Menu for January 31

Baby, it's cold outside. This is kind of weather that just makes me want to sit by the woodstove and read a book and eat a few of these minipies. These little pastries are, as we say in the vernacular up here, wicked-stinkin' cute. I made little pies in half pint mason jars. They're a perfect serving size for us an after dinner treat. Even better, I made up a dozen of them, so nine little pielettes are waiting in the freezer for when temptation strikes. Though I wish I could lay claim to this idea, I point you to Our Best Bites and their post. They used pint jars for their pies, but I prefer the smaller half-pint (although the smaller jars *are* more fiddly).

I'm trying something new and exciting this weekend. Tonight I'll be cooking along with Food52 in their first Sunday Supper. A group of us (maybe you too?) will be preparing Shrimp Biryani together. I've never participated in a group cooking event before and am interested to see how it goes. You can play along if you'd like: just go to F00d52 and sign up.

Yesterday, I attended a sake tasting led by Richard Auffrey, The Passionate Foodie. If you have a chance to attend a tasting he leads, go. He's clearly passionate about the subject of sake and did a great job of demystifying a beverage most of us don't know much about. I'll be drinking one of my purchases, a bottle of Kurosawa Jun-Mai Kimoto tonight. Will let you know how it goes.

Menu for the Week

Sunday

Amreen's Shrimp Biryani

Kachumber

Blood orange and avocado salad

Monday

Sweet potato soup

Baked feta with sesame and sumac

Whole-wheat flatbread

Tuesday

Baked pasta with fresh ricotta

Green salad

Wednesday

Dinner out at Eastern Standard

Thursday

Macaroni and cheese

Green salad

Friday

Borrachos

Tortillas

Gnudi, or Ravioli With Their Clothes Off

Call them what you like: gnudi, ricotta gnocchi or naked ravioli, I have tried to make these little dumplings many times and have not met with much, if any, success.

However, when I saw Jennifer Hess's recipe for Gnudi (in the issue of Edible Rhody that I picked up this weekend) I felt like I'd give them another try.

Her recipe is now up online here and you can read her post about them (and see her much more attractive picture) here. From her picture, you can also see that my portion size is about twice hers. Jen's recipe says it will feed 4-6, and I think that's appropriate - fill out your meal with vegetables, bread and salad. The gnudi will feel light (like little clouds) and you'll want to keep eating them, but as they are pretty much straight ricotta, they are rather rich.

I have tried to make similar recipes before and failed. The trick is to get your ricotta dry and well-drained. The fresh ricotta I purchased was very dry - even after 3 hours in a strainer, it had only released a tablespoon of liquid. In the past, I used ricotta I made myself and even after a long draining period I never got it dry enough and my gnudi always fell apart. This time, they held together beautifully and each made it to the plate in one piece.

If you look at Jen's picture you'll also see that my breadcrumbs were much larger than hers - that's me being lazy. Grind your breadcrumbs up nice and fine and they'll make for a nice crispy contrast to the gnudi's lightness. I used beet tops as the greens in these gnudi and they worked really well. We ate the beets as a salad course, topped with fennel and white anchovies.

Detox: Stat!

So Dave and I went to Providence, Rhode Island this weekend. I'm sure Providence has a lot to offer: museums, great architecture, shopping, etc. but we went for the food. I'll be recapping the whole weekend shortly, but let's leave it here for now: we ate a lot. A. LOT.

When we got home Sunday, we felt a little, well ... bilious. I decided to go 100% vegetarian for dinner and make a vegetarian stew for us. This was a much better detox than a smoothie or juice-base dinner. We felt satisfied but not overly full. The gremolata made it taste really fresh.

Weekend Detox Winter Vegetable Stew

Modify this based on what vegetables you have on hand. I used chickpeas in this version, but you could use another bean, or lentil, or leave the beans out altogether.

Serves 3-4

• olive oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 3-4 baby turnips, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 4 parsnips, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken broth or water
• 2 cups cooked chickpeas (1 large can drained and rinsed)
• juice of 1 lemon (reserve the zest for the gremolata, below)
• juice of 1 orange (reserve the zest for the gremolata, below)
• salt and pepper

Saute the onion with some olive oil in a large skillet until softened. Add the sweet potato, turnips, parsnips and carrots. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt. Stir the vegetables in the skillet, over medium-high heat until starting to brown. Add the chicken broth and let the stew simmer until the vegetables are softened (but they should still have a little bite to them). Add a little water if the stew starts to stick. How much time this takes will depend on the size of your vegetables - the smaller the pieces, the shorter the cook time.

Stir in the chickpeas. Stir in the juices and check the seasoning. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve topped with gremolata.

Blood Orange Gremolata

This was a nice fresh topper for the stew. It would be lovely over some broiled or grilled seafood too. Gremolata is traditionally made only with lemon zest, but the orange zest gave this a really interesting new dimension.

Yields about 3/4 cup of gremolata.

• 2 cloves garlic, peeled
• 2 cups parsley leaves
• zest of 1 lemon
• zest of 1 blood orange (or an orange if no blood oranges are to be found)
• olive oil
• salt

Either by hand, or in a mini food processor, chop together the parsley, garlic and zests until they are finely minced together. Stir in a little olive oil to loosen up the puree and make it more saucy. Season to taste with salt.

Menu for the Week of January 24

Okay, so I'm a few days late posting this menu, but I swear it was written up on Sunday. We went to Providence, Rhode Island for the weekend and I picked up some marvelous ingredients to cook with this week. This picture is from one of our two breakfasts at Nick's on Broadway: it's a sausage-biscuit-bread pudding, topped with poached eggs and hollandaise. Delicious and fortifying. We also had this beautiful fruit salad. Not only was the fruit was cut to order, it was cut with care (the angles on those pieces of fruit were razor sharp!)

Menu for the Week

Sunday

Weekend detox winter root vegetable stew

Monday
Gnudi with lemon butter (thanks to Jennifer Hess at Last Night's Dinner for the recipe)

Beets with white anchovies and fennel

Tuesday

Pizza (leftover pizza from our drive home on Sunday)

Vegetable slaw

Wednesday

Navy bean soup
Biscuits

Thursday

Indian potato-lentil curry

Cauliflower with cilantro chutney

Basmati rice

Friday

Pierogies (hopefully homemade) with sour cream and onions

Salad

Drink of the Week: Old Pal

I saw the Old Pal in a beverage magazine we receive although it can be found in old bar books and on many cocktail menus. It's a cross between a dry Manhattan and a Negroni. I used rye in this drink, but you could use bourbon if you prefer.

Please make sure you are using fresh dry vermouth (yes, it does spoil - or at a minimum, go stale - over time). But small bottles if you don't use it often and keep it cool or in the fridge.

There's a lot of Campari in this drink, but the vermouth really tones it back down so you won't get walloped with its bitterness.

Old Pal Cocktail

Combine in an iced mixing glass:

• 1 ounce rye or bourbon
• 3/4 ounce dry vermouth
• 3/4 ounce Campari

Stir until well chilled. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist.