Weeknight bolognese with amanda

Food52 has a collection of recipes called Genius Recipes. I found this in that collection. Obviously, I skipped the dairy. I upped the mushroom count a little and minced them instead of chopping. The flavor was INCREDIBLE. And the best part of this amazing meal is it’s made for the weeknight. If you have an hour and a half to cook, make this. It was so good that Amanda and I had to hold our bowls three inches away from our mouths–that is how quickly we were shoving this into our mouths. I made this with bucatini which I really liked. I tried to recreate the dish three days later with a ton of girls but the bricco pasta shop was out of bucatini so I used tagliatelle instead. Still great.

BB

Poached egg salad and slightly different addictive asparagus with mark and vane

An easy weeknight meal that doesn’t leave me feeling sick from eating too much/too fast.

The salad was the standard poached egg salad that we’ve been making for years–greens, bacon, scallions tossed with a lemon mustard vinaigrette (I always make mine extra lemony) and topped with a poached egg. I usually sprinkle bacon on the poached egg in addition to the pepper and salt

For the side, I decided to make the addictive asparagus with a twist. Instead of bacon (which was in the salad anyway), I cut and cooked chicken apple sausage and stir fried with asparagus, leeks, bacon, pine nuts. Delicious. I’ve been going through a chicken apple sausage phase.p

BB

Chimichurri bites, padron peppers, and tomato crostini with desa

This was from last night.

I’ve made these steak bites before (for the World Cup). They were awesome so I decided to make them again. One thing that’s kinda crucial for these is the sear on all sides for every bite. It’s a pain to cut up the pieces and cook them like that but the effect is worth it

For the crostini:
Tomatoes
Pine nuts
Olive oil
Garlic
Baguette

Toasted pieces of baguette. Sautéed pine nuts in olive oil. Rubbed garlic on toasted pieces. Placed tomatoes on bread. Place pine nut/oil mixture on top. Very simple.

The real star of the show was the padron peppers. I can’t believe I found them. I think the mistake that most restaurants make with these is they don’t allow the peppers to sauté long enough. These were second only to Toro’s.

Honey soy ginger cod, miso mashed cauliflower and garlic bok choy with deck

So I’m fat right now. Had a minor breakdown and felt like I needed something healthy.

For the cod
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 teaspoon sesame oil (or grape seed oil)
1 teaspoon fresh ginger, grated (you can add more if you want it to be extra gingery)
1 garlic clove, minced
1 lb cod
Scallions, green and white parts sliced for garnish (optional)

1. Combine all of the ingredients except scallions in plastic bag. Let set in fridge for ~20 mins, mixing it up halfway through.
2. Heat skillet and a little bit of grapeseed or sesame oil to high heat. When it’s almost smoky, place cod (save the marinade for later) on skillet and cook undisturbed for 5 mins on each side.
3. Remove, drizzle with marinade. Serve immediately.

For the cauliflower:
1 head cauliflower, florets chopped
1 tablespoon miso paste (I used white miso)
Salt

1. Place cauliflower in boiling water and cook for ~6 mins until done. Babe careful not to overcook.
2. Drain and dry VERY WELL. Watery cauliflower is gross. I drained the cauliflower in a colander and then patted down in batches using paper towel.
3. Return cauliflower to pot. Add miso paste. Using a hand blender, blend until cauliflower is smooth and miso is mixed well. Ta da!

For the bok choy:
2 bunches baby bok choy, chopped
3-4 cloves garlic, minced (yum very garlicky!)
1/2 tablespoon sesame oil (or grapeseed oil)
1/2 tablespoon soy sauce

1. Add oil to skillet and heat over high heat.
2. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 secs.
3. Add bok choy and soy sauce. Cook for about 4-5 mins. Done!

My biggest cooking fan, Ashley Deck, said she felt like it was from a restaurant and it’s her new favorite. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable cooking seafood. Mmmmmmmmm you move back so soon yay!

