couscous salad

This might be my family's ultimate recipe, and I've made it dozens of times, but I've never blogged it because I never remember to take a photo (as with everything else that languishes in draft posts). The other day, however, I had the terrifying experience of realizing that I'd somehow lost the recipe (or perhaps Gmail couldn't resist swallowing it). Luckily, I'd shared it around to a bunch of friends and one of them was able to swoop in and save me. Be warned: this recipe makes a party-sized quantity of food.

Mediterranean Couscous Salad

2 cups vegetable broth
1 1/2 cups Moroccan-style couscous
1 large tomato, chopped and drained*
1/3 cup minced green onions
1/3 cup minced black olives
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 cup crumbled feta**
1 cup toasted pine nuts
1/3 cup lemon juice
2/3 cup olive oil
pepper to taste

Bring the broth to a boil, stir in couscous. Remove from the heat and let sit for five minutes. Stir and transfer to a large bowl. Let it cool while you chop the vegetables.

Add the onions, olives, cilantro, and pine nuts. Whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil and pour over the couscous, then mix through with a large spoon. Add the feta and pepper and mix again. Let the salad sit for an hour (or overnight) in the fridge. Serve with pita. Or a big spoon.

* I'm not a fan of raw tomatoes, so I usually use a red bell pepper or sun-dried tomatoes.
** Totally optional. If you leave it out (and are careful with your vegetable broth), this dish is vegan. You can also leave it on the side for people to add to their own plates.

fasírozott

This recipe came from my mother's cousin Zsuzsi, who learned it from my grandmother. The baffling way the original was written confirms that it is indeed an "old family recipe." To my delight, they came out tasting almost exactly like I remember them from my childhood.

Fasírozott (Hungarian Hamburger Patties)

1 1/2 lbs mixed ground meat (pork/beef/veal)

3/4 tsp salt

2 tbsp paprika (1 sweet, 1 hot, or however you prefer)

5 cloves garlic, pressed or minced

1 small white onion, grated or minced

1 tbsp flour

pepper to taste

3 thick slices white bread

2 eggs

breadcrumbs

Soak the bread in a shallow bowl of water for a few minutes, then wring it out and put the mush in the bottom of a large bowl. Mix in the meat, salt, paprika, garlic, onion, flour, and pepper.

Lightly beat the eggs and mix into the meat. Form small patties, about 2" across, and coat in breadcrumbs.

Either fry for 5 minutes on each side or bake in a 350ºF oven for 25-35 minutes until the meat is cooked through, flipping over for the last 10.

Best leftover trick: crumble/smoosh one patty onto a tortilla, top with cheese and hot sauce, cook as a quesadilla. Seriously addictive.

artichoke and roasted garlic dip

This stuff is so good that I couldn't even get a picture before people swarmed in and ate it. I found this recipe while trying to think of something to do with roasted garlic that was not 'eat it with a spoon because it's magically delicious.' Original is here, but I modified it quite a bit.

Artichoke and Roasted Garlic Dip

dip:
2 heads garlic
olive oil
1 can artichoke hearts, diced
2-4 green onions, sliced thin
8 oz mascarpone cheese
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/2-2/3 cup sharp cheddar (or similar)
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 tablespoon whole-seed mustard
1-2 tablespoons sriracha sauce
salt and pepper to taste

topping:
1/3 cup panko
1/4 cup grated parmesan
1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Slice the top 1/2 inch or so off the heads of garlic, and discard any loose bits of peel. Put the garlic on a square of tin foil, drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Loosely wrap the foil around the garlic and bake for about an hour or until the cloves are soft and mushy. Be smarter than me and wait until they cool before squeezing the softened cloves out into a large mixing bowl.

Mix the artichokes, onions, cheeses, mayo, mustard, and sriracha in with the garlic, and add salt and pepper to your liking. Transfer to a baking dish. Mix the topping ingredients together and spread evenly over the dip.

Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes (depending on how deep your dish is), until the panko browns a bit and the edges of the dish are bubbling. Serve with baguette slices or crackers.

Rosemary-Black Pepper Drop Biscuits

Round 2 of my bake-a-thon (unless you count the bread dough that is currently rising to be baked tomorrow, which I made after the almonds). Another Budget Bytes recipe, because she is my favorite. Original is here, as usual my changes involved upping the herbs and spices by quite a bit. I am pretty sure these are the first really good biscuits I've ever made. I'm a little speechless with their deliciousness.

