Celebratory Cold Chicken & Fancy Pants Cheeses

Almost a year ago I wrote about finding amazing, reasonably priced cheeses at Union Market.  Union Market continues to be our go-to shop for cheese at a decent price.  We stopped there yesterday after a victory (Yay, no cavities!) trip to the dentist to pick up some of our favorite Roth Kase Grand Cru Greuyer.  Of course, no sooner do you hit that massive wall of cheese when other, very interesting bits of goodness start to catch your eye. 

Take for instance, the marvelous little chunk of Brillat-Savarin.  It is a triple creme brie with marvelous sharp and ever so slightly sour notes.  It was so brilliantly melty that I was actually spreading it on my cold chicken.  Maybe not the picture of health, but Holy Moses, it was deeeelicious. 

Summer Fruit In All It's Glory

Gosh darn it, I love summer fruit.  Sure, I enjoy apples and oranges and those tiny Italian plums that are fall and winter's harvest.  But summer fruit holds a special place in my heart. 

To me it is not summer until I've eaten a peach that is both sweet and tangy at the same while the juice runs unabated down my arms and face.  Messy I know, but truly a mess worth making. 

Its Hot. What the heck should we eat?

Summer is here my friends and I don't know about you guys, but my kitchen is not air conditioned.  There are some nights when I wish we could live on nothing but strawberry ice cream.  But as we (and our hineys) know, a woman cannot live on strawberry ice cream alone!  So, the question stands, what the heck should we eat?

When I was a kid, and the temperature reached above say, Hell on a hot day, my Dad would call "Ice cube salad!" for dinner.  The call of "ice cube salad" generally resulted in The Beebe family hitting up the local supermarket where we would buy all sorts of crazy salad makings, lots of kinds of lettuce and tomatoes and cucumbers, olives of all colors, almonds & croutons.  You name it, it went in the salad.  I was in charge of the salad dressing making and I honed my dressing craft on these days.  I'd always make a vinaigrette and also a creamy Parmesan balsamic that I will say, with no humility, was very, very good.  

Nowadays, as much as I'd like to eat ice cube salad for dinner, I don't really think my darling dear husband is really gonna go for it.  So whats a girl to do?  Put my George Forman out on the fire escape and hope for the best?  (You know, that really isn't the worst idea...but I digress).

Easy As Pie

The saying "Easy As Pie" must come from a bygone era where all people made pie all the live long day.  Pie has never seemed a simple or easy endeavor to me.

I come from a long line of amazing pie makers.  My mom is the queen of all things pie.  At Thanksgiving she will routinely make at least three kind of pie and at least two of each of them.  Her pumpkin pies will be adorned with the most adorable crust cutouts of turkeys and pumpkins.  Her cherry pie will have a beautiful brown lattice work and her apple pie, well, her apple pie is as simple as it is delicious.  She lets the apples and her crust speak for themselves and I have to say, both can speak very, very well.  My mom has learned over the years to create a light, flaky, tender and tasty crust using only vegetable shortening.  According to most pastry chefs I know, this is impossible.  My mom does it though, and she makes it happen every time.

My father's birthday, in the dead of summer, was always accompanied by a beautiful blueberry pie.  My mom would fearlessly turn out this pie, year after year, in a blazing hot kitchen.   I have to tell you, I have never had a pie that rivals the intensity of those blueberries set against that flaky crust.  Maybe it was the love and dedication that was put into the pie.  Maybe it was the memory of that candle sitting atop that beautiful crust and the lingering heat in the kitchen from a day of pie and stuffed bluefish baking.  Whatever the case, those memories are etched on my brain more vividly than possibly some of my own birthdays. 

File Under: Yummy & Simple

What you see here is a marriage of "what I had in the fridge" and "gosh darn it, I don't have a lot of time" thrown together to make an easy weeknight dinner.  

Wednesday was a bit bonkers.  What with errands and making three dishes for The Brainery's Seasonal Cooking Potluck and goodness knows what else, I was barely able to tell my right foot from my left, never mind getting dinner on the table for Chris and a friend who was staying over our place.  But get dinner on the table I did. 

And what did I make?  A simple, but tasty chicken with mushrooms and gravy for over pasta thats what.  "Over pasta?" you are probably saying to yourself.  Yes, my friends, over pasta.  And why not?  Especially fun shaped pasta such as Campanelle!

This recipe was super easy and I can recommend it highly for a night when you have just a little too much going on and need to get dinner on the table in a hurry. 

Can't Beat Beets (Insert Audible Sigh here)

I really wasn't sure what to call this post.  Since starting my class on seasonal cooking at The Brainery, purchasing interesting vegetables that I would have never purchased before has become my passion and my challenge.  You can find me wandering the stalls of the market looking for something good and something fresh and something colorful.

Small, sweet beets with vivid greens.  Pea shoots and tendrils and pods.  Kohlrabi!  Beautiful french breakfast radishes that are almost too pretty to eat.   Shopping for the class has turned into an exercise in new flavors and discovering how to apply those flavors in ways that maybe I would not have tried before.

Take the beets, for instance.  Did you know that they make a tasty cake?  Well they do.  Did you know you can easily make a savory hummus from them?  Well you can.  I didn't know either of those things before I went to the market and picked up a bunch.  You can also eat the greens, which taste very much like swiss chard.  Talk about economical.  A vegetable with which you can make an appetizer, side dish and dessert.  Amazing.

Cold Carrot Soup with Dill Cream

There aren't many things that are more attractive than a huge bunch of petite carrots with the tops still on.  When I saw them at the green market last week my eye was immediately drawn to them and my imagination went into over drive.

I was thinking about slender, sweet brandied carrots or buttery carrots with a hint of dill or even slicing the carrots thinly and pickling them lightly.  What I settled on after a train ride filled with delicious thoughts was Cold Carrot Soup.  Its been hot here in NYC.  So hot in fact that even eating seems to feel like something of a challenge.  If you know me at all then you understand indeed how hot this must be. 

Carrot soups can be delicious on their own, but cold and with a hint of lemon juice or even tangy Greek yogurt added to them, they really sing.  This recipe is super simple and you probably have most of the ingredients on hand in your pantry.  You can even use regular old carrots if that is all you have hanging around.  I paired my cold soup with dill cream infusion.  It was really simple to make and will add that little something extra to your soup.  If you prefer to use a lighter touch, you can simply add chopped dill and maybe a little garlic to greek yogurt and let that sit in the fridge for a few hours to allow time for the flavors to infuse into the yogurt.  What follows is my recipe for cold carrot soup!  Enjoy!