I am pretty sure I won’t jinx it when I say that Spring is finally here. Our daffodils are in full bloom and the weather was spectacularly glorious this weekend. We took full advantage of the outdoors knowing that it will be too hot and humid in just one short month. As such, a trip to a flower nursery and a new playground were a must on Saturday. Sophia loved all the flowers and helped us with seed selections for planting in our little vegetable garden. We will be gardening again, albeit on a smaller scale and with produce that requires little maintenance (think peas and lettuces).
As usual we cooked a bit, but made lighter, easier dishes than those that have been de rigueur over the last few, cold months. Something about the glorious sunshine, warmer temperatures and overall better moods stipulated fresh, brighter and spicier flavors. So… there were coconut-lime tacos and this dry-seared shrimp with an orange, cucumber salad dressed with a touch of mint and cilantro. So fresh and so flavorful.
Rain, rain go away, come again another day weekend. We prayed for the end of winter and the start of spring. Spring, however, has decided to come holding winter’s hand; It has been pouring non-stop for three days. Winter is blowing us one last snow-filled kiss as a grand, final goodbye. We were looking forward to entertaining our cousins from out-of-town, but decided to reschedule for a time when the weather is better. Poor Sophia had gotten a mean case of cabin fever and we decided nothing less but a big event would cure such an affliction. So, we decided to take her to her very first theater performance. Not just any theater, but a puppet theater at the famed Glen Echo Park. The Puppet Company had an Old McDonald’s Farm performance on the Tiny Tots Stage and we were delighted to get some tickets. The 30 minute performance was spot on and Sophia was enthralled during the entire show. Having enjoyed the performance ourselves, we are looking forward to returning to the park, to the Puppet Company and checking out the several artists in residence when the weather is better and the carousel is running. The park is only a 20 minute ride from home.
There was of course plenty of cooking at the house filling the dreary days with warm aromas. We made a meat, spinach and potato au gratin which was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. It boasted unparalleled flavors and textures due to the very crispy browned beefy bits flavored with Worcestershire sauce and the cream steeped with thyme and garlic. I must admit that we didn’t have Gruyere cheese or sage. We used Mozzarella as a substitute but will probably try the Gruyere next time. This is also a one-pot wonder which will last several days — my favorite kind of a dish!
The au gratin was balancing a very healthy meal we cooked up on friday night. Seared trout, salmon’s less flashy cousin, with oven-roasted sweet potato fries and garlic-y asparagus. The season for asparagus is now and so why not use something that is seasonal and local?!
The yogurt and maple syrup loaf that I made on Friday evening delivered as much lusciousness as a pound cake without all the sugar and fat. In fact, the loaf is made with a cup of yogurt and only a quarter cup of refined sugar!
Indulge we must, especially when the weather outside is so dreadful and so there are chocolate-walnut cookies upstairs in the kitchen. They are best with a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt.
Quite the productive weekend around these parts. Besides our jaunt to the theater, I also finished Little Failure — a story recapping a Soviet immigrant’s tale of coming to and growing up in America. It was a spectacular read. My reaction and review of the book deserves and will rightly get its own post in the near future. Lastly, I believe I have, on my 5th try, perfected a recipe for farmer’s cheese blintzes and will share my version in the next week or so. We are ready for the work week knowing our fridge is full of delicious foods and our minds are sated with literary delights.
Our weekend shenanigans caught up with us sooner rather than later. My parents’ care package wasn’t elastic but did sustain us long enough to make a mid-week trip to the grocery store for some necessities. Because I’ve been on a baking binge as of late, I decided to give this French apple cake a try and must admit that it turned out wonderfully. I always get melancholy when we leave our wonderful families and there is nothing better to lift my spirits then the aroma of something baking in the house. And so, I made the cake on Sunday, shortly after we returned to our abode and unpacked. As a side-note: if you do try the recipe, use three large apples or four medium ones. I used three large ones instead and thought they were plenty.
Then, and because cake is by no means a meal, we had to come up with dinner. This is where Evan stepped in and treated Sophia and me to a home-made, wok-stir-fried chicken with broccoli and red peppers. I think the recipe is his own, though he uses a marinade from this book. Paired with some sticky japanese rice, this meal was divine and not just because it was cooked for me, but because it was green and light.
After this type of a meal, a slice of apple cake is definitely a must!
Having entertained quite a few weeks in a row, we’ve decided to be entertained ourselves and gladly accepted my parents’ generous offer to host us. They always ask us to visit with them offering up amazing food — there and to-go –, free babysitting and general fun as incentives.