Rosemary-Black Pepper Drop Biscuits

2 cups flour
1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp dried or fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
1 tsp sugar
about 1 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 400ºF and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, pepper, and rosemary in a large bowl.

Cut the butter into pieces and work it into the flour mixture, either with your fingers or a pastry cutter, until the whole thing is more or less the texture of sand (specifically the sand you'd find along the shore of Lake Erie, not that fine-grained ocean stuff...).

Make a well in the middle of the mixture and pour in 3/4 of a cup of the milk (I actually used half-and-half because I had it on hand, no problems so far). Mix the milk through the flour and butter, stirring as few times as possible but making sure everything is sticking together. Add a little more milk if you need it.

Use two big spoons to drop dollops of the batter onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. The recipe should make between 8 and 12, depending on how big you want them. Bake for 18-28 minutes, until the biscuits are brown on top. Serve immediately, or toast in the oven later. Slather with honey butter.*

* To make honey butter, let a stick of butter sit on the counter for half an hour and then use a fork or electric mixer to blend in 1/3 cup honey. Lick your fingers.

candied almonds

I've had a bag of almonds sitting around for months (pretty much since the original recipe was first published), but I finally had the type of free time where I decided that 'bake allllll the things' was the order of the day. Didn't change anything on this one except to double the cinnamon, because that's what I do.

Candied Almonds

1 lb shelled almonds (peels on, preferably)
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 300ºF. Mix the brown sugar, white sugar, cinnamon, and salt together in a small bowl.

Separate the egg white from the yolk, and discard the latter (or save it for an omelette or something). Whisk the white in a large metal or glass bowl until it's entirely foam and no liquid. Add the vanilla and whisk a bit more.

Toss the almonds in the egg white until they're coated, then add the sugar mixture and stir through.

Spread the almonds on parchment paper or foil on a large baking sheet. They don't have to be spread evenly, but avoid big piles, as they'll stick together.

Bake for 30 minutes, stirring halfway through. Let the almonds cool for at least half an hour, and then stir again to break up clumps and shake off excess sugar.

Then hide them from yourself because otherwise you'll eat all of them.

lazy lettuce wraps for the win

If you ever need to use up a whole bunch of lettuce but are incredibly sick of salads... order Korean street food take-away and use the rice and pickled radishes to make lettuce wraps (or you could, you know, spend ten minutes making some fried rice). Have no excuse for the fried chicken, but damn was it tasty. And I ate three heads of Butter Lettuce in two days, which means I don't feel bad about accidentally buying way too much.

Ottolenghi's Surprise Tatin, Mostly

Over the last two weeks, I've made four different vegetable pies/tarts either directly out of or based on recipes from Yotam Ottolenghi's spectacular cookbook, Plenty. Three of them were made yesterday, because I'm a little bit insane. I am actually planning to announce my engagement to this magical book to my family at Christmas. Because... it's just that good. Here's the first of the recipes, and definitely my favorite of the four pies. I made a number of changes to ingredients based on what I had on hand, so if you'd like the original recipe you can find it here. (Note on the photo: I forgot to add the herbs before the potatoes, so they're hiding underneath. It would look much nicer if they were on top.)

surprise tatin modified recipe

2/3 cup sundried tomatoes in oil, drained

4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

1 small onion, diced

1 lb baby potatoes, washed but not peeled

2 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for dish

3 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp butter

1/4 cup chopped fresh sage leaves

6 oz sharp cheddar cheese, thinly sliced

1 sheet puff pastry

1 small egg, beaten (optional)

parchment paper

Cook the potatoes in boiling, salted water for about 20 minutes or until softened. Drain and cool. Trim the tops and bottoms, and cut into 1-inch-thick discs. Preheat the oven to 400F.

Sauté the onion in the oil and a bit of salt over medium heat, or until brown. Add the garlic for the last few minutes, and cook until softened.

Pour a small amount of olive oil into the bottom of your pie pan, and use a paper towel or basting brush to wipe it evenly over the inside of the dish. Cut out a circle of parchment paper and line the bottom of the pan.

In a small pot, cook the sugar and butter on high heat until it forms a semi-dark caramel. Quickly pour the caramel into the pan (on top of the parchment paper) and tilt the dish to spread it evenly (you may need to use a spoon to help spread it). Scatter the chopped sage over the caramel.

Place the potato slices close together on top of the caramel, filling the pan. Gently press the onions, garlic, and sundried tomatoes into the spaces between the slices. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and spread the cheese slices evenly over the vegetables.

