Snack Time: Sweet potato fries with honey mustard dipping sauce

I have written about my love of honey mustard before, and will always have a place in my heart for Bojangles’ Chicken N Biscuits’ own honey mustard. But sadly, hungover trips to Bojangles are no longer a regular part of my life, so I have been trying to find ways to bring the Boj to Brooklyn.

These baked sweet potato fries are a sweet accompaniment to the tangy sauce, and less starchy than standard potato fries (and clearly much healthier than fast food fries). Baking these fries is a three step process: just slice, drizzle with olive oil & salt, and bake. 

Sweet Potato Fries are:
♥  1 sweet potato, sliced into 2” long by 1/2” wide sticks
♥  1 tbsp olive oil
♥  1/2 tbsp coarse sea salt
Bake at 400F for 25 minutes, flipping fries halfway through.

And making the Honey Mustard is just as easy:

Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce is:
♥  1 tbsp honey
♥  1 tbsp spicy grainy mustard (store-brand works fine)
♥  1/2 tbsp olive oil
♥  salt & pepper to taste
Combine ingredients in a small bowl. Whisk (with fork or tiny whisk) to combine. Chill in fridge for 10 minutes, then enjoy with the above fries or other dippable goods.

Brighton Beach Food-venture

On President’s Day Asher and I trekked down to Brighton Beach for a “beach day.” Nevermind that it was about 40 degrees and super windy, we were determined to have fun…mostly by trying all the delicious Russian food in that area. We got a myriad of savory and sweet treats from Russian ladies selling bread-themed snack items on the street, including a raspberry sweet bread and a roll stuffed with peppery ground beef. I wanted to take pictures of the ladies and little tables, but felt like such a tourist anyway (we had no idea what anything was, and had to ask, multiple times) that I did not. 

My favorite part was this Russian candy store, where they had raspberry and orange jellies covered in this amazing dark chocolate. They also had bin after bin of dried fruit, all different types of nuts, and some sort of snack mix. It was all very inexpensive, so I loaded up on the chocolate jellies for beach and train snacks. 

We also had a small picnic on a bench overlooking the ocean, which was lovely, despite the wind and seagull invasion. From a hot bar at a large Russian grocery store, we got latkes, herbed meat patties, and eggplant rolls. We will definitely have to go back once it’s warm! 

Fake Sausage Scramble

I have written about my love of scrambles and fake sausage before, but this is a savory weekend breakfast I can’t seem to get enough of. The Field Roast brand of grain meal sausage has several flavors, and I recently tried a new one — Italian Red Pepper. This “sausage” has actual fennel seeds inside, which accompany the red peppers (also visible!) beautifully. In this scramble above, I added more fennel seeds to my sauteed potatoes to really bring out the flavor. Scrambled eggs, arugula, and plentiful sriarcha were delicious additions that brought some protein to the dish.

Butternut Squash Ravioli

Sometimes, recipes just don’t work the way you expect. Sometimes, you skimp or swap out ingredients, and you think everything will be fine — but it’s not. Sometimes, the dish is totally inedible, because your boyfriend added too much salt, or you bought the wrong kind of yoghurt, or overcooked the thing for way too long. 

And sometimes the dish is just fiiiiiiiine. But it’s not GREAT. Or a little weird in some way. That’s sort of what happened with this Butternut Squash Ravioli — it was mostly fine, but a little weird. I think this was because I used wanton wrappers instead of pasta sheets. Wanton wrappers can overcook very easily, and let water seep into the filling. BUT pasta sheets were surprisingly hard to find in my neighborhood, and the internet promised me wanton wrappers were an OK substitute!

Anyway, if you would like to re-create this dish, I would certainly encourage it — and urge you to use pasta sheets instead of wanton wrappers. Let me know how it goes! Here’s what you’ll need to do:

♥  Step One: Roast 2lbs worth of butternut or winter squash. Roast the squash whole, then cut into segments, or cut first then roast. Sometimes squashes are hard to cut! Roasting makes slicing into them much easier. 

♥  Step Two: Remove the skin of the squash, then mash the squash innards together in a small mixing bowl. Add a handful of grated parmesan, plus salt and pepper.

