Tomatoes

It's peak tomato season! Go out to the farmers market or farm stand and buy them and eat them before tomato season ends! With a little mozzarella, basil, balsamic, and olive oil you can have the most amazing salad. I <3 p="" tomatoes="">

And these are from our garden, which did really well this year! We had tomoatoes, snap peas, cucumbers, zucchini, green beans, strawberries, eggplant, and more hot peppers than ever. Keep an eye out for a Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce - coming to the blog soon and it's incredible. 

Thai Style Grilled Corn

First off, I apologize for my very long absence! I had an amazing summer home with baby, and while I was still cooking, I was not good about taking pictures and documenting. Promise to get better! We have the world's most adorable and sweet baby and now that she is a wonderful little sleeper, I have plenty of time to make dinner once she's down. 

Jamie got me a the amazing cook book of one of my favorite restaurants, Pokpok, and I've loved everything I've made so far. Some of the recipes involve a whole slew of impossible to find ingredients (although anything can be found on the internet!), but some are very simple, like this corn recipe. We love, love, love summer corn and usually just eat it on the cob with butter because it's so good that way. If you're looking for a change of pace with your later-summer corn consumption, this is the way to go. The coconut milk with sugar and salt is so simple but amazingly tasty (I want to put it on everything) and the squeeze of lime give it a little zip. We had it one night with spicy Thai cucumber salad and Thai-style skirt steak, and another night with grilled veggies. Yum!

Roasted Chicken Thighs with Broccoli and Carrots

After a mini vacation in California eating everything in sight, I wanted a nice, homey meal. I love this recipe for roasted chicken and wanted to change it up with broccoli and carrots. Yum! It's easy, pretty healthy, and a great weeknight meal. Your house will smell amazing when you cook it. 

Classic Carbonara

On a cold or dreary day, there's nothing like a creamy plate of spaghetti carbonara. I know I've made the leek carbonara before, but I wanted to go for a really basic, classic carbonara. Usually you're supposed to use dried pasta, but after watching Master of None all weekend, I was inspired to make it with fresh spaghetti. Yum! It's so good and creamy and salty and delicious, and the little bites of crispy pancetta are just the best. This is easy and cheap, too, so a great weeknight dinner. 

Black Garlic-Roasted Cornish Game Hen

This is a simple and tasty weeknight dinner. I used black garlic, but you can swap in regular garlic - just halve it and mash it to a paste. The black garlic is a sweeter more subtle garlic flavor. 

Mustard and Creme Fraiche-Roasted Fish

This is a quick, easy, and tasty Ina Garten recipe. The whole thing takes about 20 minutes. The sauce is so flavorful.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

2 filets of fish (I used striped bass - wonder why?)

1/2 cup creme fraiche 

1.5 tbsp Dijon mustard

1/2 tbsp grainy mustard

1 small shallot, finely chopped

1 tsp capers, drained

Salt and pepper

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425. Mix the creme fraiche, mustards, shallot, and capers and season with salt and pepper. 

Chopped Salad

I love a good chopped salad. I spent last week eating pretty poorly, so I was craving a lot of good, raw veggies and this is the perfect way to get a ton of them at once. It's very easy. Just pick out your favorite veggies, chop the bigger ones into slices or chunks, add some nuts or dried fruit, add some lettuce, and pulse it in a food processor until it's finely chopped. Then add some dressing. That's it.

I used cucumbers, radishes, craisins, snap peas, grape tomatoes, cannelini beans, broccoli, shallots, cashews, and carrots (and lettuce). You can use whatever veggies you like, but I recommend a mix of textures and flavors. Carrots and snap peas add a good crunch, and usually I like putting in avocado because it kind of binds it all together but there were no ripe ones at the grocery.

Easy Spicy Grilled Snap Peas

We have an abundance of snap peas and I've been trying to think of new ways to cook them/eat them. They're so good when they are raw and have a nice crunch, but that's a little limiting. We were grilling last night, so I took a couple of handfuls of snap peas and tossed them with olive oil, a little minced garlic, salt, cayenne, a little cumin, and a pinch of sugar. Jamie grilled them for about 5 minutes. They were warm and crunchy and a little charred with a great sweet, spicy, fresh flavor. Such a nice way to serve them, and an excellent side dish.

The dogs were interested in the snap peas.

Ramp Spaghetti

This is a Maria Batali recipe - very simple and just highlighting the ramp flavor. This is a perfect for a quick weeknight dinner.

Chilled Cucumber Ramp Soup

If you're in New York City, you might have heard that it's ramp season. Ramps are wild leeks that come out in April and May. Some people think they're overrated, but I love them. I bought a big bunch from the farmers market and played around with some new recipes this weekend. More to come this week, but I'll start off with the super simple, slightly spicy, very refreshing cucumber soup. (If you can't get ramps, you can use garlic and/or shallots, or scallions.) There are just 6 ingredients and it takes all of 2 minutes to make.

Spicy Tomato Soup

This is a nice and cheap soup, and really easy. Great novice soup recipe (I'm looking at you, Alice!) I love Barbara Lynch and saw the recipe on Food52 and had to try it. Yum! It's very simple but really nice, especially with a gooey grilled cheese.

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil

1 yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 big tsp red pepper flakes (or more or less, depending how spicy you want it)

1 1/2 cups water

2 28oz cans whole tomatoes with their juices

salt and pepper

big handfull of basil

Easy Scallop Spaghetti

I love going to Cor J in Hampton Bays for seafood. It's the best. Big variety and reasonably priced. This time I went looking for Peconic bay scallops, but unfortunately they didn't have any that day. I got sea scallops instead. I wanted to do a simple pasta and found this recipe online that sounded perfect. It was really simple, fresh, and light.

