apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I had lettuce from the garden, so I made a salad and tried out Lemon Dill Vinaigrette, one of the Lemon Vinaigrette variations in How to Cook Everything. (The dill was from the garden, too.) I sneaked and added garlic. It was quite good.

If you like Indian or Pakistan cuisine,check out this recipe for haleem, it's a kind of beef (or mutton) stew with diff kinds of lentils. I haven't made it myself, but I had it last weekend, it's good:
http://www.desiconnection.com/recipe/haleem.htm

Although I haven't been inspired to cook lately, I did make a coffee & chocolate granita; haven't tasted it yet.

I made the rock cakes from the Celluloid Pantry entry this past week. They turned out really well, I substituted craisins for currants but otherwise followed the recipe. Super easy to make and quite tasty.
I also made real home made cornbread yesterday and after having that and realizing how easy it too was to make I will never again buy the jiffy box mix.

Joan - your salad sounds lovely and light.

I didn't cook a thing this weekend. Survived eating a weekend's worth of street food from my local annual art festival (1/2 block from home)...sausage with onions and peppers, fresh cut french fries, and cotton candy.

I need a salad.

Sarah - you've inspired an intense cornbread craving in me. Now I've got menu plans for tonight!

I made Nepalese egg salad with fresh greens from the garden on a sourdough vinaigrette with a simple greens (from my sister's kohlrabi plant), corn, and potato soup (souped up with extra garlic siracha, coincidentally enough).

The egg salad recipe was from the Daily Special Moosewood book - delicious with mustard and cumin seeds, tomato and lemon, and cayenne, in addition to the regular eggs and mayo.

I made tomato-chickpea-rosemary soup, from a recipe on orangette, and it came out fantastic. Also made a salad from what was hanging out in my fruit basket, and I must say romaine, avocado, mango, some grape tomatoes, and some vinagrette is a heavenly combination. I tend to eat one thing for dinner for extended stretches and this salad may be it for the summer.

:) Sorry, minipanda, we finished it. Next time I'll save you some. But sausage with onions and peppers is always a good trade-off for a salad.

Hi Keeeks,

In case you don't already have a recipe for cornbread here is the one I used, from Cooks Illustrated.

All-Purpose Cornbread


Before preparing the baking dish or any of the other ingredients, measure out the frozen kernels and let them stand at room temperature until needed. When corn is in season, fresh cooked kernels can be substituted for the frozen corn. This recipe was developed with Quaker yellow cornmeal; a stone-ground whole-grain cornmeal will work but will yield a drier and less tender cornbread. We prefer a Pyrex glass baking dish because it yields a nice golden-brown crust, but a metal baking dish (nonstick or traditional) will also work. The cornbread is best served warm; leftovers can be wrapped in foil and reheated in a 350-degree oven for 10 to 15 minutes.

Makes One 8-inch Square 1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour , (7 1/2 ounces)
1 cup yellow cornmeal (5 1/2 ounces), see note
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar (1 3/4 ounces)
3/4 cup frozen corn (3 1/2 ounces), thawed
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), melted and cooled slightly

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position; heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 8-inch-square baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Whisk flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl until combined; set aside.

2. In food processor or blender, process brown sugar, thawed corn kernels, and buttermilk until combined, about 5 seconds. Add eggs and process until well combined (corn lumps will remain), about 5 seconds longer.

3. Using rubber spatula, make well in center of dry ingredients; pour wet ingredients into well. Begin folding dry ingredients into wet, giving mixture only a few turns to barely combine; add melted butter and continue folding until dry ingredients are just moistened. Pour batter into prepared baking dish; smooth surface with rubber spatula. Bake until deep golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 25 to 35 minutes. Cool on wire rack 10 minutes; invert cornbread onto wire rack, then turn right side up and continue to cool until warm, about 10 minutes longer. Cut into pieces and serve.

keeeks,

usually i detest both egg salad and mucuswood cookbooks, but i must admit Nepalese egg salad recipe sounds intriguing. Yum!

finally ended up cooking the rib roast that I got way back in december. I used this recipe from the Grilling William Sonoma book: http://content2.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/recipedetail.cfm?objectid=98F8A77F-E82E-477B-AE412C384575D481

Turned out fantastically on the new grill.

i tried the absorption pasta method on chocolate & zucchini (click my name for a recipe). basically, you cook pasta as you would risotto, with less stirring. the result is unbelievably silky.

i made mine with stock and wine instead of water, diced zucchini and tomatoes, and sauteed a quarter of an onion with the garlic. i think the variations are infinite. it would make a divine cacio e pepe.

