Welcome-- we have some catching up to do.

Juniper has found the perfect spot to perch on the new couch so that she can catch a breeze and a spot of sun while she eaves drop on our neighbors meandering down the street gossiping in Greek-- it must mean this is home now. Granted there are clothes still strewn about the floor, certain corners seem somewhat barren and a number of electrical sockets lack covers-- but despite all that, this is definitely home now.

And thank you for that. Don’t get me wrong. I have career aspirations, I crave independence and suffer from a severe case of wanderlust. Nonetheless, secretly, I kinda love domesticity. My vow, upon moving into this roommate-free roach-free dust-free (though it does come with a boyfriend named James and a Schnauzer named Juniper) was to embrace the semi-repressed Martha in me. A little bit of nesting and a good dose of cooking never hurt anyone, right?

So ultimately, that’s the goal here. To record this experiment/experience of giving into all this (particularly, the cooking) despite society potentially deeming me some subservient-post-modern-she-leper. Upon moving in here, I decided that it was time to finally start making my way through the cookbooks, magazine clipped recipes and various other food making sources I’ve accumulated over the past couple years. Previous kitchens in previous apartments have not been conducive to this sort of endeavor. They've been little or dingy or crowded or broken-- and sometimes all of the above.

A few words of explanation and maybe a couple disclaimers:

Firstly, due to a fabulously undelicious health thingy there are certain things I’m supposed to avoid eating. Among these are flour, rice, starchy veggies (read: potatoes) and pasta... basically, all my favorite foods of the past. I found out about this health thingy in early May and have been adjusting my eating and cooking subsequently. For the sake of developing techniques, I will still occasionally cook things that contain these items. Once a week I let myself have a day when I enjoy these things, so I will likely cook them on those days. But, I’m also happy to make things I can’t eat. I cook, I taste a small bit to make sure I’m not generously gifting someone with some gnarly cupcakes and then I pass them along. Also, the above mentioned boyfriend has a metabolism that most could only dream about so he gets to enjoy much of that treat varietal as well. In case you’re wondering: I’m not on the Atkins Diet, I’m not gluten intolerant and the food that I make is still wonderful, decadent and generally speaking, not deprived feeling.

Second, I have a variety of places from which I source my recipes. Among the current heavy-hitters are Mark Bittman’s “How to Cook Everything” (my newest acquisition), Gourmet, Saveur and Food & Wine magazines. “The Union Square Cafe Cookbook” tends to find it’s way into the rotation, as do a variety of other books. I need variety in my life. Not to mention, I can't let any of my cookbooks get lonely and neglected perched on the shelf.

Third, a small (and probably insignificant) detail. Most of the time I work nights so the meal I’m frequently making for us is lunch. On days off, I will make dinners. Also, I’m sort of in a transitional phase at work, so who knows what my hours are going to be like then. We shall see...

As for the disclaimer it is simply that photography is NOT my forte. I will work on it, I promise. I will try to make sure that photos are posted, but they may not be pretty. Sorry. We all have our weaknesses.

I’m sure there is more to say about Juniper, James and maybe me too. But that will come, in time. For now, let me tell you about what I’ve been making since getting into my new kitchen. You know, one with exposed brick walls, slate floors, a full four feet of counter space and most importantly a big heavy wood door that leads to a tiny little New York paradise that is a 9 x 8 patio. Swoon.

So the first day here (August 8th) I made lunch from Food & Wine recipes. On the menu was a Quinoa Salad with Pickled Radishes and Feta and a riff on Daniel Boulud’s Chilled Spring Pea Soup. Seeing as I live in a predominantly Greek neighborhood I was drawn to the quinoa salad recipe due to it’s use of feta cheese as the focal point of the dish. Given my proximity to a variety of Greek markets that sell 7+ varieties of feta this seemed perfect. Also, any dish that contains a pickled food item generally gets my attention. Aside from the quinoa and feta the salad also contained radishes that get pickled for an hour in red wine vinegar, string beans, cucumber, parsley and is lightly dressed with lemon and olive oil. Overall it was quite good, though is tasted a little too healthy (read: bland). The creamy feta did a good job of tempering the pucker-inducing quality of the radishes and the cucumber and parsley gave the dish a nice finish. This is probably not something I would rush to make again, but it was certainly not a bust.

