Last weekend I teamed up with my friends Lisa and Caroline of num num chronicles and Corey Chow of Per Se to create some tasty cocktails for a secret supper club. I based both my drinks on what’s in season at the market and with a little tinkering around in the kitchen I came up with two drinks that fit the bill. This one, the peachy keen, has a base of peach purée and bourbon. It tastes a little like heaven.

Cheers! To the end of a long week and the start to a relaxing weekend. Oh, and if you’re in the New York area and are interested in attending the next supper club, head on over to num num chronicles to get on their mailing list and to see a sneak peak at our first trial run.

Peachy Keen
makes 1 cocktail

*To make peach purée, simply remove the skin from peaches and toss in a blender. Purée until smooth. Mixture will be a bit thick.

It’s a watermelon kind of Friday. To me, watermelon signals a laid back, relaxed style and that’s what I’m looking for. Paired with some mint from my friend’s garden, I’m good to go. To be honest, if you give me some candied peanuts from earlier this week and one of these puppies, I might just be in heaven.

In the meantime, I hope you have a fabulous weekend!

watermelon mojito
makes 1 cocktail

1 1/2 oz watermelon juice*
1/2 oz lime juice
1 oz simple syrup
1 1/2 oz light rum
5-6 mint leaves + more for garnish

1
Muddle the mint leaves and lime juice in the bottom of a cocktail shaker.
2
Add the simple syrup, watermelon juice and rum, along with a few cubes of ice. Shake vigorously for 10-15 seconds.
3
Strain into rocks glass. Garnish with mint leaves.
4
Relax…Cheers!

*to make watermelon juice, combine 1 1/2 cups watermelon chunks, juice of half a lemon and 1 Tablespoon simple syrup in a blender and purée.

If you’ve ever been to New York, you’ve surely walked by the nuts4nuts street vendors and been lured by their delicious smelling peanuts or almonds. If you actually have the guts to buy them from the creepy guy behind the cart, you’re almost certainly going to be let down. Well my friends, have I got a recipe for you, one that most definitely will not let you down. These carmelized peanuts are possibly the most delicious snack ever.

Not only do they taste amazing, but it only requires a few ingredients that you probably have in your cupboard right now, peanuts (or a different type of nut if you’re daring), sugar, water, salt and cinnamon. The one thing that threw me a little bit was the amount of time they took. I expected them to be quick, around ten minutes, but mine took more like twenty to twenty five minutes. Plus the steps are a little bit scary because crazy things happen in the pan, but lucky for you I documented them.

First, you’re going to boil the peanuts in a mixture of water and sugar. You’ll be able to see liquid bubbling away.

Then, about 8-10 minutes after it’s been boiling, the sugar will seize and your mixture will look dry and sandy. That’s what it’s suppose to look like, don’t worry.

Just when you’re beginning to think you really did something wrong, you’ll start to see a dark, sticky syrup starting to pool. That’s the magic. Keep stirring around every now and then, coating the nuts in the slowly forming syrup. Just before they’re ready to take off the stove, sprinkle the salt over them and stir.

Finally the nuts will be bronzed and you’ll be eager to taste. If you taste one and don’t immediately want another, I don’t know if we can be friends. Seriously, I made these and about an hour later half the nuts had disappeared. They’re sweet and crunchy, buttery and sticky. In other words, seriously addictive. Please make these, they’ll make you happy.

Caramelized Peanuts
Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz
From David Lebovitz:
You can easily cut the recipe in half, although I don’t think you’ll have any trouble finishing off a whole batch. I’ve made this many times using raw almonds and peanuts, but if you want to experiment with other nuts. I think round nuts work best so the sugar can tumble around and coat them, rather than get stuck in any pecan-like nooks and crannies.

