When the weather is rainy and dreary, I seem to always crave chili! This slow-cooker chili recipe came indirectly from the folks at America’s Test Kitchen, so you know that a lot of trial and error went into this before it reached my recipe-altering hands. While I love their diligence and scientific approach to cooking, I’ve found that most of their recipes are a bit, well, boring to me. They’re like perfectly perfect non-interesting versions of whatever food is being featured. And while there’s something to be said for that, it’s not usually what I’m going for when I cook at home. So I’ve learned to take what they say to heart and then change it . . . read on for my kicked-up version of their basic slow-cooker chili recipe.

The first step is unorthodox for chili, but well-known when making meatballs: a panade. “Panade” is a fancy word for “milk and bread mixed together” and is intended to keep ground meat dishes like meatloaf and meatballs from drying out during cooking. Here, in a chili, it’s used for the same purpose and works beautifully.

The mashed-up bread-and-milk misture should end up looking something like this:

Into this bowl you add  the main attraction, the beef and seasonings:

ATK said they tested different fat percentages in beef and recommend using 85% lean ground beef. I stuck with their recommendation as that’s the sort of thing they’re really good at!

Once mixed up, your bread mash and beef and seasonings look like this. Now, seasonings is where I strayed from the recipe the most: I wanted a spicier chili so went with Ancho Chili powder and about twice as much Chipotle than what they called for. I also added cinnamon but took out the sugar, as I don’t like sweetness but wanted the depth of flavor that sweet notes give a meaty chili.

After prepping the meat mixture, you turn to the stovetop to start cooking:

You then start cooking the ingredients, starting with the onions and garlic

Then adding the spices, tomato paste,

And finally the meat mixture.

When the meat is cooked so that there’s no pink left:

You’re almost done with the “hard part”! You stir in the tomato sauce and scrape up the yummy bits stuck to the pan:

And then pour the whole deal into the slow cooker. Stir in the remaining ingredients, turn on the pot, and walk away.

When it’s cooked it will look like (an in-focus version of) this:

Spoon into bowls, top with grated cheese and/or sour cream, and dig in! I like to eat chili with chewy bread that has a nice crust on it, so that there’s a bit of crunch and texture from the bread but it’s also possible to wipe every last drop of chili sauce out of your bowl.

Slow Cooker Beef Chili
Adapted from Cooking for Two 2011

Ingredients:

• 1 slice white sandwich bread, torn in half
• 3 tbsp milk
• 0.25 tsp salt
• 0.25 tsp fresh-ground black pepper
• 1 lb ground beef, 85% lean
• 1 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp ancho chili powder
• 2 tbsp tomato paste
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp dried oregano
• 0.5 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 15-oz can tomato sauce
• 1 15-oz can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 1 14.5-oz can fire roasted diced tomatoes
• 1.5 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp minced canned chipotle chile in adobo sauce
• 1 tbsp cinnamon

Equipment:

• Large skillet
• Slow cooker (that’s a link to mine, which I love)

Directions:

Prepare panade by mashing bread and milk into paste. With hands, mix in ground beef and salt and pepper. Set aside.

In skillet, heat oil over medium heat. Add onion, chili powder, tomato paste, garlic, cumin, oregano, and pepper flakes and cook until slightly browned (6 or 7 minutes). Stir in beef mixture and cook until no longer pink (2 minutes). Stir in tomato sauce, scraping pan to release yummy brown bits (yes that’s the technical term).

Transfer to slow cooker. Stir in remaining ingredients and turn on slow cooker. Cook on low for 6-7 hours (preferred) or on high for 3-4 hours.

Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Serve hot, with optional toppings as desired.

I’m always on the lookout for a simple, quick meal that I can whip up on a weekday night but that still knocks my socks off when I taste it. This simple dish is full of lush flavor from the bacon, butter, cheese, and pepper but it somehow manages to be light at the same time. The poached egg on top? It’s like the icing on the cake. The runny yolk mixes with everything else for the ultimate silky rich texture and flavor punch. And possibly the best part about this recipe? It’s sized for one! It’s so hard to find recipes for one person that it makes me excited when I find one at all, let alone one this good! Read on for the recipe for Peppery Pasta Carbonara.

