Deb Perelman's Blog, page 32
January 24, 2017
the smitten kitchen series on food network
Have you ever wanted to go behind the scenes here at the Smitten Kitchen? Like, really behind the scenes, watching me cook, listening to me chatter about how the recipe came about and grimacing at my terrible knife skills? Phew, I was hoping you would say no because I’m excruciatingly awkward in person and also on camera and since we all agree, you can just come back in a day or two and we’ll proceed with a new recipe like we always do. Right?
Nope?
Well, if you’re still here, you might be the kind of person who likes today’s kind of crazy news which is that the Food Network has launched a Smitten Kitchen digital series and you can watch the first episode right here:
Here’s the direct link: http://www.foodnetwork.com/videos/spaghetti-carbonara-pie-0260654.html
In this first episode, I am making a wildly inauthentic and only somewhat apologetic spaghetti carbonara pie in the style of this pecorino and black pepper springform-bound one. This one uses crispy pancetta, is heavier on the yolks, just like real carbonara, and then broccoli rabe too, not at all like the real stuff. It’s crunchy and rich and salty and cheesy and because it has greens in it, basically a salad. We inhaled it.
You can make it too; on the recipe is on the Food Network website.*
January 19, 2017
chocolate dutch baby
If I had a superpower, it would be rationalizing. Did you find a pair of boots that you love but they’re wildly expensive? Text me and I will tell you about the only time in my life I have splurged on boots and how lovely they are. Were you having a nostalgic conversation with a friend about boxed macaroni and cheese and now you’re craving it? I say you’re basically obligated to reunite with it once in a while as an adult for, like, reassessment. But that’s my base level of rationalizing; what I did last weekend was Olympic.
Despite the story the archives will tell you, I only make those ladle and flip (and flip and repeat until you’re not even sure you want pancakes anymore) style of flapjacks once in a while. I’m just not that ambitious/functional at the hours in which my kids insist I should be awake. When the urge, guilt, whatever, strikes to be that cool parent who makes pancakes on the weekends and not just to Instagram it, more often than not I make a big dutch baby instead — you know, those loupy, bronzed, crepe-like pancake showoffs. You almost definitely already have the ingredients on hand, you can whisk the ingredients with a fork and all the magic happens hands-off, in the oven — it’s win-win.
January 13, 2017
crusty baked cauliflower and farro
I have been thinking about how it might be cool to do a bake pasta dish in which we swap the noodles for farro but leave all the great parts like cheese, so much cheese, chunks of vegetable and, most hopefully, a crunchy lid for years. Years! In that time, I have cooked hundreds of other things, some even not terrible, even, but it took until I handed my husband the latest Ina Garten cookbook and told him to pick out some things we should eat and he pointed to her recipe for crusty shells and cheese that I thought “This!” I last felt this urgently about swapping pasta for a grain when we made this, three and a half years ago.
I should not have waited so long. This was wonderful, a perfect example of the kind of cooking I like best: lots of whole grains and vegetables but no compromises in flavor, texture or a bit of indulgence. Nobody ate this for dinner just because they “should” and not just because half our family is under eight and definitely don’t care about “shoulds” at all.
January 6, 2017
chicken wonton soup
I don’t know why it took me so long to make this as it combines the only two things I ever want when I’m sick: chicken noodle and wonton soup. The thing is, when you’re sick, you absolutely do not want to cook anything. (Also sometimes when we’re well, to be completely honest. Shh, don’t tell anyone.) And so for a couple nights, we picked up a decent chicken noodle soup in the neighborhood, but when we tired of that, ordered wonton soup instead. It’s usually a disappointment. Sometimes it seems like a quart of bland broth with three floating pockets in it, not the most filling meal. Plus, it’s off the menu for anyone who doesn’t eat pork or shrimp. But this one was not; it was chicken wontons in chicken broth and it was exceptional, the happiest mashup of the two wonderful things.
Had the delivery not come an hour later, forcing me to — gasp! — scramble some food together for the kids anyway, I probably would have never made this. But as I was enjoying my soup, I realized that this would be so ridiculously easy to hack, it might even be done before it arrived next time.
