This soup, which requires minimal prep, and which is made from scraps most people just toss out (broccoli and cilantro stems), has become a lunchtime staple for me. It’s kind of ugly, to be frank, that I almost didn’t post it, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it really needs to be out in the world. First of all, it’s very healthy—tons of good fiber and micronutrients from the broccoli, and good fats from the cashews, which also add a bit of dairy-free creaminess and body. It’s also a wonderful, low-effort way to minimize what would otherwise be considered kitchen waste. And finally, it’s objectively delicious. I usually start thinking about it around 10 AM and don’t stop until I sit down for a bowl of it at noon.
The first step is to save your broccoli stems. Sure, you can absolutely roast, sauté or steam them along with the florets when you make broccoli, but this gives you a whole additional meal, plus it saves you the hassle of having to peel the tough exterior off of the stalks. Sometimes, I’ll cut the stems off as soon as I get my broccoli home from the market so they’re ready for this exact purpose.
Then everything just goes into a pot with a little bit of neutral oil, and best of all, you can be seriously sloppy with your chopping because everything is just getting whizzed up in the blender anyway. Get some haphazardly diced onion, a clean but unpeeled piece of ginger (unpopular opnion: you almost never really need to bother peeling it—the peel is unoffensive and way too annoying to remove, and yes, I know about the spoon trick), some garlic, which you smash with the back of a knife but don’t do anything else to (seriously, don’t even bother removing the ends, they’re just goingt o get blitzed into oblivion anyway), and a bit of good curry powder. I’m fond of this one.
Then add the broccoli stems, a handful of raw cashews, and either water or chicken/veg broth.
Give it a good stir, bring the mixture to a boil, then cover and let simmer over medium-low heat for 45 minutes to an hour, until the broccoli is squishably soft.
Then either use an immersian blender or dump the whole thing into a regular blender or food processor. I normally prefer an immersian blender for soups, since it’s so much neater and easier than bothering with transferring hot liquie to an actual vessel, but when I use cashews as a thickener, as I am here, I like to go with the big guns to ensure ultimate smoothness.
Season with sriracha and salt, then add the stems of one bunch of cilantro. No worries if they’ve seen better days. Again, we’re blending everything up.
The result is, perhaps, not the single most gorgeous soup I’ve ever made, but boy is it good.
Depending on the size of the broccoli stems, I’m usually able to get about 3-4 small servings out of this recipe, or two large ones, if I’m serving it as an entree. Lately, I’ve been eating a cup of it with an English muffin topped with chicken salad, but it goes with just about any sandwich, salad, toast, wrap, or even leftover rice.
Depending on what I have on hand, I’ll sometimes swap in other veggies, or add them to the broccoli stems. It’s a great way to put anything aging or overgrown out of its misery. Think of it as kind of a home for wayward produce. The soup works nicely with carrots (just scrub them and chop roughly—no need to peel), cauliflower (you might need the cores/stems from a few heads of cauli to have enough to make soup), zucchini (especially when your garden is overflowing with it), and asparagus (ideal for those woody, overgrown asparagus bunches which seem destined for the bin). Whatever you’ve got, it’ll be good.
]]>I remember the feeling vividly from when I was a kid, back when summer meant popsicles, sleepaway camp, and reading Judy Blume by the town pool (and later on, sprinkles-covered cones at TCBY, month-long babysitting gigs, and first kisses at beach bonfire parties). It’s different on this side of things, as the one responsible for making sure the forms, appointments, reading lists, registrations, and goals set two months earlier when we had a whole summer before us are completed in a timely fashion, whilst also making sure we soak up as much outdoors time, and make as many sunscreen-scented memories as we possibly can before we’re all suddenly cast back into real life.
This clever shawarma-cooking technique, which I first learned about from the delightful Nadiya of GBBO fame feels to me like it nicely straddles both real life and the timeless magic of summer. Shawarma, a rotisserie meat dish which originated in the Ottoman Empire and is popular across the Middle East, is perfect warm-weather food—deliciously grilled, spice-laden and loaded with flavor, and, when served wrapped in a pita, extremely portable, making it ideal for outdoor eating. Traditionally, shawarma is cooked on a rotating spit, resulting in meat which is tender and juicy on the inside and nicely crisped on the outside, but you can get a pretty darn similar result by packing marinated chicken breasts or thighs into an 8-cup loaf pan.
You roast in the oven for 35-40 minutes, then finish off with a quick trip under the broiler for extra texture and browning. It’ll shrink up a fair amount.
The meat rests in the pan for 10 minutes after roasting (this is crucial to retain those juices), then turn it out onto a cutting board and slice away.
I served it on homemade flatbread (just pizza dough I rolled into rounds and cooked in a dry frying pan over medium-high heat until they puffed), with some garlicky tahina, cilantro, red onion and pickled cabbage.
