boy meets girl.

Sometime's I'm at a loss for words, so I'm just going to let the picture do all of the talking.

(Obsessing over structured, graphic lines with gold accents, obviously.)  

This room feels so boy meets girl.  

Image via Pinterest.  

shakshuka.

I've been happily embracing summer meats comfort food which is why shakshuka is so perfect this time of year.

Shakshuka for those of you unfamiliar with the wonderful deliciousness that is this Middle Eastern dish is basically a tomato and pepper stew topped with barely cooked eggs.  It's meant to be eaten (in my mind) family style, with everyone dipping chunks of baguette or wedges of pita into the stew (break those egg yolks!) and scooping it up in quick succession from pan to mouth.  It's flavorful, warm, and inviting, perfect for a brunch or a relaxed supper which is why I love it so much.  

Shakshuka

Recipe from Jerusalem: A Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi

Serves 4

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons harissa

2 teaspoons tomato paste

2 large red peppers, cut into ¼-inch (about 2 cups/300 grams total)

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

5 large, very ripe tomatoes, chopped (5 cups/ 800 grams in total); canned is also fine

4 large eggs + 4 egg yolks or 8 large eggs

½ cup/ 120 grams thick yogurt

Salt and pepper to taste

Aleppo pepper for sprinkling (optional)

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat and add the harissa, tomato paste, peppers, garlic, cumin, and ¾ teaspoon salt.  Stir and cook over medium heat for about 8 minutes to allow the peppers to soften.  Add the tomatoes and bring to a gentle simmer, and cook for a further 10 minutes until you have quite a thick sauce.  Taste for seasoning. 

Make 8 little dips in the cause.  Gently break the eggs and carefully pour each into its own dip.  (Do the same with the yolks if you aren't using whole eggs for all the eggs.)  Use a fork to swirl the egg whites a little bit with the sauce, taking care not to break the yolks.  Simmer gently for 8 to 10 minutes, until the egg whites are set but the yolks are still runny (you can cover the pan with a lid if you wish to hasten the process).  Remove from the heat, leave for a couple of minutes to settle, then spoon into individual plate and serve with yogurt and a sprinkle of Aleppo pepper. 

dinner parties.

Dreaming of throwing epic fall dinner parties.   Crostini of goat cheese with slow roasted butternut squash to start, pasta bolognese (with a heavy sprinkle of parmesan) to be served with crusty Italian bread (for sopping up all that sauce) and a mesculun salad (with a tart lemon vinaigrette), a dessert of pumpkin bread pudding topped with a drizzle of creme fraiche would be the ideal way to end the meal.  Skinny jeans (or leather pants) paired with an over-sized black cashmere sweater would be my dress of choice.  

And there would be wine, lots of bottles of pinot noir.  

As the evening wears on, shoes would be kicked off, the music would be turned up, and dancing would ensue late into the night.  

The ideal venue is seen below.  Rustic raw wood furniture is the perfect couterpart to clean white walls and graphic light fixtures. This dinning room table begs to be filled with hearty food and surrounded by people.  

Image via Pinterest. 

apple cake with maple frosting.

October is my month.  

October conjures all kinds of feelings of nostalgia and memories of the past.  Debating Halloween costumes for weeks on end, sitting hunched over sheets of newspaper in the garage while pumpkin carving with my siblings, walks beneath a canopy of colorful trees in order to get to the school bus, meeting a boy who is now my better half.  

October is apples and pumpkins and candy galore.  Slow braised meats to be eaten with beer on Sunday aka Football day, butternut squash pizza with smoked mozzarella to be served with a really bold red wine, bowls of pasta topped with rich and meaty bologonese.  

October is this apple cake.  An oh so creamy maple frosting is paired with an absurdly chunky crunchy spike filled cake. There are 4 (4!) cups of apple in this cake which is what makes it so incredibly perfect and why I deem it required eating in October.  

Apple Cake with Maple Frosting

Apple Cake adapted from King Arthur Flour Frosting adapted from Bon Appetit 

For the Cake

2 1/3 cups  all-purpose flour

1 2/3 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon each ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 large eggs

1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened

4 cups peeled, cored, chopped apple, about 1 1/3 pounds whole apples

1 cup diced toasted walnuts or pecans  

For the Frosting

½ stick unsalted butter at room temperature

¼ cup packed dark brown sugar

4 ounces cream cheese at room temperature

3 tablespoons maple syrup

Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Grease and flour a 9" x 13" pan or a 9 inch round cake pan.

To make the cake: Mix all of the ingredients except the apples and nuts in a large bowl. Beat until well combined; the mixture will be very stiff, and may even be crumbly.  Add the apples and nuts, and mix until the apples release some of their juice and the stiff mixture becomes a thick batter, somewhere between cookie dough and brownie batter in consistency.  Spread the batter in the prepared pan, smoothing it with your wet fingers.

Bake the cake for 45 minutes, or until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, or with just a few wet crumbs clinging to it.  Remove the cake from the oven.  Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan and then flip the cake out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.   

Make the frosting: Using electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in large bowl until blended. Beat in cream cheese, then maple syrup and salt Chill until beginning to firm, about 20 minutes.  When cake is cool and frosting is firm, spread the cake with the frosting. Can be kept at room temperature for 3 days.  

taco fever.

I took a sneak peak at the dinning section in tomorrow's New York Times and it's an issue all about Tacos.  

Tacos! 

