by rivka
on November 21, 2008
Yes, folks, it’s true: tomato season has come to a close. Back when I made this, in October, I wasn’t walking, it seemed pretty unlikely that I’d make it back to the farmers market to catch one last round of tomato madness, so I figured it was safe to assume that the tomato I ate that night was my last for the season. I’m a card-carrying member of the tomato lovers’ cult, so that’s not an easy thing to admit — but, like an old fling whose time has come to an end, I think I can walk away from this one with no regrets.
Running with that analogy for a minute: you’d like to think your last time with the fling would be the best there was to have, the best there ever would have been. But that’s never the case, is it? Usually the last time is just….fine. Such was the case with my last tomato. It wasn’t one of those specimens that could have been framed. No shiny, taut, glossy skin and jewel-like innards. Had it been perfect, I’d have eaten it raw, simply sliced with olive oil and fleur de sel. But I was already smack-dab in the middle of fall, and my tomato wasn’t so perfect. However, it was jam-packed with flavor, that I can assure you. So I prepared that last tomato in a dish that quickly became a standby this summer — a dish that’s perfect for celebrating tomatoes’ flavor even when their texture is somewhat imperfect. What’s that, you ask?
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by rivka
on November 20, 2008
Confession: I’m going to Detroit this year with D and fam, and will not be cooking any T-day fare as I did last year. Sorry to desert!
Pep-talk: I would be remiss to leave you empty-handed as you tackle your Turkey, tofurky, and other accoutrement. With that in mind, I’ve written a page of vegetarian recipes that I deem Tday-worthy. Are they particularly traditional? No, not necessarily — but they’re pretty darn tasty. If you’re bored of the same old turkey-stuffing-mashed spuds triumvirate, click over to this page for fresh inspiration. Hey — even if you’re not cooking T-day dinner, this page offers some pretty good suggestions for everyday eats. Click away!
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by rivka
on November 14, 2008
Not too long ago, I walked into my parents’ house and immediately caught wafts of the most fantastic aroma coming from (as always) the kitchen. I started sticking my fingers into each of the dishes sitting on the dining room table, eager to find the source. After trying most everything else on the table, I nonchalantly scooped up a pinch of cooked red cabbage, thinking not even a little that it might actually be the culprit. Boy, was I surprised. Divine, I tell you! And I don’t use that word all too often…but this truly is a recipe for the ages.
Turns out, it’s also dead simple; go figure. At my persistent begging, my mom passed along the recipe she’d used to make it. I tweaked it, as I am often wont to do, because when I see an ingredient in the fridge and think it might add something, I’ve no self control, not even an ounce. And while sometimes that habit ruins otherwise tasty cooking (insert gross story here), other times, I’m rewarded for my impulses. This cabbage most definitely benefited from my hyperactive ingredient-adding tendency.
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by rivka
on November 9, 2008
I’m taking time out from my regularly-scheduled programming to tell you about an awesome new business being launched in the DC area: it’s called Soupergirl, and (if you couldn’t guess) it’s a soup business! A friend of mine, Sara Polon, not to be at all confused with Sarah Palin (who will NOT be our next VP, thank you very much!!) launched Soupergirl this Thursday, and starting ever-so-soon, you can get fresh, delicious soups delivered to a location nearby!
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by rivka
on November 7, 2008
You may have noticed that it’s been quite some time since NDP posted, say, a recipe for chicken. Or meat. It’s probably starting to look like I’m a closeted vegetarian, but I swear, I’m really not. It’s just that eating factory-farmed beef and poultry gives me the creeps. Blame Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma for showing me just how repulsive factory-farmed steers’ lives are. It’s just hard to imagine eating a cow that spends its life cooped up in tight quarters with other cows, is forced to eat a diet of grain (not cattle’s natural food source) that obviously makes it sick, and then sits in a pool of…frankly?…its own poop. Yuck.
