Shadowing Sunshine

Today I had to privilege and honor to shadow one of my most favorite food bloggists, and the former executive chef of Angelica's Kitchen, Amy Chaplin. Her celebrity clients including Natalie Portman can attest that her food and blog are not to be missed! . Check it out! http://coconutandquinoa.wordpress.com

"It feels like I am eating a chickpea for the first time," I said as I tasted a spoonful of Amy's chickpea-beet salad . That's because (as I learned today) basically I was. Amy doesn't buy her beans in a can lined with BPA plastic, she buys her beans dry, pre-soaks them, cooks them with seaweed (Kombu), and then marinates them. Seems like a waste of time? With this method of cooking legumes, there is so much more flavor, and so much less indigestion! Truly, it is like you have never tasted a bean before in your life! (A pressure cooker can speed up the process...)

Most of the things we prepared together you can find on her blog: 'white bean aoli', 'spelt pea salad'...but the roasted veges you will just have to taste just by looking at the pictures.

Chlorophyll, Sunshine, and Flavor. Eat it up. Digest. Compost. Enjoy!

La Cucina.

Lunch: manna bread, watercress, white bean aoli, avocado, and some red cabbage Kraut

Dry.

... a little bit more.

please.

Compost in NYC! There is some soil under all that concrete!

Sushi socked and thonged fashionista at work! (Me...)

Sunshine Golden Beets!

Squash! and love

Window

Find a Window. Open it...even if it is winter

and clean it.

I am talking Domestic 1950's clean.

Windex, Vinegar, Grapefruit, Geranium, Eucalyptus, Baking soda

CLEAN.

Because those 'dust balls' fall from your thoughts not from your heart.

And you got to get rid of them .

Otherwise they clump up and make you sneeze all day.

"Bless you!"

I promise you, they will come back and you can clean

and sneeze with them again another time.

There is a saying in the 'french' kitchen: Mise en place. Which roughly translates to 'have your mess in place... shit together... station clean and organized. I say, start with your window!

Summer on a Snow Day

"Hi Henry. Wanna come over and makes some vegan cakes?"

....Or not at all.

Vegan cupcakes soon turned into a trip the the wine shop. And you can't have wine with out cheese. And you can't have cheese without ham. And....so...My afternoon started with egg-replacers in mind and ended with panchetta in my soup and goat cheese on my bread. I guess reverse psychology works. My vegan intentions were not lost completely though... the cupcakes stayed vegan, as planned, everything else just got a little help from the un-kosher animal kingdom. The theme of the dinner was definitely warmth and lightness (hence the cherry tomatoes, lemon, and lavender). I wanted to taste some summer on this snowy day! But I stayed true to winter...roasting and stewing all afternoon...and taking still-lives of fruit sitting in their winter shadows like Bonnard paintings.

so...La MENU

Wine: (White) Champalou Vouvray 2008 it has a honey start and dry finish according to the people at the wine shop. Thomas Jefferson is quoted on the Bottle. "Good Wine is a Necessity of Life for Me" Thanks Jefferson! Finally a founding father who likes wine!

Cheese board: Home-ade Roasted balsamic cherry tomatoes with lavender and sage, goat cheese, ciabatta bread (Thank you Bedford Cheese Shop for the Cheese and Bread)

Soup: Corn chowder (adapted from Deb Madison) with crispy Pancetta and crispy purple potatoes on top (Thank you Union Square Market)

Dessert: Meyer-Lemon Lavender cupcakes (vegan)

I will give you the recipe for the Meyer-Lemon Lavender Cupcakes. My very own original recipe!! Try it out and tell me what you think. I am working on a frosting for it... otherwise it is more like a muffin!

First Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Have two bowls ready. One for wet ingredients and one for dry.

Combine Wet ingredients plus sugar and spices:

1/2 organic silken tofu (whipped in food processor for 2 seconds to get out lumps and bumps)

2/3 coconut oil (heated and infused with 1 1/2 Tablespoon of dried lavender florets)

2 heaping tablespoons of Tofutti Vegan sour-cream (I said vegan... not low fat!)

1 cup Fair-trade organic white sugar (non-bleached)

Zest of 1 Meyer Lemon and 2 tablespoons of juice) - feel free to reserve some juice to sprinkle on top

1 teaspoon ginger zest (for digestion)

2 teaspoons vanilla

Dry ingredients:

1 3/4 cup flour (you can use a mix of whole wheat and white -organic)

2 tablespoons arrowroot powder

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

(maybe a little more lavender florets?)

sprinkle the tops with raw sugar- for a little extra crunch and sweetness.

Combine and bake for 30-35 minutes...makes 8 lovely lemon-lavender cup cakes

Note: Meyer Lemons are like lemons except NOT. AT. ALL. They are much sweeter and less sour and are more orange in color. That being said you can substitute them for lemons any time.

DO NOT OVERSTIR wet and dry ingredients. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients gently as if you are a five year old learning how to 'fold' for the first time.

Marginally,

Mollie

(special thanks to Henry O. and Chelsea for the pics and love)

Give your Onions a Savasana!