2 cups raw peanuts (or almonds or macadamia nuts)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1
In a wide, heavy-duty skillet, mix the nuts with the sugar and water. Cook the ingredients over moderate heat, stirring frequently, until the liquid seizes up. It will take a few minutes.
2
The nuts will become dry and sandy, which is perfectly normal. Don’t worry; you didn’t mess up. Lower the heat and keep going, scraping up any syrup collecting in the bottom of the pan and stir the nuts in it, coating them as much as possible.
3
As you go, tilt the pan, removing it from the heat from time-to-time to regulate the heat and the syrup, so you can coat the nuts with the liquid as it darkens without burning the nuts or the syrup. This is the only tricky part—I like to get the nuts as deeply-bronzed as possible. If the mixture starts to smoke, remove it from the heat and stir.
4
Right before they’re done, sprinkle the nuts with a mixture of the salt and cinnamon, stir them a couple of times, then tilt the nuts out onto a baking sheet or a marble countertop.
5
Let the nuts cool completely, then break up any clumps. Store in an airtight container, where they’ll keep up to a week, if you can manage to not eat them all up before that.

awfully big adventure

Valerie from City|Life|Eats

bentobird

Well market week is over and I’d like to thank everyone who participated, commented and just watched. The week turned out to be a crazy week at work for me (of course, the one week I wanted to get home earlyish is the one week I have to work late every night), so I was a little bummed that I didn’t have more time to devote to taking better photos or making more interesting things. However, I think that allowed me to take a step back and realize that every night can’t be an extravaganza (it rarely is, believe me) and that’s ok.

In addition to the time, I feel so lucky that I have such an abundance of good, fresh food at my local market. While I didn’t use all of the food I bought at the market for meals last week, what didn’t get used is working itself into meals this week.

Thanks again!

Sunday: Burgers with caramelized onions, confetti corn and salad
Monday: Corn & zucchini cakes with fresh salsa + berry ice cream
Tuesday: Mushroom & eggplant tacos
Wednesday: Beef tacos
Thursday: Bruschetta

As the summer is coming to a close, I’ve been trying to check off more of my 30/30 items. This weekend I checked off a pretty dreamy one, a picnic in central park.

The city’s been closing down a few avenues to traffic on Sundays in August, which means bikes and pedestrians have free rein of the streets. Riding my bike in traffic is not one of my strong suites, so I jumped at the chance ride over the Brooklyn Bridge and all the way to central park car-free. Once we got to the park we spread out our blanket and snacked on fruit, cheese and bread from the market. As if that’s not cool enough, we decided to take advantage of the lovely day and rowed a boat in the pond. It was like taking a vacation in my own city… I love it!

I’m over half way there… fingers crossed I can accomplish all of my goals before the big day! Look for a market week round up in the next day or two.

Most weeks, by the time Thursday rolls around I’m ready to not cook. If we don’t go out to eat, I like to whip up something simple and perhaps a little indulgent. That’s where this bruschetta-type plate comes in. I simply pick up a fresh baguette, come home, slice it up and place a bunch of slices on a plate. Next I take out my oh-so-delicious ricotta from Salvatore and either use it as is or mix in a little lemon zest, or in this week’s case, some fresh basil, then place it on the bread. Lastly I either slice or chop up a few tomatoes to put on top of the cheese. I’ll often sprinkle a bit of sea salt over top, just for some extra pizazz. It’s simple and incredibly delicious.

I was debating a few things regarding this post. First, should I make dinner? As nine o’clock rolled past and I was still at work, ordering dinner sounded pretty nice. But then, funny as it sounds, the thought of trying to decide what to order, then having it delivered just sounded like too much work. So once I got home I looked in the fridge and considered my options; or more importantly “what requires the least amount of work?”.

Tacos. More often than not, when I don’t have time or just don’t want to use my brain, I reach for tortillas, find something to put inside them (beef, chicken or some kind of veggies) and call it dinner. Plus, because I almost always have salsa on hand, I just add a few spoonfuls to the pan while the filling is cooking and I have automatic seasoning.

Which brings me back to my internal debate… I just posted tacos last night. But I realized, this is reality. Every dinner can’t be glamorous, but every dinner can be good. And they can be easy. And fresh. And that’s what made me post my totally boring dinner. It took me about ten minutes from idea to table, which is way quicker than any take out. I love tacos.