As is customary, I couldn’t just show up without anything delicious and so, I brought Chewy Apricot Bars for Friday. The recipe is my own and posted here, based on one I saw a while back on Yammie’s Noshery. They couldn’t be easier to make or more delicious — packing even a bit of healthfulness via the use of oatmeal.
There was all manner of everything home-made, fresh and delicious at mom and dad’s house and we were glad to give our own kitchen and tired hands a break. As much as we wanted to sit around and lounge noshing on blintzes, we also had a few house-calls to make namely visiting with Evan’s family including his grandmothers. It is a bit difficult for Grandmom and Bubbie to travel to Maryland and see us, so we gladly made plans to see them.
And of course, of course, you didn’t think a visit to the Philadelphia area would be complete without a visit to the city of brotherly love itself, right?
We slipped out on Saturday right after the start of Sophia’s nap and ventured into the city to take in some of our favorite neighborhoods and haunts as well as try some new things. The city, like most others, is alive and ever-changing always ready to surprise us with its new secrets. I am quite certain that we haven’t seen temperatures in the high sixties and low seventies since last October!
We visited Northern Liberties to see how much that neighborhood has gentrified and were surprised to find so many new townhouses and condominiums being built. Then, we drove past our old residence in Olde City and into Washington Square West. Society Hill and Washington Square West were bathed in the late afternoon sunlight showcasing their stately homes with great pride. As you stroll, you feel yourself walking in the footprints of history. Perhaps it was the fact that we had time all to ourselves, or maybe the good weather helped uplift our spirits. You couldn’t ask for anything better. I know many of my readers prefer the calm and quiet of suburbia and the countryside but having lived that and having lived in the city, I crave the vibrancy, liveliness and all that Philadelphia has to offer. It is true — you never forget your first [city] love.
It seems that our poor oven is getting quite a workout lately. I’ve been cranking out confections almost every other day in recent weeks and I am not sure quite where they go. Secretly, I pray that they don’t go on me in the form of unneeded pounds.
Baking is incredibly easy, you see. All you need for most sweets/baked goods are flour, sugar, butter, eggs & flavorings. In our case, we are partial to chocolate and since spring is not quite here yet, I don’t feel the compulsion to break out strawberries and rhubarb just yet. Just yesterday, overripe bananas were staring me down, taunting me really. I decided that I’d had quite enough and made chocolate banana bread.
This is it, hot out of the oven with the chocolate chunks still oozing their molten cacao liquor goodness. Loaves and muffins are among the easiest things to bake since most don’t even require pre-meditation. That is, you need not make the decision to bake ahead of time and bring butter to room temperature, just melt and voila, you’re ready to go. Skeptical about a chocolate banana bread, I was quickly converted by the divine smell emanating from the oven while it baked.
That first slice, while the loaf is still hot out of the oven. Can you imagine how good it was? Irresistible. Obviously the bread won’t stick around long at our house, and so I’ll have to find a new diversion. Until then, here are a few other things that have made cameo appearances in our little kitchen.
It is difficult to imagine that Spring is just around the corner especially when big, fluffy snowflakes are still falling down from the sky all around you. That said, we’re transitioning into Spring dreaming of freshly grown fruits and veggies and the lighter dishes they yield. Lighter dishes will hopefully avoid having to see Dr. Sophia or a real doctor for that matter.
Local asparagus is still a week or two away, but we couldn’t help but introduce just a bit of green into our big weekend meal with mostly meat-free lasagna. Mostly meat-free you ask? Noodles, home-made marinara, bechamel, ricotta, parmesan, mozzarella, an egg, 3 oz of prosciutto and lastly 10-TEN oz of spinach.
The lasagna was light and there is no denying that it is the easiest way to get children to eat their greens!
We are snowed in… again. Dare I mention that its March 17th and we’re a mere few days away from the official start of spring. We have our snow-day routine and responsibilities down! Papa shovels the snow from our driveway while we play and watch cartoons. We horse around a bit especially when I try to get something done in the kitchen. Here’s Sophia in her child’s stand helping out or horsing around or … well, being Sophia.
Then, it being a snow-day and having just celebrated Purim, we indulge with none other than those hamantashen I mentioned that I baked.
We have the apricot-filled one on the right sitting atop the cream cheese and chocolate chip one on my much-loved Limoges plate. I can’t tell you which one I prefer except that the cream cheese and chocolate ones were a pleasant surprise. I still have quite a bit of apricot filling left so I may have to bake another batch. Can that be a bad thing? I used this recipe for the dough, this recipe for the apricot filling with the caveat that I use Turkish apricots and then used 4 oz of cream cheese, a half a cup of chocolate chips, a quarter cup of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla for the chocolate chip filling. Mmmmmm. These little pillows of filled goodness are keeping us warm and comfortable while the outside looks like this:
Believe it or not, this post is going to have something to do with celebrating Purim over the weekend. Who doesn’t like a holiday where we bake special cookies and celebrate with food and drink and family. My in-laws visited with us bringing my mother’s delicious, prune and raisin hamantashen and lots of entertainment for Sophia.