I’m obsessed with this pickled cabbage btw. I make a huge batch of almost every week and eat it with every meal. It’s so simple and so good, and having a jar of it in the fridge spares me having to make a vegetable side, which I love.
Here’s to making the final stretch of summer as delicious as possible.
]]>Certainly this is true of my marriage. It took me 29 years and eleven months to find Evan, plus another 4 to marry him, and, as anyone who dated me between 1999 and 2012 can attest, I was not remotely ready for that kind of commitment one millisecond earlier. So, too when it comes to children. I get sad sometimes when I think about the fact that I’m kind of an old mom, and everything that means, but when I remember that it also means my kids get a much happier, calmer, more secure mother than I personally would have been if I’d had them younger, I tend to think that tradeoff is not without value.
I’m not a naturally patient person when it comes to most things. In general, I like stuff to happen quickly or I start to get bored and lose interest, but I’ve been working on it. I’ve learned that being able to coniure patience comes in handy pretty often, whether it’s so I can finish a book manuscript, grow out unruly bangs, navigate mid-life career shifts, or offer my full attention when my kid gives her car seat dissertation defense on which Pokémon is the coolest for the four-hundredth-and-eleventh time (fyi it’s Espeon). I’ve also learned, in a shocking turn of events, that patience is pretty helpful when it comes to cooking, too.
Most of my recipes come together quickly. I like to think of myself as someone who writes recipes for real life, rather than the equally valid category of lengthier cooking projects which need to be designated to a day without other responsibilities to fulfill. But sometimes, time really is the secret ingredient to good flavor, and also, when that flavor develops while you’re sleeping and/or doing other things, you hardly notice the wait.
I’m talking specifically about the no-knead yeasted dough I’m using to make this focaccia pizza. The dough itself is incredibly versatile. You can shape it into a ball, let it rise, then bake it in a preheated Dutch oven for a rustic orb of crusty, delicious peasant bread. You can also throw it into a buttered loaf pan for a sandwich loaf that holds up enough for the sauciest burger/French dip/grilled cheese and also makes the best morning toast.
The fluffiest, most ethereal pita, too.
You can also—as we’re doing today—lovingly stretch and dimple it in a well-oiled, rimmed baking sheet for deliciously tender yet sturdy base for focaccia pizza (if you wanted, you could just drizzle it with oil, top it with herbs/parmesan/sun-dried tomatoes or sliced onions, and have regular old focaccia, but since you’ve come this far, why not make pizza?).
The dough itself could not be easier. You mix flour (I prefer higher protein bread flour for extra chew, but AP will also work), yeast, salt, and room temperature water in a large bowl.
Mix with a wooden spoon or spatula until it comes together (it’ll be shaggy at first, then cohesive—don’t worry about overmixing), then cover the bowl tightly. In terms of kneading, there is none. You’re done.
Now here’s where you get to do some self-evaluation and figure out exactly how patient you want to be. If you want to serve the pizza (or bread/pita/focaccia) on the same day you make the dough, let it rise for four hours in a warm place (I’ve found that my turned-off microwave is the perfect spot for dough rising, but an oven that’s been heated briefly then turned off will work too—if you’re making this in July, as I am, your kitchen counter might also be plenty warm). If, however, you’re willing to wait for 8-12 hours, put the covered bowl into your refrigerator and forget about it until a couple of hours before you’re ready to bake it, at which point you’ll take it out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. It’ll be puffed and bubbly.
When you’re ready to prep the crust for pizza, carefully deflate the dough with two forks—one in each hand—and gently pulling the dough from the edge of the bowl toward the center, repeating for 3 quarter turns until the dough folds into itself to form a ball.
Then oil a rimmed baking sheet generously.
If you want to make two or more different kinds of pizza, carefully split the dough and place each portion in a smaller prepared pan, or make it all in one big pan, as I did.
Don’t fuss with it. Just let it rest in a draft-free place, oiled and covered for 20 minutes, then stretch it gently. As soon as it starts to resist, give it another 20 minutes to rest (you want to ease the dough into place, not force it), then drizzle with a little bit of oil (not too much—you’re eventually going to top it with sauce, cheese, and possibly other stuff).
Lightly dimple it with your fingertips (we’re making little nooks and crannies to hold all that sauce and cheese).
Cover the dough again,and let it rest for about 20 minutes. It should be a little puffy. Then top your pizza however you like. I usually make a few different flavors in one big sheet pan. This one has a margherita portion, made with the fresh tomatoes for pizza from Didi Emmons’ book Entertaining for a Veggie Planet (I halve the recipe and make it with 1.5 cups chopped ripe tomatoes, 4 garlic cloves, 2 tablespoons plus 1.5 teaspoons olive oil, a handful of fresh basil, sliced into ribbons, and salt and pepper to taste—just stir in a bowl and let sit for 10 minutes before spooning over pizza)…
…as well as buffalo mozz and basil. I also did green olives and paper-thin caramelized lemons with low-moisture mozzarella in one section, and a garlicky white portion, too because a certain member of my household announced that she “hates tomatoes.”
