A Hungry Bear

braised radishes

I’ve been getting a lot of radishes in my CSA box - sometimes 2 big bunches per week. There’s no way I could eat them all if I only sliced them fresh for salads, so I had to do some research to find a way to use them up. I was skeptical when I read a recipe on The Kitchn that said radishes could be almost sweet and caramelized when braised in a little balsamic vinegar, but they were right.

Ingredients: 1 pound radishes, 4 shallots, 1 Tablespoon butter, 2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup chopped parsley. (more…)

gnocchi with sage cream sauce

Gnocchi may take a lot of work to prepare, but fortunately they are served best with the simplest of cream-based sauces. This would also work well with any type of pasta, if you’re feeling indulgent.

Adapted from Epicurious.

Ingredients: 12 ounces gnocchi (frozen), 5-6 minced sage leaves, 2-3 shallots, handful of chopped walnuts, 2 Tablespoons butter, 2/3 cup heavy cream, 3/4 cup white wine. (more…)

gnocchi

I love going to Las Vegas for UFC fights.  When I’m there, I usually try out a new steakhouse (in my ongoing quest to find the best steak in the world - an indulgent life goal). So far, I haven’t found a steak any better than Bone’s right here in Atlanta. But, the most memorable dish of all of the places I’ve tried in Vegas was the gnocchi side at n9ne steakhouse. The server actually described them as “pillows of love” - my boyfriend and I laughed at what we thought was his dramatic overstatement, but we still ordered them. And they really were the lightest, smoothest, melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi I’ve ever tried - by far overshadowing everything else at the table. I doubt if my homemade version will ever be that good, but after reading many articles and tips on gnocchi, I think I’m on the right track.

This makes about 24 ounces gnocchi, or 4-6 servings. I froze them in 2 12-ounce batches.  Adapted mainly from Lidia Bastianich’s Lidia’s Italy and Thomas Keller’s The French Laundry Cookbook.

Ingredients: 2 large russet potatoes (2 pounds total), 2 cups flour, 1 egg, 1 Tablespoon kosher salt, pinch each ground white pepper and nutmeg. Special equipment: potato ricer; pastry scraper.

Bake the potatoes in a 350 degree oven for an hour, or until they are done (fork tender). Fluff tip #1: use a towel to handle the potatoes while they’re still hot - the hotter they are when you rice them, the lighter the gnocchi will be. (more…)

roasted cauliflower with kalamata vinaigrette

I associate cauliflower with pre-packaged veggie trays and ranch-flavored dip. Other than the one time I tried a recipe that mixed it into a mac-and-cheese dish, I never think about eating it. So it really caught my attention when I saw it in Gourmet magazine, adorned with a little bit of chopped olives but otherwise just - cauliflower. Could roasting it really transform it all that much, from vehicle of sour-cream-dip to an actual side dish that could stand on its own? Surprisingly, yes. Tender on the inside, with a crisp blistery outside - and the salty, slightly tangy dressing complements without taking away from the flavor.

Ingredients: 1 head cauliflower, olive oil, 1 garlic clove, juice from 1 lemon, 1/4 cup pitted kalamata olives. (more…)

stir fry bok choy with ginger and garlic

You might have noticed the greens peeking out under the steak I posted yesterday. They were a perfect complement to the steak, since it lent some extra ginger garlic sauce for dipping the meat into. This dish could also work with a little rice and maybe some simple grilled salmon. I found the recipe on our CSA farmer’s blog.

Grocery list: 1 head bok choy (also called pak choi), 1-2 cloves garlic, 1 teaspoon minced ginger, 1.5 Tablespoons soy sauce, 1 Tablespoon peanut oil. (more…)

green bean salad with prosciutto and radishes

This is a great way to mix up your standard green bean side dish - toss with a red wine vinaigrette and thin slices of prosciuotto, radishes and shaved Parmesan. The green beans are cooked in boiling water first, so the salad can be served warm.

Adapted from June 2009 Bon Appetit.

