Buttermilk Biscuits with Smoked Cheddar

This recipe came about as a result of attempting to clean out my fridge. I was rooting through the cheese drawer and noticed a bunch of leftover ends of cheese that I'd bought for a get together at my place. I always find myself flummoxed in the cheese section of the store when it's time to put together a cheeseboard. Does this happen to you? I know what I like (pretty much every cheese, usually the softer or stronger the better), but what about my guests? Anyway my rule of thumb for a decent cheeseboard is usually one soft, one sharp, one safe/classic, and then something interesting to mix it up. In this case the interesting cheese was a smoked white cheddar with black peppercorns. 

So as I pulled this hunk of cheese from the fridge, I noticed I also had leftover buttermilk that needed to be used up before the end of the month. The best, and laziest, way I could think to use it was to throw together some simple biscuits. And hey, why not add the cheese in there while I was at it? The fridge would be cleared, the dairy wouldn't go to waste, and there would be baked goods around to snack on. Win win. 

Like any good Southerner, I love biscuits. Making them is also such an easy process! They come together quickly and you can even freeze your unbaked biscuits so they can be saved and fresh baked for any impromptu brunches or dinners. I am also a fan of cooking that involves getting your hands messy, the kneading of a pasta dough or the act of slowly merging butter with flour that is involved here. It's so simple and so satisfying. 

I know, I know, I cut them into squares. This might seem like sacrilege but it's born of practicality. The recipe as written requires that you make three folds with the dough. Now, if I had used my circular biscuit cutter, I'd have a lot of weird scraps I'd have to re-fold and I would lose out on the delicate layers the folding creates. This is, after all, a dough you want to be as gentle as you are lazy with. Less working equates to more lightness. So I used *gasp* my trusted kitchen knife to slice my slab of dough into neat squares, and no re-working is called for. I am pretty sure this is a trick I learned from Alton Brown, who once had a biscuit bake off with his grandmother, who makes hers without even measuring the flour. 

This recipe, like so many you'll see here, came from Smitten Kitchen. I believe I took her favorite biscuit recipe and sort of hacked it together with her recipe for caramelized onion and gruyere biscuits, which I've also made before and are fantastic. The dough is hearty enough to withstand the addition of cheese, so long as it's not a very moist or melty cheese. Definitely don't use anything you can't easily grate or dice up. Other than that, I say go with your hearts desire here! What do you have laying around? Gouda? Cheddar? Cotswold? I did find that the smokey flavor of this particular cheese worked brilliantly with the biscuits, giving them almost a bacon like flavor, though they still paired wonderfully with some honey and butter. 

• 2 1/4 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons to 1 1/2 tablespoons (10 to 20 grams) sugar (to taste, see note above)
• 1 tablespoon (15 grams) baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon (5 grams) table salt
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 9 tablespoons (125 grams) chilled unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
• 4 oz. of hard cheese, shredded (which will look like a generous cup once shredded) 
• 3/4 cup (175 ml) buttermilk

1. Heat oven to 400 °F and cover baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and baking soda in large, wide bowl.
3. Using fingertips or a pastry blender, work butter into dry ingredients until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
4. Mix in grated cheese thoroughly. 
5. Add buttermilk and stir until large, craggy clumps form. Reach hands into bowl and knead mixture briefly until it just holds together. 
6. Transfer dough to floured counter and pat out until 1/2 to 3/4-inch thick. Fold dough in half and pat down to 1/2 inch thickness. Fold the dough in half a second time and pat back down to 1/2 inch thickness. Attempt to shape dough into a square, to ensure even sized biscuit cutting. 
7. Cut your biscuits to desired size. 
8. Place on baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes, until the tops are just starting to brown. 

Franny's Pasta Fra Diavolo

Do you ever have moments when you're talking about something and you think to yourself "quick stop talking about that before you jinx it!"? This happens to me often, like the last time I said I hadn't had a flat tire in years and immediately got one when I was all the way down in Red Hook on my bike. Or if I ever think to myself "I can't even remember the last time I was sick?" and boom, I find myself with a summer cold.

Superstitions aren't for everyone, sure, but it was just this week that I found myself sitting in the backyard of Rose's, formerly Franny's, and was opining on the restaurant, which relocated up on Flatbush a few years ago, and their wonderful cookbook. I was excited to be in that backyard because I remember it fondly from my first year here in Brooklyn. I was telling a friend how it was familiar, and expressed a slight worry for the new location, which is north on Flatbush and closer to me, though further from pedestrian foot traffic. Then, lo and behold, today I got an email saying Franny's will close up shop on August 20th! I can't believe it! I've been going there for years and often when my family visits we make the trip just to indulge in their incredible crostini and the unparalleled clam pizza.

I know, maybe I'm cursed. It's a strange week for this to happen, what with my fixating on pizza and red sauce, and I had even been planning to stop in for a drink and a pie at some point before Sunday's episode. I can recall, I think for a birthday, going to the original location and sitting at the bar and ordering a margherita pie and a wonderful German pilsner all to myself once. It was a rite of passage, not just eating alone in New York (which is a wonderful experience and should be indulged in often), but ordering a whole pie right to the bar, just for me. 

In any case, I was planning to tell you all about my favorite red sauce, and then this news just popped into my inbox. I often refer to the Franny's cookbook as the Italian bible. It really is that wonderful and if nothing will leave you with lots of flavor inspiration and a lot of creative, simple ways to use up your summer produce bounty. If you happen to pick up my copy and open it to a random page, it will undoubtedly open to a sauce splattered recipe for Pasta Fra Diavolo. This recipe, while not as simple as Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce,  takes less time and is packed with flavor. It is quick to throw together provided you have enough garlic, herbs, olive oil, and a can of tomatoes laying around. I'll write the recipe as written, but I have long since been making the addition of adding some sausage to the sauce, because I feel it bulks it up a little in a nice way and in winter this heartier take is excellent. 