Bake for 25-27 minutes at 475 degrees F as close to the bottom of the oven as possible. This will help ensure a crispy undercarriage.
You’re looking for browned, bubbly cheese and a crust which comes easily away from the side of the pan.
Then just slice it up and put it on the table. I threw together a garlicky yogurt ranch salad with Persian cucumbers and the ripest, sweetest sungold tomatoes (the supposed tomato hater ate at least 12 of them).
Pizza is obviously a perennial food, but making and eating it with summer’s delicious bounty is worth having patience for.
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My daughter wouldn't be like the other kids I'd seen, slurping down blue Go-gurts and demanding the crusts of their Kraft singles grilled cheese be cut off. She would have a refined palate and a natural love of roughage! Certainly, I thought, this perfect child would never pick up the bowl of the nourishing, thoughtfully prepared lunch I’d set upon the tray of her high chair just moments earlier and hurl it to the floor with a squeal of delight as it seeps into my kitchen floorboards, yet, somehow, simultaneously turns to bright green spackle in the most unreachable corner of the ceiling. Surely my years of experience as a food professional would pay off in dividends when my perfect little sweetheart started solids.
Lol.
Your kids must eat so well! people say when they find out what I do for a living. How lucky are they to have a mom who can cook!
They could if they wanted to, I joke. That option is available to them, I say, whilst stirring butter into yet another bowl of plain macaroni. Sure, I'll serve it with carrot sticks and apple slices with peanut butter, and maybe a few bites of each will be taken, but we all know what the real star of the plate is.
Honestly though, it's okay. It really is.
At this point, five-plus years into my child-feeding journey, I've accepted that things don't always go the way I want them to, and that taste expansion and flavor appreciation is a process, and that a healthy relationship with food and eating is more important than making sure they eat the recommended number of fruit and vegetable servings for their age group. That, just because I cut produce into cute shapes and serve them with fun dips on brightly colored plates, they aren't guaranteed to be eaten, and that's okay because feeding kids is about more than fulfilling some quota of nutrients at every meal. It's about nourishing more than just their bellies. We're trying to foster a good relationship to food and eating, here.
It's slow-going, and progress ebbs and flows, but does come. Sometimes my kids only eat white foods, but sometimes--sometimes--they ask to try a bite of the salad on my plate. They don't usually like it, but still, baby steps, as it were. The one constant I know for sure is that making a big deal about what they are or aren't eating does more harm than good, so I've learned to keep my mouth shut and only high-five my husband stealthily under the table when one of them makes a comment about how much they love, "these yummy brown things," which I know for a fact are lentils.
These muffins, which feature fiber-packed oats and optional seeds, but also chocolate and brown sugar, the lattermost of which gives them a crisp, lightly caramelized exterior reminiscent of a chocolate chip-oatmeal cookie, are a staple in our house these days, and they nicely straddle the line of nutritious and exciting to a kid palate. They're equally good tucked into lunchboxes as they are with coffee for breakfast or an afternoon snack.
I like to make these in small batches so we can eat them within a couple of days of baking, hence the 12 mini-muffin yield of this recipe, but they also freeze very well an can be re-warmed in the microwave or toaster oven, so feel free to double or even triple the recipe.
The batter comes together quickly, and, like most kids in their first year of life, takes two short naps--one for 10 minutes, to let the oats and milk get to know each other, and a second 10-minute one, just before baking. This helps ensure the batter will rise nicely.
I like using mini muffin tins for this recipe, since I'm serving them to mini-eaters, and also because the increase in surface area results in very cookie-like muffins with a contrasting tender center, but feel free to bake them into 6 full-size muffins. You can, of course, use muffin liners, but I prefer to use cooking spray or butter, because it helps crisp the sides nicely which we don't normally want for a muffin, but which, for these, works.
The muffin cups go into a super hot oven, which helps their tops puff up immediately, then the temp gets cranked back down to 350 to finish cooking.
When they come out of the oven, let them cool in the pan for just a minute or two. If you used butter or cooking spray in place of the muffin liners, they might need a little help from the sharp edge of a butter knife to loosen them.
Then I like to get them onto a cooling rack pretty quickly.
In addition to the seeds, you can also amp up the nutrition by adding 1/4 cup of yogurt, pureed pumpkin, sweet potato, or a mashed banana (dial the milk down to 1/4 cup and the oil back to 2 tbsp if you do), or basically any chopped nut. You can also omit the chocolate altogether and switch up the flavor profile with other spices, like cardamom, nutmeg, or pumpkin spice. If you're nursing or want to make these for someone who is, add a couple of tablespoons of brewer's yeast powder and call them lactation muffins.
