i’ve always loved finger foods. tiny sandwiches at bridal showers, crab puffs at weddings, doritos on the couch. doritos are finger foods, right?! something about lots of small plates has always spoken to me, and we’ve been enamored with creating grown-up small plate meals lately. korean banchan is a nakano house favorite, but lately we’ve been toying with spanish tapas.
you guys. this meal. it was epic.
leftover dinner for breakfast is my specialty.
last night we had tofu bahn mis — this moring, bahn mi breakfast. marinated tofu on the bottom, eggs over easy, side of pickled veggies, topped with kewpie, sriracha and wakame.
the other night on skype, our brother-in-law, hong, told us about this amazing chicken tikka masala pizza he had at namaste pizza. we drooled over it for days, but we’re about 2,800 miles from oakland and i’m pretty sure that’s out of the delivery zone. major bummer. luckily i married a chef. and double luckily i work at a teaching kitchen, which sent me home with some homemade pizza dough. this pizza…. perfection!
okay that’s a gross title, but that’s pretty much what this recipe is. garbage, because it’s just all the stuff that’s already in my fridge needing to be used (and probably yours too!), so no cooking involved. just putting a bunch of stuff in a bowl and — gasp! — using the microwave. so maybe this isn’t a recipe so much as a, “hey this is a really yummy lunch, you should have it, too.”
the key to this life-alteringly simple lunch is the sauce. it’s all in the sauce! also, is life-alteringly a word?
there’s this restaurant in the chef’s hometown, grand junction, co., that serves this delicious beet salad. that’s something i didn’t necessarily see myself typing — delicious beet salad. but it is. then the other day we went out in baltimore with our neighbor besties, peter + jenny, and had another delicious beet salad. and now its october and beets are in their prime season so i thought the next place a delicious beet salad should be, is in my kitchen. and now it is. see:
it’s getting cold outside, so we’re eating lots of warm food… like this warm corn salsa. it was part of a recipe we created for the baltimore chef shop. you can find the whole thing, including how to make some homemade corn tortillas, right here.
i’m about to say something i don’t really want to say. its something i’ve spent years avoiding. and i’m more than a little embarrassed about it. here goes: i’m in love with kale.
it started with this salad we had at dinner with our friends peter and jenny. fast forward a month later and we’ve had kale salad every few nights since — always starring one key ingredient: shallot vinaigrette. if you’re looking for a way to improve your salad game, this is definitely it.
here’s our beyoncé approved kale + shallot vinaigrette salad (we didn’t ask, but we’re sure she’d like it).
i’m not sure i’ve ever placed a chinese takeout order that didn’t include crab rangoon. i mean, obviously you have to get the sweet and sour chicken and maybe general tso and of course a few egg rolls, but first and foremost, you order crab rangoon. when i worked as a weekend news producer, i would often order only crab rangoon because it’s not messy and you can eat it while you work. all of this preface is to establish credibility for that fact that i am a crab rangoon connoisseur. and this is undoubtedly the best i’ve ever had.
there’s something different about pit beef than other smoked meats. it’s not exactly barbecue. you can smell it long before you see it. it’s baltimore’s own rendition of smoking and around here they take it very seriously. they also take it with horse radish.
the chef has officially began his new career as a physician. july 1 was his – and thousands of other medical residents’ – first real day on the job. he went in at 5:30 a.m. and got home at 9:45 p.m.
i think it’s safe to assume i’m going to need to learn to cook alone. and because i’m currently jobless (unless you count binge watching parenthood and big love and sending in millions of unsolicited resumes to people who don’t really want them a job, which at this point, i kind of do, only i don’t get paid for it), i have lots of time to do so.
up first: my first batch of on-my-own, without-the-chef chicken stock.
food | life | baby
food | life | baby
chef meets girl 