A Chicken In Every Granny Cart

As a kid I thought it was perfectly normal to eat tofu with chop sticks, roll galumpkies with my grandmother, steal corn from the field behind the house, apples from the orchard down the road and pick asparagus from my mom’s garden (who would also threaten to turn my pet bunny into hassenpfeffer every time he pooed in the house, (which was fair, he was a stringy old hare) but don’t worry, it never happened, Bandit lived on to torture my dog for many happy years).

But let’s be honest, we didn’t eat the good stuff everyday, there were plenty of meals featuring hot dogs and mac & cheese and stuff purchased from the Schwan’s man. But even mundane meals usually had a special touch. Mac & cheese was always served with stewed tomatoes. It was years before I found this was not a universal. Our spaghetti sauce was made by my mom and I from home grown tomatoes.

One of my favorite things to help my mom with though was making homemade tortillas. She would knead the masa and then I would take a little ball and moooooosh it between the two sides of the cast iron tortilla press. I loved this process not only because it was fun but also because it meant there was going to be one helluvan awesome dinner that night. Maybe enchiladas, or mole, or, oh my god, could it be? Posole!

Head below the jump for a bit more random ramblings and the recipe for Bistec de Casa Abuela.
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I was really looking forward to Friday night last week. Not for the reasons you’d probably think. No clubbing, no partying, actually, no, well, nothing. Yeah, the boy was going to play poker and my big plans were to cook something delicious, open a fabulous bottle of wine and sit on my butt and watch crap TV.

Doesn’t it just suck when life feels the need to mess with your plans? I was exhausted when I was finally able to leave work, it was 98% humidity, getting dark and ominously stormy. Rather than further abusing my already bruised brain, wasting time waiting in a line and lugging around heavy bags on the 2 mile walk home in the rain I decided it was time to have a little faith in my pantry.

This is what the pantry coughed up: Peas, orzo, garlic, vegeta, lemon juice, olive oil, and yes, leftover cheese (this time of the herbed goat and Parmesan varieties). Yeah, I could work with that!

I remembered being intrigued by a method of cooking pasta “risotto” style that was everywhere, but, rather than staring at a computer screen for the umpteenth hour of the day, I figured I could wing it, I mean, I can make some pretty serious risotto, how hard could it be?

The answer? Not hard at all, and insanely delicious!

I started with a glug of olive oil, some garlic (and yes, I was so tired, I used a garlic press), cooked off the rawness, added a few handfuls of orzo, cooked until they gave off a slightly nutty aroma, tossed in about a 1/4 cup lemon juice, stirred everything around just to be sure the orzos were absorbing properly and then just barely covered them with warm water, added a healthy pinch of vegeta, cranked the heat down to barely there, covered, and then headed to the wine rack to ponder my choices.

About 7 (or so) minutes later, I peeked under the lid, decided the little guys needed a stir and some more liquid and some peas. In they all went, on went the lid and I went back to contemplating my toes (there was noooothing on TV). Two more minutes, one final stir.

Goat cheese goes in bowl, orzo goes on top of cheese, more cheese goes on top of orzo, stir, sit down, relax, forget the day ever happened, watch Pride & Prejudice.

Yes, what started off an ominous evening was saved by leftover cheese and Mr. Darcy. Thank you Jane Austen!

People who love food can have some pretty serious shopping quirks. Some, like lobstersquad, are just not to be trusted around kitchen gadgets. I am not to be trusted around condiments. And the boy? He is not to be trusted around cheese. He'll stand in line (which is something he hates more than, well, anything) just to get the perfect mozzarella. He'll indulge my traveling whims just to see the exotic cheese.

But one of the problems with this obsession is the leftovers. (Yeah, right, as if having leftover cheese could ever really be considered a problem!) Some people can get truly crafty with leftover bread, me? I can resuscitate any slightly past its prime cheese.

There was the most delicious pizza.

The most decadent cauliflower ever.

And more cauliflower (this time with peas and pasta).

Trust me, there have been more leftover cheese meals chez Granny Cart, but I didn't write them up for fear that you guys might OD on cheese. No one wants their friends to die of a cheese OD! But this latest recipe, oh yes, this one, this one I had to put in front of you guys. It could not possibly be simpler. It could not possibly be more decadent or delicious or sexy or perfect or amazing. This recipe (if I even dare call it a recipe) could have only one possible name… In large, booming fight-announcer voice:

Pillllllllloooows Ooooooooooooooooooooooof Loooooooooooooooooooooove!

