Stir fried noodles with shrimp, green beans, and carrots

I am so excited about this recipe. This is the first time that I've been able to make a stir fry that actually tasted like something from our favorite Thai spot. Now, I have no idea if our local Thai place makes authentic food or not - I just know that it is tasty. My favorite thing to order from there is the drunken noodles - spicy stir fried noodles with veggies and shrimp. Contrary to what you might expect, there's no alcohol in drunken noodles - one theory about the name is that the noodles are so spicy that you need to drink beer to cool down. Anyway, a couple weeks ago I was craving drunken noodles and decided to see if I could make a decent version at home. I did some recipe research, and used this one as a starting point. The result wasn't quite what I wanted so I made some modifications and came up with the version that I'm sharing here, which is the perfect blend of sweet, salty, and spicy. It came out just as I had hoped and I love that I can make a homemade version of my favorite takeout dish. Now I just have to figure out how to make Andrew's favorite fried rice...

Tomato chutney

The last couple weekends have been filled with family time - Andrew and I spent last weekend at the Cape with some of my family, and we were at my cousin's wedding last night in Boston. My family is a lot of fun, so I'm always happy to have the chance to spend time with them. Getting to eat homemade Indian food makes it all the better. Family recipes are one of my favorite sources for blog inspiration. I love trying new recipes in general, but it's extra special to learn how to make a family favorite. When we were at the Cape, my mom made a batch of her tomato chutney one day. After snacking on it all afternoon, I decided that I needed to learn how to make it, and that I had to do it while tomatoes were still in season. My parents were staying at our apartment this past weekend because of the wedding, so I had the chance to go to the farmers' market with my mom and pick out some gorgeous tomatoes for this dish. She taught me how to make it, and the batch she made disappeared pretty fast! Good thing I know how to make it myself now so I can whip it up whenever I want. This chutney is absolutely addictive with bread, crackers, and cheese, and as my mom says, a glass of wine makes it even better!

Grilled vegetables with Malaysian vinaigrette

My cast iron grill pan has been getting a lot of use this summer. We don't own a real grill, so we have to make do with the grill pan until we move somewhere with outdoor space. Luckily, the grill pan makes nice grill marks and actually imparts a pretty decent smoky flavor. It's perfect for recipes like this (although of course, if you have a real grill, you can definitely use it!). Here, eggplant, corn, and green beans get grilled to perfection and tossed with handfuls of herbs and a zingy Malaysian vinaigrette. The dish is simple and super flavorful, and takes advantage of summer's wonderful fresh veggies and herbs.

p.s. My blog turns two years old tomorrow! Unfortunately, I don't have my act together enough to plan and write a special post for my blog's birthday. So I'll just say yay! Happy birthday to Four Seasons of Food! Thank you to everyone who has stopped by, commented, or tried one of my recipes. You keep me motivated to continue posting, and I hugely appreciate your support.

Baked eggs with greens, yogurt, and spiced butter

Sorry for the lack of posts in the last couple weeks. Things suddenly got very busy, due to my job search as well as a number of social and family commitments, and I was having trouble coming up with good recipe ideas. But after a very, very relaxing few days at my parents' house, I'm ready to get cooking again! There's nothing like being spoiled by my parents to get me re-energized =).

I have been having a lot of fun creating original recipes lately, but it's still always nice to get back into my cookbooks for a while and get new inspiration from there. If you are a regular reader, then you know that I am a big fan of Yotam Ottolenghi, the author of Plenty. Flipping through Plenty always gets my mind buzzing with interesting ideas and flavor combinations, and I seem to come across something new every time I look through the book. This time I was drawn in by a recipe for baked eggs with arugula, yogurt, and chile oil. A variation of the same recipe appeared in the January 2012 issue of Bon Appetit, and I decided to mix and match components from the two Ottolenghi recipes along with a couple twists of my own.

We loved this dish - with some toasted crusty bread, it made a wonderful dinner, and would be equally good for brunch or lunch. It's got spinach and arugula, which makes it perfect for spring, and the creamy yogurt is the perfect complement to the spiced butter that is drizzled over the whole dish.

Roasted carrots with browned butter and thyme

Sometimes I can't really decide whether something I've made is too simple to count as a real recipe. For example, the side dishes I cook for normal dinners are often just sauteed or roasted veggies with some salt and pepper, and the breakfast I eat most days is yogurt with fruit and granola. In my opinion, even though dishes like those are consumed often in my house, they aren't really worth blogging about. So when does a dish cross the line and become interesting enough to tell people about? I don't think there's a single right answer to this that applies to every blog - it really depends on the style of the blog and the target audience. I'm personally still trying to figure out my thoughts on this question and would love to hear your opinions!