Pasta Fra Diavolo

"A gutsy, punchy "red sauce" pasta is just right for the beginning of summer - here the Pecorino Romano lens a salty bite, and the spicy chili flakes add a sharp kick that is especially welcome when the weather starts to warm. We make this dish just before fresh tomatoes start showing up at the market but while bunches of herbs are available in abundance." 

• 3/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 8 garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
• 1 teaspoon of chili flakes
• 2 cups or a 28oz can of San Marzano tomato puree 
• kosher salt
• 1 lb pasta, Bucatini suggested
• 1/4 cup finely chopped basil
• 1/4 cup finely chopped mint
• 1/4 cup finely chopped flat leaf parsley
• 1 TB unsalted butter
• 3 TB finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus more for finishing the dish
• 1/4 tsp freshly cracked pepper

1. In a very large skillet warm the olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant and golden, about 3 minutes. 

2. Add the chili flakes and cook for 30 seconds more. 

3. Add the tomato puree and season with salt to taste. Cook until the oil separates and the tomato solids begin to fry, and the sauce has thickened, about 10 to 12 minutes. 

4. Add 2 TB of water to the pan. 

5. In a large pot of well salted boiling water, cook the pasta according to the package instructions until 2 minutes shy of al dente, and then drain. Toss the pasta in the the skillet with the tomato sauce, herbs, and butter. Cook over medium heat until the pasta is just al dente, 1 to 2 minutes. 

6. Stir in the parmigano -reggiano. 

7. Divide and serve pasta with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of parmesan. Enjoy!

Additions: sometimes I'll add a bit of lemon zest to really accentuate the acidic note of the tomato. Toasted bread crumbs are excellent on this! The recipe calls for each portion to be served with a fresh drizzle of olive oil, and I wouldn't skip it, but I love olive oil. If you want more heat, add more pepper. If you're nervous about the mint, trust me you're going to love it! But if I don't have mint around I just use fresh basil and it's never a disappointment. I cook my sausage, about three small links of just regular italian sausage, in a separate pan and add it to the finished sauce. Here you see I have chosen to blend it to a smother consistency, but you can skip that step entirely and still have a beautiful bowl of pasta! 

Food Adventure: Di Fara Pizzeria

There's an unspoken rule in New York, or maybe any city that has the potential to be mobbed by tourists, to go out and do popular things on bad weather days. Everyone loves to go to the movies or the museum when it's raining, sure, but they aren't going to line up outside in the rain and wait an hour for some of Brooklyn's most beloved and famous pizza. And they especially aren't going to do it if it's raining and 89 degrees out. This is exactly the thought that sparked my impromptu pilgrimage to Di Fara, the highly praised pizzeria that resides on an unassuming street corner in Midwood, Brooklyn. I figured if I was going to sweat, why not up the ante and cycle down to sample this world famous slice and skip the usual line. 

So what is it that makes this place so special, so revered that there's often over an hour wait just to order a pie, so beloved that a man once paid a patron $60 for just two of his slices because he didn't want to wait in line? I think Epicurious did a fair rundown of exactly what make this slice so heavenly and worth the wait. The facts are these: 

Dom DeMarco, who has been serving pies at Di Fara for over 50 years, stretches the pizza dough to be near translucent, so the pie is very thin, which happens to be my preference. The flour used to make the dough comes from Italy, as do the tomatoes and buffalo mozzarella, which actually comes from DeMarco's native home town in Italy. He spreads the sauce on the dough, then added shaved mozzarella, the sort that comes in a moistureless brick form. After that it's imported buffalo mozzarella, the soft white sort, and then a shower of gran parma. The sauce and three cheeses are then drizzled with olive oil before the pie goes into the oven. The oven at Di Fara is not brick or coal, but a regular pizza oven, like the one you'd find in any slice shop. Once the pizza is done, it is plucked from the oven and showered with more gran parma. The final step comes in the form of a big bouquet of fresh basil and oregano, which is snipped with scissors over the pie. This seems to be the most beautiful, as it's easy to imagine Dom simply plucking these herbs from his garden, and suddenly the busy street corner and the patrons vying for seating fade out of awareness and all that is left is an all consuming lust for this beautiful fusion of sauce and cheese. 

Reader: the first bite was transportive. This is the only slice, and I've had a lot of slices, that has ever tasted thew way I remembered my favorite childhood slice tasting. It hit every note: salt, acidity, sweetness, char, the coolness of the basil, the bite of the gran parma. It was simply brilliant. Worth the heat and humidity? Absolutely. Worth all the hype? Definitely. 

Now I'd be remiss not to mention two other pizza institutions here in Brooklyn that might suit your needs better if you're looking for incredible authentic pizza, but hoping to have a sit down experience. The first is Totono's, which is located in Coney Island and is the only place I can think of that might come close to what DeMarco is serving up at DiFara. The second is a beloved secret of my own, which resides a little south of my neighborhood, and that's Giuseppinas. While Giuseppinas offers, beautiful pizza fired up in a wood burning oven that often lights the whole restaurant. The experience is soundtracked by Nina Simone and Frank Sinatra, and the pizza comes out impossibly fast and still bubbling hot. As of yet it doesn't have the acclaim that Totonos and Di Fara do, so there are no lines, there's no rush, and there's hardly ever a wait. If you find yourself in South Park Slope, don't miss out on this place. 