Or don't change a thing, and make them because they're delicious, which is, in my opinion, as good a reason as any.
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Yeah, yeah, I know. I could eliminate the problem by deleting the app and/or my account. I’m well-aware that Facebook is rife with problems, from its potential contribution to the destruction of democracy as we knew it, to the fact that, for some reason, in 2023, it’s still possible to dole out virtual pokes. Yet, every morning, after checking Twitter (a fiery hellscape as of late, but still a place where people I like hang out), Instagram (usually pretty fun, but why do I keep getting posts from people I don’t follow??), and TikTok (my current favorite, if a little addictive—I always feel like I learn something useful), I open up Facebook and drag myself, yet again, down memory lane.
Maybe it’s because I remember how much more fun Facebook used to be, back in its heyday in the mid-aughts and early 2010s, back when it was the way we all shared, connected, and communicated. Back when it still felt like a cool clubhouse, where we seemingly conducted all business. A few weeks ago, I was served a memory of a conversation between a friend and myself, in which we literally made dinner plans, down to the restaurant and meeting time, right there on my “wall.” It could have easily been the transcript of a text or email chain, and yet, for some reason, this friend (a perfectly reasonable person) and I (reasonability unclear, apparently) felt compelled to have this conversation IN PUBLIC, for all to see.
Logic reminds me that this was just how it was back then, just the way we all used to communicate online, gleefully dancing along the line of public and private, making plans in front of an audience, sharing every single photo taken on a night out, no matter how badly lit, awkwardly posed, or, in some cases, obviously drunk its subjects appeared. Back when we posted vague song lyrics to imply our feelings about some mysterious conundrum to the world, like a three-line mix tape, intended to simultaneously confuse and intrigue the listener, and when clicking “unfriend” was the ultimate slammed door at the conclusion of a relationship (unless you reconnected, and sheepishly re-clicked “add friend” a few weeks later). I know this, along with my emotional development between then and now, should also explain the reason things I posted when I was younger, less conscious, less conscientious, (not to mention attempting to make a name for myself amid the rocky terrain of what was then the somewhat new landscape of social media) don’t exactly land when I reread them now. The internet was younger, but I was too. I wouldn’t be upset that my two-year-old cannot yet read, nor would I blame my five-year-old for her inability to understand algebra. (I wouldn’t even blame her future teenage self for that). Why then, is it so hard for my current self to give my younger, greener self a break for having been flawed?
One of the lessons parenting keeps teaching me is that, when we see traits we dislike in ourselves embodied by our children, it forces us to finally question why we were so committed to hating them in ourselves for so long. I was a deeply sensitive, emotionally intense little kid, and whenever I felt tears coming on—which was often—I knew there would be no stopping them. They overtook me, bigger and badder than any fight I had against them, and the shame I felt from the way other kids backed away from me, when I detected in the faces of adults that they felt totally out of their depth as I sobbed over a teasing comment or a B- still rattles around inside of me.
But when my own kids lose it, it’s completely different. I seek to know why, even if I already know it’s simply because I put their morning toast on the wrong plate or because they just remembered that the dinosaurs are extinct. I hug them, do my best to speak soothingly, and encourage them to talk about it. Sometimes I succeed in getting them to problem solve with me, and sometimes their tears just go on and on, the way little kids’ tears sometimes do, and it makes me feel a lot of things, but none of them is shame, because how could I fault this little person who trusts me with everything she has, for losing a little bit of grace as she battles the big feelings coursing through her? So, what makes me think my own little self was undeserving of such understanding, and, for that matter, why wouldn’t it also apply to my awkward, needy teenage self? Or my green, chaotic, Facebook-posting twenty-something self? Or my taking-adulthood-by-the-balls-with-mixed-success thirty-something self? Or, even my forty-one-year-old grown-up mom self who, try as she might, doesn’t always get things right?
These steamed eggs took me a little while to get right. I first fell in love with Chinese steamed eggs on TikTok, where they were trending about a year ago. I stumbled through my first few attempts at them, yielding results which, while tasty, didn’t look as good as the ones on my FYP. The first time I made it, I rushed, skipping the crucial step of straining the egg mixture. The second time, I cranked the heat up too high as I hurried to get dinner on the table, and the whole thing puffed up then sank down. It still tasted good, but I lost the silky, custardy texture the dish is supposed to have. Trial, error, and patience with myself, however, eventually brought me to success, and now I can’t stop making it. It’s become my go-to family dinner when I don’t really feel like cooking, but still want the payoff of a nourishing meal, or I’ll make a single-serve portion for a fast, high-protein lunch. For dinner, I’ll cook a pot of rice in the Instant Pot (not much is actually instant about it, but it’s great for stock and rice), throw a salad together (I’m currently obsessed with smashed cucumbers), and whisk together eggs and water (1/3 cup for every egg), plus a little bouillon powder (I’ve tried making it with homemade broth and it just doesn’t work as well).
