Something about watching the BF's expression go from "Vegan, really?" to "Yes I would like forty more of these, thank you" does my heart good. [Ed. note: These kind of surprises are the best.]
Actually made these for the first time last August, and wondered why I'd waited so long to try them. Cinco de Mayo provides a perfect excuse to bring them out again, and will hopefully give you a healthy, vegan, gluten-free option should you be hosting family and friends for the holiday, or any day! PS: A year ago we were watching the Golden State Warriors in the middle of a playoff run (tonight they're headed into Houston for a game against the Rockets) [Ed. note and game recap 5/5: DAMMIT], and we had a bit of fun with some coconut curry shrimp dedicated to one Wardell Stephen Curry II. www.moveablefeast.me/blog/three-point-coconut-curry-shrimp
Adapted from: Jessica Seinfeld (jessicaseinfeld.com/)
Number of servings: 2-4 depending on how hungry you are Ingredients Pickled onion and Jalapeños
Directions Pickled Onion & Jalapeños
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Sometimes the single picture is worth the thousand words. Just look at this reddish bronzed skin! The BF often tells me that he loves the simplest roasted chicken dishes, and this one couldn't be easier. Adapted from Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat, this recipe encompasses two whole ingredients. Three, if you count salt. Genius.
The buttermilk and salt work like a brine, tenderizing the meat to yield an unbelievably juicy chicken with crispy, gorgeously intense-colored skin. Be sure to leave 24 hours for marinating. I streamlined the recipe a bit, as well as decreased the amount of salt in the marinade. One of the best things about roast chicken is that you can serve it with anything. Try it with these side dishes:
Adapted from Samin Nosrat's Salt Fat Acid Heat blog and Netflix special of same name. Number of servings: 4 Ingredients
Directions
So the NBA playoffs are here, and I ain't no basketball widow—I love my Golden State Warriors and Portland Trailblazers. For game one of the round-one series between the Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers, we hosted a pizza party with a close high-school friend of the BF, his lovely wife and twins (boy and girl), who are now finishing up their HS-freshman year. [Ed. note: Time flies! Is April really halfway done?]
We also for the first time met a previously social-media-only acquaintance, a young man who shares the BF's love of San Francisco bay area sports teams. Always better to meet in person! Together, we all enjoyed an emphatic game-one Warriors victory. [Ed. note: Since the Warriors somehow managed to blow a 31-point lead in game two, we now must have pizza parties for all future games. Hey I don't make the rules. :-\ ]
Note to self: make lamb shoulder chops more often. Inexpensive, take little-to-no time to cook (6-10 minutes!) and go with almost anything. Being that it is spring, lamb goes very well with mint, carrots, and potatoes, all of which are are in season.
This beautiful meal will grace our Passover table and will be served as Easter dinner to one client family as well. NOTES:
PS: One year ago, the BF and I fought off a seriously pesky bug [Ed. note: NOT fun.] and I made white chocolate bark with strawberries and pistachios (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/white-chocolate-bark-with-strawberries-pistachios).
Adapted from: Jessica Seinfeld
Number of servings: 4 Ingredients Mint Vinaigrette
Directions
I professed my love of mushrooms earlier this year with the help of The Bruce Dickinson and his cowbell (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/mushroom-risotto), and wasn't lying. If I could only have one kind of pizza the rest of my life, this is it. Havarti and fontina cheese, sautéed shiitake and baby bella mushrooms, fresh rosemary and thyme, and a little drizzle of white truffle oil make this pizza wonderfully rich and completely addicting.
Truffle oil is a bit too rich for the BF [Ed. note: I'm already fungus drunk!], so I just drizzled it on half of the pizza. Honestly, this doesn't need it as it's very rich on it's own, but it definitely gives the pizza a wow factor.
I added thinly sliced red onion and minced serrano peppers. Entirely optional, but I thought it balanced the spices and richness of the cheese and truffle oil.
NOTES:
PS: One year ago, a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime [Ed. note: well hopefully not] family reunion permeated the roasted beet salad with orange and avocado recipe (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/roasted-beet-salad-with-orange-and-avocado).
Adapted from: A Beautiful Plate
Number of Servings: Makes one 10-11 inch pizza Ingredients Pizza Dough
Directions Pizza Dough
As Tom Lehrer sang a year ago, "Spring is here!" [Ed. note: Check the PPS below for the link.] These beauties are in season all year, but I especially love them in the spring time. Have been known to serve them up as a main dish since they take less than 30 minutes to make, but you'll probably want to have them as a side with...anything.
