Rustic Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart

Who doesn't love the combination of tomatoes, basil and cheese?  Generally I pair tomatoes with fresh mozzarella rather than goat cheese, but goat cheese gives this tart a nice tangy richness that would have been lacking if I had used mozzarella instead.  With the goat cheese I couldn't resist a touch of lemon zest to mix up the flavors a bit.  I also thought about using a little fresh thyme mixed in with the goat cheese and lemon zest, but I realized that we were out.  Oh well.  It was lovely with the basil.  Perhaps if I try the tart again using puff pastry or different vegetables (I have been considering making a variation on this recipe with zucchini or summer squash for a little while now) I will use thyme instead of basil.

Alex's only complaint about dinner was that the part of the crust covered by the tomato and goat cheese mixture was not as flaky as he would like (translation - it was a little soggy).  Unfortunately with this kind of tart I didn't think I could blind bake the crust for a few minutes before topping it with goat cheese and tomatoes and folding the edges up.  I'm not really sure how to fix that issue, but for me it wasn't a problem.  The folded up portions of crust were more than flaky and buttery enough for me.  I don't think that a homemade pie crust would have been any flakier than the store bought one, but it might.  I will have to experiment with a homemade crust next time to make sure.  If I had more time tonight I would have whipped up a crust in my food processor, but by the time we started on dinner it was already past 7pm and I didn't want to make the crust, and then let it sit in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before I could move on to rolling the crust out and starting the tart. I'm also not sure that the puff pastry under the goat cheese would have crisped up during baking, but I think that I could at least dock it (poke the dough full of holes so it doesn't rise too much) in the center, and then bake it for 5-10 minutes before adding the goat cheese mixture.  Since I wouldn't fold up the edges with the puff pastry, but would instead allow the pastry to puff up and form a crust by not docking the outsides, it should work...  Since we are just starting to head into tomato season now I should have plenty of chances to experiment!

Recipe after the jump!

Asian Kohlrabi Slaw

Our meal tonight was another attempt to use up produce from our CSA, as well as food from our freezer.  Since we had frozen pork and chive dumpling filling and frozen wonton wrappers, we made pork dumplings.  To go with it we threw together an Asian slaw with the kohlrabi and cabbage from the CSA.  I'm not usually a huge coleslaw component - all of that cabbage and mayo together just throws me off.  But what else do you do with a head of cabbage and some kohlrabi?  I liked the idea of an Asian-inspired slaw because it wouldn't require the use of mayonnaise.  I know that I am ridiculous in my bias against mayo, but I just can't help it.  So instead of mayo I made a dressing with toasted sesame oil, rice vinegar, fish sauce and lime juice.  Yum.  This slaw is a lovely side dish for any meal, Asian, Asian-inspired, or not, and is perfect for a hot summer day when the thought of eating anything heavy just makes you cringe.  It is light, fresh, and very tasty.

Recipe after the jump!

Farro with Garlic Scape Pesto

One of the best (and worst) things about belonging to a CSA is that you end up with all sorts of random veggies that you then have to learn how to cook.  For instance, as of this afternoon we had 12 garlic scapes in the fridge, 1 kohlrabi, 1/2 lb. arugula, 1/2 lb. dandelion greens, 5 radishes, 6 turnips, 1 head romaine lettuce, and 1 head cabbage.  So tonight's dinner was inspired by a desire to get some of that produce out of the fridge.  Although, looking back, I should have picked one of the bulkier items to get out of the fridge.  Instead I picked the absolute smallest thing in there.  Oh well.  Live and learn.  We have been using the garlic scapes in small amounts in various dishes for the past two weeks.  But what do you do with 12 garlic scapes?  The only thing that came to mind was to make a pesto.  But I wasn't in the mood for pasta, so I decided to cook up some farro and toss it with the garlic scape pesto.  I figured that farro requires some seriously robust flavors.  When cooked and served plain, it reminds me of eating plain oats or barley, with a hint of brown rice thrown in.  But it can be made into a farro risotto aka a "farrotto" (like the one I tried at Perilla in New York), or it can be cooked in various vegetable soups like a pasta to give them more body and make them heartier.

