Dinner was Delicious

Have you ever thought to yourself “How the do two nutjobs...

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:28:59 -0500

Have you ever thought to yourself “How the do two nutjobs like Lucy and Rachel make their blog and otherwise conduct themselves in a way that their 12-year-old-selves might think of them as an adult?”

Probably not.

But if you want to hang out, come visit us on Saturday, May 18th at 3pm at the Apple Store, North Michigan Avenue. We’re going to be talking about what we’ve learned in the last year of food and fuckery, and we’re really excited to meet y’all!

Chicken Salad Sandwich We feel zero shame in saying that we...

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:01:10 -0500

Chicken Salad Sandwich

We feel zero shame in saying that we don’t always brown bag it.

It’s hard to be an adult. Sometimes we cannot believe that anyone on the planet has time to spend the day at the office, commute, make sure your plants/pets/children are clean and watered, put food in your face— potentially feeding others, maybe have a social life or deskank your house, AND still possess the forethought, motivation, clean pans, and stocked fridge necessary to make the next day’s lunch.

Leftovers make us more likely to save the cash of running to the deli next door, but present the problem of being boring and easy to forget in the fridge. The secret we’ve found to successfully taking your lunch to work is to make something that’s exciting— and working with a recipe that’s half done before you even started.

Chicken salad is tasty, nutrient-diverse, and impossibly satisfying. You can make a batch big enough to keep it in the fridge for four days with totally minimal effort— and not too many dishes. When you short cut it by using store bought rotisserie chicken, it is one hundred percent idiot proof. And probably more delicious.

Chicken Salad Sandwich

2 cups Grapes
4 stalks Celery
1 tsp Fresh Thyme
A Handful of Fresh Parsley
½ Rotisserie Chicken
¼ cup Greek Yogurt
¼ cup Mayonnaise
1 tbsp Soy Sauce
Lots of Black Pepper
¼ cup Pistachioes
Good, sexy, crusty Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread, cut in fat slices
Lettuce, of your choosing

Grab a big cutting board. Wash your Celery and Grapes, cut into bite size pieces; roughly chop the Parsley and Thyme. Set this produce aside in a large bowl with the Pistachios.

Pull, chop, shred, or otherwise remove the Chicken from its bones. This is the only time we will ever recommend you lose its skin. Because Ew.

Add the Chicken, Yogurt, Mayonnaise, Soy, and Pepper, being sure to mix thoroughly. If things look too dry, add another squirt of Mayo or dollop of Yogurt.

Park it in the fridge overnight in individual portions, and bring your Bread and Lettuce separately.

It’s 6pm on Sunday and it’s time to have a cocktail....

Sun, 05 May 2013 18:11:00 -0500

It’s 6pm on Sunday and it’s time to have a cocktail. Something to wind you down so you can be fresh for the new week— or make your long neglected pile of laundry more fun to sort though while you desperately try to figure out how to dress yourself like an adult.

Grab a rocks glass, or something else short and wide. Find an Orange and your vegetable peeler, shave off a 1in wide strip of Zest, rub it around the lip of your glass, and throw it in. Shake in 2 dashes of Orange BItters, a splash of Campari, a bigger splash of Sweet Vermouth and 2 fingers of Bourbon or Rye. Vigorously stir with 1 big Ice Cube or a couple small ones. Drop in a Luxardo Cherry, and leave the jar close by for snacking.

Roasted Strawberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Ice Cream The fact that...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 22:46:00 -0500

Roasted Strawberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Ice Cream

The fact that Strawberry and Rhubarb season overlap is almost enough to make us go to church. Kind of like how flour and water alone turn into sourdough bread, or milk plus mold will someday equal cheese; only a higher power could allow such a perfect pair to come together for our gastronomic pleasure.

If dessert were a double act, Rhubarb would be Desi to Strawberry’s Lucy, Keenan to its Kel, Harold to its Kumar, Anne Perkins to its Leslie Knope. Rhubarb, while lovable, isn’t the tastiest or most memorable part of the dish. Instead it is the acerbic foil Strawberries need to taste their best, be their sweetest, and become basically everyone’s favorite fruit.

Rhubarb is full of oxalic acid, which is poisonous in large doses but incredibly useful in smaller. It gives an astringently mouth puckering tang to lots of our favorite produce— but it’s less of a flavor and more of a sensation. What it’s really good for is balancing the hell out of stuff that super sugary. The juicy, candy sweetness of fresh strawberries turns mellow and grown-up in the presence of rhubarb, while the near bland rhubarb gets wrapped up in the strawberries’ intensely floral perfume.

While these botanical soulmates are most often found in pies, we think that they are better matched in ice cream. The dairy rounds out sharpness of the rhubarb and showcases the more complex fat-soluble flavor compounds in the berries.

Roasted Strawberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Ice Cream

adapted from Jenni’s Ice Cream

1 pint Strawberry; washed, hulled, and quartered
⅔ cup Rhubarb, about 2 big stalks, cut into ¼ in chunks
3 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
⅛ tsp Salt
1 cup Sugar
1 tbsp Vanilla extract, or 1 Bean, scraped
1 1/2 cups Whole Milk
¼ cup Buttermilk
1 ¼ cups Heavy Cream
3 tbsp Cream Cheese, nice and soft

Serves: 4-6 with about 1 qt of Ice Cream

Preheat your oven to 400°. Toss the Strawberries and Rhubarb together with the Balsamic Vinegar in a 13” x 9” dish and roast until soft, about 15 minutes.

Puree about 2/3 of the Fruit and all of the delicious nectar it leaves behind. Reserve the whole Fruit chunks to fold in later.

Transfer the Pureed Fruit to a medium saucepan, add the Salt, Sugar and Vanilla, and cook over very low heat until reduced and syrupy. About 10 minutes.

While your Pureed Fruit cooks down, combine the Milk, Buttermilk, Heavy Cream, and Cream Cheese. Don’t let a few stray lumps of Cream Cheese stress you out, this business is going to be stirring for like at least a half an hour and they will work themselves out.

Carefully pour your Pureed Fruit to the Dairy goodness, and pour that into your ice cream maker. We don’t know how your ice cream maker works so follow your manufacturer’s instructions for the rest, k?

