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Sinful. Just… full of sin

I just looked over my last few posts and realized they’re all about capital-C Comfort foods. Thick, rich chocolate pudding, mascarpone cream, spicy soup… while I’m on a roll, let’s add one more to the list, shall we?

Bacon Jam — a wonderful motivator, I’ve found.

As a reason for getting out of bed: Spread it on toast, top it with a perfectly (or not) poached egg for a sunny, sweet and savory start to the day.

with bacon jam and avocado

It’ll get you into the kitchen instead of grabbing a quick bite. Fast food pales in comparison to this grilled cheese sandwich: Bacon jam blanketed in cheddar cheese and studded with avocado between two slices of buttered (and I mean buttered) bread, then grilled till the bread crunches at the first bite while the filling simply yields itself.

bacon jam

It’s also a reason to, I dunno, clean the fridge maybe? If you already happened to be in there, and the jar was staring you in the […]

Porky pasta

Last night’s meal came courtesy of odds & ends from our kitchen and my deep and abiding love of tomatoes. With the abundance of lycopene in my system at any given time, it’s a real shame I don’t have a prostate, for if I did, it would surely be the most beauteous specimen in all the land. Neither showy nor unapproachable, but a humble and gracious gland, welcoming pilgrims from distant lands spurred to their journey by the appearance of the long-foretold wonder.

Or it would at least win many blue ribbons at county fairs.

But no, I’m just a girl, so my husband has to reap the benefits of my obsession, though our driveway isn’t exactly flooded with pilgrims or civic-minded ribbon-awarders, now that I think about it.

The odds & ends worked their way into a meal by virtue of me having no clue what to cook for dinner and remembering a couple strips of bacon, a few slices of sopressata and some onion hanging out in the fridge, the remnants of whole canned tomatoes I stuck in the freezer a few weeks ago, and a little bowtie pasta […]

Advent Calendar, Day 21

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Mo’s Bacon Bar, by Vosges
Applewood smoked bacon, alder wood smoked salt, deep milk chocolate. My husband is the most thoughtful gift-giver ever.

For all Advent Calendar posts, click here.

recipe after the jump

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Advent Calendar, Day 3

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A Chorus Line
So they’re not Christmas-related exactly, but I thought these goofy Lucha Libre figurines would make excellent ornaments when I found them at Mighty Goods. Just had to take this picture first — I especially love that the guy in front appears to have chest hair. When’s the last time you saw a hirsute toy?

For all Advent Calendar posts, click here.

recipe after the jump

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Cocoa van

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I’ve been kicking around the idea of making a coq au vin for a while now. But it’s a two-day process, according to the Les Halles Cookbook, and I just never remembered to start it a full day before I planned to serve it. But finally, this weekend, I got my act together.

Do you have the Les Halles Cookbook? No? Quel dommage! It was one of the better Christmas presents I got two years ago. Not only do you have Anthony Bourdain guiding you through recipes with his no-bullshit banter, but the recipes themselves are wonderful. And the design is gorgeous. I mean, really, a lot of thought was put into this book from start to finish. The butcher paper cover (hardcover ed.), the plain, serviceable, but elegant fonts, and the pictures announce exactly what you’ll get when you start reading — a no-nonsense approach to cooking some damned fine no-nonsense food.

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So I started with the easy part — marinating the chicken and vegetables in red wine overnight. Even though I was warned right there in the recipe that this dish would start off pretty nasty, […]

Making the most of what we have

The idea of throwing out food is anathema to those of us who grew up in families that maybe didn’t have so much money. My aunts can squeeze a nickel till it bleeds, my dad would rather cut off his left hand than let anything wither in his garden, and my grandma always saved her cooking oil (and bacon grease, natch) because of the starving kids in China. The plight of malnourished Indian children weighed more heavily on my other grandma’s conscience, so she recycled the bread crusts I demanded cut from my sandwiches into her bread pudding. My family was green before green was cool, or something.

So when I noticed a bunch of arugula wilting in the crisper drawer, a container of ricotta’s expiration date fast approaching, and a big hunk of pancetta taunting me from it’s perch, I knew something had to be done. After eating tomatoes every single day for almost a week, a sauce wasn’t at the top of my list, so I threw together an arugula and nectarine salad topped with spicy caramelized pancetta. And yes, in case you were wondering, caramelized pancetta is just as good as you imagined.

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It isn’t always about bread pudding

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With lots of time to cook on weekends, I like to skip the healthy yogurt of my weekday mornings and indulge a little. During summer, my go-to brunch moves from bread pudding to more seasonal fare — roasted tomatoes and asparagus with soft scrambled eggs. No one respects the egg more than a French chef, so I pulled my old, battered copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking from the bookshelf to make sure I’d get them right. Ordinarily, I’d just get to cooking without consulting a cookbook, but if you’ve ever had French-style scrambled eggs, you know how important it is to cook them just so — the end result should be soft, creamy, curds custardy in texture and positively rich with butter.

Turns out, it’s really quite a simple recipe. You start with a cold pan and cook over very low heat while stirring constantly, which is basically the exact opposite of how I usually make scrambled eggs. But the extra effort is definitely worth it.

As Julia would say, “Bon appetit!”

recipe after the jump

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A heavenly brunch

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Sunday brunch has long been my favorite meal of the week. It’s a huge deal in New Orleans, and I’d always indulge whenever I found myself there after a long night of doing what college kids do on Saturday night. (No, never Bourbon Street — we had some standards.) Once I moved to the working world after grad school, my cravings went unsatisfied; I was the hardest-working woman in St. Louis on Sundays, you see. After my gig as minister of music at a local church, I went straight to my day job for a double shift of putting the catalog to bed for the week. Saturday brunches just weren’t the same, somehow, so I sucked it up until I moved to NY and got to enjoy the boozy brunches offered all over the city.

Sadly, there aren’t any places in Ringwood for a proper brunch, so I’m left to my own devices when the mood strikes. And strike it did this very morning. So, inspired by a Mario Batali recipe, I decided to make use of lovely hen of the woods mushrooms from Trader Joe’s and tomatoes from […]

Two farmers’ markets in two weekends

Color me happy.

The German Coast Farmers’ Market in St. Charles Parish, LA, has really taken off since its inception four years ago. Despite the nearly unbearable heat last weekend, the turnout was good for the anniversary celebration, and spirits were high. The growing season is much farther along down there than it is here in New Jersey, so I was really happy to get some juicy Creole tomatoes fresh from the Zeringue farm. Ponchatoula strawberries were already out of season, but I managed to get along knowing fresh berries will be along soon out here. I’d say the highlight of the GCFM was the jumbo crab-stuffed artichoke I bought at Betty D.’s booth. The artichoke really was enormous, but she’d stuffed it so full of seasoned crab meat, you could barely see the artichoke at all. Gil, my dad, and I had that for dinner one night and felt completely satisfied.

But even more exciting than visiting such a faraway market is knowing that WE HAVE OUR VERY OWN FARMERS’ MARKET RIGHT HERE IN RINGWOOD!! Yes, that’s right, from June to October, I’ll be at the local bus stop every […]

A miss is as good as a mile

Well, THAT didn’t turn out as expected! Trying to lighten the old brussels sprouts recipe from a few months ago, I substituted fat free condensed milk for the heavy cream, bumping up the flavor with an extra slice of bacon, some garlic, and double the mustard. Actually, it tasted fine, but the condensed milk resembled cottage cheese more than anything approaching a silky sauce.

Oh, well. Back to the drawing board. Maybe next time I’ll try a white sauce instead.

At least Fellowship on the big screen TV is redeeming my night.