Dinner

Yellow Split Pea Soup

January 15, 2012 by mollygilbert520 Leave a Comment

It’s Sunday and the weather channel tells us that, here in New York City, it feels like eleven degrees outside. Eleven degrees. Farenheit.

Soup? Soup.

Days like today make your eyes water, your breath puff, your curled fingers brittle and numb. Outside, I mean. It seems eleven degrees is not very many degrees. Hoods blow backwards, heads dip, eyes squint, and coats are hugged in tightly against the searing wind. It’s jarring and painful and, frankly, entirely antisocial. You just cannot look up from the dull pavement at the city’s marvelous bustle when you’re using every ounce of concentration you have trying to wedge your exposed chin into the too-short collar of your all-the-way-zipped-up coat. You know?

This weather. It’s unideal for anything, other than soup. Warm soup, toasted bread, red wine. Repeat. January’s not so bad, I guess.

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Warm Truffled Mushroom Salad

January 9, 2012 by mollygilbert520 3 Comments

This is a salad. That is correct. Sure, it gets drizzled with truffle oil, sprinkled with strong cheese and topped with fried shallots… but! Technically, salad. I mean, there are vegetables in this thing and you eat it with a fork. So, salad! Perfectly acceptable for consumption in this austere month of January. Don’t you agree?

Don’t tell my mother, but I almost ripped out the battery from my smoke alarm making this salad. The thing is exceptional, in that if I accidentally breath on it wrong, it beeps uncontrollably. Beep! Beep! Beeeeeeep! It loved the “sautée the mushrooms in batches” step of this recipe. Loved it. BEEP BEEEEEEP!

But you know. All’s well that ends well, some people say. And I think I may have mentioned that this ends with truffle oil and crispy shallots. So, yes. Ends well.

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Jane’s Carrot Potato Soup

January 5, 2012 by mollygilbert520 14 Comments

Happy New Year!

Two-thousand twelve. Twenty-twelve. Two zero one two. Too much math, frankly.

Rumor has it this is going to be an awesome year. A shoulders-back, two-feet-in-the-water, go-out-and-grab-it year. Two-thousand twelve. You in?

Maybe we should start with some soup.

This is Jane Bursky’s carrot potato soup. As soups go, this one is particularly friendly; it’s simple, healthy, and a vibrant shade of orange. It’s also just plain good. Like, make-three-batches-in-two-weeks-and-still-be-psyched-to-eat-it-for-dinner-on-night-thirteen-good.

Carrot potato soup! Twenty-twelve, bring it on.

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Squash & Potato Latkes, Homemade Apple Sauce

December 11, 2011 by mollygilbert520 12 Comments

So, um, this is awkward.

A week after my pro-Christmas/Hannukah-bashing post, and here I am with a recipe for latkes.

Jewish guilt at it’s finest.

In truth, I love latkes. For me, they’re the best part of Hannukah. Better than the story of Judah Maccabee, better than my aunt Lis’ fancy menorah, better than lighting candles for eight nights running is the golden, crispy latke. Gently fried and filled with soft potato and, in this case, butternut squash, they’re like hash browns, only Jewier.

And with homemade apple sauce? Fine. I’ll admit it. Hannukah is kind of awesome.

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Sweet Potato Quinoa Cakes with Yogurt Sauce

November 29, 2011 by mollygilbert520 5 Comments

Maybe you had a pretty great Thanksgiving.

Maybe you ate too much of your Gramma’s chopped chicken liver.

Maybe your new cousin Matt wore corduroys to the family football game and nobody cared. Maybe you spent the whole game running in circles and giggling with your other cousin, Katie, anyway, except for the time you caught two passes and did a little Tebowing.

Maybe you made Deb’s sweet potato biscuits and ate them with too much butter.

Maybe you and your Aunt Maggie tried a new pecan pie recipe that totally rocked.

Maybe you clinked lots of glasses, and drank lots of wine, and hugged lots of hugs, and sang made-up songs with your cousin Teddy at the piano.

Maybe you miss it.

Maybe you have leftover sweet potato! Make these.