Roll out the sheet of puff pastry until it's a little bigger than the pan, and cut it into a circle. Place this on top of the cheese, tucking the edges down around the potatoes. Brush with the beaten egg if you have it on hand. 

Bake for 25 minutes, reduce the temperature to 350F and bake for another 15 or 20 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown and puffy. Remove from the oven and let sit for a couple of minutes. Set a (heatproof!) plate upside-down over the dish and quickly flip them over so that the tart falls gently onto the plate.

The fact that I managed to flip this without damaging it is one of my proudest moments of the year. That never, ever works for me.

Crisp vegetable stir-fry with peanut sauce

I'm posting this more because it was so damn pretty than because it's a unique recipe, but it was damn tasty as well as being lovely. Nothing even vaguely authentic, just something I threw together because I had lots of vegetables and some leftover peanut sauce.

Peanut Sauce

1/2 cup peanut butter
2-3 dashes soy sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
sriracha sauce to taste
water

Mix the peanut butter, soy sauce, sriracha, and garlic powder together until the mixture is smooth. You may have to heat it a little to get it to mix, so do the mixing in a microwavable dish or a small saucepan. Add water, a tablespoon or so at a time, until the mixture has a thin-ish sauce consistency. Dip stuff into it or put it on stuff. Will last at least a week in the fridge.


Crisp Vegetable Stir-Fry

1 large carrot, chopped
1 large bell pepper or 4-5 mini ones, sliced
5-10 thin slices of lotus root
4 large radishes, sliced
1/4 cup fresh basil leaves, roughly shredded
1 package firm tofu, baked/fried or steamed (your choice)
1/3 cup peanut sauce (plus a little more water)
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 tablespoon mirin
soy sauce to taste
rice

Heat the oil in a large wok or pan, and cook the carrots over medium/medium-high heat for about three minutes. Mix in the mirin and a few splashes of soy sauce. The idea behind this dish being 'crisp' is that all the vegetables retain some of their crunch, so don't let anything cook too long.

 Add the peppers and lotus root. Cook for two or three minutes, then add the peanut sauce. Splash in another tablespoon or so of water to help it liquify if it's not melting, and stir to coat the vegetables.

When the sauce is evenly distributed, add the radishes, and cook for another minute. Stir in the tofu, coating it with the sauce. Add the basil and cook another few seconds, until it's just barely wilted.

Serve with rice, sriracha, and black sesame seeds.

apologies... but an alternative!

I haven't really been cooking lately, so it's been all too quiet over here... but I've been cramming my tumblr with pretty things and stray thoughts (mostly during class or homework time, shhh), so you can get your fill of my impeccable taste over there. The only real news is that I moved into a completely gorgeous new apartment, one corner of which you can see above. Sorry if you missed me. I promise I miss you too.

Moonrise Kingdom

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We can probably assume that Hank Williams will now get trendy with the young ones, thanks to this film. Maybe also Françoise Hardy. I'm hoping the floral smocks and fantastic eyewear also catch on.

It was a lovely film. I got to flatter myself by seeing a lot of me-at-12 in Suzy (I mean, running away with a suitcase full of hardbacks? Obviously.) and the romance was sweet. And the girl was taller than the boy, which is a sweet bit of realism that I think most filmmakers wouldn't have admitted. I would have liked to hear more of their penpal letters, and see more of Frances McDormand and Bruce Willis interacting. The latter relationship seemed like shorthand, just a suggestion and "well you know how these things go." Which isn't wrong, really, when you're used to Wes Anderson's world, but I love them both so much I just wanted to see them together a bit more. 

As fantastic as the kids were, I was at times more invested in the adults and their panic. I guess that means I'm on the wrong side of the Peter Pan divide these days. Or maybe because it was just obvious from the beginning that this is a happy-ending American fairy tale, not a dark European one where Siegfried and Odette go over the cliff at the end. So the adults seemed to have more at stake--their problems were trivial compared to world-creating young love, and therefore they might actually have been in danger of losing.

How to Spend an Afternoon Avoiding Napping (With Bonus Lo Mein)

1. Come home from work very, very tired, a little after 4 p.m. You've barely slept the last two nights because you were speeding through Mike Carey's awesome Lucifer comics and then some random books you loved in fifth grade. Wish you could take a nap, but know that this will extinguish any hope of actually sleeping tonight.

