I spend an embarrassing amount of my waking hours thinking about food. How to interpret classics, how to highlight and do justice to seasonal ingredients, what’s new?, who is eating what?, and how to take appealing photos of bread-starters (fyi, it’s not possible). But at the end of the day, all I really want is a sandwich. 

The sandwich is a perfect dish. And it can be so many things. Every cuisine has a version (or many versions) of it, and there is no limit to how it can or should be done. Most importantly, a sandwich does not have to be fussy in order to be delicious. Except for this one.

This sandwich is admittedly, a little fussy. It is a riff on one of my all-time favorite sandwiches, and hails from The Wildflower Bread Company in Tempe, Arizona, where I used to live and eat a lot of sandwiches. Since moving to Chicago seven years ago, I have been introduced to so, so many out of control delicious NEW sandwiches, but I will forever hold a torch for this one.

The original has roasted sweet potato, fresh mozzarella, fig confit, tomato, arugula, marinated fennel and balsamic vinaigrette on herb focaccia. Ugh, just typing it makes my mouth water. Sweet, creamy, earthy, filling with the most satisfyingly chewy bread to sink your teeth into. And it has a sort of fancy element to it that turkey on white bread just doesn’t. NOT to judge a turkey on white. This happens to be one of my other favorites. But there is a time and place, and sometimes you just want to feel like a lady who lunches. Amiright?

My version contains homemade pickled chilies and red onion in lieu of the fennel because I wanted to inject more heat into it and because fennel isn’t always available. Also, I roast my tomatoes on the vine, rather than serve them raw because I like how they explode into the bread with every bite. Also, I use whatever substantial bread that’s around. Focaccia, ciabatta, sourdough, it all works. I happened to have baked the bread for the sandwich that is pictured here, but that’s because I am nuts and I was trying to impress a really cute person. Don’t bake your own bread. Unless that sounds like a really fun time to you. In which case we should be friends.  

The element that REALLY sets this sandwich apart is the fig confit. I’ve written about this concoction before, because it is 1) one of the most delicious things you will ever put in your mouth and 2) it is seriously versatile. This recipe will make about a cup and a half of it which is far more than you will need for a sandwich, but TRUST, you WANT this stuff hanging around in your fridge. You can set it out during cocktail hour with crackers and cheese, bake it into cookies, mix it with a shitload of almond or other nut meal and roll it into balls to make those cute vegan treats everyone is obsessed with. You could make your own pop tarts! Want to know how to make a better pb&j? Fig confit has some ideas.

Point being, this is really a lovely sandwich. AND… If you don’t have an hour to dedicate solely to the construction of this sandwich, just schmear on some store-bought preserves and skip the fig confit portion (blackberry or blueberry would be nice). And instead of the homemade pickled chilies, you could use freshly sliced chilies or even just some raw onion. The pickling is just nice because it mellows everything out a bit. But no pressure. 

Begin by making the fig confit:
Remove the hard stems of the figs with a knife. Throw the whole figs into a small pot and add enough water to cover the figs. Cover the pot with a lid and simmer the figs on a medium flame until they are very soft (about 10-14 minutes). If your water evaporates before the figs are soft, add in another 1/2 cup.  

Once the figs are soft, place them into a food processor along with the orange zest and salt. Process the mixture until it comes together in a spreadable paste. If the mixture is too thick or sticky, add a bit more water, or even a little juice from the orange to loosen it up.

Pickle the chilies:
THINLY slice the chilies and onion and throw them into a glass bowl or jar. Boil the remaining ingredients and cover the chilies and onions with the liquid. Allow it to cool a bit and throw it in the refrigerator for at least an hour or so. Fun thing: these pickled chilies will keep in the fridge
for up to a month and you can put them on pretty much anything else you eat. 