December 29, 2016
pimento cheese potato bites
Sorry, I blinked and missed 2016 in that way that happens when you’re so deeply in it, you forget to look up. I went from having one kid and a tiny bundle wrapped in a blanket to have two real-live mobile children and they are impossibly cute and exhausting and I wouldn’t want it any other way except for maybe once a week if we can find a babysitter. Like all parents ever, I think my seven year-old says amazing things, such as when he told us this weekend we needed to get our New Year’s Revolutions ready. My 17-month old is a tempest of curls and a blur of frenetic energy and whenever she exhibits, ahem, “low frustration tolerance” people decide this is the perfect time to tell me how much we are alike, not sure what that’s about… Both kids got serious birthday cakes and for once, my husband did alright too. I got to go on a surprise birthday trip to Mexico City without kids (!) and then we went to Portugal with two children, had a great time, and even remembered to bring the same two children home with us. If we can do that, we can do anything, right?
More relevant to this space, Smitten Kitchen turned 10 years old and I wrote some completely earnest stuff about 10 years of food blogging. I also gave a completely terrifying keynote address at a conference. This site was at last redesigned, the culmination of a multi-year and multi-design team effort to release this site from my circa 2006 attempts at CSS. This was a challenge and a life lesson in accepting that sometimes 95% done, at least for websites is good enough. (That said, we tweak things every week. I expect it to be perfect by 5 years from now, precisely in time for the next redesign.) I finished (well 95% again, but not the kind I’m at peace with because I’m the kind of author that gives publishers ulcers) a cookbook and then I let 13 people with cameras and mics and lights wreck havoc on my apartment one day (more soon on both of these). I hosted my first Thanksgiving and also we started having people over almost every other week because have you ever been at a restaurant with a toddler? Suddenly the idea of cooking even for 11 people on the regular is wildly more appealing. I enjoy the results this has had on my cooking, too, figuring out which meals scale easily, can be prepped in advance and accommodate various diets.
December 16, 2016
homemade irish cream
Look, we all have to draw the line somewhere. I have over the years insisted that making some things from scratch were just crazy, best left to others, and one by one come around and worse, as if I’d forgotten my repudiation of five minutes earlier like some sort of toddler, extolled the virtues of doing so. Cases in point: Graham crackers, marshmallows, bagels, dulce de leche, pop tarts, rainbow cookies, goldfish crackers, apple strudel, fully from-scratch hot fudge sundae cakes and Russian honey cakes but if you were to suggest I should make my own yogurt, croissants or sushi, despite the fact that I would be delighted if you made any of these things, doubly so if you brought some to me right now, I would probably rather unpack the last box from our last move (two-plus years ago), not even jokingly labeled “Unfiled Files.” Look, we all have to draw the line somewhere. I mean, what’s next if I cross these lines? Milling my own flours? Smoking my own pork belly? Making our own Bailey’s-style Irish cream?
Well, actually: yes. And here I go again: But it was so easy! You could and totally should do this at home! I had heard over the years that you could make this at home easily but — and I think this is the fulcrum on which we balance our yup/nope choices to cook things that amply exist outside our kitchens — I wasn’t unhappy with what I could buy (Bailey’s) so why would I bother? Irish cream has always been a favorite cold-weather indulgence, in or outside coffee. I’ve even made french toast with it. We always have a bottle around. But in the last couple years, I’ve found it almost too sweet to drink and I guess you could say we were on a break.
December 9, 2016
union square cafe’s bar nuts
Four years ago, when I was home for a couple days between book tour stops and I had about 3 gazillion errands to run but I was also hungry (because proper meals are the first thing to go when I’m busy) and really craving a great salad (because vegetables are the first thing to get stiffed when you travel a lot) and I didn’t want to eat it out of a takeout container or on my lap or in a hurry, I wanted to sit down and eat it off a plate like a civilized person with water in a glass, not a plastic bottle, and the want for this was overwhelming and I looked up and I was right in front of the Union Square Cafe and thought, “Why not?”
