All posts in Snackin, Salads and Apps

By Jessica | August 29, 2008 | Restaurants, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 1 Comment

I wish I was Anthony Bourdain. What a friggin bullshiv life. Getting paid and being famous for traveling and eating shiv you wouldn’t. Well, I would. I’ve always prided myself on my non-judgmental stomach. Hard as steel I’ve always said. Well folks. I found my limit. And who woulda thunk it – it turns out to be a common bar food: Pickled Pig Feet. Vom. It seriously looks and tastes like raw grizzly meat with some salad dressing on it. If you have the cohones, try some. Send me a pic of it. I’ll make you famous by posting on More Meat.

By Jessica | August 21, 2008 | Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 2 Comments

Our favorite fancy friends like doing fancy things. That’s cool. R and I like fancy too. We went to Saul. I hated the teeny tiny portions but I loved loved the canape of Chilled Cucumber Soup. Now, in the past I have been known to say that cucumbers are a waste of stomach space. But mush them shivs up, add some cream and salt and you got yourself a winner. I found a good ol recipe and threw it together. Check yourself:

4 major cucumbers (like, the kind that make you feel embarrassed a little), peeled, seeded, chopped
1 clove of garlic
1 cup of milk
1 cup of sour cream
1/2 cup of fresh mint, minced
1/2 cup of fresh dill, minced
1/2 cup of fresh flat leaf parsley, minced
cayenne to taste
sliced scallions for garnish

First things first, get a handle on your cuke. (giggle. remember the eggplants?)

Next, mash your garlic into half the salt creating a paste on the cutting board with a knife. This is real fun and easy to do and makes you feel like michael chiarello. When all your stuff is chopped, toss everything into a blender (you may have to do batches, so dole out the liquids accordingly) and pulse till you get a smooth consistency. When blended all nice, put into covered bowl and refrigerate for an hour. Serve with scallion and spoon. Eat and feel healthy. Dont try to make out cause your bref be all garlicy.

By Jessica | August 12, 2008 | Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 1 Comment

So basically, I improvised on some homemade baba ghanoush and I failed like above. R and I toured Lawn Guyland a few days ago and stopping at farm stands was a priority. I found these perverted looking asian eggplants so I had to have them. Making the baba was an afterthought. Shoulda been a neverthought.

So, basically, I did all the things you would think was right. I swathed in olive oil, a roasted with mo garlic, and when charred, I scooped out the silky/stringy insides and mashed the hell out of it. Don’t quite have a food processor yet, so I was going for a country look (ugly look). But then, cause I have no self control, I kept adding stuff. And the more I added, the worse it got. Into the baba went salt, pepper, cumin (all good so far), but then I added my weight in lemon. And in the end, an entire bulb of garlic turned out to be way too much for two tiny peeny eggplants.

I toasted some delish bread and dumped some of the baba on the crostini, and topped with pickled roasted red pepper (the best part, by far), served, and watched R out the corner of my eye to see him gag.

What I do wrong, yo?

By Jessica | August 1, 2008 | Main Courses, Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | No comments

Ever since our first day at the beach of 08, I have been going through a Mussel phase. It’s kinda gross, I know. It’s like visiting a farm and seeing cows and then going through a steak phase. What can I say? I go to the beach > I smell fish and see Mussels > I want to cook and eat them > fat ass.

R found this recipe from Bitman I believe. So, I took the same, classic ingredients and did the same. This might be the easiest, cheapest and most impressive meal we do.

Oh, it is imperative that you couple your mussels with a good bread. I’m talking, go to the bakery and get a country loaf. You can do fries too, but who the hell wants to do that in the summer. Here we go.

Steamed Mussels with Garlic and White Wine

2 healthy servings of fresh, live mussels
white onions, chopped
garlic, lots, sliced thick
3 vine tomatoes, chopped (or, half vine and half beef steak, if you want to spend less)
1 cup of white wine
1/2 cup of broth, chicken or veggie
olive oil and butter
salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil and butter in a large pot. When the butter is melted, toss in onion. A minute later, add garlic. Salt. Can be a bit oily here, which will be less so as you add more stuff. When the onion and garlic is cooked, add chopped tomato, salt a bit more, and cover.

When the tomatoes have liquefied a bit, add wine and broth (which would have been sitting out so it isn’t so cold) and cover for another sec to bring back the heat. Add the mussels which have been rinsed. Stir and cover immediately. Cook for 4 minutes.

Serve in a large and deep bowl with mo bread, crisp white wine and another bowl for your discarded shells.

Tell me this ain’t fancy as hell.

By Jessica | July 14, 2008 | Projects, Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | 1 Comment

It was time to clean out the kitchen and do something with those leftovers. But as usual, I went overboard and ended up cooking all sorts of things to supplement my meal. In the end, B and I ate, what we have come to refer to as, A Little Bit of This and A Little Bit of That. Including, sesame broccoli, sauteed swiss chard with garlic and lemon, heart of palm salad with sausage, and a heart of palm and swish chard dip. I also served goose liver country pate (shut up), marinated mushrooms, pickled curried tomatoes, corn tortilla chips and country sour dough bread. Obvi, there are repetitions of ingredients here, this is because I wanted to play as much as I could. Check the recipes below. They are in the order of what I enjoyed best.