With a recipe like this, where bacon is pretty much the star, it’s kind of important to use good bacon. Don’t go for the usual cheap mass-produced produce isle bacon or you won’t get nearly as much flavor into the dish. I like to buy uncured bacon or rind-on bacon (this one from FreshDirect is really good) and I always have some in the freezer. Bacon is perhaps the best protein to freeze and keep on hand forever because it is just so easy to cut it while it’s still frozen! Just pull the slab out of the freezer and cut off the amount you need for your dish. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have bacon in my own freezer and that’s not hyperbole!

Peppery Past Carbonara
Adapted from Epicurious

• 2 bacon slices cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1/4 lb spaghetti
• 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup grated Pecorino Romano
• 1/4 tsp fresh ground black pepper
• 1 egg

Cook bacon in a nonstick skillet over medium heat until crisp. Transfer bacon to paper towels to drain.

Meanwhile, cook spaghetti until al dente. Reserve a third of a cup of the cooking water, remote the spaghetti with tongs to a small bowl, and keep pan of water simmering.

Pour off all but 2 teaspoons bacon fat from skillet, then whisk butter into fat in skillet over medium heat. Add spaghetti, reserved cooking water, cheese, and pepper and cook, stirring, until sauce is thickened and almost completely absorbed (about 2 to 3 minutes). Add bacon and toss.

Poach egg and serve pasta with egg on top.

Don’t know how to poach an egg? Check out this awesome step-by-step slideshow from Serious Eats!

Ever have a dish that you feel way too much emotion about? For some reason this dish has evoked everything from wistfulness to almost rage in me and it isn’t the dish’s fault at all. It all started when I saw the gorgeous photos in Real Simple magazine for this Camarones Enchilados recipe and immediately bookmarked it to make in the future. Not for the first time, the photo sold me on the dish before I’d even read the recipe. Then I found out that the recipe is from one of my favorite food bloggers, Always Order Dessert (otherwise known as Alejandra Ramos) and it made me even more convinced that I had to make it ASAP. I went right out after work to gather all the ingredients and called my friend at the last minute to see if he wanted to come have dinner with me. He couldn’t make it and I felt like the dish got rejected. So about a week later I decide to make it again, and by some cruel twist of fate, the friend I invited THAT night canceled on me at the last minute! I realize that I’m projecting my own feelings onto the dish but I feel bad for it and have been hoarding it for myself ever since for fear of hurting its pride even more. Those people don’t know what they’re missing! Maybe one day I’ll manage to throw a gathering and serve this dish to people who actually show up . . .

The first time I made this recipe I followed it exactly as written and liked it a lot, but I wanted to make some small changes to make it suit my taste better. The biggest change I made is to double the wine: I just love the taste of the shrimp in wine so I use a full cup instead of the 1/2 cup called for in the original recipe. This means that my dish has more liquid than the original but that works well for me because I like it best served over white rice, which soaks up the liquid beautifully! The one negative side effect of using so much wine is that the shrimp turns a rather ugly shade of purplish red (as you can see in the picture above). This is definitely not the beautiful dish that caught my eye in the picture but believe me, it tastes as good as that photo looks! I also omitted the capers and doubled the garlic, mostly because I always have garlic on hand but not capers so much. Enjoy!

Camarones Enchilados
Adapted from Real Simple, recipe by Alejandra Ramos

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
• 1 red bell pepper, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
• 3/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, plus more for serving
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 14.5-ounce can whole tomatoes, drained and crushed
• 1 1/4 lbs peeled and deveined medium shrimp
• 2 tbsp fresh lime juice

Directions

Heat oil in a large heavy pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic, paprika, crushed red pepper, and ½ teaspoon salt and cook, stirring, 1 to 2 minutes. Add the cilantro, wine, and tomatoes, then bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the liquid is slightly thickened, 20-25 minutes.

Add the shrimp and lime juice and cook until the shrimp are just done, 3 to 5 minutes. Serve over rice or with tortillas.

