Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Beet this


Every week in my CSA, they're giving me beets. Big, small, red, yellow, white--they are delicious, and also beautiful, and I have been eating them the same way every day for a week.

Beet/Ricotta/Baguette
(In my head, this is tres francais. je ne sai pas si c'est vrai, mais....)

Scrub your beets, then wrap them tightly, one at a time, in foil

Roast them at 45o for an hour or more, depending on their size, until a knife slides in easily
Once they've cooled, peel off them skins
Chop them into cubes (I believe the professionals call this a dice)

drizzle with olive oil, red wine vinegar
pop 'em in the fridge

Next day, at lunch:
Take a hunk of your favorite, freshest baguette
Rip it open into a sandwich

Smear fresh, amazing ricotta onto each half of the bread

Spoon beet mixture onto each side

sprinkle with sea salt or kosher salt
grind some black pepper on top
you've got 2 open faced sandwiches

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Spooey

Last weekend, in honor of the engagement of Joan and Andrew, I made a chocolate layer cake, one that I blogged about here, years ago (it's been years, people!).

There was an awful lot of frosting left over, as there often is, and as it sat in a bowl in my fridge I wondered what to do with it. My office mate suggested that I bring it in and that we dip pretzels in it. This she calls "spooey," and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out it's gonna rock(et).

So today I brought in said bowl of frosting (cream, chocolate, sugar, butter and vanilla), and we have been dipping pretzels in it all day long. Say it together: spooey.

(another chocolate pretzel thing to go nuts over: Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby, FYI).

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

What's Real

I always knew there was a reason I didn't like Pringles potato chips and apparently it's because they're not even potato.  Last weekend everyone was reporting the news that a British court ruled Pringles "not potato," and therefore exempt from the tax on potato snacks (or, snax, heh).

It really raises the question: why eat imitation potato chips when you can eat really freaking good real potato chips?  

or

Why eat anything else BUT the dinner I made for myself last week? It's made from real stuff.

Orzo with Lemon, Mint and Peas

a large handful of shell peas from the farmers' market
one lemon
6 leaves of mint
fresh parmiagianno reggiano cheese
Vermont Butter & Cheese Co.'s Sea Salt butter, one knob

Shell the peas
Cook orzo according to instructions on box
for the last three minutes of the cooking, throw in raw peas and the mint
Strain, saving a tsp or so of cooking water
Put orzo, peas, mint mixture into a bowl, with the 1 tsp cooking water
Grate lemon zest into it, and the juice of half of the lemon
toss in the butter
sprinkle cheese on top

I swear, you will never eat snax again.

Monday, July 07, 2008

If I don't get my butt to a ball game this summer I will be very sad. Last summer I was all itching to go and it never happened so I really need to motivate this time around.

One thing that also makes me sad is the really awful food at ball parks. This hilarious (and potentially useful) interactive graphic from the NY Times is a peach, though.