Ann Mah's Blog, page 14

Highway robbery

It was all going so well. But those are fateful words, I see that now. There I was on assignment for Condé Nast Traveler, faithfully scouring the provinces for the country’s best regional cuisine. I had discovered buckwheat crêpes that resembled fine lace in Brittany; dipped into a bowl of still-simmering cassoulet in the Languedoc. I had snapped photos of fat tabby cats wandering the cobblestone streets of Carcassone and discovered new friends and ancient arenas in Arles. I had even argued with a Cassis waiter to obtain the day’s last two servings of bouillabaisse.

But while driving to the second-to-last-stop on my eating tour of France — Lyon — things took an unpleasant turn. At an autoroute rest-stop in the Ardèche, my handbag was stolen. It happened in only seconds — I got up from the table to fetch a napkin, my friend was tapped on the shoulder and distracted — poof! — the bag was gone. I lost my passport, my phone, my camera, my enthusiasm (not to mention the keys to the rental car — thankfully, I still had my wallet). It was, quite literally, highway robbery.

Thanks to the kindness of friends and strangers, we eventually limped into Lyon and dined on quenelles that evening. I am deeply grateful to each and every one of them. The next day, I forced myself to continue my research. More than anything, I wanted to go home to my cozy, safe and tranquil apartment in Paris and never go outside again. But when you’re a freelance writer on assignment, the show — and the eating — must go on.

Yesterday I went to the American Embassy to apply for a new passport and while waiting in line, I heard many, many stories much worse than my own. A purse picked on the rue de Rivoli. A couple whose backpacks were snatched from the overhead rack as they slept on the train. A young woman clutching her bag in her lap, dozing off on the train and waking to find all the contents gone.

It’s the type of thing you think will never happen to you — I’m a New Yorker for crying out loud! I’m a travel writer! — until it happens to you. As another friend said: “Who knew there were roving bands of thieves preying on people at autoroute rest-stops?!” But things are just things, and money is just money. And in the end, the quenelles were pretty darn good — and the bouchons of Lyon, and all the kind people I found there, went a long way to erasing the sting. Stay safe, friends. As the guard at the US Embassy told me yesterday, “Gardez-vous le moral!”

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Bookish news

A couple of weeks ago, when I was in New York on the Great Apartment Hunt of 2013, I managed to sneak in a fun visit to my publisher downtown. As it turned out, my timing couldn’t have been better because the ARCs (that’s publishing lingo for Advance Reader’s Copy) of my new book arrived that very afternoon!

I used to work in book publishing so you’d think I’d be blasé about a mundane thing like a bound galley. Not so, my friends. I wept. And then I wouldn’t let it out of my sight.

The waterworks are flowing overtime over here because I also wept copiously a few weeks earlier when the book received this wonderful blurb:

“Excellent ingredients, carefully prepared and very elegantly served. A very tasty book.” –Peter Mayle

Peter Mayle! Author of A Year in Provence and, most recently, The Marseille Caper, and one of my travel writing heros. To say I am honored is an understatement.

Dear friends, if you would like to pre-order a copy of Mastering the Art of French Eating — or if you have already ordered one — I would be delighted to send you a signed book plate to personalize your volume. Drop me an email [ann (at) ann mah dot net] with a copy of your receipt and I’ll pop one in the mail.

Perhaps you’re wondering: What is a book plate? It’s a sticker that you attach inside your book to create a signed edition. Mine were designed by my super-talented graphic designer friend Anna Tunick and feature etchings of some of my favorite vegetables.

You can pre-order here:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Books-A-Million

Indiebound

iTunes

Thanks, as always, for reading. I am grateful. xoxo

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Tuesday dinner with Miss Masala

Does the world need another weeknight recipe for chicken? If it’s smothered in fresh mint and cilantro, garlic, ginger and chilies, I say yes. Today’s recipe from author, blogger, and Kolkata transplant Mallika Basu (aka Miss Masala) set my lips on fire (in a good way).

I used to think cooking Indian food at home was too complicated with all its special ingredients and freshly ground spices. But then I discovered Mallika’s brilliant cookbook, Miss Masala: Real Indian Cooking for Busy Living, a collection of easy, healthy recipes perfect for weeknight meals, and my life was transformed. I love Miss Masala so much that it’s the only cookbook I own TWO copies of — one for Paris, and one for my other itinerant home. (If you take one piece advice from this blog, let it be this: buy this book! I cook from it weekly. It changed my life.)