Roast the sweet potato and tomato:
Heat your oven to 400 degrees. Slice your sweet potato into thin discs, and throw them into a large bowl. Drizzle over a few big splashes of oil, and throw in some salt and pepper and dust them with your dried spices. Arrange the discs onto a cookie sheet allowing them a little space around their edges. Put the tomatoes on the pan too and drizzle them with a little oil and a dusting of salt. Roast these veggies until the tomatoes get wrinkly and bursty, and the potatoes get soft in the middle.

Assemble your sandwich with all of these components and enjoy!
Slather a little fig confit on one side of bread, and a little mayo on the other. Dress the arugula in a few splashes of vinnegar, slice up your mozzerella, de-vine the tomatoes, drain the chilies, and assemble away.

Sometimes I cook to raise money, but mostly I cook because I can’t imagine spending my time doing anything else. And while my partner is sadly still living 1,300 miles away in New Mexico, the need to cook often goes unfulfilled because sitting down to an entire pan of cinnamon rolls by myself seems, well, a little anticlimactic. Those of you who know me know that I’m much less interested in eating the food I make than I am in receiving constant affirmation and gratitude from those I feed. What? Is there another way to get those things without shoving food into people’s mouths? Liar. 

So when I woke up last Saturday wanting only to spend my morning in the kitchen, I knew I needed hungry reinforcements. Thank god for Shabbrunch. What is Shabbrunch, you ask? Well… allow me:

So, Jews celebrate Shabbat, right? A 25 hour period from Friday at sundown to Saturday at sundown where we are literally commanded not to do work, not to make anything, not to break anything. So what do we do? Well, it’s all highly personal, but I like to go to services, eat tons of food, sleep in,
read books, and just be in the moment without too many distractions. Pretty sweet, right? 

Some people definitely do not cook during Shabbat because of religious prohibitions on using electricity and “making fire” and working in general.  I definitely DO cook on Shabbat though, because cooking for me is a way to re-connect, which is what Shabbat is for in the first place. For me, cooking is the farthest thing away from the regular work week because I actually don’t do it very much at all Sunday-Thursday, and when I do, it’s really not very inspired. Plus, Shabbat food is necessarily special and different than the food I eat during the work week, making it even more fun to prepare. 

So for many of my Jewish friends, there is literally NOTHING else to do on Saturday mornings besides waking up laughably late, stumbling into someone’s kitchen, and spending the entire morning into the afternoon just hanging out, eating delicious food, and ultimately falling asleep again on the couch. Or at the table. Or in a park while they bake in the sun. This, my  friends, is Shabbrunch. Intentionally lazy, mindfully social, and consciously restorative. And carby. Definitely carby.  Last Saturday’s Shabbrunch was fantastic. Here is what I served:
 


Everything Spring Baked Eggs (check out the recipe here)
Onion, garlic, and poppy seed-stuffed bread (recipe to come)         
Fresh fruit salad
Fresh feta cheese and olives
Brown sugar and almond cake in the shape of a ridiculously ornate Jewish star (pictured below, recipe to come)
Mimosas  

So basically, what I'm trying to say is Shabbrunch is awesome for many reasons. And you don't have to be Jewish to institute it in your own home. Turn off your damn phone for a few hours, get your friends around a table, and luxuriate in each other's company and some really, really good food. Your Monday will thank you.

So this is actually a pretty perfect dish. Not to brag or anything. I just cannot imagine a better combination of flavors, textures, or aromas to celebrate the promise of Spring in the vortex of ice and chapped skin I call home. Everything in it is green. Or white. Or literally the symbol of fertility. It is fatty, yet clean, healthful, but not boring. And easy. Like, really, really easy. And crowd-friendly because you can make a shitload of these veggies ahead of time (up to 5 days in advance), crack in some eggs an hour before you want to serve it, and you are done. And the ice will melt. And you will believe in life again. 

Did I mention that this is also a versatile recipe? Don’t like asparagus? Substitute mushrooms. Don’t like leeks? Substitute tomatoes. Don’t like feta? Use any other cheese. The ingredients can change but the concept remains the same: Sautéed veggies thickened with cream and then baked with eggs until the whites are set and everyone is ready to eat. Serve it with bread and fruit, some strong beverages, and something sweet for dessert. Because dessert is totally a thing for breakfast on the weekends.  

Oil or butter for sautéing the veggies
2 gigantic leeks, cleaned and sliced thinly
6 cloves of fresh garlic, sliced thinly
2 bunches of fresh scallions, sliced
2 chilies (I like Fresno, but jalapenos work too), minced
2 bags of frozen greens (collards, spinach, etc)
1 bunch of asparagus
2 cups of heavy cream (just do it. Don’t think about it.)
Dried thyme
Salt & pepper
8-12 fresh eggs
¼ pound fresh feta cheese
Fresh parsley for garnish

Pre-heat your oven to 375 degrees. Heat up some oil or butter in a very large sauté pan. Sautee the leeks until they get soft. Throw in the garlic, scallions, and chilies and let those cook until they become fragrant and a little browned. 
 
Throw in the greens and cook out ALL of the water that froze into them. I mean it. These veggies should appear dry by the time you are done cooking them. There should be no steam coming up from them and no residual liquid in the pan. Extra water will, well, water down your final dish and who needs that?

Chop the woody ends off the asparagus, and cut the stalks into thirds. Turn the heat off the pan and throw in the asparagus and the cream, a few big pinches of thyme, salt, and pepper. Mix all the ingredients together and spoon it out into a baking dish.
 
At this point, you can either refrigerate the veggies until you are ready to bake your eggs, or, you can use a spoon to dig out small wells into them. There should be one well for every egg you intend to crack into it. Crack your eggs into the wells, crumble some feta cheese over the top, hit the whole thing with a bit more salt and pepper and a few drizzles of oil. Cover the pan with tin foil and throw it CAREFULLY into the oven for about 30 minutes, or until the eggs have cooked all the way through to your liking. Garnish with fresh parsley and enjoy!

You know when you have cheese and fruit and bread and nuts with a glass of wine and you kind of want to say “screw the main course, this is all I need in the entire world”? Well this recipe is for you. It is a riff off of a really famous Brazilian dish called Pão de Queijo, which is a gloriously puffy, cheesy, ball of pastry that is sort of similar to gougères. And I turned it into a waffle. And it happens to be gluten-free. Win.

Allow me to paint the picture: Savory, light-as-air, cheddar-rosemary waffle. Served warm. With a crisp, apple, walnut, and cilantro relish. A dash of pomegranate molasses (or honey) to offset the bitterness. Cheesypuffyherbysweetandsalty ALL IN ONE BITE. I know. I know.

This dish is multi-functional. I venture to say that it would be appropriate to eat at any meal, and to serve for any crowd (as long as the crowd isn’t dairy-sensitive/avoidant, because holy shit there is a lot of dairy in these waffles). You can make a gigantic batch of the waffles ahead of time and keep them warm in a very low oven, and the relish can be made up to 3 days in advance.

I served my cocktail hour waffles for brunch just last weekend with a spring veggie frittata, a winter fruit salad (it is STILL winter here in Chicago. Shut up. I don't want to talk about it), and champagne (thanks for the champagne, Krista!), which complimented everything perfectly, if I do say so myself.

Also, if you don’t have a waffle iron, you can DEFINITELY still make these! Just pour out the batter onto a pan and make pancakes! Actually, that’s a really cute idea to make silver dollar-sized pancake versions for a cocktail hour… IT WAS MY IDEA FIRST!!

Relish:
2 large Granny Smith apples
1 1/4 cup of walnuts
½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1 lemon
¼ cup pomegranate molasses (or honey)
salt & pepper

Waffle (makes 6-8 waffles or a shit ton of pancakes)
4 eggs
1 cup of whole milk 
¼ cup vegetable oil
¼ cup melted butter
2 cups tapioca flour*
1 tsp salt
1  tablespoon black pepper
4 tablespoons of fresh rosemary, chopped
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
*Seriously, tapioca flour isn’t as hard to find as you think. I checked. All the grocery stores I have been to in the last month carry it. Sometimes it is called “cassava” flour and can be found in Asian or Latin sections of stores. 

