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One of my best friends was recently describing me to her new boyfriend (who I’ve decided I won’t kill…yet.) and said, “She’s amazing. She pulls random stuff out of her kitchen, throws it together and it’s always delicious!”
She is so kind. And so right.
She also hasn’t been fed my complete fuck-ups. I save those for my girlfriend.
Tonight was another triumph in the arena of turning dirt cheap, shelf stable pantry staples into something fresh and delicious. I had some big medium sized plans to make this recipe from one of the greatest chefs living in New York, Ali el Sayed of Kabab Cafe, but I realized this is a project that should wait until I can make a run to Patel Bros. for the spices I yet need. So what’s the solution? Polenta!
The “title” of this dish is literally everything you need to know about it, and if you cook at all you can probably figure out exactly how to make it without me providing a recipe. But if not, here goes:
Roasted Acorn Squash with Caramelized Onion Polenta
Serves 2
Prep time: 1 hr – 6 mos (trust me, here)
Ingredients:
1 acorn squash
1 large onion
2-4 tbs butter, based on your affection for butter
1/2 c grits or polenta
1.5 c water
sea salt
pepper to taste
garnish of your choosing: cheese, walnuts, herbs, or any combo
Short version:
Get the onions started first by either:
1. Thawing the onions you’ve already made.
[Caramelized onions can be made in gigantic batches and frozen beautifully in varying quantities in little plastic baggies or ice cube trays. I very strongly recommend this strategy, since making caramelized onions take for-freaking-ever and are excellent to have on hand when you want to add some extra savory sweet roasted butteryness to a dish. And since they're pretty ugly anyway, the freezing and thawing process doesn't degrade the aesthetics.]
2. Slicing your big onion into rings or halve and then slice to between 1/2″ and 1/4″ thickness. Lob about a tablespoon of butter into a cast iron skillet, dutch oven, or if you must, a nonstick skillet on low heat. Stir in your onions and some salt until it’s all coated. Cover your onions and stir every 10 to 15 minutes for the first 40 minutes and then more frequently as the color deepens. It’s ok if they stick to the bottom a little, but they can burn towards the end so watch out. Keep going until they’re some kind of color like beer. If you like dark beer like I do, wait til they’re about that color.
Roast the squash:
Preheat your over on 400. Take a big serrated knife and carefully slice your acorn squash in half. I find it’s easiest to put it stem side down and slice into the little point and all the way down. Scoop out the seeds and place cut side down in a baking dish or pie plate with 1/4″ of water. Roast for 30-40 minutes, then drain the water, flip, smear with some butter and salt, and roast for another 20 or so. It’s virtually impossible to overcook a squash unless it’s really dry and it burns, which is very unlikely in this case. All than can happen is that it kind of poaches itself into an almost puree texture and you can scoop it out of the skins and into the polenta. Or your face.
Make the polenta:
Polenta is just 1:3 water, plus salt. I make almost everything in my Le Cruset dutch oven, so I scooped out the onions and made the polenta there so I could get the delicious bits that were stuck to the bottom of the vessel. Simmer and stir like crazy or follow the infinitely preferable no stir method.
Assemble!
Stir your onions vigorously into the polenta until it’s evenly distributed. Place your squash halves into a nice soup bowl and spoon in the polenta. Garnish with something pretty. Serve to your appreciative dining companion, and do not admit that this fancy meal cost about $4 for both servings.
Once again, evidence that avoiding work is a true art.
I’m off to Red Hook (upstate, not Brooklyn) to spend a few days sipping champagne in a hot tub and loving on Mr. Stuart Munch, my friend’s daschund. It’ll be my last little break for a long time…around this time next week I will be closing on my co-op and becoming an adult a home owner!
The Monsieur Dressup collection from design collective Loyal Loot is the type of simple, kinda obvious, functional designs that 
make me want to be a designer and acknowledge I never could. Really, why didn’t I think of this? These is so much design here and so much usefulness with virtually zero footprint. I can imagine this making a perfect landing strip for a super small apartment. I imagine I would mount it on the back of the front door – hang up my coat on the collar, put my keys in the pocket and my purse and umbrella on the cuff. This could be my solution for finally remembering to take everything I need when I leave my apartment!
Unfortunately, it appears that Next Modern Home is the only store, online or otherwise, that’s selling any part of the set in the U.S. While we wait for the full collection, you can see the group’s other work at www.loyalloot.com.
I always look at my WordPress stats, since I find it fun to obsess over metrics. A few days ago, I got a hit off the search terms “women in sweatpants and socks.”
I don’t have any images of women in sweatpants and socks on my blog, do I? I’m not sure I’ve even mentioned sweatpants or socks…or wearing sweatpants and socks together…and I definitely wouldn’t allow myself to be photographed in such an ensemble and exposed to the intertubes. I wonder, is this a phrase that gets more traffic than one might expect? It’s impossible to think there’s a fetish out there that hasn’t been pistol whipped and unconsciously dragged out of the closet by Jaime Buffalino, Dan Savage, Nerve.com and (eek) Fleshbot.
I figure the only empirical test that will yield an answer is to keep repeating the phrase “women in sweatpants and socks” and see if I get any more clicks.
I’ll reveal the results in a week. I know you’ll all be holding your breath.
