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Posts tagged ‘recipe’

Feb 20

Chili beans with shredded greens

The weather here has been really lovely lately – a little unpredictable, but generally warm, sunny, and clear – and … wait. I think I’m breaking some cardinal rule by broadcasting what the weather is like here in Southern California in February.  I also probably shouldn’t mention that on Valentine’s Day we had lunch outside without jackets. But now it’s done, so I think we should just recognize that winter weather in Southern California is generally pretty awesome, and then move on.

What I was going to say was that on Saturday my good friend Nika drove up from San Diego and the weather was absolutely perfect for a somewhat challenging little hike in the Claremont Wilderness Park.  The recent rains left everything much greener than normal, and it was even warm (and uphill) enough for a while to hike in just a t-shirt.  We hiked around and talked about work, and travel, and college memories, and it was a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

Onion

Shredded_greens

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Feb 10

A sweet pair for Valentine’s Day – blood orange and mixed berry-vanilla curds

Sometimes, friends, the best laid plans …

I had a lovely idea for you for Valentine’s Day.  Fluffy angel food cake with a sweet little pair of fruit curds – tangy, creamy, sweet, and romantic. One blood orange, one mixed berries and vanilla. Some whipped cream, some chocolate shavings, some berries. A flirty dessert for your Valentine that won’t weigh you down like some sort of chocolate extravaganza.

Blood_oranges_2

But then my angel food cake testing went a little awry. Tasty, certainly, but a little too sticky the first time, and a little too clumpy the next. A work in progress.

But I’m still going to give you those curd recipes, and know that you can use them on just about anything. Maybe you have an angel food cake recipe that you like. Or maybe you should make a pavlova (another good way to use up all those egg whites left behind by these curds). Shortbread would be great here too. Or vanilla bean pound cake. Or just fingers.

It is Valentine’s Day, after all.  Read more

Feb 9

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Bowen Appétit basic vinaigrette

Salad_vinaigrette

I’ve never been a big salad person – I rarely order them at restaurants, and we rarely (very rarely) eat one as a main dish at home (exceptions: add some roasted chicken and some lovely fresh croutons, and I’ll be there). I don’t entirely know why this is; I guess I’ve always just found salads kind of boring, or maybe I’m just not that excited by cold and crunchy things. I guess I’m more of a warm and/or soft sort of person.

(That might be in the running for the best sentence on this site.)  Read more

Jan 31

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Taqueria night 1 of 2: Roasted mushroom and chorizo tacos with roasted tomatillo salsa

Two nights of authentic taqueria dinners. Why not? This post details night 1 of 2. 

Here are a few things I’ve learned recently:

  1. Roasting vegetables (or anything, really) with a bit (or a lot) of chorizo in the pan is a very, very good idea
  2. There really is something behind this pricey heirloom bean thing, and the “pot liquor” left at the end of the cooking process really is quite delicious
  3. When dry roasted, tomatillos dance around in the pan like Mexican jumping beans

All together now:

Mushroom_tacos

Earthy roasted mushrooms with chorizo and caramelized onions, simply prepared yet creamy heirloom beans, roasted tomatillo salsa, fresh homemade tortillas, and perfectly ripe avocado.  Tacos, my friends – mighty delicious tacos. Read more

Jan 18

Winter cocktail: blood orange rosemary fizz

Blood_orange_rosemary_fizz

I fell in love with blood oranges my first year of graduate school.  Almost every Saturday morning that year we trekked to Santa Monica to splurge on produce at the farmers market – top-quality, top-price produce to distract myself from how much work I had to do and how terrified I was on a weekly, daily, hourly basis.  Blood oranges were unique enough for me to fancy myself something more than a poor, lowly, graduate student with little other than my undergraduate loans to my name, and bitter and tart enough enough to wake me up a bit each time I had one. Eating a couple every day gave me little shocks to the system that kept me going through endless site visits and mapping exercises and paper writing and group projects.

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