Grilled Ramps with Pecorino, Lemon and Sea Salt

Spring is my absolute favorite time of year.  Alex loves fall (which is comparable enough when you are looking at the temperature) but a large part of what I love about spring is the appearance of things like sugar snap peas, asparagus and rhubarb at the farmers' market.  The reappearance of the sun and warm temperatures are a bonus.  Ramps are one spring ingredient that has I have never really understood.  The dishes we made at home with ramps were all pretty good, but they never blew my mind (the best was this White Pizza with Ramps) and I can't remember ever ordering a dish at a restaurant with ramps that really stuck out in my mind.  I did have a lovely carrot pasta at Blanca a few weekends ago that had a ramp sauce and a single grilled ramp on top that was lovely, but I think it would have still been lovely without the ramps.  I'm sure I have ordered other dishes with ramps because that's what you're supposed to do at a farm-to-table type restaurant in the spring, but seeing as I can't remember a single one they couldn't have been that amazing.  And yet I keep trying new ramp dishes because I am stubborn like that.  I see them in the farmers' market and I just have to buy them.  And then I have to figure out what I want to do with them.  Again.

Anyway, I saw this recipe in Hugh Acheson's cookbook, A New Turn in the South:  Southern Flavors Reinvented for your Kitchen, not too long ago and I mentally bookmarked it for my next ramp experiment.  It looked different from the usual ramp recipes I come across (i.e. serving them with eggs, pasta or pickling them).  Our fallback is usually pickled ramps, but I wanted to try something new.  And I'm glad I did because this was probably the first ramp recipe where I started to understand why people enjoy ramps so much.  In this dish they have such a lovely garlicky flavor that is nicely tempered by the salty flavor of the cheese and the brightness of the lemon juice.  "Grilling" our ramps on the grill pan seems to have taken their almost oily and pungent flavor down a notch.  I know some people enjoy ramps and eggs together but I have had dishes where the ramps just seemed greasy and a little too in your face funky to me (like in these Fried Eggs with Ramps and Duck Bacon) or completely disappeared into the dish (like these Oeufs en Cocotte with Ramps).  We served these ramps with some seared salmon, but I could see serving them any number of other dishes.

Recipe after the jump!

Watermelon-Feta-Arugula Salad with Serrano Chili Vinaigrette

I know I referenced this recipe weeks ago and promised to post about it.  And then I didn't.  This isn't going to be the longest post ever but I know myself and if I don't get something up about it now it's not going to happen.  So here goes.  This recipe was the first recipe we made from Hugh Achesons' cookbook and I loved it.  The serrano chili vinaigrette is not shy - it's spicy.  But it works really nicely with the sweet watermelon.  If you don't like spice, you should cut the number of chilis in half (or seed some of the chilis).  We like spice so we went whole hog, but I think it would be a little too spicy for a lot of people.  Anyway, I know we have made a number of watermelon salads on this blog (I have a thing for watermelon salad), but this might have been my favorite one ever.  It had a perfect balance of salty, sweet and spice.  Sometimes the cheese can throw off the sweetness and freshness of the watermelon (particularly if your watermelon isn't very sweet), but this salad retained all of the fresh and bright flavors that I love and added some kick.  We did cut back on the amount of cheese slightly, but that was due to the fact that we ran out (not because I made the strategic decision to do so).  I thought the amount of feta was fine as we made it so I will probably continue to use a little less cheese than the amount the recipe calls for in future watermelon salads.  But if you want a fun and funky take on a classic summertime treat, make this salad.  If your tastes are at all similar to mine, you will love it.

