Feed Yourself

Tomato Potato Pizza

Sometimes, feeding yourself really does mean fending for yourself. As in, you don’t get off the couch and get busy in the kitchen, you don’t eat. Sure, there’s always your good friend the delivery guy, but after this past week’s kitchen slack-a-thon, I’ve decided to give that look a rest for awhile. It wasn’t a good one anyway.

Today was rough. It rained all day, so my motivation to walk to the grocery store can carry back provisions was less than zero. At some point, I learned that I had run out of coffee and managed to convince myself that tea was a perfectly acceptable substitute. 

If I wasn’t braving the elements for caffeine, I certainly wasn’t going to brave them for dinner. I was going to manage with whatever I had in my refrigerator. Which was empty except for three baby potatoes, half a container of sundried tomatoes, and some cheese. I also had some flour and a packet of yeast in my pantry, so it was pretty clear. I was going to make pizza.

Ingredients (makes one pizza):

• 1 ball of pizza dough or store-bought dough
• 3 baby potatoes (I like yukon gold)
• 12 sundried tomatoes
• 4 - 5 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 cup of feta
• 4 ounces of goat cheese
• 2 tablespoons of grated parmesan
• 2 teaspoons of herbs de provence  (or whatever dried herbs you have)
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil, plus more for the dough

Make the pizza:

Make the pizza dough, and once it’s doubled in size, spread it out an oiled baking pan and then drizzle some more oil on top. Turn on the oven to 400 degrees and let the dough sit on top of the oven for about half an hour with a tea towel or plastic wrap on top. 

Meanwhile, put the sundried tomatoes in a bowl and cover them with warm water. Let them sit out at room temperature while the dough rises.

After half an hour or so, the dough should have risen in the pan. Put the pan in the oven and cook for about fifteen to twenty minutes. 

While the dough is cooking, chop the garlic and slice the potatoes so that they are as thin as you can get them. Pat the potatoes dry with paper towels to remove any extra water and then toss them in a bowl with a tablespoon of olive oil. 

Drain the water from the sundried tomatoes, pat them dry, and slice them. Remove the pan from the oven and top the dough with the garlic and the sundried tomatoes. Crumble the feta and goat cheese over the tomatoes, and then add the potatoes in a thin layer over the top. Sprinkle with the herbs and bake for about twenty to thirty minutes. 

Remove the pizza from the oven, sprinkle the grated cheese over the top, and return to the oven for another five to ten minutes.  Cut into pieces and freeze whatever you don’t eat immediately.

Black Bean and Cilantro Soup

Fresh herbs kind of piss me off. I can never get them to last more than a few days, and most recipes only call for a small amount, so I always end up with something wilting and nasty at the bottom of my refrigerator. I try to avoid buying them whenever possible. 

Earlier in the week, I bought a bunch of cilantro because I had all these grand plans about what I was going to do with it. An attempt at Portuguese bread soup. Guacamole and homemade chips. A green smoothie. Not one tiny leaf would go to waste. But then I lost all kitchen motivation and the end result was, you guessed it, something that was starting to look wilting and nasty at the bottom of my refrigerator.

So I threw the cilantro in a pot with a can of beans and an onion, because when all else fails, there’s always soup. And not a moment too soon because it really was beginning to resemble the makings of a bad science project. 

This one was really good. Super healthy, cheap, and ready in like twenty minutes. I topped it with half an avocado and some crumbled feta, but chopped tomato and/or tortilla chips would also be delicious, especially if you want to keep it vegan.

Ingredients (makes two servings):

• 1 15.5 ounce can of black beans
• 1 onion
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/4 cup of cilantro
• 1/2 teaspoon of cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon of chili powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 - 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 2 cups of water
• avocado, crumbled or shredded cheese (optional)

Make the soup:

Chop the onion and the garlic and cook with the olive oil and spices over medium heat in a pot for a few minutes, stirring often. Drain the beans from the can and rinse well.

Add the beans to the pot along with the water and cook for about ten minutes, until the beans are soft and starting to break apart. Stir in the cilantro and cook for another minute or two. 