Fold in the whole Fruit Chunks carefully during the last 5 minutes of stirring. If you’re into a soft serve texture— or you’re just impatient— serve immediately, but if you’re a human capable of waiting two hours and you want something that will hold its own shape, transfer your mixture to a air tight container and freeze. Eat with tiny spoons because it has been scientifically proven by our mouths that ice cream tastes better that way.

Multigrain Pancakes with Blackberry and Rhubarb Compote In a...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 22:27:00 -0500

Multigrain Pancakes with Blackberry and Rhubarb Compote

In a perfect world, we’d eat pancakes for breakfast every single day. They’re fluffy and cozy and serve as a vehicle for gratuitous butter consumption. But most recipes have too much sugar (and too little else) to keep us from being the useless, half-asleep victim of wackadoo blood sugar.

In order to combat the post-brunch carb nap, we’ve crammed these pancakes full of Nuts, and swapped our usual maple syrup for Blackberries and Rhubarb. The extra fiber and protein that these substitutions bring to the party make the pancakes more substantial and more delicious— which is, honestly, the only thing we care about.

Multigrain Pancakes with Blackberry Rhubarb Compote

For the Compote:

12 oz Blackberries, well washed
1 cup Rhubarb, well washed and chopped into ¼ in chunks
1/4 cup Honey or Dark Brown Sugar
1 tbsp Lemon Zest
3 tbsp Lemon Juice
1 Vanilla Bean, split and scraped
A shot of Whiskey
1 tbsp Butter

The word “compote” sounds fancy, but it’s the easiest thing in the world. Dump everything into a non-reactive saucepan over medium low heat. Cook until the Rhubarb melts into basically nothing and the Blackberries start falling apart— or until the juices reduce down to syrupy goodness. Mash any unreasonably large chunks of Blackberry with a fork.

Set aside until cool and remove the Vanilla Bean before serving.

For the Pancakes:

¾ cup Old Fashioned Rolled Oats— not Instant and not Steel Cut.
¾ cup Whole Wheat Flour
⅓ cup All Purpose Flour
1 cup whole Nuts, we like an assortment of Walnuts, Hazelnuts, Pecans, and Almonds best. Anything except Peanuts (weirdo) would be fantastic.
¼ cup Sugar
2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
½ tsp Salt
1 ¼ cups Buttermilk
⅓ cup Whole Milk
¼ cup Vegetable Oil
2 Eggs

Serves: 4-6

In your food processor or blender, combine Oats, Flours, Nuts, Sugar, Baking Soda, Baking Powder, and Salt. Whirr it all together until it turns into a coarse meal. This mixture of dry ingredients can be stored for up to a week in a zip top bag or mason jar on your counter— and for basically ever in your freezer— so make it in advance and don’t wake up the whole house.

In a large bowl, beat together the Buttermilk, Whole Milk, Vegetable Oil, and Eggs. Whisk in the dry ingredients until well combined. This is a sturdy batter and you don’t have to worry about being dainty. You can mix the crap out of it.

Slowly heat a large non-stick pan, preferably with low sides over medium heat. Cook pancakes, no more than two at a time, for about 2 minutes on the first side, or until you can see bubbles start to set in their center. Flip carefully and continue to cook for about 1 1/2 minutes. Repeat until you’re out of batter, duh.

Serve topped with a side of bacon, too much butter and Blackberry Rhubarb compote.

Asparagus with Egg & Speck It’s Asparagus Season. AKA: the...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:01:00 -0500

Asparagus with Egg & Speck

It’s Asparagus Season. AKA: the best fucking month and a half of our lives.

Spring Asparagus is the best food on the planet. It’s sweet and tender and melts in your mouth; it is not the ropey bland garbage you suffer through in winter. Sure, it makes your pee smell like rotten eggs, battery acid and turpentine, but it tastes like goddamned magic and needs nothing more than a drizzle of Olive Oil and a sprinkle of salt.

… but we figured adding salty, pungent Speck and buttery poached eggs wouldn’t hurt single fucking thing.

Speck is Proscuitto’s bossy older cousin. Flavored with juniper, nutmeg, and tons of garlic, it’s made with the gorgeously fatty pork shoulder instead of the relatively lean leg used in other cured Italian hams. This gives speck a melt-in-your-mouth texture and delivers extra flavor in each bite. The pleasantly bitter (but mostly just smokey-sweet and intensely porky) flavor gives Asparagus the balls it needs to feel substantial on a chilly spring day. While you could certainly sub Proscuitto, if that’s what’s handy, we love working with Speck and think it’s worth seeking out.

Asparagus with Egg & Speck

Plenty of Water (for poaching Eggs)
1 tbsp White Vinegar
1 Bunch Asparagus
1/4 lb Speck, thinly sliced
Olive Oil
Pepper
Salt
4 Eggs
Good Parmesan Cheese (optional)

Serves: 2 as a substantial meal, 4 as an appetizer

Preheat your oven to 450°. Line a baking sheet with Parchment Paper or Foil.
Bring a large pot of Water to a bare simmer and add 1 tbsp White Vinegar.

Trim and wash the Asparagus, and separate the bunch into 4-6 evenly sized bundles. The smaller the bundle: the more Speck you get. Plan accordingly.

Wrap each bundle with one slice of Speck and place wrapped end down on the prepared baking sheet. Drizzle with Olive Oil and roast until the Asparagus is tender, about 15 minutes.

While the Asparagus roasts, poach your Eggs. Poaching Eggs isn’t hard even though it can seem intimidating. However, it does take a careful hand and a little thoughtfulness. We really love this tutorial from The Kitchn and recommend checking it out if it’s your first time. We have confidence that you can do it because you’re a fucking adult and it’s just an Egg, okay, so stop freaking out.

Poach the Eggs one at a time by first cracking them into a small container with a handle and gently lowering the entire container into simmering water. While underwater, pour the Egg out of the container and start a timer for exactly 4 minutes. When the for minutes are up: remove your now-poached Egg with a slotted spoon, allow to drain on a paper towel and repeat.