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Spicy Pickled Tomatoes

I have a new favorite cookbook.  I know it's a little ridiculous to call something my new favorite cookbook when I have only made a salad and a condiment from it, but I LOVED both of those dishes.  And the only reason I bought the cookbook is because it was on sale at Anthropologie.  I didn't even realize they sold cookbooks but it was on sale, the pictures inside were pretty and Hugh Acheson is perhaps my favorite Top Chef judge of all time.  So I bought it.  And I am genuinely (and thoroughly) excited by a number of recipes so it worked out really nicely.  Stay tuned.  If I had my way (instead of work having its way with me) I would have made at least 3-4 other recipes from the cookbook already.  I have 4-5 more recipes already bookmarked that I want to make as soon as possible.  I promise to make more as soon as I can.  I guess I should mention the name of the cookbook sooner or later - it's A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for your Kitchen by Hugh Acheson.  It helps that I am in a Southern phase recently - this weekend we had great meals at Maysville and Mighty Quinn's Barbeque.  I didn't take any pictures since we were at both restaurants with friends, but they were both totally yummy.  Every year summer hits and I start thinking about Mexican food and Southern food.  I want tacos, barbeque, buttermilk biscuits, cornbread and beer.  And tonight, Alex really wanted grilled cheese, which isn't exactly Southern, but it's not not Southern?  I had mentioned grilled cheese as a natural pairing for these pickled tomatoes when I asked Alex to make them last week, but I didn't know that Alex was going to get so fixated on the grilled cheese idea.  I went to the farmers' market this afternoon after the gym and was ready to make a peach, prosciutto and mozzarella salad for dinner but Alex was dead set on the grilled cheese with spicy pickled tomatoes idea.  I picked a rather labor-intensive grilled cheese recipe from Serious Eats that I saw a few months ago because I always feel like our grilled cheese sandwiches aren't as crispy as I want.  This grilled cheese took awhile, but it was perfect.  And I do mean PERFECT.  As far as methods go, I don't think it can be improved upon.  I might experiment with adding new ingredients in with the cheese (or try other cheeses or types of bread), but I have never had such a nicely cooked grilled cheese.  And the spicy pickled tomatoes were delicious.  It was such a fun play on grilled cheese with tomato soup (or ketchup).  The acidity and heat of the tomatoes really complimented and cut through the richness of the grilled cheese.  I can't wait to try these tomatoes in other dishes - I'm thinking cornmeal-crusted chicken breasts or sauteed chicken breasts.  I don't know, but I think these tomatoes are the perfect thing to keep in the fridge at all times to really jazz up a meal.

Recipes after the jump!

Stripetti Squash with Garlic, Parmigiano-Reggiano and Herbs

So we took a break for a few weeks (a much needed squash hiatus) and we finally got around to cooking the stripetti squash that I picked up at the farmers' market in early to mid-November.  One of the best things about squash is that you can buy it and then hang onto it until you are ready to cook it.  We also have a cheese pumpkin sitting on the hutch that I picked up a few weeks ago that we hang onto until this coming week.  I don't have any inspiration for what I want to do with it, but I'm sure something will come to me eventually.  

If I hadn't bought the squash in the first place and seen the whole squash prior to cooking, I'm not sure that I would have been able to tell that this was a different variety of squash.  I think the stripetti squash was a little sweeter than spaghetti squash, but they are similar enough in appearance, taste and texture that it wouldn't have occurred to me that this was a different variety.  With that said, I really liked it.  And I would totally buy it again.  As for the recipe, I think it was nice.  I have never tried adding cheese and herbs of this variety to spaghetti squash so it was a very different take on squash for us.  But I wanted to use up some of the fresh herbs leftover from Thanksgiving so I decided this was a good opportunity to do so.  I originally planned to serve this squash with some turkey meatballs but I decided that after the meatloaf I wasn't really feeling meatballs.  But the dish had a very nice combination of flavors and made a really nice side dish.  Between Alex and I we ate the whole 4 cups of squash so that really says something.  In case you're wondering about the cooking method for the squash (boiling it, rather than roasting), we boiled the squash because that's what they told me to do at the farmers' market.  It seemed like a strange cooking method to me, but that's what they said to do so we did it.  And it worked.  I might try roasting it next time just for the sake of variety, but boiling it worked just fine. 