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Every few weeks, I find these gorgeous postcards mixed in with my mail. They come from my friend Ian K., an extraordinary calligrapher, designer, artists and juggler. And even though they’re from nowhere more exotic than Stamford, CT, from a man with whom my relationship is deeply affectionate and sturdily defined, their appearance does strike me with all sorts of romantic feeling because…well, how often does one receive the real gifts of friends?
I say romantic in the sense of big, generous feeling, in the sense of being deeply felt, in the sense of what’s rare and precious. When I picked up this card above, it connected me with the scenes of Florentino Ariza, setting up shop in “Love in the Time of Cholera,” typing out the love letters of thousands of illiterate strangers in love.
It’s an act of tremendous generosity, the actual giving of words. Physically writing something down for another person is as close as we can get to literally giving someone the immense, intangible value of our time. And I think it’s equally valuable if one has only the words or only the power to write, so long as you’re a part of getting them combined. Spoken words are largely fast and thoughtless. The intentionality of picking up a piece of paper and writing down an idea gives words a strength that air and sound do not. The written word is a thing that can be seen and touched, a sturdy token of the love that is inherent in wanting to be understood.
So, thanks Ian. Expect something in the mail soon.
In celebration of the Yes We Candidate’s swearing in today, I made an arugula focused dinner: whole wheat pasta with sausage and wilted arugula.
Simple, hearty, relatively inexpensive, and pretty lo-cal, which is becoming more relevant as 20 degree weather induces visions of Caribbean vacations and attendant bikinis. Despite all of the bold, basic flavors and textures in this dish, the wilted arugula and the time that you let it sit adds a layer of depth that makes it worth eating.
For 4-5 servings:
- 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
- 2 tbs oil
- 1 bag of whole wheat egg noodles, very al dente
- 1 tube of Gimme Lean! sausage
- 1 box of arugula
- 1 jar of Newman’s Own marinara
generous salt and pepper
Satuee the garlic, then brown the sausage (or snausage, which my girlfriend calls it to distinguish from the real stuff) until it’s a deep golden brown and is very firm. Season with salt. If you don’t cook it thoroughly enough, it wont’ make you sick but your leftovers will have the taste and texture of Play Doh.
Dump the sauce into the pan and turn the heat up a little until it’s bubbling. Keep the cover on it so it doesn’t explode all over your kitchen. Salt and pepper again. When it’s good and hot, also dump in your undercooked noodles. They’ll soften more in the sauce, so you don’t want to pre-cook them too much. Stir, turn the heat to low, then add in the arugula, and stir again. Put the cover on the pan and let it all hang out for about 8 minutes, with another stir or two to make sure it’s even.
Spoon the pasta into a big ol’ bowl and enjoy.
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I’m forever battling to find balance between surrounding myself with things I love and drowning in piles of crap. Just this weekend, four friends and I schlepped eleven bags of clothes, shoes, and interspersed housewares to the Astoria area Goodwill store. (And then spent a very long, very boozy brunch at Sunswick. More on that another time.) Today, I did laundry and spontaneously pitched some old sweatpants from college and socks with holes in them. I was looking on Etsy for some high quality, locally made replacement socks and…welll……I got overwhelmed by the cuteness:
There’s really no reason for why this even exists, except that Americans love tiny things, cozy things, and lots of packaging on their food. If I could eat apples (I’m allergic), I’d probably buy one of these and tell myself that it’ll help me remember to bring fruit to work for a snack. Maybe they come in sizes for clementines….
For Hanukkah a few years ago, my father bought me a book. “Low Fat Jewish Cooking.” I’m still pretty certain that this came from the Barnes and Noble humor section, which is where he has selected every Hanukkah. I’ve never felt a need to refer to it, as my primary Jewish cooking duties come once a year for a tradition my friends estabished when we all moved out to Astoria a few years ago: The Annual Feast of Fried Foods (FoFF).
Last year I made some wicked gingered apple sauce. This year, I was requested of to make kugel. I didn’t want to make the typical cheesecake-with-noodles version, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to slice 4 lbs of potatoes, even if my Cuisinart is my third-best friend (after my girlfriend and the Kitchenaid Artisan she gave me). I did some searching around Epicurious and came upon Browned Onion Kugels.
Noodly!
Here are the notes on my adaptations:
1. Double the recipe. Kugel is not supposed to be made in small amounts. You will always want more, and you can eat it for breakfast by itself for a week.
2. Substitute the onions with 4 large leeks, sliced thinly. I had 2-3 tbs of garlic butter in the fridge, which I used to sautee the leeks at very low heat for about 40 minutes until very translucent and about to caramelize. If you don’t have garlic butter, use about 3 tbs of oil and 3 cloves of diced garlic, and sautee that gently for about 5 minutes before adding the leeks. Season along the way with salt and pepper.
3. I traded out the cottage cheese for part-skim ricotta. Cuz I’m watching the calories. (Psht.)
4. I took the muffin pan option, and divided this up easily into 18 individual servings and a 1 quart Pyrex dish for my personal breakfasting.
Recommendations on what I’d do differently next time:
1. Up the volume of noodles by a few handfuls and cut back on the dairy by about 3/4 of a cup on the sour cream and ricotta. These came out eggy and fluffy, but might’ve been just a little better if they’d had more texture.
2. Don’t overfill, which is what I did. If you have another muffin pan, or if you want to bake in batches, do it.
3. Lube the top of your pan and put something in your oven to catch the drips. These guys will almost definitely overflow a little, leaving you with some unattractive burnt edges and a loud smoke detector.