I strain the mixture into a heat-proof glass dish, like a Pyrex storage container (handy in case there are ever leftovers, which, admittedly, is rare).
I skim off as many tiny bubbles as possible, then let it cook low and slow (we don’t want them to puff), and cover tightly with foil, which I vent with a knife.
Then I steam it in a large pot with a few inches of water and a metal steaming rack you could approximate the rack with a few pieces of rolled foil—the idea is just to keep the eggs off the bottom of the pot as they cook).
I make a sauce in the meantime. This is totally optional—you could just do a drizzle of soy—but I love to mix up soy sauce, chili crisp, a few drops of maple or honey, and Chinese black vinegar. I've used rice vinegar before, which also works, but if you can find Chinese black vinegar (chinkiang), snap it up. It's delicious.
Once the eggs are perfectly steamed—set but still jiggly—I cover the top generously with the sauce,
and top it with a handful of sliced green onion.
I scoop it into bowls with the rice and salad and we pass more sauce at the table.
Each time I dip my spoon into its lusciously smooth surface, slicked with chili oil and perfectly jiggly, I think back on all the times I mangled the steps, screwed up the ratios, rushed the preparation, all of which led me to this perfect bite, and I don’t feel guilt or shame. All I feel is grateful.
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I blurted his name out, and he turned to face me, seemingly as stunned as I was. He and I chatted awkwardly for a few minutes, I introduced him to my daughter, and then we were on our way, leaving him and his friend to their meal. We went on with our day, but it was hard to stop thinking of the strange, seemingly-out-of-nowhere brush with the past. We were teenagers when we were together, long before I was anywhere close to fully-formed or actualized, if that's even a thing one can ever be. My not particularly self-compassionate memory of my teenage self is as an overdramatic, self-absorbed bottomless well of need for attention. There was no way that, in the three minutes I fumbled through niceties while my daughter gnawed on the leftover crusts of her grilled cheese and my mother and his friend stood by, that I had succeeded in demonstrating how far I had come since the days I used to cry on the phone on a semiweekly basis.
As I nursed my daughter before putting her to bed that night, replaying the lunchtime run-in over and over again in my mind, I realized that, in the years that had passed, I had come to think of him as the sort of keeper of everything I hated about myself when I was younger, not necessarily because they were all I ever was when we were together, but because we had largely cut off contact with one another by the time we were twenty, and so, to my mind, everything I evenutally outgrew, and the ways I eventually grew up didn't factor in to his understanding of me. I had this image of him walking around with memories of me exclusively as a depressed, dramatic, attention-craving seventeen-year-old, and it made me feel crazy. I was different now! Didn't he know that? I was actually pretty successful in life! I had written four books, produced a five-season TV comedy based on my life and writing, not to mention gotten married to a great guy and had a kid? You might be asking yourself, "Gabi, why did it matter what someone you weren't even in touch with thought about you--if he ever thought about you at all?" Don't worry, I'm getting there.
I obsessed about it for maybe a month, and then I did something that was either the best or worst possible next move, depending on your perspective: I dug up his email address and wrote to him to see if he wanted to get together for coffee to catch up sometime. Perhaps with an hour of his attention and a couple of lattes, I reasoned to myself, I could convince him of how much I had grown in the past two decades, and he'd update the Gabi Moskowitz file he surely keeps in his mind, and finally, I would be redeemed.
Reader, he did not respond, and instead of reminding myself that I was a thirty-seven-year-old married woman with a baby, and not a dejected high school senior, my feelings were hurt. I had, quite literally, reached out to my past, and my past couldn't even be bothered to make up a face-saving lie about how "things are super busy right now, but I'll let you know when I have time." Maybe all my worst fears about my high school self were true after all, and he hadn't forgotten. Maybe he'd seen my name pop up in his inbox, and thought to himself, "no, thank you," and promptly clicked delete.
I've been thinking a lot about this encounter lately as I've been pondering what my return to blogging might look like after spending the past five-plus years mostly focusing on parenting, podcasting, and revising the manuscript of my first novel, but publishing almost nothing. A lot has changed since I first started blogging, when I was a twenty-seven-year-old, perpetually single city dweller, hell-bent on becoming a professional writer. Now, almost thirteen years later, I've somehow become a forty-one-year-old married suburban mother of two, struggling to reconnect to the part of me that started this journey, back when I had all day to myself to shop, cook, photograph, and write. Back when drinking four glasses of wine at a press event didn't absolutely destroy me for the next three days, and I didn't have preschool tuition, or pediatrician appointments, or the needs of literally anyone else to worry about.