Serves 2

Ingredients:

6-10 sea scallops

2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed

1/2 lb spaghetti

olive oil

butter

handful parsley, cleaned, dried, and chopped

white wine

Easy Oven Tomato Sauce

Oh wow. This is a game changing pasta sauce. It was so tangy and bright and rich, and the best part, EASY. So easy. You just throw it all in a baking dish and put it in the oven. I was inspired by this recipe, but tweaked it a little to give it a little of a puttanesca feel. We finished dinner in record time. Yum! It would also be great for a big group. Lasagna has that great smell and flavor of slightly burnt tomato sauce from the bits that stick to the pan and brown up - this has it too and it's delicious. Your kitchen/house/apartment will smell like heaven.

Fast Mashed Canned Black Beans

This is a delicious side for Mexican food, and would be perfect as a layer for a 7-layer dip. It's incredibly easy, and very cheap, and I just love black beans. I probably don't even have to say it, but it's from Truly Mexican. (There's a theme this week...)

Ingredients:
1 can black beans, including liquid, plus 1/4 cup water
1 tbsp mild olive oil or vegetable oil
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp  chipotle chili powder (or more if you like more spice)
1/4 tsp dried oregano, crumbled

Cornflake-Crusted Chicken

I've always heard good things about using cornflakes on chicken, so when I was in the grocery and looking for a cheap dinner, I decided to try it. It's really easy and has a great, flavorful crunch. Feel free to change the seasoning.

Serve 3-4
Ingredients:
4 skinless chicken thighs
1 cup crushed corn flakes
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp freshly chopping basil
1 tsp freshly chopped parsley
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/2 tsp dried thyme
big pinch of cayenne pepper
1 egg
1 tbsp water

Pea Soup (another Ina)

Another Ina recipe here. I wanted a simple but homemade lunch for us on Sunday and this looked great. It's easy and a great lunch (I've been eating leftovers for days).

Serves 6
Ingredients:
Good olive oil
2 lb frozen peas
4 cups chicken stock
2 large shallots, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
6 slices prosciutto or serrano ham

Directions:
In a big pot, heat 2 tbsp olive oil over medium and add shallots, sautéing for 3-5 minutes until soft and starting for brown. Add garlic and cook for 1 minute. Add stock, peas, 2 tsp salt, and 1 teaspoon fresh ground pepper and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

Lara's Chocolate Mousse

My sweet friends gave me a cook book at my wedding shower and everyone put in a recipe. For my first one, I tried Lara's chocolate mousse. She had told me about it before and it sounded delicious, and also easy. It was fabulous! Thank you for the recipe, Lara! It's so easy and so rich and chocolatey. I only wish I could find the amazing Belgian Cote D'Or chocolate in the US, but maybe she can bring me some next time she's in Belgium...

Ingredients:
Cote D'Or dark chocolate (or another kind - I used Ghirardelli)
Eggs (one egg per bar)
Milk
Sugar (one small spoon per bar)

Directions:

Creamed Corn (sans cream!)

Corn is so, so good right now, and I saw this recipe for cream-free creamed corn and had to try it. It basically just concentrates the amazing, sweet flavor of good summer corn. It's amazing! Before I added the salt, it was so sweet if my eyes were closed I could have sworn it was apple sauce. This is easy and becomes a less messy way to eat corn (as opposed to on the cob) and I can't wait to make it again!

(Average an ear per person)
Ingredients:
4 ears of corn
2 tbsp butter
1-2 scallions or 1 small shallot, diced (optional)
salt and pepper (very important)

Directions:
Grate the corn into a bowl using a box grater. Be sure to get all the juice you can out of the cobs. (I cut them in half first to make it easier.) Heat up the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the scallion/onion/shallot if you're using it and saute until soft but not brown. Add the corn and stir, cooking until thickened (about 5 minutes). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Plum Torte (aka best summer dessert)

My mom has always made plum torte at the end of the summer when the little sugar plums come out. (She said the New York Times used to run the recipe every summer but stopped several years ago.) It's bittersweet because I'm so excited for it, but it also means summer is coming to an end. I made one this weekend after finding the little plums at the farm stand. It's just the best - the batter is sweet and fluffy, the top is crusted with cinnamon sugar, and the plus are juicy and tart. It's also pretty simple. If you can find these plums, make this torte and watch it disappear. I love it with a little vanilla ice cream, or in the morning for breakfast!

Ingredients:

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

Tomato Sandwich

Tom Robbins wrote a story saying how if he was on death row and he could request anything he wanted for his last meal, it would be a tomato sandwich.* (Man after my own heart.) One with white wonder bread, mayonnaise, and the best summer tomatoes. When you get it right, a tomato sandwich is unbelievably good. The tomatoes are the star and the tomato juice mixes with the mayo and oozes into the bread and it's amazing. Luckily, today, I had a whole bunch of ripe, colorful, bursting-with-flavor tomatoes (from the garden, of course), some good white bread, and some quickly whipped up basil mayo. Yum! This might have to be my lunch from now until my tomato plants die.

Quick Basil Mayo:
Ingredients:
A small handful basil leaves, finely chopped
Squeeze of lemon juice
1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp mayo
pinch of salt

Directions:
Mix it all together, add more salt if necessary.

*Tom Robbins is one of my favorite authors and this was from "Wild Ducks Flying Backward."