This is a great fresh salad that uses an unexpected main ingredient, celery! Make it at least an hour ahead of time so that the flavors have time to meld. You can omit the parmesan to make this vegan. Save the celery leaves and add them to the salad too.
One head of celery, thinly (1/8 inch or so) sliced. Use a mandoline if you have one
Lemon-y vinaigrette as needed (1/3 c lemon juice, 3/4-1 c olive oil (to taste), 1 T mayo, S&P (to taste) – whisk to combine)
1/2 c grated parmesan or pecorino (or a combination)
1/2 c chopped nuts – walnuts are my fav here
Combine celery and vinaigrette, add only enough dressing to coat the celery – you don’t want it all gloppy. Set aside for an hour. Just before serving add the cheese and nuts, toss to combine and serve. Fresh herbs – parsley, dill – would be good here too!
I love pork a lot – so much so that I have a pig tattooed on my right arm. I especially love grilled pork, the combination of charred and piggy flavors is amazing! For this recipe you’ll want thick, high-quality bone in pork chops (if you can find them). I used Berkshire chops that were about 1 inch thick. Berkshire pork is from a heritage breed of pig and is generally more flavorful and juicy (due to its higher fat content) than standard grocery store pork. You can find Berkshire pork at specialty butchers (support small retailers!).
Start this process an hour or two (minimum) before you’re going to cook the chops :
Place the chops on a wire rack set on top of a sheet (or roasting) pan
Sprinkle generously (both sides) with salt and pepper
Right before cooking make a mixture of dijon mustard, honey, apple cider vinegar, and hot sauce. Exact proportions don’t matter much but, for four chops, I used about a tablespoon of each (less of the hot sauce)
Meanwhile, heat a grill to high heat, clean it, and -when hot – spray with non-flammable non-stick cooking spray
Grill the chops for 7-8 minutes total, flipping every 60 to 90 seconds.
Watch them carefully as the honey can cause them to burn (oops, a couple of mine got a little crispy!)
Cook until the chops reach 140 degrees in the center. Use your Super Fast Thermapen to check. Don’t overcook them, pork doesn’t need to be cooked to death!!!
Add 2 oz. of rye, 1 oz. of lemon juice, 1 oz. of simple syrup, and a lot of ice to a mixing tin/cocktail shaker/glass. Close the container and shake for 30 seconds (until the outside of the tin is frosty). Strain into a rocks glass over ice. Pour 1/2 oz. of red wine over the back of spoon – this lets you “float” the red wine on top of the cocktail. Use a drinkable, fruity, red wine (like Malbec). Garnish with a lemon wedge and serve. When you drink this you should stir the wine in so you don’t drink it all of it at once.
This is one of the favorite side dishes at our house and amongst our family and friends. Like most things I make it is easily adaptable – you can add different ingredients, leave things out, etc. It’s also a great main course and can be made vegetarian (or even vegan – which is a bit outside my norm!)
Ingredients
I large yellow onion, diced (optional if your initials are JS)
2-4 (depending on your taste) cloves of garlic, minced
4 slices of bacon (or a similar amount of pancetta, nduja, guanciale, salami, etc) (optional)
3 – 14 oz cans of any kind of white beans (cannellini, great northern, etc.), drained and rinsed
2 – 14 oz cans of diced fire-roasted tomatoes drained, juice reserved
Olive oil, as needed
½ c white wine
2-3 cups of low sodium chicken broth
Pinch of red pepper flakes
1 T. dried thyme (rosemary would be fine too)
8 cups (ish) of Kale, Spinach, Arugula, Chard – something green and bitter (optional)
1 c panko bread crumbs
Zest of one lemon
1 c parsley, minced
S&P
Directions
Cook bacon in a large dutch oven (you know, a pot) until crisp, remove, saving fat
If you’re using another meat, sauté it for a couple of minutes in olive oil
Chop bacon and save it (snacking on some of it is totally understandable)
Sauté onion in the bacon fat over medium heat, adding olive oil as needed (or just cause you want to), 4-5 minutes until golden brown(ish) and soft
Now would be a good time to add some salt – maybe ½ teaspoon of Kosher
Add garlic and sauté another 2-3 minutes
Add tomatoes and – you guessed it, saute another 3-4 minutes. Stir a lot to prevent burning
Add the red pepper flakes and thyme
