Posts tagged recipe

Recipe, Notes, and the scoop on Emile DeFelice, Caw Caw Creek, and Columbia’s All-Local Farmer’s Market at sarahmcsimmons.com.

It’s so cold outside. Yesterday when I woke up at 5 AM the weather genie on my iphone said it was 17 degrees and “feels like 4 degrees.” Two hours later it read 19 degrees and “feels like 2 degrees.” The wind was so strong it blew Sheldon’s little hind legs out from under him when he was jumping up on a curb.

So windy. So cold.

So I’m back on the soup kick – this time making soups out of the excess veggies and herbs in my fridge. I rarely have excess mushrooms. They are usually cooked and consumed within two days of purchase. But not this week. So I decided to try to make a creamy soup with as little cream as possible. And with a vitamix blender, that’s usually a pretty doable task.

But in my rush to finish this soup before running to a meeting, I poured it into the vitamix before it has sufficiently cooled. AND was careless about checking to make sure the lid was tightly secured. This, my friends, is a recipe for danger. I scalded my right arm. And was wearing more soup than was left in the blender. And returned home from my meeting to the task of cleaning mushroom soup off the floor, walls, and CEILING.

But after the kitchen was clean, at least I was able to enjoy a nice, warm bowl of creamy mushroom bisque!

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com. 

I’m definitely on a Thai kick these days. I don’t know if it’s the cold weather or a serious lack of spice in my personal life, but all I’ve been craving is curry.

Curry I love. Tilapia I do not. It’s like chicken to me – so boring. But this past weekend I decided to see if I could a) make tilapia less boring and b) play around with a new curry dish.

Much to my surprise and delight, it turned out better than I’d imagined in my head. The flavors were so spectacular, it felt like I was dressing tilapia up for the prom.

Since I had a bag of forbidden rice in the cupboard waiting to accompany an asian dish, I decided to experiment with a lightly curry flavored side dish. The name “forbidden rice” cracks me up. It’s really just a black rice that has a more nutty flavor and a deep purple color than the white variety, but an old wives tale says at one time it was considered to be the Emperor’s rice in China and, therefore, forbidden for anyone else to eat.

It certainly rounds out this dish and, as a bonus, makes me feel a little bit like royalty.

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com. 

This is another adaptation to the Spicy Squash Soup I fell in love with last summer. And of all the adaptations I’ve made to that soup, this one is by far my favorite and doesn’t contain any squash.

I created it for the Daily Candy segment I taped last month, Five Tomato Soup Recipes to Warm You Up. I thought it would be a good recipe to share this week…since those of us in the Northeast have had to put our winter coats back on…because it’s snowing…and yesterday it was 60 degrees. Ugh. 

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com. 

There was one recipe from Bon Appétit’s January issue - the Sunny Side Up Eggs on Mustard Creamed Spinach - I just couldn’t get out of my head. I wasn’t sure if it was the photo that got me or the daydreams I kept having about the creamy, mustardy spinach topped with a sunny side egg.

I love eggs. They are pretty much a perfect food - a little fat, a lot of protein, and countless preparation possibilities. Though most associate eggs with breakfast, I often find myself eating them for dinner.

The Bon Appétit Test Kitchen recommended serving this dish with breadcrumbs for a lighter option to toast. Great idea! But I knowing I would miss my toast, I made croutons versus breadcrumbs. And then I added bacon. So much for a lighter option. My favorite addition to the recipe was adding pickled mustard seeds into the mix. Pickled mustard seeds are a trick I stole from David Chang who stole it from Tom Colicchio. They are great in salad dressing, as an addition sauces for meats, and get this - to make your own tangy mustard! Make them, love them, and use them in this recipe!

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com. 

The next best thing to me hand delivering chocolate truffles to your door (with flowers and wine, of course) is me hand delivering my favorite recipe for chocolate truffles to your inbox/RSS reader/Google search/Twitter feed/tumblr dashboard. Adapted from Jennifer McCoy of Craft, NYC, this is the easiest recipe for the most impressive chocolates.

I use rose water in mine, but you can use anything (lavendar, orange essence, cherry cordial, etc) your heart desires in yours. Just start with a teaspoon and taste test until you get the flavor you’re looking for.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com. 

Today is definitely a Monday. My team lost last night. And I ate so much junk food that I’m suffering from a serious food hangover. Since I’m around food all of the time, I rarely over eat. But last night, with the Steelers down, I found myself stuffing my face with tacos, dips, chips and meatballs out of sheer nervousness.

As the game started to wind down, I started to forcing my special Steeler Star cupcakes onto friends hoping, for some reason, it would change the course of the game. As the score became close, I had a final moment of desperation and started scarfing down Steeler stars like it was my job – with a side of vanilla ice cream, of course.

It didn’t work. We lost the game. But here is a winning recipe for vanilla bean cupcakes with a tangy cream cheese frosting.

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com. 

Every Jewish girl should have a good recipe for a smoked salmon appetizer. I’m not Jewish, but I’ve wanted to be since I was six (that’s a long story for another day), so I felt the need for a smoked salmon appetizer of my own to add into my repertiore.

Last December’s issue of Bon Appetit included a fantastic recipe that served as a great starting point. Not only do the crunchy endive spears make a perfect container for the salty salmon and the tangy and spice horseradish cream, they also provide a lower carb option for what is often a bread heavy cocktail table.

With only a few adaptions, I’d stumbled upon the perfect smoked salmon recipe. If only this perfect recipe came with instructions for meeting the perfect Jewish boy.

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com.

I’ve never been a fan of broccoli soup. Probably because it’s most often served with cheese. And as much as I LOVE cheese, it overpowers broccoli’s light, earthy flavor. But this weekend, while stuck on the sofa nursing that ridiculous ear infection all I could do was read through food magazines and organize and edit my recipes. Reading food magazines isn’t as mush fun when you can’t taste, swallow or breathe, but it did make me read them with a different eye – meaning any dish I could make and puree in the Vitamix all of the sudden became tremendously appealing.

Maybe it was my sickly state, the fact that I had fresh broccoli in the fridge, my lost interest in tomato based soups, or my itch to get back into the kitchen after three days on the sofa, but the Broccoli Soup with Thyme and Leeks recipe from Bon Appetit’s February issue was calling to me!

A broccoli soup recipe without cheese, a soup without tomatoes, ingredients in the fridge – so many reasons to get me off of the sofa and back into the kitchen. This soup is delicious and though it has the texture of a bisque, doesn’t call for a drop of creme – unless you top it with creme fraiche, which I totally recommend.

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com. 

I know I’m getting sick when I start to crave cheeseburgers but all I really want to eat is soup. Yesterday, with a cheeseburger craving and a hankering for soup, I decided to play around with making a meatless soup that satisfied my need for meat and soothed my throat. I wanted to trick my brain into thinking it was getting that cheeseburger it desired by making an umami heavy and vitamin packed soup.

What do you do when your brain wants meat but your body needs veggies? You turn to Peter Berley’s The Flexitarian Table for some inspiration. And sure enough, I found it. By adapting Peter’s recipe for Mushroom and Barley soup, I created a mushroom bulgar soup that hit the spot.

It wasn’t a cheeseburger. But until I come up with a recipe for a cheeseburger soup, it’s the next best thing when I’m feeling run down.

Recipe, Notes, and Nutritional Information via sarahmcsimmons.com.