Taking miso beyond soup: chunky, fork tender Miso Braised Pork Shoulder

Winter is getting ready to prove to Chicago—and the upper Midwest—that it isn’t done with us yet. This oven-braised Miso Pork Shoulder first appeared on Blue Kitchen in November 2012, and it’s the perfect antidote for the coming snowy cold. Recipe below.

What’s the traditional sixth anniversary gift? If it’s a food blog anniversary, I’m going with pork. Yes, Blue Kitchen is six years old this month. A lot has changed for me foodwise in that time. For one thing, I feel like I know more about food than when I started—including how ungodly much I don’t know and will never know. But some things have remained the same, like my willingness to borrow ingredients from the global pantry and use them authentically or otherwise. This week, that ingredient is miso paste. [Read more here…]

In a NOLA state of mind: Spicy Shrimp with Tomatoes and Cheddar Grits

A relentlessly busy schedule these days has us raiding the Blue Kitchen archives again, this time for New Orleans-style comfort food with a kick: Spicy Shrimp with Tomatoes and Cheddar Grits. Recipe below.

New Orleans is one of our favorite cities for food. Everything tastes of history, blended cultures and spices. Lots of spices. Some of them hot, of course, but more often just big flavored. And from the diviest dives to the fanciest white tablecloth spots, you have to work hard to find a bad meal.[Read more here…]

By the book, sort of: Gordon Ramsay’s Sticky Lemon Chicken

Inspired by the “fowl-mouthed” celebrity chef, this lively, weeknight-quick dish from the Blue Kitchen archives first appeared in February 2009. Recipe below.

When children are very young, their first experiences of playing with other children are actually playing next to other children. They don’t truly interact with one another, but for them, playing side-by-side is the beginning of their social lives. There’s a school of thought in cooking that mirrors this experience, the idea that putting ingredients next to one another actually achieves some meaningful interaction among them.

You know what I mean—recipes that include instructions like “lay sprigs of rosemary around the roast” or “place a whole peeled apple in the chicken cavity”… Or my favorite, recipes that instruct you to rub lamb chops, steaks, slices of baguette or anything with a cut clove of garlic. In my experience, this technique is a perfect way to waste a clove of garlic and five or so minutes of your life. It adds nothing to the flavor of anything, so far as I can tell. Ingredients have to fully commit to a dish and mix it up with the others to have an impact on the final taste.[Read more here…]

Beef and Pork Ragù: Hearty, rustic, meaty

Seasonably frigid temperatures inspired Marion to remake this delicious, hearty pasta dish from the Blue Kitchen archives. It originally appeared in unseasonably cold May 2011.

THIS ROBUST ITALIAN RAGÙ IS PERFECT COLD WEATHER FARE. It is absolutely meaty and hearty, combining ground beef, chunks of pork, tomatoes, peppers, carrots, mushrooms, garlic, red wine, paprika and other ingredients into a thick, stew-like sauce served with some kind of big pasta. And one of its charms is that it cooks on your stovetop for hours, mostly unattended, as the sauce builds and develops, filling your kitchen with amazing fragrances. Find the recipe here.

Not a TV dinner, but television-inspired: Chicken Fennel Soup

Fennel bulb, onion, celery, carrots, garlic, chicken, cannellini beans, pasta and lemon. What else do you need to know? Recipe below.

I’ve been not cooking lately. Yes, we’ve been crazy busy at times, with long hours away from home and non-meshing schedules. But it’s been more than that or simple midwinter malaise. I just didn’t seem to be in the mood to get in the kitchen, even when all the ingredients for a particular dish were in the house. I needed a kick in the pants to get over myself. It came in the form of a PBS show. Continue reading “Not a TV dinner, but television-inspired: Chicken Fennel Soup” →

Coleslaw gets a lively makeover with giardiniera and bacon

Giardiniera Slaw with Bacon packs some heat and some surprises, including olive brine. Recipe below.

Johnny’s Grill, an old school diner in our Logan Square neighborhood, closed some time ago. In our nine or so years of living here, it had never seemed to be what you’d call hopping. For that matter, it had never enticed us in. Recently, it has reopened with a gently hipsterish makeover. Same formica counter and red vinyl stools, but the menu, still diner-ish and still reasonably priced, has gotten some cheflike loving. Continue reading “Coleslaw gets a lively makeover with giardiniera and bacon” →

What we’ve been doing instead of cooking

THESE ARE VICTORIAN DOOR BACK PLATES. Until very recently, they were buried under 120+ years of paint, so thickly coated that their exquisite patterns were completely obscured. Not any more. We got them off the doors, and Marion went at them with dangerous chemicals, brass brushes, rags and fierce determination. Continue reading “What we’ve been doing instead of cooking” →

A road trip and Roast Chicken Provençal

Chicken thighs are browned, then roasted with shallots, lemons, garlic and what sounds like way too much herbes de Provence. It isn’t. Recipe below.

Last week, I wrote about how we would spend Christmas. Christmas Eve dinner in Chinatown (at Lao Shanghai—delicious), a movie Christmas day (Spotlight, a surprisingly uplifting film for such a heavy subject) and a simple roast chicken dish for dinner. It was good. The dish you see above was my second attempt, cooked last night with a few tweaks. It was very good. Continue reading “A road trip and Roast Chicken Provençal” →

Traditions and non-food food for thought

Our holiday celebrations are shaping up pretty much the same way they do every year. Well, actually, things have been on the crazy busy side for us lately, even by our standards, so Hanukkah got the most perfunctory nod. But we’ll make up for it by celebrating Christmas as generations of Jewish families have—and as we always do. Continue reading “Traditions and non-food food for thought” →

Comfort with a kick: Roasted Chili Cumin Chicken with Pickled Red Onions

This Mexican street food-inspired dish packs big flavor, but not too much heat. Two recipes from the archives—and a wedding story—below.

At some point, I’m not sure when, Mexican restaurant food became relegated to comfort food status for us. Something we could count on to be reliably good, filling and cheap, but no longer something we got a hankering for. It wasn’t always this way. At one point, Marion and I ate at a Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood at least once a week for a year or more. In fact, we went there on our wedding night, before going barhopping with my mom and my brand new sister-in-law. [read more here…]