Dinner on the Fly: Mushroom and Barley Soup

This rainy night I needed comfort food.  It is work to be an optimistic person and I openly accept the challenge.  Anything worth having can not be attained without the fair amount of effort including a sunny disposition and the unrelenting push forward into the abyss of could-bes.  But still, one day is full of possibilities and the next they pop like soap bubbles, am I right?  Brushing myself off, it isn't long before I decide to blow a new set of hopes and wishes into that little, plastic, circle wand.  Comfort food definitely helps.  I don't think my body would thank me for wallowing in greasy-cheeseburger-fries-and-a-shake self pity but maybe something just a little warm and starchy.

Mushroom and Barley Soup

At least 3 cups of 3 kinds of mushrooms like shitake, cremini and portabella chopped

1 red onion chopped

1 stalk of celery chopped

4 to 6cups beef broth

1/4 cup sherry

1/2 a cup chopped parsley

One sprig of thyme

1 cup barley

sea salt

black pepper

heavy cream (optional and the amount is entirely dependant on how much comfort you are needing, I will not judge you)

3 tablespoons olive oil

In a large pot or dutch oven sautee` your onion and clelery in olive oil until transluscent.  Then add your barley and toss so that it is well coated.  Add chopped mushrooms, sherry and thyme then cover to steam for a minute or two so that the mushrooms reduce in size and the flavors blend.  Note that if your barley is sticking to the pot beforehand add a small amount of liquid such as broth or water to slow the cooking. The add the rest of the broth and simmer until the barley is soft.  Before serving add salt, pepper, parley and heavy cream.

Table Style: Scandinavian Design House

I went on a little window shopping walk in the area and found this great shop.  Scandinavian Design House is a tiny store off Bedford Avenue packed with stylish kitchenwares to add color and style to your favorite room in the house.  I just can't help sharing...

Pillows are made with Marimekko fabrics.

Check it out:

Scandinavian Design House

167 N 9th St.

Brooklyn, NY 11211

Sustainable Spring: Sunchoke Slivers with Green Onions and Hollandaise Sauce

I am ready for change.  Life has been moving a little too slowly for my impatient taste.  Despite my efforts to push it along.  Just once can that really great thing that I have been waiting for happen right now! I always feel this way at this time of the year.  Late March and early April give me these anxious feelings of what I need to be accomplishing or what I should have already accomplished.  At the same, I have great expectations for the rest of the year (more so than in January it seems) and for all the great ways I will take advantage of the beautiful weather.  I am already buying spring dresses meant to be worn without tights, boots or scarves.  Is it really going to snow again this week?

Last week I was reading one of my favorite blogs "Not Eating Out in NY" and learned that Cathy Erway is co-sponsoring a contest entitled "Sustainable Spring." The challenge is to come up with a recipe that is true to the name, that is incorperating sustainable, seasonal ingredients.  The winner gets cooking classes at the Ger-Nis Culinary and Herb Center taught by chef Jacques of Palo Santo.  And the deadline is, oh yeah, today!  What a great way to celebrate and embrace the change in season that is so welcomed after our long cold winter!  I left work yesterday and headed to the Union Square Greenmarket with visions of ramps, peashoots, dandelion greens, artichokes and asparagus before my eyes.  Despite my leaving work as early as I could, I got to the market at twenty to six and the stalls were getting ready to close up for the day.  I found one vegetable stall still in business.  One stall with an overflowing basket of sunchokes.  Deja' vous?  This was all too familiar.  As it seems, last year and the year before, I had hit the farmers market in March with the same aspirations minus the blogger contest and found lots and lots of sunchokes.  Until my moving to Brooklyn and thus making local greenmarkets part of my food shopping routine, I had never heard of or eaten a sunchoke.  I still marvel at the strange little vegetables that they are. They look like ginger knobs, have a texture like a potato but a little crisper, and taste like an artichoke.  This recipe is a variation on the classic steamed/boiled artichoke with hollandaise dipping sauce.