Once the Asparagus is roasted and Eggs are poached, put them together and season with Pepper and a tiny bit of Salt. Speck is pretty salty, so keep your seasonings mostly on the Eggs. If you want to gild the lily, shave a little fresh Parmesan cheese on top.

Serve with bread, obviously, for mopping up yolks.

We are over the fucking moon to announce that we are a finalist...

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:36:00 -0500

We are over the fucking moon to announce that we are a finalist in SAVEUR Magazine’s Food Blog Awards for Best New Food Blog of 2013.

We are in the running with some of our very favorite blogs ever and we’re honored and humbled to the point that we can hardly bring ourselves to say “fuck.”

Voting runs through midnight Friday, April 19th. We would love your support.

It would mean the world if you would visit http://www.saveur.com/blogawards, and take a second to log in and vote.

Busy Food We’re busy. Like. Ridiculously, soul-consumingly...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 11:01:10 -0500

Busy Food

We’re busy.

Like. Ridiculously, soul-consumingly busy— and actually busy, too. Not the kind of busy you tell your friends when you’re really just re-watching a season of 30Rock for the 18th time with your pants off. We both have new day jobs that we sincerely love for once and they are taking up lots of our attention. We’re also working on two fun, top secret projects that we’ll start talking more about soon.

The downside of our adventures is that we feel like we’re neglecting you. We miss you. We don’t have the time we want to give you to blather enthusiastically or peddle food porn— but we do have time to eat. So, for now, that’s what we’re going to share.

When we get busy like this, there are three things that we want: Dessert, Vegetables, and More Dessert but with Alcohol. Today we’ve got all three.

Brownies‽ are the best brownie that we’ve ever eaten Ever. They were introduced to us by our dear friend Erin Watson, who finally gave Rachel the recipe two Christmases ago in an effort to stop her from refusing to attend parties where this confection isn’t present. Erin is a poet, a damn fine cook, and one of the best humans we know. This recipe is perfectly fudgy, with a light crackly crust, and deeply chocolatey flavor that feels like you can taste it in your ears. We could eat them for effectively every meal.

Brussels Sprouts are our favorite vegetable and are particularly good to us when we’re crazy. They’re quick cooking and packed with magnesium— which lots of studies show is a key nutrient in battling the negative effects of stress. We like them best served in one of two ways: Brussels Sprouts Gratin is a comforting, two-step pile of heaven that is like eating hugs— hugs that are full of cheese. Sprouts with Honey, Sriracha, and Balsamic Vinegar, on the other hand, are spicy and tangy and pretty refreshing. They both make a quick, idiot proof pseudo-meal that you can wolf down over the kitchen sink when you’re too tired to sit down.

Beer Floats are like rootbeer floats but better. They bring the same frosty, slurpy, messy, brainfreeze, but now that you’re an adult, they also get you drunk. They’re perfect for when you need your dessert to put you to sleep— or even for a decent and respectable dinner party in saner times.

Brownies‽

adapted from Erin Watson, who thinks she adapted it from her partner’s mother, who thinks she adapted it from King Arthur Flour

2 sticks Unsalted Butter
2 ¼ cups Sugar
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
2 tbsp Coffee
1 ¼ cup Dutch-Processed Cocoa— we splurged and used Valrhona and it was just. like. the correct decision.
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp Baking Powder
4 Eggs
1 ½ cup All Purpose Flour
2 cups Chocolate Chips

Preheat your oven to 350°. Line a 13x9” pan with foil for easy clean up, or just lightly grease iand dust with extra cocoa powder.

Over medium heat, melt the Butter in a medium sized saucepan. Once melted, add the Sugar, Vanilla, and Coffee. Cook until the mixture is hot, but not bubbling, and a little shiny, but still grainy— about 3 minutes.

Whisk together the Cocoa, Salt, and baking Baking Powder. Add the Eggs to this mixture until you get a kind of weird looking paste. Trust us. Everything will be OK. Quickly and carefully beat in the hot Butter-Sugar mixture and mix until completely smooth.

Fold in the Flour until just combined and barely stir in the Chocolate Chips at the last second. Immediately dump into your prepared pan, smooth the top, and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out of the center with just a few desperately clinging crumbs.

Brussels Sprouts Gratin

adapted from Nigel Slater’s Tender

1 lb Brussels Sprouts, trimmed and halved
1 scant cup Half and Half
1 tbsp Grainy Mustard
¼ tsp Salt
enough black pepper to give everything freckles
4oz Blue Cheese, like Roth Buttermilk Blue that we tried at Whole Foods once and cannot shut up about.

Serves 4-6

Preheat your oven to 450°. Lay the Sprouts out in a single, even layer on a cookie sheet. Roast until tender but not browned, about 10 minutes.

In a small casserole dish, whisk together Half and Half, Grainy Mustard, Salt and Pepper. Fold in the cooked Sprouts. Top with crumbles of Blue Cheese. Roast until bubbly and just starting to brown, about 15 minutes. This is not a great candidate for re-heating, but it tastes fucking fantastic cold.

Sprouts with Honey, Sriracha, and Balsamic Vinegar

1 lb Brussels Sprouts, trimmed and halved
1 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
1 tbsp Honey
1 squirt Sriracha— to your taste

Serves 2-4

Preheat your oven to 450°. Lay the Sprouts out in a single, even layer and drizzle with Olive Oil.

Roast until tender and browned on the edges, about 15 minutes.

Whisk the remaining ingredients together. Toss with your roasted Sprouts and immediately start shoving them into your face.

Beer Float

We totally stole this idea from our favorite local pizza joint, The Boiler Room. They’re amazing. Give them your money.

Good Vanilla Ice Cream
Good Dark Beer (stout, porter, what have you) with lots of Chocolate, Coffee, and Nutty notes. We often use Revolution Brewing’s Mad Cow Milk Stout or Founder’s Breakfast Stout. If you’re on the west coast, we bet this would be upsettingly delicious with Almanac Brewing’s Biere de Chocolat.

Scoop a few jagged chunks of Ice Cream into a tall pint glass. Top up with Beer, being careful to not let things foam all over the place. Drink with a straw and a spoon.