Along with cooking and writing, Mallika — who now lives in London with her husband and two adorable sprogs — is a high-powered PR executive. Today I’m thrilled to share her quick Indian cooking secrets!

On her regular Tuesday evenings:

I usually race home from home desperate to get a glimpse of the kids before they fall asleep. After I tuck them in, I turn my attention to the man, an ice cold glass of wine or gin and tonic and then start flinging doors open wondering what to cook for dinner!

On prepared vs. freshly ground spices:

I tend to use ready powdered spices during weekday cooking and keep grinding my own for the weekends or special occasions. I would also highly recommend an afternoon of mincing fresh green chillies, ginger and garlic. Spoon them into silicon ice cube trays and freeze for later. This way, you will always have a supply when you are short of time later.

When she doesn’t feel like cooking:

I tend to make extra quantities when I do cook, so there is always a stash of frozen dal or curry in the fridge. If I am not up for cooking, it’ll be either a case of one of these with some steaming hot Basmati rice, or ready pizza. Failing both, I am afraid I am left to my man’s devices.

On her pantry and freezer staples:

You can’t beat lentils and chick peas for a quick, healthy and wholesome meal. I am also a big fan of ready, freshly frozen vegetables like spinach and peas. And you will always find a supply of chicken thighs and drumsticks in my freezer too. They work so well marinated and shoved into the oven to cook slowly (as in the quick fix Murgh Hariyali below), while you get on with bedtime stories, blogging and housework!

Murgh Hariyali

by Mallika Basu

Serves four

*Note from Ann: Mallika’s spicy marinade transforms boring chicken into something fresh and fiery. Though Mallika is not a fan, I have to admit I used chicken breasts (and shortened the cooking time to 20 minutes) and the dish was delicious.

25 grams (about 1 oz) fresh coriander leaves

25 grams (about 1 oz) fresh mint leaves

1 medium onion

4 cloves garlic

1 inch ginger

1 green finger chili

Half tsp black pepper

2 tbsp oil (any colourless and flavourless oil)

8 Chicken thighs and drumsticks

Salt to taste

Turn the oven on to 190 C / 375 F.

Whizz the first seven ingredients with a bit of warm water in a blender to get a smooth marinade. Add salt to taste.

In an shallow ovenproof dish, lay the chicken pieces one beside the other and slather them in the marinade and oil. Place in the oven and bake for an hour, turning the chicken pieces over once during cooking.

This is lovely scooped into warm pita bread.

In case you missed them, here are some other posts I’ve written on Miss Masala (have I mentioned that I love this book?)

Tadka dal (Tuesday dinner with Croque Camille)

Spiced coconut cod

Subcontinental feast

 

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Worth the wait

First of all, thank you, dear friends, for all your comments on my last post. Somehow life’s ginormous changes aren’t quite as scary with you next to me. Reading your kind words of congratulations and encouragement gave me my first tiny burst of confidence — a feeling of I can DO this! (instead of: we are crazy). And then, a few days ago, my husband reminded me of the lyrics of an old song:

The great big city’s a wondrous toy

Just made for a girl and boy.

We’ll turn Manhattan

into an isle of joy.

I look forward to sharing many more moments of joy and sadness (and everything in between) with you all.

Meanwhile, here are some stats on what I’ve been up to since Thursday:

Number of trips to New York: 1

Number of apartments seen in one day: 12 (!!!)

Number of plans to go to East Village for dinner after apartment hunting: 1

Number of visits made to East Village for dinner: 0

Number of room service cheeseburgers we ate before passing out at 9.30pm: 2

Number of transatlantic flights the next day: 1

Hours slept since my arrival in Paris two days ago: 5

Number of viennoiseries consumed in 36 hours: 3

Yes, I am in Paris. Paris! I’ll be here for a couple of months soaking up the cold, damp, beautiful city. I’m so happy to be here it doesn’t matter. Today I visited my old neighborhood, stocked up on milk chocolate bars at La Grande Epicerie, and stopped by my beloved Poilâne bakery for a petit pain aux noix and a tarte aux pommes. I had to patienter a bit for the latter, but when the tray came up from the kitchen, the tarts were still faintly warm from the oven, the pâte feuilletée crumbling into flakes upon my tongue, the apple slices soft and faintly sticky.

