by Greg Singer

As of this past weekend, it has finally become Mojito season in New York.  It was  90 degrees on Saturday and the sun was blazing.  So, after watching the USA beat Australia in their final tune-up game before the World Cup Finals start on Friday, I was thirsting for that perfect libation that is part confection, part limeade, but mostly liquor.  Unfortunately, due to the fact that our long-procrastinated grocery trip remained so, we lacked the proper accouterments, so I had to improvise.  I think the end result, while certainly not a mojito, turned out to be really, really good.  For the moment I am calling it the “Mother Hubbard.”  Sorry there is no picture, but we drank them too fast and now don’t have the ingredients to make more.

The one ingredient we had plenty of was mint.  For some reason, we have mint growing all over our house.  I suspect that Sarah and I each planted some in several places without the other’s knowledge.   But Rum and limes were problems.  Over memorial day weekend, we went camping with some friends at a State Forest in which the consumption of alcoholic beverages is discouraged.   To circumvent this regulation, in place of the beer that we would normally select for fireside inebriation, we drank Rum and Coke.  About a liter of the cheap spiced rum made it home with us, but spiced rum is not ideal for Mojitos, which require the relative crispness of a good light rum to play off the sweetness of the sugar and not interfere with the cooling sensation of the mint.  We also managed to bring home a couple of limes, but not nearly enough for the number of drinks I envisioned.  Fortunately, there were a few lemons in the fridge that had mostly outlived their usefulness.  They seemed like just the thing to stretch the few limes into more drinks.

So, here’s the recipe:

In a cocktail shaker, muddle 6-8 large mint leaves with a tablespoon of sugar.  Add half of a lime and half of a lemon, cut into small pieces, and mash it all together until the citrus has given up all of its juice.  Add 3 ounces of spiced rum and ice.  Shake vigorously and pour the whole mixture into a glass (I like Ball jars).  Add enough seltzer to fill the glass. Then plop down in the kiddie pool and enjoy.

Okay, so we’ve been busy working on a lot of other projects lately, but we’re trying to get up to speed on the food blog. Believe it or not, but we’ve been cooking a ton – we’re just too busy eating it than blogging about it! But that should end come these summer months, especially once I get armed with an awesome new smartphone.

In the meantime, we’re trying to get some pieces out of the archive including this cake made for our friend Eli’s birthday.

While I would love to take credit for this cake, it’s really a botched recipe for a Red Velvet Cake from Cake Man Raven over in my old neighborhood of Clinton Hill Brooklyn. While I can’t say that this cake is as good as what you can find at the store itself (which is always packed), it’s much, much less expensive and you have the ability to experiment with the recipe a little.

Before Cake Man Raven upgraded their website (complete with banging soundtrack), they posted their recipe online. However, you can find it in a bunch of different places, including the Food Network. This recipe is pretty true to the original although I rarely get enough for three layers while using 7 in cake pans. Regardless a double decker cake is just as impressive.

Be sure to build in adequate time for the cake to cool (I made the cake the night before) before you frost. Lacking good frosting skills, I went out and picked up a proper pastry knife and followed steps similar to this video. One good tip I picked up from my Cook’s Illustrated cookbook is to use a hair dryer on a low, high setting to give the frosting a shiny finish.

So why Lavender Velour Cake rather than Red Velvet? Well it’s actually quite simple – I didn’t have enough red food coloring for the cake, so it came out pink (which was Eli’s favorite color coincidentally). With some remaining red and blue food coloring, I made the frosting lavender, plus since I made it in Brooklyn, I thought velour would be more suitable than velvet.

Overall, the cake was perfect and fed about 12 people rather well. This is quickly becoming an Eli birthday tradition and I’m happy to contribute!

Oakdale Grilled Cheese

On a recent trip to the west coast, my family took me on a road trip around the Sierra foothills region. On the recommendation of my Aunt’s friend – we stopped at the Oakdale Cheese Factory for a$2.99 Grilled Gouda Cheese sandwich and it was everything she promised it would be- gooey and delicious!

These fourth Generation Dutch cheese makers specialize in Gouda and have over 30 varieties of other cheeses. Most are available for tasting! We missed the cheese making demonstration – if you plan to stop by check out the times on their site to catch one!

