Apartment Dining

I did some dumpling-related freelance writing recently and was left with an abundance of the pork and mushroom variety when I was done. After enjoying a dozen dipped in soy sauce, I decided to make a simple dumpling soup with shiitake mushrooms, cabbage, and scallions. This is a perfect meal to make if you have leftover dumplings that you’ve made yourself or that you have in the fridge from your most recent Chinese food delivery. The best part is that it only takes fifteen minutes to make. » Read the rest of this entry «

Asparagus is an industrious little vegetable. Its spears can grow up to 10″ over the course of a 24 hour period, shooting above the soil ready for harvest like so. It’s also one of the more unique vegetables to cross my cutting board, as it’s not a leaf, flower bud, or root system, but the stem of the plant itself. Asparagus’ flavor is unique as well and in my experience, it is best served as the star of a side dish…or wrapped in bacon.

I normally just roast the spears with a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper, but after finding a sheet of leftover puff pastry in my freezer this evening I decided to make a simple tart with mushrooms and gruyere. » Read the rest of this entry «

Blogging will resume soon. I hoped to post about a roasted beet pizza I made last night, but I have yet to perfect the proper topping ingredients and ratios. In the meantime, here are some photos of the beets, the only successful portion of the pizza preparation. I roasted them according to this post on Not Eating Out in New York and they turned out well. What’s left of them is currently residing in the refrigerator waiting for my lunch salads this week.

I love the color of the beet stems.

It’s been years since I’ve had rhubarb pie. I’ve always equated its flavor with early summer, particularly Memorial Day weekend which was usually spent at a family friend’s cottage in the Finger Lakes when I was a kid. The wonderful balance of tart and sweet brings back memories of sitting on a dock near sunset with a paper plate and a big slice of pie, just as the fireflies started to appear over the water.

When temperatures reached into the seventies this weekend I was inspired to make my first rhubarb pie. Rhubarb has only been in season for a few weeks, so every stand that had it in Union Square seemed to be especially crowded with people inspecting each stalk. I grabed enough for three cups worth of pie filling (along with a bunch of asparagus) and headed back to Brooklyn. » Read the rest of this entry «

The Brooklyn Museum of Art has a free admission night on the first Saturday of every month. It’s a great opportunity to see all of their exhibits for free, enjoy live music, assess large landscape paintings, and watch Ramsey eat Dippin’ Dots in front of expensive sculptures. In addition to tasting the future this past weekend, Ramsey also had a sandwich from the mini-cafe the museum set up that involved a combination of ingredients I’d never had before: roast beef with red onion compote, spinach, and an herb cheese spread. It was so good that decided to create my own version earlier this week. » Read the rest of this entry «

Happy Cinco de Mayo! To celebrate the holiday I’ve turned my attention to flan, a caramel-topped custard dessert that you can prepare with just five ingredients. I consider it to be the under appreciated cousin of crème brûlée, often overlooked because it doesn’t require the pageantry of a butane torch (nothing says “fancy” quite like a controlled fire in the kitchen). You can easily flavor it with chocolate, coconut, or just about anything else that can be added to or infused into custard, but I decided to go for a basic flan with just a touch of vanilla. » Read the rest of this entry «