Step 1: Make the relish:
Chop up the apples, skin and all, into small pieces. Squeeze the lemon over the apple to prevent them from turning brown. Throw the walnuts into a dry pan and toast them until they are warm to the touch and you can smell them. Chop the walnuts and the cilantro up and throw them into the bowl with the apples. Drizzle over the pomegranate molasses, add a few big pinches of salt and pepper, and taste it. Adjust the seasoning as needed, but it should taste clean, crisp, and not-to-sweet.

Steph 2: Make the waffle/pancake batter:
Break the eggs into a large bowl and beat them thoroughly. Throw in all of the other ingredients except for the cheese and mix until it is smooth. Might take a minute to get the tapioca flour incorporated, but it will get there. This is a pretty thin batter. Don’t be weirded out.

Step #3: Cook your waffle/pancakes:
Heat up your waffle iron and grease it up with a little melted butter or some non-stick spray. Ladle in a little less than a cup of the batter at a time and evenly sprinkle a big handful of cheese over the top. THIS IS IMPORTANT: Be  sure 1) NOT to over-fill the iron because this shit will puff up and 2) make sure each well of the iron gets the same amount of batter. Also, expect the puffiness to deflate once you remove the waffles from the iron. No biggs. They still taste awesome. 

Step #4: Top the waffles with the relish, and enjoy!

Cocktail hours are fantastic options for dinner party hosts who 1) want to get everyone in the mood for the delicious food they are about to serve 2) want to encourage guests to break the ice and look up from their smart phones, and 3)
need an extra hour to put the finishing touches on dinner without suffering the hangry stares of the masses. But who wants to make ANOTHER dish, especially if you are low on time, energy, and ingredients? The answer: put it in a palmier! 

Palmiers are elegant, savory, deceptively simple French pastries that can be made with quite literally anything you have laying around in your refrigerator. Have some leftover deli slices from this week's lunch? Schmear on some mustard and put it in a palmier. Nothing around besides raspberry jam and cheddar cheese? Put it in a palmier. Extra tomato sauce laying around? Sprinkle on some extra Parmesan cheese and oregano and put it in a palmier.

If you keep a box of frozen puff pastry dough around, you will never be left without an astonishingly simple and deceptively fancy snack for your pre-dinner crowd. Another excellent attribute of palmiers is that they can be made way in advance by assembling them and throwing them into the refrigerator or freezer for up to a week, and then into the oven about an hour before you want to eat them. All you have to do is roll out the pastry, spread on your toppings, fold, cut, and bake. Have I made my case yet for the palmier? 

While palmiers can definitely handle a good refrigerator clean-out, this one was a bit more intentional. It is made by re-hydrating and processing dried figs
into a gorgeous paste, and then topping it with bits of Roquefort cheese. This cocktail hour snack is crunchy, creamy, savory, salty, and a bit sweet. I absolutely love the crunchy seeds of the figs, and the rosemary really cuts through the richness of it all. This snack pairs excellently with almost any wine or beer of your choice, and is guaranteed to impress.

Fig, Rosemary, and Roquefort Palmiers (makes 20-24)  
10-12 dried figs
3 full rosemary stalks
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/2 tablespoon cracked black pepper
1/2 lb Roquefort*
1/4 cup of all purpose flour
1 sheet of puff pastry, defrosted but still cold from the
refrigerator
 
(*Note* If you aren't as excited by strong cheese as I am, feel free to replace the Roquefort with cream cheese, but definitely add another half tablespoon of salt to the fig mixture.)
 
Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove the hard stems of the figs with a knife. Throw the whole figs into a small pot and add enough water to come halfway up to the figs. Strip two of the rosemary stalks of their needles and add them to the pot. Cover the pot with a lid and simmer the figs on a medium flame until they are very soft (about 10-14 minutes). If your water evaporates before the figs are soft, add in another 1/2 cup.
 