Do you ever go out to eat alone? I really don’t. When I had the freedom to do this more often, I always felt awkward and fidgety and now that I’m old enough to not care, we only occasionally have the luxury of going out without two small people and snack cups of Cheerios, and certainly not alone, you know, sitting at a bar, reading a book like one of those grownups you always thought you’d be? But this time I did. The salad was perfect. The bread was warm. The bartender talked me into (I’m sure I was terribly hard to convince) a glass of wine and 35 minutes later I resumed my errands happy and fed and cared for and swore I’d do this more often, although I really don’t.
December 5, 2016
chocolate caramel crunch almonds + new kitchen favorites
Mostly because I have little interest in telling you how to part with your hard-earned money, this isn’t a gift guide. However, ahem, I do purchase a few kitchen-related items each year and thought I’d mention some of the standouts from 2016. [Here’s 2015’s list, all still in heavy rotation.] Most are remarkably basic, either because I had necessities to replace (coughclumsy) but a lot are simple just because I’m incredibly stubborn and it really has taken me this long to buy a second set of measuring cups and spoons, some aprons and a coffee-making apparatus. Not all of these may pack up well in boxes with ribbon — well, except that deliciousness at the end, of course — but I can promise you that they’re getting a lot of mileage in a heavy-use kitchen, and as always, I bought them myself.
Kitchen Things I’ve Bought That I Loved, 2016 Edition
November 28, 2016
spinach sheet pan quiche
I know we all associate December with cookies, cocktails, yule logs and latkes, but what about the smaller, enduring festivities that often go overlooked, namely workplace and other potluck luncheons? Because my “coworkers” are basically a laptop and occasionally these wild things, my current participation level is limited, but I know that usually what happens is that it’s rather easy to bring cookies and cakes but as nobody wants to drag a roast on the subway and then heat it up in the breakroom microwave, main dishes are harder to nail down.
I am here to help. I found myself wracking my brain a few weeks ago for something to make for my husband’s work potluck — and unfortunately, heh, as someone recognized him early in his tenure there as my husband, I cannot get away with sending him in with a box of Dunkin Donuts, drat — and ended up making two of these galettes. They fit the bill of being something that’s delicious cold or at room temperature, but they are a bit of work. Five minutes after sending him off, I realize the perfect solution was here the whole time.
November 21, 2016
brussels sprouts, apple and pomegranate salad
Things I Learned Hosting My First Friendsgiving
On logistics
• As I realized last week, what makes big meals (we had 16 people) scary isn’t the cooking as much as the sheer volume of it all and the logistics required to manage them. I mean, who here has a kitchen that was built to feed 16? Trust me, it’s not you, it’s your kitchen making things hard.
• Thus the more time you spend plotting things out, the less stressful it will be. Because I’m Team Casserole, i.e. I prefer dishes that are deep and bubbly, can be made well in advance and reheat well, they’re all fairly forgiving of too long or short warming times. Too long, they get a little extra crunchy and toasted on top (yum), too little, they still pack a lot of warmth inside, even if they’re not bubbling hot. I warmed all of the dishes before the turkey went in and then slid in one or two while it roasted. When the turkey came out and we needed 30 minutes to rest and carve it, all the sides went back in to warm.
• Everything that can be done in advance, should be, and as early as possible. You’re doing it for you. When we have a lot of people over, this often leads to me quite over-exhausting myself the night before getting everything prepped that can be, but then I wake up rested and we’re 80% there. It’s not actually a stressful day, which means we’re far more likely to enjoy the party. If I can’t finish prep the night before, I’ll do it in the morning. It’s essential to me that there’s a little window of vegging/non-cooking time between prepping stuff and cooking the stuff that must be done at the last-minute. It’s also a great time to change into something fresh.
• All the pies were made earlier in the week and either went into the fridge (pecan) or freezer (pumpkin) until needed.
• Finally, I think we should all buy each other trivets for Christmukkah. I have… 4? What kind of Thanksgiving has only 4 hot dishes coming out of the kitchen? None we want to be at, thank you very much.