Add the reserved tomato juice, bacon, white wine, and broth
Add the beans and cook, stirring frequently, for about 10 minutes – you want everything hot and bubbly
Put about ¼(ish) of the bean and broth mixture into a blender and blend (leave the lid slightly ajar and put a towel over the damn thing when you turn it on unless you enjoy being covered in lava hot beans and broth. Add more broth to form a smooth puree
You want this really smooth. Would be good if you had a Vitamix (the only blender worth having – they’ll outlast 3-4 cheap blenders and do a better job. They’re expensive but you can save money by getting a refurbished one from the Vitamix web site)
Add the pureed beans back into the pot and cook (keep stirring) until they reach your desired consistency – maybe another 10 minutes, this is up to you
Add the kale and cook until softened
Stir in ½ of the parsley (a little more olive oil would be good too)
Adjust salt and pepper as needed
Meanwhile…you can do this next bit while the beans are cooking:
Heat a large non-stick skilled over medium heat
Add 2 T of olive oil and heat for a minute
Add the panko and sauté until GBD (golden brown and delicious)
You’ll need to stir these a lot – watch them, they can burn quickly (don’t ask me how I know this)
Once GBD, remove from the heat and stir in the remaining parsley and lemon zest
Serving
This can be a main dish or a side (it’s particularly good with pork) (or with prosciutto wrapped cod)
Serve topped with the breadcrumbs and drizzled with (good) olive oil
A little parmesan or other hard (Italian – don’t buy the American crap…we make some amazing cheese here but the knockoffs of Parm and such suck. A lot) cheese would be just fine too
The best way to sauce pasta is to finish cooking it in the sauce as this infuses the pasta with flavor!
To start, cook the pasta in a small amount of water – you don’t have to use a huge pot filled with water. Cooking pasta this way has a couple of advantages – the water takes less time to boil and the water is starchier once the pasta is done cooking (we’ll be using the water when we sauce the pasta). I use a 12 saute pan that is big enough to hold the pasta I’m cooking, you basically need just a couple of inches of water – enough to fully cover the pasta. Salt the water but DO NOT MAKE IT AS “SALTY AS THE SEA”. That’s a dumb old wives’ tale – sea water is wayyyyyyyy too salty. I use a tablespoon(ish) – if you taste the water you want it to taste “right” – to your salt taste. I actually salt to Ash’s taste as I like things saltier than most people. Bring the water to a boil (you actually don’t even need to do this, you can cook pasta starting in cold water) and add the pasta, stirring to keep it separate. Cook until a minute or so short of al dente (taste it – you want to pull it out when it is still chewy – a minute or so less than the instructions on the box/bag say). Drain the pasta but save a cup of so of the cooking water, you’ll need it. Alternately, you can use tongs and just lift the pasta out of the water and put it right into your sauce, I do this pretty frequently.
Meanwhile, while the pasta cooks, have your sauce warming up in a big skillet (or make it if it is a quick cooking sauce like carbonara (yeah, yeah, I’ll do that one live soon). Turn the heat up to high and add the pasta and start stirring. Add pasta cooking water to keep cooking the pasta – I start with about a half cup. Keep stirring, adding more water if needed, until the pasta is done. Add finishing “stuff” – grated cheese, toasted bread crumbs (if you haven’t tried this, do it NOW), olive oil, fresh herbs, etc. Serve in warm (always!!) bowls. BTW, DO NOT over sauce the pasta, you can add more at the table if you want.
The pic below was made with a long-cooked ragu. I combined these two recipes:
The Negroni, and its sister/variation the Boulevardier, is (are?) my favorite cocktails. It is simple, easy, and boozy (like me?). The ingredients are equal parts (typically 1 oz of each) of gin (or rye (or bourbon) for a Boulevardier, Campari, and sweet (red) vermouth. You can choose the gin (or rye/bourbon) that you like – experiment with different spirits! Same is true for the vermouth and even the Campari (sub out another bitter liqueur (amaro) like Amaro Montenegro. You can also play w/ the proportions – want a more bitter drink? Add more Campari. Sweeter? More vermouth.
