He Cooks, She Cooks

Posts have been slow for the past few weeks, I know. Michael is hiking in the Adirondacks and I recently returned from a trip with my dad to Finland and Sweden. I got back last week and started working as a mentor at a journalism workshop for high schoolers. Helping out at the workshop also meant I got free meals for the week, so I went about three weeks without really cooking anything.

I finally found a few minutes the other night to put together a quick homemade meal. I had a little bit of ground chorizo in the freezer, so I made spicy sloppy joes by adding onion, celery, ketchup and a splash of apple cider vinegar. (A little vinegar or citrus does something to a dish so that each bite leaves your mouth watering for the next.) I toasted a whole wheat bun and topped the chorizo mixture with some sour cream to tame the spice.

It was sweet, spicy, saucy…and definitely sloppy. Even better, it only took 15 minutes to make.

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This is the dessert that never should have made it to He Cooks, She Cooks.

Even as I made it, I joked to a friend, “This is the stuff you don’t see on the blog.” But you know what? The result was too good not to share. And we are college students. It wouldn’t hurt to include a recipe that others could recreate in a dorm room.

The whole thing started as a last resort dessert. Too lazy/hungry to start baking, I suggested my friends and I dip graham crackers in sweetened condensed milk and call it a night. I don’t have high maintenance friends, so that’s what we started to do. But after a few dips, I got an idea. What if I layered the graham crackers and condensed milk?

Gwen encouraged me, saying it could work like an icebox cake. (I’d never made or eaten one, but remembering photos of the Smitten Kitchen icebox cake, I figured this was a good thing.) So full steam ahead I went, putting graham crackers into a plastic sandwich container and pouring sweetened condensed milk on top. By the second or third layer, I decided cinnamon and fresh grated nutmeg would be a good idea. Just before the final layer, Kat suggested strawberries.

We were about to dig in when my roommate’s friend walked by and said, “What is that? It looks so fancy!” To which we cracked up laughing because nothing has ever been quite so un-fancy in my kitchen ever.

But it was delicious! It was incredible! No one believed it would be, but it was!

Somehow it wasn’t too sweet. The spice was nice, reminiscent of rice pudding. And the strawberries were perfect. Next time I won’t just use them as garnish. I’ll probably slice them thinly and add them between the layers. We ate some right away and didn’t mind the crunch of the graham crackers, but it’s also good after a night in the fridge so they soften up. My new guilty pleasure…

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What do you do when your best friend is sick in the spring? You find a comforting soup that has fresh flavors. Knowing Kat wasn’t feeling well, I searched her giant The Soup Bible for “light and refreshing” recipes. Carrot and Cilantro Soup was one of the few that was still served warm. It sounded great, so the next day I came up with a version of my own. I didn’t have The Soup Bible, and I like making up recipes anyway.
As with nearly every soup, I started with carrots, celery and onions (mirepoix, if you will). I also diced some rose potatoes to give the soup enough weight to stand alone as dinner.

I know coriander and cumin work really well with carrots, but didn’t want the cumin to overwhelm the soup. According to The Flavor Bible, cumin is a medium weight spice, with moderate to loud volume and a heating function. Ground coriander seed, however, has light weight, moderate volume and a cooling function. Perfect! (Also, I am aware that I mentioned two cookbooks with bible in the title. I won’t dwell on what that says about my relationship with food.)

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Someone told me that his mom once used five successive exclamation points in a note saying she was making frittata for dinner. At that point I had never tried frittata, but I knew I must if it roused that much excitement in someone. Now I love to make it, and it has become a default meal if I have a lot of eggs and vegetables. If you’re not familiar with frittata, it’s like a crustless quiche, or a baked omelet. 

I love to put ricotta in frittata, if only so I can say “ricotta frittata” over and over. I made this one just before spring break when I needed to clean out my refrigerator. No ricotta unfortunately, but I used up a zucchini, a Chinese eggplant, half a red bell pepper, leftover chorizo and most of my eggs. It made a nice dinner and breakfast before my flight.

Plus, it’s so easy, you’ll be singing like my friend Kat did, “Hakuna Frittata! It means no worries!”

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You might know this already, but many of your favorite pizza places will sell you just the dough for cheaper than a slice. A large pizza dough from Shakespeare’s is a dollar. A small can of plain tomato sauce is 45 cents or less from the grocery store (and you can cover two pies with one can). Cheese is what, $2 or $3? The whole thing cooks in 10 minutes, and this way you don’t have to tip anyone.

From there you have so many possibilities. I jazz up the sauce with garlic, herbs, red pepper flakes and red wine. We put cornmeal on the bottom of the pan, and brush the crust with olive oil, rosemary and sea salt. We go nuts with toppings. I recently made bacon, artichoke and mushroom. Continue reading »

Senior year of high school I went to my best friend Annabelle’s house every Friday night for Shabbat dinner. I’m not Jewish, but I went for the food and the company. Annabelle’s family is from Venezuela so both are always enjoyable.

One of my favorite foods we’d have were arepas, which are fried cornmeal patties. Sometimes they had cheese inside, otherwise I topped them with it myself. Annabelle’s house always had a good selection of cheeses and dips.  Burrata, queso fresco, crema, salsa…

I don’t get to visit Annabelle too often these days, but I have learned to make arepas. They’re very simple: precooked cornmeal (like PAN), water and salt. Mix all that together, form into patties, fill or don’t fill, then fry them in a little oil.

You might not know any Venezuelan Jews, but you’ll appreciate these nonetheless. 

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