Recipe after the jump!

Salad with Pecans and Blue Cheese

 
I don't know why I am always experimenting with different salad recipes.  I have a few go-to greens (baby arugula and big mix from 5 lbs of Dirt are the most common salad greens in our apartment) but we tend to mix it up with dressings and ingredients.  I bought some nice blue cheese at my new favorite cheese shop last weekend (more on that later) and I have been trying to figure out what kind of salad to make with my cheese.  I thought about getting some pears and doing roasted pears with blue cheese over salad greens, but decided to go with this salad because it used ingredients we already had in the apartment.  My one complaint with the salad was that this salad dressing combined with the dried cranberries (which for the record were unsweetened) was a little sweet for me.  I would probably cut back a little more on the amount of maple syrup or use a more bitter green.  The big mix is fairly bitter because it has baby kale and chard and mustard greens in it, but it' not as bitter as some other greens.  I definitely would tone the dressing down before using it with something as mild as baby spinach.  When you got a bite that combined all of the ingredients the blue cheese and the toasted pecans really helped to cut through the sweetness of the dressing.  But there were a few bites with just lettuce and the sweetness was a little overwhelming.  I think there are other salads with blue cheese and fruit out there that do a better job of striking a balance between the pungent flavor of the blue cheese and the sweetness of the fruit or the dressing.

Recipe after the jump!

Ted's Fiery BBQ Pork Tenderloin with Simple (Cheese) Grits

Before we ventured off to Maine last week for a long weekend I decided I wanted a good Southern meal (plus I was trying to clear meat out of the freezer and the pork tenderloin was just begging to be used).  And what could be more Southern than BBQ and cheese grits?  Granted, this isn't a particularly traditional BBQ recipe.  Plus, as the Lee Bros. cookbook admits, calling it BBQ wouldn't fly with a lot of BBQ purists because this pork tenderloin is not smoked or grilled - it is pan-seared and then roasted.  But that's ok because authentic BBQ or not, it's still Southern to me.  And when you add in cheese grits, you have a Southern feast.  

What I liked about this meal was that it was really different.  The pork was spicy and sweet, plus it was nice and juicy.  The pork itself was really good - I would make it again.  As for the sauce, I didn't love the flavor of the BBQ sauce, but I thought it was really interesting.  And I think the pork needed some sauce (or maybe a glaze of some sort).  It had nice flavor, it was just a little muddy tasting for me.  Muddy isn't exactly the right adjective, but I'm not really sure what is.  None of the flavors really shined for me - they weren't distinct, but they didn't exactly combine in a way that highlighted the ingredients.  As for the cheese grits, I actually liked Ina Garten's Creamy Cheddar Grits better than these cheese grits.  I thought those grits were both creamier and cheesier, and I missed the freshness of the scallions.  Part of the problem this time was that the grits were much more coarsely ground than I am used to so it almost felt gritty - perhaps if we had cooked them slightly longer it would have been better texturally.  But I think I still would have preferred the taste of the Creamy Cheddar Grits more...

Recipe after the jump!

Cauliflower Soup with Cheddar, Cayenne and Torn Croutons

I am clearly in a soup frame of mind.  We had soup Monday night for dinner and I can't stop thinking about making more soup for dinner tonight.  It's a soup obsession.  I want soup, soup and more soup.  And this weekend in Maine I am thinking about chowder.  Or chowda.  And lobster.  I can't wait to eat some lobster.  Maybe a nice lobster bisque is in order...  Anyway, this cauliflower soup was a wonderful weeknight meal because it is easy to put together and doesn't require a lot of ingredients.  The cheese made it rich without the need for heavy cream, although it does mask the flavor of the cauliflower itself a little.  As a side note, I have a really hard time putting heavy cream in my soups at home.  I don't mind ordering soups that I know are cream-based at restaurants, but somehow making them at home just seems wrong.  The soup was warm and comforting, with a little kick from the cayenne sprinkled on top.  And for the record, the reason our cayenne doesn't look like the ground cayenne you usually see at the grocery store is because it didn't come from a grocery store.  This cayenne is from the batch of home grown and home dried chilis that John gave us in Cincinnati.  It rocks.  And I decided not to throw the croutons on top because I really wanted you to see the cayenne (and not just more beige), but you have to make them with this soup.  They really add a nice crunch and a lovely garlicky/buttery flavor.  Yum.