♥  Step Three: Time to assemble the raviolis. Cut your pasta sheets into 2” squares or circles, and lay one flat on a lightly floured surface. Place a dollop (1 tbsp) of the squash mixture onto the pasta sheet. Wet your finger, then trace a circle around the dollop, directly on the pasta sheet. This is the “glue.” Add another pasta square/circle on top, and press to seal. Wet your finger again to add more “glue” if necessary.

♥  Step Four: Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Poach your raviolis for 2-4 minutes, or whatever the pasta sheet cooking directions advise. Do not overcook! I found it easiest to plop ravioli in and remove with a slotted spoon, and to not poach more than four at one time.

♥  Step Five: Once you remove the ravioli, place in a colander to drain and dry. Sprinkle each layer of ravioli with olive oil, or else they WILL stick together, and then they will tear.

♥  Step Six: Serve ravioli with a nice cream sauce (white white + shallots + sage + cream) and a side salad.

The ravioli-making process is fun, but lengthy. Pair with a glass of wine or three.

Cranberry Rosemary Scones

When it comes to breakfast foods, I generally err on the side of savory. I don’t normally go for the super sweet options, always choosing a bacon egg and cheese sandwich over french toast at any brunching occasion. Sometimes, though, I crave the fusion of savory and sweet — which really means that I want something sweet, but don’t want to forgo the savory.

So, struck with my sweet/savory dilemma one Saturday morning, I looked in my fridge and realized that I had enough ingredients for a semi-sweet breakfast treat. Adding rosemary and cranberries to Smitten Kitchen’s Dreamy Scone recipe fit the bill, I decided:

Cranberry Rosemary Scones are:
♥  2 cups all-purpose flour
♥  2 tbsp sugar
♥  1/2 tsp salt
♥  1/2 cup cranberries, chopped into smaller pieces
♥  2 tbsp rosemary, shredded/chopped
♥  5 tbsp cold, unsalted butter, cut into pea-sized cubes
♥  1 cup heavy cream
♥  1 tbsp baking powder

♥  Step One: Heat oven to 425F. Get a medium-sized mixing bowl. Combine dry ingredients — flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. 

♥  Step Two: “Cut in” your pea-sized butter cubes. Basically, this means to toss butter cubes into dry mixture, then stir fervently to combine, or use a knife instead a spoon, stirring and cutting until butter cubes are blended into the mixture. It’s OK to see a few lumps of butter here and there — this contributes to the scones’ flaky layer effect.

♥  Step Three: Add cranberries and rosemary. Stir to combine. 

♥  Step Four: Add cream. Stir to distribute evenly, making sure all dry parts are reached. Eventually you will need to stop stirring and pick the ball of dough up in your hands, squeezing and kneading to form one big ball. Add in dry leftover bits of dough left at the bottom of the bowl to your dough ball.

♥  Step Five: Sprinkle your workspace lightly with flour. Plop dough ball down. Roll out to a 1/2” thick slab of dough with rolling pin or empty beer bottle. 

♥  Step Six: Cut dough slab into triangles, circles, rhombuses, or unicorn shapes with a knife or cookie cutter. I like using a big non-serrated knife to cut the dough into triangles approx 4” wide and 2” tall. Smaller is fine, too.

♥  Step Seven: Arrange scone triangles/circles/unicorns on a baking tray (lined with greaseproof paper or similar). Bake for 11-14 minutes. Scones are done when lightly browned on top/edges. Remove, let cool, and enjoy!

Storage Methods

At our house we seem to collect a lot of glass jars. We use a lot of them as drinking glasses, but they definitely pile up. So last weekend I decided to use some of them to store my dry goods — grains, nuts, sugar, and the like. I also bought some large mason jars at a 99 cent store, and put my larger quantities of dry goods — lentils, pasta, rice, flour, and sugar — into them. Storing them on the shelf over the oven has given us more cupboard space, and looks really nice.

Personal Pan Pizzas

Over the summer we had a pizza party, and asked everyone to bring an ingredient to share. We made lots and lots of delicious pizzas, and got to sample all different kinds of pizza. My two favorite toppings from that time were proschiutto and sun dried tomatoes. So when Asher and I made these Personal Pan Pizzas recently, I knew those were toppings we had to include. 