Working in batches, puree the soup until it is mostly creamy. Return the soup back to the pot and cook on medium-low heat until the soup has thickened a bit. 

Serve yourself a bowl, and top with avocado and cheese, or chopped tomato and crumbled tortilla chips, or whatever you like. The leftover serving freezes really well. 

Quick Pasta with Vegetables

Sunday night, I ate leftover pizza. Monday night, I ate leftover pizza. On Tuesday, the leftover pizza had run out, so I ate a few breadsticks and went to sleep. Hi. I’m a food blogger. And I’ve been over cooking for the past week.

Tonight was looking pretty bleak, and I almost went to bed hungry for two nights in a row, but at the last minute, I decided to put a stop to the madness. I threw together a quick dinner of pasta and a few of the leftover vegetables I had in my refrigerator. It was great. Definitely better than leftover pizza any day of the week. 

Cooking dinner doesn’t have to be a complicated, elaborate ordeal. Often times, simple really is the way to go. 

Ingredients (makes two servings):

• 2 cups of pasta (I used rigatoni)
• 1 zucchini
• 4 - 6 sundried tomatoes
• 1 cup of baby spinach
• 1 large garlic clove
• 1/4 cup of feta cheese
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• pinch of red chili flakes, or to taste

Make the pasta:

Fill a medium sized pot with with water. Add the salt and cook over medium heat with the lid on. While the water is boiling, finely chop the garlic. Cut the zucchini into small cubes and the sundried tomatoes into thin strips. 

When the water starts to boil, add the pasta and cook according to the directions on the package, stirring occasionally. I cooked my pasta for about fifteen minutes. 

Once you’ve started cooking the pasta, add one tablespoon of olive oil along with the garlic and red chili flakes to the pan. Cook over medium-low heat for a minute, and then add the zucchini and sundried tomatoes. After about five minutes, add a tablespoon or two of the pasta water to the vegetables and continue to cook. The vegetables will be cooked by the time the pasta is done. 

Drain the pasta and add it to the vegetables along with the baby spinach. Cook for a minute, turn off the heat, and add the feta and remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Toss the pasta, the vegetables and the feta together and forget about ordering takeout again.

Raspberry Horchavena

Today is Mother’s Day, and while it’s probably not the best day to be talking about hangovers, I’m doing it anyway. And I will be talking in the hypothetical since to the best of my mom’s knowledge, I have never  experienced a hangover or really done anything other than be a perfect angel since birth. 

So a while back, a certain hypothetical someone woke up with one of the worst hangovers in recent history and the absolute certainty that the only way to cure said hangover was with a giant glass of horchata. Horchata is a drink made with milk, cinnamon and ground rice and/or almonds, and it is delicious. So the quest began, and this certain someone walked around her neighborhood in a ten block radius, stopping at every bakery she could find, but sadly and painfully, to no avail.

Because, as she learned a few weeks later, she should have been instead asking for avena, which is similar to horchata except made with oats and apparently sold in her neighborhood bakeries aplenty. As my mother likes to say, you live and you learn.

They are both easy to make (thankfully, because there was no way I was ever going on that miserable horchada-avena hunt again), and I’ve combined the two in this recipe (horchavena, get it!?!). 

Despite it’s origins, this drink is healthy and nutritious, and definitely mother-approved. I added the raspberries because they are my mom’s favorite, but other berries (or none at all) would also work. 

Make a glass for your mom, or for yourself, hangover or not. 

Ingredients (makes one serving):

• 1 cup of almond milk (soy or dairy milk works too)
• 1 tablespoon of raw almonds, chopped
• 2 tablespoons of oats
• 1/4 cup of raspberries
• 1 teaspoon of maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

Make the horchavena:

Add the milk, chopped almonds and oats to some kind of container (like your measuring cup) and refrigerate for about half an hour. Freeze the raspberries for the same amount of time.

After half an hour, add the milk-almond-oat mixture and the raspberries to a blender, along with the maple syrup and cinnamon. Blend for a minute or two, until smooth and creamy. There may be a few bits of almond or oats left in the drink, so if that bothers you, strain it from the blender. Otherwise, just drink, poured over ice, and start your day off right.