Recipe after the jump!

Jalapeno (or Cayenne) Cheddar Cornbread

I'm going to go ahead and call it - fall is officially here.  I walked into work today and for the first time in a long time, I actually wore a coat (albeit a light one).  And I was still a little chilly.  How sad is that?  Granted, fall means that I can break out all of those cozy sweaters that I haven't been able to wear in months and I do love cozy sweaters, but it also means that pretty soon winter is going to be here, which means no more farmers' market!  Boo.  But we have a few more good months until that happens so I will enjoy them while I can!  With the advent of fall, all I want is pumpkin (and squash), soup, brussels sprouts...  And what goes better with soup than cornbread?  I know you traditionally serve cornbread with chili, but I think any soup works well with cornbread.  I particularly love chicken soups with hominy and cornbread.  And now that I think about it, we have totally made a chicken soup with hominy and buttery cornbread before on the blog (see recipe here).

Anyway, what I liked best about this cornbread was that it had great chili flavor without a lot of heat.  Don't get me wrong, I intentionally didn't de-seed my chilis very thoroughly so every once in awhile you get a bite with some kick and it is delicious.  You could totally be more thorough about it and get just the flavor and none of the heat.  You could also use jalapenos instead of the green and red cayenne chilis we used because we were out of jalapenos.  Depending on how spicy you like things, I might recommend sticking with jalapenos because they are milder, not that our cayenne chilis were all that hot.  Most of my coworkers would warn you to take anything I say about spice level with a grain of salt since my tolerance for (and love of) spicy food is higher than average.  My one minor complaint is that the cornbread was on the dry side.  So it works really well with soup, but eating just a hunk of cornbread on its own left me wishing that it was a little more moist.

Recipe after the jump!

Pear, Basil and Pecorino Toscano Salad

Fall is here (or almost here)!  And with fall - apples, pears and the very beginning of squash season.  This is my favorite time of year at the farmers' market because you still have a lot of the great summer produce (although fresh corn and basil will be disappearing shortly), but honeycrisp apples and acorn squash are making their debut.  It is so exciting.  To celebrate I decided to make this pear salad for breakfast along with some hoe cakes.  There is a story that goes with the hoe cakes, but you are going to wait until we post them to hear that particular story.  Anyway, I thought this salad was really interesting - the juxtaposition of sweet pears and basil with salty, nutty cheese totally worked for me.  It made a really nice breakfast/brunch dish.  We made the pears with hoe cakes, blending an Italian salad with a very traditional Southern dish, but I think it totally worked!

P.S.  Alex pointed out that you can see the reflection of the building across the street on the plate in our picture.  Living in an NYC apartment means that we don't exactly have a lot of options for taking pictures of our dishes, particularly not when we want natural light.  Our choices are basically the windowsill (like this picture) or the coffee table.  But I think this is the first time that we caught a reflection like that!

Recipe after the jump!