I was originally unsure whether this carrot dish was blog-worthy. Carrots and thyme is not an original flavor combination, but it is a pairing that I honestly think is transcendent. There's something about thyme that elevates roasted carrots to a whole new level. The dish would be pretty good without the browned butter, but the butter makes it a bit more special, worthy of serving at a holiday dinner. So once I thought about how much I like this simple side dish, it seemed clear that I should share it with you and my decision was made!

Mango fried rice with cashews and shrimp

You might have noticed that I've been posting a lot of original recipes lately. I'm officially done with grad school now, and I am taking some time off to relax and do some career-related introspection, along with lots of cooking, of course! Creating my own recipes is a little project that I've been working on now that I have more free time. I still spend plenty of quality time with my cookbooks and reading food blogs/websites, but the recipes I see serve mostly as inspiration as I develop my own ideas.

This inspiration for this fried rice recipe came from both a cookbook and a blog. I was flipping through one of my favorite cookbooks, Ottolenghi's Plenty, last week and a recipe for mango and coconut rice salad caught my eye. And then I saw Lauren's recent post about kale salad with mango and avocado which also looked pretty tasty. I don't know if it was the incredible warm weather last week, but I was really craving tropical fruit! Anyway, those two salad recipes ended up getting merged in my mind and morphing into this fried rice. It's got shrimp, cashews, mango, toasted coconut, onion, red bell pepper, kale, ginger, and loads of cilantro and basil (if there's one lesson I've learned from Plenty, it is that I shouldn't be afraid to really amp up the amount of herbs I use in my cooking). I'm very proud of this recipe - it's pretty freaking delicious. The mango ends up kind of melting into the rice and adding a great sweet fruity note to the sauce. I really loved the combination of the tropical mango and coconut flavors with the local New England kale - all the ingredients really come together into a well rounded, filling, and flavorful meal.

Quinoa veggie bowl with tofu and peanut-miso sauce

I have a confession – until recently, I didn’t like quinoa very much. Gasp! I hope this doesn’t ruin my credibility as a healthy(ish) food blogger. I guess I tend to prefer heartier grains and felt that quinoa was kind of….bland. However, a recipe for a quinoa/rice/veggie bowl in last month’s issue of Food & Wine caught my eye and put quinoa in my head. I tossed some ideas around for a while, and eventually decided to combine quinoa with toasted coconut, add some zucchini, broccoli, and tofu, and drizzle with a peanut-miso sauce. A little avocado on top made the dish complete, at least in my avocado-obsessed mind. I loved this healthy meal, and something about quinoa in this context just worked well for me. I’m definitely opening up to the idea of cooking with quinoa more often now!

What is your favorite quinoa recipe?

Chocolate-whiskey cake

I'm excited to finally tell you about one of my absolute favorite cakes! I first made this cake over two years ago for a dinner party - I came across the recipe in Gourmet Today and decided to try it simply because, well, how can you turn down chocolate + booze for dessert? It was a major hit with my friends - perfectly moist and chocolatey, with just enough whiskey flavor to elevate the cake to a level of sophistication that you don't usually find in chocolate cake. And if the deliciousness of the cake wasn't enough to convince you to try it, it's actually quite straightforward to make and improves if made ahead of time! It is the perfect choice if you are looking for a simple but impressive dessert to serve to guests (but if you eat it all yourself, I wouldn't blame you).

What is your go-to dessert for guests?

Moroccan ragout with poached eggs

When I saw this recipe highlighted on Food52, I knew that I had to make it soon and I knew it was going to be amazing. Sausage and tomato sauce with Moroccan spices and poached eggs? Yes please. I changed the recipe a bit, reducing the amount of oil, using Spanish chorizo instead of merguez sausage, and substituting potatoes for half the sausage. It really was fantastic - we gobbled up half of it for dinner on Saturday night and the leftovers were even better for lunch the next day. And I might have eaten the last remaining bit for breakfast today. This is one of those standout dishes that I'd happily eat for every meal of the day - I already can't wait to make it again!

Pasta with cauliflower and brussels sprouts

I am loving the latest issue of Food + Wine! It got me really excited about brassicas, of all things. In case you don't know, brassicas are a group of vegetables that include cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts, among others - they are in full force at the markets right now. These are really not the most exciting vegetables and I usually struggle to find anything even halfway interesting to make with them. But after reading through Food + Wine, I actually went to the market last weekend hoping to get cabbage, and worrying that the brussels sprouts would be gone before I got there. (Side note: I actually had two anxiety dreams last week that involved not being able to get to the farmers' market. How weird am I?...Don't answer that). Anyway, this pasta dish was the first one I made out of all the recipes I tagged in the magazine. It's got nicely browned cauliflower and brussels sprouts, with tons of flavor from garlic, anchovies, rosemary, thyme, and cheese, all topped off with toasted bread crumbs. It was awesome! Hope you're ready for more brassica recipes in the next week or two...