2. Realize you're very, very hungry. Of course you are--you stayed up until 5 a.m. and had to be at your internship by 9, so you didn't get up until 8:23 when some telemarketer called you. Feel grateful to the telemarketer because you'd already slept through both your alarms, and proud of yourself because you managed to wash your hair and still get to the internship on time. But you didn't eat breakfast. Actually, you never eat breakfast.

3. Unfortunately pride in your clean hair doesn't negate hunger. You ran straight from internship to work, so you didn't have time for lunch either. But now you're done for the day, so you can eat! A coworker mentioned Chinese food on the way out. Spend forty minutes scrolling through Chinese delivery menus online. Actually start an order for pork buns and the fried tofu dish you love from that one place in Cleveland but that's never all that good anywhere else. Get all the way to typing in your card number and then realize that by the time the food gets there you'll have lost interest in it.

4. Decide to make Chinese food yourself. Or something like it. You bought some lo mein noodles last time you were at the big grocery store. And there's a bunch of broccoli in your fridge that was going to be soup until the world decided a week or so averaging 96ºF was a reasonable way to kick off July.

5. Drain a block of tofu, wrap it up, and put it on a plate. Stack on top of it: one glass baking pan, one very small cast iron skillet, two cook books (Andrew Swallow's Mixt and the anniversary edition of Silver Palate) and two graphic novels (Habibi and American Born Chinese), because they're on top of the stack next to the kitchen counter (it's a tiny studio apartment, these things happen). Boil the lo mein noodles. Immediately notice that there are way more than you expected.

6. Think vaguely about buying some more vegetables. Realize that the little, overpriced grocery store around the corner is actually open, since for once you didn't get out of work at 9 p.m. Dump the last of your sugar into a pot with some water and make simple syrup, because you're out of it and now you can actually buy regular white sugar, which the (much nicer) co-op with better hours doesn't carry. Cover the syrup and go to the grocery store. Purchase a bottle of white vinegar, honey in a bear shape, 5 pounds of sugar, and a bottle of seltzer so you can make sangria (what did you think the syrup was for?). Ignore the vegetables.

7. Return home. Fry the tofu, which somehow bucked all the books off the pile and onto the kitchen floor while you were gone. Chop every vegetable you possess. Swear at the onion and nearly take your eye out wiping away tears without putting down the knife. Put the tofu on a plate, drain out most of the oil, stir-fry the vegetables. Dump in rice wine and soy sauce and some other things. Do the thing where you put some water on some cornstarch and add it so you can call what's in your pan "sauce." Boil it, because simmering is for patient people. Add the noodles. Add sriracha, and some black sesame seeds, because they go on everything.

8. Realize you've just spent three hours obtaining dinner, even though you were hungry enough you were worried about fainting. At least you didn't take a nap. Write a blog post about it because you're too tired to figure out a recipe for the lo mein and just tired enough to think the whole thing was funny.

Sweet Potato Corn Fritters

The basis for this recipe is from the excellent Budget Bytes, but I changed it a fair bit based on what was in my fridge. These things are ridiculously delicious, look reasonably nice on the plate, and only require you to actually be near the stove/oven for a couple of minutes total--excellent summer recipe. Serves two to four people, depending on whether it's a side dish or main course.

2 sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
10(ish) chives, chopped small
2 tsp hot paprika
2 tsp cumin
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup cornmeal
3/4-1 cup breadcrumbs or panko
2 eggs
1 cup corn kernels (if they're frozen, let them sit out while you mix everything else)
a few tablespoons of vegetable oil
dip/sauce of your choice

Wrap the sweet potatoes into a loose foil bundle and bake at 375ºF until soft enough to mash--about 45 or 50 minutes. Or else use the very clever microwave trick from the original recipe, which I can't try because I don't have a microwave.

Let the potatoes cool for a while, then mix in the eggs, chives, spices, and cornmeal. I ended up doing this in my food processor because I got impatient (hungry) and took the potatoes out early and they weren't quite soft enough, but you can just stir if you don't feel like doing more dishes than necessary.

Stir in the breadcrumbs and corn kernels, cover, and refrigerate for half an hour. Take the opportunity to make some sriracha mayonnaise like mine (Recipe: stir sriracha into mayo until it's almost too hot to deal with, refrigerate until needed.) or garlic yoghurt sauce like the original.

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Form the potato mixture into small patties (you should end up with about ten) and fry them for 2 to 3 minutes on each side or until they're a little bit crisp. Serve with your sauce. Try not to immediately make three more batches, unless you're inviting a whole bunch of people over to share the magic.