Once the figs are soft, place them into a food processor along with the rosemary needles, the remaining cooking liquid, and the salt and pepper. Process the mixture until it comes together in a spreadable paste. If the mixture is too
thick or sticky, add a bit more water to loosen it up.
 
Use a bit of flour to dust your counter top and a rolling pin and roll out the puff pastry until it is a few inches wider on all sides. Don't be too worried about this step. You just want the pastry to be a bit thinner than it was when it came out of the package. Generously spread the fig mixture onto the pastry. You may not end up using it all, but definitely spread it all the way out to the edges of the pastry.
 
Pinch off small pieces of  Roquefort with your fingers and dot the top of the fig layer with it. Like the fig mixture, you may not end up using all of the cheese, but you definitely want to be generous with it. Strip the last rosemary stalk of it's needles and chop them up coarsely. Sprinkle the chopped needles over the Roquefort layer.
 
Now for the rolling: Roll the right side of the pasty up like you are rolling a poster, but stop when you come to the middle of the sheet. Now roll up the left side of the pastry exactly the same way. Using a very sharp knife, cut the rolled pastry into half-inch slices. Place each slice cut-side down onto the baking sheet. Bake the palmiers for 35-40 minutes, or until they are crispy, brown, and bubbling.

This dessert is a stunner. It is one of the most popular desserts I have ever made. It is also one of the most time-consuming desserts I have ever made. But don’t let that scare you off. Just because a 16 layer crepe cake is time consuming, doesn’t mean it’s somehow more difficult to make than any other dessert. In fact, you don’t even have to turn on your oven. All you need is a lazy Saturday morning* to assemble all the components and to busy yourself for an hour or so while the whole thing sets up in the refrigerator. I even broke it all down for you into 6 easy-to-follow steps.

Still not so sure? Ok, how about this: tender crepes smothered with alternating layers of boozy Bananas Foster, sweet and spicy peanut crème, smooth chocolate spread, and crunchy peanuts, erected into a towering colossus of decadence that seduces not only every single taste bud, but every single person you feed it to.

Yeah. I guess it’s not worth the effort.  

Crepes: makes 12-16 crepes
9 tablespoons of melted butter
4 ½ cups milk

9 eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup rye or buckwheat flour
¾ cup of sugar or honey
1 tablespoon of salt

Bananas Foster filling:
6 tablespoons butter
¾ cup brown sugar
6-8 bananas
¼ cup whiskey or rum (optional)
2 tsp salt

Peanut crème filling:
1 ½ cup heavy whipping crème**
1 cup mascarpone cheese
1½ cup peanut butter (I like crunchy best for this, but smooth works too)
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon salt
2 tsp cayenne pepper

Other ingredients:
non-stick spray or more butter for making the crepes
1 jar of Nutella
2 ½ cups salted and roasted peanuts, chopped
Extra powdered sugar for dusting

*Just a heads up: This whole thing takes about 3 hours to make from start to finish. And there are multiple steps. I organized the recipe as best I could, but definitely read through the whole thing before you jump in so you know what to expect.

**This is for making homemade whipped cream. If you don’t have a stand mixer or a hand mixer, just buy a container of ready-made whipped cream. Seriously, nobody will know the difference.

Step 1- Begin by making the crepe batter: Add all the ingredients to a large bowl and whisk it until it gets smooth. Put it in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

Step 2- While the crepe batter is in the fridge, make the Bananas Foster filling: Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the brown sugar and stir. While that cooks, slice your bananas into ½ inch slices and throw them into the pan with the salt. Stir the bananas to coat them in the caramel mixture, but be careful not to mush them. Add the liquor if you are using it, give a few more stirs, and allow everything to cook for a few minutes. The bananas should get soft, but they should hold their shape. Remove the bananas from the heat, transfer them to a bowl, and put them in the fridge to cool.

Step 3- While the crepe batter and Bananas Foster chill in the fridge, make the peanut crème: Pour the heavy whipping cream into a large bowl and whip it until it forms stiff peaks. Set aside. Add the mascarpone and the peanut butter in a separate bowl and combine them with a hand mixer or a stand mixer or your very butch forearms until it gets fluffy. 