It was worth the wait. Happiness, my friends, is a warm apple tart.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be traveling around France eating (yes, again! I’m pinching myself). This time my, er, research is for a Condé Nast Traveler article and as a result I’ll be documenting every crumb via everyone’s favorite voyeuristic tools, Twitter and Instagram. Hungry? Curious? Miss France? I hope you’ll follow my adventures @AnnMahNet and send me a Tweet or two. (And while you’re at it, check out @CNTraveler for great travel-related tweets.) I would love to hear from you — especially since it gets lonely out there on the road!

A bientôt!

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The Rubicon

I arrived in New York City in 1998 (or was it 1999?), a girl from a sleepy Southern California suburb with literary stars in her eyes. I should have been intimidated by the place — with its dirty streets and jostling subway, the hushed calls of “smoke, smoke, smoke” that followed me across Washington Square Park, the bike messengers who spat millimeters away from my sandaled feet, the cat burglars, one of whom ransacked my Alphabet City studio apartment — but I wasn’t. I loved it. I loved it for all the cliché reasons — the vibrancy, the bookshops, dive bars, and all-night Ukrainian diners, the intricate carpet of languages. I loved working in book publishing, loved watching books emerge from an idea and a handful of paper — I even loved (or found quaintly charming) the stories of old-school editors who typed their letters on typewriters and had their assistants transcribe them into that new-fangled system, email. “Ann was born a New Yorker,” my dad once said. It was one of the nicest compliments I’ve ever received.

I would have been content to live in New York and work in book publishing forever. But if you read this blog, you know what happened: I fell in love with a diplomat, got married and moved to Beijing. I had grown up in New York, and then I did the unthinkable — I left.

At first I tried to believe that my departure was only temporary. I would always be a New Yorker, I vowed, and that proved partly true. The city had changed the way I walked (briskly), ate (ethnically), and read (widely). But the years flew by and one day I realized that more time had passed since I’d left the city than I had spent actually living in it. I learned a new language, lost my heart to another place, found another home in the City of Light. Meanwhile, New York transformed itself again and again in its inimitable way and my nostalgia became stronger than reality. Yes, New York would always be a part of me, but in another, more fundamental way it was lost to me.

I thought I had crossed the Rubicon. But what I am trying to tell you, friends, is that I was wrong. Because ten years after our departure, we are returning. This summer, my husband will begin a new assignment at the US Mission to the United Nations and for the next three years we will live in the city that we called home before we ever met.

For me, New York will always be a place of transformation. It helped me negotiate that murky transition between college student and adult; it taught me how to be comfortable in my own skin. I loved the city’s energy and sense of possibility — it helped me then — and I hope it will help me now as I negotiate another transition, perhaps life’s biggest. Because, dear readers, there will be three of us living together in New York. Yes. My husband and I are planning to welcome a baby in September. A new baby — parenthood! — and, if you’re keeping track, a new book a few weeks later (I feel like I’m having twins), a new city, a new job for my husband… we like to do everything all at once (or maybe we are clinically insane). I am crossing the Rubicon once more and, I have to admit, peering with a fair amount of trepidation at the other side. Life is unpredictable and rich, beautiful and scary, and then there is New York, our home, past and future.

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How to win friends and influence people

Our nieces came to visit a couple of weeks ago — they are eight and four — and my husband and I planned a weekend of activities: zoo, pool, playroom. We scouted out the best kid-appealing food, including Shake Shack, Sweetgreen (they loved it), and pizza delivered right to our apartment door. And to seal my husband’s reputation as the Best Uncle Ever, we baked a batch of chocolate cupcakes.

The recipe is from the Barefoot Contessa and it’s perfect. The cake is moist with a light crumb, chocolaty, faintly bitter, not too sweet, dolloped with soft clouds of chocolate frosting. I’ve been making this as a layer cake for years, most notably last Christmas when my dad and I transformed it into a souche de Noël, or yule stump, complete with frosting bark and meringue mushrooms. (Behold.) But when you’re a kid, everything tastes better in tiny form (is this true, actually?) and so we decided to turn my trusty chocolate cake recipe into cupcakes.