To make the drink: pour the spirits into a mixing glass (or whatever), add a ton of ice and stir for 30 seconds until well chilled. You don’t want to shake a cocktail that only contains alcohol-containing ingredients – you’re trying to avoid shards of ice here. Pour into a cocktail glass – you can serve it up or on (big) rocks. Garnish with a strip of lemon or orange peel. Enjoy!
One of the features of NY Times Cooking (Please tell me you’re already a subscriber? If not, you should be!) that I love are their “No Recipe Recipes.” (check them out here: https://cooking.nytimes.com/68861692-nyt-cooking/14326423-no-recipe-recipes) I like these narrative descriptions of how to cook something as they teach both technique and improvisation. That’s how I’m going to write up the recipe I cooked on my Instagram and Facebook story last night!
Trim excess fat from the number of chicken thighs you want to cook (1-2 per person depending on size (of the thighs…and, I guess, the person). Generously season both sides with salt and pepper (key word generously). Place on sheet tray and stick them in the fridge for a couple of hours.
Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees. Heat a sticky (e.g. not non-stick) saute pan over medium-high heat for a couple of minutes, add a good shot of olive (or other) oil (don’t use good stuff here). Add the thighs, skin side down, and cook – rotating the pan occasionally – until well browned 6-8 minutes (watch them towards the end to make sure they don’t burn). Flip and cook another 4 minutes. Remove to a sheet tray and place in the oven.
Turn heat to medium, add a handful of minced shallots and a minced garlic clove or two. Saute for a minute. Add 1/2 cup of dry white wine and scrape the bottom of the pan to deglaze (the stuff on the bottom of the pan is called “fond” and it is tasty). Add 1/2 cup of chicken broth, a tablespoon or so of (dijon, always) mustard, and S&P to taste. Cook for 5ish minutes. You can add herbs (thyme would be good) as well. Add a tablespoon of butter and whisk to combine. Throw in some chopped parsley…or not. Up to you.
Check the temperature of the thighs – you’re shooting for 160-170 (thighs are forgiving) – and, when ready, put them on a (warm) plate and spoon some sauce over, serve.
This sauce is flexible – you can add lots of different flavorings, omit things, etc. For example, capers and lemon juice could be good. The only real “requirements” are wine (or broth) and butter.
Happy Monday everyone. Hope all had a good weekend (and that it involved cooking something good (I made carnitas – pic below) for whoever you’re currently quarantined with!) and are staying safe, healthy, and active (in some way)! Thanks for all of the positive reactions to the things I’ve been posting here, on Facebook, or on Instagram.
I’ve had a few people follow me here that I’m don’t know and/or am not connected with on a social network – that’s great. If you fall into that camp (or don’t follow me on one network or the other), here are my social media links, I post cooking videos (via the “stories” feature) and photos here:
This is an easy one. Thinly slice one red onion – cutting pole-to-pole, French-style (look it up). Put the onions into a strainer and rinse under running water for about 30 seconds (this removes some of the sulfuric compounds – the stuff that makes you cry). In a bowl mix the onions, 1/2 c each of water and cider (or white or red) vinegar), 1 T of sugar, and 1 T of Kosher salt. You can add other flavorings too – lime juice, jalapeños (or, if you’re into that sort of thing, habaneros). Put the onions in a nicely labeled container and let sit for at least 3-4 hours. You can reuse the pickling liquid a couple of times – just add more onions.
Apologies to Hellman’s, Best Foods, etc. but this is the best mayo you’ll ever have. It’s fast, easy, and you likely already have the ingredients you need.
Ingredients: 1 c olive oil (don’t use good extra virgin here, it won’t taste good. Trust me), 1 egg yolk, 1 T dijon mustard, 1 T white vinegar (or any other vinegar really…or even lemon juice), 1 T water, salt to taste
Stuff: 1 immersion blender, 1 cup to blend in the bottom of the cup needs to be about the same size as the business end of the immersion blender
Process: Place the egg yolk, mustard, vinegar, and water in the cup. Put the immersion blender in on top of the aforementioned ingredients. Pour the olive oil in. Turn the blender on and watch the mayo start to form. Gradually and slowly move the blender up and down until all of the oil is incorporated. Once fully blended and a nice thick emulsion (that’s the technical term for mixing fat and other liquids together) is formed add salt (and any other flavorings – like minced garlic). Enjoy wherever you’d use mayo (because, well, it’s mayo)!