If I had a “signature” dish it would have to be carnitas. I often make them in the slow cooker because it’s easy and they come out very moist and tender, but real carnitas are not a slow cooker dish. Making them in the slow cooker leaves them with a boiled taste that isn’t in the real thing. This recipe is for the more labor-intensive braised version of carnitas,which really isn’t all that much extra work but yields a much tastier version that’s also more authentic (just in case you care about that sort of thing). I made this batch to take to my CSA’s pre-season taco potluck and I’m not embarrassed to say that everyone who tried them raved about them. They do take over 4 hours to make but almost none of that time is active working time, so you can be doing other things while the meat’s in the oven. But even if you decide to just sit and watch it cook, believe me, it’s totally worth it.

I advise you to always look at the weekly meat specials and keep an eye out for pork shoulder. Its standard price here in NYC is just under $2 per pound, but I’ve seen it for as much as $4/pound (horrors!) to as little as $.89/pound. Supermarkets geared towards a Latino audience usually have the best deals. When I find it on sale, I buy it! Just stick it in the freezer until the mood strikes you for some deliciousness. Boneless pork shoulder isn’t much more expensive than bone-in, so it’s often a good deal to buy it boneless . . . although you do lose the bonus of using the bone for some soup stock later, so it’s a trade-off. This is the sort of dish that can feed many for very little money, so take advantage for your next low-key party. You’ll impress your guests and no one will ever know that you fed them for a dollar a head!

The first step is to cut the giant roast into pieces that are about 5″ square. Like most meat recipes, you then salt the pieces and refrigerate them. If you’re able to plan ahead and do this step a few days in advance, the meat will have a slightly better flavor and be a bit more tender as well. I never seem to have it together enough to do this more that a few hours ahead, so I’m here to tell you that it’s OK if you’re as scattered as I am. No one will know the difference except you!

The next step (again, as in most braises) is to brown the meat. I used a large, shallow saucepan to make this batch and it was the perfect vessel for the dish. The benefit of having all-metal handles on your pots and pans is that you can use them in the oven! Browning the meat gives it an added layer of flavor that is undeniably awesome. The trick to successful browning is to not touch the meat. If you mess around with it and move it around in the pan, you won’t get nearly as good a sear and it will take longer to finish this step. So resist the urge to mess with the pieces every few seconds and just leave them on each side for 5 minutes or so. When you flip them over they should look like the picture above (minus the weird flash effect, I’m still figuring out the lighting in my new kitchen).

After all the pieces are nicely browned on all sides, you deglaze the pan with some water to get all the yummy brown stuff off the bottom, then put the meat back in and add the liquid and spices. For this version I opted to use chipotle chili powder in addition to ancho chili powder. Next time I’ll substitute some of the water for beer and orange juice to follow my friend Pedro’s instructions on how to make “real” carnitas. If you do that yourself when you try this I’d love to hear your feedback!

Every hour or so during the braising process you should take the pan out and turn the meat so that it cooks evenly. The picture above was taken at about hour 2 of the braising process and you can really see how the color of the liquid changes as the cooking progresses. The longer you cook it for, the more tender it becomes, but if you cook it too much all the liquid evaporates and you risk ending up with some very dry meat. Braising is an art, not a science!

After a 3.5 hour braise, the liquid is mostly gone and the meat has a nice dark brown color to it. You remove it from the pan and shred it using two forks, then return it to the pan to cook some more:

This final step yields the crisp texture that carnitas is generally known for, but it’s also the step where you risk ending up with something dry and stringy. If there’s no liquid left at all at this point, feel free to add some stock or water or beer to the pan and then pop it back in the oven. The last thing you want is bone-dry meat at the end of this long process!

This dish stands on its own and is wonderful as a taco filling with nothing else, but it’s also enhanced by a squeeze of lime, some chopped onion, or a bit of guacamole. You can also serve it as a main dish with rice and beans on the side, or as a sandwich on a burger bun (sort of a Latino version of a sloppy joe). The best part may be that it keeps for a long time in the fridge and tastes even better, if that’s possible, as leftovers. Sprinkle a little water on top and pop it in the microwave for a few minutes to heat it up the next day and remind yourself why you went through all the trouble in the first place!

Carnitas
Adapted from David Lebovitz’s blog

Serves 8-10

• 5-pounds boneless pork shoulder or pork shoulder butt, cut into 5-inch chunks
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tsp chipotle chile powder
• 1 tsp ancho chile powder
• 2 bay leaves
• ¼ tsp ground cumin
• 4 cloves garlic, thinly-sliced

Rub the pork pieces all over with salt. Refrigerate for 1 to 3 days (if you manage to plan ahead).