Parmesan-Crusted Summer Squash

I picked this Jean-Georges recipe for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, I just had a great meal at ABC Kitchen recently so it inspired me to get the cookbook out again.  I know I posted a little about ABC Kitchen not too long ago and said it was disappointing, but I have come to the conclusion that the restaurant is just inconsistent.  Although the service is consistently slow.  Our first meal there was good, but not great.  And it was expensive enough that it really should have been great.  But the lunch I had there recently was delicious so I wanted to see if the cookbook had any of the recipes for the dishes we had at lunch.  For the record, it has variations on some of the recipes (or what I assume are the recipes that we were served), but not all.  Secondly (and this is definitely more important than the first reason, although my meal at ABC Kitchen was the inspiration for my pulling out he cookbook in the first place) I thought the description Jean-Georges provides in the little blurb above the recipe of the squash as having an almost "fluffy texture" sounded really interesting.  I love squash but it does often feel heavy and soggy when you cook it.  And lastly, it looked really simple to make (which is a refreshing change from some of the recipes we make) and it used a novel roasting technique to cook the summer squash.  

So I bookmarked the recipe and ran over to the farmers' market and bought some cute little squash.  When we made the squash my reasons for making it totally panned out - the texture was really light and fluffy (which I thought was awesome) due to the way Jean-Georges roasts it on a wire rack and it was totally easy to make.  But it was missing something.  Alex and I both thought that some sort of fresh herb would be a nice addition to the recipe (I suggested fresh thyme).  The squash just needed something else, another layer of flavor to play off the salty Parm-Reg and the grassy evoo, to really make it shine.  The lemon juice helped, but it still left me wanting more.  So I think we will make this again (and maybe try this cooking technique with zucchini as well) and test out a few different fresh herbs or spices to see what works best.  So the recipe was not a resounding success, but it has serious potential to become one.  I'm going to play with it a bit more and see what happens, but I'm thinking a little fresh thyme would make this dish a total winner.

Recipe after the jump!

Moroccan Garbanzo Bean and Feta Pitas

I have one complaint about this dish - the chickpea salad is all one texture, a little mushy.  I wish there had been something crunchy to liven it all up.  One of the reviews suggested roasting the chickpeas for some crunch.  But we didn't want to take the extra time.  I wish we had.  If it hadn't required another trip to the grocery store (our 5th trip in 3 days), I would have picked up some kalamata olives to throw in for some salty kick.  I thought about adding some red bell pepper for crunch and a little sweetness, but I decided against it because the red bell peppers at the store didn't look that good.  I also thought about just serving the filling as a salad over a bed of romaine lettuce and serving it with pita chips for crunch, but Alex wanted pita sandwiches so we went with pita sandwiches.  I know I have already said it, but I really missed the crunch.  If I were to make this again (and I'm not sure that I would because nothing about the recipe really stood out for me), I would roast the chickpeas so they are nice and crunchy.  And I might still serve it with pita chips.  And I might kick up the flavor a little bit (or serve with hot sauce).  The flavor wasn't bad, but it didn't jump out at me either.  The Greek yogurt added a really nice flavor that I was initially skeptical of, but I ended up wanting more of it.  The yogurt was probably my favorite component.  Even though we had wonderful fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from the farmers' market, it was really the yogurt that shined.

Recipe after the jump!

Shaved Asparagus Salad with Parmigiano-Reggiano

I know, I know - I'm posting another asparagus recipe.  Deal with it.  I bought two bunches at the farmer's market today and I couldn't wait to get home and make the first.  I wanted to buy some sugar snap peas too, but they were all gone by the time we got there.  I was very sad.  I bet you are sad too because sugar snap peas would provide at least a little variety.  Since it was pretty hot out today I decided to make a raw asparagus salad for lunch.  Asparagus works wonderfully with lemon and/or Dijon vinaigrette.  I decided to go with a lemon vinaigrette because it sounded fresher and lighter.  We actually made a very similar salad last summer with Pecorino cheese instead of Parmigiano-Reggiano (see Asparagus and Pecorino Salad), but I liked today's salad more.  I thought the buttery flavor and crunch of the toasted pine nuts was a nice touch.  I also liked the addition of the parsley for some additional brightness.  The bright citrus vinaigrette really compliments the grassy sweet flavor of the fresh asparagus.  And then you have the sharp salty flavor of the Parmigiano-Reggiano and the buttery pine nuts.  Yum.  It's very simple, but it works.