The recipe is a snap to mix together especially when you forgo sifting the dry ingredients like I do (though I do sift the cocoa powder to remove lumps). The resulting batter is thin and soupy, which makes the task of spooning it into the cupcake liners a bit tedious. I recommend firing up NPR and doling it out as patiently as you can. Instead of baking for 35-40 minutes as the recipe indicates, start testing the cupcakes after 20 minutes. This recipe makes two layers for a cake, or enough cupcakes to feed a small army of nieces (seriously, it’s a lot of cupcakes — around 32 or so).

The Nieces loved the cupcakes and we loved watching them eat them. (Other highlights of the weekend included seeing a giant panda gorge on bamboo (me), wheeling toy cars in the playroom of our apartment building (the four year old), and swimming timed laps in the indoor pool (the eight year old). But after The Nieces and their parents had gone, we found ourselves with armfuls of leftover chocolate cupcakes. It turns out even the most enthusiastic chocolate cupcake consumers can only consume so many. What to do?

Thus began the great chocolate cupcake giveaway, as my husband and I walked around the lobby of our apartment building on a Saturday night handing out dessert. The driver idling in his taxi outside? Yes. The doorman? Yes. A woman walking her dog? Yes. The guy at the front desk? He ended up with four of them. Never have I seen so many happy smiles. Never have I felt so popular. I urge you to try it. Win a few friends and influence a few people yourself with this recipe for Beatty’s Chocolate Cake, straight from the Barefoot Contessa.

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Tuesday dinner with Rachel Eats

Pasta is the ultimate weeknight meal, but if you’re like me perhaps you’re a little tired of your old spaghetti standards. Good news: today’s recipe for pasta with walnut sauce is just the thing to break you from your rigatoni rut. It blends crushed nuts with garlic, parmesan and milk-soaked bread into a lovely, textured, creamy-crunchy purée, sort of like a hearty pesto. The recipe comes from Rachel Roddy of the exquisite blog Rachel Eats, who is based in Rome and therefore an expert on all things noodle.

I discovered Rachel’s blog one day while Googling for “pasta e fagioli” and promptly fell down a rabbit hole of gorgeous writing and recipes for Italian food. Though Rachel is from London, she moved to Rome several years ago, where she now lives with her small, half-Roman son, Luca, and works as a teacher. I’m so thrilled to share her cooking tips for simple food (and equally delighted to learn we share an enthusiasm for toast).

Tuesday Dinner

by Rachel Roddy

Tuesday is probably the quietest night of the week for me (not that my life is ever particularly rowdy these days.)  Once I have convinced my little boy that it is time to go to sleep and calmed the chaos he has caused, I want nothing more than a large glass of wine and some thing outrageously quick and minimally invasive (but tasty) to eat.

My absolute favorite standing supper is butter and anchovy (mashed together) on toast. If there is some salad ready and  washed I might have a handful or a few tiny tomatoes.

I am not a particularly organised or forward thinking cook, but I almost always have a pan of cooked beans in the fridge. Once cooked I use them throughout the week: in soup, with sausages, with tuna and red onion, straight from the pan with a spoon. If have mozzarella I will do another favourite supper, a River Café idea: warm white beans with salty black olives and milky mozzarella. It is a glorious combination.

I am a real “on toast” woman at solitary suppertime: fried egg, poached egg, a tin of sardines with loads of black pepper, sliced tomato with too much salt.

Staples. Packets of pasta, pasta and pasta which I eat at lunchtime. Bread and butter. The pan of beans. Eggs and more eggs for omelet, poached, fried. Tins of anchovies, sardines and mackerel. I feel extremely happy and reassured if I have a pan of tomato sauce in the fridge waiting to be ladled out and used on pasta, or to bake eggs in. Since having a baby who is now a boy who loves making a red mess, I have really got into the ongoing/ everlasting pan of sauce habit. I try and have salad washed and ready. Wine and a lump of Parmesan are always present and often provide my supper.

As you know I am from London but live in Rome. I am a single mum of a little boy. I was an actress but I now teach theatre and music to kids, a job I love nearly as much as anchovy and butter on toast.

Salsa di Noci/ Walnut Sauce

by Rachel Roddy

Note from Ann: Rachel suggests initially crushing the walnuts by hand, either with a mortar and pestle or a ziplock bag, meat pounder and bit of elbow grease (I used the latter method). Indeed, this gives the sauce a delightful nubby texture.

