It takes a lot to get back in the groove, but now that the big project has passed, and I’m looking forward to a serious food vacation, I think I can restart the documentation. So I’m back in action with a completely random dinner.

The beginning: a gift certificate to my favorite food store, and an enticing jar of harissa. Next: what to do with the harissa? Harissa means Moroccan, and I conveniently have a stockpile of that. (Stupid not to make it all the time, since it’s possibly the world’s quickest, easiest starch — and also really good with some honey for breakfast.)

Off to the store for some meat and vegetables. I had planned on chicken, but Bi-Rite was cleaned out (everyone cooks on Sunday night!), so I decided to try their pomegranate-marinated lamb leg. I don’t even like lamb, but hey, pomegranate, lamb, Morocco….

A not very long story made short: I cut some zucchini, red onion, carrots, and sweet peppers into large chunks, added a bit of sliced garlic, a few grinds of pepper, and olive oil, spread it in one layer in a casserole, and tossed it into a hot oven to roast. In the meantime, I cleaned the lamb (I hate gristle) and cut it into a few grillable slabs, then got the couscous going.

I’m not joking that couscous is the easiest starch. Here’s the recipe: Boil 1 1/4 cups of water and a bit of butter or oil. When the water is boiling, stir in 1 cup of couscous. Put the lid on and turn off the heat. After 5 minutes, fluff if with a fork. That’s it, really.

I gave the vegetables a good stir every 10 minutes for maybe a half hour, until they were good and soft, and starting to char. But I needed some kind of sauce. OK, so the Morocco thing went out the window, but here comes the harissa: Onto the vegetables I spooned a quarter cup or so of tomato sauce plus a heaping spoonful of the harissa, some salt, oregano, and thyme, then set the pan back into the oven to heat and thicken up. After a few minutes, I tossed the lot of it with some chopped parsley and cilantro and…wait for it…some diced homemade preserved lemon! (The lemons win the prize for longest-languishing ingredient in my fridge, and they’re actually not bad.)

The vegetables are delicious! Harissa isn’t too hot, and more complex than I’d guessed. The fresh herbs were a nice bonus, since I don’t always have herbs in the house. The thin slabs of lamb grilled up in about 10 minutes (I managed to not overcook them).

Final dish: a pile of couscous topped with a hefty scoop of vegetables, thick sauce, and chunks of grilled lamb. And all in about 40 minutes. Yum!

radicchio

My deep love for radicchio may have something to do with its glorious color or some feeling that I’m doing my body good, but I chalk it up more to my undying love for all things Italy. Some of the farms around here grow the very Italian radicchio di Treviso, which I buy unfailingly at the market whenever it appears, generally with a quarter pound of pancetta in the other hand.

If you’ve never tried it, let me be the first to tell you that radicchio wrapped in a salty cured meat is one of the best goddam things you’ll ever put in your mouth.

So here’s tonight’s absolutely ravishing, surprisingly quick, and thankfully not-too-bad-for-you dinner (you’ll be glad when you’re licking your plate clean). You’ll need to run to the store for this one, but with only a few ingredients, the trip won’t take long.

What you’ll need for you and a friend:

about 1 cup of polenta
a pat of butter
freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
one or two heads of radicchio
3–6 oz. very thinly sliced prosciutto or pancetta
2/3 c. balsamic vinegar
extra virgin olive oil

Part 1: Make some polenta. I am not fond of the instant variety, and handmade is so, so easy: Just boil some water and salt it. Add the polenta (rough cornmeal) in a slow stream, whisking constantly, then simmer over medium heat, stirring often with a straight-bottomed spoon, for 20 minutes or so. You want it soft, so go with a ratio of 4–5 parts water to 1 part polenta. Add a little milk if you like, and always, always finish with a pat of butter and a good handful or two of Parmigiano-Reggiano. You’ll have more than enough for two.

Part 2: Quarter your radicchio. I prefer the tubular Treviso, but if you can only find round Chiogga radicchio, that will do just fine. Wrap each quarter tightly in a piece of prosciutto (if the pieces are narrow, use two). Heat a little olive oil in a pan and place the wrapped radicchio in the pan, seam-side down. Turn the radicchio often until the prosciutto crisps up. Remove the quarters from the pan and give them a nice sprinkling of pepper.

Now add another tablespoon of oil and the balsamic to the pan and boil it until it has reduced and thickened up a little bit. This is your sauce — wonderful on the food, but don’t hold your face over the pan, or I guarantee you’ll start sneezing.