At the 'Kula Yoga Project', a yoga studio located on North 3rd in Williamsburg, you can sweat 'spirit' and literally taste it too at it's very own vegetarian cafe called 'The Shanti Shack.' I serendipitously stumble upon this gem of a yoga studio/cafe, as a suggestion from one of my favorite yoga teachers in Providence. I took my first class, which was a home-brew of 'Ashtanga' and 'Iyenger' with some thai massage assistance, and I immediately fell in love. But I would be lying if I said it was just the yoga that seduced me, it was definitely the aroma from Brownie's cooking that made me never want to leave.

Fresh Kaffir limes, lemon grass, ginger, roasted tomatoes finished with sherry vinegar...these are the scents that waft into the yoga studio, and permeate some robust sweetness into this dry and cold winter.

Brownie is the chef and owner of 'Shanti Shack,' former chef at Le Cirque, and graduate of the French Culinary institute (with honors). She is the real deal! It is clear that cooking is her dharma ( path) and she radiates brightness into every bite of her food. I am lucky enough to be her intern twice a week! And I can already feel my cooking spirit ripen with the mix of french vocabulary, and yogic visualizations. It is safe to say I am going to culinary school for free.

Some notes from the kitchen/words of wisdom from Brownie:

1) Tomatoes take on the taste of your fridge. Leave them on the counter.

2) Eggs do three things in baking: they bind, add moisture, and are a leavening agent

3) Ginger. Put it in everything it helps make your food more digestible!

4) The term 'sweating' you will sometimes see in recipes and wonder WTF. No more. Sweating means to sauté and steam at the same time. As Brownie describes it, 'sweating' is basically like Savasana (corpse pose at the end of the yoga class) because you are extracting the flavor from whatever you are 'sweating' just like how in Savasana you are distilling the sweetness of your practice.

How to 'sweat'? Put a pat of butter and 2-4 tbsp of olive oil in a sauce-pan and turn it on relatively high. (The olive oil keeps the butter from burning) then add whatever you want to 'sweat' (traditionally onions, carrots, celery) and hear a sizzle. Next turn the heat low and cover, don't stir... for maybe 7-10 minutes -till the ingredients are cooked from the inside out (onions will become translucent). Brownie says 'sweat' your onions, and it will help prevent indigestion!

Marginally,

Mollie

Soul-food

This poem is my favorite! I invite you to nibble on it, and even carry it in your pocket so when you are hungry for more you won't starve. It is my nourishment always.

Really? Really.

Wild Geese - by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Marginally,

Mollie

Blue Bottles

I have an on-again off-again love affair with coffee and a steady relationship with sweets. So going to Blue Bottles helped satisfy both of my hungers. They have a chemistry lab for brewing coffee and a high farmstead table for standing and drinking with neighbors, friends, and strangers. I don't want to mislead you, rustic european farm life is not the atmosphere here. At $4 a cup of joe, this NYC cafe feels more like an artist's loft without any furniture.

Definitely worth the stop for some Frankincense-myrrh ginger bread ($2) and some foamy feathers engraved into your cappuccino.

marginally,

mollie

the silent g. gnocchi.

As much as I consider myself a foodie, until today I honestly had no idea what gnocchi was. To my pleasant surprise I arrived home from a yoga class to my roomate (goddess-in-disguise Chelsea) roasting butternut squash and sweet potato in the oven. "I'm making gnocchi!" she proclaimed.

I quickly learned that Gnocchi (plural?) are like the matza-balls of Italy. sort of... not really. There is no matza meal involved and no chicken soup allowed. Traditionally, these italian dumplings are made with semolina or potato flour served with the sauce of your choice. Dough balls, I think is the best way I have heard them described.

From oven to stove making gnocchi is a sticky, messy process. But I promise you they are worth it!

The basic recipe for butternut squash, sweet potato gnocchi:

mashed potato of choice (we used 2 roasted sweet potatoes and 1 31/2 oz butternut squash)

*roasting carmalizes the sugars which is nice, but if you are in a hurry feel free to boil then mash

3 cups of flour (mix of whole wheat and white)

1/2 teaspoon salt (or more for your taste buds)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of nutmeg

2 crushed garlic cloves

Combine all these ingredients in a bowl - forming a soft dough. (Warning dough should stick to itself more than it sticks to you and get the clumps out!) Meanwhile bring a large pot of water to a boil. Divide dough into four pieces and roll each piece into a long snake-like log(1/2 inch thick) and using a knife cut the log into 1/2 inch pieces. When water comes to a boil drop raw gnocchi pieces in, and take them out when they have floated to the surface.

For our sauce we made a sage-butter sauce. Super simple and yet sounds very sophisticated! Melt butter with sage. period. Sage's sent is fat soluble so it's flavor marries into the butter really nicely. We added some roasted veges (apples and mushrooms) and waahh-la! Plate. it. up!

Dessert: was brought over by a guest (Caitlyn). Apple-cheddar-pie. Southern sass in a pie is the only way I can describe it. She says her secret to the crust is using vodka instead of water.

photo by Chelsea

love,

marginally mollie

new dream job: gnocchi food-truck