Shepherds PieMarch in Chicago is still winter. Somehow we always...

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 13:39:00 -0500

Shepherds Pie
March in Chicago is still winter. Somehow we always manage to forget this and it throws us way off our game. It snows in March but it also rains in March. Sometimes it does both, in the deceptively cheerful sounding “Wintry Mix.” It is bullshit and grey and we lose an hour of sleep somewhere in the middle and it requires significant willpower to make it to the absolute treasure that is this city in the spring.

Shepherds Pie helps us get through this last stretch of drizzly, icy nonsense. It’s comforting and makes us warm and it’s a great way to clean out your pantry of any lingering root vegetables to make room for the fresh green stuff that is just around the corner.

It’s worth noting that, while Lamb is the most delicious thing basically ever, this recipe is a great choice for non-meat eater adaptation. We don’t often give up our meat freely, so you know that means it makes for a pretty pain free substitution. Double up each of the veggies (and check your Stout and Worchestershire labels) for a minimally processed, belly warming casserole or swap the Lamb for some TVP to make a great fish alternative for a Lenten Friday supper or that weird vegan your roommate is banging.

Shepherds Pie

1 lb Lamb
4 Carrots
4 Stalks Celery
2 Turnips— make sure they’re smaller than your fist.
1 gigantic Onion
½ lb White Button or “Baby ‘Bella” Mushrooms (same thing. you know that, right? they just charge you an extra buck to make them brown)
1 pinch Salt
1 clove Garlic
3 tbsp Cake Flour— AP is fine, too, but Cake Flour makes a smoother sauce.
1 tsp Dry Mustard
½ Bay Leaf
4 oz Stout
2-3 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Worchestershire Sauce
1 ½ cups Stock— Mushroom is best
Black Pepper, to taste

You will also Need

4+ Cups Mashed Potatoes

Serves 6-8

In a large skillet or dutch oven, brown your Lamb, drain, reserve 3 tbsp of the fat, and set aside.
Dice Carrots, Celery, Turnips, and Onion, peeling where appropriate, into fairly small chunks and slowly cook in that same pan in the reserved Lamb fat. The longer and lower you cook, the more flavor you can develop. Patience will pay off. 30 minutes is ideal.
Chop your Mushrooms into an unrecognizable hash. The goal is to mimic the texture of the ground Lamb. Add these chopped Mushrooms to the root veggies for their last 10 minutes of cooking, along with the Garlic, which has been finely minced, and a small pinch of Salt to help draw out a little water. Continue to cook until most of the water from the veggies has evaporated.
Add the Flour and Dry Mustard. Cook for at least 5 minutes or until things start to smell a little nutty, stirring thoroughly and frequently. Drop in the Dry Mustard and Bay Leaf, and reintrudce your Lamb to the deliciousness. Slowly stir in the Stout, Soy Sauce, Worchestershire, and Stock. Check for seasoning, add Black Pepper to taste, and be sure to scrape any delicious browned bits off the bottom of your pan, so they incorporate into the sauce.

Cook over low heat until the liquids thicken into a velvety smooth sauce.
Turn your Broiler on to high and pour what is now effectively a stew into a large casserole. Carefully spread the Mashed Potatoes on top— it helps to strategically blob the potatoes on first, starting in the corners, and then join the blobs together— and broil until things get a little bit golden brown and crispy.

Serve hot with some roasted brussels sprouts, or just some crusty brown bread, and look forward to particularly epic leftovers.

Mashed Potatoes Mashed potatoes are the platonic ideal of...

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:25:00 -0500

Mashed Potatoes

Mashed potatoes are the platonic ideal of comfort food. They’re nostalgic and carby and fluffy but creamy and go with pretty much everything. You can dress them up on top of a rustic shepherds pie or stir in endless cheeses, pork products, or even some kale— but we think these spuds are best with nothing more than a fork.

Perfect mashed potatoes aren’t difficult to make, but there is one thing that can get in the way of your carb-coma fantasy.

Potatoes are made of two major components: water and starch. And those fuckers just don’t get along.When the two mix together, you get a nasty, gummy mess that is impossible to turn into anything other than a pile of the kind of slop you’d expect in a college dining hall.

The good news is that the water and starch are kept separate in tidy compartments within the potato cell walls. Keeping them from getting together and causing trouble is as simple as handling them carefully.

Most people boil their potatoes and we get it because water seems like it would be a pretty good cooking method. It evenly and thoroughly transfers heat from your heat source to the food with minimum effort and keeps things from drying out. Both of those are excellent goals to have but water can do some serious damage to the cellular structures of the food itself. Think about pruney fingers, Brussel’s sprouts fart smell, and mushy rice.

Cooking your potatoes in water risk rupturing cell walls, mixing the existing water and starch in the potato together, but it also guarantees that any starched naturally released during the cooking process will turn into slop.

Instead of subjecting our potatoes to these horrors, we opt for dry heat. Like fucking always. Roasting them slowly until they’re just cooked, but not taking on any (or at least not very much) color. We also elect to mash by hand with an old fashioned potato masher. Manual mashing (as opposed to ricing, whipping, or food processing) gently crushes the potatoes along the natural divisions in its structure, preventing any unnecessary damages and giving us the greatest control over the finished texture.

Mashed Potatoes

6 Russet Potatoes
Aluminum Foil
2 tsp Salt, plus more to suit your taste
1 stick of Butter
½ cup Half and Half
½ cup full fat Sour Cream— low fat anything is for assholes, but it applies doubly in this situation. Don’t Be That Guy.

Serves 4-6

Preheat your oven to 350°. Thoroughly wash your Potatoes and pierce with a fork to keep them from exploding. Wrap each potato in Aluminum Foil, shiny side in, and place directly onto your oven’s rack. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until tender, being sure to flip them around once or twice.

Once cooked, allow the Potatoes to cool slightly while you combine the remaining ingredients in a large pot (big enough for mashing, duh), and being to melt over low heat.

As soon as the Potatoes are cool enough to handle, unwrap the foil and peel away their skin using your fingers or a big spoon. Or leave it on and chop everything up, if you’re into fiber.

