Merry Christmas from Blue Kitchen

A TV dinner and a hula girl. How much more Christmasy can you get? Somehow another year has flown by. And while other food bloggers were busy sharing holiday recipes and gift ideas, I was, well, not. Partly, it’s because I was settling into a new job and we were traveling to see our older daughter graduate summa cum laude, both really wonderful things.

But mostly, it’s because I am perhaps one of the most accomplished procrastinators on the planet. I frequently amaze even myself with my abilities in this arena. So instead of all the ideas I should have been giving you to make your holidays brighter, cooler, funner, tastier, I’ll just tell you a little bit about how we’re enjoying ours. Continue reading “Merry Christmas from Blue Kitchen” →

Healthy, delicious and one-pan easy: Tilapia with White Beans and Kale

Tilapia with White Beans and Kale is a weeknight-quick, one-pan meal. Capers add a bright, briny kick. Recipe below.

INSPIRATION FOR THE RECIPES YOU FIND HERE COMES FROM EVERYWHERE. From restaurant meals to farmers market or grocery store finds, cookbooks, magazines, even random photographs or phrases. This recipe’s origin was much more straightforward. The tilapia fillets in the fridge weren’t getting any younger, and I wanted something other than my usual couple of go-to recipes. Oh, and it had to be quick. We had something to do after dinner. Continue reading “Healthy, delicious and one-pan easy: Tilapia with White Beans and Kale” →

That ’70s cooking experience: Slow Cooker Pot Roast with Carrots

This is my first experience cooking with a slow cooker—pot roast with carrots, onions, rosemary, bay leaves, garlic and red wine. Recipe below.

This recipe is brought to you by Black Friday. For some years now, Marion and her sister Lena have treated Black Friday as an annual, mostly-for-entertainment ritual. At some point on Thanksgiving Day, the ad-fat Chicago Tribune is explored and a plan of attack is, well, planned. Lena arrives at our house in the predawn hours on Friday and they head off. By late morning, they’re breakfasting in some pancake house and relishing the shopping adventures they’ve just shared. My total involvement in previous years’ predawn sorties has been to open one eye and wish Marion good hunting as she departed.

This year, we slept in. After a leisurely breakfast, we all headed out mid-morning with just a couple of goals in mind. A slow cooker was not one of them. But as we stood in a checkout line, wildly discounted mattress pads and comforters filling our arms, we saw the impressive tower of slow cookers, also impressively priced. Continue reading “That ’70s cooking experience: Slow Cooker Pot Roast with Carrots” →

Thinking outside the (blueberry) box: Pork Chops with Blueberries and Rosemary

Pork chops are quickly seared, then finished in a sauce of blueberries, rosemary, shallots, whole grain mustard and red wine. Recipe below.

Search for blueberry recipes on the Google and you come up with pies, pancakes, muffins, scones, cobblers, crumbles, crisps, buckles… you get the idea. All are absolutely delicious, of course, but this kind of typecasting troubles the folks at the U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council. They’d like to see home cooks be a little more adventurous in their use of blueberries.

So they invited bloggers to participate in a contest to create recipes that use blueberries in fresh ways. The contest, called Blueberries Meet Their Match, specifically challenged participants to combine blueberries with one of four possible ingredients—bananas, coconut, balsamic vinegar or rosemary. I chose rosemary and immediately headed in a savory direction. Continue reading “Thinking outside the (blueberry) box: Pork Chops with Blueberries and Rosemary” →

Fresh from The Lemonade Cookbook: Chinese-style Braised Duck Legs

Whole duck legs are braised with orange, ginger, lemongrass, cilantro and garlic in this dish adapted from The Lemonade Cookbook. Recipe below.

WE OCCASIONALLY GET OFFERS TO REVIEW COOKBOOKS. Often, we say yes. But sometimes, the cookbooks can be a little too, well, niche for our tastes. Did you know there are multiple jello shot cookbooks?

So when we were asked to review The Lemonade Cookbook, you can imagine our first response. Turns out, though, that lemonade isn’t the key ingredient in the book’s recipes. It’s the name of a popular chain of modern cafeterias in Southern California with an emphasis on simple preparations, bold flavors and imaginative dishes with an inventive global taste. This sounded like a cookbook we needed to see. Continue reading “Fresh from The Lemonade Cookbook: Chinese-style Braised Duck Legs” →

Thank you, Charlie Trotter: Cardamom Beef Stew with Roasted Root Vegetables

In this recipe from Home Cooking with Charlie Trotter, a braised beef stew flavored with cardamom, garlic, onion, celery and carrots is topped with roasted potatoes, parsnips and celery root. Recipe below.

