bell & basket

White Bean, Red Chard and Sausage Soup

01.23.18

During the bomb cyclone of early January this White Bean, Red Chard and Sausage Soup soup got us through the snowy cold. It’s a warming, stick to your ribs, keep-you-full-for-hours kind of winter soup. And if you know me, you know I like soup.

And if you don’t know me–I’ll tell you about my love for soup. It’s my favorite food. There’s something about broth that is SO satisfying. The flavors that can be coaxed from bones, vegetable scraps or even a few onions never cease to amaze me. And when I was a kid, matzoh ball soup from The Mill Basin Deli and Sancocho (a Dominican stew of root vegetables and a variety of meats) were two of my favorite (and very different) meals.

Fast forward to college, a time in my life that is blurry and confusing–the nights I most clearly and fondly remember were nights my roommates and I ordered Asian fusion and watched tv. While others ordered California rolls and sesame chicken, my order always always consisted of two or three soups (wonton! hot and sour! miso! eggdrop!). They still make fun of me ten years later.

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Grapefruit Brown Butter Cake

01.21.18

Nobody writes songs about New York in January. It’s cold, grey, sleety and unpleasant. And this January I’ve felt the blues at times, particularly while watching the sun set at 4:45pm and while waiting for the car to warm up (while breathing into my hands to keep my fingers from falling off).

But there is an upside to this time of year–it’s citrus season! Grapefruits, easy to peel navel oranges, big organic lemons from Californian backyards (shout out to my Aunt Jill’s lemon tree), blood oranges, clementines, pomelos, and the list goes on. There’s also something about the cold that makes me crave citrus so much that my usual dessert (a scoop of vanilla ice cream) has turned into a cold navel orange, straight from the fridge.

I think it’s something biological that tells my body, “no scurvy this winter!” I’ve even gotten Colin on the “orange for dessert train” and he hasn’t even been complaining…

And in honor of the beautiful citrus season we are having thus far, I want to share this seriously delicious Grapefruit Brown Butter Cake. It’s one of those recipes that came together beautifully on the first try which never happens (it’s mashup of a Smitten Kitchen’s grapefruit yogurt cake and Ina Garten’s lemon yogurt cake).

This recipes swaps brown butter for the oil and uses buttermilk instead of yogurt. It also doesn’t call for as much sugar, which makes it a great afternoon snack cake (right at around 4pm when I need an emotional and sugar pick me up). I’ve tested this one a few more times since and I can assure you, it’s awe-some.

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Butternut Squash, Goat Cheese and Brown Butter Sage Pizza

12.30.17

My pizza making obsession began after a team building pizza night in September. After successfully pulling off a two day event, my whole team and I trekked downtown to Pizza School, where we were greeted with aprons, wine, and lots of pizza dough.

It was cheesy in all the ways (yep, I went there). There’s something scary about putting twenty extremely tired adults in a room and “teaching” them how to make pizza. No one was listening, people were talking over the teacher, he was reprimanding us–at least it was exciting!

We got to make up to three pizzas each. My first was a classic margerita, my second was a riff on bacon egg and cheese with a sunny egg in the middle, and my last was a lemon zest, ricotta and blueberry dessert pie. The pizza was great but after 3 slices I was seriously craving a salad.

These were my pizza takeaways:

It’s not that hard to make pizza at home (as long as you have a stone or pan in your oven that can get extremely hot).
It’s all about treating your dough with care.
Less toppings make for a crispier crust.

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