One roll of Pillsbury pizza dough ($1.99 per roll) made two tiny pizzas. With salad it was a perfect meal. Our ingredients were:

♥  Pizza 1: proschiutto + sun dried tomatoes + arugala + mozzarella

♥  Pizza 2: green pepper + onion + sun dried tomatoes + mozzarella

Momos

Today is the second day of Losar, the Himalayan New Year celebration. Losar is a fifteen day-long observation of the start of the new year, with most activities happening in the first three days. The first day’s emphasizes spending time with your family, while the second day seems a little more festive — lots of momos (Tibetan dumplings) and chang (Tibetan beer) are consumed. On the third day, you are supposed to go the tallest mountain, or your local monastery, to pray and burn incense.

I’m not sure how observant I will be of Losar, but after reading this article from the New York Times, I was inspired to make a very simple, very Westernized version of momos. Eating momos on the second day of Losar (today!) is encouraged, because the momos look like little purses — so eating them on the second day will bring you wealth and prosperity. Eating them on the first day is a bad idea, since that would show you’re more interested in money than quality family time!

Lobsang Wangdu has a great recipe for momos here. My simple, Trader Joes-inspired recipe is as follows:

♥  1 packet wonton wrappers (about 3” square)
♥  4 brussel sprouts, chopped into tiny pieces
♥  1 cup fake ground meat crumbles
♥  3 spring onions, diced
♥  1 small handful cilantro, chopped
♥  1 carrot, grated
♥  3 tbsp soy sauce
♥  juice of half a lime
♥  1 tsp red pepper flakes
♥  salt & pepper to taste

Once you’ve chopped and grated, combine brussel sprouts, fake meat, spring onions, and carrot in a small mixing bowl. Add soy sauce, lime juice, red pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. Microwave on high for two minutes. Remove, and add cilantro. Stir and set aside.

Next, lay one wonton wrapper on a clean, dry surface. Plop one tablespoon of your momo “meat” mixture onto the wrapper. Wet your finger and trace a circle around the filling, then place another wrapper on top. Press to seal, adding more water to close the momo if necessary. You will now have a sort of plump, square ravioli.

Boil a large pot of water. Drop three or four momos into the boiling water at a time. Poach for two to three minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon. Place in a colander or on a damp towel while you poach others.

Enjoy your Westernized momos with a store-bought dipping sauce (I liked TJ’s Gyoza), or with plain soy sauce.

Plovgh

I just registered for Plovgh, a service that coordinates the sale of produce from local farmers to Brooklyn and Manhattan residents. Plovgh seems like a great alternative to a CSA, which has a large up-front cost and months-long time commitment. I’m excited about placing my order every week/every other week and picking up my produce at a coffee shop in Greenpoint.

My roommate Lauren was telling me about Plovgh the other day, as her yoga studio is one of the pickup points…but I was disappointed to hear that they only allow pickup on Friday afternoons when I’m at work. After some internet research, I found that Veronica People’s Club has pickup on Saturday afternoons. Perfect! I’m looking forward to ordering some butternut squash puree pronto.

Read their blog, visit their official site, and follow them on Twitter.

Photo courtesy Plovgh.

Bookmark’d

In addition to looking at pictures of cats on the internet, one of my main internet activities is finding new recipes to try. Sometimes I’ll search for a specific recipe, or try to find one using food I have in my fridge. Other times I’ll just stumble upon a recipe that I just HAVE to try. This is often connected to a New York Times article that is well-written and accompanied by great imagery. Every week or so I’ll scroll through my favorite food blogs and go through what their newest features are. Below are some recipes I’ve had my eye (stomach?) on for a while now:

♥  Kabocha Ravioli with a Toasted Hazelnut Sauce — substitute winter squash for Kabocha — from SpoonForkBacon

♥  Chicken Tikka Masala — substitute veggies or paneer for chicken — from Squidoo

♥  Quick Stuffed Bell Peppers — from A Couple Cooks

♥  Butternut Squash and Caramelized Onion Galette — substitute mushrooms for squash? — from Smitten Kitchen

♥  Simple Chickpea Curry — from The Kitchn

Where do you go to get food inspiration?