Toasted Breadcrumbs!

Ok, here's a quick and easy one that will change the way you eat pasta! This is essentially fried or toasted breadcrumbs, stirred quickly over medium heat in a pan with a little olive oil, garlic, salt, and pepper. It's a very simple thing to make, but it will inevitably enhance pretty much any pasta dish you make, and it even works beautifully on pizza. The only risk here is that you'll want to eat it by the spoonful once its cooled off. 

I can't quite remember where I personally encountered the concept of putting bread crumbs on pasta, but I'm pretty sure it has something to do with Mario Batali and a dish my mom had ordered at Babbo. If I recall correctly, it was a spicy pasta alla chitarra and although it was dressed minimally in order to highlight whatever season vegetable components were being showcased, but it also have these fabulously crunchy breadcrumbs sprinkled on top, and they served to sort of accent the perfect aldente texture and spice of the dish. Ever since I've really loved the idea of adding a salty, crunchy constrast to my pastas and will often throw a small batch of these breadcrumbs together while I wait for my pasta water to boil. It's that quick and simple, and they keep wonderfully when stored in an airtight jar or container! 

Here I've actually blended up the corner of an old loaf of bread, but at home I often just use panko breadcrumbs because they're big and fluffy and uniform. You can use whatever you like, but if you have old bread this is a great option (or croutons! or this tomato bread soup, which I adore). 

Toasted Breadcrumbs

• 1 cup of bread crumbs, fresh or store bought
• 2 to 3 TB of good olive oil
• 1 clove of garlic, minced or grated into paste
• salt and pepper to taste

1. In a small pan heat your olive oil and place on mediuam-high heat until the oil is good and hot. 

2. Once heated, add in the garlic and allow it to fry for 30 seconds to a minute, so the flavor is released into the oil. 

3. After this, add in your breadcrumbs and stir continuously until the oil is fully distributed. Keep over the heat and stir continuously until the breadcrumbs begin to toast and brown. Keep stirring to avoid burning the breadcrumbs, as once they begin to toast they will cook quickly.

4. Keep stirring the bread crumbs until you're satisfied with the color, maybe about 4 minutes or so, and then finish with salt and pepper to taste! 

Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce

Do you want to know the recipe for magic? It's very simple. All it takes is 45 minutes, a halved onion, a can of tomatoes, and 5 tablespoons of butter. Open a bottle of wine and put on a record and you've got yourself the recipe for a perfect evening. 

Marcella Hazan's take on tomato sauce is renowned, and has a 5 star rating with over 1,900 reviews in the New York Times cooking section, for a reason. It's been blogged about by Smitten Kitchen, Amateur Gourmet, Epicurious, and has been lauded to me personally by more than a few friends. Hazan's book, The Essentials of Italian Cooking, is as loved and revered for its influence in America's understanding of Italian food as Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking is for French cuisine. This piece from the New Yorker, Marcella Hazan Changed My Life, about sums up what she's done for home cooks hankering to master a good red sauce everywhere. 

Like all great innovations, this recipe, with its counterintuitive use of butter ("no olive oil?!" screams the boot shaped nation), came about as an afterthought or accident. Hazan had grown up in Italy eating a sauce her mother made, which began with a lazy sofrito of butter and chopped onions before the tomatoes were added to the pan. Years later when Hazan found herself a new wife in a new city in a new country, she wanted to have a go to red sauce to please her husband. Until her marriage, she claimed not to really have been much of a cook.

".. there I was, having to feed a young, hard-working husband who could deal cheerfully with most of life's ups and downs, but not with an indifferent meal."

So she thought back to her mothers sauce and said "to hell with chopping the onion" and just threw the three ingredients in an uncovered pot and walked away. The resulting sauce has since been praised fanatically by food writers and home cooks everywhere.

How could it be so simple? Why butter? No seasonings? No oregano? You just discard the onion? Really?!

Yes, really. Try it. The ingredients themselves should cost maybe 8 dollars if you buy good butter (read: always buy good butter, you only have one life, remember!) and it's 45 minutes of your time that requires you to do nothing but bask in how wonderful this smells as soon as you put it on the stove. All that's left to do is remove the onions and try to cook your pasta perfectly al dente. The butter adds a velvety richness that some how does not distract from the tomatoes brilliant acidity and brightness. The onion, stewed, lends a sweetness and zip without being as overpowering as garlic might here. These three ingredients combined made my home smell so divine it was almost dizzying, and I found that eating my first bowl overwhelmed me with the sort of nostalgia for Italian cuisine and culture that can only be matched by, say, the film Big Night or Billy Joel's Scenes From an Italian Restaurant. I know, it's just three things thrown in a pot, but like I said before, it's truly a recipe for magic. 

Above you see the dish plated neat and nude and below the way I actually ate it. 

Could this be enhanced with a myriad of extras? Certainly. What came to my mind first was a dish served at my beloved Pepe Rosso To Go*, which is simply their penne pasta dressed in a divinely simple red sauce, with the addition of perline or tiny mozzarella balls. These days you have to ask for the mozzarella, but it's worth it because it's absolutely brilliant with the sauce. So sure, tear up some mozzarella over this. Drizzle some olive oil, sprinkle some freshly shaved parmesan, dust it with toasted bread crumbs, shower it with red pepper, snip up some fresh basil leaves, or zest a bit of lemon over this magnificent steaming bowl of simplified goodness. But does it need it? No, not even in the slightest. 