Add the Potatoes to your melted Butter/Sour Cream/Heaven on Earth. Mash by hand until you reach your desired consistency. We like them a little chunky, but you do you to the fullest.

Check for seasoning and top with snipped chives, or don’t. Eat.

Lentil SoupLentil Soup is one of those powerhouse recipes that...

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 12:53:16 -0600

Lentil Soup
Lentil Soup is one of those powerhouse recipes that everyone needs to have in their back pocket. It’s a core foundation to your kitchen (and your life) that will serve you well from now until basically forever. Lentil soup is filling and comforting without forsaking nutritional density or incredible flavor. It’s versatile, vegan, and, better yet, basically free. A huge pot provides a week’s worth of satisfying, gut-warming lunches and only costs around 6 bucks to pull together. Kids dig it, old people fucking love it, and it’s maybe better than chicken soup when you’ve got a gnarly cold.

Our recipe for lentil soup gets its flavor from a heavy helping of aromatic veg, plenty of cumin, and nutty, sweet roasted garlic. Since we’re hella busy— and lazy— we rarely have time or patience to roast our own garlic, but we’re never satisfied with the pasty, flavorless stuff you can buy at the supermarket. To get around this horrible tragedy of modern cooking, we developed a short cut. Pop as many unpeeled cloves as you need into a dry skillet over medium heat until their skins darken. With basically zero effort and less than five minutes, this technique gives you the tender, roasty nuggets of garlic that you need to make your soup (or garlic bread. or pile of pasta) taste really special.

Lentil Soup

4 cloves Garlic
1 Yellow Onion
4 Carrots
4 stalks Celery
3 tbsp Olive Oil
2 Cups Lentils
1 tbsp Cumin
2 qt Vegetable Broth
1 Bay Leaf
2 whole sprigs Thyme
Salt and Pepper to taste

Serves: 6-8

Set a large, dry dutch oven over medium heat and drop in the Garlic cloves with their peels still on. Let them toast for a few minutes on each side, until the skins are browned and fragrant, and set aside.
Roughly chop the Onion, Carrots, and Celery. Add the Olive Oil to the dutch oven and saute until browned and tender.
Peel and smash up the Garlic and add it back to the pot, along with the Lentils and Cumin. Cook for a few seconds, until the lentils are nicely coated in oil. Empty the Broth into the pot and add the Bay Leaf and whole sprigs of Thyme. Simmer until the lentils are tender, about 30 minutes. Fish out the Bay Leaf and Thyme.

Season with Salt and Pepper and serve piping hot. We like this soup all on its own, but it’s kind of amazing with a little extra . Stir in some spinach or add a little diced ham and definitely serve it with a big side of hearty whole grain bread or cheesy croutons.

Grown-Up Macaroni and CheeseYou’re a fucking adult. It’s time to...

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 11:29:45 -0600

Grown-Up Macaroni and Cheese
You’re a fucking adult. It’s time to stop eating mac and cheese from a box.

We love nostalgia and respect its importance in all of our diets, just not when it tastes like crap and takes just as long to cook as the real thing. Boxed mac and cheese is, at its finest, a food flavored slurry that is 80% food coloring and satisfies your sodium needs for a fortnight. It doesn’t taste like cheese, it tastes like salt and ascorbic acid and powdered whey. It’s not even creamy, it’s weirdly slippery with a chemical coating that congeals into a gummy mess. It’s bad. It’s just fucking bad.

Real Macaroni and Cheese tastes like actual food, because it’s made of actual food, and is on your table in the same 12 minutes. It’s pungently cheesy and a little bit nutty, with some savory, tangy sweetness from all that delightful dairy. It’s creamy and melty and oozy and comforting and it’s full of calcium, iron, and protein.

The cheeses in our recipe today are, really, just suggestions. Play around, be bold, or just use whatever you have on hand. We love to swap the parm for some Roth Käse Buttermilk Blue cheese or the cheddar and jack for some aged Gruyère .

Macaroni and Cheese

16oz (1 box) Pasta
3 tbsp Olive Oil
3 tbsp All Purpose Flour
1 3/4 cups cold Whole Milk
¼ cup Half & Half
1 1/2 cups shredded Sharp Cheddar Cheese
½ cup shredded Parmesan Cheese
½ cup shredded Monterrey Jack Cheese
a pinch of Ground Mustard powder or Turmeric, dealer’s choice
Salt and Black Pepper, to taste
A few tablespoons of homemade breadcrumbs, toasted

Makes 6 servings, theoretically.
Fill your biggest pot with cold water and season liberally with salt because reasons. Bring it to a boil over high heat and then add your Pasta. Cook until al dente, but know that under is better than over cooked. About 7 minutes.
While your Pasta is cooking, add the Olive Oil and Flour to a heavy-bottomed, medium-sized pot. Cook over medium heat until the Flour starts smelling nutty and turns a little brown. Add the Milk and bring to a gentle simmer. When the Milk begins to thicken, dump in the Cheeses and stir until things get all melty and delicious. If your sauce is a little stringy, that’s really perfectly fine. It just means you used a little bit too much cheese, so you should be stoked. It might look less pretty, but it will taste just as great.

Gently stir the cooked Pasta into the Cheese Sauce and serve immediately, generously sprinkled with breadcrumbs. It doesn’t need a damn thing but dresses up nicely with Bacon or some chunks of roasted Asparagus or Sun Dried Tomatoes or cooked Chicken and Broccoli.

If you have leftovers (you won’t), dump them into a casserole dish and reheat it in the oven— or just eat it cold. No judgement.

Whelp. Someone decided it would be a good idea to put our foul...

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 09:59:00 -0600

Whelp.

Someone decided it would be a good idea to put our foul mouths on the radio. Tune in to the Town Dish today at 11:45 CST to hear us babble about food and other nonsense!!

Place your bets on the number of FCC violations we rack up on twitter.

(photo by Brent Knepper)

Get Better TeaTea fixes everything. Whether it’s shitty days and...