Time to eat: Spoon some polenta onto your plate, then a couple of quarters of radicchio. Spoon some sauce over both…then eat quickly before your friend steals it off your plate.

I tend to go a little nuts when I have a day off, which partly explains the parade of treats coming out of my kitchen this weekend. My oversupply of clementines explains some of the rest: clementine jam, yogurt (sweetened with the clementine jam), and candied clementine peel, which fortuitously, I learned, turns out to be one of the few things Shelli can stomach in her early pregnancy.

The big news is that after several years of drooling, I finally did it and purchased my first-ever piece of Le Creuset. (Thanks to my always generous brother, who blessed me with a big-ass gift card for Christmas, nudging the decision-making.) I am in love.

I went with the dual-toned red, 5.5-quart size — the most versatile, in my opinion (I really don’t cook massive roasts all that often), and thoroughly manageable, which means I won’t strain my back pulling it out of the oven. I brought it home less than 24 hours ago and have already used it twice.

Le Creuset demands braising, so I headed straight for Bi-Rite for something worthy of the maiden voyage. Beef, clearly, and the Bi-Rite folks actually had boneless chuck roasts, perfect for a lovely brasato al Barolo (beef braised in Barolo wine — or Cabernet Sauvignon if, like me, Barolo is a little beyond your budget). (Later I took my first shot at the now-infamous No-Knead Bread. More on that later.)

If you’re going to go large, you might as well go all the way, so I decided to pair the beef with some homemade pappardelle. Why not? If I had more time on my hands, I’d make pasta all the time. After you dig out the pasta machine and get a little workout kneading the dough (don’t skimp on the kneading!), your work is nearly done. A little rest, a spin through the machine, and a little cutting, and you’re ready to go.

Maybe it was cook’s intuition, but the pasta turns out to have been a great call, since it turns out that I overcooked the beef. Sigh. Backup plan: Shredded and resubmerged in the braising liquid, with some peas thrown in for sweet and color, beef in Barolo makes a brilliant pasta sauce. We’ll call it Pappardelle con Sugo di Bresato…e Piselli.

Despite what any of those right-coasters might believe, California is not really all that warm. If you’ve ever visited San Francisco, you likely made an emergency shopping run to pick up a cozy sweatshirt or jacket to warm up when the fog started rolling in. It’s not foggy now, but it’s damn cold. I mean blowing-on-hands, shoulder-cramping cold.

I know, it sounds like a sissy claim when I tell you it’s in the 30s (”Oh, big deal, we had a blizzard here in Denver!” “It’s pouring muddy slush in New York!”). Well, remember that skiers and East Coasters expect it to be cold in the winter, so they do things like insulate their houses and buy double-paned windows. They might even have parkas and central heat.

In any case, in the weather of two sweaters, jacket, scarf, and gloves, it’s French onion soup time, if you ask me. Skip out of work early, swing by the store, and get a pot going now.

If you’re like me, you probably didn’t get around to making any beef stock this week, so go ahead and use your low-sodium canned stuff. I cheated and made some broth out of the veal demiglace I’ve had languishing in the fridge for a couple of months, but it’s really the onions and cheese that matter.

You need real Gruyère (you’ll blanch at the cost, but buy it anyway) and about five pounds of sweet onions. If you can find only generic yellow onions, or white ones, don’t bother — you need sweet ones, or they’re just never going to caramelize, which means you’ll have oniony soup but not the luxurious browned deliciousness your freezing innards are craving. Some thyme is also nice. And a little bread.

Slice your onions as finely as you can. Your eyes will ache as you sob out a flood of onion tears (unless, as I vow to do next time, you put on some goggles, or you’re just not sensitive to the stuff, in which case I hate you). When you’re done, melt a few tablespoons of butter in a nice big, wide, heavy pot and start cooking your onions over medium heat. You’re going to want them to cook fairly slowly until they start to brown, which can take nearly an hour. Seriously. Just toss them around every few minutes to cook them more or less evenly.

Now here’s a technique I learned from James Patterson, which I think concentrates the flavor a bit: Add a half cup of your broth and cook it down; repeat three more times. I added some sherry at this point, too, just for kicks. Now add 7 or 8 more cups of broth, plus some sprigs of thyme, a bay leaf, and salt and pepper. Simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes, and adjust your salt (don’t skimp on the salt). It’s ready!