Recipe after the jump!

Garlic Knots Two Ways

The problem with making Jim Lahey's No-Knead Pizza Dough is figuring out what to do with the remaining dough.  We used one ball of dough to make our White Pizza with Ramps, but we had 2 more balls of dough left in the fridge.  I knew right away that I wanted to make a batch of garlic knots and I was thinking about making a calzone with the other dough, but we couldn't decide what kind of garlic knots to make so we decided to make two batches of garlic knots and save the calzone for later.  The Emmentaler and Caraway Garlic Knots were inspired by the cheesy garlic knots that John Fraser's temporary restaurant What Happens When.  We were both obsessed with the garlic knots he served the two times that we ate dinner there.  The Gouda and Cumin Garlic Knots were inspired by a cumin-flavored gouda cheese that was part of the cheese platter at Vandaag.  Alex suggested the second flavor combination and preferred that flavor combination, but I think that his preference is mostly due to the fact that he is not a huge fan of caraway seeds.  I really liked them both and I keep trying to pick a favorite, but I can't.   That's not a bad thing.  The garlic knots had a nice crispy exterior and a really fluffy, moist interior.  They were so good that we had garlic knots for dinner last night and then I had another few for breakfast this morning.  They are definitely best fresh out of the oven, but they aren't bad the next day!

Recipes after the jump!

Grilled Romaine and Halloumi Cheese with Mint Vinaigrette

This recipe wins the award for being the most interesting recipe that Alex and I have made this month.  If we had both an outdoor space to entertain (it could be a rooftop or a backyard - I'm not picky) and a grill, I would love to serve this to friends and family at a backyard BBQ of sorts.  I say "of sorts" because I'm not planning on serving hamburgers, hot dogs and pasta salad here.  I'm talking a backyard get together with fun (and tasty) food.  Anyway, I thought the dish was different enough to be a lot of fun, but not labor-intensive.  It also was familiar enough that I think it would appeal to both picky eaters and adventurous ones.  And it was really tasty.  I love halloumi - it is a salty, firm little cheese that fries or grills up really well.  There is a Druze restaurant near my apartment that makes a wonderful little salad with fried cubes of Halloumi.  They are essentially the best croutons ever.  The only problem is that as the cheese cools it hardens back up and gets a little gummy.  So you are going to want to eat this salad fairly quickly.  But if you take that into account and eat quickly, you will thoroughly enjoy the salad.  The grilled onions are nice and sweet and the grilled romaine is delicious.  The combination of the sweetness of the onions, the zesty dressing and the freshness of the mint worked brilliantly together.

Recipe after the jump!

Winter Caprese Salad (Take #2)

I know that I have already posted a few different Mario Batali recipes for caprese salad, including another one called Winter Caprese Salad.  Apparently his names for recipes aren't very creative.  Then again, how many different names can you come up with for caprese salad?  He already has a Summer Caprese Salad as well.  I have been thinking about caprese salad ever since it started getting warmer out and greens started re-appearing at the farmers' market.  But local heirloom tomatoes won't be around for awhile yet, so I figured we had to go with one of the caprese recipes using roasted tomatoes.  Luckily we had a bunch of Roma tomatoes leftover from the other evening that I had bought to make salsa.  And with Zabar's and Salumeria Rosi nearby I always have a ready source of fresh mozzarella and/or burrata.

This recipe actually calls for mozzarella but I was in a burrata mood so we did that instead.  As you can see in the picture above, burrata is a lot creamier and oozes a lot more than regular mozzarella.  I thought it was a really lovely take on caprese salad.  I might slightly prefer Mario Batali's other Winter Caprese Salad recipe (and I think my all-time favorite might be his Summer Caprese Salad but that might just be because I love heirloom tomatoes fresh from the farmers' market and no matter how delicious a roasted Roma tomato is, it just can't compare with a fresh in-season tomato) because this one was a little sweet for me.  Roasting the tomatoes already intensifies their natural sweetness and then adding the agrodolce might have pushed them over the edge of too sweet for me.  But I am being really picky with that criticism.  It was still a wonderful dish.  The man really is a genius.