What vegetables do you struggle the most to get excited about? 

Fresh corn polenta with eggplant sauce

A few weeks ago I found myself in the Harvard Coop bookstore with some time to kill. Yotam Ottolenghi's cookbook Plenty was featured on the display table in the cookbook section, so I picked up a copy to flip through. I'd heard of the Ottolenghi restaurants and had seen this book mentioned on a couple other blogs, so I figured I'd take a few minutes to check it out. Well, I probably spent 45 minutes sitting in the Coop with that book - I couldn't put it down until I had looked at every single recipe. Every dish was so creative, with mouthwatering combinations of ingredients that I never would have thought of. It really got my brain was buzzing with inspiration and new ideas. It was the most exciting cookbook I had seen in a long time, and for me, that is saying a lot. I knew I had to have it.

But...here's the thing. I buy too many cookbooks. And after the last round of cookbook buying, I promised myself that I would not buy any more cookbooks this year unless the price was drastically reduced (as in less than $5). I knew I could ask for Plenty for my birthday, if I could just hang on till October. So, with great force of will, I convinced myself not to buy it.

So for a few weeks, I contented myself with looking at Ottolenghi's The New Vegetarian column in The Guardian. And then...I found out that I was selected for a pretty sweet graduate fellowship that comes with a monetary reward. So I figured that I deserved to treat myself to a little something...and I bought Plenty. And also another cookbook. Oh, and some new baking pans. Um, so yeah...my resolve doesn't last too long when I prohibit myself from buying food-related things!

Anyway, that is the long story of how I came to own Plenty, my new obsession. This book is genius. I've made two recipes from it this week and I can't wait to try more. The first thing I made was the corn polenta with eggplant sauce, made with fresh corn kernels. Fresh corn - my other obsession! I loooove soft polenta and was really curious to try this version. Well, it was fantastic. Like Ottolenghi says in the intro, it's kind of like baby food, but in the best possible way. So comforting. And the eggplant sauce is quick and easy to put together and adds rich flavor.

What cookbooks are on your wishlist right now?

Roasted peppers and tomatoes baked with capers and olives

I am desperately holding on to summer in my kitchen. This weekend it really hit me that summer produce will be gone from the markets soon, and I had a minor panic attack about all the recipes I haven't made yet and won't be able to make until next summer - an eternity away! (yeah, yeah I know, #firstworldproblems). But then I remembered that even though Labor Day has come and gone, summer growing season hasn't actually ended yet. I calmed down and made an epic cooking plan for the week, making the most of the summeriest of fruits and vegetables. I even made some preserves, which I'll tell you about later. For now, I'm going to focus on this tomato and pepper dish, from Deborah Madison's Local Flavors. Big strips of roasted peppers and tomatoes are baked together with herbs, garlic, capers, and olives. The final product is a colorful, incredibly fragrant and flavorful dish that makes you feel like you are in some sunny Mediterranean country. It's very versatile - we ate it plain, on top of toasted bread, and stuffed into pitas with a spread of goat cheese. It would also pair well with hummus and would make a delicious sandwich with some mozzarella cheese. This recipe is definitely making it onto my Favorites page!

What are your favorite end of summer recipes?

Baked mussels with parsley garlic butter

I love mussels. The best part of eating mussels for me is sopping up all the flavorful broth with pieces of toasted bread. For a long time I thought of mussels as restaurant food, but then I realized how easy they are to cook at home (and they are pretty cheap too!). Now I make them fairly regularly, either as an appetizer if we are having guests, or as a main course with a side salad. This recipe is my current favorite way to prepare mussels. All you have to do is make a compound butter with parsley and garlic, spread it over mussels in a baking pan, cover, and bake. It is very simple and you don't have to stand over the stovetop waiting for them to open up. The butter melts and combines with the mussel juices to make the most delicious dipping sauce for bread.