Ingredients: one pound of fresh green beans, 3 radishes, 2-3 ounces thinly sliced prosciutto, a hunk of Parmesan (you’ll shave off about 1-2 ounces), 1 teaspoon dijon mustard, 2 Tablespoons red wine vinegar, 1/4 cup olive oil, 5-6 fresh basil leaves. (more…)

eggplant, olive and sopressata pizza

Eggplant, when grilled or roasted, can be smoky, meaty and garlicky. When you combine it with salty sopressata, gooey provolone cheese, and briny green olives, you have a really great pizza. I adapted this from the original in August 2009 Gourmet - they provide instructions for how to grill the pizza outdoors if you don’t want to heat up the kitchen.

And if you’re still not sold on the idea of eggplant on pizza, let’s have another shot of the whole pie:

Ingredients: 3 garlic cloves, 1/3 cup olive oil, 6 small Japanese eggplants (about one pound), 3-4 ounce hunk of sopressata, 5-6 ounces provolone cheese, 12 large green olives, 1/4 cup chopped parsley, 1 pound prepared pizza dough. (more…)

grilled okra

The farmer who delivers our CSA share has his own blog, and every week they post a recipe grid with ideas for cooking almost everything in the box. This one is deceptively simple - with so few ingredients, you might not realize that this is the perfect way to cook okra.

Ingredients: okra, olive oil, salt, pepper, cayenne, and a lemon. (more…)

summer vegetables with chili garlic sauce and deep-fried tofu

I know this post is a pretty big departure from the normal meat and potatoes (or meat and pasta) focus of my usual recipes. For whatever reason, maybe some residual effect of seeing Food Inc, I’ve just felt a little more conscious of our meat consumption lately. Nothing extreme, just realizing that I could eat a veg meal once a day and it’s not going to kill me (or weaken my muscles - ahem, power-squatting boyfriend!). And when that a meat-free meal comes along that presents crispy deep-fried goodness with a sweet and spicy sauce - AND a way to use up some of our weekly vegetable share - I just have to share it with you. A was skeptical at first, until he saw the protein content on the label, then he confessed to liking it.

I found this delicious recipe from the Book of Yum blog, and adapted it to include some stir-fried vegetables.

Ingredients: peanut or canola oil for frying, 1 package firm or extra-firm tofu, 1 Tablespoon cornstarch (plus more for dusting), 1/2 an onion, handful of fresh white or crimini mushrooms, 1 summer squash, 2-3 small eggplants, handful of string beans, 1.5 cups chicken stock (to make this truly veg you’d have to use veg stock of course!), 2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar, 2 teaspoons chili sauce, 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil, 1 tablespoon soy, 1 teaspoon maple syrup, pickled ginger and sesame seeds to serve.

You should have heard the groan from A when I brought this out of the fridge. You would have thought I was trying to poison him. (more…)

focaccia flatbread

I’m on a quest to make some focaccia reubens I saw in a magazine recently. Of course it would be easier if I bought some from the Whole Foods bakery, but that would be to easy - and it takes a way a chance to try one more recipe from Rose Levy Berenbaum’s The Bread Bible. She has several more traditional focaccia recipes, where you’d layer in herbs and the bread would come out fluffy and thick. I actually wanted a thinner, more flatbread style, to use for sandwiches, so I opted to follow her recipe for Grilled Focaccia - which can be made in an oven too, for those of us whose grills can’t be trusted.

Ingredients (for two flatbreads, enough for 4 sandwiches): 8 ounces flour (1.5 cups plus 2 tablespoons), 1 teaspoon instant yeast, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 5.5 ounces water (2/3 cup), 1.2 ounces olive oil (2-3 tablespoons), fresh rosemary needles (optional), salt, pepper.

Start by whisking the flour, yeast and sugar together. Then, sprinkle on the salt (if you add the salt first, before distributing the yeast, it can kill the yeast all at once). Stir in the water until it just barely comes together in dough form, about 20-30 seconds. Pour the oil into a 4 cup measuring cup, then transfer the dough to the cup. Flip it over to coat with oil. Allow it to sit at room temperature for 1-1.5 hours until it doubles in volume. (more…)