Tastes like… victory: Quick, delicious Potato and Cherry Tomato Salad

Fingerling potatoes and cherry tomatoes tossed with a lively mustard vinaigrette—something this easy shouldn’t taste this good. Recipe below.

Summer is drawing to a close—we have a real blanket on the bed, we are wearing sweaters in the evening, and we are casting around for ways to use the bits and bobs that we harvest here from our apartment garden. The nation’s corn crop may have gone to hell this year, but our tomato crop is record-breaking. Outside, we have just a tiny scrap of ground under cultivation, but it is giving us a quart of cherry tomatoes every day, on bad days—and that is to ignore the big tomatoes, which are coming in with a vengeance. Continue reading “Tastes like… victory: Quick, delicious Potato and Cherry Tomato Salad” →

Herb? Vegetable? Both: Caramelized Fennel with Fettuccine and Goat Cheese

An Italian favorite, sliced fennel bulb is sautéed until lightly browned, then served over pasta with goat cheese, lemon zest and fennel fronds. Recipe below.

The idea for this dish began with two words on a restaurant menu. We were having dinner a few weeks ago at Telegraph Restaurant and Wine Bar in our neighborhood, and Marion chose seared escolar with stuffed cherrystone clam, uni butter, caramelized fennel, orange vinaigrette and tarragon from chef Johnny Anderes’s inventive, seasonally driven menu. Caramelized fennel. It was buried in the middle of the description, but a standout on the plate.

This wasn’t the first time we’d eaten fennel (yes, I got a bite too). In fact, Marion has occasionally used it raw in salads. But caramelizing it—cooking it in a skillet until it browns, bringing out its natural sweetness—was something we hadn’t tried. Over the next couple of weeks, caramelized fennel kept popping up in our conversations as we tried to figure out what to do with it. We thought it deserved more than its usual side dish treatment. Marion suggested pasta, and a meal was born. Continue reading “Herb? Vegetable? Both: Caramelized Fennel with Fettuccine and Goat Cheese” →

A Herbivoracious side dish: Potato and Green Bean Salad with Arugula Pesto

This warm, garlicky potato and green bean salad is bursting with summery flavors of mint, arugula and lemon juice. Recipe below.

We’re trying to eat less meat these days. It’s healthier for us, some would argue, and definitely healthier for the planet. We sometimes do it by having meatless days. And we eat smaller portions of meat when we have it; this is an approach Mark Bittman urges us all to take, to use meat as a flavoring or move it to the side of the plate, with vegetables taking the starring role. In an interview this spring on NPR, he envisioned a scenario in which meat “could resume its proper place in our lives, which is as a treat rather than as something we can eat whenever we feel like it.”

I’ll admit I’m not there yet. When I go more than a few days without eating meat, I miss it. A lot. So when author Michael Natkin told me he’s been a vegetarian for 30 years now, it was almost more than my brain could take in. Marion and I were at a book tour event for Natkin’s excellent new vegetarian cookbook, Herbivoracious: A Flavor Revolution with 150 Vibrant and Original Vegetarian Recipes. Continue reading “A Herbivoracious side dish: Potato and Green Bean Salad with Arugula Pesto” →

Pesto with a French accent flavors hearty, traditional Soupe au Pistou

Big flavored pistou, a Provençal sauce made with basil, garlic, Parmesan and olive oil, gives a delicious kick—and its name—to Soupe au Pistou, a hearty vegetable soup. Recipe below.

Every spring, Marion plants basil based on my best intentions. And every fall, I scramble to harvest the bounty I’ve failed to convert into numerous promised batches of pesto (I think I made it twice this summer). So Sunday afternoon found me, anorak-clad, gathering basil in the rain, fending off bumblebees as I snipped the flowering tops onto the compost pile. Continue reading “Pesto with a French accent flavors hearty, traditional Soupe au Pistou” →

The lazy man’s way to pickles: Quick, crisp Fresh Dill Pickles need no canning

These crisp, lively Fresh Dill Pickles get their flavor from dill, garlic, jalapeño peppers and coriander, mustard and fennel seeds. And they’re ready to eat in 24 hours, without canning. Recipe below.

A friend of ours is very good at blackjack. She’s actually gone on Caribbean vacations and stayed at casinos, where her daily routine has been to hit the tables for a couple of hours in the morning, long enough to make dinner and walking around money for the day, then head to the beach. She can do this fairly reliably. When incredulous friends ask why she doesn’t do it for a living, she says simply, “Then it would be work.”

