Gowanus Pig Roast!

Lemongrass Squid with String Beans and Basil

By popular demand...

ingredients:

1/2 lb. fresh squid
small bag fresh green beans
3 shallots
olive oil
homemade chicken stock
1 stalk lemongrass
1 small bunch basil

In a big stainless pan, over med heat, sautee shallots in the olive oil to brown them. Add green beans and sautee for 5 minutes. Add chicken stock and lemongrass to pan and cover to braise beans for 8 minutes. Uncover and add the sliced squid, which will steam cook in the pan on top of the beans. When squid is ready (5 min or so) add the chopped basil to the top, mix, and serve. Yum.

Fiddleheads!

More shoots for spring! Eating spring shoots gives you the kind of energy that you can only get from eating plants that gather the seasons first rays of sun and first rain showers. Good for preparing for a long cycling tour! These were sauteéd and eaten with a light chicken broth soup, with baguette and garlic aoli on the side.

Sunnyside up

Creyde is at home today, sick with a head cold. What better comfort food is there than Tello's fresh eggs and some local spring asparagus? This was a mosaic inspired breakfast.

Ramps!

My favorite way to prepare them is simple... saute in butter and add a little salt. They can be mixed with sauteed asparagus and accompanied by brown rice.
Later this month I will try a ramp/asparagus tart. Stay tuned...

Moore Brothers Winetasting

I am hosting a benefit winetasting at Moore Brothers Wine Company in NYC on April 8th,2008. All are welcome! This is a wonderful opportunity to get to know the best wine shop in NYC, try great artisanal wines, and support a great cause! All donations go to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. For more information please see the INVITATION

Please contact me at wandringa@gmail.com if you have any questions! Hope to see you there!

Goat Cheese Chocolate Truffles

These truffles are truly divine! But you should follow the times in the recipe closely. Creyde left the mix to chill for over an hour in the fridge and went to yoga. When she remembered the mix four hours later, it had solidified to one big truffle!

Gourmet | October 1993
Servings: Makes about 25 truffles.
ingredients
6 ounces fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
6 ounces (about 3/4 cup) fresh goat cheese (also known as goat
fromage blanc, available in bulk at specialty foods shops)
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon pure lemon extract
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted, for coating the truffles

preparation
In a metal bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water melt the chocolate, stirring until it is smooth, remove the bowl from the pan, and let the chocolate cool slightly. In a bowl whisk together the goat cheese, the confectioners' sugar, the vanilla, and the lemon extract until the mixture is light and fluffy, whisk in the chocolate until the mixture is combined well, and chill the mixture, covered, for 1 hour, or until it is firm. Form heaping teaspoons of the mixture into balls and roll the balls in the cocoa powder. Chill the truffles on a baking sheet lined with waxed paper for 30 minutes, or until they are firm. The truffles keep in an airtight container, chilled, for 3 days.

Sardines!

"Sardine" means small fish, and most of the sardines we buy in this country are young herring. These wonderful little creatures go totally underappreciated. In Spain they are commonly found in the fish markets...

but in this country we buy them in tins. I try to look at the bright side of this...all you have to do is open the tin and they are ready to go with some bread, cheese, and olives! Perfect for when you don't want to leave your reading chair to cook dinner.

Sardines are small but mighty. They live in huge schools and practically the whole ocean-predator food chain depends on them for its diet. When under attack, they swarm into a big racing ball to create a more formidable shape and minimize the chance that they are gobbled up by their predators.
Since they are low on the food chain they are not high in contaminants. And they have a very high level of heart-healthy omega-3 fats. Make sure they make it into your basket next time instead of those fish oil capsules!

Sun + Earth combination

For a new flavor to combine with earthy sweet potatoes, try making an apple-honey butter. I like to combine the tree fruit with a root vegetable. Its a sun and earth combination.
Bake a local apple alongside your sweet potatoes until the apple is mushy and dark. Scrape out the flesh into a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of sweet (or salted) butter, mix with a spoon, and drizzle honey over the top. Then refrigerate until the sweet potatoes are done. Spoon this onto the sliced or mashed sweet potatoes and enjoy! This goes well with marinated flank steak and braised brussel sprouts.

