My sister joined us for the weekend as our first house guest in the new apartment, and I made this coffee cake to celebrate. Things aren’t quite put together just yet in the kitchen, which this time meant we didn’t have any cinnamon on hand, so I substituted Chinese five spice instead. I’ve done that before with success, so no biggie, right? Except not so much. We’re sitting at the breakfast table over cake and coffee, and she says something tastes just a bit off with the flavor of the cinnamon. I say it’s not cinnamon at all, and she says “oh, that’s probably it then.” So for round two, I went out and bought ground cinnamon, and the coffee cake really is better for it.
David has been making these smoothies on a daily basis for a few years. He has the method down to a science, and though we sometimes tweak the ingredients, it’s been an easy, reliable recipe we both enjoy. We’ll make a large batch that makes two 16-ounce smoothies. We’ll either both have one in the morning for breakfast or cover the second smoothie with plastic wrap and keep it in the refrigerator overnight for the next morning. Maybe the top ¼ inch of the smoothie starts to turn a bit darker (like a banana going from yellow to brown), but the smoothies actually keep amazingly well overnight.
I’m sharing the recipe now because the health benefits stemming from the combination of tons of high-fiber fruit with a kefir and yogurt base is on my mind after attending the annual conference for dietitians in Massachusetts; one of the most interesting (and popular) presentations was on the role that gut bacteria play in our health (and the connection between gut bacteria, obesity, and diseases like diabetes). It’s fascinating to hear the emerging research on this topic.
Basically, it’s thought that the kinds of bacteria growing in our gut have an influence on our health, and the foods we eat can influence the types of bacteria we grow inside. Some of the research can be complicated, but there were several key takeaways that are applicable in the world of cooking. Some of the best lessons I gleaned from the presentation included:
Research has found that the kind of bacteria inhabiting the guts of lean people is different from that of the bacteria in the guts of obese people
Bacteria are involved in digestion and the extraction of energy (calories) from the food we eat
Losing weight can shift what kind of bacteria inhabit your gut
High-fat, high-calorie diets lead to changes in microbial composition (what kinds of bacteria are found in your gut) that can contribute to metabolic disease
Low-fat, high-fiber diets contribute to staying lean or decreasing risk of obesity and contributes to the growth of lean-promoting microbes (researchers even explored this by transplanting bacterial colonies from lean to obese mice and vice versa)
So, what we eat has an influence on what kinds of bacteria grow in our intestines, which in turn can have an impact on our weight and risk for some diseases.
Probiotics and prebiotics are the words associated with this topic.
I wish I had a fascinating origin story for this weeknight-dinner dish, but in reality, it’s been a busy year, and this is just the kind of dinner I’ve been feeling like putting together after work. It’s a good standby for when mental and physical energy are sapped. It’s got a lot of enjoyable components (goat cheese + sausage + veggies) to give you something to really look forward to at the end of a busy day. It’s not overly complex, but it’s perfectly satisfying.
I’m hoping it’s the start of more successful pasta dishes that use goat cheese as the base for a creamy pasta sauce. I’ve made several attempts at goat-cheese-based pasta recipes, all of which served as passable dinners for David and me, but none worth sharing or repeating. I keep thinking it should be simple to put together a basic pasta dish using goat cheese as the base for the sauce, but my attempts so far have been off: the goat cheese lends either a weak or funky flavor or I overthink the combination of ingredients. This is the first time I’ve found the effort worthwhile, and it’s so exceeded my expectations. It’s in the realm of regular rotation for dinner recipes.
For my birthday, David took me to one of the best restaurants in our new neighborhood: Craigie on Main. It’s a French restaurant that’s known for it’s consistent high-quality, creative cooking. It’s been on my list of places I’d love to visit for as long as I’ve been in Boston, and now that we live just down the road, we finally made reservations. For my birthday dinner, I had pork prepared four (!) different ways: terrine, sausages, one I can’t remember (whoops), and a pan-seared pork loin in a just-sweet-enough kumquat glaze. It was fabulous, and this chicken dish is a riff on some of the flavors I so enjoyed that night.
Kumquats are new to me. They’re a citrus fruit that’s usually available in the late winter months, so they’re perfect this time of year. They look like tiny little oval oranges, and they’re meant to be eaten whole, skins and all. One of my colleagues at the hospital introduced me to them. She brought a little baggie of them to work one day and gave me a few to snack on, just popping them in to my mouth. When you chew them, there’s a bit of a tart zing, but soon a bright sweetness comes through. It’s kind of like a layered flavor.
Although I’ve loved spending the past few years in my kitchen in Boston’s North End, it’s time for a change. David and I are lucky enough to have found a great place on the other side of the river that we both love.
We’re much closer to nature, with a little back yard and the Charles River just a few blocks away. We’ve been watching the trees bud and the flowers spring up over the past couple of weeks as we settle in. Lounging on the stairs to our back deck outside in the (still very chilly) night air, we talk about all we’ve left behind and everything we’re looking forward to in our new neighborhood.