Oakdale Cheese

The Cheese

Squid and Kale

This is a dish inspired by a Mark Bittman recipe that we read  in the NY Times.  Depending on what’s in season, or in the cupboard or fridge, improvisation can be  great way to improve your cooking skills.  Mark Bittman’s recipe has more of an Asian influence with his use of spicy peppers and soy sauce, where ours has an Italian flare with the addition of breadcrumbs and pasta.

In Bittman’s explanation, kale can be substutied for any greens – dandelion, spinach, or  watercress will hold up as well. We also saw a take on this recipe that served the kale and squid over buckwheat soba noodles, which inspired us to use the spinich linguini in we had been saving for a rainy day.  Frank’s idea to top it off with breadcrumbs provided some extra texture and flavor to tie together the Kale, chilies, lemon and fish.

We did keep this simple recipe simple by not complicating it and keeping it fresh.  We particularly like the versatility of this recipe – next time we plan on making a southwestern variation.

Enjoy!

Squid and kale

Lobster tail

What more is there to say – $5.99 lb lobster this week at Fairway.

Lobster

Pastosa Pizza

Yum…. After a rainy afternoon touring Staten Island pizza spots, Frank introduced me to his favorite specialty Italian food store, Pastosa’s Ravioli—a third generation owned family business. Starting out 40 years ago in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, Anthony G. Ajello saw the gap in the market for ravioli made with high quality cheeses and other ingredients. Now the family has 11 stores across the tri-state area selling olives, sauces, smoked meats, cheeses as well as other Italian imports.

Inspired by our pizza tour, our shopping list included ingredients to make our own pizza: fresh whole wheat dough, olives, canned whole tomatoes, basil, Pastosa-brand fire roasted red peppers and 100% whole milk mozzarella cheese.

Pastosa Whole Wheat Ravioli

Since the ravioli is where Pastosa’s is rooted, we stocked up on some whole wheat vegetable ravioli (shown here) as well as artichoke ravioli. Both of these make a quick and easy dinner by making a simple sauce using canned tomatoes garlic, basil, olive oil and a dash of red pepper.

Pastosa Salad

To “pick” on as we were cooking we also went to the prepared food counter and picked up some olive salad which is made up of over-sized mixed olives, picked carrots, celery, cauliflower and red pepper. We severed it over fresh spinach for some extra crispness.

Now that I have had the Pastosa experience, I have spotted their products in many stores in my neighborhood such as, Joe’s Busy Corner, Fairway and Food Emporium. Next time you see it – pick it up!

Pastosa Olives

Keith's Gravlax

1. Take one salmon filet, coat both sides with kosher salt, pepper, and about a teaspoon of sugar (any more and the result is a little oversweet).

2. Place it on a plate sandwiched between dill, rosemary, whatever other herbs you want, drizzle a teaspoon of vodka over the top.

3. Cover with plastic, and flip every 12 hours. After 48 hours, rinse and pat dry.

This "cure" that you create in this process actually becomes a highly concentrated brine that you can use as a base for sauces.

Keith suggested having it on toast with bianca cheese from the greenmarket for breakfast... This is a man who knows how to start his day.

Cheryl’s polenta is made with a ratio of one cup of polenta to two cups of water. Some recipes will tell you to make it with a ratio of 1:3 or 1:4, but that is way too much water and will leave you with soup rather than a dense, creamy base. Making polenta is very easy – you take medium sauce pan and fill with two cups of water over a high heat. After the water starts to boil, stir in the polenta, 3 tbl. butter and 1/2 c. grated pecorino romano. And keep stirring, gently over medium heat, until the texture is smooth and a test bite is no longer grainy.

To this, add the mushrooms and some chopped cherry tomatoes, salt & pepper to taste and you’re done! This makes a great “rainy day” meal and is excellent comfort food you can make with a quick trip to the farmers market.

by Greg Singer

There is no better comfort food than sausage gravy.  It’s creamy and salty, peppery enough to clear your sinuses a little, and hearty enough to stay with you all day long.  I grew up in Texas where the high school lunch line offers brown gravy or cream gravy every day.  Sausage gravy is a staple of the Texan diet,  gracing the menu of countless restaurants in my home town of Spring, but the best biscuits and gravy I’ve ever had was in Colorado. 