I keep reaching for her, every time I sit down to write, trying to conjure her confidence and willingness to throw anything at the sauce-splattered kitchen wall and see what sticks to it, but time after time, she leaves me on read. Is she still somewhere inside me, buried beneath all the mental labor and mom anxiety overtaking my brain, or did she leave me for somewhere cooler, maybe where Cocomelon and Raffi don't start blaring every third song when the music on my phone is set to shuffle? Is she ever coming back?
I managed to get over the ghosted ex-boyfriend email pretty quickly. All it took was a little self-reflection and a smidgen of therapy to conclude that I was, as was, admittedly, sometimes my tradition, being a little bit overdramatic. He was not, in fact, the keeper of everything bad about me, because a) that's not a thing, and b) even if it were, who cares? He's not the owner of a company I'm trying to work for or The New York Times' book editor. His opinion has no bearing on my actual life, but furthermore, whatever reason he had for not responding to my email was none of my business.
I keep wondering if the same logic applies to the other person not taking my calls: the writer I was before I went barrelling toward middle age. She doesn't appear to be coming back any time soon, but maybe that's okay. Maybe she doesn't even exist anymore, at least not in the form she used to occupy. Certainly this is true of the way I cook now. I still cook for my own tastes, yes, but the needs of the husband and tiny snack monsters I've acquired in the past decade factor in too, and some of them--and I am not naming names--are still not completely sold on vegetables. Maybe instead of trying to cajole my twenty-something writer self into reemerging, I should just let her go and work on getting to know my forty-something writer self. Who knows? Maybe she has some good ideas.
Here's what I know:
I still like to write long, meandering headnotes often more about feelings than the food. If you're one of those people who likes to Tweet about how food bloggers should just get to the recipe without yammering so much, first of all, stop making that joke, it's tired and disrespectful. Second, listen to this song. Third, if you're still not convinced recipes go well with long stories, then I'm probably not the blogger for you.
I still love developing and photographing recipes, even if my photos aren't the aesthetic ideal when you think food blog (there are so many bloggers who do that bit better than I do and I love that for them).
These bagels (Aha! There's IS a recipe in this post! I told you my headnotes are meandering.), which contain no yeast and require zero rising time--just four ingredients which you very likely already have on hand--and can be on your plate, spread thickly with cream cheese, ready to be devoured within 30 minutes of realizing you're hungry, are one of the best things I've made in a long time. Not only are they delicious, they're so easy, wildly cheap, and a favorite of every person I live with (no easy task).
I don't say this lightly: in the time it would take you to put on shoes, drive to a bagel shop, wait in line, and order, you could be eating these hot out of the oven, and they will genuinely be better. Here's how to do it.
Combine flour (either bread flour or AP flour -- bread flour will yield a chewier bagel, but AP is good too), baking powder, salt and nonfat Greek yogurt (make sure to use nonfat, not for diet reasons, but because even though this is a super nontraditional bagel recipe, bagel dough is typically fatless, and using nonfat yogurt will help them rise nicely) in a large bowl or stand mixer.
Mix it (I like to do this by hand, even if I'm using a mixer). It will be very shaggy, almost like biscuit or pie dough, but keep going. It'll come together eventually.
Once you have a cohesive ball of dough, knead it for 8-10 minutes, until very smooth and elastic.
Cut the dough into 6 equal pieces (or 8-10 for smaller bagels).
Shape the pieces into balls, then poke a hole in the center and stretch into bagels.
Boil the bagels for 1 1/2 minutes on each side.
Arrange the boiled bagels on a lined rimmed baking sheet. Top if desired (no need for egg wash).
Bake at 475 for 17-20 minutes, then do your best to let them cool for 10 minutes before diving in.
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They may not be the same as traditional bagels, but they're pretty damn close. Think of them as a twist on an old classic: that familiar taste you know and love, just...updated.
]]>I love making a list, plotting everything I’m going to cook with it later in the week. I love checking my pantry just before I go to see if there’s anything I’m running low on, and adding it to the list in addition to my weekly usuals. I love visiting multiple stores (usually Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, my local favorite, Nugget, and maybe once a month, Costco) because I like different things from different stores (there is, for example, no dried pineapple like the Dried Baby Pineapple from Trader Joe’s, no peanut butter as good as the organic unsweetened Whole Foods creamy peanut butter spread, and no ricotta that compares to the Bellwether Farms Whole Milk Basket Ricotta they sell at Nugget. What can I say? I like to have my stuff.
Food shopping is different right now, obviously. Stores are running out of staples like flour, beans, pasta, rice and toilet paper (side note: we have a cheap, easy-to-install bidet and we love it), and people are shopping less frequently in an effort to minimize COVID-19 exposure, which means longer stretches of time between trips. This is fine for all your shelf-stable items, like the aforementioned flour, beans, rice, and pasta, but what about fresh fruits and vegetables? A friend texted me a few days ago asking for tips to keep the veggies in her fridge from wilting quickly so as to support her social distancing efforts, and it struck me that other people might be wondering the same thing. Read on for my best produce-life-extending tips.
