Sandwich

Summer Tartines

summer tarine header

If I am truthful, dear readers, this week’s post has been causing me some disquiet. (As far as food blogs are allowed to cause disquiet.)

It’s the beginning of August. Summer squash, tomatoes, corn, blueberries, and peaches are all abundant. I know this, because I have been buying and eating them in abundance.

Mostly, I prepare them in the simplest manner possible. Chopped tomatoes and corn make an excellent salad, flecked with red onion, garlic and jalapeño slivers, zipped with a touch of olive oil and red wine vinegar. Peaches need only to be sliced, added to a bowl of blueberries, and topped with maple syrup-laced yogurt. I like to add crushed Marcona almonds for crunch. Any kind of summer squash can be simmered with tomatoes, garlic, onion and eggplant to make a ratatouille that you’ll happily re-heat all week. Toss in some thyme, basil, or a bay leaf, if you happen to have them. Read more »

Lobster Salad Sandwiches

Dear reader, I had every intention of dispatching a lobster yesterday.

I wasn’t looking forward to it, for several reasons. For starters, the last time I whacked a crustacean was in culinary school. It was 110° with the stoves turned off. We were each given a silver bowl full of wriggling, mud-brown crabs, and then on went the ranges. I poured a wheel of oil into my large pot, and waited until it was nearly smoking. After a silent “excusez-moi” to my ill-fated crabs, I tipped them in.

The truth is, the smell of ten bowls-worth of little crabs in a very hot kitchen is not the finest scent in the world. I would not recommend bottling it for sale. Read more »

Maple Turkey and Duck Bacon Club

Every Sunday, I try to visit the small, varied and excellent green market in Carroll Park. It’s an easy bike ride from my apartment, and I get to sort through purple lettuces and spicy links of chorizo and dirt-flecked mushrooms. Then I pedal home and make lunch. It is my very favorite weekend activity.

This past week, I found some slender cherry blossom branches. All the buds were closed at first, but almost as soon as I put them in water, they started blooming. Now my apartment is full of little pink flowers. Despite the cold snap in New York this week, it is spring in my apartment. Read more »

Nut Butter and Jelly: Dinner and Dessert

Here is a secret, a weird, weird secret: even as a kid, I never liked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It’s true. Are you shocked? Don’t get me wrong, I get it: salty and sweet, crunchy and smooth. It all makes sense. But for some reason, I’ve always preferred my peanut butter and jelly separate.

Even despite my anti-penchant for this combination, the following two recipes have been in the works for a while, for completely ingredient driven reasons. Number one: Marcona almonds. Oh, tiny treasures from Spain! Marcona almonds are smaller, softer and creamier than the California variety, and like all good Spanish things, they usually come wrapped in the warm embrace of sea salt and olive oil.

Next, I had some wild blueberry preserves to consider. At Christmas, when the Frenchman and I were in the Pyrenees, I insisted on bringing back at least two jars. (Don’t worry; I know how obnoxious that sounds.) Read more »

Sautéed Kale, Roasted Sweet Potato and Poached Egg Holiday Toast

I entered this recipe in a “your best holiday greens recipe” contest on Food52.com, and had the following to say:

When considering holiday recipes, I try to embrace versatility. After all, holiday dining is not confined to one meal period. Equally important is the time in between the ceremonial, family luncheon—breakfast and lunch the next day, the four o’clock snack. Since the holidays almost always involve feeding more mouths than usual, I think it is essential to assess mileage as well as flavor. This toast is colorful and hearty in its own right, but it also serves the handy function of putting leftovers to good use, particularly if you make the sautéed kale and roasted sweet potatoes as side dishes for a big holiday meal. This way, you get three dishes for the price of one!

Since it is currently the end of August though, I will say a few more words to convince you that you need not wait until December to try this recipe. To me, this is kind of the ultimate autumn, brunch/late night comfort food. (Poached eggs and cheese…. need I say more?) It’s a bit more filling than what I typically crave in the summer, and I the colors also recall fall. The use of ginger and nutmeg help to place this dish firmly in the winter-is-coming category too, I think. Read more »