What the staff eats before the restaurant opens: Baked Mussels with Saffron and Tomatoes

Adapted from a staff meal at Atlanta’s Bacchanalia, mussels are quickly baked over sautéed scallions, garlic, parsley, oregano, saffron and tomatoes. Recipe below.

Open kitchens in restaurants are popular for one reason: We all like a peek behind the culinary curtain into the world of chefs, sous chefs, line cooks and even dishwashers. And I’m not just speaking of high-end restaurants where tables in the kitchen come at a premium price. I remember a lunch years ago at the counter at Heaven on Seven in Chicago, watching line cooks crank out order after order with practiced skill, plating the food beautifully and effortlessly and tossing used skillets, still hot, into a deep stainless sink. The hostess apologized for not having a table for me during the busy lunch hour, but I was in, well, heaven at the counter.

So imagine my delight when I heard about Marissa Guggiana’s new cookbook, Off the Menu: Staff Meals from America’s Top Restaurants, published last month by Welcome Books. This is the ultimate peek behind the curtain. It’s not just watching chefs cook, it’s getting to see what they cook for their staffs before the restaurant opens. Continue reading “What the staff eats before the restaurant opens: Baked Mussels with Saffron and Tomatoes” →

Everyday French made easy: Roasted Shrimp and Green Lentils

Shrimp roasted with garlic, scallions and tarragon tops French green lentils for a quick, satisfying, quintessentially French meal. Recipe below.

For all the complex, multi-stepped recipes that give French cuisine its daunting reputation, everyday French home cooking is filled with countless utterly simple dishes as perfect and impressive in their own way as the hautest restaurant cuisine.

Wini Moranville’s new book, The Bonne Femme Cookbook: Simple, Splendid Food That French Women Cook Every Day, proves this with recipe after recipe. La bonne femme is French for “the good wife,” the introduction tells us, but in French cuisine, “it refers to a style of cooking—namely, the fresh, honest, and simple cuisine served at home, no matter who does the actual cooking, femme, mari (husband), or partenaire domestique (significant other).” Continue reading “Everyday French made easy: Roasted Shrimp and Green Lentils” →

Small Bites: Thanksgiving gets a party makeover and a weeknight secret weapon for your pantry

Juicy, flavorful turkey is the centerpiece of a Thanksgiving cocktail party—this time in the form of sandwiches. And store-bought red sauce that it’s okay to love is the subject of my latest Character Approved Blog post.

Thanksgiving is just about our favorite holiday. No presents to buy, no elaborate ceremonies, just a celebration of food and family. Last week, we attended a pre-Thanksgiving event at the test kitchens of Urban Accents that put a new twist on the holiday for us. The Chicago maker of spice blends, grilling rubs, sauces and seasonings turned the traditional family feast into cocktail party fare to share with friends.

Sweet potato smash crostini, maple-glazed, bacon-wrapped Brussels sprouts lollipops and smoky chipotle roasted pumpkin seeds all captured flavors ingrained in our collective memories since childhood. Shooters of mushroom bisque with crisp green bean garnishes and a sprinkling of crumbled crispy onion stood in for green bean casserole. Continue reading “Small Bites: Thanksgiving gets a party makeover and a weeknight secret weapon for your pantry” →

Technical difficulties

We’ve been having computer issues here at Blue Kitchen. So instead of cooking, photographing and posting, we were stewing about our electronics. The blog is still very much up and running, so feel free to look around, search the archives, leave comments… We were just a little too preoccupied to put up our regular Wednesday posts. The computer is fine now, and food will be back soon, perhaps Thursday.

I’d like to take a moment here to say a little bit about Apple and their computers. Our current five-year-old iMac is the latest in a long line of Macs that have graced our desks and laps over the years. We just like Macs. They not only work beautifully and intuitively, they look cool doing it. Steve Jobs raised the bar on design as much as he did technology. Continue reading “Technical difficulties” →

The delicious root of the matter: Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables

Roasting chicken, sweet potatoes, parsnips, onions, garlic and rosemary together melds flavors beautifully in this one-pan meal. Recipe below.

This time of year brings a certain amount of angst for those trying to eat locally, seasonally and sustainably. Pickings are getting slim at farmers markets, especially here in the Midwest. The land is hunkering down for a long, cold winter, and summer’s produce bounty is receding in the rear view mirror. So what do we eat?

