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 «

Ramsey and I have been trying to keep our weekly grocery bills under fifty dollars without sacrificing too much flavor and variety in our weeknight meals. A well stocked pantry of dry goods, new cooking methods, and planning weekly menus are three great techniques to achieve this, but sometimes you just stumble upon a combination of cheap, (mostly) fresh ingredients that create a great dish.

A prime example of this took place this evening when I made a simple dinner of spinach fettuccine with peas. While it sounds boring, the addition of onion, lemon zest, and a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese resulted in an expensive-tasting meal for four that cost $5.68. » Read the rest of this entry «

There are two basil plants thriving on the mantle in my bedroom. I picked them up at the farmer’s market in February and they have not only been a great help to my recipes, but my wallet as well. Rather than spending two dollars for a small box of fresh basil leaves at the supermarket, I just walk ten feet, cut a few leaves off of the plants, and I’m ready to go.

The plants recently reached a stage of being weighed down by the amount of leaves that have sprouted. For the good of the plants and my dinner plans, I decided to have a basil harvest this week. It started with a simple Tomato and Basil Pasta. » Read the rest of this entry «

Remember the classic children’s book Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, about a town where food falls from the sky for each meal? I found out recently that they’re turning it into a computer animated movie. Although the creators of “Clone High” have written and directed it, I highly doubt it will satisfy a generation for whom the book carries such strong feelings of nostalgia. I don’t know about you, but for me the book inspired many crayon drawings of houses and trees covered in a variety of foodstuffs. (I also understand they’re aiming for the twelve and under set rather than the jaded twenty-somethings in my peer group. The studios are betting we’ll all just go see the film version of Where the Wild Things Are, drawn in by a Dave Eggers screenplay, Spike Jonze’s direction, and a trailer that includes an Arcade Fire song. They’re betting right in my case, but such is life [link probably NSFW].)

Looking up information on a movie about meatballs falling from the sky naturally led me making meatballs in my kitchen. I’ve made meatballs only once before and while they turned out okay, they were far from great. After seeing a number of recipes around the web that combined ground beef with a number of other meats, I decided to try mixing ground beef and pork to create a more flavorful meatball. An additional twist was my use of whole wheat breadcrumbs instead of the traditional Italian breadcrumbs, which I believe added a very subtle nutty and sweet flavor. The recipe and more photos after the jump. Warning to vegetarian/vegan readers: raw meat photos ahead. » Read the rest of this entry «