I am still obsessed with the Flower Pepper I bought at Trader Joe's nine months ago. 

It goes on everything.

Titan AE and stuff

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So, I'm re-watching this movie because someone on io9 mentioned it and I was like "oh that one was fun." It's not very good, really, but I just realized that 

a) this is the movie I saw on what I suppose was my first date ever, which was twelve years ago give or take a few weeks

b) Joss Whedon was one of the writers. 

Also it's the movie that introduced me to Cynthia von Buhler's rad old band Splashdown (actually I think it was her ex-husband's, but she was pretty involved?), which led to me getting into bands (or alt-cabaret acts?) like Rasputina and the Dresden Dolls (and therefore the most wonderful Amanda Palmer) and thereby developing really good taste in music that didn't necessarily depend on the latest recommendation from proto-hipster sites like early-days Pitchfork and Auralgasms or on my mother's extensive love for Janis and Joni (not that any of those were bad things by any means, but a healthy variation of influences was good for me).

So I guess I have a lot to thank it for and should just shut up and enjoy it instead of making fun of it on the internet. Plus, that late-90s, early-2000s animation style where everything looked like Cowboy Bebop was pretty rad.

tarhonya

Tarhonya is a Hungarian egg noodle that seems to be cooked differently by everyone I've asked... but this is the way my mother makes it (quite obviously the superior method). Though it's technically more like a pasta, I usually treat my tarhonya more like rice, mixing it with whatever's on hand in my fridge and stir-frying a bit. On its own it makes a great side-dish for more or less any meat or vegetable course.

Tarhonya noodles are a bit hard to find, but I've had luck at places with a lot of European imports and big grocery stores in neighborhoods with Jewish and Eastern European populations (Fairway had three different kinds when I lived on the Upper West Side, it was great). The different brands are variously referred to as tarhonya, egg farvel, and toasted barley noodles. Unfortunately none of those links are to actually purchasable products at the moment (unless you want to buy in bulk), but they should give you an idea of what to look for in the store and I'll update this post if I find a good seller online. You can also make your own noodles, which looks fairly simple, but I haven't done it yet as I've usually been able to find the pre-made noodles when I need them. I'll let you know if I try it out.

The way I cook tarhonya is similar to the way risotto is cooked. I use a wok, but you can also use a large pot or a frying pan with fairly deep sides. Have a lid or large plate on hand to cover the pan.

1 package tarhonya
1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
4-5 cups broth at room temperature (I use vegetable broth)*
paprika to taste
water
additional ingredients to suit your palate

*A 12 oz package will use four cups or so of broth (I don't really keep track), but if you run out you can use warm water towards the end--broth adds flavor, but water will cook the noodles just as well.

Heat the oil in the bottom of your pan on a medium-low setting. Add the tarhonya and slowly toast until lightly browned (if you're using the Manischewitz kind it's already toasted, but do heat it a bit in the oil). Take your time with this--the tarhonya won't cook right or taste very good if you burn it.

When the tarhonya is toasted, stir in about 1/2 cup of the broth. Continue stirring (like risotto) until the broth has been mostly absorbed, and add another 1/2 cup. Keep doing this until the tarhonya is tender but still firm and all of the broth has been absorbed. Stir some paprika through the noodles.  Put the lid (or plate) on the wok/pot/pan and let the tarhonya and let it sit for ten minutes.

While you're waiting, chop up some onions and sautee them in butter or oil with a bit of paprika and garlic powder (or fresh garlic). Mix this with the tarhonya and serve for a traditional-style dish, or stir-fry briefly with vegetables, sausage, cheese, or whatever you have on hand for an original one. The version pictured at the top of this entry has sauteed onions, chunks of grilled sausage, and daikon greens (my latest food obsession).

windy day

windy day by whiskeyinyrshoes featuring slip on shoes

Perfect outfit for a day so windy there's a severe weather warning, isn't it? If I were a Regency lady I'd have been run out of town for all the flashes of ankle (and leg, and knee) I showed as I walked down the street. Except they wouldn't have been able to tell who I was because my hair was blowing all over my face like Cousin It.

vegetable stock

Bonus recipe: Vegetable Stock

Making vegetable stock is basically the easiest thing in the world: put vegetables in a big pot, pour in water, and boil the heck out of them. But here's how I do mine, which is vaguely based on the recipe in Mark Bittman's magic book, heavily influenced by half-remembered advice from my mother, and more or less just made up as I go along. The ingredients on the list are the ones I used on Friday, but you can use pretty much whatever you have on hand. Bittman is a big proponent of including mushrooms, which I didn't have in my fridge.

