The Bitten Word

Quinoa Salad with Asparagus, Edamame and Radish

adapted from Fine Cooking (June 2012)

Our friend Jim just graduated from business school, and we invited him over for a celebratory dinner. Nothing fancy -- just a few friends for backyard cocktails and some food on the grill. (We did do one little thing to make it special. We made Jim's self-proclaimed all-time favorite cake.)

The biggest rule for the dinner? No indoor cooking. It was a steamy Saturday, and we didn't want to turn our apartment into a hotbox.

So we were very pleased to come across the feature in the June Fine Cooking on grain salads. The mag proclaims them "the new summer side," and we couldn't agree more.

Edamame Falafel with Spicy Coriander Sauce: A Story in Three Acts

adapted from Everyday Food

Act 1: Wednesday Night, 8:30 p.m.

We're hungry.

We've both had busy days at our jobs, and we forced ourselves to go to the gym afterwards. Now it's late, and we're ready to eat. Fortunately, we've planned ahead: Earlier in the week we purchased all the ingredients to make these Edamame Falafel with Spicy Coriander Sauce.

Three facts make us think this dish will be a home run: We love edamame; we aspire to eat more vegetarian meals; and this dish only takes 35 minutes.

It is firmly in our sweet spot. We are ready to cook.

So we get to work. The chickpeas have been soaking all day, so we pulse them with edamame, parsley, cumin and salt. Falafel are rolled into balls. Oil is heated. Coriander sauce (a mix of sour cream, mayo, coriander and cayenne) is made.

And this is what happens:

Spring Panzanella with Asparagus

Food & Wine (April 2012)

The farmers market can be confounding this time of year, at least in our neck of the woods on the East Coast. It's sunny and springlike outside, but most of the produce at the market is still last fall's root vegetables and fruits. Spring -- so tantalizingly close, yet so far away!

That all started to change this week. Walking through the Dupont Circle farmers market yesterday, we spied the surest sign that spring has sprung: bunches of asparagus.

Young, tender little green stalks, bunched together like small bouquets.

We just had to make this Spring Panzanella.

Radicchio and Cauliflower Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs

Fine Cooking (December 2011/January 2012) 

January is a cruel month for salads. Just when you're trying to eat better and more healthfully, good lettuce becomes hardest to find. The rest of the produce can be wan and unexciting, and you valiantly abstain from all the good stuff ("Oh, no blue cheese for me, thanks!", "Could I get that dressing on the side?").  

Every bite of a January salad can feel like choking down a resolution.

But there's good news.

This Radicchio and Cauliflower Salad with Toasted Breadcrumbs is a welcome break from the sad iceberg lettuce of January. It's just the sort of New Year's salad we can get behind.

Thanksgiving 2011 Recipe Index: What the Food Magazines Are Recommending

Our Fakesgiving + Our Favorite Holiday Dishes

A little more than a week ago, we had Thanksgiving.

Or really, we had Fakesgiving, our annual tradition with friends and family where we pack as many seats as possible into our apartment, make a bunch of new dishes from November food magazines, and see what everyone likes and dislikes. This year, there were 13 of us. Zach's mom and sister came and helped cook the day before (we literally could not have done it without them), and we made 17 new Thanksgiving dishes. 

(This year's Fakesgiving crowd, minus the two of us.)

Below, you'll see the initial list of recipes we started with: more than 250 Thanksgiving recipes from 10 magazines. To be included in the index, the recipes had to be part of the magazine's Thanksgiving coverage. So this is not meant to be comprehensive -- there are many more recipes in this month's magazines. If the recipe is hyperlinked, it is available online. If not, it's not there yet. 

In preparation for this year's Thanksgiving coverage, we've also created a page of Our Favorite Holiday Recipes. There, you'll find a collection of dishes from Thanksgivings, Fakesgivings and holiday dinner parties past. We'll be updating it as we introduce new content and recipes on the site.

Enjoy the index! 