I was really excited about the soup, it contained so many varieties of greens and was then topped with a garlic cream and crumbled bacon, how could that be bad? Well, it wasn’t, but it also wasn’t great. The celery, parsley, leek, rosemary, sugar snaps and onion seemed to add nothing to the flavor and all that came through were the peas. The bites with the garlic cream and bacon were quite good, but overall, I felt that the dish lacked dimension. This wasn’t helped my the fact that the blender didn’t make the move to the new apartment and instead the veggies got pureed in the food processor. As a result, it wasn’t quite as smooth as it should have been and the texture was mildly gritty. The quinoa salad leftovers have long been consumed, but the pea soup is still sitting in the fridge, likely to become a science project.

As a funny side note (and maybe a little culinary redemption) a coworker and I were discussing different types of blenders and she was commenting on her immersion blender. So, I told her about my Spring Pea Soup experience and she told me she had made a Spring Pea Soup a few weeks ago herself and that despite using her fancy immersion blender she had a gritty soup too! As it turns out, she had made the same recipe that I had. We both felt better knowing that perhaps this was just a case of a not so well tested recipe. Or... it might have something to do with the fact that upon further discussion we realized that neither of us like peas, but rather made the soup because it was drizzled with garlic cream and bacon. But ultimately, all we tasted was pea’s, and for us-- respectively--- that was not such a good thing.

Day two (August 8th) we were out all day, getting a sofa, fighting about carpets and grabbing a quick salad in the city. Last night, I was called off of work. It was too late to start to figure out what to make and to get ingredients. Instead we went for dinner at a favorite Greek restaurant in the area. After haloumi with grilled tomato, shrimp saganaki and grilled octopus we had no room for the loukanika that we had order as well. We brought the homemade sausage home with us, Juniper got a link as an evening snack and the rest I figured I would do something with for breakfast.

This leaves us at day three of domestic bliss (August 9th). Phew, that was a lot of catching up to do.

I pulled out my handy “How to Cook Everything” to decide what to make for breakfast and lunch so I could go to the market and get everything in one fell swoop. For our early morning meal I decided I would make Loukanika with a Poached Egg. I diced and sauteed the leftover sausage with a little leek and then learned, from the ever helpful Mark Bittman, how to poach an egg. Well, the eggs didn’t have any of the ugly ragged edges that Bittman warned about, but it also didn’t have the runny yolk that I had hoped for. I think next time I will poach them for about three minutes instead of five. Overall, a solid breakfast.

When I first got HTCE I came across a recipe called Chicken Adobo. In the small preface to the recipe Bittman asserts that a number of his friends think that this might be the single best chicken recipe. As someone who doesn’t love chicken, I was curious to know if this Filipino chicken dish could maybe change my mind. The recipe has you first poach the chicken in a soy and rice wine vinegar based mixture then, roast the chicken under the broiler to brown it while you simultaneously reduce the poaching liquid to a nice sauce. I thought it smelled delicious while it cooked, when I excitedly asked James if he agreed, he replied “it smells like hot vinegar" upon seeing the disappointment on my face, he followed with, "though that’s not necessarily a bad thing”. Upon tasting it I really enjoyed it. James declared it, “uber-salty” (though in his world this is not a bad thing). Just a really concentrated soy and garlic taste permeated the whole chicken, roasting imparted a great texture and the sauce had a surprising complexity given the small number and simple nature of the ingredients involved. I didn’t make the white rice that Bittman suggested with it, though I imagine it would have done a nice job of balancing the pungent flavors of the dish. Though I can’t say that chicken has surpassed, say, pork or beef in my life, I can say this was a mighty good chicken dish.

