I’ve been trying to recall where I first ate grilled romaine. I remember the salad itself, and my surprise and delight at the preparation. It was a Caesar salad, bright with lemon and smoky from the grill, a little shriveled and blackened on the ends. I think it was at the brilliant – and sadly…
Chipotle Chicken Salad Tacos
I’ve been saving this recipe for you. It’s an old favorite that I’d forgotten about and hadn’t made it in a few years. Back in March, though, I found myself with a small head of Napa cabbage and half a rotisserie chicken, and my memory was jogged. “Those chipotle chicken salad tacos were awesome,” I…
Thai Tomato Soup
On Saturday I helped to host a meeting, one of a series that has been going on for a while. They’re quarterly, and long, so we decided to include lunch. It was a fantastic decision. People love to be fed – especially real, homemade food. To easily accommodate a varying number of participants, we usually…
Moo Shu Pork with Vegetables
Cravings often come on hard and fast. Sometimes you don’t even know where they came from. I know right where last week’s craving for mu shu pork came from, though; I opened my bag of extras from the Los Poblanos CSA and spotted the package of Leona’s tortillas from Chimayo, NM. Something about their nonuniform shape,…
Creamy Baked Ziti with Cottage Cheese and Tomato Sauce
Baked pasta is incredibly appealing, especially on chilly winter evenings. Yielding pasta, tangy tomato sauce, creamy cheese, chewy brown edges – what’s not to love? Unfortunately, baked pasta often fails to live up to its Platonic ideal. The pasta overbakes to mush, or comes out dry and unappealing; the ricotta layer that should give such…
Spanakopasta: Spaghetti with Spinach and Feta
Last week I bought the new, revised edition of How to Cook Everything. I had actually forgotten there was a revision until I ordered it – I just think that once your paperback copy of a book has fallen into three or more pieces, it’s time to invest in the hardcover. I was reading the…
German Pork Stew with Mustard
As a transplant from Illinois, I am often somewhat taken aback by this time of year in New Mexico. I spend the late summer months craving the chill evenings of all, the time of year for stewing and braising and roasting. Instead, as often as not mid-December rolls around and it’s still shirtsleeve weather –…
Yaki-Soba: Japanese Stir-Fried Noodles
Yaki-soba is one of those essentially simple, endlessly flexible dishes, perfect for times when the cupboard is relatively bare and you have some odds and ends to use up. Today I made it as an unusual destination for Thanksgiving leftovers, using chunks of turkey. It would be great for those days when you’re sick of…
Mussels with Chinese Black Bean Sauce
I love Chinese black bean sauce. I love mussels. And the first time I heard about this combination (thank you, Hanne Blank!), I knew it would be brilliant. The salty, pungent earthiness of the fermented black beans and the heat of the chile against the plump, slick, sweet, briny mussels – this was something I…
Potato and Sunchoke Gratin with Leeks
This light, elegant gratin is perfect for spring. The oven-baked gratin form acknowledges still-chilly spring evenings; the delicate flavor of leeks and sunchokes evokes visions of the first green shoots of spring. Sunchokes, also known as Jerusalem artichokes, are the tubers of a flower that looks like a small sunflower. They are dug in the…