In our house, we drizzle chimichurri sauce on everything from grilled/roasted beef to lamb, chicken, fish, seafood, rice, quinoa, yams, and veggies. Even eggs or avocado toast. Bright, zesty, addicting. NOTE: I have found tri-color fingerling potatoes and at my local supermarket, but if you can't find them, you can use Dutch baby potatoes or yellow fingerlings. And finally, a quick side note to nominate the BF for a "BF of the year" award [Ed. note: AND I WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE ACADEMY...], as I have been shuffling around with a slipped disc, unable to lift the 60-pound bins I deliver daily (up and down 3 flights of stairs). He has not only helped me dauntlessly for the past two weeks, but with a smile on his face. Could not have fulfilled the orders without him and, hopefully, this roasted potato side with a prime ribeye was an adequate reward for his efforts. MUAH [Ed. note: Hey nobody tell her I'm happy to tag along. PRIME RIBEYE, people!]
PS: Think these potatoes are colorful? Well check out these pinkalicious deviled eggs as I re-examine family trauma (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/pinkalicious-deviled-eggs).
PPS: Also high on the color charts are these spice roasted carrots with avocado and yogurt, which we bring to you while (proverbially) poisoning pigeons in the park (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/spiced-roasted-carrots-with-avocado-yogurt). PPPS: We celebrated St. Patrick's Day with a heartfelt Denis Leary ditty and Bailey's Irish Cream Tiramisu (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/baileys-irish-cream-tiramisu).
Adapted from: A Beautiful Plate (potatoes); The Pollan Family Table (chimichurri), Corky, Lori, Dana and Tracy Pollan
Number of servings: 4 Ingredients Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Directions Roasted Fingerling Potatoes
Set out to make a cake made with olive oil to see what it would taste like. One bowl. No eggs. No dairy. Vegan. [Ed. note: Vegan? Chocolate cake? Is this allowed?] Why yes! Yes it is. In fact, because of the olive oil it's so incredibly moist, with a deep dark-chocolate flavor, it made me swoon. [Ed. note: Taking notes.]
This has been called a Wacky cake or Depression Cake (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depression_cake), as during those years milk, sugar, butter and eggs were either expensive or scarce. Now my love of cake-making with oil instead of butter runs deep. I have baked many a cake with grapeseed or canola oils (both flavorless), but this was my first foray into using olive oil. The result is a far more moist dessert that keeps exceptionally well. Deb of Smitten Kitchen says, "On day four in the fridge, ours was as moist as day one, basically a miracle." Using olive oil, for some strange reason, just never seemed right. I think of olive oil as being savory, but I was wrong. It truly works here. NOTES:
Adapted from: Smitten Kitchen Number of Servings; 8-12 Ingredients Cake
Directions Cake
Just because Mardi Gras may have passed, doesn't mean it's not too late to serve this light, brothy, hearty and incredibly flavorful gumbo. (In our household, Mardi Gras-month is always a time for celebrating everything New Orleans.) Adapted from a recipe the great Emeril Lagasse published in a dog-eared copy of the September, 1994 issue of Bon Appetit.
New Orleans is, hands down, an all-time favorite city for me and the BF. Incredible food, history, architecture and music [Ed. note: Tipitina's, represent!] everywhere you step. We never, ever tire of that city, and are lucky to have visited at all different times of the year. We also can't leave until we've had a bowl of gumbo...somewhere. A few of my favorite places to enjoy the staple are Dooky Chase Restaurant, Galatoire's and Nola's. Come to think of it, it's been many years since the BF and I have been. Perhaps we need to head back soon? [Ed. note: Do not tease!] NOTES:
A small sampling of my vast voodoo doll collection.
Until next year, Laissez les bon temps rouler!
Adapted from: Bon Appetit, September 1994 Number of servings: 8 Ingredients Stage I
Directions
PS: A year ago chocolate and peanut butter squared off and clashed in a titanic battle for the ages (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/chocolate-peanut-butter-tart), then there was an attempt to make up for that dessert bomb with some roasted shrimp and asparagus with shallot lemon vinaigrette (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/shrimp-asparagus-with-shallot-lemon-vinaigrette). PPS: "Iko Iko" is one of my favorite songs, takes me right back to New Orleans.
Last October the BF and I were invited to dinner at the house of some dear friends. Husband, wife, and two adorable kids. The hubs is a grill-master, and the wife is a wonderful cook who treated us to Indian-spiced grilled chicken, roasted yams and a kale salad that was so good I asked if we could use it for a future blog, and she was kind enough to say yes. She does not know the specific origins of the recipe as it came to her from a friend. No matter. Our benefit, and yours.