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Mustard Roasted Potatoes & Pears

November 7, 2011 by mollygilbert520 2 Comments

My lips are numb, and there’s a good chance I’m drooling. I’ve just gotten home from the dentist, you see. After 27 years as a blissfully cavity-free person, my teeth have violently betrayed me and my tendency to “forget” to floss. Big time betrayal. I mean, I thought we were in this together, teeth! …Traitors.

Upon arrival at my twice-yearly checkup on Friday, I was informed that I had not one, but two cavities getting cozy in my chompers. Two. Cavities.

Naturally, I was horrified. I gasped and I grumbled, my world of clean, sturdy enamel shattered before me.

Not that I was dramatic about it. I mean, psh, whatever. Just a few cavities. Just a few needles and drills and fake things in my mouth. No big deal, whatevs. I totally didn’t tell everyone I came in contact with about my two cavities, and I definitely didn’t whine about my terror at having them filled. Nope. I mean, there’s no way I worked myself up about it so badly that my sister had to leave me a good luck note this morning, before she left for work.

Didn’t happen.

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Chicken Noodle Soup

October 31, 2011 by mollygilbert520 3 Comments

Oof. A weekend of cold, wet feet, madman dancing and minimal sleep, wonderful as it was, seems to have turned me into a bit of a sick chicken.

Stuffy nose, stuffy ears, stuffy head. Scratchy throat and achy bones. Sniff, cough, sniff sniff honk. …Dammit.

Only cure for this, of course, is chicken noodle soup. Headsick, heartsick, hurtsick, any-kind-of-sick-sick, it’s my opinion that chicken and noodles will probably help. Here’s hoping this herby, oniony, chickeny version will land me back on my (warm, dry) feet by morning.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion, chopped
5 stalks celery, chopped
4 medium carrots, chopped
3 quarts (12 cups) chicken stock
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
1 tablespoon chopped fresh marjoram
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
5 scallions, white and light green parts only, chopped
2-3 cups cooked egg noodles
1 rotisserie chicken, shredded
salt and pepper, to taste

Directions:

In a large stock pot, heat the olive oil over medium high heat. Add the chopped onion, celery and carrot, stir to coat with olive oil, and cook until slightly soft, about 7 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

Add the stock, and bring to a simmer. Add the fresh herbs, scallions, cooked noodles, and shredded chicken, and season with more salt and pepper. Cook until chicken is hot, and adjust seasoning to your liking. Serve immediately.

Yields 5 – 6 quarts soup.

Roasted Acorn Squash & Arugula

October 16, 2011 by mollygilbert520 13 Comments

As I sit here on my bed, otherwise known as my office, Sunday light streaming through my window and Sam Cooke bopping from my speakers, I can’t think what to write. My toes are tapping and I want to go outside. I suppose I’ll just get straight to the squash.

I know come February I’ll be entirely sick of it, but I can’t help it – I’ve started in on the cool weather squash. Smooth or nubbly, dark green or deep orange, long-necked or squat – I need the squash. In my kitchen. Pretty much now.

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Roasted Fennel Panzanella

October 9, 2011 by mollygilbert520 5 Comments

Excuse me? Yes, um, hi. Sorry to bother you, but there seems to be, um… there’s bread in this salad. Also, there’s no lettuce. In the salad.

Yep. It’s true. There is bread, and I mean hunking cubes of baguette, not measly croutons, in this salad. Also there’s nary a leaf of lettuce. In the salad. Nobody panic.

This, my friends, is called panzanella. Hi.

Contrary to popular belief, panzanella is not the last name of the newest cast member of the Jersey Shore. Rather, it’s salad of bread and tomatoes, and it is genius.

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Chicken Barley Soup with Kale

October 3, 2011 by mollygilbert520 8 Comments

Rainy fall days are here, and they are forcing my windows open. After a heavily air-conditioned summer, it feels good.

It feels cheerful and familiar, the chilly air of fall – that telltale nippiness that signals the yearly return of football, hot coffee, and the Northeast cable knit mafia. Welcome, all.

And then there is the soup. As the cooler months stake their claim around us, we can do nothing but eat soup to be happy. This is an old Chinese proverb. Probably.

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