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Heat oil in a braising-appropriate-pan (read: wide, shallow, and oven-safe) pan on high heat. Brown the pork pieces in a single layer until very well-browned. Once all the pork is browned, remove from pot and let rest on plate, then pour about a cup of water into the pan, scraping the bottom of the with a flat-edged utensil to release all the tasty brown bits.

Add the pork and any juices that collected in the plate back to the pan and add enough water (or beer/orange juice mix) so the pork pieces are covered about 2/3rd’s of the way in liquid. Add all the spices and pop the pan in the oven to braise.

Braise uncovered for 3.5 hours, turning meat every hour or so, until most of the liquid is evaporated and the pork is falling apart. Remove meat from the pan and when cooled enough to handle, shred into pieces using two forks. Remove any big chunks of fat you come across while shredding. Return the shredded pork to the pan and add more liquid if there’s none left. Return the pan to the oven and braise for about 30 more minutes or until liquid has evaporated and pork is crisply caramelized.

Serve immediately with your favorite taco toppings or as a main dish with a side of rice and beans.

The concept of a soup made of mushrooms and leeks with dumplings in it sounded pretty odd and yet incredibly appealing to me when I saw it in the magazine. This recipe is a bit involved but the final product is completely worth it! It’s filling enough to be a full dinner by itself, or supplement it with a simple salad if you insist on having something green at every meal (as you should) . . . read on for my variation on Bon Appetit’s Mushroom and Leek Soup with Parsley Dumplings.

The recipe calls for re-hydrating dried porcini mushrooms in addition to using fresh baby bellas and I think that the two mushrooms used together are a key component of the depth of flavor achieved in this soup. The leeks are a nice touch with the mushrooms but I am sure you could substitute shallots or onions with equally good results. I increased the garlic (because I love garlic) and skipped the sherry (because I didn’t have any) and made a few other small changes due to not having the exact right ingredients on hand. I think we all cook this way, right? If not, please don’t tell me!

This was my first time making dumplings and I have to say that my technique needs some work. My little dough piles looked like mutants rather than like the cute little pillows shown in the recipe photo. Next time I’ll take a bit more care in shaping each of them before plopping them into the water . . .

See what I mean? Mutant dumplings. Good thing I wasn’t serving these to anyone too discriminating!

I absolutely loved the extra step of browning them as it completely changed the texture of the outside of the dumpling while leaving the inside as tender and moist as usual. They looked so good browning in butter that I couldn’t help but eat a few of them right out of the pan! It also made me wonder about what would happen if I tried browning matzo balls  . . . anyone ever tried that? What did you think?

All in all I give this soup two enthusiastic thumbs up. In the end it was worth all the work and I enjoyed it several days in a row. Whenever I make a huge pot of soup I always freeze some in single-serving sizes for the future and there is one more bowl’s worth of this yumminess defrosting in my fridge as I type this — can’t wait to enjoy it tomorrow for lunch!

Mushroom and Leek Soup with Dumplings
Adapted from Bon Appetit magazine, February 2010

Soup Ingredients:

• 2 cups water
• 3/4 oz dried porcini mushrooms
• 3.5 tbsp olive oil, divided
• 6 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 pound baby bella mushrooms, sliced
• 1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme
• Fine sea salt
• 1.5 cups chopped onion
• 3 cups thinly sliced leeks (white and pale green parts only; from about 2 large leeks)
• 8 cups vegetable broth
• Pinch of cayenne pepper

Dumpling Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup low-fat cottage cheese
• 6 tbsp (3/4 stick) butter, at room temperature, divided
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 tsp fine sea salt
• Pinch of fresh ground nutmeg
• 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

For Soup: Bring 2 cups water and dried porcinis to boil in small saucepan. Remove from heat, cover, and soak 20 minutes. Using slotted spoon, remove mushrooms from liquid and slice thinly, reserving cooking liquid.

Heat 2 tbsp oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add garlic; stir 30 seconds. Add crimini mushrooms and thyme; sprinkle with sea salt and sauté until mushrooms are browned, stirring often, about 12 minutes. Set mushroom mixture aside.