Apple-Fennel Sauerkraut with Caraway (Part 1)

Martha Stewart Living (October 2011)

Well, it's finally happened: We are rotting vegetables (but with purpose!).

We had never had much interest in fermenting vegetables ourselves, but we had two run-ins with kraut-devotees (kraut-heads?) over the summer. The first was at a farmers market near our house, where North Mountain Pastures sells a variety of fermented vegetables. We sampled and then immediately purchased "shiozuke" -- a jar of fermented vegetables including turnips, radishes, carrots, red onions, garlic, ginger, mustard seed and Himalayan sea salt. We loved the sample we had at the market. We have yet to use it at home, but we think it will be great on its own or with fish. 

Our other kraut-meister was Zach's mom, B, who has been fermenting a traditional sauerkraut in her basement this summer. She packs it in water and brine and then stores it at room temperature for several weeks while it ferments. Clay hasn't made it to Tennessee to sample B's recipe, but Zach had a taste when he was visiting home a couple weeks ago. It was sharp, pungent and incredibly tangy. (Although he's still trying to decide if he'd say it was "good.")

Before this, we had never even considered making kraut ourselves. We're all for pickling and canning and other methods of preservation, but it hadn't really dawned on us to make sauerkraut. 

Well, Martha Stewart Living's October feature on Farmhouse Culture, a small business in Santa Cruz, California, was all the inspiration we needed to get to fermenting.

Gratinéed Tomatoes with Asiago and Fresh Herbs

Fine Cooking (July/August 2011)

Just over a week ago, we got canning fever.

Tomatoes had been on u-pick at our CSA for a few weeks, and we had debated going out to pick up some for canning and making sauce. But we kept talking ourselves out of it because we were either busy or heading out of town. We still have some tomatoes left over from last summer, and we told ourselves that those would be sufficient until next year. 

But the tomatoes kept appearing on the u-pick list, and we kept debating...

Finally, feeling that summer was slipping away and the tomatoes were starting to dwindle at the farm, we drove out there very, very early on a Friday morning to get ourselves a great big ol' mess'a maters.  

 

Chopped Green Bean and Celery Salad with Mustard Vinaigrette

Everyday Food (July/August 2011)

This time of year can be heady business at the farmers market.

It's easy to get overwhelmed by the piles of peaches, corn, tomatoes and melons that are spilling out of nearly every produce stand. We often emerge from the market dazed and confused, unsure of what all we just bought on our whirlwind spin through the stands.

But there's one vegetable -- from one particular stand -- that we almost never fail to buy: A paper bag full of Jade green beans from New Morning Farm. 

We just love 'em, and we can't pass up the gorgeous green mountain of them that's prominently displayed in front of the New Morning tent every Sunday at the Dupont Circle Farmers Market.

And the beans are so terrific to have on hand all summer long. They're delicious in a sauté with corn and onions, or heated in a skillet in a little bacon grease, or even just steamed on their own with no extra adornment whatsoever.

Here's a salad from the latest Everyday Food that gives us yet another way to enjoy fresh green beans.

Kohlrabi, Fennel and Blueberry Salad

Food & Wine (July 2011)

There's only one reason we made this salad. 

No, it's not because it looks like a salad that traveled back in time from the future. 

And no, it's not because it's just about the most unusual-sounding dish we've seen in any magazine this year.

The truth is, we made it because we had kohlrabi in our fridge. Each year, our CSA gives us a bit of kohlrabi and every year we make slaw. And you know what?  Slaw is good, but it can get a bit boring if you're not making barbecue or going on a picnic. 

So we jumped at the chance to use our kohlrabi in a non-slaw dish. And this salad was so different that we had to try it.

Orange-and-Ale Vinaigrette

Food & Wine (June 2011)

Want to know how to instantly make any recipe scream "summer"?

Just add beer. 

That was the case with Beer-Baked White Beans. There's nothing landmark about the recipe, but something about cooking those beans in beer made them not only delicious, but also so absolutely appropriate for a summer barbecue. 

It's the same story here, with a salad dressing made from our favorite ale.