Fresh Ricotta and Spinach Gnocchi

Because I am the kind of person who doesn’t easily accept failure, I set out again last weekend to make the spinach and ricotta gnocchi that I had first (and successfully) made for my friend in NYC last month and again a few weeks ago (which didn’t make it to the table for reasons that have been sworn to secrecy ;)

 
I’ve probably said this a million times already, but I think one of the basic rules of cooking is that dishes that require a few ingredients require that those ingredients be the absolute best you can get. It makes sense – if there are only 4 ingredients in something, you’re going to be able to taste each and every one of those ingredients. So, for example, if you use store brand ricotta cheese in these gnocchi, you will definitely taste it. And that won’t be a good thing, because store brand ricotta is grainy and tastes funny. I learned that lesson a few years ago, and never again will I be so cheap as to buy the store brand – I’ll at least spring for the Polly-O or something.

Spring Vegetable Soup

I’ve fallen back into my habit of weekly trips to the farmer’s market. I went to the market again this past Saturday to get:

• Milk, eggs, yogurt, and raw milk cheddar from South Mountain Creamery – because milk that isn’t ultrapasteurized, egg yolks that are practically orange, and raw milk cheeses are way tastier than what you can buy at the supermarket
• Spinach - to recreate the spinach and ricotta gnocchi that never came to fruition the previous Saturday
• Strawberries - which I learned need to be eaten either the same day or the next otherwise they’ll turn to mush
• Local asparagus – because it’s good to buy local and seasonal
• Yemisir Wat (spicy lentil stew) from Ethiopian Delights – because I love Ethiopian food and I ate the container I bought two weeks ago in one sitting…and then I did it again this past Saturday – apparently it’s my newest obsession

The larger Baltimore Farmer’s Market under the JFX is opening this Sunday – hooray! – and I think I’m going to have to abandon the Waverly market after my brief affair with it. Not only is the JFX market larger, but it’s much closer to my apartment than the Waverly market and therefore I can walk to it.

Herbed French Gnocchi (Gnocchi Parisienne)

“What makes these gnocchi French?” is the question that was asked when I served them. A very good question, indeed.

French gnocchi are made without semolina or potatoes that are used to make the more common Italian gnocchi. They are actually made from pâte à choux, that incredibly versatile dough that is used to make everything from gougères to éclairs. Pâte à choux is composed simply of butter, flour, eggs, and water (sometimes milk); the proportions of these ingredients vary depending on what the final product will be.

Fresh Ricotta: Remnants of a Failed Dinner

I’ve lived in Baltimore for nearly two years (I have?!??!) and this past Saturday was the first time I went to the Waverly farmers market. I’ve been to the Sunday Baltimore farmers market (the bigger one under the JFX) many times, but that one only runs from mid-May to mid-December.

The Waverly market is much smaller than the Baltimore market, and it also has a few stands that sell produce that is definitely NOT local (Florida corn, North Carolina strawberries – which were SO good, and bananas from who-knows-where). But one thing they have that the Sunday market doesn’t is a stand run by South Mountain Creamery, a dairy located in Middletown, MD. (You can buy eggs at the Sunday market, but I’ve never seen any purveyors of milk or butter).

Mushroom and Taleggio Pizza with Gremolata

So, in case it hasn’t been apparent, I haven’t done much cooking for almost a week now. I was away for the weekend, and while I did make some good stuff for dinner for me and my partner-in-crime/bff on Saturday night (spinach and fresh ricotta gnocchi, key lime pie cupcakes), I didn’t have my camera with me, so neither of those things end up counting (because no one wants a recipe without a photo!). Also, the bf has been away for the past few days, so my dinners have consisted of what I like to call squirrel meals, by which I forage in my pantry and fridge for random things to eat that, together, can possibly constitute the bulk of a real meal. Maybe I should just call it “small plates” so that I don’t sound pathetic.

I rarely have the desire to cook a good meal for just myself. When it’s just me (and when I was living alone in NYC) I rarely made the kind of food that I have been making and posting on here for the past year. I only cooked like this once a week, when I would either have a friend over for dinner or when I would go over to my bff’s and cook dinner for the two of us. I really love cooking for people that I like, but I derive very little joy out of cooking for myself and I just don’t care enough to do it. I can’t be the only one with that mindset, right?