Roasted Beet and Parsnip Salad with Garlic Yogurt Dressing

You know that feeling you get when you’re at a restaurant, and your meal look so beautiful on the plate that you feel almost ashamed to dig in with your fork?

Multiply that feeling by a hundred, and that’s how I felt when I made this salad.

It should have been so simple. Roasted beets on one side. Roasted parsnips on the other. Beans down the middle, and garlicky yogurt sauce drizzled over the entire dish. Or maybe the sauce is on the side. Or maybe it is spooned over the beans. I spent like almost a week considering the options.

But then I got starving. And really, who can think of artful presentation when they’re starving? Especially when it’s that special kind of starving that comes from eating nothing but a few spoonfuls of peanut butter and some grapes all day. So in a stomach-growling frenzy, I tossed everything together and dug in with my fork.

Clearly, this dish isn’t winning any beauty contests. Honestly, it kind of looks like a giant disaster. But it is filling and healthy and delicious. And when you’re cooking for yourself, that’s what really matters.

Ingredients (makes one serving):

• 3 small beets (about 1 cup diced)
• 2 small parnsips (about 1 cup diced)
• 1/2 cup of cannellini beans
• 1 garlic clove
• 3 tablespoon of olive oil
• 3 tablespoons greek yogurt
• 1/4 teaspoon, plus one pinch of salt
• ground black pepper to taste

Make the salad:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Wash, peel and dice the beets and parsnips. Toss with one tablespoon of olive oil and 1/4 teaspoon of salt and roast in the oven at 450 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes, until soft and beginning to brown. Try to keep the vegetables separate so they don’t bleed into each other.

When the vegetables have finished cooking, remove them from the oven and let them cool.

Remove the peel from the garlic, and cook the garlic clove in a small pan over low to medium heat in one tablespoon of olive oil for about five minutes, until it becomes soft and starts to brown. Remove the garlic from the heat and add the beans. Toss the beans in the oil and cook for a few minutes until the beans are warm and fully coated in the garlic-oil.

In a bowl, smash the garlic with a fork along with a pinch of salt until it becomes almost paste-like. Mix with the yogurt and one tablespoon of olive oil. 

Mix the vegetables in a bowl, along with the beans, and toss with the yogurt. Add ground black pepper to taste.

Creamed Honey Vanilla Ice Cream

It always happens. I go to the farmer’s/gourmet/ethnic market, I purchase something unusual/international/locally sourced and totally pricey, it sits in the back of some shelf in my kitchen for weeks/months/years because I cannot think of a good use for it/am waiting for just the perfect moment to use it, and then I throw it out because it’s expiration date has come and gone.

And then I feel like such the foodie fool. Each and every time.

A few weeks ago, I bought a jar of creamed honey, and I refused to let myself repeat  the pattern. I kept that jar on the shelf right next to the olive oil so that I’d see it every time I cooked pretty much anything. The question of what to do with it started to haunt me. Mix it into some salad dressing? Spread it onto some toast? Stir it into some yogurt? It all just seemed so boring. Coming up with a really good use started to become a minor obsession.

And then I found these almost dried-out vanilla beans from ages ago squirreled away on that same shelf.  

When you are presented the opportunity to break a pattern two times in one shot, you go for it. Especially when it involves making ice cream.

Ingredients (makes 3 - 4 cups of ice cream):

• 2 cups of heavy cream
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1/3 cup of creamed honey
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Make the Ice Cream:

Split open the vanilla bean and scrape out the seeds. Combine all of the ingredients in a bowl. It’s okay if the creamed honey isn’t fully incorporate, because it will blend and swirl once the ice cream starts to churn.

Assemble your ice cream maker, and pour your ingredients into the bowl while the motor is on. Churn on a low setting (I left my Kitchenaid mixer on 1) for about fifteen minutes. Spoon into containers and let freeze for at least two to three hours before eating. 

Carrot Top Pesto

I know it’s the time for spring cleaning and all, but the truth is that I really hate throwing things out. Every season, I go through my closets and drawers. I organize my things into piles, I take inventory, and I try to consolidate, but in the end, I get rid of relatively little.  It is like a constant struggle with myself.