Add the powdered sugar, salt, and cayenne pepper. Fold in a little whipped cream into the peanut mixture at a time until the whole thing becomes light and spreadable. You might not use all of the whipped crème, and you may need to re-season it with more sugar or salt as you combine everything. Just taste as you go, and make sure it tastes sweet, peanuty, salty (in a good way), and a little spicy. Put the mixture in the fridge.

Step 4- Make the crepes: Pull the crepe batter out of the refrigerator and give it a good whisk. Heat a large, non-stick skillet over medium heat with some non-stick spray and/or a little butter. Pour batter into the center of the pan until it pools halfway out to the sides of the pan. Swirl the pan around so the batter spreads out to the very edges. DON’T TOUCH THE CREPE AT THIS POINT! Allow the crepe to cook, un-nudged for at least 45 seconds. Use a spatula to flip the entire crepe over and cook it on the other side for at least another 45 seconds. The crepe should be fully-cooked on both sides, but not crispy. Slide the crepe onto a plate, put a little more butter or non-stick spray into the pan, and make another crepe. And then another. And then another. Until you have used up all the batter. Cover the crepes with tin foil and throw them into the fridge to chill completely.

Step 5- Assemble! Before you begin assembling, make sure that ALL of your components are cold, except for the Nutella. Place one crepe down on the platter or serving dish that you want to serve the cake on. Coat it completely with some peanut crème, all the way out to the sides of the crepe. Sprinkle some chopped peanuts over the crème. Place another crepe on top and press it down gently. Cover the top of the second crepe with Nutella. Place another crepe on top and cover it with Bananas Foster and press down gently. Continue layering in this way until you have only one more crepe left. Place the last crepe on top and do not cover it with any of the fillings. You will see that the cake will start to form a dome shape as you build it. This is pretty unavoidable, but the smoother and more even your layers are, the less domed the final product will be. Cover the entire cake with plastic wrap and put it into the fridge for at least one hour.

Step 6- SERVE IT! When you are ready to serve the cake, dust the top with powdered sugar and garnish with extra chopped peanuts. If you have extra whipped cream left over, you can dollop it onto each individual slice because, you know, you have come this far.       

On a budget? Allergic or sensitive? Need to feed a crowd on a budget? Like delicious and deceptively impressive things? CORNMEAL. That’s what. 

This week’s installment refers to the poured variety known fancily as “polenta”. I think when people hear “polenta” they think “elaborate” and “fussy”. But actually, polenta is the friendliest, hardest-to-screw-up, blank canvas thing ever. It’s just dried up corn that you heat up with some water (or milk, white wine, or stock if you are  into that) and season the shit out of. That’s it!

You should think of poured polenta as a vehicle for other tasty things you want to stretch even further. Once it is cooked, it can literally be poured out onto a platter, into bowls, or (if you want to get super chefy about it) onto a flat piece of wood or cutting board, and then topped with anything from ratatouille (seen above), sautéed mushrooms, caramelized onions, your favorite pasta sauce, scrambled eggs, you get the point. Once the polenta starts to cool, it sets in this really pleasing way that actually allows you to cut into it. The longer it sets, the more firm it becomes. 
 
I like serving polenta at supper clubs because 1) it is delicious 2) I can top it with anything my heart desires and 3) if I pour it out in front of people, it makes them feel like something extravagant is happening. And everyone needs to feel extravagant sometimes. Just look (right) at how happy all of my guests are about this poured polenta!

Here is a guide to help you on your way to poured polenta grandeur:

1) Start with polenta. Or grits. Or stone-ground cornmeal. It’s really all the same thing. The only rule here is NOT to use semolina, which is corn that is ground super finely almost into a powder. Semolina is awesome, but not for making polenta. Get the stuff that looks gritty. 

2) Cook the polenta according to the package directions. And beware! This stuff splatters as it gets thick and burns the shit out of your arms when you are cooking in your super cute tank tops. 