I made eggplant parmesan. I layered tomato sauce that I made, thinly sliced "sweated" (Learned this from Julia Child - to slice,salt and let it sweat) eggplant, fresh mozzarella, shaved pecorino and I topped it with bread crumbs that I made out of stale flatbread and Sarabeth's 7-grain bread. It was all crunchy on top. Simple and dee-licious. No need to deep fry the eggplant first.

I made a fabulous meal today! I had fresh organic porchops and rhubarb from the greenmarket, so i made pan-seared chops with a rhubarb-cherry compote. I serve them with brussels sprouts roasted with walnuts and these gorgeous potatoes:

Take russets and slice them into 1-inch rounds. mix together 1/3 cup olive oil, a teaspoon of salt, and fresh pepper in a glass baking dish. Take a pretty piece of parsley or a sprig of rosemary, spread it on one side of each potato slice, and press it into the bottom of the pan. Roast at 400 for 40 minutes. The results are beatiful little pressed-flower-cameos! Delicious, very pretty, and easy.

liz-
i made the absorption pasta last night for dinner and loved it. i agree that it has infinite possibilities. i'm a little low on produce (waiting for thursday's csa pickup), but picked up some leeks yesterday at the greenmarket, and threw those in at the last minute. i used chicken stock and found that the pasta was much richer and more satisfying than usual. and i just broke linguine into 1.5-2 inch lengths and used that rather than short pasta (since i didn't have any).
i also made the rajasthani buttermilk curry that was on 101 cookbooks (click on my name for the recipe link). used the leeks instead of green onion and added some steamed sweet potatoes. even though i'm from the south and some in my family think this is mortal sin, i always like my sweet potatoes in a very savory seasoning to counter all that sweetness.

Love this Jicama Salad with Lime-Cilantro Dressing:
Dressing: 3/4 cup rice oil--1/3 cup fresh lime juice--1/2 cup cilantro--1 jalapeno(pickled in a jar)--1/2 salt--mix in food processor
Salad:1 jicama(lb) peeled and cut in to sticks--1 bunch watercress--romain lettuce--blanced green beans--1 apple-- and 4 ounces queso balnco chees or jack cheese. FABULOUS!

A day of soaking up rays by the pool (I was visiting a friend in LA) called for my signature dish: guacamole. The market had a whole display of large, ripe but firm avocados just begging to eaten. Just added some fresh lime juice, pico de gallo, cilantro, garlic and cholula hot sauce to the cubed avocado (I think its tastier in chunks rather than mashed into a green mush). It was heaven.

Does anyone have any experience making Chaat? I went to kalustyans and got a chaat masala in a box, along with tamarind and mint chutneys and some sev, but don't really know how to proceed...potato? chickpeas? yogurt (what kind?)

Maggie, how about both potato & chickpeas?
http://www.geocities.com/ienakashyap/ic_aloo_chana.html
Sarah, that cornbread recipe seems terrific. Will definitely try it, thanks for posting it!

Just zipping in to show you all these cool dishes I found last night (and it will end up they were featured here last week):
http://www.pangaya.com/tableware.html

At first I thought it was the COLORS that were specific to each city. Like the San Francisco set came only in the red/orange/purple/pink combo. Nope. It's the SHAPE combination that are for each city grouping, YOU get to pick out the colors you like.

They're almost too pretty to eat off, they look more like abstract art for the table. And YOU choose the colors to customize that art.

I'll just post things as I find them, since the form submittal is broken last I checked and the things I send in don't get used on the website. Some things have to be posted in a timely manner, because as we all know, products change or disappear.

By the time our hosts get through the backlog of emails, the dishes (or other products) are sold out. Or discontinued. One of the colors is already sold out that I checked. So better post now and you all can check it out.