Yes people, pillows of love.

And what are these sexy little packets of joy?

Nothing more than chunks of the very best fresh mozzarella, wrapped in wonton wrappers and boiled for a few minutes just until the outside is all moist, oozing and gooey and the inside of the cheese is still slightly cool and toothsome.

I'm drooling just thinking about them again…

Store bought wonton wrappers are much silkier than homemade ravioli wrappers, and are only say, about 10,000 times easier to use!

Since it was ungodly hot the day I finally got around to making these little pockets of joy, I prepared a very simple salsa crudo, topped with some toasted pine nuts, and, just to gild the lily, some grated Parmesan cheese. It was too much.

What would have been perfect? The world's simplest marinara. Or maybe butter (browned with sage, or just the best you can find). Or, oh man, some of the truffle pate (brought back from Croatia) I have stored in the fridge with a wee glug of olive oil. Doh! Why didn't I think of that before?!? Ha, oh well, I guess I'll just have to make them again.

Life is rough…

My friend V likes to refer to herself as Queen V as she shares the name of one of England's famous rulers. I too share a name with a former Queen of England (she of the lace) but, well, V got there first, so, I have to make do with sharing my nickname with a comic strip and musical heroine. Sigh. No matter though since every woman is Queen of her domain, it doesn't really matter who gets the cooler nickname… I mean, that's so junior high!

As I've mentioned before, QV has quite the way with all things piscine. While we were all up in Vermont, she introduced me to her wonderful tuna pasta salad. Now, if you're anything like the boy, you're sitting there thinking to yourself, "There is NOTHING wonderful about tuna salad." And, you'd have every right to say that. It seems a lot of people had very early, truly traumatizing run ins with tuna in childhood. But, if you like say, tuna melts, or even salad nicoise, please give this salad (or your own variation) a spin. It's easy as heck, light, healthy and darn tootin' tasty.

As I was telling QV I had made her salad she sorta looked blankly at me and said "That's not my salad anymore, that's your salad now!" So, now I hand it off to all of you, to make it your salad (feel free to keep calling it the Queens' Salad however).

Head below the jump to find out how to make the Queens' Salad.

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Hello everyone, happy Monday! I’d like to introduce a new editorial feature today that I’m hoping will become at least a monthly, if not more frequent, feature. heirloom·modern is a way to resurrect forgotten recipes and give them a new lease on life. First up a cold summer soup from the Seventies.

Giorgio Sant’Angelo’s Cold Tomato And Lemon Soup

(Adapted from Food In Vogue by Maxime de la Falaise)

A few months back I picked up this book at The Strand . I thought it was cool, but I never really took it seriously until this weekend. Published in 1980 (back when Vogue had good food writers other than Jeffrey Steingarten) but containing recipes that go back to the ’40s it is broken down into two categories; recipes and menus that were features in the magazine, and a collection of surprisingly good recipes from celebrities (including a wonderful recipe for poulet a l’estragon from Jacqueline Onassis that will just have to wait until the weather is cool again).

This recipe comes from a menu created by the fashion designer Giorgio Sant’Angelo (apparently he was a favorite of Diana Vreeland) that showcases the flavors and aromas of lemons. The recipe as it was printed is barely a recipe. There’s ingredients that never get used, no measurements and steps that should be eliminated (as well as a few ingredients I felt should be added). If ever there was a recipe that needed (and deserved) a makeover, this was it.

What I came up with was easy, cooling and delicious, perfect for the first truly hot summer weekend in NYC. If I were to make this again there are four changes I would make. 1. I would add a rib or two of celery for sweetness. 2. I would make this only when I’m sure the onion I’ve just purchased that was marked “Vidalia” was in fact a vidalia. 3. I would use thai or lemon basil in place of the parsley as a garnish. And 4. I would eliminate the ice cubes completely.

I served this with a charcuterie plate and a lovely South African Chenin Blanc. Actually, at first the wine wasn’t so lovely, but the minute you tasted it after tasting the soup, the entire flavor profile of the wine changed dramatically. It mellowed and became almost buttery sweet. A wonderfully pleasant and surprising pairing.

Head below the jump for my version of this delicious summer soup.
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I've been told I talk about how small my kitchen is from time to time, and yet, I've never really provided any evidence to support my claims. So, since I haven't made a thing besides a wonderful bruschetta topping in two weeks, I figured it was time to invite everyone into my humble culinary arena.