Zucchini carpaccio salad

It is finally time for me to introduce you to my favorite summer salad! I am the kind of person that almost never repeats recipes, because I always get distracted by new ones that I "need" to try, but I like this salad so much that I make it several times each summer. For me, summer hasn't really arrived until I can get arugula and zucchini at the farmers' market and make this. I first ran into this recipe over at Smitten Kitchen. The salad is simple - arugula and paper-thin slices of zucchini, with lemon juice, olive oil, and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese - but it is so, so refreshing and delicious. A mandoline slicer definitely makes it easier to cut the super thin zucchini slices, but a vegetable peeler will work in a pinch. 

Zucchini carpaccio salad

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Serves 4-6

3 large zucchini (about 1 1/2 pounds)
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
1/2 pound arugula, stems discarded and leaves cut into bite sized pieces
1/2 cup coarsely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese (about 1 oz.)
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Juice of one lemon
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Cut zucchini crosswise into paper-thin slices. Toss zucchini in a colander with 1 tsp salt and allow to drain (in the sink or over a large bowl) for 20 minutes. Rinse zucchini well and pat dry with a kitchen towel or paper towels.

In a large salad bowl, toss arugula with 1/4 cup cheese, 1/4 tsp salt, and 1 1/2 tbs olive oil. Arrange zucchini slices over arugula, drizzle with remaining 1 1/2 tbs olive oil and lemon juice. Sprinkle with remaining 1/4 cup cheese and pepper.

Salad is best served immediately.

Chocolate cake with Nutella frosting

My sister's birthday was last week, and we had her over for a birthday dinner last night. I asked her what kind of cake she wanted me to make, and she said chocolate with hazelnuts. I didn't find a satisfactory recipe in my cookbooks, so I decided to adapt a double chocolate layer cake recipe that I found in Gourmet Today. To get the hazelnut flavor in there, I added Nutella to the chocolate frosting, and also used Nutella between the cake layers instead of frosting.

Let me tell you, this cake is incredible. Just incredible. It's rich, intensely chocolatey, and very moist, and the Nutella adds a nice flavor dimension. The frosting is a ganache, which was pretty easy to make and work with. This chocolate cake recipe is an absolute keeper, and popular opinion agrees with me - turns out it is one of the all-time highest rated recipes on Epicurious. You'll never need another chocolate cake recipe again after trying this one!

Garlic-sesame broccoli salad

 

This is another gem from Melissa Clark's In the Kitchen With a Good Appetite. It's a simple salad of raw broccoli - yes, raw, but I swear it's really good - marinated in olive oil with some red wine vinegar, garlic, cumin, red pepper flakes, and sesame oil. It's really delicious - the vinegar takes the rawness out of the broccoli, leaving it crisp and bright green, and the marinade is very flavorful. Andrew loved it and was surprised to hear that the broccoli wasn't cooked at all. The dish is super quick to put together, and just needs to marinate for at least an hour before eating. I generally don't get too excited when I see broccoli at the market, but this recipe has got me already looking forward to buying some more. I'm interested in trying this "cooking" technique with some other combinations of spices and acids...I bet there are a lot of great directions it can go.

Garlic-sesame broccoli salad
Adapted from In the Kitchen With a Good Appetite
Serves 3-4 as a side dish

1 head of broccoli, weighing about 1 pound, cut into small florets
3/4 tsp red wine vinegar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup plus 2 tbs extra-virgin olive oil
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp Asian roasted sesame oil
Large pinch red pepper flakes

Mix together the vinegar and salt in a large bowl. Add the broccoli florets and mix well. Heat olive oil in a saucepan over medium heat until hot but not smoking. Add garlic and cumin and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and add red pepper flakes and sesame oil. Pour oil mixture over broccoli and toss to coat broccoli evenly with dressing. Let sit for 1-2 hours at room temperature, or if you want to keep it longer than 2 hours, marinate in the fridge (for up to 48 hours). Taste for salt and adjust if necessary before serving.

Cranberry pecan caramel bars

Yesterday, to procrastinate working on a paper, I baked up a batch of these delectable bars (and now, to procrastinate more, I'm blogging about it). I found the recipe in The Gourmet Cookbook a few days ago, and couldn't wait to try it. The bars have a layer of buttery shortbread topped with caramel, cranberries, and pecans, and finished with a drizzle of chocolate. They're decadent and perfect for the holidays, especially because cranberries are in season right now. The tart cranberries keep things from getting too sweet, and the combination of flavors and textures is fantastic. I especially liked the way the slightly salty shortbread worked with the sweet-tart topping.

I experimented a bit with the shortbread, using a mixture of all-purpose, white whole wheat, and oat flour, which gave it a slightly complex, nutty flavor. I also scaled the recipe so that the bars would fit in a 9 x 13 inch pan, rather than a 10 1/2 x 15 1/2 (who has a pan that size with sides?). Sorry for the slightly odd measurements that resulted. But given how buttery and delicious these are, it's probably best for my waistline that I didn't make the full recipe...