Charlie Trotter died last week. The groundbreaking restaurateur and chef—and Chicago hometown hero—was just 54. In the world of food, proclamations that someone “changed the way we eat” or “changed the way we cook” get bandied about a lot. In Trotter’s case, both are true and then some. His eponymous restaurant, opened in 1987 in a Lincoln Park townhouse, was an immediate success. And his innovative approach to cooking created a seismic shift in Chicago’s restaurant scene. As William Grimes put it in The New York Times, “In the blink of an eye, the city’s lagging restaurant culture… took a giant step into the future.”

Trotter was a self-taught chef. He became interested in cooking through a college roommate, who was an avid cook. After graduating from college, he traveled around the U.S. and Europe, dining at the finest restaurants, seeking to figure out how the “best” gained that title. His first cooking job was for another famous Chicago chef, Gordon Sinclair. He opened Charlie Trotter’s when he was 28. Continue reading “Thank you, Charlie Trotter: Cardamom Beef Stew with Roasted Root Vegetables” →

A 15-hour train ride and a four-ingredient pasta

A long train ride back from a weekend in Syracuse, New York called for comfort food even an exhausted traveler could throw together from what was on hand. Below, the recipe for the easiest thing I cook.

We took the overnight train from Chicago to Syracuse last weekend. No fancy sleeping compartment for us. We toughed it out in coach, with reclining seats, a stack of magazines and books, DVDs for the laptop, a bottle of wine, sandwiches and assorted snacks. Okay, so we weren’t exactly roughing it. Continue reading “A 15-hour train ride and a four-ingredient pasta” →

A nose for cooking: Lamb with Celery and Cumin

Sautéed and quickly braised with whole cumin seeds, garlic, lemon juice and crushed red pepper flakes, normally mild-mannered celery upstages the supposed star of this dish, ground lamb. Recipe below.

First, let’s talk about the elephant in the room. Celery? Stealing the spotlight from lamb? Yes. As I sit here writing this post about this dish cooked and eaten last night, I am Pavlov’s dog, and he is going to town on that bell. And it is because of the celery.

Celery is woefully underrated, I think, largely because people mostly eat it raw. Cooked, it can become a valuable ensemble player. In soups, it adds a fresh note; in a pot of chili, it amplifies the taste of the cumin and provides nice, slightly crunchy bites. And, as in the case of Lamb with Cumin and Celery, it can burst with big, bright flavor. Continue reading “A nose for cooking: Lamb with Celery and Cumin” →

Border-blurring comfort food: White Bean Soup with Sage and Sausage

Variations of this soup are made in Tuscany, France and the UK. This version combines white beans, sage, shallots, garlic, wine and sausage in a soup hearty enough to be a meal. Recipe below.

AS FALL SETTLES IN HERE IN THE MIDWEST, our tiny garden is mostly shutting down. The tomatoes are over, the basil looking forlorn. But our sage is still going to town. So when I came across a recipe for Tuscan-style white beans that used sage on Saveur’s website, I mentally filed it away. Then overnight temperatures in the 40s last weekend had us turning on the furnace and me thinking of soup. Specifically, a white bean soup with sage. Continue reading “Border-blurring comfort food: White Bean Soup with Sage and Sausage” →

Old school, upgraded: Beef Stroganoff with Chanterelle Mushrooms

The classic Russian dish of beef, mushrooms and sour cream gets a delicious upgrade, with chanterelles. Recipe below.

Food has never been more interesting. Chefs are going global and hyperlocal, often at the same time. Molecular gastronomy is turning restaurant kitchens into science labs. The best restaurant in the world serves lichen, moss and other foraged goods. And home cooks are getting right in there with them, tapping into ingredients both worldly and local and fearlessly exploring new techniques.

In all the excitement over the next new thing, though, some classic recipes are being left behind. Beef stroganoff, for instance. Even when I was a teenager and just starting to explore dining out without my parents, beef stroganoff was outdated. Its appearance on a menu indicated a restaurant of a certain age—and perhaps aspirations to “fine dining” unattained. Continue reading “Old school, upgraded: Beef Stroganoff with Chanterelle Mushrooms” →