Store onions, garlic, potatoes, yams, and winter squash in a cool, dark place to prevent sprouting (in the case of the root vegetables) and to keep them fresher longer.
Keep apples in the fridge, as well as berries and any stone fruit you know you’ll eat soon that has reached ideal ripeness. If something is ripening faster than you can eat it. freeze it on a rimmed baking sheet, then transfer to a zip-top bag or other freezer-safe container and use for smoothies and cooking/baking (like this banana bread).
Store fresh leafy herbs in jars or glasses with a little bit of water, either in the fridge or on the counter, if you use it a lot. Change the water every couple of days.
Use produce bags, ziplock bags, or air-tight containers for anything tender like leafy greens. Wrap greens in a couple of damp (wrung-out) paper towels) and store in the bags. This helps to prevent wilting. Keep anything you’ve cut into (like onions or lemons) wrapped tightly. These fruit and veggie savers are a cute, sustainable way to keep opened produce fresh.
When purchasing avocados, buy one ripe one for immediate use and one (or more) hard ones and keep them on your counter. As soon as they ripen, refrigerate them until you’re ready to use them.
Don’t overlook frozen veggies. They are frozen at the peak of freshness, so they can be a great product, especially in the case of greens. You get a lot more for your money, since freezing breaks down the greens a bit, so a 16-ounce bag of organic frozen kale or spinach is actually several bunches of the fresh stuff! I use frozen organic kale and spinach in my smoothies every day, and I greatly prefer it to the fresh kind since you can get so much more in there. I’ve been trying to think of smoothies as the way I’m getting some good veggie nutrition during this time, since frozen fruits and vegetables keep for a long time, I can play around with flavors, and I know that a big green smoothie will be the equivalent of the amount of salad I would normally eat with a meal. Frozen greens are also great sauteed with garlic and lemon in olive oil or butter and tossed with pasta or rice, or served with an egg. Other great frozen items are cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and peas. This pea soup, made with frozen peas, is very spring-y, delicious and so cheap.
The main thing I keep thinking about every time I head to the kitchen to make a meal for my family (it feels like I’m constantly doing this, honestly), is whether I can do a little more with a little less.
I ask myself if there’s a simpler way to make what I want to serve, and I scour the backs of my cupboards and fridge to see if there’s some forgotten item that needs to be used up before I turn to what’s right in front of me. I ask myself what we really need for the meal to be nutritious and for us to all feel satisfied, and more often than not, I find that we don’t really require as much as I might normally put on the table. It’s a lesson I plan to take with me when all of this is over. We’re so accustomed to having access to everything we like all the time, but with a little careful planning, some basic techniques, and creativity, it’s often possible to find all you need within what you already have.
]]>Terrifying, really. We don’t know what’s going to happen, but we know that it’s bad. And we know that if we’re going to make it less bad, we have to spend a lot of time away from other people, for an amount of time that may be a matter of weeks, but also may be many months. We don’t know, we’re going to have to see.
So Evan, Anna, and I are hunkered down here at home. I can’t get over how fortunate I feel. I’ve never been so conscious of the amount of privilege we have to be able to stay home, in a warm, comfortable space, with everything we need. We miss our friends and family and we’re sad that we can’t go out and socialize, but we know that being able to work from home is not an option everyone is afforded. I’m incredibly anxious about all the things we can’t control. I’m worried about the spread of COVID-19, of course. I’m worried about my parents and in-laws, all of whom are over 60. I’m worried about the impact this veritable shutdown of much of society for who knows how long is going to have on the world.
For as long as I can remember, the way I have tempered anxiety about the scary outside world is by making my inside world as warm and nice and pleasant to be in as possible—primarily through cooking. Since the literal inside world is fast becoming our primary world, I am doubling down cleaning (disinfecting. so much disinfecting), reorganizing, trying to make everything as pretty and cozy as possible. We’re well-stocked food-wise (though not overly stocked—I have faith in the food supply chain and am so grateful to those who continue to run it even during this crisis), and I’m cooking a lot, even more than usual. We eat all three meals together every day, and lately we’ve been making popcorn around 4 PM to munch on while we show Anna an important movie from Evan’s and my respective chlldhoods (so far we’ve seen about 1/6 of The Wizard of Oz, and the entirety of Mary Poppins 47 times #letsgoflyakite #spoonfulofsugar). Current popcorn preparation is melted butter and Trader Joe’s Elote spice mix which I think tastes a little like Cool Ranch Dorito dust.
Dinners have been very comfort-forward: a lot of pastas and savory bakes, like green chili enchiladas and pumpkin lasagna.
Some roasted roasted chicken legs with garlic, potatoes, and rosemary.