3) Consider replacing some of the water the package directions calls for with broth, stock, white wine, or milk (for a more creamy texture). Really, you can just take out a cup of the water the recipe calls for and replace it with the exact same amount of something else. Consider adding herbs and spices like garlic, rosemary, chili flakes, or black pepper. This isn’t a must, but I swear you really can’t go wrong. Cornmeal is so adaptive and it can really mesh well with almost any flavor you choose!


4) Definitely, DEFINTIELY season your cooking liquid with plenty of salt and pepper. If you don’t season the liquid, it will never taste salty enough. 

5) Consider finishing your polenta with some dairy or vegan-dairy product. Like butter. Or cream. Or parmesan cheese. Also, consider finishing your polenta with fresh herbs, even if you already used dried herbs in the cooking process. Trust me on this one. These are the steps that will make your final dish really special. 

Stay tuned for the next installment of "Cornmeal: Your many-trick one-trick pony" with Part II: Fried!

Confession: I created this dish in the dead of Summer, when tomatoes were abundant and ripe and at their sweet ‘n juicy prime. The recipe is a celebration of that time of year when it is unthinkable to have too many
tomatoes in any dish. But you know what? Globalization, that’s what. Inherently devastating to the earth? Yes. Are the tomatoes this time of year even worth the carbon footprint? No. But sometimes you just need that hit of summer after a day of trekking through snow, or after surviving weather that can only be explained using vortexes.

This recipe promises to transform even the saddest out-of-season tomatoes into something that will remind you of easier, sunnier times. We are talking tomatoes THREE ways here, and each preparation involves coaxing flavor
out of the fruit with all the polar rage you feel after one too many nights sleeping in a radiator-heated apartment over which you have no control. Summer is coming forcibly early, folks, if only in a stylish champagne flute.  

This is pretty damn near close to a perfect dish, if you ask me. It’s spicy, creamy, salty, savory, sweet, and simply inventive. Use it as a palate cleanser (like I did here ----->) in between courses, or just eat it solo with a big hunk of crusty bread sitting directly on top of your radiator with all the lights on and wearing your sunglasses. Best I can do until June. Godspeed. 

For the granita:
2 lbs fresh tomatoes (it really doesn’t matter what
kind)
2 fresh red chilies (I like fresno or red jalapenos, but you can really use any fresh chili here)
Salt and pepper
Olive oil
1 bunch of basil
 
For the tomato oil
6-10 sundried tomatoes (I know, I know, they are passé, but we aren’t snobs)
2 cloves of garlic
1 cup olive oil
Salt & pepper
 
For the other stuff
2 cups of ricotta cheese (I make mine homemade by following this recipe, but use store-bought if you value having extra time on your hands) 
1 pint of fresh cherry tomatoes
Basil to garnish

Begin by making the granita. Turn your oven on to 400° and slice all the tomatoes in half. Cover them with olive oil,
salt, and pepper, and throw them into the oven on a baking sheet with the whole red chilies for 60 minutes, or until they begin to give up their juices (sexy) and get a little dark on the outside.

Meanwhile get started on the oil. Put the sundried tomatoes, garlic, and olive oil into a small saucepan and turn the heat to medium-low. Let this cook until the garlic is soft (about 30 minutes). *Make sure to use a lid, or else you will get oil-splattered and that’s not a cute look. Throw the contents into a food processor or blender and process until it is all broken down. Throw in a few really generous pinches of salt and pepper and taste it! The oil should taste, well, oily, but it should also taste like tomatoes. Put the oil in the fridge until you need it later.

Return to the tomatoes in the oven. Once they are nice and soft, throw everything except the chilies into  a food processor or blender and process until it is smooth. (Keep the oven on though in order to make the burst cherry tomatoes later). Add one of the whole chilies, half of the basil, and a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Taste it!
Continue to season until this mixture tastes rich and tomato-ey. 
 
Pour the mixture into a shallow glass baking dish and throw it in the freezer. After an hour, come back and scrape up the mixture. Return every hour and scrape it until it freezes into fluffy tomato crystals. 