Ok, this might be the ugliest meal of all (or at least I hope so). Looks are deceiving though. The tortillas are handmade with blue corn (purchased from the market*), hence their color. For the insides I simply sauteed some portobello mushrooms and eggplant, along with some tomatoes and peppers. I used some of the fresh salsa I mentioned yesterday to bring in a some juiciness. To add a little pizazzz, I actually used a dollop of ricotta cheese and sprinkled some cilantro over top. Not the best meal ever, but certainly not bad.

Editor’s Note: I didn’t make the tortillas, I bought them at the market. They are handmade, just not by me.

I couldn’t get too far without whipping up some kind of dessert, my sweet tooth just won’t allow it. I can across this recipe for summer berry ice cream last week and it sounded pretty dang perfect. I love summer berries and I love to bake with them, but when summer brings as many heat waves as we’ve had this year, ice cream starts to sound like a genius idea. And so, a summer berry ice cream was made.

This recipe called for a mixture of berries, heavy cream, sugar, salt and vodka. Pretty simple. I ended up splashing a little whole milk in with my heavy cream because I didn’t have enough, but I don’t think it made a huge difference. I simply mashed the berries (raspberries and blackberries) and warmed up the milk on the stovetop to allow the sugar to dissolve. Once the sugar disappeared, I moved the milk to the fridge to let it cool. About an hour later I poured the milk in my ice cream maker, added the berries and churned away.

Last night we tried it for the first time and surprise, surprise, it’s a keeper! Fresh berries and cream? Yes please! It’s as simple as that. You taste the sweet, fresh taste of raspberries and black berries and the cool, creamy texture of local cream. It’s a match made in heaven.

summer berry ice cream
makes about a quart
adapted from the New York Times

1 1/2 cups berries (raspberries & blackberries,or any other berries you have on hand, combined)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup whole milk
1/3 cup sugar, plus 2 tablespoons, as needed
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons vodka

1
in a bowl, mash berries with a fork or potato masher until just slightly chunky. Set aside.
2
In a saucepan over medium-low heat, bring cream and milk to a simmer with 1/3 cup sugar and the salt. Taste berries and if they are very tart, add 2 tablespoons sugar to saucepan. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until sugar dissolves, about five minutes.
3
Transfer to a bowl, stir in vodka and place in refrigerator or in an ice bath to chill.
4
When cold, pour mixture into ice cream machine. Add berries and churn according to manufacturer’s directions.
5
Transfer to a container and freeze until solid, at least 2 hours. Let sit at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes before serving, or in refrigerator for 15 to 30.

Day two brings more deliciousness. After being wowed by yesterday’s corn confetti I saved the leftovers and decided to incorporate them into some lively zucchini cakes. As I mentioned earlier, vegetables are still a bit of a challenge for me, but I’ve found a few ways that I can get a whole bunch of ingredients and still really like it. One is salsa. I mean, who doesn’t like salsa?

The second veggie bonanza comes in the form of cakes, like corn cakes or in this case corn and zucchini cakes. I had about a cup of the corn leftover from yesterday which was sprinkled with peppers and onion. In addition to that I shredded a zucchini, then squeezed as much liquid out of that I could get. Who knew zucchini has so much water in it?! In order to bind it I used some of my half white flour and eggs from the market. Pretty soon I had an ugly batter in front of me, a batter that may not look so hot but I had faith that it would be tasty.

True to form, my corn and zucchini cakes passed the test. They’re super moist and flavorful with little corn bursts every now and then. I especially like the salsa on top because it just adds an extra layer of flavor (not that the cakes need it) but also a different texture and a little sauciness, kind of like a savory syrup.

corn and zucchini cakes
makes 6 4-inch cakes

1 cup corn
1 medium zucchini, shredded and drained*
1/2 cup flour (I used half white, which is like 1 part wheat/1 part white)
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
salt and pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons butter, divided

1
Combine flour, salt and pepper in a medium bowl.
2
Add egg and milk, stirring until you get a smooth, thick batter.
3
Incorporate the corn and zucchini.
4
Melt 1 Tablespoon butter in a large frying pan.
5
Pour 1/4 cup batter into the pan. I was able to place 3 cakes in the pan at once, do as many as you can.
6
Let cook until the cakes starts to brown, about 3 minutes. Flip and repeat.
7
When they’re all done, plate them and top with fresh salsa or whatever floats your boat.