Read on and cook on…

Sauteed Swiss Chard

1 half bunch of of thoroughly washed swiss card
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
fresh lemon juice
olive oil
salt

Toss olive oil into a large sauce pan. Add heat. Throw in garlic and swiss chard. Give a little stir. Add a bit more olive oil on top of the swiss chard. Cover and let wilt. Once wilted, remove cover, stir well. Cook until the stems are chewable. Just a cut a piece and try it. Remove swiss chard from pot, put in serving bowl, and salt and lemon juice to taste. I, of course, add a ton of juice.

The inspiration for this dip came from your traditional artichoke and spinach dip. Thought I would just funk it up a bit and see what happens. I thought it was great, B thought it could use some salt. Try how you like.

Heart of Palm and Swiss Chard Dip

1/2 can of heart of palm, drained and finely chopped
half bunch of heart of palm, steamed
3 heaping spoonfuls of ricotta cheese

After the swiss chard is steamed, squeeze really well so that the loose liquid drains. Chop finely and add to mixing bowl with heart of palm. Add ricotta cheese and mix well. Serve with tortilla chips or bread.

This also is an easy one…

Sesame Broccoli

broccoli, how ever much you want to eat, cut small and steamed
sesame oil, hot or not
cayenne pepper
sesame seeds
salt

After the broccoli is just steamed, meaning, it has some firmness to it still, remove from steamer and let cool. Add sesame oil, and garnish with sesame seeds, salt and cayenne pepper. It’s hard for me to tell you how much cayenne to use cause I’m a freak about spice, so use your best judgment. Just know that most people find it pretty hot, so a slight sprinkling should do it. Serve at room temp. I didn’t add it this time, but some soy sauce might be a good addition to this salad.

I actually found this salad to be a little odd, but B loved it. But then again, you put some sausage in his face and he’s pretty much just going to like it. Fine… me too.

Heart of Palm Salad with Sausage

1/2 can of heart of palm, drained and sliced
1/2 cup of dried Italian Sausage, cubed
handful of fresh flat leafed parsley, chopped

So, since everything that you buy here is prepared already, this is the easiest thing to make. Just assemble the three ingredients, and shiv, you got yourself a salad. By the way, I thought about adding lemon (duh) but doubled back when I thought about the mix with the sausage. Dunno, what do you think? Try it and let me know? Also, I used a spicy dried sausage, but feel free to use a sweet, or even a chorizo. Ooh, that’s what I shoulda done…

Here is what else I added to the schmorgas (say it our loud, you know you want to):

Pickled Curried Tomatoes: By the way, these bad boys came from Rick’s Picks. Def check them out cause their creative blends will make you popular at a bbq.

Pickled Mushrooms: These shrooms came from a whole different pickler (yes, so trendy right now) in the farmer’s market. I can’t for the life of me remember their name. Dr Pickle, Dr Pickler, Mr.Pickleman. If you know, lemme know so I can give credit where credit is due, cause, damn, these were good. (My mouth is literally watering as I type this.)

Fancy Bread: And finally, some damn good bread B brought home. (By the way, he ate that whole bowl.)

And that’s it folks. But, I’m not going to lie to you. Not all of this was from my cupboards. It all started with the broccoli going yellow. I bought almost everything else. The pate we had, the pickles we just always have, but the swiss chard, sausage, heart of palm, parsley, bread, was all bought for this meal. It’s just that I get so carried away and excited when I get to not only cook, but cook like, 6 different things. Also, you’ll notice I didn’t feature the pate. Mostly cause I feel shame. :(

Anyway.

By Jessica | July 6, 2008 | Projects, Recipes, Snackin, Salads and Apps | No comments

Since R and I spent all our money last week on a new flat screen that we don’t need, we decided on a rainy afternoon to return home to watch a rented movie instead of go to a matinée. That’s good for me anyhow cause you know it means a cooking project at home.

Sahadis it is. Originally, I was going to do a homemade ravioli cause I discovered some dried wild mushrooms in the kitchen but I was too temped by the huge barrel of fresh grape leaves to ignore it. I got me a handful, some rice, a can of Goya garbanzos. On to the Met for some parsley and, of course, lemon.

As usual, I perused the world wide web to check out how others were doing it. Interestingly, most people put cinnamon and/or mint. Both these flavors have their place for me. This, however, is not it.

What turned out was 20 or so delish stuffed grape leaves which we then dragged through salted organic yogurt, drinking Rioja, and watching Jumper. (Keep the food and wine, def leave the movie behind.)

20-25 fresh grape leaves, (you can probably find them jarred if you aren’t spoiled like me who gets them fresh)
1 cup rice
1 can of garbanzos
3 lemons, zested and juiced
1 medium yellow or white onion, finely chopped
1 bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, crushed
tomato paste
salt and pepper
olive oil, lots

Steam the rice along with the olive oil, garlic, and the zest and juice of one lemon. While the rice is cooking, finely chop the onion and roughly chop the parsley. When the rice is done cooking, cool it by adding it to a wide mixing bowl. Add more olive oil (don’t be afraid), the zest and juice of a second lemon, the garbanzos, parsley, onion, salt, pepper and a TOUCH of tomato paste. I’m talking about half a teaspoon here. It should turn your rice into a light pink.

I learned how to roll a grape leaf by watching a video on line. Here is a video of someone’s mom rolling some leaves. Don’t get confused, totally different recipe, just the same method for rolling. And, I think it’s a cute video.

Garnish with the juice of the final lemon and serve with plain yogurt seasoned with salt and pepper. Goes great with beer and wine.