Here’s Dr. Sophia taking care of Clowdie, the doggie. You could say that Sophia is quite smitten with her canine family member. My mother-in-law generously shared her kiddie doctor set with us so that Sophia can measure everyone’s blood pressure, listen to our heartbeats, and of course administer shots. While she practiced medicine, we practiced the art of baked custards in the form of vanilla challah bread pudding. Drizzled with maple syrup, it is perfect for a leisurely weekend breakfast or a snack.
I am reading Little Failure and the descriptions of my former USSR life have made me a bit nostalgic. That and treating our visitors to unique culinary delights had Evan and I turn to Georgia (the country) for a Khatchapuri Adjaruli recipe. It turned out better than I expected though was a quite a treat as far as healthfulness is concerned.
We served it with a very tangy arugula and cucumber salad to help cut through the richness of this bread.
I also made a batch of blintzes, one of my father-in-law’s favorite dishes, with farmer’s cheese using a new crepe batter. The dough was nicer than the previous one I’ve used, but I had a few blintzes bust at the seams during pan searing. Can’t have these previous pillows of heaven bust, can we? I’ll be investigating causes which may include a too-thin crepe or too much filling (sigh). Lastly, this is Purim, yes? I made hamantashen with apricot and cream cheese/chocolate fillings. I’d never had the chocolate filled ones and was surprised at how good they turned out. We are ready to tackle yet another and dare I hope last snow storm with so many delicious treats socked away in the fridge.
Years ago, I had quite a few business trips to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I fell in love with the area, the regional cuisine and their chile peppers. People travel from far and wide during the chile harvesting season to pick, buy and preserve these incredible edibles that turn any food into something extra ordinary. New Mexican chiles aren’t always spicy either and some are verdant, floral and amazing.
Coffee, wine, chocolate and chiles are among foods the taste and flavor of which is greatly affected by the terroir. My trips to Albuquerque or perhaps those who I was with and what I was working, are the reason I have grown to appreciate these green and red rockstars. I have been reminiscing about those days and trips recently and decided that I should cook something with some chiles. Enter enchiladas verdes. The recipe I used called for poblano peppers which are so very floral, so mild and mouthwateringly good. Mixed with tomatillos and spiced with cumin, they bring me right back to many a happy dinner in New Mexico.
The enchiladas bathed in the verde sauce and topped (at least partially) with some jack cheese before going in the oven.
Bubbling hot and out of the oven the enchiladas fill the house with such an aroma. They’re not as sinful as you may expect and serve a huge crowd — perfect for mid-week dinner and lunch leftovers. This and the salmon cakes were my two culinary accomplishments this weekend. We dressed the salmon cakes which had no bread in the recipe with some sweet potato oven fries, roasted broccoli, home-made tartar sauce and a crispy salmon skin hubby insisted on making. Speaking of hubby, he cooked my mom’s famous sous and I can smell that all the way in the office as I write this. We traded off playing with Sophia while cooking and as you can see, painting and those glorious tulips were all the rage this weekend.
We tried going to the children’s theater to see an age-appropriate play but it had been sold out, so we went to on a long walk stopping by a toy-store and treating Sophia to a mini etch a sketch — an oldie but goodie. Lastly, I admit, I lied, I also made brownies this weekend but since I’ve made them and regaled you with pictures before, I decided not to tease. They’re still just as good. Mmm…
This is what our back yard looked like today. The snow was heavy enough that we both worked from home and tag-teamed childcare. Thankfully, Sophia is pretty good at occupying herself now-a-days. We started the morning with some dancing…
and transitioned to calmer activities like painting.
The end of our workday called for something comforting, something with chocolate — naturally. And so, I whipped up a batch of chocolate muffins. Seems luxurious, right? Well it was. At first, I was worried whether or not the batter would fit into my muffin tins, and then I was worried whether or not the muffins would come out of the tins. First world problems, no?
Turns out, I didn’t have to worry about the muffins coming out of the tins, or their taste for that matter. See for yourself.
As usual we cooked a bit, but made lighter, easier dishes than those that have been de rigueur over the last few, cold months. Something about the glorious sunshine, warmer temperatures and overall better moods stipulated fresh, brighter and spicier flavors. So… there were coconut-lime tacos and this dry-seared shrimp with an orange, cucumber salad dressed with a touch of mint and cilantro. So fresh and so flavorful.