Quinoa Salad with PIckled Radish and Feta
adapted from, Food & Wine, July 2008
1 cup red wine vinegar
1 1/2 T sugar
4 radishes, thinly sliced
1/2 lb thin green beans
1 cup quinoa, rinsed
1 English cucumber, halved lengthwise, seeded and cut in 1/4" dice
3 1/2 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T chopped flat-leaf parsley
3 T fresh lemon juice
6 oz Greek feta, thinly sliced

1) In small saucepan bring red wine vinegar to simmer with sugar (don't inhale too deeply). Remove from heat and add radish slices. Let stand until cool, about an hour.
2) In a large saucepan of salted boiling water, blanch green beans until crisp-tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and rinse under cold water until cool. Pat dry and cut into 1 1/2" lengths.
3) In a medium saucepan (yes, that's pan #3 for a salad) bring 1 3/4 cups water to a boil. Add quinoa, cover and simmer over low heat until all the water has been absorbed, about 12 minutes. Uncover and let stand until cool, about 10 minutes.
4) In medium bowl, toss the cucumber with 1/2 tablespoon of the olive oil and season with salt and pepper. In a large bowl toss the quinoa with the parsley, lemon juice and remaining 3 tablespoons of olive oil; season with salt and pepper. Drain radishes and add them to the quinoa along with the beans, cucumber and feta. Toss well and serve.
6 servings

Chilled Spring Pea Soup
adapted from, Food & Wine, July 2008
8 slices of bacon
1 T extra-virgin olive oil
2 celery ribs, thinly sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 leek, white and tender green parts only, thinly sliced
5 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
Two 4-inch rosemary sprigs
Salt and freshly ground white pepper
1/2 lb sugar snap peas, thinly sliced
Two 10 oz boxes frozen baby peas
1/4 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves
1 cup heavy cream
1 garlic clove, minced

1) In a medium soup pot, cook the bacon over moderate heat until browned and crisp, about 6 minutes. Transfer the bacon to a plate. Pour off the fat in the pot.
2) In the same pot, heat the olive oil. Add the celery, onion and leek and cook over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened but not browned, about 7 minutes. Add the chicken stock, 4 slices of the cooked bacon, 1 rosemary sprig and a pinch each of salt and white pepper. Simmer until the vegetables are very tender, about 15 minutes. Discard the bacon and rosemary. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the vegetables to a blender.
3) Meanwhile, bring a medium saucepan of salted water to a boil. Add the sugar snaps and cook for 3 minutes. Add the frozen baby peas and the parsley and cook just until heated through, about 1 minute; drain. Add the sugar snaps, baby peas and parsley to the blender and puree until smooth, adding a few tablespoons of the broth to loosen the mixture. Transfer the soup and the remaining broth to a large bowl set in a larger bowl of ice water to cool.
4) In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream, garlic and remaining rosemary sprig to a boil. Simmer over low heat until slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Strain the garlic cream into a bowl and let cool.
5) Ladle the chilled pea soup into bowls and drizzle with the garlic cream. Crumble the remaining 4 slices of bacon into each bowl and serve.
6 servings

Chicken Adobo
adapted from, "How To Cook Everything", Mark Bittman
1 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup white or rice vinegar (I used rice)
1 cup water
1 T chopped garlic
2 bay leaves
1/2 t freshly ground black pepper
1 whole (3 to 4 lb) chicken, cut up, trimmed of excess fat, rinsed and patted dry; or 2 lb bone-in thighs

1) Combine first six ingredients in covered pot large enough to hold chicken in one layer. Bring to boil over high heat. Add the chicken; reduce heat to medium-low and cook, covered, for about 30 minutes, turning once or twice.
2) Start a charcoal or wood fire or preheat a gas grill or broiler (I did the latter). The fire need not be too hot, but place the rack 3-4" from heat source.
3) Remove the chicken and dry it gently. Boil the sauce over high heat until it is reduced to about 1 cup; discard bay leaves. Meanwhile, grill or broil the chicken until brown and crisp, about 5 minutes per side. Serve with sauce and rice.
4 servings