I don’t mess around with crocks (well, fine, I don’t have crocks), but you can’t beat cheese toast: Slice some of your bread, sprinkle with Gruyère, and broil for a minute. Add a toast or 5 to a big bowl of the soup, then sprinkle with even more cheese, and pour some wine. Could dinner really be any easier?

(Oh, and to answer your unasked question: Yes, your house will smell like onions when you’re done. But you’ve smelled worse, trust me.)

Thai coconut milk soup (tom kha gai): I used to think this sounded too exotic for a casual night dining alone, but a hundred weeknight dinners can’t be wrong. I’ve made this so many times, in so many different ways — well, all you need is a few pantry items.

Lemongrass is good. In fact, I went with the soup tonight because I happened to have three stalks of it in my fridge (it keeps for weeks — or try dried). If you don’t have that, go with limes. Or lemons and limes. Coconut milk, obviously.

Most recipes call for chicken, but I had frozen shrimp. Perfect. Even better is the Black Japonica rice I made alongside (jasmine is fine, but something nutty with some bit to it is even better). It’s easy, I swear.

I don’t like lots of bits in my soup, so I make a quick stock first: Peel your shrimp and save the shells. Heat some oil in a pot and toss in the shells, some smashed pieces of lemongrass, a few slices of ginger (or even ginger from a jar), some sliced onion, a little garlic, and some spice. If you have dried chiles, you can use those, but red curry paste is even better — I used a couple of large teaspoons. Sauté the aromatics in the oil for a few minutes, then add about 4 cups of stock or water. Let that boil and then simmer for a while — 5 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever works for you.

Strain the stock to get all the bits out (eating lemongrass is a bit like gnawing on wet toothpicks). In the same pot, sauté a little more finely chopped onion and ginger in a little oil, then pour in the stock. When it’s hot, add the shrimp, then a can of coconut milk. If you have some shiitakes, you can throw those in, too. The shrimp will only take a minute or two to cook through. When it’s done, squeeze in a lime or two, add a few splashes of naam pla (buy some fish sauce, seriously — it’s good, cheap, and keeps forever), and some cilantro, if you have it.

Done! Scoop it into a bowl along with a few spoonfuls of some rice, or some noodles. Hot.

Yes, I’m back. To anyone paying attention: I apologize for disappearing. Let’s catch up. It’s not like we haven’t been eating.

The latest: I’ve been on the “save money, don’t go to the store” angle this week…well, actually, this month, which explains why the pantry is running thin. I’ve been getting a little too spendy on the outings (culinary and not), but that’s always a fun excuse to play the pantry challenge. What can you make based almost entirely on pantry and freezer ingredients?

(I make exceptions for essentials like onions, garlic, carrots, and lemons, which are easy to keep on hand in bulk. So can you.)

My pantry-challenge meals lean toward grain and legumes without question. The house is officially bereft if I’m out of canned tomatoes or pasta. You can always make something brilliant with those two lifelines and spices alone; even better if you’ve got some meat (bacon? pancetta?) or jars of capers and olives on hand. Talk to me about pasta. I can go on for hours.

So tonight I’ve got leftover baked pasta with broccoli and goat cheese (no tomatoes!) waiting for me, but last night I went “healthy” by hitting the dried beans. Easy as hell, and I’ve prepped the freezer for pantry raids down the road.

The procedure: The moment I walked in the door, I poured a bag of bulk dried chickpeas (maybe a little more than a pound?) in a pot with two inches of water to cover and got them going over high heat. No presoaking, no fancy prep. Dried beans, water. Poured a drink and sat down to finish some work.

About an hour later, I dug a couple of Italian sausages and half a bag of frozen spinach out of the freezer, chopped some onion, carrot, and garlic, and located the leftover tomato sauce from the pizza I made last week. Browned the sausage, then softened the vegetables in olive oil. I deglazed with some sherry — the chickpeas nearing done — and added the tomato sauce, sausage, and my favorite, pimentón.

When that mixture was bubbling satisfyingly, I ladled a few scoops of the chickpeas with their cooking liquid (and the couple of cloves of garlic I added halfway through cooking) into the pot, simmered a little while, added the spinach, some parsley, and a dash of sherry vinegar, and presto! Done. Actually quite good, and perhaps half an hour of active cooking time.

Almost as great: several pints of cooked chickpeas prepped for the freezer and an even faster meal another day.

What do you make when you’re too lazy to go to the store and too cheap for takeout?

A quick note to any restaurateurs or web developers paying attention: Flash sites for restaurants are stupid.