Over there to the left is the super finicky refrigerator. It just can't stop freezing stuff in the chilling part and frosting over in the freezer part. It's decrepit and ancient, has lost one of its handles, likes to create a vacuum so you have to pull really hard to get it open and has the most useless produce tray in the world, yet, it keeps my food happy, which makes me happy. Also of note, the Little Green Sprout clock on top of the fridge, the boy's Yankees World Series tickets from 2001 and the super cool hand towels I inherited from my grandmother.

Heading over to your right is the ever so exciting sink. Also worth pointing out is the strip of counter-space next to the sink. For some perspective, that counter "space" is 6 inches wide. Yes folks, my counter is smaller than the keyboard I'm typing on right now! To give myself some wiggle room I have a rather large Epicurean Cutting Board that extends the space over the sink (handy for pushing scraps off!). (By the way, how gorgeous is that Le Creuset tea pot?) I'm not sure how easy it is to tell how small the stove/oven are, but trust me, they are tiny. Hopefully from the picture to the left you can also tell how little space there is between the oven and the "stuff" table. It's very tight!

Still on your right you'll find our miscellaneous area of stuff. It's not 100% organized, but it gets better every day. The pink hanging thing is an expandable plastic shopping bag that we use for storing bread (which never lasts long). To the right is another hanging thing, this time a handwoven garlic and onion basket from the Shaker Heritage Society where my mom volunteers. My favorite small kitchen multi-tasker also lives on this wall… The immersion blender. It purees, it whisks, and most importantly, it acts as a small Cuisinart that doesn't have a hole in the bottom and is perfect for throwing together small impromptu batches of pesto for two.

Finally, we've come full circle, past the bedroom and back to the fridge. That funny red thing there is a veggie and fruit scrubby. You can either wear it as a glove or pop your vege into it and wash them under water. It's absolutely brilliant for little tomatoes and wee potatoes. I've also got a truffle slicer that my step-sister gave me for Christmas one year. As you may be able to guess, I've never used it for truffles, but it is brilliant for making insanely thin slices of garlic for sauces and salads.

Well, I hope you've enjoyed this little tour, at least the next time I complain about space, you can now understand why! I promise I'll be back with more recipes and fun over the weekend.

Cheers!

I love barbecue, I mean, really, who doesn't? And in the past, I've loved Danny Meyer's porcine party, the Big Apple BBQ weekend. Despite the 'cue queues, I've always felt satisfied and happy after scarfing down brisket, sausages, and even last year, pig snouts. But this year, things didn't go so well.

Last year I got to Madison Square Park early, like 10.30, found my favorite pitmaster (Michael Rodriguez of The Salt Lick BBQ) got in his line and had my brisket and sausages within 5 minutes of the opening bell at noon (I even kinda got on tv!) I then jumped in another line while eating my delectable 'cue and had a second round, this time of pulled pork, before 1pm.

This year though I couldn't follow through on this perfect plan. I came down with a sinus infection last Sunday night and suffered all week, unable to take a day off from work for various crappy reasons, so on Saturday morning, I was knackered. It took two World Cup matches to levitate me from the couch and motivate my feet towards 23rd Street.

I got to the park and scoped out the lines. Salt Lick was way too long, even Dinosaur was a bit long, so I settled on Brisket and Sausage (are we sensing a theme here?) from Southside Market & BBQ. Being alone and iPod-less I was forced to listen to the conversations of the two tools behind me. Sample? Sure:

Tweedletool 1: So, I consider myself a total barbecue epicure.

Tweedletool 2: Really? What's your favorite place in New York then?

Tweedletool 1: ummmm… I'd say Brother Jimmy's.

*new scene*

Tweedletool 1: You know what's surprising about this event?

Tweedletool 2: What's that?

Tweedletool 1: That there's so many people outside New York that are SO into barbecue!

Sigh, yeah, for 45 minutes I had to listen to these two tools that would probably take offense if I called them frat boys, because, actually, they prefer the word fraternity and we graduated from Columbia three years ago (I'm just guessing at that fact).

Finally, I was about about to make the turn onto the last leg of the line where you pay for the food and then pick it up. At this turn was a man that, when I and my friends were about the same age as the Tweedletools would have called an SOS/TIG*, aka, a yuppie. He grabbed my arm when I ended up next to him and shoved $50 at my face. "Please, will you buy 2 portions for my buddy and me? You can keep the change."