Xoxo, bb

Chimichurri steak bites, pretzel burgers for the World Cup

I WILL NOT LET THIS DIE. I’m going to try to backlog some of the meals I’ve been making in the past month. On Sunday, Kelsey had some people over to watch Argentina v Germany. To honor the two teams in the final, I made these:

Chimichurri steak bites served ~50 steak bites
2 lbs sirloin tips (we chose this because it was the easiest and we were tight on time)
1/2 cup parsley minced
1/2 cup cilantro minced (I didn’t bother to remove the leaves from the stem since the stem provides a nice flavor)
1/2 cup red wine vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
4 garlic cloves minced
1 shallot minced

Mix everything for the sauce. Add salt to taste. For the steak, cut into bite size pieces and salt. Cook on skillet until medium rare, flipping pieces only once. Once the steak is done, spread chimichurri on steak bites to coat. Leave extra sauce for dipping.

Pretzel burgers served ~25 burgers
2 lbs ground meat
Salt
Pepper jack cheese
Pretzel buns

Pretty self explanatory.

I cooked the steak and burgers at the same time. For each, I cooked in batches and kept cooked pieces warm in the oven.

BB

Tomato salad and Spanish tortilla with desa and Linds

The simplest meal. I’ve been so sick I just wanted something simple and refreshing. I made Spanish tortilla with a tomato salad. For the salad, just chopped tomatoes, chopped basil, olive oil, salt, and homemade croutons.

When is heirloom tomato season?

BB

Spicy turkey burgers, bean salad and radish chips with too many people

So like when I made the spicy turkey burgers for desa, I upped the cayenne pepper content. Standard recipe otherwise, same for bean salad. The real star of this show (for only me) was the radish. So I bought radishes this week at whole foods because they we’re buy one bunch get one free essentially. Anyway, that left me with a lot of radishes. I sliced these really thinly, had them sit in olive oil and thyme for an hour, and then spread them on a baking sheet and roasted for 20ish (maybe less) minutes at 425. The. Best.

Easy, healthy(ish) snack. The only bummer is the radish slices shrink a lot when you roast them so you think you’re making a lot but you’re not. Still so good.
XOXOBB

Breakfast tacos with Sonia and kels

Sonia was in town for the weekend. I haven’t seen her in two years (basically since she left Boston), and she reached out to hang. She looks amazing amazing! She lost 20 lbs and has this great job lined up and this cool bf. Great things all around. Anyway, so I made the breakfast tacos I’ve been making recently. In addition, I made this radish salsa (which I also used for steak tacos on Friday night with pat and kels).

No pictures of the actual meal but this was the setup I had going on while I was making the tacos.

We ate on the roof and it was awesome. Such a beautiful day.
bb

Chicken thighs over arugula chickpea salad, salt and vinegar potatoes, and matchstick zucchini with Sorcher, Ashley and deck

So I told you about this before, but here are the recipes for the dinner I made last night. Obviously everything is gluten free. There were a few hiccups:
1. I think I would want to cut the potatoes a little smaller. I think even slicing them super thin would be great.
2. It was hard to tell if the chicken thighs were fully cooked. I ended up doing them on a pan instead of the grill.
3. I would roast the zucchini instead of pan frying them.

For the chicken: bon appetit
For the potatoes: bon appetit
For the zucchini: I made it up. I sliced the zucchini into skinny small pieces, marinated in olive oil, garlic, and pepper flakes. Pan fried for a few minutes until zucchini was soft.

Cute baby potatoes!
The potatoes cook in vinegar. It’s amazing.
I added way more thyme than the recipe called for because I usually want way more herbs in recipes.
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XOXO bb

Steak salad and roasted sage potatoes with SarJo and Katherine

Last night, I needed to make something easy and quick so I decided to put together a simple steak salad with potatoes. For the steak salad, I marinated a piece of flank steak for 1 hour with the soyaki sauce from whole foods (one of the best marinades I think). I was going to grill it to avoid the clean up but I honestly got too lazy to climb the exta flight of stairs so I ended up just pan frying it. I sautéed pine nuts in olive oil, cut some cherry tomatoes, and mixed everything atop some mixed greens.

My favorite part of this meal was the potatoes. I sliced blue and red potatoes very thinly and then mixed the potatoes with olive oil, chopped sage, garlic, salt and let it sit for 30 mins. Then I spread them one layer thick on a baking sheet and roasted at 425 for about 30 mins. So good. They retained the sage flavor so well after sitting in the olive oil mix.

This was the wine I was telling you about. My new obsession, so good.

This meal is a great go to for the summer. It’s fast, easy, and filling. No real hassle.

XOXOBB