Actually, Flash sites are stupid in general, but for restaurants the problem is as irritating as bad lighting or cold bread during the meal itself. Everything in moderation, people, including your flashy animations and hipster mood music. If I’m going to your restaurant’s site, I almost undoubtedly seek one of three things:

1. Your menu
2. Your phone number
3. Your location

That’s it! I want to know if I should eat at your place, and if I’ve made my decision, I want to know when and how to get there. I don’t want a fucking movie of a bunch of dorks clinking drinks after work, or two pretty people leaning close over…I can’t even see the plate! Show me what you’ve got, or I just won’t bother unless coerced by more forgiving and better-dressed friends.

I’m trolling the ole Internet for a new place to eat tonight and remembered that Sammi recommended First Crush, where she celebrated her sister’s birthday this week and had a wonderful time. I waited for the intro to load and endured the groovy slow-jam and everything, but I can’t even open the damn menu. Fuck ‘em.

A long, sweaty weekend, one of the rare astonishingly hot days in San Francisco, and I’m just way too far from the beach. Ty was getting heatstroke in Laguna Seca with Valentino Rossi, and I wanted to keep myself busy…so I baked.

Well, first I ate and socialized: Jonas and Melissa came to town, and I found myself nominated once again to be social coordinator (hilarious, really, when one thinks about how socially backwards I really am). But first, dinner.

I made a bargain with some folks at work, many of whom live in lovely homes with yards in the steamy South Bay: Bring me the fruit from your tree, and I will make you treats. From Cara I got a bag of Meyer lemons (which immediately turned into lemon bars); from Jin a bag of the most enormous Eureka lemons I have ever seen. All organic, naturally, and I swear, these things are as big as Nerf footballs. I couldn’t even carry home the entire bag at once.

The lemon biscotti (image lifted
from Leite’s Culinaria)

Jin’s lemons became lemon biscotti, as I had some citron vodka in the house. Crunchy but disappointingly not so lemony, despite the vodka, zest, and lemon oil. Round two went into an enormous batch of lemon curd (I know, I’m not terribly creative). Jin claims to love lemon curd, fortunately, so I’m hoping the jar I gave him won’t go to waste; the rest was split between a gift for Angus and a good-size scoop still waiting in the fridge for my spoon. Tonight the lemons would also become dinner.

I had crème fraîche leftover in the fridge from Kevin’s brunch, so I finally got to try Amanda Hesser’s recipe for pasta with lemon, crème fraîche, and arugula, with spinach in lieu of the arugula. (You can find the recipe in Cooking for Mr. Latte, which despite the precious title is actually a fascinating, witty, and saliva-inducing read. Don’t miss the almond cake.) It wasn’t nearly as puckery as I’d feared, since I wasn’t using Meyer lemons; but the creaminess and slight tang of the crème fraîche was set off nicely by the sweet spinach and bite of the pasta — quite wonderful, really.

The quickie dinner gave me time to eat and plan drinks in honor of the last-minute Jonas and Melissa visit (Nihon, as usual), which thankfully we kept early, so I was up in time to hit the farmer’s market the next morning.

Keeping a really long weekend story short for the moment, the market led to gift-certificate spending at Williams-Sonoma, then a well-deserved, if sweaty, nap and a lovely steak and panzanella dinner for one. Later, drinks again, this time at Medjool, until all the buttheads showed up and we had to flee to Doc’s.

Yesterday? With all those egg whites in the fridge, I had to get to work, and despite the junglelike feel of my kitchen…yep, angel food cake (it’ll go nicely with the lemon curd!). So maybe it is strange to wake up and bake a cake on a Sunday morning for no one in particular, and it’s certainly irresponsible to keep the gas on for an hour when power is at a premium, but you can’t beat a light dessert in the dead of summer.

Which is why I finished the day by making lemon sorbet.

I’m still working on Kevin to commit to building a brick oven in the backyard of his new house, but until then (or I buy a grill!), I’m now a convert: Pizza at home is not the nightmare you’d lead yourself to believe. It’s no 1200 degree charred-in-all-the-right places operation, for sure (no Yellow Bar), and when you find that your mozzarella has turned, you can’t send the stage down the street for more, but damn, it’s actually pretty good.

