Does this mean we're posting again?

I hope so..

I moved recently into an apartment in Coolidge Corner!

The first Friday night we were there we had a nice roomate bonding dinner.


The Lamb chops were marinated in yogurt with cumin and tumeric, and then rubbed with some more spices before broiling for a couple of minutes on each side, making sure to follow Xiaoxi's law: don't second guess your meat and leave it in the oven for a bit longer - it'll be overdone.
The rice was steamed with some cheapo saffron, and then I mixed in some coconut milk after it was cooked.

For dessert, Raina, one of my new roomates, made bread pudding with garam masala spices.
Unfortunately we didn't take a picture.

Hopefully now that I've moved out (which actually happened a month ago) I, and maybe others, will start posting again on a more regular basis, so we can share more food adventures and drool over pictures. Speaking of which does anyone wanna find or write a post about how to take good food photography?

Brats with a twist

It is easier to get creative with some ingredients than with others. Boneless skinless chicken breasts are simple. Right away I think of chicken tenders, tandoori chicken, a stir fry, chicken tacos....the possibilities are endless. Brats are a bigger challenge. There is this default of popping them on the grill and then into a bun. At the Pearl Market this week, Jack and I had our horizons expanded by the Dorper Lamb farm. The were offering samples of brat pieces sauteed with green peppers and onions in olive oil. It was delicious. Part of what made it so good was that it is easily the best lamb I have ever tried, but the method also added a lot.
For my rendition, I put a tablespoon of butter and some olive oil into a saute pan and heated them up well. I then added some diced onion to the pan and cooked them until they were starting to caramelize. Next the brats went in until they were fully cooked. Finally, I made a coarsely chopped arugula and rosemary "pesto" and added that to the pan, letting it cook long enough for the arugula to lose its bite. With this meal the brat was fun again - - and especially delicious!

Family Affair

One of the nicest things about growing up (and having my siblings grow up) is that we are able to have collaboratively prepared meals. It makes the whole cooking and eating experience so much more rewarding to have the family function as a culinary team. Hovering over the cutting board is a good place to learn from each other, both about food and about each others lives. This is one of the rare group activities that we all enjoy together.

For dinner we had a rack of lamb, roasted green beans and quartered new potatoes. We kept the seasonings pretty simple to highlight the delicious ingredients. I made an olive oil rub for the lamb with dried rosemary, fresh ground pepper, salt, and minced garlic. Rob carefully applied the mixture all over the lamb. The meat was then finished by our father aka they "jedi master" of the grill. It turned out deliciously, but next time he thinks he would put tin foil over the ribs and to stick with his instincts on the touch. Part of being the jedi master is to constantly be fine tuning your technique!

Jack's job was to cut the green beans. He treated each green bean as an individual, cutting them one by one into small pieces. These were roasted at 450 degrees topped with olive oil, salt and pepper.

Dad also took on the potatoes. He shook them in a bag with salt, pepper, rosemary, Italian seasoning, Cajun seasoning, and vegetable oil to get them evenly coated. These were then baked at 450 for a good 40 minutes until they were soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. It makes for a very texturally stimulating side dish!

We finished the meal off with some ice cream from Jeni's, a local Ohio chain that was recently written up by Bon Appetit magazine for having some of this country's best ice cream. Now I have some real Ohio pride! What I love about Jeni's is that they support a collection of local farmers for the cream and other ingredients. The flavors are inspired by seasonal ingredients and are unlike flavors found anywhere else. Dad had lemon blueberry yogurt, Rob had Salty Caramel, Jack had Lime Cardamom, and I had Wildberry Lavender. I plan to visit some of the dairies that serve Jeni's and post in more detail on the sustainable and delicious practices that they uphold.

Lamb Burritos

We had some leftover lamb chops which I was afraid were going to go bad, so I decided to cut the meat off them to make burritos.


I started by sauteing a red onion in some olive oil. I then added some cumin, chili powder and coriander, and threw in a red pepper and the lamb meat. We let it cook until the meat was brown throughout- they had been cooked to medium rare.

The burritos were constructed with some lettuce, the meat mixture, salsa, and some cheddar cheese.

Sarah's birthday

For Sarah's birthday we woke her up with H&H bagels (Emily made a trip to New York and brought these back), baked her a cake in the shape of a jellyfish, and then cooked a celebratory dinner with her favorite foods. The cake recipe is from (where else?) the Smitten Kitchen, and we topped it with some homemade bubble candy that Emily made. The tentacles are made of bubble tape.