Since that dinner the salad has accompanied many meals for the meat-loving BF, and was a highlight of our last Thanksgiving feast. It's almost too easy to assemble, and could not be healthier. NOTE: Okay, maybe a little healthier. To make this vegetarian dish vegan, simply substitute the mayonnaise with Vegenaise eggless or other vegan substitute.
Adapted from: Our dear friends around the corner!
Number of servings: 2-4 Dressing Ingredients
Salad Ingredients
[Ed. note: Quick addendum to give a heartfelt farewell to a man who REALLY loves his kale, former San Francisco Giant outfielder Hunter Pence. As a bay area kid who grew up experiencing a lot of awful Giants baseball (Boo LeMaster!), it was thrilling to watch you patrol AT&T Park's angular right field, preach the championship blood through two World Series victories (2012, 2014), and get that ridiculous three-stage hit that people here will forever be talking about. All love and best of luck to you as you play for your Arlington-hometown Texas Rangers. Yes. Yes. Yes.]
They say, "Don't meet your heroes." They say a lot of things.
Hi, it's the [bracket-happy] BF-editor again. Please forgive the brief indulgence, but another great food date was punctuated by a seriously cool moment I can relate to. For about a quarter century, in the music-journalist former life I was fortunate enough to meet or interview many people. Some were bona fide celebrities (Adam Levine, Lars Ulrich, Lionel Richie, Alice Cooper), but the ones that hit closer to home were non-household names—serious musicians, producers, or industry business-people. Like Jac Holzman, who founded Elektra Records. He discovered The Doors, and signed everyone from MC5 and Carly Simon to Queen (in the US). Or Jack Douglass, a producer who spun knobs for John Lennon, Aerosmith, Miles Davis and The Who. Vinnie Colaiuta, a teenage hero of mine who drummers know by his first name alone, has toured with more artists and played on more albums than your phone's cloud account can hold. Among musicians, he achieved legendary status for his otherworldly drumming on Frank Zappa's 1979 album Joe's Garage. Interviewing and later meeting Vinnie at a music-industry trade show, not small thrills. Last night I got to watch Jacquie meet her Vinnie.
April Bloomfield is a British chef probably best known for her New York gastropub The Spotted Pig and books A Girl and Her Pig and A Girl and Her Greens. The Birmingham, England native studied at Birmingham College and has a staggering culinary teeth-cutting pedigree. She apprenticed under Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray at The River Café (London), spent a summer in Berkeley at Chez Panisse, kicked butt on Iron Chef America, and has Michelin stars and accolades from every food periodical imaginable. She also, along with restauranteur Ken Friedman (the two behind The Spotted Pig), saved the near-century-old San Francisco staple Tosca Café (242 Columbus, North Beach) from imminent-eviction doom in 2012.
Politicians, writers, actors, models and rock stars have graced this former speakeasy for decades.
Chef Bloomfield is known for loving pig, and using every bit of the animal in her dishes. All apologies for lack of food photographs, as again the proper modeling releases were not served. Also, it's dang dark (technical term) in there. A quick rundown of what we sampled:
Basking in the pig-poultry afterglow, Jacquie then got the chance to be escorted to the front of the kitchen, and exchanged pleasantries and kudos with Chef Bloomfield, who we honestly did not expect to be in house. Very thankful she got to do that, considering the kitchen's bustling chaos. They even allowed a quick picture of the crew in full flight.
These guys don't mess around.
Many thanks to Chef Bloomfield and Tosca Café staff. We'll be back for dessert and that House "Cappuccino." Oh, and that bit they say about "Don't meet your heroes?" Don't listen to them.
Your humble editor with Vinnie at National Association of Music Merchants, 2002.
Pasta. Parmesan cheese. Cream. Prosciutto. Four ingredients. [Ed. note: Can't get The Count from Sesame Street out of my head, "One, two, three, four ingredients heh heh heh."]
Make it vegetarian by omitting the prosciutto. Three ingredients. You're welcome. An indulgent winter meal that reheats very well, I make it once a year for the BF and he goes clinically insane over it. [Ed. note: Do I need to concur? Folks, she doesn't lie.] NOTES:
Adapted from: Gourmet, December 2006
Number of servings: 6 (main course) or 8 (side dish) Ingredients
Directions
PS: A year ago we stepped it up to four ingredients to satisfy the sweet tooth with this sumptuous café au lait pudding adapted from Ashley Rodriguez's Date Night In (www.moveablefeast.me/blog/cafe-au-lait-pudding). |
AuthorI'm Jacquie, personal chef & recipe developer in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Lover of books, bourbon, chocolate and movies. Archives
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