My old bagel argument — as in why bother to make bagels when you can buy a much better one for 50 cents down the street — is actually moot here. My freshly made frankenpizza (leftover chicken parm, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and oregano) is a million times more tasty (and less salty) than the frozen variety, and it’s sure as shit cheaper than the drool-inducing, though still no Yellow Bar, Delfina pizzas around the corner (I will NOT call them pies).

I actually don’t remember the last time I bothered, but it’s not nearly as much of a pain as you’d expect: With Mike on the phone, even, I whipped together Mark Bittman’s food-processor dough, adding some cornmeal for crunch, plus the sassy olive oil I toted home from Barcelona, and set it to rise. Mike went to bed, I washed some dishes, and the dough miraculously puffed and grew. All it needed was a little pushing and shoving, a good stretch, and a thin layer of flavorings (homemade tomato sauce, gorgonzola, and salami for pizza #2). I slid my little art piece into a 550 degree oven, and 10 minutes later… Yum!

Crispy crust (could be a little thinner), a bit light on the salt, but a perfect smear of tomato. Next time, fresh mozzarella. And yes, I should have frozen half of the dough for another night…but who doesn’t like cold pizza for lunch?

Never will be. In fact, lately I feel about as boring as I’ve been in a long, long time. I’ve been going out too much, for one thing (and this as I’m trying to save money for the big vacation), but then old friends come to town hungry, newer friends talk you into bloodies and brunch, and I come home tired and uninspired and needing to work. Which is not to say that I’m not cooking. I make dinners I barely notice in the evening but dutifully reheat the next day for lunch. What a bore.

Which may be why last night was so silly! I came home practically drooling and craving a meatball sub but without the motivation to actually make meatballs. (Thought I couldn’t ask for better bus conversation, volleying restaurant recommendations with Nicki for an hour has a devastating effect on my gastronomic inclinations for the evening — i.e. I just wanted to go out.) The sun was still visible, the air downright balmy, and dammit, al fresco seemed like just the ticket…until the sun started going down, I’d already nibbled on (ok, fine, gorged on) a pile of hothouse cherry tomatoes and some delicious aged gouda, and I sliced my finger open with my recently sharpened paring knife. OK, staying home. But what to eat?

Leftovers, no. More cheese, probably not wise. Cereal? Depressing. (No one should ever eat cereal for dinner. Ever. Unless you’re in college and your only other option is cafeteria food.) But I didn’t really feel like cooking.

Rhubarb! I have rhubarb. Then it all came together. I’m making friggin pancakes.

Long story short, I made a quick compote of the rhubarb and whipped up some cornmeal pancakes. Syrup just seemed indecent along with the slightly too sweet compote, so I busted out the sour cream to support the pink rhubarb. Inspired! It actually looked pretty, too.

But you’re certainly burning up with curiosity about my other culinary ventures this week. Admit it.

Breakfast theme: a new batch of yogurt for the week — lime-coconut, which I’ve been plotting for weeks. It’s actually a bit thin (did the acid overwhelm the culture?), but surprisingly not too tart, and even better along with some of the sprinkly granola I cooked up at the same time (heavy on the fruit and seeds, and not very sweet). I’m starting to hate those little leaky jars, though. And no, I’m not a damn hippie — I just decided that it’s stupid to spend $4 on a yogurt-granola-berry parfait at work, even if it is delicious.

Spanish theme: in honor of our impending visit to Barcelona, a “smoky” clam chowder — actually more of a stewlike concoction thickened with rice instead of potato and a little too light on the “smoky.” For some bizarre reason still not understood by even me, I bought Soyrizo in that one. Chalk that one up to the voices in my head. (Chorizo has so much grease, it seemed like a good idea, but why does Soyrizo have to ruin the illusion with that starchiness? Thank god I’m not a vegetarian.) Evaluation: good with paprika-dusted croutons, but a little heavy.

Variation on the “pasta again?” theme: a Greek variation of the much more tangy and interesting Sicilian spaghetti with cauliflower, pine nuts, and raisins. This one involved cinnamon, a brothy sauce, and no cheese — actually quite tasty, but definitely not a brilliant leftovers choice, and I miss the capers. Thankfully we’ll also be in Italy soon, so I can remember to stop feeling guilty about craving pasta every day.

On deck for the weekend? I’ve actually been making a list of recipes to try after pouring over this month’s inundation of foodie mags, and reading all my favorite food blogs for inspiration (which is a little distressing, honestly, but only because I’m more than a wee bit envious of some people’s writing skills and industriousness, not necessarily in that order). Maybe I’ll even sweep the floors and catch up on personal email. Wish me luck.