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 10:32:11 -0600

Get Better Tea

Tea fixes everything.
Whether it’s shitty days and broken hearts or jittery nerves and stuffy noses, there’s a blend that can bring us back from the brink of any disaster. Constant Comment tastes like Rachel’s Gramma’s old kitchen and cheers her up on even the worst days, Sleepytime is the obvious choice for a sleepless night and chills us out better than Xanax, but we get the most relief from the stuff we mix ourselves from the pantry.

Blending your own tea is comforting and calming. It’s as much ritual as it is beverage and it makes us feel warm and centered and refreshed. Take a scoop of whatever tea is laying around, add a pinch or two of whatever you need to get through the night, carefully brew, and quietly drink— making a little space for yourself to heal. Over the years we’ve both built some favorite recipes (like camomile with red apple peels and Irish whiskey) but the best, by far, is Get Better Tea.

Get Better Tea is the only reason we’ve made it through flu season alive. It’s spicy, but still sweet and soothing, with a citrusy zing that makes you feel a little bit less like a corpse. The pungent ginger and peppercorn blast the snot out of your face so the antimicrobial properties of green tea and honey can get to work on the root of your problem. Orange zest brings comforting and familiar flavor, as well as a generous helping of hesperidin, an antioxidant that soothes coughs, reduces inflammation, and acts as a mild sedative, so you can finally get some fucking sleep. While it’s not going to replace, you know, a visit to your doctor or a bottle of Nyquil, it sure as hell tastes a lot better.

Get Better Tea

1-2 pieces of fresh Ginger, peeled, about the size of a matchstick
a few strips of Orange Zest
3-4 Whole Pink Peppercorns— Black Peppercorns taste great, too, and get the job done
1 ½ tbsp Gunpowder Green Tea
Plenty of good Honey, like Bike-a-Bee or Chicago Honey Co-Op

Serves 1

Cut and peel a few slices of Ginger, remove a few thin strips of Orange Zest with a vegetable peeler. Place these into a small saucepan with a mug’s worth of cold water. Bring the pan to a boil over medium heat.

As soon as the water comes to a full, rolling boil, turn off the heat and immediately add Peppercorns and Green Tea. Allow everything to steep for about 30 seconds and strain into your favorite mug.
Sweeten liberally with good Honey and drink while curled in a ball in your favorite chair with a blanket and your laptop.

Buttermilk Donuts with Orange and CinnamonWe don’t need to tell...

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 10:08:00 -0600

Buttermilk Donuts with Orange and Cinnamon

We don’t need to tell you why donuts are delicious, you already fucking know.

You were born knowing why donuts are delicious. The empirical fact that donuts are the most perfect food in the world is hard-wired into your DNA. Even terrible donuts— the hockey pucks full of synthetic tasting goop and weird greasy crullers— are pretty OK, but no donut is better than the sweet, carb-y comfort of one that’s homemade.

Making donuts at home can seem a little intimidating but, if you can make biscuits or fry a piece of chicken, you’ve already mastered all the skills you need. Our only suggestions are 1) use common sense around shit that can deep fry your face and 2) read the recipe all the way through once or twice before you get going, because a little organization goes a long, long way.

Outside of our kitchen, a classic raised donut is our favorite. They’re tender and light, with a complex, toasty sweetness that’s not too sugary. But, because they rely on yeast for leavening, they aren’t always super easy to work with. Cake donuts, on the other hand, are baking powder leavened and pretty much idiot proof. But with instant gratification comes sacrifice in the texture department: they’re a little dry and can get greasy.

This particular recipe is unique (and our favorite) because it lives in a world between the two. Our donuts get most of their lift from chemical leaveners like a cake donut, but call for some yeast to fill in the gaps and make them taste extra, well, donutty. To help mimic the creamy, dreamy, melt in your mouth texture of a raised, we add plenty of buttermilk to help tenderize the flour and keep things from drying out.

Buttermilk Donuts with Orange and Cinnamon
adapted from seriouseats.com

For Donuts

1/4 sour cream
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour— plus another cup, or so, for dusting your board
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tsp cinnamon
Zest of 1 Orange
1 1/8 teaspoons active dry yeast
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 extra-large egg
2 extra-large egg yolks
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

For Glaze

Juice of 1 Orange (like the one whose zest you stuck in the batter)
2 cups powdered sugar

You Will Also Need

4-6 cups Oil for frying— we love deep frying sweets in Coconut Oil because you can heat it forever and it makes your whole house smell like generic suntan lotion, in a very, very good way, without imparting too much flavor to your food.
Cast Iron Skillet or Sturdy Dutch Oven— your non-stick stuff won’t cut it.
Large Slotted Spoon
A Donut Partner
Paper Towels
Wire Cooling Rack

Makes 12-24 donuts.

Gently warm the Sour Cream in a sauce pan. Combine all of the dry ingredients, except for the Yeast, in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Pour the Yeast into the well, followed by the warm (but not hot) Sour Cream to bring those little leavening critters back to life. Let sit for about 10 minutes.

After the batter comes together, things start to happen quickly. While the Sour Cream and Yeast do their thing, get your shit ready. Beat the Buttermilk, Egg, Egg Yolks, and Vanilla together. Wash and dry a spot on your counter top, lightly flour it, and set aside a bowl with about a cup of flour. Get the Oil ready in your Cast Iron skillet- you want your skillet to be no more than halfway full but can put a full three inches in if you’re using a dutch oven. Lay out 4 layers of paper towels, about a foot long, next to a cooling rack. Get whatever you’re going to use to cut your donuts.

When the 10 minutes are up, pour the Buttermilk mixture into the well. Using a spatula, stir the dough until it comes together and most of the dry ingredients are off of the side. It will be super, ridiculously sticky.

Begin to heat your oil, being super careful Obviously. Dump the dough onto your cleverly prepared floured surface, put some flour on your hands, and quickly pat the gummy mound into a relatively even 1” thick layer. Cut out your first batch of donuts and holes, and scoot the rest of the dough to the side to be cut later.

Test the temperature of the oil by (caaarefully) dropping a little dough blob into it. If said dough blob immediately pops to the surface and starts frizzling away, you’re good to go. If it doesn’t? Let that stuff heat up a little longer.