80 grams (4 oz) crustless, coarse country bread

200 ml (1 cup) whole milk (plus a little extra to loosen the sauce)

150 grams (5 oz) shelled walnuts

1 clove garlic

40 grams (2 oz) grated parmesan

5-7 tablespoons light extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper

In a small pan warm the milk gently until it is tepid and then remove it from the heat. Tear the bread into smallish pieces and add it to the pan. Leave to soak for 10 minutes.

In a pestle and mortar crush the walnuts. Peel the garlic and crush it with the back of a knife.

Tip the crushed walnuts, milk sodden bread and garlic into a bowl. Using an immersion/stick blender blitz everything into a thick coarse cream.

Add the olive oil and gated parmesan to the bowl and then – using a wooden spoon – beat the mixture firmly. Taste and season to taste with salt and freshly grated black pepper.

With pasta and green beans

For four people as a main course, I’d suggest 500 grams (about 1 pound) of pasta  (spaghetti, tagliatelle or fettuccine) and 300 grams (about 10 0z) of fine green beans. Bring a large pan of well salted water to the boil. Add the beans and pasta to the pan and cook until the pasta is al dente. Meanwhile put roughly 3/4 of your walnut sauce in a warm bowl and thin it slightly with a little of the pasta cooking water (use a ladle to scoop some out while the pasta is cooking). Drain the pasta and beans, saving a little more of the cooking water. Mix the pasta and beans with the walnut sauce, adding a little more cooking water if you feel it need loosening even more. Divide between four warm bowls and serve with more freshly grated parmesan.

For other quick meals, Rachel also suggested the following:

–Vignarola, a Roman spring stew of fave, peas, artichokes and spring onions. It is a preparation heavy dish, but then super simple supper to cook.

–Green sauce is nice at this time of year (can be spooned onto or into so many things).

–Pasta e broccoli is a nice supper.

(Photo of Rachel and Luca courtesy of Rachel Roddy.)

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Ricardo

Before I tell you about my favorite chocolate tart, I want to talk about Ricardo. Who is that? I wish I knew.

Here are some Ricardo facts:

He has a skin condition.
He has foot pain.
He is on prescription medication.
He has a telephone number very similar to mine.

Somewhere, somehow, Ricardo switched a few digits of his cell phone number and started giving out mine instead. The result? Hardly a week goes by without a message for him. They pour in: from his dermatologist’s office, his podiatrist, his pharmacist. Friends, I am embarrassed to tell you that Ricardo gets more calls than I do.

An older friend told me recently that my generation doesn’t like to talk on the phone; if Ricardo is any evidence, she is right. I feel more comfortable communicating via text and email — or even Twitter, Facebook, or blog comments — than I do chatting on the phone. When my mobile does ring, I think: “Oh no, bad news!” And when it turns out to be a call for Ricardo, I feel simultaneous relief and irritation.

Anyway, the other day I was making this chocolate apricot tart from the brilliant Moro cookbook. I love this recipe. It combines a top layer of creamy, melty chocolate fondant with a secret, hidden tangy skin of apricot purée. The contrast of deep chocolate and bright fruit is refreshing, a tart burst against a rich, seductive backdrop. After years of making this tart for dinner parties, preparing it has become relaxing, the closest thing I have to meditation. So, there I was, happily listening to NPR while pressing pâte sucrée into my tart pan, simmering dried apricots in a bit of hot water, and melting chocolate over a minute flame on the stove (I live on the edge and forgo the double boiler). My mind was filled with plans for my upcoming trip to France, ideas for articles and blog posts. And then the phone rang. I won’t keep you in suspense. It was for Ricardo.

“It’s the dermatologist’s office,” said the voice on the other line.

“You know what?” The words burst from me. “You have the wrong number. I get calls for Ricardo all the time but this is not Ricardo’s number.”

“I’ll make a note of it,” said the voice.

That was almost two weeks ago. I haven’t had a single call for Ricardo since. I can’t help but wonder how things are going with his blemishes, his foot problem. Did he pick up his prescription at CVS? Ricardo? Are you okay? Are you reading this? Call me. You know the number.