Marcella Hazan's Tomato Sauce

• 2 cups tomatoes, in addition to their juices (for example, a 28-ounce can of San Marzano whole peeled tomatoes)
• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1 onion, peeled and cut in half
•  Salt

1. Combine the tomatoes, their juices, the butter and the onion halves in a saucepan. Add a pinch or two of salt.
2. Place over medium heat and bring to a simmer. Cook, uncovered, for about 45 minutes. Stir occasionally, mashing any large pieces of tomato with a spoon. Add salt as needed.
3. Discard the onion before tossing the sauce with pasta. This recipe makes enough sauce for a pound of pasta.

That's it! As always, I suggest you cook your pasta in well salted water, just shy of al dente. Finish your pasta to its proper al dente texture by cooking it in the sauce for one or two minutes, so it fully incorporates the sauce with the pasta. 

*Peppe Rosso To Go is one of my favorite places to eat in all of New York City. Adjacent to a huge church (of St. Anthony of Padua, of course) it is smaller than a half bedroom and has maybe 8 seats (half just a bench along the exposed brick wall) in total. If you visit or live here you should absolutely go and get the eggplant parmesan because it's the most wonderful I've had anywhere. If you walk along Sullivan Street in general you'll find some incredible butchers, bakeries, and come across the famed Alidoro, which is renowned rightfully for their brilliant sandwiches. It's one of my favorite streets in the city and not a far walk from Grom, which was my favorite gelato when I lived in Italy. 

Broccoli Slaw

Summer is the season of outdoor barbecues and koozied cold beers. A season where we ignore sweat and bug bites just to soak in the warm air and patio lights. A season where stoops transform effortlessly from steps into one long continuous, lazy, sun soaked party. 

While I love the simplicity of grilled food and the ease of a hot dog, there's often a dire lack of, how can we say this, not-pure-sodium at these things. So if my friends are grilling I usually try to throw together something simple and sweet, like say this blueberry buttermilk cake, and bring a side dish that allows me to sneak a serving or two of vegetables onto my plate. I have a few summer cold salads or slaws up my sleeve for this very purpose, because they're endlessly versatile, satisfying, and often fill a food group hole on the backyard picnic table. 

This slaw is downright addictive, and has made me love broccoli raw. It's simple to throw together and deeply satisfying, plus it's tangy, crunchy, and bright enough to pair beautifully with grilled chicken thighs and kielbasa alike. And bonus, if you have buttermilk left over you can make this cake, these biscuits, or even marinate chicken in it! There's really no reason not to keep some around in summer. 

Get the recipe here, over on Smitten Kitchen!

Blackberry Nectarine Popsicles

This is a play on Smitten Kitchen's Peach Melba popsicles! Here I have simply swapped the peach for nectarine and the raspberry for blackberries. This was just what was available to me at the market that week, though I do have a strong preference for nectarines. The resulting pairing was truly divine, as I have no doubt the original recipe is. This reminded me immediately of a popsicle I had years ago while walking on the High Line, which was just "french cream" and whole raspberries. The pairing of icy fruit and sweet vanilla cream was so wonderful, I've been trying to find the vendor ever since, although here I think I actually stumbled upon the magic of that first popsicle's flavor pairing. 

As the original recipe states, I had left over fruit pulp from this recipe and I ended up using that to make a blackberry/nectarine popsicle that turned out incredibly. So feel free to skip the ice cream, though I think it's really wonderful here. I also see no reason not to swap in lightly sweetened (perhaps with maple syrup?) yogurt for the ice cream. Smitten Kitchen also has a recipe for breakfast popsicles, which let's be honest, on these hot steamy summer days we could all use.

All I can say is give this one a go, it's a really great way to use up the best of this gorgeous summer produce! 

• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup whole blackberries
• 2 nectarines, sliced
• 1 1/2 cups vanilla ice cream, frozen yogurt or non-dairy vanilla ice cream of your choice, slightly softened (think: soft-serve consistency)

Combine sugar and water in a small-medium saucepan (intentionally larger than it requires) and bring to a simmer; stir until sugar dissolves. Pour 1/4 cup syrup (just eyeball it — it’s 1/3 of mixture) over blackberries in a bowl. Add nectarine chunks to remaining syrup in saucepan and bring back to a simmer, cook for 1 to 2 minute, until they soften. Let both blackberries and nectarines cool in syrup. In a blender or food processor, puree nectarines and their syrup first, then scrape into a measuring cup with a spout, then puree blackberries and place in a smaller spouted cup. 

Pour a tiny splash of blackberry (you’ll only want to use half of your total sauce) in the bottom of each popsicle mold or small glass that you’re using as a mold, following by a larger splash of nectarines (again, using about half the puree) and dolloping in a little softened ice cream. Repeat with remaining blackberries, nectarines, and ice cream. Use a skewer to lightly marble the mixtures together — I get the best swirls by swiping the skewer right along the inside of each mold. Freeze popsicles according to manufacturer’s instructions. That's it!

Mint Lemonade and Popsicles!

As you can probably tell by the previous recipes I've post on this site, I'm all about citrus and herbs in cooking! I always gravitate to bright, simple flavors in the kitchen, and this leads to having a lot of spare citrus and herb bouquets around to experiment with, this leading to concocting up some mint lemonade. This drink is sort of the pinnacle of refreshing in summer. The grassy kick of the mint is soothing and the bright zip of lemon juice is an instant pick me up after a long hot day. 