Make the burst cherry tomatoes by tossing them whole with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and roasting them in the oven until they have literally burst open (about 20 minutes). Set them aside.

Whew. Assemble: Layer the granita, the ricotta, and the oil in a glass, a mason jar, or champagne flute.
Top with a burst tomato, a little more oil, and fresh basil leaves. 

Enjoy. 
 


     




 

So here’s the deal. Elegance is all in the head. “Elevated” food is just simple food that is made really well and stylishly plated. So when I host a supper club, most of what I serve is really just comfort food that I put a lot of thought into and serve in a beautiful way. So when I know that all the flavors of my classic, rustic, not-at-all-fussy Jewish mock chopped liver (pictured above) will play well on my vegetarian charcuterie board, I sell it as “Green Pea & Walnut Pâté” (pictured below) and suddenly Bubbie food is Saturday night fare. It’s not a trick. It’s just re-branding.

Whatever you want to call it, this spread is absolutely delicious, easy to prepare, can be kept in the refrigerator for over a week, and obviously dressed up or dressed down as you see fit. Try spreading it on a sandwich instead of mayo or mustard. Serve it alongside crackers and grapes for a cocktail hour nosh. Spoon it into a fancy terrine mold and put it on a charcuterie board. Pâté or Mockchop, whatever you do, don’t apologize for it. It’s not pretty until you tell people it is. 

• 2 large yellow onions
  
• oil for frying
  
• Cognac, brandy, or some other brown liquor (this is entirely optional) 
  
• 2 cans of green peas, drained (don’t even think about using fresh or frozen)
  
• 4 hard boiled eggs, peeled 
  
• 1 bunch of fresh dill
  
• a few handfuls of walnuts
  
• salt & pepper
  
• garnish (optional): diced raw onion, chopped hardboiled egg, toasted walnut halves, fresh dill
  

Coarsely chop the onions and throw them into a large skillet with enough oil to coat the bottom. Cook the onions on medium-low heat and stir them occasionally until they get very soft and start to brown. 

When the onions are done cooking, pour in a few glugs of the liquor, and scrape the bottom of the pan until all the delicious oniony bits come up. Cook everything for another minute until the astringent alcohol taste cooks off. Turn off the heat and set aside. 

Put the peas, the eggs, half of the dill, and the walnuts into the bowl of a food processor* and pulse until it all comes together. Add the onions and pulse again, scraping down the sides of the bowl. Add a generous pinch of salt and black pepper and pulse again. This mixture doesn’t need to be totally smooth (unless you want it that way), but it should be pretty homogenously incorporated. TASTE IT. Add more salt, pepper, and dill until you are happy with the way it tastes.

Enjoy.

*Don’t have a food processor? No worries! Just chop everything as finely as you can get it and mash it with a fork. 

 

1 dozen qualis eggs (I get mine from the grocery stores on Argyle street in Chicago)
1 1/2 cup of soy sauce
2 tea bags (I use Jasmine, but anything black works)
1 cinnamon stick
2 anise seed pods
1 orange
2 cloves
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 cup of water
1 cup of sea salt or kosher salt
1 bunch of cilantro
2 limes

Place the qualis eggs in a small pot and cover them with water. Bring them up to a boil, and as soon as the water boils, cover the pot with a lid and let them sit for two minutes. Drain the eggs and cool them.

While the eggs are boiling, bring the soy sauce, tea leaves, cinnamon stick, anise seeds, peel of the orange, cloves, and sugar and water up to a boil in a pot. Let the mixture boil for 5 minutes, covered. Take the mixture off the heat and remove the tea bags.

Use the back of a spoon to crack the shels of the eggs. Really go at it. You cant the entire shell to be as cracked as possible. Place the eggs into a small bowl and cover them completely with teh soy and tea mixture. Let them sit in the refrigerator for at LEAST 24 hours. They will keep for up to 4 days.

To make the salt, pulse the salt, cilantro, and the peel of the limes in a food processor.