Bacon Love at Flying Pigs Farm

Flying Pigs Farms supplies New York City with the best bacon there is, hands down. They bring their heritage-breed pork to you every Saturday at the Union Square Greenmarket and Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket. All their pork is certified humane raised and handled by Humane Farm Animal Care. What does this mean? It means that your pork wasn't force fed while standing in a sanitized frankenstein pen during its lifetime. It was running around rooting in the mud like a happy pig should be.
I like bacon because it fast and easy to cook, and you don't have to commit to a recipe to cook it every now and then. Just toss it on the skillet. Their Canadian Bacon goes well with everything, especially beans!

Gifts from the Freezer

Granola…sigh. Blueberries…yes!
This summer, for the first time I had the foresight to hoard fresh blueberries in the freezer until winter, and what a treat it is! I put boxes of them in those ziplock freezer bags and made myself wait until January to eat them. No more dried fruit or apples, and thank goodness for the freezer. For breakfast I eat them (defrosted) with granola, ground flax seed, bee pollen, and Ronnybrook Farm milk.

In Praise of Beans

Beans, a most humble food, get a bad rap as a “poor mans food”, which is totally underserved. Yes, they are cheap, and thank goodness for that. Lets keep it that way.
They also get a bad rap because they can wreak gastrointestinal havoc, i.e. cause gas, if they are not cooked properly. Unfortunately this stops people from cooking with them at home, because who has the time to cook beans when you’ve got a half hour to eat?
I’m not going to go into detail about all the advantages to eating beans, all the proteins, phytochemicals, and nutrients they have. If you are really interested you can google it. I’m just going to praise them because they taste good and they are a perfect winter food.
I still recall one of the many food conversations I had with my Cuban friend, in which she explained that one of her favorite foods were black beans. That’s interesting, I thought. It just would not have occurred to me to ever put black beans on the top of my list. But I had never tasted Cuban black beans! Or Brazilian feijoada!
The first secret to a great relationship with beans is to buy a PRESSURE COOKER. A pressure cooker is a pot that has a lid that seals and locks, and cooks on a regular gas stove. It’s easy and safe. By cooking your food under high pressure it dramatically reduces cooking time and saves fuel. Back in 1998, when I told my Cuban friend that we don’t use a pressure cooker, she looked at me like I was crazy. Its true, I was. My beans would sit on the stove for about an hour and often char to a crisp from forgetfulness. Another pot ruined. Cubans just don’t do this. They don’t have the beans, pots, and fuel to spare so they can be spaced out in the kitchen. If beans and rice are what they have, they are going to prepare them carefully, efficiently and deliciously. And their old pressure cooker looked like it was from the 1950's too, just like those beautiful but well-used cars that Cuba is famous for. Cooking pre-soaked beans in a pressure cooker takes about 10-15 minutes. Don’t ever think about buying those cans again. I pre-soak the beans (black, kidney, garbanzo) for about 8 hours while I am away at work. My favorite beans are KIDNEY beans, because the color is lovely, they hold their form, and they are flavorful on their own. All I add is salt, cumin, and a bay leaf. And they are perfect with a cooked green like collards or kale.

souffle!

My savvy friends (the Tus) whipped up this souffle about two hours before they left for the JFK airport on their visit...
It is a goat cheese souffle from Alice Water's Art of Simple Food Cookbook. Creyde's kitchen was short on ramekins so we used a baking dish too. Want to make sure that your host always welcomes you back the next time you visit? Bake a souffle on the last day! I can't wait for their next visit!! Come back soon Tus!!!

On The Road

IHOC= International House of Corn

Welcome to TEXAS! Pull off the road and supersize yourself for breakfast! IHOP offers the bottomless coffee cup and 4 different flavors of corn syrup! Pour it on! Wahooooooo!

Miami Eats

Conch Fritters and salad

Cuban morros y cristianos

Chicharrones y tostadas yum crunch

The best of Miami street food... the conch stand was at a local art fair, and the Cuban joint was a drive-up market with enormous portions of prepared food...

Roland scales the backyard tree with machete so the yankee guests can try the coconut milk!

Sidewalk Cider Press

Apples collected from neighborhood trees...

Cider Man in action...

This sidewalk intervention happened on a sunny October afternoon in Park Slope, two Cider Guys were turning the press on foraged apples... and the juice was delicious! Looking forward to next year...