For Sarah's birthday dinner, the main course was lamb loin chops. I put them under the broiler for about four minutes on each side, and they turned out bleedingly rare, just the way Sarah likes them. I marinated them in olive oil, salt and pepper, minced garlic, cumin, coriander, and fresh chopped mint (all to taste) Somehow I forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but here's the raw meat:
The best part of this whole dinner was that we ate it outside and played frisbee after dinner: Becca is now good enough to go pro. Finally, it's spring.

A Celebratory Dinner

The Food:
Xiaoxi did the most incredible senior thesis. She is a music major and she put on an opera for which she composed the music for the orchestra, wrote the lyrics, and acted as conductor/director. Needless to say, this project made her disappear for awhile so when it was finally over I proposed that we have a celebratory dinner. Xiaoxi and I like to eat meat together, so naturally that had to be part of the plan. On the menu tonight was a rack of lamb, roasted Brussels sprouts, and couscous. Xiaoxi made a delicious apple tart which rounded the feast out nicely.
The lamb was absolutely delicious. I covered the rack generously with pesto sauce which served to lock in moisture. Additionally, it became crispy as the lamb cooked which allowed for a very nice textural contrast. The lamb was roasted, along with some quartered sprouts in a 450 degree oven for about 10 minutes.

More Florida, More Feasting

It was another gorgeous day in Florida. I spent the day shelling, reading, napping, and soaking up some much needed sun. There is nothing like sunshine and salt air for the appetite though. Come dinner time, I was ravenous, and luckily I was in for another lovely meal.
Tonights menu was lamb shanks, a white bean side, sugar snap peas and a pear, gorgonzola and walnut salad.

The salad was truly divine! This salad is one of G-pa's favorites so it always reminds me of time spent with my grandparents. It has such a perfect combination of ingredients!

The lamb shanks were also a real treat! I quizzed my grandmother on her method so that we can avoid another night of disasters. She enjoys lamb shanks because they are quite economical. The real trick is to sear them before baking them in order to get a crispy caramelized outer coating. An added bonus is that this cooks off a lot of the tough outer fat. She reccomends baking them at 350 for 45 minutes (or more to increase the tenderness factor!) and then at 400 for 15 minutes. They are delicious atop the white beans (a recipe invented by G-ma herself), but she also says they are good on brown rice.

And for the recipe de jour, here is how to make those beans!
1) Add 1 chopped sweet onion, 3 cloves worth of minced garlic, and 1/2 cup of chopped carrots to a pan in which oil (or ideally some of the fat used for searing the lamb) has been heating
2) Cover the pan and cook over low heat until the vegetables are softened. You may want to add a bit of chicken broth to aid this process. Periodically scrape the browning off the bottom of the pan.
3) Rinse and drain 2 cans (15.8 oz) of Great Northern bean and add them to the pan. Also add a can of diced tomatos (G-ma prefers Del Monte's blend with garlic in it). Next add 1-2 cups of chicken broth, half the juice from the diced tomatoes, salt, pepper and dried thyme (2 tsp).
4) Put bean mix in a 5 x 10 baking dish. In G-ma's original recipe this was to go with lamb shanks (and this is how we ate it tonight), if you are going for this version arrange the lamb shanks on top.
5) Poke a few bay leaves down into the beans. Check the moisture level, you don't want the beans to be swimming but they should be moist enough to avoid drying out. Cook at 350 for 45 minutes and then at 400 for 15 minutes until beans are creamy and tender!

lamb tenderloin

The Food:
Today was impossibly cold, the kind of day where you try to bury yourself in your jacket as you scurry around campus. I had my hood sinched up tightly and moved from place to place as fast as I could. At the end of my very busy Tuesday I wanted something warm and hearty. You know, the kind of dish that has been bubbling along all afternoon. Unfortunately, I only had 20 minutes....AND the only vegetable in the house was an eggplant - something I had never cooked before. Going without the vegetable was unthinkable; I grew up having a veggie, a carb, and a protein on my plate each night around the table with my mom and brothers. This meant I had a challenge on my hands - a new food and very little time.
Luckily, under Avi's tutelage I have learned to pull my nose out of the cookbook and start cooking creatively. I made up a satisfying recipe on the fly. Sauteeing garlic, eggplant, and diced tomatoes yielded a deliciously hearty sauce.


The sauce was thrown on top of some pastina (adorable star-shaped pastas for those of you who haven't had it). This was then topped with lamb tenderloin. I had this unusual cut of meat for the first time over winter break and found it to be succulent and delicious. I was thrilled when I saw them at Whole Foods! This is definetly a cut to try - very easy to cook and a large payoff.
The People Who Ate It:

Sarah, Xiaoxi, Avi!
The Whole Foods Conquerers