Hollandaise Sauce

1 stick of butter

3 egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon lemon

pinch of cayenne

Melt the butter on low heat in a saucepan.  Do not brown.  In a blender add egg yolks, salt, lemon and cayenne and blend.  While the blender is still on drizzle the butter in slowly.  Taste and adjust your seasonings.  Serve immediately or keep warm up to thirty minutes in a bowl over simmering water.

Sunchoke Slivers

sunchokes (as many as you  like)

drizzle of olive oil

drizzle of lemon

sea salt

Scrub your sunchokes clean and drop in a pot of boiling water in descending order from largest to smallest.  Boil for ten minutes and transfer your sunchokes into a boil of ice water to cool and stop the cooking. Remove the cool sunckokes and slice into 1/4 inch slivers.  Toss in a bowl with all other ingredients.

Place a sheet of parchment on a cookie pan.  Place a layer of you sunchokes on it spread out.  Place in the oven at 475 degrees for 5-8 minutes.  This will dry them a little and make them perfect for dipping.

Inspiration Outing 3: Eataly

I finally went to Eataly.  I don't know why it has taken me this long but I have been sitting on this gift certificate since Christmas.  It was three of us, my husband, Nick, our foodie friend, Joe and myself.  We walked up bustling 5th Avenue from 14th street and saw the Eataly logo when we reached 23rd St.  We circled the building a bit before finding the main entrance.  What can I say about this enormous Mario Batali brain child that the hype has not already?  Go, definitely go there, because words do not describe this massive, remarkably designed carnival of food.  Our first impression once inside left us daunted by the size of this market and the crowds of people at every station.  This was an amusement park for wide- eyed adults complete with lines that snaked around the counters.  We turned to a huddle to hash out a game plan.  We were standing in the middle of what is called The Piazza.  In Italy, a piazza is usually in the center of town and is commonly known as a gathering place for friends and neighbors with bars, possibly restaurants and gelaterias.  This piazza was a sort of restaurant where strangers stand together at tall rectangular tables awaiting table service. Waiters were whizzing by me and my eyes kept falling on cheese plates, rosy, marbled charcuterie and wide bottomed wine glasses.  I suggested we have a little tasting right there in the piazza first, then we can do some shopping.

Nick and Joe picked the wine as it is more their area of expertise than mine.  No complaints here.    The  Gavi del Cumune Di Gavi was a nice choice to go with this plate.

We ordered the mixed plate that gave a tasting of their popular charcuterie and cheeses.    From left to right the cheeses  are ricotta, parmiggiano reggiano,  teleggio, and gorgonzola.  From left to right the meats are Prosciutto San Danielle, cubes of mortadella, soppressata underneath, prosciutto cotto (incidentally the Italian word for ham) and speck (like a smoked prociutto.)

Their produce selection was very interesting.  We found lots of new varieties of vegetables in particular.

There is still many aspects of Eataly we did not get to on this first visit.  The meat and cheese selection are what stand out first.  I have heard rumors that the station to head for is really the Verdure station.  It is   not crowded because the local tourists don't seem to be climbing over one another to get to the asparagus spears. 

I dolci!  The canollis  were slightly different than the classic Italian-American traditional we are used too.  I loved the lighter, thinner pastry and orange flavored cream, Nick prefers the original from our local Brooklyn places like Settepani.  

At the end of our day we had a lovely dinner from our recent purchases.

Pork Cheek Ragu over freshly made Taglietelle

Mohagony Clams in Butter, Wine and fresh Herbs

The three of us spent the rest of the evening debating over whether we felt Eataly was really worth the hype.  We listed places where the charcuterie met the level of quality we had at a more reasonable price. We noted that the experience did not open our eyes to new and innovative ways to look at food.   We noted the same type and quality of products are available at smaller places like Colluccio's and Buon Italia at better prices.   That being said, this discussion was had between mouthfuls of simply prepared delicious food because the ingredients were of the utmost quality.   I will say it again; Eataly is absolutely a gastronomic amusement park for adults complete with high prices, long lines, and crowds.  But who hasn't been to an amusement park, right?  And we will most definitely go again.