Heat remaining oil in another heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion; cook until translucent and beginning to brown, stirring often, about 6 minutes. Add leeks; reduce heat to medium, sprinkle with sea salt, and sauté until vegetables are soft and golden, stirring often, about 15 minutes.

Bring broth to simmer in large pot over medium-high heat. Pour in reserved mushroom cooking liquid, leaving sediment behind. Add all mushrooms, onion mixture, and cayenne. Simmer 1 minute to heat through. Season to taste with salt.

For Dumplings: Puree cottage cheese in mini processor until smooth. Using electric mixer, beat 3 tbsp butter and eggs in medium bowl. Add cottage cheese, 1/2 cup flour, 1 teaspoon sea salt, and nutmeg; beat on low speed just to blend. Stir in 1/2 cup flour and cheese.

Bring large pot of salted water to boil. Using teaspoon, scoop piece of dough about size of cherry. Holding spoon just above boiling water, use second spoon to push dough into water. Working quickly, repeat about 10 more times. When dumplings rise to surface, simmer until cooked through, 2.5 to 3 minutes. Using slotted spoon, transfer dumplings to large plate. Repeat with remaining dough.

Melt 3 tbsp butter in large skillet over medium heat. Working in 2 batches, add dumplings to skillet. Cook until brown in spots, 2 to 3 minutes per side.

Pour soup over dumplings in bowl and serve. Enjoy!

Looking for something a bit more impressive to bring with you to Thanksgiving this year? This onion tarte tatin may just fit the bill! It’s not only delicious, the presentation is absolutely beautiful and is bound to elicit at least a few “did you MAKE that!?!?” comments from your relatives . . .

Cipollini mushrooms are adorably appealing and have always called my name in the market. This past weekend when I headed down to the Union Square Greenmarket to meet up with Elissa, I found a stall selling them for only $2.00 a pound and just knew I had to make something featuring them. Enter this recipe from Martha that I’ve had bookmarked for forever, and you end up with this onion tart. Martha calls for vidalia onions in her recipe but this tasted delicious with cipollini’s, too. Really, any sweet onion would do . . . and I think shallots might be a nice twist worth trying in the future!

What makes a “tarte tatin” is that the filling is cooked before the tart is baked. Usually a “tarte tatin” denotes apple, but after making this I’m already planning to try the same technique with other savory ingredients! The onions and leeks are cooked in a pan with chicken stock until the liquid reduces and the onions caramelize, giving a wonderfully deep and complex flavor to the dish. Few flavors are better than caramelized onions in my opinion!

Look at the color that develops as it caramelizes! Once everything is reduced down (this picture was taken about half-way through), you cover the filling with the dough:

And pop the whole pan in the oven. Then you wait and wait while the delicious flavor fills your home . . .

I served this with a light salad of arugula, clementines, and Parmesan cheese with just oil and vinegar (I’ll be featuring that salad here later, it was that good!). For being just salad and a tart, it was an incredibly satisfying meal. This tart would also be great as a side dish to something acidic or spicy. Just don’t pair it with something else sweet or you’ll be totally overwhelmed!

Cipollini Onion Tarte Tatin

For Crust:

• 1.25 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 8 tbsp (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme (or 1 teaspoon dried)
• 3 tbsp ice water

For Filling:

• 1 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 lbs Cipollini onions, peeled. Half sliced length-wise to reveal the rings, the other half sliced 1/4″ thick
• 1 medium leek, white part only, well washed and sliced 1/2″ thick
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme (or 1 tsp dried), plus more for garnish
• 1.5 cups chicken stock
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar

Prepare crust:

Combine flour and salt in the food processor. Add butter and process for about 10 seconds, or until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add thyme and shallots and process a few seconds more. With the machine running, add water little by little, until dough just holds together. Form dough into a flat disk, and wrap in plastic. Chill until firm, at least 30 minutes.

Prepare filling:

In a 10-inch skillet with a metal handle (size matters here!), melt butter. Sprinkle in sugar and remove from heat.

Arrange onion halves and leeks in the pan so that the leeks fill in the spaces between the onions. Sprinkle with half the thyme leaves. Add salt and pepper to taste. Lay onion slices on top. Sprinkle with remaining thyme and season with salt and pepper again.