Once the oil is to temperature, call your Donut Partner into the room and gently lower one donut into the oil. It should immediately rise to the surface and start getting fluffy. In about 45 seconds, it will be browned, so flip it over with your spoon and fry the top. Once the donut is done, place it on the paper towel runway and have the Donut Partner start flipping and rolling the donut along the runway for about 30 seconds (with a utensil, not fingers) and then transfer to a wire rack. This is a tip we gleaned from Ree Drummond’s blog and it’s genius. You can go without, but it makes for a much lighter, fluffier, less greasy donut.

As soon as the donut is out of the oil, replace it with a new one— or three if you trust that you’ve got the hang of it without deep frying your fingers/kitchen— and repeat the process. Donut holes cook a little bit quicker, and can be a pain in the ass to flip, but it’s all the same idea.

When you start frying the last of your first round of already cut donuts, have your Donut Partner pat and cut the rest of the dough, and keep frying.

Once the donuts are all cooked, turn off your burner and very, very carefully move your giant pot of grease to a back burner so it can cool undisturbed. Later, much later, when it’s cooled: dispose of it or store it safely.

Mix your Orange Juice and Powdered Sugar in a wide bowl and beat with a fork or whisk until it’s nice and smooth. Dip each donut completely into that glaze and put back on the rack to set up for a few minutes— or just shove them directly into your face. If you want your donuts extra sweet, or plan on letting them hang around longer than a half an hour, give them a second dunk in the glaze.

Donuts should be eaten as quickly as possible and probably served with some milky coffee. They taste their best about 15 minutes after they’ve been glazed, but are still pretty awesome for the first 24 hours. If you want to go any longer than that, we recommend freezing and then warming in the oven (or microwave) before eating.

Guys. We’ve been featured on Saveur Magazine’s Sites...

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 13:50:00 -0600

Guys.

We’ve been featured on Saveur Magazine’s Sites We Love.

We are so ridiculously excited that we can’t use words good.

!!!!!!!!!!!

Blueberry ShrubSometimes it’s hard to find inspiration in (or...

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 12:08:00 -0600

Blueberry Shrub
Sometimes it’s hard to find inspiration in (or out of) the kitchen and that low creative tide can feel terrifying, like you’ll never be able to make something again. Like you never actually were able to make something in the first place. Like you’ve been a big phoney your whole life and everything that came before was just one big accident or coincidence or misunderstanding. That amazing soup you made last week? Yeah, that was actually terrible. Everyone who ate it was just being polite. That cake you make for everyone’s birthday that’s, like, your thing? It is, always has been, and always will be horrible and you have irreparably bad taste and instincts for not immediately seeing it as such. Also, you’re going to die alone and no one likes you, not even your cats.

The ebb and flow of creativity is perfectly normal, but it never feels that way. It feels like the deficit is reality and will last forever and every mean thing you can think about yourself is gospel, digging you deeper into a crappy hole of crap, because feelings, especially the rotten ones are not even a little bit logical. Because they’re fucking Rude.

But the truth is that, yes, we are competent and, yes, our cats do love us, and creativity will come back once we get out of our own way and let it happen. And the best way to step aside and welcome your creativity to back into the room is to try something new. Something that will invigorate and refresh and stir up the juju. Something that’s just novel enough to distract you from your big dumb head while all the garbage drains out of it, so you can get back to what you do best: being a total badass.

Shrub is something we’ve been waiting to make since Rachel tried it at Eat Retreat and it is the perfect choice to shake shit up in the kitchen. It’s tasty, idiot-proof, and refreshing as fuck.

Nothing more than a blend of fruit, vinegar, and sugar, Shrub is the invention of the 17th century English need preserve delicate fruits through the long winter. It’s bright and fresh with an assertive tang, but it isn’t overpowering. The quasi-pickling somehow brings out the subtle floral flavors in the fruit and makes a syrup that is basically Kool-Aid for grownup— and we’re happy to report it’s done its job quite nicely.

Blueberry Shrub

2 cups well-washed Blueberries
1 cup Cider Vinegar
1 cup Honey (you can be fancy and use some yujucha, if you want a citrusy situation)

Makes about 3 ½ cups of Shrub

Wash a quart mason jar with very hot water, rinse thoroughly and allow to air-dry completely.

In a small saucepan, combine all of the ingredients. Simmer over medium-low heat for a few seconds until the Blueberries just hardly start to give off juice.

Carefully pour the hot Shrub into your mason jar and set somewhere dark and cool to hang out for at least 12 hours (but no more than 36).

To serve, do whatever the fuck you want. But we recommend putting a tablespoon in the bottom of a champagne glass and topping it up with very dry champagne or club soda (with vodka, question mark) for a super refreshing drink that is classy as balls .

Roasted Beet Salad with Goat CheeseWe love beets and it’s not...

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 11:09:00 -0600

Roasted Beet Salad with Goat Cheese
We love beets and it’s not because they’re the only non-potato vegetable in our January CSA. We love them because they’re earthy and sweet and super fucking tasty. They are the most glamorous vegetable and look like gems and leave behind pools of perfect deep garnet. We even admit to loving them because we’ve read Jitterbug Perfume a few times too many. Even more, we may just love them for their greens.

Beet greens are not your average winter roughage. Somewhere between spinach and swiss chard, they balance being delicate and having the biggest balls in the room. They carry an earthy, tannic weight, but are still mild and sweet like you’d expect from the thing growing out of your beets. Serve them raw in a salad or use them to replace your favorite cooking green, but our favorite application uses the entire vegetable. The irrepressible sweetness of the beet brings out the sharper tang of the green, while the oxalic acid in the greens amplifies the tender, almost creamy, texture of the perfectly roasted beet.

Roasted Beet Salad with Goat Cheese

1 bunch Beets, no larger than than 2” diameter, with Greens
4 tbsp Olive Oil, plus more for roasting the Beets
2 tbsp Balsamic Vinegar
Salt and Pepper, to taste.
2-4 tbsp Goat Cheese

Serves 2-4

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and fill up a large bowl (or your sink) with cool water.
Separate the Beets and Greens from their stems. Place the Greens in cool water to hang out and get clean. Give the Beets a good rinse to remove any sand or gross stuff.