While this drink isn't uncommon by any means, I was inspired by the version they sell at one of my favorite New York institutions, Mamouns. Mamouns, famous for it's $2.50 falafel sandwiches and incredible baklava, has been a staple for so many New York residents for years. Every time I stop by for a sandwich or a lemonade I remember my first years in the city, when getting a falafel and heading over to Fat Cats, with it's 3 dollar cover and 3 dollar PBRs, felt like the ultimate dream. To this day I love doing that, though I don't stop by for jazz nearly as often as I should. I had the pleasure of getting Mamoun's last weekend after checking out New York City's pride parade, which went right down to Washington Square park. If you're lucky enough to stop by, be sure to get extra Baklava, theirs is divine! 

In any case, you can at least have mint lemonade, or even mint lemonade popsicles, at home any time you please with this recipe. I don't think the lemonade would pair too badly with some vodka or gin, but you can be the judge of that..  

 Mint Lemonade

• 3/4 a cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1/2 a cup of simple syrup
• 4 cups of chilled water
• 1/4 cup of fresh mint leaves
• the zest of 1 lemon

1. After you've juiced your lemons, add all ingredients to a blender or food processor. Blend on high until the mint is well incorporated. 

2. Strain this mixture so that there isn't a bunch of mint pulp floating around. 

3. If making popsicles, pour into molds and freeze until set! 

Chickpea Bruschetta

This is one my absolute favorite recipes anywhere, which comes from Mario Batali and more specifically from his restaurant Babbo. It's the first amuse-bouche bite you receive upon being welcomed to the restaurant and the flavor is, to me, a distillation of Tuscan cuisine. Whenever I eat this dish I think of my time living in Florence and the nostalgia nearly overwhelms me. The chickpea mixture is quick to throw together, wonderfully flavorful, and hearty enough to be a perfectly satisfying quick meal. The only addition I make to the recipe as written is to add a shower of parmesan to finish the bruschetta. Also, if you want to ensure your chickpeas won't roll off the toast you can gently mash your mixture with a muddler and the topping will adhere better. 

Below is the recipe as depicted on Serious Eats! 

• 1 cup cooked or canned chickpeas
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons black olive paste
• 2 tablespoons good-quality balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 2 tablespoons fresh basil leaves, finely shredded.
• 1 garlic clove, or coarsley chopped
• Thick crusty bread

1. Mix all ingredients together. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Allow to marinate for at least 20 minutes, preferably longer.

2. Toast the bread or grill it for more dramatic presentation. Spoon mixture on bread, drizzle with olive oil, and serve.

Summer Snacks: Asparagus Crostini two ways!

Asparagus crostini sounds a hell of a lot more appealing, and elevated, than asparagus toast, right? These two quick summer meals are inspired by a recipe from Jim Lahey's excellent cookbook, My Pizza. In it he has a recipe for shaved asparagus and avocado salad, which calls for marinating both ingredients with lime, olive oil, and fresh mint. 

It's a perfect pairing for summer because it's fast, delicious, nutritional, and most importantly: cool. Shaved asparagus may sound fancy, but it's extremely simple to do with a common kitchen peeler (I use this one!). I was intrigued by the recipe, and ever since I first made it I've come to actually prefer asparagus raw, with its bright crunch and earthy green flavor. 

Asparagus is abundant in New York the moment spring hits, so it's one of the reasons I wanted to share these two recipes. Here I swap lime for lemon, and convert the recipe into what's essentially a fancy version of avocado toast. 

Avocado and Asparagus Crostini

• 1 piece of good bread, toasted
• 1 clove of garlic, halved
• 1 half of a ripe avocado
• 5 or more asparagus spears, depending on thickness
• olive oil
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• salt and pepper

1. Half avocado and slice finely the non-pitted half. Scoop out the avocado slices with a spoon and set aside. Store remaining pitted half of the avocado with half an onion to keep fresh. 

2. Take an asparagus spear and hold the fibrous end against the cutting board. Press your peeler against the asparagus and drag gently towards the tip of the spear. This should result in a thin ribbon of asparagus. Repeat until you've got a nice pile of asparagus ribbons, then transfer the asparagus to a bowl. 

3. Dress the asparagus with a drizzle of olive oil, a teaspoon of fresh lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste. Give it a quick stir to ensure the marinade is well incorporated. 

4. Toast your bread! Once the bread is good and toasted, rub the surface of the toast with the halved garlic clove. You can skip this step if you find garlic to be overwhelming, but this is something I personally do every time I make avocado toast. 

5. Put the avocado slices on the toast, season with salt and pepper, and then mash gently with a fork. The mashed avocado will help anchor the asparagus to the toast. 

6. Layer on the marinated shave asparagus, finish with salt and pepper, and serve immediately! 

Next up is essentially the same marinated asparagus, this time finely chopped, and served on top of a spread of herbed lemon ricotta. This toast is likely inspired by the gorgeous chapter on crostinis in the Franny's cookbook, which is easily one of the best cookbooks I own. In the summer I find the heat diminishes my appetite, and when I do feel hungry I want to reach for fresh, bright, cool dishes, which usually results in something raw and cold piled on top of a piece of toast. This is certainly the grazers way of eating, but it also means getting to experience the summer's bounty of produce in all its glory, untouched by heat and usually only enhanced with salt or citrus. I am also, admittedly, someone who would ask for a summer tomato bruschetta as my last meal. 

Asparagus and Ricotta Crostini

• 1 piece of good bread, toasted
• 1 cup of ricotta
• 5 to 8 asparagus spears, depending on size!
• Zest of one lemon
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• Dried or fresh herbs
• Half a clove of garlic, minced or grated 
• Olive oil
• salt and pepper
• 2 Basil leaves, julienned

1. Grab a small bowl and add the cup of ricotta, lemon zest, and dried herbs (I used my Italian spice grinder here, but fresh mint or basil works beautifully!) and salt and pepper to taste. Stir the mixture thoroughly until all the zest and seasoning is incorporated. Taste to ensure it's well seasoned. 

