Zucchini Carpaccio with Lemon and Herbs

It’s nearly July but it feels like summer just started. [Probably because technically today is the first day of summer, and also because it was so chilly until just a few weeks ago.] My CSA share is still all about late spring - lettuce, strawberries, herbs, radishes - which further reinforces this "it's barely summer" feeling, but the Carroll Gardens greenmarket looked a little more summery this past Sunday, what with piles of zucchini and their blossoms.

As is now customary in my family, my parents came over for a homemade brunch for Fathers Day (and, yes, we have my mom over for Mothers Day). The menu consisted entirely of one of my dad’s favorite foods: pizza. I planned to make three different types, but realized only that morning that I really needed something else with which to start off our meal.

Balsamic Marinated Beets

Well I've been a bit delinquent, haven't I. Life got really busy and, although I've been cooking just as frequently as I used to, I just haven't put aside enough time for blogging. That will be changing right...now.

I'll save the long story on this recipe. I just love roasted beets and I wanted to prepare them somehow that wasn't just plain roasted and then tossed into a salad or grain dish or pickled, as I wasn't really feeling all that vinegar. The solution: a simple balsamic marinade with a little twist - pomegranate molasses. You can't really taste it, but its tart-sweet flavor makes these beets special. Don't worry if you don't have this ingredient or can't find it - I've made these beets without it many times and they're still great.

Spring Onion and Potato Soup with Garlic-Parmesan Croutons

I’ve really become obsessed with buying everything at the farmers market – Michael Pollan would be proud of me. I haven’t been to the supermarket in weeks! (OK, that’s not entirely true – I’ve been there to buy yogurt and bananas. I suppose I could make my own yogurt, but growing bananas is totally out of the question.)

Spring onions are one of the things that are in season and abundant right now, so of course I had to buy a few bunches of them last weekend. Spring onions aren’t scallions (although they are frequently, and erroneously, labeled as such) – they’re young onions that are pulled before the onion bulb gets a chance to mature. They taste sort of like scallions, but they’re a little more pungent and onion-y (obviously, because they’re young onions!).

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. 

South Indian Green Beans

I really did not like green beans when I was younger. My mom made them two ways: French cut ones with garam masala and chopped ones with roasted lentils and coconut. My brother loved the former and I recall seeing them on the dinner table very often, but I didn’t like them – they were too spicy for me. She made the latter version less frequently, and I don’t recall really liking them, either. But, like most people, my taste buds grew up along with the rest of me, and now I love them. (Although, oddly enough, I used to really like broccoli but now I won’t eat it, ha!).

My mom has been teaching me how to make more South Indian dishes recently. I feel like an idiot for not having learned to do so earlier because not only is it really delicious, but it’s incredibly easy and quite healthy. My mom gave me the instructions for this one a few weeks ago and I think it is now one of my favorite things to eat.

Jalapeno Cheddar Buttermilk Cornbread

I’m on the fence about cornbread. When it’s good, it’s soft, fluffy, and slightly sweet, and I totally love it; when it’s not, it’s grainy and dense and I really have no desire to eat it. That being said, I really like cornbread with chili, and I’ve always made a jalapeno-cheddar version to go along with it. However, I’ve never been really thrilled with the cornbread recipes I’ve used – they’ve all produced a dense and crumbly cornbread that, while tasty, wasn’t quite right texturally.

So, of course, I had to come up with my own, and I think it worked out great – the cornbread come out soft, fluffy, just slightly sweet, a little tangy, kinda cheesy (in a good way!), and slightly spicy – cornbread perfection!

South Indian Baby Eggplant Curry

Update (January 2011): Upon retiring his long-running Minimalist column, Mark Bittman selected his top 25 recipes and this was one of them.

Update (April 2008): Mark Bittman adapted this recipe and featured it in his Minimalist column in the New York Times.

I don’t think I need to reiterate my love for eggplant. My mom has been making this dish for many years, but I never bothered to learn how to make it.

When I was home this past weekend, I noticed some small eggplants in the fridge and my mom told me to take them with me and make this curry with them. I had never made it before, but she assured me it was incredibly easy to make. She was right – the whole thing took under 20 minutes to make, there was minimal cleanup (courtesy of microwave cooking), and the best part is that it tasted exactly like my mom’s version of it.

Sick Day: Easy Creamy Tomato Soup

I’ve been really sick the past few days, so I haven’t had the energy to cook. Last night I really wanted tomato soup and grilled cheese – my comfort food when I’m sick and feverish – but I didn’t have any so I had to make it myself. The soup was totally easy to make and made me feel better – mentally, at least.