Recipe after the jump!

Baby Kale Salad with Ricotta Salata

Another day, another salad.  Yay!  Actually, I had salad for lunch yesterday and today as well.  I told you I am obsessed.  That is three salads in 2 days (plus some sauteed greens with dinner last night), with different greens in each.  I came up with this salad in order to use the baby red Russian kale that I picked up at the farmers' market this weekend.  I went into 5 lbs. of Dirt to buy one thing of salad greens and ended up buying three - this kale, senposai, and some teenage lettuces (lettuce that is past the baby greens stage, but not quite adult).  I was originally planning on whipping up a new lemon vinaigrette until I remembered that I had a little bit of vinaigrette leftover from Co.'s Roasted Beet Salad with Arugula and Pepitas.   And it was exactly what I was looking for (although I did punch it up with a little extra lemon juice).  I crumbled in a little ricotta salata (also leftover from the beet salad) and voila - a perfectly light and spring-y salad.  I love the combination of lemony vinaigrette and ricotta salata, and the baby kale worked really well with both.  The baby kale was just assertive enough to stand up to it all.  I have never tried baby kale in a salad before, but I thought it was really successful.

Recipe after the jump!

Broccoli Rabe with Mozzarella Crema

I used to hate broccoli rabe.  Actually, I used to hate all bitter greens.  Hate is pretty strong - let's just say I disliked them.  I disliked all bitter greens.  I just couldn't understand why anyone would want to eat them when there are so many other more palatable options.  But I kept trying them and trying them and trying them because I have this thing about wanting to like good food.  If someone says it's good, I want to like it too.  And then one day I tried a pizza with sausage and broccoli rabe at Keste and surprisingly, I really liked it.  I'm still somewhat particular about broccoli rabe - simple sauteed broccoli rabe with garlic and evoo just doesn't do it for me.  I need some crushed red pepper flakes or some red wine vinegar, or something else to amp up the flavor and counteract some of the bitterness.  But anytime you combine it with Italian sausage I find that I really enjoy it (granted, a lot of vegetables are probably better with a little sausage).  But most of the broccoli rabe I buy comes straight from the grocery store so I acknowledge that I haven't been eating broccoli rabe at its best.  This past Saturday I saw some broccoli rabe at the farmers' market that just looked so beautiful.  I had to buy it.  The stalks were smaller and the leaves were more tender.  I knew it was going to be delicious.  So I decided to try to find a simpler way to prepare it where the flavor of the broccoli rabe wouldn't be masked too much by sausage.  After a little hunting through various cookbooks, I narrowed it down to two different Mario Batali recipes, this recipe and another recipe for Braised Broccoli Rabe in the Style of Puglia.  Once we realized that we didn't have black olives, this recipe was the only one left standing.

I enjoyed the broccoli rabe. It was incredibly simple and fresh.  You didn't get a ton of flavor from the mozzarella, but mozzarella isn't exactly a pungent cheese.  I tasted the nice grassy evoo we used more than I tasted the mozzarella, but the mozzarella did lend the dish a certain level of creaminess.  And I think the simplicity of the dish worked really nicely with the young, tender broccoli rabe.  If we had been using older broccoli rabe I think the bitterness of the green would have totally overpowered the mozzarella crema and the dish would have been far less enjoyable.  In Alex's opinion the broccoli rabe was just "fine" (which I knew he was going to say), but I like broccoli rabe a lot more than he does.

Recipe after the jump!