Cook over medium-high heat for 5 minutes. Reduce heat to medium and continue cooking for another 5 minutes, or until onions are a deep golden brown on the cut side. Turn on oven to preheat to 375 at this point.

Pour stock and vinegar over onions and bring to a simmer. Then cover and cook over low heat for 25 minutes or until onions are very tender. Remove lid, raise heat, and cook until liquid is syrupy and almost completely reduced. Remove from heat and let cool about 5 minutes.

Assemble:

Remove dough from fridge and roll out to about 12″ in diameter. Dough should be about 3/8″ thick. Wrap dough around rolling pin and use pin to transfer to pan. Cover onions with dough and tuck in extra dough around sides.

Place pan in oven and bake until pastry is golden brown and juices are bubbling, about 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto a serving plate. Serve warm, garnished with fresh thyme.

When I saw shrimp on sale for nearly 50% off, I immediately bought a pound without even first considering what to make. I dug around in the fridge and pantry for ideas and when I saw a box of Israeli couscous in the pantry, I immediately got the idea to do a sort of “shrimp scampi” dish with the couscous and some pine nuts (also found rummaging in the pantry!). It sounded OK in my head and I figured it would come out pretty good . . .

The first bite of this dish was so good, however, that Adam insisted I had to take a picture and post it to the blog! It’s rare for me to whip something together with found-in-the-pantry ingredients and have it turn out this good, so I just knew I had to share it. I hope you enjoy my recipe for Lemony Shrimp and Tomato Couscous!

By the way, this takes under 20 minutes to throw together (not counting the shrimp-cleaning time unfortunately) . . .

Lemony Shrimp and Tomato Couscous
Serves 2-4

• 1 pound large shrimp, peeled & deveined, tail off
• 1 pound package Israeli couscous (or regular couscous)
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 tbsp butter
• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/4 cup pine nuts
• 1 tsp dried basil
• 8 oz cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

Dry the shrimp well and salt and pepper them lightly. Cook couscous according to package directions, stopping when it’s just shy of the desired texture.

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Saute the garlic for about 3 minutes to begin to brown it. Add the shrimp and cook for a few minutes until it starts to turn opaque. Add the butter and lemon and stir to melt the butter. Add pine nuts and keep stirring to brown them evenly, about 3 minutes. Add couscous, tomatoes, and basil to skillet and stir to coat and mix everything together. Adjust salt and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

When I went up to New Haven, CT a few weeks ago, my mother had the brilliant idea of having a mid-day lobster boil for lunch.  Apparently the New Haven farmer’s market has a stand that sells live local lobsters for a very good price.   Boiling lobsters is a new thing for my parents, because they’ve only had lobsters cooked Cantonese style or perhaps in an occasional bisque or as lobster thermidor.

So, after trekking to the farmers market, we brought home 7 live lobsters!  They were a pretty good deal too.  Rather than charging by the pound, the lobster stand charged $8 for each lobster.  They aren’t huge, but was enough for everyone to have one.

Hello, lunch!

My nephew was pretty fascinated with them as you can see:

"Oh no, lobster!"

By the end of the weekend, my wonderful 2-year-old nephew was making claw gestures out of his hands while saying, “Oh no, lobster!”   I love teaching him new words.

Anyway, there really isn’t much of a recipe to this post.  All you do is take a pot of salted boiling water, put the lobster in for about 7-8 minutes, and then you’re done.  We had some melted butter and lemon juice to dip on the side.   It’s really easy, delicious, and pretty healthy too!  I guess the only thing some people may have to get over is the fact that one does have to kill an animal in their kitchen.  I actually like doing that, because it makes me feel more connected with my food, but my best friend Yas would probably become a vegetarian if she had to do this.  But hey, look, now we have delicious lobster!

When we were growing up, our dad made corned beef and cabbage every so often if he got a craving. I was always excited to see that it was for dinner because it was such a rare treat! I’ve never made it myself (yet!) but when I came across the Pot-au-Feu recipe in the Zuni book it immediately brought to mind my dad’s “boiled dinners” and I got really excited to make it. These sorts of one-pot dinners are wonderful not only because they’re easy to make and clean up, but also because the flavor is so much better than just a sum of the parts! What’s more humble than a few hunks of chewy meat, some potatoes, carrots, and cabbage? Not much. And yet when you taste this, I promise the last thing you’ll think is “humble” . . . it’s absolutely delicious!