And I have been baking. The usual weekly challah, yes, but also cookies, a couple of loaves of this excellent bread from the NYT, and over the weeknd, a riff on the banana bread from my last book, Hot Mess Kitchen. As is usually the impetus for banana bread, we had a few bananas languishing in my fruit bowl on the counter, which is whatever most of the time, but in times of limited groceries and extra attention paid to ever morsel of food we consume, not okay. There was no throwing them in the freezer and popping them in a smoothie whenever I felt the whim—there is no space in the freezer. Plus, we really needed a loaf of banana bread.
Anna “helped”, by which I mean she stood in her tower and kept trying to dip her finger into the baking soda.
I debated whether or not to add chocolate, but the answer was obvious.
Parchment handles make loaf-retrieval simple and clean.
Case in point:
The resulting loaf had a crisp, browned exterior and a soft, pleasantly squishy interior, almost reminiscent of bread pudding. We ate it in our backyard with salted butter while FaceTiming Evan’s parents.
Don’t second-guess the butter. Yes, it’s overkill. Yes, it’s ridiculously indulgent. Totally. I mean, banana bread is essentially cake, right? Well, if ever a time in history called for butter on cake, I’d say this is it.
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Tonight, we're going out for Chinese food like all the other MOTs in town, and when we come home, my mom will hand out everyone's Christmas Eve pajamas (don't tell her, but I got her some super-cute ones too), and we'll have a nightcap.
To go with the nightcap, I just whipped up the most incredible dessert, and I wanted to share it with you in case you're in panic-mode, trying to throw together a crazy-easy dessert using stuff you probably already have on hand.
I present to you, bourbon-eggnog pudding!
Imagine butterscotch pudding made with eggnog and bourbon instead of milk and vanilla. And it takes about 10 minutes to put together (and at least an hour to chill). Top it with whipped cream and lots of nutmeg! Or maybe put it in a baked pie shell? The possibilities are endless.
Happy/Merry ChrismukkahKwanzaSolsticeWhateverYoureCelebrating, and here's to peace on Earth. <3
]]>And, there's another way to think about minimizing mess and post-cooking clean-up time, and it's become a new priority for me, now that Evan and I have finally convinced our baby that it's cool to go to sleep at 6:30 PM (and stay asleep until the next morning!!!!!! usually!!!!!!): cooking delicious meals with minimal clean-up so we can get to the business of enjoying our precious few hours of baby-free relaxation at night as quickly as possible. Basically, the math goes: the fewer pans I use, the less time we Evan spends washing up = the faster we are laying in bed, watching The Great British Baking Show (we're still working our way through the early seasons -- Mary Berry's gentle criticism + nice English people fretting over "biscuits" and "sponge" relaxes me better than a double martini).
And so, thanks to some beautiful organic carrots that showed up in our Imperfect Produce box last week, this minimal-cleanup vegetarian taco recipe (which I fully admit is not remotely authentic) has become a regular rotation in the 8-ish days since I first made it. After cooking it, you'll only have a baking sheet, a cutting board, a knife and a little bowl to wash, plus it's a great example of how to do right by vegetables by making them the star of a dish rather than forcing them to play backup singer to of a hunk of meat.
The transformation of flavor that happens when you roast root vegetables in olive oil with nothing more than salt and pepper provides the basis of the whole dish's flavor profile. These near-charred bits of carrot and onion are a little smoky (you could totally amp the smoke factor up and add smoked paprika or use salt instead of regular, if you wanted).
Once the carrots and onion are roasted, the whole thing comes together quickly and easily. I toss the veggies with a simple lime-oil dressing to amp up their flavor, and also to provide moisture. Then I top hot tortillas (try the soft, flexible corn-wheat blend ones from La Tortilla Factory or Trader Joe's, otherwise regular corn or even small wheat tortillas will work) with the dressed, roasted veg, plus crumbled, creamy feta (goat cheese would be good too, or even avocado, for a vegan version, but I like the way feta's tang plays with the sweet carrots), a shower of fresh herbs and scallions, a few chilies and some crunchy pepitas, if you have some. The tacos are pretty light, so some pinto beans or a big crunchy salad both work well as serve-alongs. Or, just eat three or four tacos and call one of them your side dish.
OH! And if you don't have carrots,, but you DO have a butternut squash, you can not only sub diced butternut squash for the carrots, you can also roast the butternut squash seeds (here's how to do it)! Commercial pumpkin seeds are good, but I'd argue that homemade butternut squash seeds are THE BEST SEEDS EVER. They have a buttery, subtle flavor and a light crunch. I happened to have a bowl of them from a squash I used to make Naptime Soup earlier in the week, so that's what I used on this particular batch of tacos.
I like to assemble the tacos in advance, and bring them out to the table fully topped for people to grab and eat, but if you want to serve the tortillas, filling, and toppings buffet-style, that works too (even if everything cools down--the tacos are surprisingly good at room temperature, or even cold, if you are lucky enough to have leftovers) (you won't).
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