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?? Hello, Eater? Yeah, hi, um, yeah, just wanted to let you know that you were correct about corruption in Madison Square Park. You just had the venue wrong…

Anyway, back to our story. With jaw agape, I turned to the guy and said something to the effect of "Are you f*cking kidding me??" SOS/TIG "What, is $50 not enough, here, have another twenty." Me "Seriously dude, go f*cking stand on line like the rest of us."

I am proud to say that he tried this on about 4 or 5 other people and, to a man and woman, my fellow New Yorkers all told him to go shove it. He ended up slinking off into the throngs with his tail between his legs to be replaced quickly by a younger version of himself. Man, sometimes I hate these hedgefund guys…

Back to the food: I got my brisket and Elgin sausage and headed for another line to wait and eat simultaneously. The brisket was fatty and gummy and barely edible. The sausage was really very, very yummy, but the best part? Seriously, it was the luscious slice of potato bread soaked in barbecue sauce and hot sauce onto which I dumped the cole slaw. Seriously, heaven.

The line I ended up in was very exciting to me. It was Mitchell's BBQ from North Carolina, and they were doing the whole hog. And I mean the WHOLE hog. They had smoker after smoker lined up next to their serving tent each with a full grown pig cooking away later to be chopped up and served on bread with some vinegar based barbecue sauce and mustard cole slaw. Or, at least, that's what I'm told they were serving because, well, I never got any.

Yeah, this is where it gets ugly.

I stood in line happily chomping away and playing with my new cellphone. Finally, I got to a place in a line where I could watch the proceedings. It was fascinating! They would pull a whole hog off the smoker, pull out all the big bones, put the ribs in a plastic bin and hand that to a girl who methodically pulled the meat off and handed it off for sandwich making.

As soon as the pitmasters got all the big bones out of the hog, they'd start shredding the meat by hand, looking for little bones and connective tissue (I'm assuming) and then eventually passing it over to another table where big cleavers chopped the meat into smokey porcine love. Or at least, that's what I imagine it tasted like (because I never got any).

At last, I was there, after an hour and half of waiting, I paid, and I was next on line. I was watching the woman pitmaster pulling apart the fresh hog they had just pulled off a smoker. I was watching the "VIPs" on the other side of the tent (those that paid tons of extra money for their "Bubba FastPasses") being served sandwich after sandwich. My mouth was watering, my eyes were fixed on the mistress of the hog. I was concocting a strategy (bbq sauce on the meat and then the slaw on the meat, a dash more sauce on the top of the bun, smoosh it all together and chow down) when to my horrified eyes, the woman pushed all the hog meat into a bin, topped it with the pig's skin, turned around flailed her arms in the no more signal and shouted out "The pig was bad, grubs over."

Noooooooooooooooo! I was so close! There was one person in front of me! This caused chaos on the line, but even more so on the VIP line. As Gothamist pointed out, the lemonade "spiked" with Skyy Citron vodka was flowing freely, and the guy at the head of the VIP line had definitely consumed his share of it. He started harassing the girl handing out the meat, he started pulling ribs out of the plastic bin and handing them to people to chew on and then throw at people on the line and behind the counter, he and his friends started grabbing whatever they could, coleslaw, sauce, etc, playing with it and tossing it around and then they started pouring some of said lemondade concotion on the table (I think if they could have pissed on the table they would have). They began yelling. This finally got the attention of the pitmaster, Mr. Mitchell (who is a very large man). He came over and said a few words to our new favorite idiot of the day and he kind of calmed down, that is until the subject of getting his money back got into his head which set him off again. Oy vey. Luckily by this time I had been given my money back and I was able to finally leave the hell hole known as Madison Square Park.

I felt so cheated having wasted almost two hours by this point standing on line and getting nothing for it. I don't know how they can fix this event, but it definitely needs fixing. I know they want to keep this as an event for the people, but the lines are so long that people get really cranky. Maybe there needs to be timed tickets (like they do for big museum exhibitions). Maybe they need to jack the price up, or make it one price, not $7 per dish. I don't know, but I really hope they bring in some logistics people before next year because I've lost my fervor.

*an SOS/TIG is something that my friends and I called yuppies back when we were too ignorant to know that we were heading straight towards yuppie-hood ourselves. A TIG is a Tucked In Guy, a nod to the art of tucking in one's pink polo shirt. An SOS is a Sweater Over Shoulders. This was generally used for women only, especially those that artfully tied their Ralph Lauren cardigans over their Lilly Pulitzer shells, but every now and then, you see an SOS guy. It's rare, but it happens. However, even rarer than an SOS guy is a TIG/SOS. It's kind of like spotting Nessie.