And there’s only one pan to wash after dinner.

Like I said, humble ingredients. This kind of dinner is a wonderful way to make a dent in the CSA veggie stash, you can put almost anything in there and it’ll come out great! These carrots, potatoes, and leeks (not pictured) were from our share.

In her introduction to this recipe, Judy Rodgers talks about how she’s loyal to a few key techniques when making a “boiled dinner.” The most surprising of the ones she mentions is blanching the meat: I’d never even considered doing that before! But I took her word for it and set the short ribs to blanch:

And after a few minutes gasped, horrified, at the water:

The amount of gunk stuck to the side of the pot after draining out the water was also shocking:

I rinsed each piece of meat, then rinsed out and wiped the pot, and set to the actual cooking of the dish. A bit more of the “impurities” came out in the first 15 minutes of cooking, but after that the liquid was mostly clear.

Other than this key step, making this dinner couldn’t be more straight forward. All the ingredients are simmered in broth/water in one big pot,cooking the slower/tougher ingredients first and adding the quicker ingredients along the way to the finish line. All in all you need about 2.5 to 3 hours to make this, but there’s literally no active cooking after the blanching steps. Just set your timer to come back when you need to and go do something else while your dinner cooks itself.

Modified Pot-au-Feu
Inspired by the Pot-au-Feu recipe from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook as a stepping stone

Serves 6-8

• 6 pounds short ribs
• 3 quarts beef stock
• 2 yellow onions, peeled & halved
• 3 bay leaves
• 3 whole cloves
• 1 tbsp whole peppercorns, lightly smashed (not ground)
• 2 branches fresh thyme
• 5 carrots, peeled
• 2 leeks, trimmed to just above the white part and sliced lengthwise
• 2 medium white turnips, peeled
• 1 head white or green cabbage, quartered
• 3 pounds smallish potatoes (about 2″ in diameter), peeled

Note: Judy Rodgers, as anyone who’s ever read one of her recipes already knows, is a huge advocate for pre-salting. I didn’t do it for this recipe because I didn’t plan ahead, but I believe it would really help the texture and flavor of the meat. In the future I plan to pre-salt 2 days ahead like she recommends!

Blanch the meat:

Fill stock pot half-way with warm water and set over medium heat. When water is hot, add meat and salt. Bring to a simmer and let simmer for 2 minutes. Drain the water, rinse the pieces of meat under cold water, then rinse the pot out and wipe it down to get rid of the grime.

Start simmering:

Put the meat back into the same (now clean) pot and pour stock over to almost cover. Add cold water on top to cover by a few inches. Don’t add too much liquid or your meal will be bland!

Bring to a simmer, uncovered, and skim off any last gunk that rises to the top. Taste liquid for salt and adjust. Add onions, bay leaves, cloves, pepper, and thyme to the pot. Stir. Simmer, uncovered, on med-low for 1 hour.

Skim again. Add everything but the carrots and cabbage, then cover with more water to cover the vegetables (if needed). Stir and bring back up to a simmer. Taste for salt again. Simmer for30 minutes.

Add potatoes and cabbage and keep simmering until cabbage is cooked but not mushy and potatoes are cooked through, about 30-45 more minutes. Skim again.

To serve:

With tongs, remove everything from the broth and put in serving dish. Pour a bit of the broth over the top and serve with mustard and pickles on the side.

DO NOT THROW OUT THAT BROTH! It’s amazing for soups and can be frozen for later.

Over the last few weeks the CSA has yielded a few zucchinis each week and I’ve been trying to come up with interesting ways to cook it. Adam and I both love zucchini, but it can get a bit boring if you eat it the same way each time. I’ve tried a few new things recently and it seems to me that zucchini can take pretty much anything I throw at it! Besides this recipe I also have one for stuffed round zucchini . . . but we’ll leave that one for next time. Today it’s all about this super-quick, super-flavorful dish: Chorizo, Zucchini, and Cannellini Bean Orecchiette.

Chorizo easily has to be up there as one of my top-10 favorite things to eat. This particular kind came from D’Espana, a tiny Spanish (as in “from Spain,” not just “Spanish-speaking”) specialty grocery store/sandwich shop in Little Italy.

