navy sweater, and he was like "yeah, right."

well, i think that this beet risotto is very much a "bright" thing that i also enjoyed....it turned out hot pink!!!

the beets came from my new CSA (more on that in the next post), and i found a great recipe for a beet risotto on epicurious. so i figured...lets try it! my first time really making risotto, actually. i've watched other people make it, and i've tasted many delicious kinds, and i made a similar rice dish once with arborio rice, but never real risotto. so, i pulled out my beautiful saute pan (that i bought for making pastry cream, as it has a perfectly rounded bottom so you can whisk everything and nothing gets stuck in corners/edges.) threw the onions in, rice, white wine, then chicken stock. meanwhile, the beets were roasting in the oven. once the risotto was ready, and the beets roasted, cooled, and chopped up, they got mixed in with a bit of parmesan cheese and it all turned a beautiful, brilliant hot pink color. super tasty...but slightly off-putting to eat? its really pink.

first risotto attempt: success!

a boring friday night dinner

i didnt cook at all this week, besides making some salad, which doesnt count. bad jenn. wednesday i was feeling quite blah, so i decided to go to whole foods for dinner on the way home. after grabbing some tasty stuff at the salad bar, i headed over to the meat counter. i love the meat counter at whole foods. they are amazing, and you can get whatever you want in whatever amount you want and it is amaaaazing. yes, i understand this is the description of ~every meat counter that exists. but i love the whole foods ones.

anywho, wednesday night i was pondering the meat counter choices, and picked up some kielbasa (thats for tomorrow) but also...some panko-mustard-crusted chicken breasts! very very exciting. i should have only purchased 1, rather than 2, because i baked them tonight and this is 4 meals, and the whole point of the meat counter is that you dont get so so much that you have crazy amounts of leftovers. i think i didnt realize that they were whole breasts rather than half breasts. so, i sort of cheated with the whole chicken part of the meal.

i had quite the frustrating drive home today, so i stopped by the gym to blow off steam. and then i went to CVS and they didnt have my prescription, which made me more frustrated, and so when i went to pick up salad greens at star, to go under the chicken (which i dressed with white balsalmic vinegar), and decided that i needed some brie. and french bread. to cheer me up. and it did! it very much did!

Delicious gnocchi dish

So, back in october, the parentals were in town for several days, and i thought it would be nice to cook dinner at my apartment instead of going out every night. so i looked through my magazines and formulated an elaborate dinner menu, and started prep the night before, as i had to braise the short ribs for 3 hours (yes, i went all out). one of the dishes that i made for that night was a sweet potato gnocchi that is served with fresh sage and chestnuts. it was such a hit that we made it for christmas dinner as well.

my first time really making pasta, outside of a class, and i went all out with gnocchi! its half sweet potato, half regular potato. the recipe (from a gourmet magazine, which i am so sad they decided to stop publishing btw) called for a potato ricer...which i of course did not own! i mentioned this to my mother after and she said "oh, i have grandma's! i'll bring it up next time i'm in boston!" ...so now i have a potato ricer for the oh so often occurrence of needing one. anywho, this instead meant that i needed to use a grater on the potatoes, which i started by roasting. yet another burn-the-fingers type experience. this is starting to be a habit apparently. anyway, grated the potatoes, spread them to cool, made the gnocchi, rolled them out, cut and forked, as shown in the picture above. refrigerator for the ones to use the next day, and freezer for the others (recently pulled some out for dinner one night...delicious still)

as for the sauce...sliced roasted chesnuts super thin, and then fried them. i am very excited, i got a mandoline for christmas, so next time i will have to use it! i then fried fresh sage leaves...about 30 seconds or so. they continue crisping up after coming off the heat. crispy = nice and crunchy and has such a delicious flavor! then some butter with the oil and add in the gnocchi once done cooking. It was quite the delicious flavor profile, with the meatiness of the roasted chesnuts, and the crispy crunchiness of the sage with the sweetness of the gnocchi.

when we made it at christmas, mom grabbed sage from the garden, and it was frozen so she had to rehydrate it. because of this, it didnt really crisp up well when it was fried. really disappointing, actually, so i recommend actually using fresh sage leaves. Ditto with the roasted chestnuts - she had some she had roasted weeks before, and she rehydrated them...it was awful! they were soggy and thus very difficult to slice thinly...instead you really need to use roasted chestnuts from a jar.

sprinkled with parmesan cheese...delicious!

Inaugural entry! Only fitting that it be dessert!

I've been meaning to start this blog for a while, but kept forgetting to actually take pictures of the fun things that i cook. but i had to take a picture of the above, and so it is the perfect opportunity to begin!

So, the above is a dessert that I made this weekend. why? because gordon ramsay is doing an amateur version of master chef, and there was an open casting call in boston, and i just *had* to go. would i leave my job for 5 weeks to be on a reality cooking tv show with gordon ramsay? no! no way. but how could i not audition??

when i was trying to decide what to make as my audition dish, i naturally turned to dessert. i am a dessert person. my original plan was actually to make a fresh fruit tart with a flaky pie crust (pate brisee), a lemon cheesecake-like tart with sweet dough (pate sucre), and then raspberry "marmelata" - aka homemade jam that is done with wine and sugar. all very tasty things. but as the weekend approached, i started thinking about all the effort that goes into making pie dough. let me get one thing straight: i love pies and tarts. they are my favorite things. but i absolutely HATE making pie dough. i hate the feeling of flour on my hands. its gritty and gross and so hard to get off. and i hate making pie dough, because the best way to really do it is to use your hands instead of a pastry cutter or something. i know, i make no sense.

so when trying to think of a simpler dessert to make for the audition, i started thinking about this delicious lemon mousse i made for a party at the old apartment months ago. and i thought...how delicious would it be over a crunchy cookie, with chocolate shavings on top. and the marmelata/jam on the side? i kinda wanted to do chocolate cups with the cookie on the side, but i couldnt get the chocolate cups to come out of the mold. annoying. i need a better way to do that. so chocolate shavings it was!

so, i pulled out my martha stewart cookies cookbook that i got from my godmother for christmas. i thumbed through it then, and there are many exciting things within that i very much want to try. and of course it had just the type of cookie i wanted! a tuile cookie, to be exact. martha's had sour cherries in it, but i just sort of omit them from the recipe, and it turned out perfectly! although man, those things are hard to shape! i wanted to make little bowls, which is totally doable - the other option is to sort of shape like cannoli shells around a dowel. you have to do it right after the cookies come out of the oven, before they cool and harden. AKA when the cookies are burn-your-fingertips-hot. and the cookies melted together all into one long sheet, instead of staying in their little rounds. which almost made it easier to shape them because the middle stayed soft longer, while the sides cracked almost as soon as it was possible to touch. extremely delicious though. ooooh love the tuile cookies!!

as to the audition...oof! i waited outside in the cold. for 4 hours. it is january in boston. it was FREEZING. and i didnt know i would have to wait outside! so i was wearing flats. without socks. and my pretty coat, instead of my ski jacket. there were more than 300 people in line, it was just absurd. there was another hour wait once we were inside. 5 hours of waiting for a 3 minute interview, which i was so not in the mood for at that point! i think i almost got frostbite on my toes. one of the women i waited in line with had some childrens hats in her car, and we wrapped them around my feet so they wouldnt completely freeze. it...sort of worked.