Monday, August 30, 2010

Nectarine Cake

My dad always tells me how important it is to "eat to live, not live to eat."  Consequently, there are very few foods that I allow to fall into my "worth-living-for" foods category.  Stone fruits, for better or worse, comprise a goodly chunk of that list.  Peaches, plums, apricots: I love them all.  So when I went to the farmer's market last week and found myself surrounded by stacks and stacks of lovely fruit, I couldn't help myself.  I had enough self-control to buy the least expensive type of fruit, but I still wound up carting three pounds of nectarines back to the office and then home on the subway.  Now, I can eat a lot of nectarines, but three pounds of perfectly ripe, rapidly spoiling fruit is too much even for me.  So what to do?  Bake a delicate dessert highlighting the fruit, of course.

This recipe comes from the now sadly defunct Gourmet.  I changed very little, as baking tends to be much more unforgiving of improvisation than other types of cooking.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Homemade Applesauce

Fall is almost here: The days are getting shorter and cooler, students have returned to Brooklyn College, and apples have started making a major appearance in the Union Square farmer's market.  Even I, a person who professes to not even like apples, can't resist a deal like 3 pounds of apples for $1.  So what to do with these apples that I sure as heck am not eating raw?  I always return to my old fall staple: Homemade applesauce, which disguises all the things I don't enjoy about apples (texture, mainly).  Whether or not you're an apple fan, this is a pretty delicious way to get in your daily doctor-prescribed apple.

You'll need:

3 pounds of tart apples, peeled and cored
1/2 cup sugar
4 cups water
1 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. grated lemon rind
1 whole cinnamon stick
A dash of salt

Roughly chop your apples into quarters or eighths.  Place in a large saucepan and add water.  Bring the mixture up to a simmer and let it bubble away until the apples are tender, about 15 minutes. You should be able to easily break up the apples with a wooden spoon.


This is what your pot full o' apples should look like at the beginning.


Add the remaining ingredients to the mixture and let simmer for an additional minute.  Remove from heat and mush up the mixture with your wooden spoon.  It should look like this:


Mmm.  Chunky and delicious.

I like my applesauce cold, so I stick in the fridge for a while before eating it.  This recipe makes about 6 generous servings of applesauce—Just be sure not to eat the cinnamon stick!

Made in season, this an extremely budget-friendly dessert.  With my $1 apples, a large jar of cinnamon sticks for $2.50, and a typical grocery store lemon (69 cents), this whole things comes to about $2 and change.




Even non-apple enthusiasts like me and Rizi Bizi enjoy this applesauce.  Seriously, she keeps trying to get in my bowl.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Caponata

There are certain recipes that, when I cook them, make me feel like wherever I'm cooking is home.  Caponata, an Italian eggplant dish that my grandmother used to cook all the time, falls into that category.  Though my grandmother was from Northern Italy (Trieste, to be exact), she loved to cook this Sicilian vegetable stew.  I guess she was ahead of the curve on pan-Italian cooking.  Served hot with pan-fried polenta or cold with a crusty piece of bread, caponata is one of my feel-good standbys, so today I'm going to share my grandmother's recipe with you all.  Now, being of the old school, my grandmother wasn't big on writing down recipes or measuring things, so it evolves a little bit every time I make it.  You should feel free to make it your own too.

You'll need:


Monday, August 16, 2010

Black Beans and Rice

So I've been sitting on this recipe for a long while now, but since I started my new job today, I am once again inspired to cook/blog!  While I haven't actually made this since I left Chicago, I'm excited to cook it here and bring the delicious leftovers along with me for lunch.  Because, for me, this dish is all about the leftovers.  The flavors actually get better as they soak together in the fridge, so it's perfect for a week's worth of protein-rich lunches.  I adapted this recipe from the Whole Foods website—my version's a little less fancy, but you've probably figured out by now that I don't like to use tons of ingredients.