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

One of my early memories of helping out my mom in the kitchen is making eggplant parmesan once a month on Sunday evenings. As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to help in the kitchen. When I was really little, I was allowed to stir things (initially ones that weren’t on the stove, but as I got older, the stove was no longer off-limits) and I beat eggs on Sunday mornings for omelettes and stirred in seasonings, but I think that this dish was one of the first things with which she really let me get my hands dirty – both literally and figuratively. My mom would slice up the eggplant and prepare the bowl of dredging liquid (she used a thin batter made of chickpea flour and water), and she did all the frying. But I was completely in charge of everything else.

I loved dipping my hands (oh, and the eggplant slices, too) into the dredging solution and then coating them in breadcrumbs. My hands would always end up a huge, sticky, crumby mess after completing a few slices, but some vigorous scraping and washing was all I needed to get back to next batch. I always laid out the finished slices on a few plates so that my mom could get them into the hot oil and not have to wait too long between batches. While she was frying the slices, I made sure to have paper towel-lined plates ready for her on which the eggplant could drain. I always used to sneak a few slices – fried eggplant is so good, and you all know how I feel about eggplant, so how could I resist?

Simple Spring Brunch

I think I’ve expressed my love for brunch on here enough times to forgo doing so yet another time.

This brunch is simple, fresh, and light, and it's one that I make only in the spring, when asparagus are plentiful and in season. But because of its simplicity, it’s one of those meals that will only taste as good as the ingredients you put into it.

Middle Eastern Agrodolce Strawberries

I couldn’t resist buying the strawberries that were staring me in the face at the supermarket last week. I’m actually not a big fan of strawberries (I prefer raspberries, big surprise, and blackberries), but, hey, sometimes we all make impulse purchases. At least this one wasn’t a $600 pair of killer metallic lavender stilettos that were 40% off…not like I’ve ever done that…

Anyway, I had no idea what to do with these strawberries, especially because, as I mentioned above, I don’t so much care for them. For some reason the word “agrodolce” (which, in Italian, means “bittersweet”) was stuck in my head all week (as were many other Italian words; this was probably because I was singing some songs by Bellini in the shower earlier in the week and then I couldn’t get them out of my head), and then at one point “agrodolce” and “strawberries” ran into each other somewhere in the grey matter inside my little dome. 

Spring Risotto: Risotto with Asparagus, Peas, Parsley, and Lemon

When my mom visits me (which she is currently doing), I love to cook meals for her that she would normally never make for herself. Being that it is supposedly spring (it was 50 degrees in Baltimore on Thursday despite the fact that it was 75 degrees on Tuesday…what is going on???), I decided to make a spring risotto.

I had bought a few pounds of asparagus a few days ago in a fit of spring fever, so some of it was definitely going into the risotto. (I bought way more asparagus than I needed for the meal I made a few days ago…sometimes I get carried away.) To further springify the risotto, I added a few things that I always have on hand but are springy nonetheless: peas, parsley, and lemon. Oh, and sauvignon blanc. There’s always New Zealand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc in my fridge; I have a slight (read: major) obsession with it.

Baked Vegetable Samosas

I love samosas, but it’s hard to find a good one in my neighborhood in Baltimore. Now, before you tell me that there is not just one, but four Indian restaurants (actually, two of them are Indian/Nepali) within a 10 minute walk of my apartment, let me tell you something first: I’ve had samosas from three of the places (the fourth opened just a month ago), and none of them have been good. They’ve either been really greasy or the filling was flat-out bad (or both). So, what’s a girl to do?

Well, of course, the answer is to make her own. But wait – said girl (that would be me) hates deep-frying. I decided that the way to get around that problem would be to use puff pastry as the wrapper for the spiced potato and peas filling, and then to bake the samosas. The puff pastry is rolled out a bit so that it doesn’t get too puffy (thereby more closely resembling a regular samosa), but it is still light, flaky, and moist. The best part is that these samosas are incredibly easy to make - there's no need to make your own dough, there's no deep-frying involved, and you can season your filling just the way you like it. The end result: an easy and delicious snack that's probably better than the ones at your local Indian restaurant.