The same is true with food. I always try to buy what I know I’ll eat, and I compost a lot of my kitchen scraps (totally not gross, I promise), but sometimes even that’s not enough to alleviate the post-waste guilt of associated with a full garbage can. 

The worst offender? Carrots. And their f*&ing green, leafy tops. Here are the greens from the baby carrots I used in last week’s salad.  They are like three times the size of the actual carrots themselves. 

When faced with a giant mass of green, there are two options: cook them down or make a pesto. This time, I opted for pesto.  My family’s Italian, and let me tell you, there’s nothing like Italian guilt to motivate a solution. 

Spread it on some bread and make a panino. Toss it with some pasta and sun dried tomatoes. Mix it into an omelette. Freeze whatever’s left over for another day. Whatever you do, don’t toss those carrot greens in the trash.

Ingredients (makes about 3/4 cup):

• 2 cups of carrot top fronds
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 tablespoons of walnut halves
• juice from 1/2 lemon
• 1 - 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of goat cheese
• salt and red pepper flakes to taste

Make the pesto:

You want to make this pesto right when you bring the carrots home from the store or farmer’s market because the longer they sit in your refrigerator, the less fresh the greens will become. 

Remove the tops from the carrots and cut off some of the stems. Wash the carrot tops well and add to a food processor or blender along with the garlic and walnut halves. Process for a few minutes, until everything is chopped finely. Add the lemon juice and one tablespoon of olive oil and blend for another minute. You may need to add another tablespoon of olive oil, depending on how thick or thin you want your pesto. Add the salt and pepper to taste, blend for another few seconds, and then stir in the goat cheese. 

Serve tossed with pasta, spread on some bread for a panino, or as a dip. Refrigerate or freeze whatever you don’t use immediately. 

Strawberry Baked Oatmeal

I have this jar of artisanal jam that is probably on par with gold bullion in terms of per-ounce unit cost. When I bought it at the farmer’s market, I had all kinds of delicious visions of leisurely breakfasts. The sun is shining through my kitchen window, and I am reading the newspaper. There are cinnamon-flecked lattes and fresh scones slathered in farm-churned butter. Edith Piaf is singing Je Ne Regrette Rien in the background, and she is accompanied by the birds who like to hang out on my fire escape. My fantasy, my soundtrack.  

A month later, the jam is still sitting in the back of my refrigerator. I made a few sad attempts at putting a spoonful or two on some semi-burnt toast, but that was pretty much it.

The truth is, I am a disaster in the morning. I need like three cups of coffee to get myself organized enough to leave the house fully clothed and in one piece.

So tonight I decided to stop the self-delusion and bake some oatmeal. I added the strawberry jam because I couldn’t bring myself to continue letting it go to waste. Also, I had some strawberries in my refrigerator that were starting to look a little worse for wear.

You can use whatever kind of jam you have, and fresh bananas or apples would probably be totally wonderful too. I kept it vegan and healthy with almond milk, chia seeds, and maple syrup. It’s still good, I promise. Especially served warm with vanilla ice cream. For breakfast or anytime.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of quick cook oats
• 1 cup of almond milk (soy milk would be fine too - or regular milk if that’s what you use)
• 1/2 cup of maple syrup
• 1/4 cup of strawberry jam
• 1 teaspoon of chia seeds
• 2 teaspoons of cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup of strawberries

Bake the oatmeal:

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 

In a large bowl, mix together all of the ingredients except for the vegetable oil and strawberries. Set aside for at least ten minutes.

Meanwhile, coat a 9 inch square baking dish with the vegetable oil, and slice the strawberries. Pour the oatmeal mixture into the dish and top with the sliced strawberries.

Bake at 400 degrees for about forty-five minutes. You’ll know it’s done when it feels kind of springy and cake-like to the touch.

Remove from the oven and let cool for at least ten minutes. Refrigerate and cut into pieces for your breakfast or snack over the next few days.

Wheat Berry Salad with Honey Roasted Carrots

Last weekend, there were these baby carrots at the farmer’s market. They were incredible - purple and orange and small and knobby with these lush green fronds on top. I had to have them. And I had to roast them in the oven with honey. And I had to add them to a salad. And that salad was going to contain farro.