This pesto is very assertive.  Garlic scapes are fairly mild when cooked, but keep some of their garlicky bite when raw.  But farro benefits from assertive flavors, so I thought it would be a natural pairing.  Alex and I both agreed that while we were trying for a vegetarian dinner (after dinner on Wednesday at 5 Napkin Burger, and Prune on Tuesday we really needed something light), this farro would be great served with chicken sausage.  Or if you wanted to buy a rotisserie chicken you could toss that in with some grilled asparagus for a wonderful meal.  We served the farro with a nice tomato-mozzarella salad and that was lovely as well.

Recipe after the jump!

Prune

This evening Alex and I tried the restaurant Prune down in the East Village for the first time.  And I am in love.  I cannot describe in words how much I truly enjoyed tonight's meal, but I can say that I enjoyed it more than recent meals at Volt, Ouest, Tangled Vine, Co., and maybe even Marea.  The only restaurant that Alex and I could come up with that we might have enjoyed as much as Prune was Umi Nom out in Brooklyn.  But I have to say that Prune won that battle for me.  I can best describe what we tried there as the very best versions of the very best ingredients, so simply prepared that all you taste are the purity of the ingredients themselves.  And it is WONDERFUL.  Now I know why Anthony Bourdain is always talking about Prune (and chef Gabrielle Hamilton) and how much he loves it/her.  I only wish I had brought my camera with me to take pictures, but to be honest, pictures wouldn't have done the meal justice.  For those who are curious about what we ate (even though there are no pictures), Alex and I had:

• Roasted Marrow Bones, parsley salad, sea salt
• Marinated White Anchovies, celery hearts, toasted Marcona almonds
• Fried Sweetbreads with bacon and capers
• Seared Duck Breast with dandelion greens, raisin-caper dressing
• Coco Blanc Beans with Chanterelles and Maine shrimp.

Every last dish was amazing.  But you have to try the marrow bones.  Alex and I came up with the same phrase to describe the marrow - it's like the most delicious butter ever.  And who doesn't love butter?

Buta no Kakuni (Japanese Braised Pork Belly)

Pork belly is far and away Alex's favorite meat.  If there is pork belly on a menu I know that he will zero in on and it, and unless the cooking method is completely outlandish, he will want to order it.  It's just his thing.  And I admit that I really enjoy pork belly in all kinds of dishes - Momofuku's steamed buns (or Tangled Vine's pork montaditos), the watermelon pickle and crispy pork at Fatty Crab, and the siu yuk (crispy Cantonese pork belly) served in Chinatown to name a few.  But because pork belly takes so incredibly long to cook and isn't readily available in your average grocery store or butcher, we have never made it at home.  Instead it has remained a restaurant only indulgence.  But I got a little overexcited on one of my recent shopping trips in Chinatown and came home with a pound of pork belly that has been languishing away in the freezer.  So it was time to suck it up and make something deliciously fatty with it.  This dish (and pork belly in general) is kind of a gut buster, so I wouldn't recommend making or eating it very often, unless of course you are trying to seriously clog your arteries and pack on more than a few pounds.

Alex and I spent awhile online Googling recipes and randomly both came up with different recipes for buta no kakuni (Japanese braised pork belly).  It sounded delicious, and pretty easy, so why not?  All of the recipes I came across online had some standard ingredients (sugar, ginger, star anise, soy sauce).  And then some mixed it up a bit and added in leeks, hard-boiled eggs, and sake.  One or two of the recipes served the pork belly with a spicy mustard paste.  So I went through all of the various recipes and came up with my own to use the ingredients we had in the fridge.  Somehow the pork wasn't quite as rich and flavorful as I had thought it would be after the 3 hour braise.  It needs some sort of spice or something to jazz it up a bit.  That might be because I was expecting a flavor profile more like a traditional Chinese red braised pork aka hongshao rou (which is a dish that I love that uses similar ingredients and a similar cooking method), but who knows?  We didn't have any of the Japanese mustard that the dish is sometimes served with, so we tried topping it with sesame oil, shichimi togarashi, and wasabi paste.  The pork belly was good, but there's something missing.  It might take another attempt to figure out just what was missing, but I will figure it out now that I know how simple pork belly is to make!  Or maybe I will try and make myself some hongshao rou instead...