2. Finely chop your asparagus into small thin slices. Place the chopped asparagus in a bowl and add 1 teaspoon of fresh lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil, the minced garlic clove, and salt and pepper to taste. Stir until the mixture is thoroughly seasoned. 

3. Toast your bread! 

4. Grab your toasted bread and spread a generous amount of ricotta on the toast. Spoon the marinated asparagus on top. Finish by sprinkling with fresh basil. Serve immediately! Store any extra herbed ricotta in the fridge for the next time you need a good snack, or if you're feeling adventurous, use it to make some Ricotta Gnocchi! 

Spring Vegetable Couscous

This recipe is what I am often eating for lunch or dinner in the summer months. It is cool, healthy, filling, and will last all week. The variations for how to make this are essentially infinite. You can pretty much use any vegetable of your choosing. Here I stick with springy peas, asparagus, and edamame, but I often throw in some raw minced kale as well. I find that julienned mint leaves add a really fresh element to this dish if you happen to have some on hand, though I did not this particular time. You can also skip the citrus if that’s not your preference, but I find it makes the dish bright and even more crave-able. In fact, in this instance I even used lemon olive oil instead of plain, which gave the couscous a nice citrusy aroma. The goat cheese is completely optional, but let’s be honest, is there anything cheese doesn’t improve? There’s also no reason why plain greek yogurt, or a yogurt based sauce, wouldn’t pair just as nicely.

In any case, this is really just a simple, dressing free pasta salad! It would be great, I’m certain, tossed with a basil vinaigrette or with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar. But most often I simply scoop some of this into a bowl, drizzle it with a bit of good olive oil, add a sprinkle of flaky sea salt, and top it with a pinch or two of goat cheese. It’s got enough flavor and good, nutritional things in it that I don’t seem to get bored of this dish and find I can eat it happily all week long.

The proportions, as I’ve written this recipe, make a ton of pasta salad! If you wanted to start with simply one cup of couscous, you could just use half of your frozen and fresh vegetables and save the rest to toss into a stir fry or for some other purpose! As I said, it’s very customizable and couscous is the least fussy thing to prepare, so experiment away!

Spring Couscous

• 2 cups Couscous
• 2 TB Olive Oil
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 box frozen Garden Peas
• 1 bag frozen shelled Edamame
• 1 bunch of Asparagus
• 1 shallot
• ¼ cup chopped Basil
• Zest and juice of 1 Lemon
• Goat Cheese to taste!

1. Bring two cups of water to a boil. Add in the teaspoon of salt. Add in your couscous and 2 tablespoons of olive oil, stir quickly and then immediately cover the couscous with a lid and turn off the heat. Leave covered for a full 5 minutes, until all liquid is absorbed and the couscous is fully cooked. Once cooked, use a fork to fluff the couscous gently until it is completely loose and there are no large, solid chunks. 

2. While the couscous is cooling down, get a large pot of salted water boiling for the vegetables. While you wait for the water to boil, you can prepare your ice bath by filling a bowl with ice and chilled water. 

3. Once the water is boiling, add in your frozen edamame and peas. The packages for these both recommend around 5 minutes of cooking time. I allow the water to come back to a boil, and then wait about 3 minutes before adding in my fresh asparagus. Allow to come back to a boil, wait 2 minutes, and then immediately drain and dump the vegetables into the ice bath. 

4. Stir the vegetables in the ice bath to insure they are fully cooled down. This process is called shocking and will ensure that the vegetables keep their nice bright green color for longer. If the ice isn't cold enough, you can also cool the vegetables by rinsing continually with cold water. 

5. Drain the shocked vegetables and set aside. 

6. Zest your lemon and add the zest to the fluffed, cooled couscous. 

7. Add the vegetables to the couscous and stir thoroughly. 

8. Julienne the basil and add it to the couscous. 

9. Finely mince one shallot and add it to the couscous.

10. Squeeze the juice of your lemon over the couscous (being careful not to add in any accidental seeds) and stir until fully incorporated. Add salt and pepper to taste. Optional: you could also add a good splash or so of olive oil. 

11. To serve: add desired amount of couscous to a bowl, top with a drizzle of olive oil, pinch of sea salt, and fresh goat cheese. 

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake!

This buttermilk cake recipe, originally from Smitten Kitchen, is probably the most requested thing that I bake. It comes together incredibly quickly and is as satisfying for dessert at a summer barbecue as it is for breakfast the next morning. It can be dressed up with a dollop of whip cream, but it's also the perfect snacking cake if you're just looking for a small bite of something sweet. 

I've made just a few changes to the original recipe as written by Deb Perlman. I add a touch more vanilla, the zest of a whole lemon, and increased the amount of salt. If you happen to have an orange on hand when making this cake, I suggest you add a little orange zest to the batter as well, it gives the citrusy note even more depth. The original recipe calls for raspberries, but I've had success using blueberries, blackberries, pitted cherries, and strawberries as well. Just grab whatever is fresh at your grocery store or bodega and in the end you'll have a wonderfully light cake with jammy puddles of summer fruit. This recipe can also easily be doubled if you're looking to serve a larger crowd! 

Once you've made this cake you'll understand why it's so often requested! It's satisfying, quick, and the zip of citrus paired with tart berries pairs perfectly with summer staples like barbecue, hotdogs, or grilled vegetables. Just be warned that if you bring this to a party, you're going to get requests for seconds! 