Loosely wrap the Beets in aluminum foil. There is absolutely no need to peel or trim them at this point, so don’t. Those things will slide right off once cooked, kind of like roasted red peppers. Place your aluminum foil packets on a baking sheet and roast the Beets until they are easily pierced by a knife, usually about 30 minutes.

After the Beets have roasted, allow them to cool on your counter until you can touch them without burning the shit out of yourself. This is a good time to begin preparing your Greens. Give them a good swish in the cool water, dry thoroughly, and roughly chop into pieces that you can easily fit into your face.

Heat 4 tbsp of Olive Oil in a small saute pan, and cook down the Balsamic Vinegar for a few seconds until it’s bubbly. Toss in the Greens into the pan for a few seconds, until they start to wilt, and remove the pan from the heat.

Once the Beets are cool enough to handle, wipe the nasty gross peel off with a paper towel and trim away any remaining squiggly ends or stalk. Cut the Beets into bite-sized wedges and toss with the Greens and the dressing left behind in the pan.

Season with Salt and Pepper to taste, and top with Goat Cheese. This salad is great hot, but makes a wonderful cold leftover that perks up a brown bag lunch, and goes great with a turkey sandwich.

Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries and LemonIt’s that time of year...

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 10:34:27 -0600

Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries and Lemon
It’s that time of year where mornings are getting hard. Maybe it’s our S.A.D., or maybe it’s survival instinct hibernation, but we can’t get our asses out of bed. Everything’s grey, and it’s windy, and it’s too cold to put our bare toes on the floor. We always oversleep so there’s no time for the luxuriating over trashy gossip mags with milky coffee that makes our day jobs tenable— but there is time for breakfast.

Baked Oatmeal tastes like cookies. No. Baked Oatmeal tastes better than cookies, because you can eat more of it before you get a tummy ache. With its bright, sunny lemon and juicy blueberries, it can shake the bleak chill off any winter morning. Make a batch on Sunday night and you will have a week of breakfasts that are worth waking up for.

This is one of our many recipes that is a few ratios followed by a couple suggestions. So long as you don’t add wildly different amounts of oats or liquids, there’s no need to be bashful. Fuck around with it. Throw in a handful of walnuts or slivered almonds, swap blueberries for dried cherries, and maybe try classic, comforting maple & cinnamon instead of lemon.

Baked Oatmeal with Blueberries and Lemon
adapted from allrecipes.com

Serves: roughly 8

3 cups Old Fashioned Rolled Oats
1/4 cup whole Flax Seeds
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 Lemon, Zest only
1 tsp Ginger
1/2 tsp Cardamom
3/4 tsp Salt
1 cup Blueberries (or more, if you feel feisty)
1 stick Butter, melted
1 cup Whole Milk
2 Egg, beaten
1 tbsp Vanilla

plus

Some ice cold Milk or Half and Half for serving

Preheat your oven to 375°.

Combine all of the dry ingredients, along with the Blueberries, in a 13x9” casserole dish.

In a small sauce pan, melt the Butter with the Whole Milk. Allow the mixture to cool enough to not curdle shit, and add the Eggs and Vanilla. Thoroughly blend the mixture and pour over the Oats n Stuff.

Give everything a stir, and make sure it’s evenly distributed.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until set and no longer jiggly.

Serve immediately or allow the Oatmeal to cool to room temperature and stick it in the fridge. Serve warm, topped with some cold Milk (or Half and Half) and maybe a scattering of extra Blueberries

Garlicky Cauliflower Steaks with Lemon and Parsley Cauliflower...

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 10:32:00 -0600

Garlicky Cauliflower Steaks with Lemon and Parsley

Cauliflower isn’t the sexiest vegetable.

It’s lumpy, it’s bumpy, and it kind of looks like it’s made of wax. Decades of abuse by well intentioned crudité trays and low-carb devotees have made our primary association with this brassica a bland, squeaky mess that smells like someone gently farted into a shoe. They leave it raw, which is just gross, or steam it to death, ruining its gorgeous texture. But Cauliflower can be fucking good. While it may never be Beyoncé, it doesn’t have to be LaTavia Roberson.

Think of cauliflower as Kelly Rowland. It’s a great, easy to work with side and, occasionally, it makes an outstanding main dish all on its own.

The key to making Cauliflower delicious— the key to making any food you may be averse to delicious— is handling it properly. As with all cruciferous vegetables, proper handling means roasting. Cooking hot and more or less dry minimizes the damage done by glucosinolates (also known as the sulfur rich compounds that makes veggies get stinky) and adds layers of deliciousness via the Maillard reaction. While cauliflower may not be inherently sexy, it’s also not garish or showy. It’s subtle, you could even call it sophisticated. Its sweetly nutty, creamy stalks make a perfect canvas for bold flavors like curries, ballsy tomato sauces, or, in this case, all of the garlic, parsley, and lemon in your zipcode.

Serve it as a cozy side for mussels, or try it on top of a big-ass salad as a surprising, vegan sub for chicken breast.

Garlicky Cauliflower Steaks with Lemon and Parsley

inspired by our dear friend Rachel Humphrey

1 head Cauliflower
3 tbsp Olive Oil
1 cup Parsley, finely chopped
4 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
Juice and Zest of ½ Lemon
1 tsp Paprika
Salt and Pepper, to taste

Serves: 4-6 as a side, 2 if it’s your main

Preheat your oven to 475 degrees. Line a large cookie sheet with tinfoil or a silicone liner to save yourself a few minutes of scrubbing.

Remove the leaves from the Cauliflower and try to not damage too much of the stem. Thoroughly rinse, and then slice the Cauliflower into ½ inch slices. At the ends, you will have odd bits that are a little less pretty, and that’s okay. They get extra caramelized and taste great.

In a large bowl combine Olive Oil, Parsley, Garlic, Lemon Juice and Zest, Paprika, and a small pinch of Salt. Carefully toss the Cauliflower in this mixture and arrange in one even layer on the cookie sheet. If you have extra of the marinade/mixture/stuff, slather it on top of everything once its on the tray.

Roast in the oven (obviously) for about 15 minutes, or until things are golden brown and crispy on the edges.