This goes a long way toward explaining my lack of interest in canning, I think. I love to cook (I hope you can tell that much from my weekly ramblings here). But I love doing other things too. I’m not one of those people who fantasizes about spending an entire day in the kitchen. Canning, to me, involves a little bit of messing with food and a whole lot of work—much of it around boiling, steaming cauldrons of water. Continue reading “The lazy man’s way to pickles: Quick, crisp Fresh Dill Pickles need no canning” →

Summer on a plate: Grilled Peaches and Tomatoes with Whole Grain Pasta

Pan-grilled peaches, cherry tomatoes, scallions and Parmesan create a satisfying, summery, sweet/savory vegetarian meal—Grilled Peaches and Tomatoes with Whole Grain Pasta. Recipe below.

We’re always looking for ways to mix sweet and savory in our kitchen. When Marion first described the idea for this dish, I knew it would be delicious. I was right. I’ll let her tell you about it.

Who doesn’t love a peach? And already this year we are getting some really luscious ones, sweet, tart, juicy, fragrant beauties that always seem to be sneaking into my lunch bag or onto my breakfast cereal. They are the best 4 PM pick-me-up and the perfect weekday dessert, all on their lonesome. I may not be having my lunch on a faded old sheet spread in the shade of a tree at the edge of a humming, warm meadow, but with a perfect ripe peach in my hand, I am almost there. There are so many ways to cook them, but when they are so brilliant on their own, why?

Then Terry’s PBJ on the outdoor grill a few weeks back got me thinking. At this time of year, I am always insincerely chattering about making things like peach pie, peach cobbler, peach tart, poached peaches. But how about peaches in a savory entrée? Continue reading “Summer on a plate: Grilled Peaches and Tomatoes with Whole Grain Pasta” →

The vegan grill: Spicy, smoky peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, zucchini and peppers with dill

Homemade Strawberry Jalapeño Jam adds a grown-up kick to the classic kid food, PBJs, and dill gives grilled vegetables a fresh, summery finish in this satisfying vegan grilled meal. Recipes below.

Peanut butter sees almost daily action at our house, often as a simple spoonful scooped from the jar for a quick snack while dinner is cooking. And we’re not alone in our love of the stuff—Americans eat almost three and a half pounds of peanut butter a year per capita, according to the Agricultural Marketing Resource Center. (Given our consumption, I have to admit that sounded low to me.) Continue reading “The vegan grill: Spicy, smoky peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, zucchini and peppers with dill” →

Cooking in Cabo: Zucchini Tomato Goulash

Inspired by a cooking class on an organic farm in Los Cabos, Mexico, this hearty goulash combines zucchini, tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, jalapeño peppers and ricotta cheese to create a lively side dish or vegetarian meal. Recipe below.

You know how when you’re traveling and one of the locals asks where you’re from, then says wistfully, “Wow, I’ve always wanted to go there”? I didn’t get that once in Los Cabos. Not once. And I live in Chicago, a place I consider capable of generating a certain amount of destination envy.

I was in Los Cabos a few weeks ago, at the southernmost tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula, on a culinary press trip to explore the foodie side of this popular tourist destination. Continue reading “Cooking in Cabo: Zucchini Tomato Goulash” →

Enjoying the return of berries with a simple Berry Blue Cheese Watercress Salad

Blueberries, raspberries, watercress, butter lettuce and blue cheese all shine in this simple salad. Recipe below.

Berries are suddenly abundant in the supermarket—and therefore in our fridge. After not having them for so long, or else having them be too well traveled and hideously expensive to consider, we can’t seem to go to the store now without bringing some home.

Looking for ways to use up some of the unexpected bounty, I started thinking of salads. Nothing exuberant and overly busy, just something simple that would let the berries—and everything else—shine. When I first started eating salads—willingly, I mean—I viewed lettuce as nothing more than a vehicle for multiple ladles of gloppy, sweet dressing. Then I dallied with salad bars and their countless edible doodads and distractions for a while. Continue reading “Enjoying the return of berries with a simple Berry Blue Cheese Watercress Salad” →

A crisp, lively welcome for reluctant spring: Chinese Sesame Asparagus Salad

This chilled Chinese salad makes the most of minimal preparation and five simple ingredients—asparagus, soy sauce, olive oil, black vinegar and toasted sesame seeds. Recipe below.

It snowed Monday night in Chicago. Still, it’s officially spring, and beautifully thin asparagus is starting to turn up in grocery stores—and along some roadsides. So I’m going to turn the kitchen over to Marion and let her tell you (and me) about her foraging adventures before we met.

Asparagus wasn’t my first experience with gathering food from the wild—that would have been mushroom and berry picking, when I was a kid—but it was my first great breakthrough as an adult, when I had half forgotten the experiences of my childhood. That you could wade into all that mixed weedy stuff by the roadside and come out with a handful of tender! young! asparagus! (and for free, I might add) was a revelation. Continue reading “A crisp, lively welcome for reluctant spring: Chinese Sesame Asparagus Salad” →