Apartment Dining

After a month of limited cooking, it felt good to make my shopping list, grab my reusable canvas bags like a true Park Sloper, and head out to the market for the ingredients for a mushroom ragu. My first recipe of 2010 is not a complicated one, but it is a satisfying, simple dish that reheats well the next day. It can also be doubled (or tripled) to serve as a layer in a vegetarian lasagna.

Before I get to the recipe though, I want to do a quick follow-up on my New Years resolutions. I admit I have not brought my lunch to work this week and I have not written in my journal since Monday. However, I’ve made dinner four nights and I made an appointment to have my wisdom teeth removed. (Can you hear the joy in my prose?) If you have any suggestions for good post-wisdom tooth removal recipes, I’d love to hear them. Now, on to the recipe. » Read the rest of this entry «

Risotto seems to be one of the most feared kitchen basics. It involves a lot of stirring, a careful eye on liquid absorption, and around six cups of chicken broth. Although a rice dish with a few embellishments seems like it should be simple, I’ve heard a number of risotto-related horror stories with frightening endings such as:

“…and after all of the broth was absorbed, the rice was still raw!”
“…but then I stirred the rice to find the bottom was COMPLETELY BURNED.”
“…by the time I was done, I had finished the rest of the bottle of wine and just fell asleep.” 

(That last one is a lie, but still, a possible mistake while making this dish.)

I consulted a number of different sites and a few of my cookbooks to put together what would be my first attempt at the dish this afternoon. The result was a Risotto with Thyme Chicken and Mushrooms. You can embellish risotto with just about anything, use vegetable broth for a vegan or vegetarian option, or even sweeten it for dessert. Here’s the recipe. » Read the rest of this entry «

I’ve decided to challenge myself by creating a dish every few weeks that requires five ingredients or less (not counting salt, pepper, and olive oil). It tends to save time, and as we continue to slog through these tough economic times, recipes with sprawling ingredient lists are becoming much less appealing. 

The first installment in this series is mushroom tacos. They are a satisfying and quick meal, especially when paired with some Spanish rice (not counted in list of five ingredients). » Read the rest of this entry «