1 large red onion, chopped but not peeled
5 ribs of celery, chopped
3 carrots, scrubbed but not peeled, chopped into rounds
5 large cloves of garlic, inner peels left on
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
generous splash of soy sauce (optional; Bittman's recommendation)
1 pound (or so) of assorted peels, greens, and scrap, washed.

In a small amount of oil in the bottom of a very big pot, brown these vegetables just as much as you feel like browning them. Then throw in your pile of scraps. Mine for this batch of stock was a bundle of scallion tops and carrot peels left over from making fried rice on Thursday, plus the greens from a daikon radish, and a roasted beet that I'd frozen before spring break and thawed out in the fridge overnight.

Mix the scraps with your vegetables and pour in water until the pot is mostly full (I think Bittman recommends 14 cups? I used about 16). Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and keep at a brisk simmer for at least half an hour, or until the vegetables are mushy (Bittman says something like "very tender," which I find amusingly euphemistic). The longer you cook it, the more flavor you'll get.

Let the stock cool for a while and then carefully strain into storage containers, pressing the vegetables to get as much of the broth out as possible. I ended up with about twenty cups of broth, which is a lot. Two four-cup containers went into the freezer, and about four more cups went into ice cube trays (this is a Martha Stewart trick my mother told me about, and great for when you just need a little bit of liquid to add to a dish), and the rest went into a pitcher in the fridge to become the base of my leek and potato soup on Saturday.

St Patrick's Day: Leek & Potato Soup with Soda Bread

 
As usual, I decided to bake a loaf of soda bread for the St. Patrick's day, substituting actual Irish food for the messy American traditions of green beer and bad sausage. For once, I didn't make the decision at 8 p.m. on the holiday itself, so I had time to plan an actual meal around it. On Friday, I made an enormous batch of stock (see my next post for the recipe). Most of it went into the freezer, but what didn't fit obviously needed to become soup. Something containing potatoes seemed in order, and I had some leeks, and Mark Bittman's magical How to Cook Everything had a recipe, and so... leek and potato soup. I changed up the very basic recipe (which Bittman calls "medieval") for a bit more flavor, but more or less followed his method.

2-3 leeks, white and pale green parts only, cut into thin rounds
3 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 small white onion, diced
2-3 tablespoons butter or olive oil
6-8 cups vegetable stock (enough to cover the vegetables, plus another cup)
1 1/4 cup heavy cream
1 bay leaf
salt and black pepper to taste
thinly sliced scallions and hot paprika for garnish

Melt the butter in a large stock pot over medium heat. Put the vegetables into the pot, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir until they begin to soften (five minutes or so).

Pour in the broth and simmer briskly for twenty minutes or so, until the vegetables are quite soft. Adjust the salt and pepper to taste. At this point, you can eat the soup--it's vegan (if you used oil instead of butter), and healthy, and totally delicious. But you can also make it more awesome...

Let the soup cool for at least half an hour, and carefully blend it, using an immersion blender (preferred method) or by transferring to a traditional blender (don't fill it too high or it will attack you, like when I made butternut squash soup). Add the bay leaf and cream and slowly reheat to just below boiling. Take out the bay leaf and serve hot.

Garnish with scallions and a dash of hot paprika (or a lot of hot paprika), eat with dense, crumbly bread.

Sunflower seeds react within the bread for a festive green touch.

Two of us made a dent in the pot of soup before going out for the evening... and the four of us who came back later demolished it completely, along with most of a bottle of whiskey and a stack of poetry books. Overall, a good holiday.

Procrastination Mixtape #2

(via brynnasaurus)


Another edition of Procrastination Mixtapes! I put a little more work into ordering this one, so... the sequence of Luna, The Kills, and Petula is totally intentional. I don't know what I was thinking either. I suppose this is a Valentine's mix in that two songs have the word "love" in their titles, but considering the absurd ratio of love songs to non-love songs I feel like that doesn't qualify it as different from most other mixes. I just wanted to share that lovely bit of Sherlock nerd art. Mostly while I was making the playlist I just thought about how Machine Go Boom was really, really good and I wonder what those guys are up to now. Anyone know?

My little hyacinth only took two days to bloom, and my apartment smells like the one perfect Easter morning I spent in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam in 2007.

homework day playlist

Here's some music. I have no explanation for the song choices, and I haven't arranged the track order at all. But this is still better than doing work.