I’m stubborn, and once I get an idea into my head, that’s it. There is no turning back. 

So there would be no excuses. There would only be farro. The chewy nuttiness of the grain was going to be a perfect complement to the sweetness of the carrots, and the whole thing would be delicious.

Except I couldn’t find farro. My supermarket didn’t have it. The bodega/grocer that for some reason is stockpiled with all sorts of food fabulousness didn’t have it. I was too lazy busy to go to the health food store or some specialty gourmet joint miles away. 

So after almost a week, I gave in. And instead, I used wheat berries, which are so readily available that I somehow had a bag in my pantry. 

I am fully aware that this entire blog post is kind of ridiculous.  I’m pretty sure that nobody is staying up late at night worried about which grain I ended up picking for this sale. I cannot  believe I put so much thought and effort into the situation. I have no idea what the difference even is between a grain of farro and a wheat berry. 

But that’s not the point. The point is that when you are cooking, it is okay to improvise if you can’t find an ingredient. Switch it for something else. Leave it out entirely. It will all be okay. It’s just a salad.

Ingredients (makes two servings):

• 2 cups of carrots
• 1/2 cup of wheat berries (or farro, if you can find it)
• 1 scallion, white and light green parts
• 1 and 1/2 cup of water
• 1 tablespoon of honey
• 2 tablespoons of goat cheese (1 per serving)
• 2 teaspoon plus 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of mustard
• 1 teaspoon of balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt, plus more to taste
• ground black pepper to taste

Make the salad:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. 

Toss the carrots with the honey and 1 teaspoon of olive oil and cook at 450 degrees on a baking sheet for at least 40 minutes, turning occasionally. When the carrots are fork-tender, remove from the oven and set aside to cool.

Meanwhile, boil the water and salt in a covered pot. Add the wheat berries and cook for forty minutes over low-medium heat, stirring occasionally and keeping the lid on the pot. Remove the lid and continue to cook until all of the water has dissolved and the wheat berries have a chewy texture. Remove from the pot and let cool.

If you’ve timed it right, the carrots and the wheat berries should be ready at about the same time. If one finishes before the other, it’s okay because they should both be at room temperature when you start assembling the salad anyway. 

In a large bowl, combine 1 tablespoon of olive oil with the mustard and vinegar until creamy. Season with salt and pepper. Add the wheat berries to the dressing and stir to combine. Chop the scallion and add it to the wheat berries along with the carrots. If you are making this for yourself, divide the salad and refrigerate the half you are not eating. Plate the other half and crumble one tablespoon of goat cheese over the top. 

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries

I made burgers a few days ago, and I needed something to go along with them. I needed sweet potato fries.

Don’t get me wrong. Regular potato fries are perfectly delicious. Put a plate in front of me, and I’ll vacuum suck them down in a second. Half a second if they’re seasoned with olive oil and sea salt. It is quite a sight.

But even then, I still prefer sweet potato fries. I just think they taste better. They’re also healthier, especially when you bake them in the oven. These things matter when you are inhaling your food.

I never could make crispy, oven-baked sweet potato fries. I tried every combination of temperature and cooking time, and nothing worked. I would end up with a plate of half-soggy, half-burnt-looking fries. They were always tasty but also always kind of a disappointment.

“That’s because sweet potatoes have a low starch content,” my fabulous, culinary-school grad BFF chimes in one day after listening to one of my sad kitchen laments. “Coat them in flour.”

My BFF is a genius. Problem solved. 100% success, 100% of the time. Cooking really is just science in the kitchen. 

Ingredients (makes one serving):

• 1 sweet potato
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 tablespoon of flour
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt

Bake the Fries:

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Cut the sweet potato into quarters, and then cut each quarter into sticks about one quarter to half an inch thick. In a bowl, toss the sweet potatoes with one tablespoon of olive oil. Then, toss with the flour and the salt.

Place the sweet potatoes on a baking sheet. Cook in the oven at 450 degrees for 10 to 15 minutes. Use a spatula to flip the sweet potatoes over and cook for another 10 to 15 minutes (or longer, depending on your oven). Eat.