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake

Makes one thin 9-inch cake

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (146 grams) plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of one lemon
1 large (57 grams) egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup (5 ounces or 140 grams) fresh berries of your choosing

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla and zest. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined. Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter your fruit evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar.

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more. Invert onto a plate.

Coffee Coconut Popsicles!

Spring is slowly turning into summer here in Brooklyn, and as the temperatures rise each year I find myself turning to my freezer for comfort. Like Opening day or the first backyard beer after a long winter, there's so much hope in that harbinger of summer that is the popsicle. There's a distinct feeling of release when I pull off the wrapper from that first bodega froze fruit of the season, my shoulders relax as if in acknowledgment, ahhh we've made it through another winter. 

Popsicles, of course, evoke memories of youthful summers spent barefoot on front lawns, playing outside until the streetlights came on. Long days in the pool, swimming to the point of a pleasurable exhaustion. They remind me of that distinct tightness that chlorine gives skin, sitting on the edge of the pool wrapped in a towel, mouth stained from the Welches strawberry popsicles my mom would buy us. They remind me of the salt that coats newly sun kissed shoulders after a day of sweating in the sun. They're a perfect, ephemeral, mostly guilt free indulgence that offers reprieve from the all consuming heat of a New York City summer. 

But summer's heat encourages a slow, simple, laziness. I find myself turning to cool salads, cold noodles, whole fruit, and in general simply grazing from the fridge. If you're lucky enough to have outdoor space and a grill then everything is made even simpler. Most anything is improved when tossed in olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and thrown on the grill. My apartment is fortunately light filled, but in summer that means it's also basically a sauna and I'm hardly ever inclined to turn on my oven. I find myself almost always overheated, slightly dehydrated, in need of a cool shower and something thoroughly refreshing. 

Another harbinger of warm, leisurely weather is iced coffee or tea. How many instagrams can we see of various iced drinks and bared ankles and sunglasses emojis? And yet, that feeling is no less palpable. While I happily drink cold brew all year long, I still rejoice in gloveless weather, in that first bit of condensation sweating from my glass. Last year I was inspired when, absentmindedly, I was having both a coconut popsicle and some iced coffee in the afternoon and decided to dip the popsicle into my coffee. The coffee immediately froze around the popsicle, creating a sort of cold brew sheath. It was absolutely delicious, and it got me thinking, why shouldn't the two simply be combined? The creamy sweetness of coconut against the bitter boldness of coffee seemed like a perfect pairing. 

So that's exactly what I did, and after a little tinkering I couldn't believe how simple the process was. All you need are three ingredients and your desired popsicle mold! Unsweetened coconut milk is the perfect base because it has natural electrolytes and just the right amount of good fat to make it a substantial, healthy treat that won't leave you crashing from a sugar rush. I used maple syrup to sweeten my batch to taste, but you could swap in agave or a simple syrup. Instant coffee is perfect here because it is effortless, does not involved infusing the coconut milk (which of course you could do!), and dissolves nearly instantly.

Coffee Coconut Popsicles

• 1 12 oz can of Unsweetened Coconut Milk
• 2 Tablespoons instant espresso
• 2 Tablespoons pure maple syrup

1. Empty the coconut milk into a bowl and whisk it vigorously to ensure there are no chunks of coconut cream (the white, fatty part which often separates from the coconut water inside the can). 

2. Add in the instant coffee and again whisk vigorously. You can adjust how much you use to your preferred strength, but I found two tablespoons to be perfectly adequate. 

3. Add in the maple syrup to taste and whisk again. 

4. Taste test your mixture and make sure it is the balance of sweet/strong that you desire. Pour the mixture into your chosen popsicle mold and place in the freezer until fully set. 

That's it! Enjoy! 

Cook Book Corner: Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book

One of the things that I cherish most about cooking is the way we document and pass along recipes. To this day my mom's copy of the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook is filled with scraps of paper, hand written notes and adjustments, and news paper clippings. While I keep a fairly elaborate library of cookbooks, more often than not I rely on a crumbled stack of printed scans of the cookbooks that I grew up with.

The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook was and has been a big staple in our house. While it contains a lot of seemingly misguided staples from the past, such as etiquette instructions and plenty of gelatinous "salads", it also covers all the basic knowledge any beginner cook (or "homemaker", as the book says) would need to know. It explains everything from measurement conversions, to cuts of meat, to how to properly set a table. 

So while this book was the tool that my mom relied on to teach herself everything she in turn taught me, I wasn't aware that its origins had a connection to radio until today. As per the Betty Crocker website, the collection of recipes themselves began on the radio:

"In 1924, the Washburn Crosby Company saved a local radio station from bankruptcy, changed the station’s name to its acronym, WCCO, and presented Betty Crocker on daytime radio’s first cooking show. “Betty Crocker Cooking School of the Air” was an immediate success, and the next year was expanded to 13 regional stations. “Graduates” of the program who completed reports and sent them to Betty Crocker for grading, numbered 238 the first year and ranged in age from 16 to 82.

Each station had its own Betty Crocker voice, reading scripts written at the Home Service Department in Minneapolis. In 1927, the cooking school became a program on the fledgling NBC network, continuing for 24 years with more than one million listeners enrolled.

In 1945, at the request of the U.S. Office of War Information, for four months Betty Crocker broadcast on NVC radio a program called “Our Nation’s Rations” to help homemakers make the most of rationed foods. Almost seven million copies of a Betty Crocker wartime booklet, Your Share, were distributed at this time. Another Betty Crocker publication, Thru Highway to Good Nutrition, won national recognition by the American Red Cross for outstanding service in the national interest.

Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, first published in 1950, quickly became a national best-seller. The 11th edition, now titled Betty Crocker Cookbook, is one of the more than 250 Betty Crocker cookbooks published since 1950. And Betty Crocker’s monthly recipe magazine—available at grocery stores nationwide—has been published since the 1980s."

As you can see I have two copies, a first edition and a later edition from the 70s. Both have been well loved by their previous owners, as well as by myself. I like to think someday I, too, will fill the backs of these books with recipe clippings and write in my own notes and adjustments. It's just not quite as romantic keeping a browser book mark tab of recipes, is it? 

Of all the recipes from the original 1950s edition of the book, the most beloved in our family are the recipes for the pecan pie and the apple crisp, the scans of which I've posted below. The apple crisp is what we traditionally eat on the Fourth of July, while the pecan pie always makes an appearance on Thanksgiving. Both are incredibly simple, essentially foolproof, and haven't changed in 65 years for good reason. 

Sharing these recipes, however widely available they are to the public, feels like betraying some sort of long held family secret. When I asked my mom for tips on making the apple crisp, she said she always used Golden Delicious apples, add a little extra cinnamon, and serve immediately with vanilla ice cream. The crisp comes together quickly and is much preferred, in my family, to apple pie. The  crumble topping is so simple and light and crispy, you could certainly use it on another type of fruit or to top off pie bars in the summer.

So there you have it, the reason I wanted to start this project and even a serendipitous, unexpected connection to radio to boot! 

Lemony Cacio e Pepe

This is a recipe inspired by the traditional Roman dish of cacio e pepe, as well as the Linguine with Meyer Lemon recipe from the Franny’s cook book. Cacio e pepe translates literally to “cheese and pepper”, but don’t be fooled by its apparent simplicity. This dish, a perfect poor man’s meal, gets it magic from the starch in the reserved pasta water. Combined with a small amount of butter and a heap of parmesan, the starch in the reserved water serves to bind the cheese to the pasta, creating a silky, divine, simplistic sauce. Often hailed as a simpler version of mac and cheese, cacio e pepper is a dish that, once you master it, you can throw together quickly with ease and pair with any green vegetable you happen to have on hand. I’ve topped with with crispy oven broiled kale, steamed broccoli, roasted asparagus, and even sautéed broccolini. Just don't forget to finish the dish with some more parmesan!

It's a dish that Anthony Bourdain, in his Rome episode of No Reservations, said "could be the greatest thing in the history of the world", even going to far as to say he'd trade having ever read Catcher In The Rye and having his first sexual experience just to eat it. As he put it, "what a bleak, meaningless existence we'd have without this."

Like cooking a perfect egg, cacio e pepe can be a polarizing topic among chefs, food writers, and home cooks. I can't imagine the way any Italian nonna worth her salt would react to the fact that I add lemon juice to the reserved pasta water, or zest to bring out more of a citrusy zing. But this is my kitchen and when life hands you lemons, make exquisitely simple pasta and/or, I don't know, maybe fix yourself a drink. 

The reason I wanted to begin with this recipe is that it's so often what I make myself for lunch or a quick dinner, when time has escaped me and I know with certainty that I almost always have these kitchen staples on hand: butter, lemons, parmesan, dry pasta. It comes together in about the time it takes to boil water and never ceases to feel satisfying and warm, never feels any less special or magic. Below is exactly how I made the dish for myself today for lunch, after skipping breakfast and allowing the onset of coffee jitters to remind me to eat. You can adjust to your taste every element of this dish: add more cheese, skip the lemon, add more pepper, etc. Enjoy!

Lemony Cacio E Pepe 

Servings: 1

• 1 cup dry pasta

• 1 tablespoon of butter

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• ½ cup of reserved pasta water

• ½ cup to 1 cup of fresh grated/micro-planed parmesan or pecorino romano

• Zest of 1 lemon

• ½ teaspoon of fresh cracked black pepper

• Pinch of salt

1. Bring a pan of water to a boil. In most cases you do not want to crowd your pasta in a small amount of water, but in this case, since we're relying on the starch in the water, I find a smaller pot is acceptable.

2. While waiting for the water to boil I suggest getting your mise en place. I use a microplane to grate the zest from the lemon and use it again to grate the parmesan. The sauce step of this recipe happens very quickly, so be sure to have everything ready to go. 

3. Boil your pasta until it is just near al dente and not a moment over. You'll finish cooking the pasta in the sauce, so be sure not to overcook it. When it's close to being done, use a pyrex or measuring cup to remove a half a cup or more of the pasta water before draining. Set this aside and drain your pasta. 

4. To the empty pot add 1 tablespoon of butter and place the heat on a low simmer. 

5. Add half of the reserved pasta water and the tablespoon of olive oil to the butter. Get this to a simmer and add in the cracked black pepper and lemon zest. It might seem liquidy, but the pasta and cheese will help it cohere.

6. Toss the pasta back into the pot and coat in the butter/water/oil mixture, still simmering. 

7. Quickly stir in the parmesan, keeping the pasta moving until the cheese dissolves. If your mixture is looking a little dry, add more of the reserved pasta water to loosen it up. If it looks wet, keep stirring over medium heat until it becomes a silky cohesive sauce.

8. Add a pinch of salt and allow to simmer for maybe a minute longer, or until a satisfactory texture is achieved. The pasta will continue to soak up the sauce even after the heat has been turned off. 

9. That's it! Serve immediately and top with more cracked pepper and fresh parmesan. 

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