If you’re ever in the area and looking for a quick bite, I cannot say enough about their Chorizo and Manchego sandwich, it’s absolutely delicious! And a deal at only $8 for a huge sandwich (I can hear some of you gasping at the thought of an $8 sandwich, but that’s actually pretty good for this neighborhood!). And while you wait for your sandwich to be made you can look at all the cool stuff they import from Spain, including awesome cheeses, olives, many different pickled things, vinegar, etc etc. And chorizo, of course! They even let you sample some of the oils and vinegars, which are all amazing.

But anyway, I digress. I was supposed to be talking about chorizo! If you’ve ever bought chorizo and been surprised at how different it looked from the last version you had, there’s good reason: chorizo comes in tons of varieties! For this recipe I used Spanish chorizo (obviously), which is very different from Mexican chorizo or Portuguese chorizo or Argentinian chorizo. You can get a good idea of the different kinds by going to the Wikipedia page on Chorizo. Growing up we usually ate Argentinian-style chorizo and I still have fond memories of eating deliciously simple sandwiches consisting of nothing other than grilled chorizo wrapped in fresh white bagette-style bread . . . just thinking about it makes my mouth water! As you can probably tell, I could talk about chorizo forever . . .

One of the really important differences to note between chorizo types is that not all of them are cooked when you buy them. Spanish chorizo is one of the cooked varieties, but I find that browning it in a frying pan is well worth the extra effort. The caramelized and crispy outsides have an even stronger, more zesty flavor, and the texture difference is really nice when you bite into a chunk, too. You definitely want to slice the chorizo to about 1/4th or 1/3rd inch thick and no thicker, otherwise you lose the benefit of browning the slices first. Any thinner and you end up with all crispy edges and no middle, which isn’t actually bad but doesn’t give you that contrast I was going for. I do like it sliced really thinly to make a chorizo-only tapas dish though, and thinking about it now is making me want to go out and buy more to make that tonight!

Can you tell I’m writing this while hungry?

This is what you’re looking for on the chorizo:

Nicely browned (even black) spots and curling casings. Yum.

If you want to be compulsive like me, watch to make sure that all the slices are flat on the pan, and flip them over half-way, making sure the other sides lay flat in the pan as well. Resit the urge to dump all the chorizo in at once — if you do, it will steam instead of browning. I used 5 links for this recipe and cooked them in two batches, alternating browning the chorizo batches with browning the zucchini batches:

Since the chorizo releases a good amount of oil, no additional oil is needed to brown the zucchini as long as you alternate like I did. Definitely don’t crowd the zucchini, or you’ll end up with zucchini mush! You’re looking for the zucchini pieces to still be crunchy but to have mellowed their flavor and gained a tasty crust.

When all the zucchini and chorizo is browned, you end up with a huge pile of delicious:

Quickly warm up the can of beans and toss everything together:

Drizzle lemon juice, olive oil, and a bit of pasta water in, toss with the pasta, and top with cilantro.

Then EAT UP!

Orecchiette with Chorizo, Zucchini, and Cannellini Beans
Serves 4-6

• 3 cloves garlic, sliced
• 5 chorizo links (about 1 pound), sliced 1/4 to 1/3 inch thick
• 2 medium zucchinis, split down the middle and then sliced 1/4 inch thick
• 1 pound oricchiette or other pasta, cooked per package directions & reserving 1/2 cup cooking liquid
• 1 15oz can cannellini beans, rinsed and drained
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Handful of chopped cilantro leaves, about 2 tbsp (optional)

In a large skillet, heat up 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat and cook garlic for about 2 minutes. Add half the chorizo and brown. Remove chorizo to plate and add half the zucchini to pan (do not wipe!), browning both sides of zucchini. Remove to plate. Repeat with 2nd half of chorizo and 2nd half of zucchini.

If the pan looks dry, add a drizzle of olive oil to it, then add the beans. Let them heat up for about 1 minute, then add chorizo and zucchini back into pan. Squeeze lemon over everything and toss. Add pasta to mixture and toss to mix. Add reserved pasta water to taste to add some moisture to the dish, then drizzle with a bit more olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add cilantro on top and toss. Serve immediately.