It’s pancake time. Besides the fact that you can stack ‘em high like a Lego tower held together with delicious blueberry mortar, there is only one reason why you need to make pancakes, in particular these cornmeal silver dollar pancakes. They’re delicious. And they’ll brighten up any part of the day. Alright, two reasons. Recipe, here. If you’re unsure of the silver-dollar aspect of these pancakes, let me just say that the more pancakes resemble silver dollars, the tippier the pancake tower will be. Which means an awesome resemblance to everyone’s favorite tower.
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Tags: pancakes, tower of food
Cod with Tomato Olive Compote.
What’s better than a delicious recipe that fills you up and leaves you feeling healthy and happy? One that looks super fancy and like you slaved in a Mediterranean olive orchard, tomato field, on a Atlantic fishing boat, and over a hot stove for hours when really all you did was bake something for 15 minutes and sauté a handful of ingredients for just as long. Part one in a continual series of dishes that look awesome, taste great, and didn’t really require that much effort. Recipe, here.
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Tags: cod, easyaspie, fish, mediterranean
Kaya Toast with a Poached Egg.
Let’s be honest—there’s nothing that makes a better food picture than a poached or soft boiled egg just popped. All that oozy yolk, that richness flowing across something that’s sure to have just gotten all the more delicious. It’s practically food photo cheating and I’m happy to admit my guilt. Because after these shots were taken, I got to partake in something that was even more tasty than it looks. For every shot of an oozing egg, there is a happy tummy.
So…sri kaya. It’s coconut jam that’s some magical mixture of egg yolks, coconut, and sugar and it cooks down into something the texture of a smooth caramel or unpasteurized honey. It’s sweet and coconut delicious and is perfect on everything from toast to pancakes to yogurt to ice cream. Probably even more, but I can hardly wait for the amount of time it takes to toast something because this jam is so delicious. I’d eat it on crackers, or off a spoon…
As tasty as sri kaya is, it gets a little weird. One way to eat it, as popularized in Southeast Asia, is on buttered toast and dipped into a soft boiled egg. Susan Feniger’s LA restaurant STREET takes it a bit further and tops it all off with a rich soy sauce and white pepper. Having just acquired a jar of Hey Boo Coconut Jam from the stinky cheese heaven known as the Bedford Cheese Shop, I pulled together a version of kaya toast and while it may sound a little weird, man it’s good. The creaminess of the yolk matches the sweet richness of the jam, cut through with cultured and salted butter and spicy pepper. The soy sauce perfectly cuts through the sugar for a salty and sweet combination. and I even dragged local mustard greens into the mix, which was a weird and delicious addition.
For all the coconut lovers out there, I can only insist that you track some of this jam down. And if you’re in the mood for something completely different, give the jam/egg/soy sauce/pepper combination a try.
Filed under: Breakfast | 2 Comments
Tags: coconut jam, kaya toast
Sometimes, you just gotta wrap it up. And hey, when if comes to the perfectly portable lunch, nothing is better than choosing all your spreads, veggies, and fillings and wrapping them up into a delicious and filling lunch. Take roasted cauliflower and onions for example. Spiced with cumin and smoked paprika, it sure is delicious, but not necessarily the easiest lunch to eat on the go. But add a homemade take on babganoush and a whole wheat lavash or tortilla, and you’ve got roasted cauliflower on the go. The bagaganoush is of course, one of the most important components. Every good wrap, even every good sandwich really, needs a good and supportive glue. Roasted eggplant, tahini, and garlic spread fits the bill nicely.
It’s a wrap, Wrap. Recipe, here.
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Tags: lunch, roasted cauliflower, wrap
The inspiration for this salad comes from, like most good things, the backyard setting of a whiskey- and jazz-soaked wine bar. This particular one being located in New Orleans, so you can be certain that the food, if anything, pairs well with all manner of drink. But truthfully, who needs anything else when your salad is layered with crisp, sweet apples, spicy and creamy dressing, and flakes of perfectly smoked, moist sable?
Not me. Set me up with a bowl of this stuff, or four, and leave me be.
In terms of food delay, I’m quite sorry. You see, I first had this salad back in February and while I’ve been thinking about recreating it for quite some time, it took me a couple weeks to make it to one of the most wonderful places on Earth, the smoked fish heaven known as Russ & Daughters. To be clear, it’s taken this long not because Russ & Daughters with competing cases of bakery and smoked fish lining the most wonderful store possible is far away, but because once I got started down this smoked fish path, there was going to be no stopping the smoked fish creations. Just the other day I had smoked salmon and potato croquettes with horseradish dipping sauce which begged to be recreated. Imagine, the smoked fish tartines, smoked fish pizzas, smoked fish tacos…
So, this salad has opened the Pandora’s box of smoked fish creations, and I do hope that you love the stuff as much as I do. Because now the floodgates are open. I may very well be one of the first people to go bankrupt because of smoked sable. And don’t forget about the whitefish, lox, tuna…
Continue reading ‘Smoked Sable Salad with Horseradish Dressing’
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Tags: horseradish dressing, Russ and Daughters, smoked fish salad, smoked sable
It’s all kale all day. Want a tasty salad? Want a green that you can dress and leave in the fridge for days?
Hello kale. You sure are some tough rouage, but with the right amount of acid, you make a tasty tasty salad. Especially with a creamy miso sesame dressing, roasted edamame, and kale two ways. Crisped up and raw.
Recipe, here.
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Tags: kale, kale salad, protein salad, roughage
Chocolate Coconut Loaf.
Sometimes, you just have to know when to cut your losses and…eat cake. One instance, which happens more than you (let’s be real “I”) would hope is when, in your smaller than average Brooklyn kitchen, the one window in the entire apartment which provides any decent light is not doing its job. Yea, sure it’s letting in a few UV rays and if we were a couple weeks along I probably would even crack the window and let some sweet, fresh air in. But those UV rays are not lighting my nicely styled food in the proper way. Even though it should be soft morning light, it’s all harsh and shadowy. Bleh.
Thankfully, as with most instances in food blogging, if the pictures aren’t turning out, at least you have something tasty to eat. And in this particularly instance, after a few failed attempts to get an overhead which finally culminated in the two slightly weird little shots you see here (backlight and looking over the back of the cake like a creepster?), I got to eat cake.
So all in all, a win.
Losses than have been cut and resulted in cake are not only to be found in the food blogging space. In simple baking, you often end up with cake. Especially when you venture into the realm of breakfast “breads.” You know what I’m talking about. Looking at you banana walnut, carrot raisin, and apple. The breads that, if we were perfectly honest, are really just cake that you can throw in the toaster and heat up, real nice. To do away with any pretense that this coconut loaf was actually bread, I added a decent sized handful of chocolate chips.
By which I mean a cupful. And let me say, it improved the “bread” quite nicely. All studded up with coconut, scented with vanilla, this really is one of the best pieces of bread a girl could have.
Filed under: Bread, Breakfast, Cake | Leave a Comment
Tags: breakfast cake, cake, chocolate coconut, loaf