Chocolate apricot tart

Adapted from Moro, The Cookbook by Sam and Sam Clark

Serves 8-10

Pâte sucrée pastry:

4 oz butter, melted

1/2 cup sugar

1  1/4 cups flour

Pinch of salt

Filling:

7 oz dried apricots

4 tablespoons water

Juice of one lemon

5 oz butter

4 oz dark chocolate (70%)

2 eggs

2 grams sugar

Preheat the oven to 425ºF. Butter the bottom and sides of a tart pan. In a large bowl, combine the butter and sugar. Add the flour and salt and stir to form a soft dough, adding an additional tablespoon of flour if the pastry seems too wet. Transfer the dough to the center of the buttered tart pan. Using your fingertips, press the pastry into the bottom and sides of the pan, forming a thin, even layer. Prick the base all over with a fork and chill for about 30 minutes. Bake on the top shelf of the oven for 10-12 minutes until light brown. Remove and cool and a rack.

Reduce the oven to 350ºF. Make the filling. Roughly chop the dried apricots and place them in a saucepan with the water and lemon juice. Simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes, until soft. Purée in a blender (I use my immersion blender) into a smooth paste. Spread the mixture onto the base of the cooled tart shell and allow the paste to dry and form a slight skin.

In a double-boiler or saucepan, melt the butter and chocolate over low heat. In a bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar together until light and pale. Fold the chocolate mixture into the eggs. Pour the mixture over the tart shell and smooth with a spatula. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until the filling jiggles slightly when you shake the tart pan. Cool and serve at room temperature.

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The gentleman farmer

I’ve been fascinated by Thomas Jefferson ever since I wrote an article following his 1787 visit through the vineyards and cellars of Burgundy. Four years as envoy to France had made Jefferson quite an oenophile — or, perhaps I should say, oeno-fanatic. When he returned to the United States in 1789, he received regular shipments of French wine and grapevine clippings at his Virginia plantation.

Last weekend in DC, I rented a car and followed Jefferson full circle. I visited Monticello, the home of the gentleman farmer.

Jefferson built his beloved house from the wine cellar up, hiding a dumb waiter in a side pocket of the dining room fireplace, which allowed for a smooth, unjostled passage of bottles. He planted a small vineyard on a southeastern slope of his garden, though he never succeeded in producing Virginia wine. Instead, he drank imported vintages from Italy and France, as well as North Carolina scuppernong.

I loved visiting the grand, gracious house: the wide hall, with its Great Clock displaying the time and day of the week; Jefferson’s library, with his evolving collection of volumes, sold to pay off debt and immediately collected again– “I cannot live without books,” he wrote to John Adams; his sunny study and alcove bedroom; the parlor decorated with portraits of his heroes; the dining room where he and General Lafayette (and assorted pals) drank over 300 bottles of wine during Lafayette’s week-long visit.

But the basement rooms and passages below the house — the kitchens and storerooms, the ice house and stables — portray a different life, one of, quite literally, slave labor. Jefferson’s enthusiasms are evident everywhere at Monticello, even in the smokehouse, where he devised a special shelf to keep mice away from the hams. Equally visible is the evidence of his slaves, who built that special shelf and smoked those hams, toiled in his greenhouses, tilled his garden, served his food — and so much more. When Jefferson died in 1826, a man in debt, he emancipated 10 slaves, including his alleged mistress, Sally Hemings, and two of their children. The rest of them — hundreds of men and women — were sold at auction to resolve his debts. Of course I’d known about Jefferson’s slave ownership, but our candid guide helped me fully realized the extent of it (I thought he’d freed all his slaves at death). It altered my perception of a man I greatly admired — but you can’t change history, I suppose. Jefferson thought so too: “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past,” he said.

Anyway. One of the last questions asked on our tour was what Jefferson and his friends ate to accompany their wine. Lots of vegetables, our guide said — Jefferson considered meat a condiment — some pork and chicken, wine-rich stews or daubes — prepared à la française — by Monticello’s French-trained chef. But as we headed out of Charlottesville, we kept passing horse farms, rolling hills contained by white fences, columned houses with deep porches. They made me crave Southern food —  biscuits and chicken, tall glasses of iced tea. Alas, we didn’t pass anything resembling the Virginia road-side bakery of my dreams. So when I got home, I made the biscuits myself. Ah, self sufficiency. Jefferson would have approved.