A couple months ago, this fear really got the best of me, and I pretty much stopped buying meat. Kosher meat is hard enough to find; organic, grass-fed beef is nearly non-existent in these parts. For months, I satisfied my cravings for meat with Morningstar Farms (which, as you’ve read, makes a pretty mean substitute not just for meat but for bacon, as well). For quite some time, this impromptu vegetarian lifestyle was perfectly fine. I’ve never been a particularly regular meat eater, anyway, and D made do with the occasional meat meal at friends’ houses. But at a certain point, my cravings for real, honest-to-god boeuf got the best of me, so I started doing some research. To my genuine surprise, a synagogue right near where we live actually has an arrangement with a local farm, and every two weeks, they bring in a truckload of local, organic, grass-fed beef. Customers buy a “share” of beef or lamb (!), and that share contains between 25 and 30 pounds of assorted cuts, which might include ribeyes, minute steaks, pepper steaks, briskets, cube meat, flanken, ground meat, chuck steak, and more. The meat certainly isn’t cheap, but after my having my first taste of it tonight, I can assure you the price is well worth every penny.
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by rivka
on November 5, 2008
photo by A. Gilbert l link to photo source
Yes, this is a food blog; no, I don’t intend to make it anything else. But I simply can’t let yesterday’s events go unrecognized. Never in my life have I been prouder to be part of this country. I’m simply overjoyed that the racial barrier has fallen, and that we have elected Barack Obama as our next president! Yes, there were some bittersweet moments as yesterday’s results rolled in — most notably, the passage of proposition 8 in California, which I simply cannot understand — but in all, November 4th 2008 marked a historic event in our nation’s history, and it’s certainly cause for celebration!
Happy post-election madness to all of you!
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by rivka
on November 1, 2008
Keeping kosher has its fair share of… challenges. Never have I cooked a meat dish that has any sort of dairy product, be it cream or even butter. When I make meat for dinner, dessert can’t have butter in it. I don’t use shortening, which makes things rather difficult. Butter aside, one great sacrifice of kosher cooking is not being able to use pancetta. Now I can’t say for sure that it’s actually a sacrifice — after all, I’ve never actually had pancetta — but I think it’s safe to say that it’s one of the most oft-used flavorings for vegetables, soups, and stews of all kinds.
When I came across a beautiful cauliflower at the farmers market a couple weeks ago, I knew I’d be experimenting with cauliflower soup recipes. I came home and began poking around my cookbooks and recipe sites in search of promising combinations, but almost every recipe I found called for some form of pig. And I can understand why: pancetta, bacon and the like provide the perfect smoky, meaty background flavor against which the mild, creamy, fresh-tasting cauliflower really shines. I started to feel a bit handicapped — as though no amount of searching would product an all-vegetarian recipe that would have real flavor.
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by rivka
on October 25, 2008
Is it obvious I love breakfast? Between french toast casserole, cinnamon buns, vintage breakfast biscuits, shakshuka, and even simple bites like this one, I seem to have found my obsession. In keeping with my breakfast trend, here’s another maddeningly simple morning meal option: steelcut oats.
What are steelcut oats? They’re oats, really — but unlike quick oats, which are essentially slices of oats, steelcut oats are like large crumbs. They look more like Grape Nuts than Quaker. They’re also quite firm; they don’t crumble in your hand the way quick oats can. They take about 25 minutes to cook fully, which means you need to have a bit of time to cook’em up. But if you’ve got the time, you’ll be handsomely rewarded: cooked steelcut oats are like a thicker, homier version of grits or polenta, with a distinctly nutty flavor and lovely pot liquor. I also add a pinch of salt to the water for contrast, and a daub of butter at the end, a la Mandy, because it makes breakfast more luxurious. In my humble opinion, oatmeal is best topped with a splash of milk or half and half, and either a dollop of jam or a spoonful of fresh fruit compote. In this case, I used my very last summer peach to make a lovely quick compote that went perfectly with the oatmeal.
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