One important note: Make sure you have all the ingredients ready before you start the caramel step. You don't want to end up panicking because the caramel is already boiling and the corn syrup lid is stuck closed and you haven't yet toasted the nuts or chopped the cranberries. Yeah..that happened. Andrew actually had to punch a hole through the top of the corn syrup jar for me. Just be organized and you'll avoid the stress!

Andrew and I are leaving for India in a week, and I probably won't be able to post again until we return in December. Have a happy Thanksgiving!

Thai red curry squash soup

 
It's November (!), which means all my cooking magazines are filled with Thanksgiving recipes. I don't usually get very excited about Thanksgiving, which is a shame for such a food-centered holiday. My family never did a traditional Thanksgiving when I was growing up (my mom is a vegetarian, so roasting a turkey wasn't exactly an option), so I don't have a nostalgic attachment to the food. And although Thanksgiving food is always good, it's usually not that exciting, especially for someone who grew up on spicy Indian food. Which is why I was very happy to see the current issue of Food & Wine feature a series of Asian-inspired Thanksgiving recipes created by Joanne Chang (the chef behind the amazing Flour Bakery + Cafe). I love the idea of giving Thanksgiving food a multicultural twist - maybe I'll be creating an Indian-inspired Thanksgiving feast for my own family one day...

Out of all the recipes in the feature, the red curry squash soup looked especially appetizing, and seemed like the perfect way to use the butternut squash that had been sitting on our counter for about a month. And the soup definitely lived up to expectations - it was totally delicious, creamy, and flavorful. The curry and coconut milk blend really well with the flavor of the squash, without overpowering it. Plus the soup gets even better after sitting in the fridge for a day or two, so you can make it ahead of time.

Recipe notes: The recipe suggests kabocha, kuri, or buttercup squash, but I used butternut, and it was fantastic. I left out the lemongrass, lime leaves, and scallions because I didn't have any, and added a handful of cilantro leaves at the end. Andrew and I both thought the cilantro added really good flavor to the soup. I also added more than the suggested 1 tbs lime juice.

Kale salad with sherry-walnut vinaigrette

When I was younger, my parents would sometimes let me help cook when people were coming over for dinner. This resulted in some mishaps (accidentally putting way too much chile powder in a taco filling, for example), but there were also successes. In particular, I remember making a salad once with greens, blue cheese, apples, and walnuts. Until then, my salads had always consisted of lettuce with chopped vegetables, so the idea of a salad with fruit/cheese/nuts instead of veggies was something of a revelation to me. And I think that salad gave me my first taste of blue cheese, which I am very grateful for!

This kale salad was something I put together for lunch last weekend, and it came out really good. And it also gave me my first taste of a new cheese, ricotta salata in this case. I went for a sweet-salty theme with the salad - sweet raisins, salty cheese, sweet & salty roasted walnuts. The dressing is from The Gourmet Cookbook - Andrew and I bought both sherry vinegar and walnut oil in Bar Harbor during our honeymoon, so the sherry-walnut dressing seemed fated to be made in our kitchen at some point.

Kale salad with sherry-walnut vinaigrette
Serves 3-4

Salad:
1 bunch kale, stems removed and leaves cut into thin slivers (I used Red Russian kale)
2/3 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 tbs maple syrup
1/2 cup coarsely grated ricotta salata cheese
1/2 cup golden raisins

Vinaigrette:
Adapted from The Gourmet Cookbook
1 1/2 tbs sherry vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper
6 tbs walnut oil

Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Toss walnuts with maple syrup and sprinkle with salt. Bake in preheated oven until toasted and crunchy, about 4-5 minutes. Let walnuts cool. Toss together kale, walnuts, ricotta salata, and raisins in a large bowl.

Whisk together vinegar, mustard, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Slowly pour in oil, whisking until well blended. (I make my salad dressing in a mason jar, and shake everything together instead of whisking).

Toss salad with enough dressing to lightly coat the kale (you will have leftover dressing). Eat salad within a few hours of dressing.

Zucchini sweet potato bread

This is my favorite quick bread recipe, and happily, both zucchini and sweet potatoes are in season right now! I first came across this recipe on Joy the Baker, and I've modified it to use white whole wheat flour, and also cut down on the sugar, because I don't like quick breads to be too sweet. This bread is hearty, moist, and flavorful, and makes a great breakfast...or afternoon snack...or dessert. And though I wouldn't exactly call it healthy, I think wholesome is an appropriate description. Enjoy!