Buttermilk biscuits

Makes 8-10 biscuits

1  1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 oz cold butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

3/4 cup buttermilk (shaken)

Preheat the oven to 425ºF.

Stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Blend in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the buttermilk and stir with a fork until the dough comes together — it will be sticky, with bits of flour on the side of the bowl. I like to knead the dough a couple of times in the bowl to bring everything together.

Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface. With a rolling pin (or your hands) pat out the dough into an 8-inch x 10-inch rectangle, about 1-inch thick. Cut the dough into 2 to 3-inch squares (or use the rim of a 2-inch juice glass). Place on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and bake for 12-15 minutes, or until lightly golden.

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Tuesday dinner with Thyme

There are few things I find more satisfying than creating a brand new meal out of leftovers, transforming the uninspiring contents of my fridge into something exciting — it’s like cooking magic. That is why I am so delighted by this week’s Tuesday dinner of stuffed vegetables, from the blogger Thyme (aka Sarah Kenney). She’s gathered a bevy of bits and pieces, added a few fresh vegetables, and voilà, whipped up a bright, fast meal that whispers of Provence.

Sarah grew up in southern Louisiana and, after stints in Missouri, Michigan, New York, Japan, and Kansas, she and her family now live in Houston, Texas. Her blog features her beautiful photography (I want to live in her pictures) and recipes for home-cooked food with a global flair. Sarah is also an intrepid home-school instructor to her teenage son, which means she’s an expert at juggling time. I’m delighted to share her tips for quick meals!

“Rarely do I go to the market during the week and meals are usually pulled together ‘on the fly,’ especially dinners when we are all pretty tired,” says Sarah. “When I know that nothing is going to be whipped together for dinner that looks even remotely fancy it is often a piece of toast with a egg over easy and side salad.  Sliced fruit or berries will probably be added in too. Oh, and there is always fig preserves to go with that bread.

“If I am having guests, I typically make a big pot of soup ahead of time and keep it in the refrigerator.  I have also learned (the hard way) that dough takes a long time to thaw. Now, I make my tart, quiche, or any sort of dough ahead of time and put it in the freezer and try my darnest to remember to take it out in plenty of time to thaw. These days, I also tend to rely on Whole Foods’ fresh side dishes to help me out.  I’ll spend more energy and time on the main course and pick up a delicious side dish that I don’t have to pull together on my own.

“This zucchini recipe is a ‘quick weeknight’ type of meal. Literally this dish came about by pulling the last of anything fresh from the refrigerator.  What was nice about it is that everyone really liked it so we call that a ‘do again.’”

Stuffed Zucchini with sharp cheddar

by Thyme (Sarah)

Note from Ann: You can put almost anything into the filling — I mixed raw beef with a scoop of leftover mashed potatoes and an egg white, but I’ve also used leftover crumbled sausage, stale cubes of bread, rice, quinoa, etc.  I served this with the tail end of a box of fusilli to round out the meal a bit, topped with the tomato sauce from the baking dish.

Serves four

1 medium zucchini, 1 yellow squash, 1 baby eggplant (I used three zucchini and a tomato)

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 onion, chopped (about 1 cup)

1 medium carrot, diced

1 cup cooked ground beef, or brown rice (I used 1/2 lb. raw ground beef)

1 1/2 cups tomato sauce

1/4 teaspoon dried or fresh basil (I used oregano)

1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated

Preheat the oven to 400ºF. Cut the vegetables in half lengthwise. Using a spoon or melon baller, scoop the pulp out of each vegetable half, leaving an 1/8-inch shell. Dice the pulp.

Heat the oil in a 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, carrot and vegetable pulp and cook until the vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in the ground beef and 1 cup tomato sauce and cook until the mixture is hot and bubbling. (Note: I removed the cooked vegetables from the heat and mixed them with the raw beef, an egg white, leftover mashed potatoes, pinch of oregano, salt, and pepper.)

Mound the vegetable mixture into the zucchini shells. Place the filled shells into a shallow baking dish. Top with the remaining sauce. (Note: I spread about a cup of sauce in the bottom of the baking dish.) Sprinkle with the basil (or oregano) and cheese. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the zucchini shells are tender.

For more of Sarah’s recipes and gorgeous photography visit her blog, Thyme, and her photo portfolio.

(All photos courtesy of Sarah Kenney, except for the top photo.)

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