Saturday, despite the torrential downpours, was Greenmarket day. Perhaps it was the wet atmosphere, but I decided it was fish day too. I cruised by the fish stand that's usually sold out of everything by the time I arrive, but because of the rain (I guess) they had nearly everything still! I settled on some bluefish and 2 dozen little neck clams.

I had no idea what I was going to do with my piscine pretties, so I just wandered around and bought stuff that looked appealing. Green tomatoes. Itty bitty teeny weeny red, white and blue new potatoes. Green garlic. Green onions. Streaky, streaky bacon.

As I was scurrying about, dodging tourists, puppies and raindrops, I ran into the boy's sister. She's here for the summer doing an internship at Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Her dorm is right on Union Square, so I guess I better get used to running into here while provisioning! But the thing about running into the little sister of your boyfriend who's here in the most expensive city doing an internship for the summer while you're buying stuff for a yumtastic dinner is that, well, you kinda have to ask her over to join in on the festivities (no matter how small your apartment is).

The boy was the one that made the official offer and asked if it was cool, and well, yes, it actually was totally cool because I had forgotten two key elements for dinner: 1. lemons and 2. white wine. She came over, she surfed the web, we laughed, drank some wine I realised I needed some canned corn. So off the boy went to the bodega while I tried to get the clams to purge their sand.

Finally I had everything I needed. I popped the vege into the oven to roast. Pulled it out, added the clams and bacon wrapped fish. Pulled that out and marveled at it's indoors clam bake-y goodness!

The only bummer about this dinner is that the very next day I popped over to visit Megnut's site (after meeting her at a lovely do held by Sam of Becks & Posh), and *whamo* see this post. Apparently it's NOT okay to eat bluefish. Like, at all. Never. Bluefish are BAD for you. Full of PCBs, mercury and pesticides. To the point where the good folks at Oceans Alive say that even one serving a month is not recommended. *siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh* Bluefish is a much maligned fish. It's stinky, it's oily, but I love it. I guess I'll have to find a new "trash" fish to love. Maybe mackerel (stupid Times Select) will be my new go to fish.

Clams are the most beautiful, tasty bivalve out there (or maybe it's just me). Either way, head below the clams for the recipe for the rainy day indoor clam bake (minus the bluefish).

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Friends

After 6 1/2 hours in a car with three other people and two dogs, I was really questioning if having friends that have a second home in Vermont was a boon rather than a bane. Luckily, after some wine, some sleep and a good breakfast, it became abundantly clear that yes, driving nearly to Canada was indeed a good way to spend Memorial Day weekend.

Cooking with (and for) friends

Sometime after midnight I was reminded that I had gifted said friends with a pasta maker for their engagement party and that, in the card, I had stated that I would come over and give a lesson on how to make pasta. This of course, was a challenge, so, while everyone else sat around in the sun sipping cocktails and getting tan, I hunkered down in the kitchen (with a cocktail, natch) and made ravioili fillings and fresh pasta. (Recipes for the fillings after the break.) To say this was labor intensive would be to belittle the art of making pasta. It was Herculean. I did have tons of help of course and they came out perfect, so the effort was 100% worth it.

Hiking (with dogs)

Sunday was lambie day which meant it was time for the boys (ahem, I mean men) to do their thing and play with fire and provide sustenance so we ladies gathered up the dogs and headed out for a hike. When our hostess told us she knew of a nice trail to hike up, we were all excited. Little did we know that she didn't mean a hiking trail, she meant a ski trail. Yep, straight up the mountain. It was a little rough, but at least we really earned our feast!

Lamb, cooked over an open fire

Yes, vegetarians beware, that is a wee baby lambie, on a closet rod that was slowly cooked for hours over an open pit fire. Since the men probably would have been happy just gnawing the meat off the bones, we ladies decided to throw together some sides: mint pesto, garlic aioli, truffled mac & cheese, salad and various vegetables cooked directly in the coals. My favorite contribution to the meal was my mother's famous salt potatoes. She says it's traditional Syracuse clam bake fare. All my friends laugh when they hear the term "Syracuse clam bake." No matter where they come from, they're delicious. Tiny little new potatoes, cooked in such salty water that when they're removed and cooled the salt coats their skins, served with melted butter. Heaven.

Dogs

Swimming holes

Three day weekends

Head below the break for the recipe for "Perfect" Beef Ravioli and Asparagus & Ricotta Ravioli. Read the rest of this entry »