Instead of making grilled cheese (I didn’t have any sandwich bread), I sliced up ciabatta, topped each slice with mozzarella cheese, and stuck them in the toaster oven. As for the dishes that are still in the sink…I don’t quite have enough energy to tackle those yet. Who wants to do them for me?

Spiced Parsnip and Apple Soup

I’ve never been a fan of parsnips, but I sort of changed my mind about them a few weeks ago after using roasted cubes of them in a version of this stuffed pumpkin that I served at Thanksgiving. They’re slightly sweet, earthy, and sharp, and, if they’re in the right company, they’re pretty good. On their own, though, I just can’t eat them. I’ve had them cubed and oven-roasted in a hash (don’t like the texture – they’re sort of dry and mushy), fried as chips, and shaved into salads; none of these preparations impressed me.

I had some parsnips left over from Thanksgiving (they keep very well, apparently), and I didn’t want to be wasteful and throw them out, but I really didn’t know what to do with them. I decided to turn them into soup, because that would get rid of the whole gross texture thing, but who else was I going to invite to the party? 

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Hazelnuts and Pomegranate

And another recipe for brussels sprouts. They have gotten a bad rap for so many years because they haven’t been cooked the right way. These little green guys deserve better treatment than being dunked in or suspended over boiling water.

A little coating of oil and a hot oven is what they need, and they will shine if you do so. Once you’ve done that, the possibilities are endless. They’re great on their own, but they can take on a whole new persona with the addition of a few extra ingredients. I love a traditional treatment of walnuts and parmesan, but I’ve recently experimented (and with success, I think) with some different dressings.

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with a Soy-Sriracha Dressing and Spiced Puffed Rice

I always serve roasted Brussels sprouts at Thanksgiving, and this year I wanted to change them up from my usual treatment of toasted walnuts and shaved Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. I decided to stick with the vaguely Asian theme I had going, so I dressed them up with a spicy and savory Asian dressing, fresh herbs, and toasted puffed rice for crunch instead of nuts. My family loved them (or so they told me!).

Maple, Coriander, and Pomegranate Glazed Acorn Squash

This is another side dish I served for my family’s Thanksgiving dinner. I had a lot of fun with taking traditional Thanksgiving ingredients and putting a twist on them. In this one, acorn squash (which I think is boring) gets a sweet, tart, and smoky glaze: the rich maple syrup keeps things traditional, and the pomegranate molasses and coriander provide a great foil to the sweetness of the syrup.

Orange Cauliflower and Fuji Apple Soup with Sage Cream and Aged Cheddar Tuiles

This is the second course I served at my family’s Thanksgiving dinner. (I know the photo isn't great; it's hard to tell your hungry family that they need to wait another 5 minutes because you need to take your food to an area with better lighting in order to photograph it. And check out my parents' now-antique china from the '70s!)

 Last year, I made a swirled roasted purple and orange cauliflower soup, and my family loved it. They requested that I make it again this year, but I decided to elevate it this time around by adding more flavors while taking care to not overwhelm the delicate flavor of the roasted cauliflower.

Tropical Dinner Part 4: Macadamia-Lime Green Beans

I’ve never eaten green beans almondine in my life, so imagine my surprise when I learned that what I thought was a clever way of dressing up green beans was pretty much an brightened up play on the old classic. In my version, lime juice replaces lemon juice, and the almonds have been jettisoned for macadamia nuts. I guess some things were just meant to go together. This would be a great side dish with pretty much anything, but it goes particularly well with the rest of the tropical-ish dinner 

Tropical Dinner Part 2: Coconut Coriander Rice

I'm not really sure where the inspiration for this came from; all I know is that the words coconut and coriander popped into my head when I was thinking about what to add to the rice that was going along with the rest of this tropical-ish dinner, so I decided to run with it. It worked out perfectly: the coconut milk lent a silky quality and subtle perfume and flavor of coconut to the rice, and the coriander was just the right foil - smoky and earthy - to the sweetness of the coconut.

Marinated Zucchini with Basil

This past Sunday at the market, I noticed that the stand next to my tomato purveyor of choice had tons of zucchini and squash on the cheap: they were selling baskets of 4-6 of them at 3 for $5, so I got one basket each of green zucchini, yellow zucchini, and summer squash. I had a lot of zucchini on my hands; actually, they were technically on my boyfriend’s hands because he was kindly serving as my shopping cart. (Side note: do not expect your boyfriend to be amused when you hand him a 3-ish-pound bag of zucchini when he’s already carrying well over 10 pounds of produce and it’s 90 degrees outside and you’re at the insanely crowded Baltimore Farmer’s market.)