To celebrate our first Saturday in our new space, I made this pear crisp. I wanted my first dish to be celebratory: something we don’t eat every day. Because we had loads of unpacking to do, it also needed to be on the low-maintenance end of the spectrum.
I brought this salad to a brunch where my friends and their brand-new babies were gathering on a recent chilly Sunday morning. With donuts, cheesy egg bakes, and mimosas on the menu, it helped to make a small contribution of vegetables. It can be tough for a salad to compete with all that, but people seemed to enjoy it. As one of my friend’s husbands remarked, “it’s saying something that this is on my plate right now.” After brunch, the babies got bundled up in winter gear and went for a sleigh ride around the yard. By now, the snow is all melted, but the spring produce hasn’t quite yet sprung. So I’ll share this winter salad to tide me over.
Pickling vegetables can be an ambitious endeavor, and it’s a science trying to develop delicious flavors while avoiding incubating dangerous bacteria. This technique of a quick pickle, however, produces the best of flavor in just a short time (and without having to sterilize the jars). These wraps have great flavor and enough bite to lift them out of the mundane.
First, roasting the bell peppers gives them depth and complexity. Then a 24-hour bath in a salty vinegar mixture gives the peppers a bright acidity; this makes the peppers really pop, rather than the savory-subtle brine of the full-blown pickling process. Adding spinach gives the wraps crunch factor.
Given that it’s been absolutely frigid for weeks on end, most of my cooking has been one of two things: long-simmering stove-top dishes or supplementing the heating in my apartment by turning on the oven, chopping some vegetables, and allowing them to roast all afternoon. With all the snow, and cold, and damp, cooking in a warm kitchen has been a source of comfort. And while I’ve made a good number of stews, soups, and starches, I was particularly pleased with this recent production. A little bit of salty and a little bit of sweet all comes together in this beautiful winter salad.
To make the salad I start by roasting the Brussels sprouts in the oven for a good chunk of an hour before assembling the rest of the ingredients. For this version, I used the teeny tiny Brussels sprouts at Whole Foods, so I simply sliced them the halves. If you use bigger sprouts, consider quartering them. They’re roasted with a hefty dose of olive oil and seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper before going in the oven. After roasting, a toss them with a bit of balsamic vinegar, which, paired with the remaining olive oil on the vegetables, turns into the dressing for the salad. This isn’t a heavily dressed salad, but feel free to add a bit more oil or vinegar if you need it. The light dressing works in part because the Brussels sprouts, apples, and raisins are so moist, and their warmth just ever so slightly wilts the arugula. So rather than tough, dry fronds, the separate ingredients of the salad come together to serve as dressing.
The day after David and I got married we spent the day hanging out with our friends and family in Boston’s North End. We had a leisurely lunch, got drinks on the patio, and strolled through the streets of the St. Anthony’s festival. As the hours passed, our group dwindled as people left in groups and pairs to catch their trains, head to the airport, or pack up the car and hit the road. By dinner time, everyone had gone, and David and I found ourselves alone, enjoying married life together in our neighborhood for the first time. We found our way to a cookout hosted by one of the neighborhood restaurants. I’d been invited by one of the owners: an elderly man who drinks his coffee on the sidewalk outside his restaurant in the early hours of the morning, when I’m heading off to work. We’re two of the only people on the streets that early, so we recognize each other, and though we don’t know one another’s name, we say hi and wave. The week before the cookout (and the wedding), he called out to me across the street, mentioned that he was throwing a party, and suggested I stop by.
The street was full of people, and a large grated grill was set up outside. Inside, a small band was set up in the corner, and there were coolers with beer. They grilled the pork chops in rows, slicing the meat into strips when they were just cooked through, and piling them on a large platter. People gathered around the grill with each fresh batch, taking a share, then making their way back to their beers. This was some of the best, juiciest meat I’ve had in ages. It wasn’t overcooked or tough, and it had just a touch of an oily citrus sauce that boosted the flavor just so. We felt lucky to have been invited.
Perhaps it isn’t such a surprise to find a kale and white bean soup on a food blog smack dab in the middle of January. Not only have we been confronted with weeks upon weeks of achingly cold weather, but the recipe fits well into the content niche of post-new-year’s resolutions but pre-Valentine’s Day indulgence. But that’s not why this soup is here today. In reality, this soup was no easy feat for me. I’m actually relatively new to the “enjoying beans” bandwagon, and I’m still taking baby steps towards liking wilted greens.
But that’s one of the fun things about cooking, and eating, and growing. Our tastes buds change, and we learn to like to ingredients and new flavor combinations. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have eaten beans in any form, but I’ve been moving from one dish to the next (starting with black beans tucked into cheesy quesadillas, moving to beans and rice), and finally made my way to beans and wilted greens. I have to admit, I’m not quite there yet with the wilted greens. Just this evening David made a tomato and wilted spinach pasta for dinner, and by the end of the meal I still had some wilted leaves on my plate. But I’m working on it, and trust me, this soup works.