Roast Beet Salad with Ash-Coated Goat Cheese

So this beet salad was an amalgamation of a couple of different recipes that Alex found on About.com.  I have to admit that I wasn't thrilled with it for a number of reasons.  First and foremost, the goat cheese we bought was just way too strong.  Its flavor overpowered everything else in the dish.  You literally couldn't taste anything (except the onions).  Alex said that as far as he is concerned, we have made better beet salads and worse beet salads.  In his mind this came in somewhere in the middle.  In mine, it was near the bottom.  As far as I am concerned, the most successful recipes we have made were Roasted Beets with Lebneh and Mint, Co.'s Roasted Beet Salad with Arugula and Pepitas, and Roasted Beets with Cumin and Mint.  I'm not sure exactly where this one would fall, but I'm thinking if it's not the worst, it's among the worst.  Sorry hon - I guess we will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Recipe after the jump!

Cauliflower and Feta Omelet

I'm going through a bit of a cauliflower phase right now.  Every time I go to the farmers' market I end up picking up some more cauliflower, or I have to talk myself out of doing so.   I keep waiting for broccoflower/Romanesco broccoli to show up but I never see it.  A few weeks ago one of the vendors there told me they should have it in 2 weeks, but no such luck.  So I picked up another head of cauliflower today and we decided to use some of it today for this omelet, but save some later for roasting.  The reason we made this omelet tonight is that one of our best friends was visiting for the weekend and we gorged ourselves all weekend on Asian food - ramen, soba, yakitori and Fatty Crab.  We also had bagels, lots of cookies and chocolate.  I needed to reboot my system with some veggies and I didn't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.  So we made an omelet with the cauliflower, plus some parsley and free-range eggs, all of which came from the farmers' market.

This omelet is really easy and really filling.  It also cooks up in a flash.  Neither Alex nor I was particularly hungry this evening for dinner so we shared the omelet and that was plenty for both of us.  We were originally going to make a beet salad with it, but once we ate the omelet we decided to save the beets for tomorrow night.  Since the omelet is so simple, you really have to like the ingredients that go into it.  If you're not a fan of cauliflower, feta or parsley, don't bother.  You could try it with another type of cheese - maybe some romano cheese that you grate into the omelet while it is setting, rather than just sprinkling it over the top once you remove it from the pan.  Or you could season the cauliflower with some garlic and smoked paprika and take it a more Spanish direction with manchego.  There are a lot of options if you want to adapt the recipe to your own preferences.  I thought that sometimes the feta overwhelmed the rest of the dish, whereas Alex found the parsley a little overwhelming.  Both ingredients have pretty intense flavors so if you get a big old bite full of parsley or feta it can be a fairly serious jolt.  It's not necessarily a bad thing, but I think if I make the omelet again I will probably play with the proportions a little and try different cheeses and/or herbs.

Recipe after the jump!

Grilled Halloumi with Watermelon and Basil-Mint Oil

One of the best things about cooking is when it surprises and interests you.  You come across a recipe, you decide to give it a shot and you are wowed.  Sometimes it's a good wow, sometimes it's a bad wow.  But it always teaches you something.  This recipe for instance - the combination of halloumi cheese plus watermelon, tomatoes, mint and basil could either go really right or really wrong.  But somehow it all works.  We have combined salty cheese and watermelon before, so I know that combination works.  But adding in tomatoes?  And drizzling them with basil and mint infused evoo?  It's all a little weird.  But like I said, it works.  It's surprising, interesting, and it works.  I've said that about ten times, but it does.  I'm just not sure what else to say.  Alex said the dish would have been better if the cheese had stayed warm (it cools and hardens until it has a consistency similar to cheese curds) and the watermelon had stayed cool.  I get what he means.  The salad would be a little more striking with the contrast in temperatures.  But it still wouldn't be my favorite watermelon salad.  Because the salad has hot cheese and tomatoes it's nowhere near as refreshing as this Watermelon, Cucumber and Feta Salad.  And when I want a watermelon salad I want something light, fresh and delicious. This is delicious.  And interesting.  But it loses points when it comes to being light and fresh.

Recipe after the jump!