To answer this question, we need to look back to a time when eating locally, seasonally and sustainably was just called eating. For most of our grandparents (and certainly our great-grandparents), if the fruits and vegetables they ate didn’t come from their own gardens, they came from family farms not far from where they lived. To have produce to eat when the snows came, they would do a couple of things. Continue reading “The delicious root of the matter: Roast Chicken with Root Vegetables” →

Gluten-free flour good enough for Thomas Keller

Gluten-free flour developed for Keller’s The French Laundry, now available for home cooks, is the subject of my latest Character Approved Blog post.

Remember carob? A blogger I read regularly mentioned it in a recent post, reminding me for the first time in years of this dreadful so-called healthy substitute for chocolate. It may have been healthy, but it was no substitute for chocolate, especially the good stuff. And guess what? Now chocolate has been given a clean bill of health.

Carob’s very badness points up the problem with many dietary substitutes: They’re not very good. In fact, many of them are downright awful. But gluten sensitivity—allergic reaction to wheat products—is a huge and growing issue. And wheat is a huge part of so many of the foods we eat—especially baked goods. So finding satisfactory substitutes for wheat products is a big deal. Continue reading “Gluten-free flour good enough for Thomas Keller” →

Ten favorite recipes from five years of writing Blue Kitchen

Blue Kitchen turns five this month! To celebrate, I’m posting ten of our personal favorite recipes from the first five years.

Some years ago, singer/songwriter John Prine said at one of his concerts, “I’ve been doing this for 26 years now. But it only feels like… 25.” I understand. It feels like I’ve only been doing Blue Kitchen for four and a half years.

In trying to come up with fresh things to write about week after week, I’ve often said (and shall often say again, I’m sure) that ideas for the recipes and posts here come from many sources. This anniversary post was inspired by a very nice email from a new reader. In it, Le wrote,”Do you have a category of ‘favorite’ recipes? We all have favorite recipes that we would use over and over again and are favorites of the family and friends. I feel most of these recipes are often foolproof.” Continue reading “Ten favorite recipes from five years of writing Blue Kitchen” →

Small Bites: A website for hungry, lonely singles and hone your blogging skills at Food Blog U

A San Francisco website that matches singles based on food cravings is the subject of my latest Character Approved Blog post. And noted food writer Molly O’Neill builds a serious team for an in-depth food blogging course.

Feeling lonely and maybe a little peckish? If you’re in San Francisco, you’re in luck. Type in the food you’re craving and where you’d like to be eating it on the website Spoondate. Your cravings and your picture pop up on the site, where like-minded hungry singles can find you and make a date. Or you can see what others are craving and click with someone new.

And while picking a possible significant other based on food cravings may seem overly specific, even to foodies, meeting someone over the perfect thin crust pizza at Mario’s makes for a more interesting start than the generic “cup of coffee.” Continue reading “Small Bites: A website for hungry, lonely singles and hone your blogging skills at Food Blog U” →

A big, delicious bowl of healthy: Turkish Style Red Lentil Soup with Chard

Sweet Hungarian paprika, garlic, cayenne pepper, sumac, diced tomatoes with green chilies and just a bit of lamb make Turkish Style Red Lentil Soup with Chard a lively, healthy, robust meal in a bowl. Recipe below.

As the weather has been turning cooler, Marion has been messing around with lentils in the kitchen, trying a dazzling array of recipes. I’ll let her tell you about her most recent delicious results.

We mostly try to eat fairly sensibly. But on occasion, we don’t (and when we don’t, it’s usually pretty wonderful). When we have had a shockingly sumptuous meal, I often say for the rest of the week all I am going to eat is one lentil.

Not that eating lentils is suffering. Really, I can’t say enough about how good and important they are. Lentils are not only so, so delicious, but so, so healthy. Continue reading “A big, delicious bowl of healthy: Turkish Style Red Lentil Soup with Chard” →

Breakfast for dinner grows up: Savory Waffles with Mushrooms and Braised Veal

Savory waffles, flavored with fresh thyme and buckwheat flour, are topped with a mushroom and braised veal sauce. Recipe below.

Lots of people love eating breakfast for dinner. To me, though, it’s often been more of a meal of last resort. What you eat when you haven’t gotten to the store for more serious groceries, but hey, you’ve got eggs, and the bread is fresh enough if you toast it.

But recently, I stumbled across the idea of savory waffles—can’t remember where now—and breakfast for dinner suddenly became more interesting. For starters, you’ve got waffles, elegant city cousins of the country pancake. They even require their own machine to make—no mere cast iron skillet will do. Whenever my mom hauled out the waffle iron (always on a weekend morning, and certainly never for dinner), breakfast just felt fancier, more fun. Continue reading “Breakfast for dinner grows up: Savory Waffles with Mushrooms and Braised Veal” →