The boy likes to joke with me that we are part Mexican due to the fact that we eat tacos with such regularity. It is true that we eat tacos a lot, more then most, mostly because I can't get enough of them.  Tacos are easy. They are handheld packages that can be stuffed with any and every variety of filling. Spaghetti squash, black beans, carnitas, skirt steak, fish, cheese, the list goes on. They are a complete meal and an absurdly satisfying meal.  Tacos are comforting.  Tacos, second only to pizza are my favorite food.  

Good tacos are hard to find.  Some are so overly stuffed it's impossible to bring taco to mouth without filling landing on your lap.  Some are too delicate and cute that eating them feels wrong.  But some tacos are glorious.  The tortilla encases the perfect amount of filling, there is hot sauce a plenty to pour on top.  It's a perfect 4 bite affair.  

The best taco I had as of late was at Los Tacos No. 1 in the Chelsea Market.  Their adobada quesadilla was an un-tradional quesadilla that was served open face.  It was salty and sweet and the kind of thing all tacos should be but few rarely are.  

If you can't make it too the Chelsea Market, there are more taco recipes on this blog then should be allowed. Take your pick, you wont be disappointed.  Now I'm off to figure out when our next taco night will be.  

chipotle chicken, corn, and avocado tacos.
fish tacos with peppadew tartar sauce.
spaghetti squash and black bean tacos with queso fresco.
tacos al carbon.
tacos with carnitas and pineapple salsa.
tacos with chroizo and potatoes. 

sauteed zucchini pizza with walnut pesto and ricotta.

I decided today, on the walk home from work, that the month of September may be the best month at the farmer's market.  It's where summer and fall collide into a beautiful produce filled mess, where tomatoes and apples and pumpkin and zucchini and peaches and peppers live together harmoniously.  It's an epic time. 

I've waited for what feels like months to make this pizza.  I first saw a recipe for it long before zucchini season arrived and so I filed it away so that when August did arrive I could make it.  The thing about August and pizza is that they don't really go together because its too god damm hot to make pizza when your apartment already feels like a sauna.  Turning on the oven and then the air conditioner to try and offset the heat radiating out of the oven is just a recipe for disaster.  (Unless of course you have a grill or an outdoor pizza oven and if that's the case I would love for you to send me an e-mail so we can schedule a weekend to get together next year since I would love to take advantage of those things. I promise to also bring dessert.) 

Thankfully zucchini season extends into September when the weather is cooler (bye air conditioning, hello open windows!), and I can finally have a relationship with my oven again and with pizza!  This pizza is a good way to merge the seasons - the pungent pesto and spicy sauteed zucchini reminds you of summer where as the smoky mozzarella is reminiscent of fall. I love serving it with ice cold pumpkin beers (what could be better on a Sunday night?!) 

Sauteed Zucchini Pizza with Walnut Pesto and Ricotta

Recipe is a combination of several most notably this one and this one

Makes 2 pizzas

So a couple of notes. I tested a new pizza dough recipe since I always love trying new things.  The one I used is here (I halved it).  As you already know there are more then enough pizza dough recipes on this blog (here,  here, and here).  Any of these would work well, just depends on what type of recipe you are looking for.  Store-bought pizza dough is always an option (no judgement).  Any leftover pesto/zucchini can be folded into pasta for a killer lunch.  

For the Pizza

2 zucchini, thinly sliced into rounds

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 - 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 balls of pizza dough (see notes above on recipe's for dough)

4 tablespoons creme fraiche, divided

2 garlic cloves thinly sliced

2/3 cup walnut pesto (recipe below)

1 (4 ounce ball) smoked mozzarella (if you can't find smoked regular works as well), torn into pieces

1/2 - 3/4 cup fresh ricotta

2 cups of arugula tossed with a pinch of salt

Walnut Pesto 

1 cup toasted walnuts

2/3 cup fresh basil

2/3 cup arugula

Juice of half a lemon

1 clove garlic

2 -3 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan

1/3 - 1/2 cup olive oil (depending on your preference, I prefer less oil then what traditional recipes call for)

2 tablespoons heavy cream or half and half

Salt and pepper to taste

Make the walnut pesto: Puree walnuts, basil, arugula, lemon juice and garlic, then stream in olive oil and cream.  Puree completely. Transfer to a medium bowl and fold in grated Parmesan.  Add salt and peper to taste 

If using a pizza stone, place it on the top rack of your oven and preheat at 500°F for 1 hour.  Use convection if you have it.  If you are not using a pizza stone, preheat your oven 20 minutes before you are ready to bake.  Lighly oil a baking sheet or a metal pizza pan. 

Sauté zucchini with olive oil and red pepper flakes over high heat until deeply browned in parts, 6–8 minutes.

Form each ball of pizza dough into 12"–14" rounds on a floured work surface.  If using a pizza peel dust it with semolina flour or cornmeal.  If not prepare the pizza on your oiled pizza pan.  Place 1 formed pizza dough on peel/pan and spread with 2 tablespoons crème fraîche, along with thin slices of 1 garlic clove.  Top with ⅓ cup walnut pesto, torn pieces of fresh mozzarella, ¼ cup ricotta and a generous amount of zucchini. 

Slide pizza onto pizza stone using a swift movement or place pizza pan in the oven and bake for 8­–10 minutes until golden brown and darker in some parts.  Assemble the next while the previous is baking.

Remove and top each pizza with 1 cups of arugula and a sprinkle of flaky salt.