Accompaniments: Pickled Cipollini Onions

Okay, so I probably put too much thyme.  One sprig was more than sufficient, but look how pretty it looks in the jar.  Its like a little a plant with vines growing around smooth stones.  I love pickles and, truthfully, I love making them too.  Somehow it makes me feel both crafty and economical.  It appeals to my "no-waste" philosophy of living.  However, I so wanted to make these that I bought the onions for this purpose rather than them being leftover onions I decided to pickle.

Unlike most of the pickles I have made in the past, these are a short life pickle.  According to the original recipe I found the shelf life is about two to three weeks. I usually use a white vinegar diluted with water when pickling with a generous amount of salt as well.  In the few recipes I found for pickles that have a shorter shelf life, the vinegar of choice is a white wine vinegar, with less salt but more generous amounts of sugar (something I always leave out of my pickle recipes entirely) and a touch of oil.  Note: no water.
As you might expect, the result was a milder, less acidic taste with just a hint of sweetness.

Recipe adapted from Fine Cooking Issue February - March 2011

• 3/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 clove of garlic ( I used 2 small) peeled 
• 1 hot chili pepper
• 1 bay leaf
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• as many cipollini onions as you can fit in a 1pint jar (peeled)
• 1 sprig of thyme

Cram the thyme and onions in your sterilized glass jar until you can't fit any more. Put all other ingredients into a saucepan and bring to a boil.  Pour the liquid over he onions in the jar.  Tuck in your chili pepper, bay leaf and garlic cloves.  Open in two days.

Table Style: Dressing Up Dinner

When Nick and I were planning our wedding my brother said, "Steph, you better register at a store for gifts or you will end up with three sets of kissing dolphins you can't return."  As I have never been entirely comfortable receiving gifts, telling people what they should get us felt very awkward.  On the other hand, our two room NY apartment doesn't exactly have the mantel space for kissing dolphins.  We went with my brother's advice but made our choices based on our utilitarian needs verses our decorative desires. I think by our decorative desires I mean my decorative desires.

In the past couple of years, I have thought a little more about home decor than I have in the past due to my career change from teaching art to designing.  I have recently been given the opportunity to design a line of table linens which seems to be a very appropriate form of textile design for a foodie, wouldn't you think?  I have spent a couple of days looking at store displays of table settings from high end to low, discovering an array of lavish textures, colors and elegant dishware. I find that my own taste is still utilitarian, and my tendency is not to shop for more but to use found materials and the objects I already have and love in new arrangements.

As much as I like to preach simplicity in design,  I love it when busy patterns some how just work well together.  

This is my only set of matching napkins and at the time I took this picture, this was my only set of placemats (they are turned upside down in order to coordinate better with the table).   I recently purchased a set in blue chendi ($1.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond) when I noticed how many objects and textiles I have that incorporate blue.  I don't have anything that matches the red linen napkins (can't even remember were those came from) so I filled a bowl with red apples as a center piece.

The textile used in the center is not an actual kitchen textile.  It is just a beautiful piece of fabric from my talented Aunt Lucy's sewing room.  She was teaching me how to sew purses from decorative scraps of fabric but I never had the heart to butcher this one.  It was too beautiful a piece for my sad sewing attempts.

I think food should be the table's centerpiece.  I am not a fan of straining my neck over a tree of flowers in dinner conversation.  The blue patterned fabric in the center is also from my aunt's sewing room.

I don't think you have to shell out a ton of bucks for a fresh look.  Which is good, because I don't have a lot of bucks myself.  I am a believer in buying only what you love and everything wil fall into place beautifully, whether it matches or not.

Thank You: Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award

This was awarded to me by a talented blogger, Kitchen Morph.  Definitely try her recipes but stop by also for the colorful photos and insights on Indian culture and cuisine.  I would like to send this award back to her along with some other worthy bloggers namely:  

A Good Life Well Lived

Lemons and Lavender

The Tomato Tart

Sweet. Bitter. Tart.

You fed a baby chili?

 The Cilantropist

Plateful

Cardamom Hills

ChezWhat?

Food Lover

FOOD ADVOKAT

Explore Movement

Chow and Chatter

Imagine! Dream! Create! Make! Explore! Learn! Participate!