Recipe after the jump!

Cornmeal-Crusted Chicken Breasts with Honey-Mustard Dipping Sauce

This is the type of easy meal that I love to make during the week when I want something tasty, but I'm just not in the mood for fancy recipes that dirty up lots of pots and pans, or that require tons of time and effort.  I love boneless, skinless chicken breast cutlets for this dish because they cook up quickly and easily - by the time the cornmeal crust is nice and golden brown, the cutlets inside are perfectly cooked.  If you tried to use regular chicken breasts you would either have to slice them thinly (so that the slices are about 1/3-inch thick), or pound them to the same thickness (which is something I hate doing).  In this case, I'll take the shortcut from the grocery store and use the pre-sliced cutlets.  One of the greatest things about this recipe is how versatile it is.  You can use whatever herbs and seasonings you want in your crust - this time I used fresh parsley and thyme because I like the combination of them with the Dijon mustard, but if you don't have any fresh herbs feel free to use whatever dried herbs you have in your pantry.  You can also omit the Dijon mustard entirely if it's just not your thing.  I personally think that the Dijon gives the chicken a little extra tang and some nice flavor, but that's just me.  I also like to make a dipping sauce of coarse Dijon mustard, honey, and a tiny drizzle of evoo to thin it out a bit to serve with the chicken.

We served up the chicken with the rest of the store-bought dried spaetzle (tossed lightly in evoo and freshly ground black pepper), and a simple arugula salad.  You could also serve the chicken over pasta as a sort of chicken parm, or serve it over a nice mixed greens salad.  Alex thinks that it would be equally good served with sweet potato, or regular potato fries.  He also recommended serving it with a cold pasta or potato salad.  My husband loves starch - can you tell?  This was exactly the type of light, fresh, easy, but still delicious meal that I was craving after a nice work out at the gym.  If only all of my meals came together this quickly and this successfully!

Recipe after the jump!

Merquez Sausage Sandwich

A few years ago I discovered D'Artagnan's sausages.  I have tried several of the different varieties, including the wild boar sausage, the Andouille sausage, and the lamb merguez sausage.  Thus far, the merguez has been my favorite.  It's nicely spicy and incredibly flavorful.  Generally I cook the sausages in skillet and then serve them with a couscous I like to make with a combination of sauteed yellow onions, currants, toasted pine nuts, and flat-leaf parsley.  The sweetness of the currants pairs with the spicy sausages, and the couscous soaks up all of the wonderful sausage juices.  But last night I wasn't feeling the couscous (which is good because when I looked in the cabinet I discovered we were out of currants).  Instead I took some inspiration from B.Cafe and whipped up a mergeuz sausage sandwich on nice crusty bread, which we topped with sauteed red onions and garlic scapes, plus a nice fried egg (I love fresh organic eggs - they have such wonderfully rich, orange yolks).  I served my sandwich open-faced because for once I didn't want all of the bread, but Alex wanted an actual sandwich so that's what he got.  

This sausage sandwich is seriously yummy.  The egg yolk give the whole dish some extra richness, and provides it with something of a sauce.  The sauteed onions and garlic scapes provide a bit of freshness and another layer of flavor.   Then there's that delicious sausage.  But this certainly isn't a light meal - you need to serve it with a nice arugula salad to cut the heavy, rich flavors.  We were out of arugula so I served it with a big bowl of nice cherries from our CSA, and that also helped to balance out the richness of it all.

Recipe after the jump!