In Old Colorado City on the west side of Colorado Springs there is a local breakfast spot called Mountain Shadows that does it right.  Their gravy is heavy and meaty with lots of red pepper, and you can get it on anything.  We can argue all day about the best food for a hung-over Sunday morning, but for my money it’s Mountain Shadows’ breakfast burrito smothered in sausage gravy.  The other Colorado eatery for Biscuits and Gravy is The Donut Mill in Woodland park.  Their gravy is basically the same as Mountain shadows, with more black pepper than red pepper, but the strength lies in their biscuits.  Donut Mill biscuits are impossibly light, fluffy beyond belief, and huge.  A half-order (one biscuit split open) is plenty to fuel an all-day ski trip.

I’ve made biscuits before, but never tried sausage gravy, so, for Sarah’s birthday, I decided to give it a shot.

Buttermilk Biscuits:

2 Cups Flour

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoons Baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons sugar

4 oz. Butter, chilled (most recipes call for vegetable shortening, but I have had great luck with butter)

¾ Cup Buttermilk (don’t try to make this recipe with regular milk; they won’t rise properly because the chemical reaction will be off)

Sausage Gravy:

1 package Sausage, 12 oz. (I like Spicy Pork Sausage, but I guess you could use Turkey)

2 tablespoons Flour

2 Cups Milk (probably richer with whole milk, but mine came out perfect with skim)

Black pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Mix the dry ingredients for the Biscuits in a large bowl.  Mix in the butter with your fingers until you have what looks like course bread crumbs.  Make a well in the center and add the buttermilk.  Fold the batter together until it forms a relatively loose dough, then turn it out onto a floured surface.  Do not over-mix. Fold the dough unto itself a few times, not to knead it like bread, but to help it develop layers.  Press the dough into an oval shape ¾” to 1 ¼”  thick (there is no need to roll it).  Use a Biscuit cutter or anything round with a sharp lip to cut as many biscuits as you can, then reform the excess and repeat until you are out of dough.  Place the biscuits on a baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray, make an indentation in the center of each with two fingers,  and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

For the gravy: start by browning the sausage in a tall-sided skillet or frying pan, breaking it up as small as you can.  This should take 7 or 8 minutes.  Remove the sausage from the pan and put it aside for later, leaving the fat in the pan (the more fat you leave, the more sausage flavor the gravy will have, but too much can detract from the gravy’s snowy whiteness).  Turn the heat to medium and wisk in the flour, continuing to cook for 1 to 2 minutes.  Remove from heat.  Microwave the milk for about 30 seconds, just so it won’t scald when it hits the pan (I learned this the hard way–if you scald the milk, it separates into tiny white granules and there is no recovering the gravy).  Wisk the milk into the pan AWAY FROM THE HEAT until it is smooth.  Bring it to a boil, then reduce to simmer until it thickens, probably about 2 minutes.  Add back in the sausage and season heavily with black pepper.  Simmer for a few more minutes to heat the sausage through, then turn to low and cover to keep warm.

By then the biscuits should be done.  Take them out, fry some eggs, and serve.  Split biscuits and smother liberally with gravy.  Garnish with hot sauce (I like Louisiana Gold, but Tabasco is the standard).  Enjoy

It’s been a while since we’ve posted some food-related work, but we promise – we’re back! We actually just worked on the apartment and added a ton of stuff to our kitchen – we even got some proper cocktail equipment so stay tuned for some drink recipes soon!

Here we have one of the easiest meals to make – the quesadilla. I’m sure a bunch of you have made this dish at home because (a) it’s really easy and (b) it’s delicious. We tend to use as much fresh ingredients as possible to make this dish, with the exception of refried/black beans which you can easily pick up in your grocery store. While I prefer Goya brand products, you have to try really hard to find a bad version of refried/black beans.

In New York, it’s pretty easy to find a Mexican grocery store that stocks great ingredients. I prefer Zargoza in the East Village or the Essex Street Market, which has some amazing vendors. While we would love to use fresh corn tortillas, we generally rely on these places to pick up some fresh ones. Before we prepare the quesadilla, we heat the tortillas in a frying pan with some butter or oil until they’re warm, but not crispy (take too long and you’ll have some great nachos though).

Otherwise, a trip to your local fruit/veggie grocer will yield all the ingredients that you might want. Here, we use some red peppers that we’ve roasted in the toaster oven along with some refried beans and “Mexican” cheese blend. Some queso fresco, Monterey jack and mild cheddar are the main components, if you’re looking to make this at home. Topped off with some cilantro, thinly sliced radishes, sour cream and “poor man’s” guacamole (avocado mixed with lime, onion and salt) and you’ve got yourself an easy lunch.

Of course, you’re welcome to experiment. What do you prefer to put in your quesadilla?