yetanotherfreakingfoodblog

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one pot, one plate

lately I’ve been excited about one pot meals - dinners where the whole thing eventually ends up in one pot (grain, protein, veggies) and you put some in a bowl and there’s your complete meal, edible with just one utensil (fork or spoon).

I don’t know why exactly this is so appealing to me (I have a dishwasher, I don’t have kids) (although I do have a more intense job than I did 3 years ago and I’m eating outside the house more too) (who can say, and does it really matter?) but here we are.

my favorites of the genre have been:

this “healthy ish hamburger helper” (look, I know people are divided on the whole hidden veggie thing, but I’m in to it)

protein + veggie (potato, carrot, cauliflower, peas, and/or greens) in a simmer sauce, over rice

And risotto, but this one I find it slightly harder to get it to feel hearty enough for a main (I adore this brown rice butternut squash risotto but I don’t usually have it as a main, unless I put an egg and sriracha on top — that’s usually what I do with the leftovers for breakfast)

anyway the whole reason I’m writing this is that on Friday I adapted this tomato and sausage risotto for the oven (i will never stir risotto constantly on the stove top) and it was great and fit the bill, so I wanted to keep a record! I also feel triumphant whenever I make a smitten kitchen recipe even easier since usually they’re not that fussy.

ingredients

1 can (28 ounces) crushed tomatoes

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic, however you like to fry it with onions

3/4 pound hot Italian sausage, casings removed (I always use hot, I’ve made this a few times and it has turned out bland without flavor from the sausage)

1 small onion, finely chopped

1 cup arborio rice

1/2 cup dry white wine

10 oz spinach

1/2 cup grated parmesan, plus more for serving (optional)

2 tablespoons butter

method

preheat oven to 375

In a Dutch oven, fry onion and garlic and a little salt in olive oil for a few minutes, until onion is soft and transparent

add sausage, cook another 8 or so minutes til sausage is brown and cooked through

add rice, toss to coat in fat for a minute or two

add the tomatoes and 3 cups water. Stir, turn off heat, cover the pot.

bake for 35 minutes (covered) at 375. Have a look at it and give it a stir after 25. If it looks super watery still, change to partially uncovered and keep baking. I think brown Arborio would work in this but will take longer to bake, probably add another 20 minutes?

if it’s still really liquidy, keep baking in 5 min increments til the tomato is absorbed into the rice

take out of the oven. Over very low heat on the stove, stir in the wine, cheese, and butter, for a minute or two. Taste for salt (definitely add at least a teaspoon and probably more, especially if your tomatoes weren’t salted).

stir in the spinach handful by handful til it mostly disappears / blends in

enjoy in a bowl on the sofa :)

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pasta alla norma

A few years ago I decided to try to eat more beans. I liked the idea of eating beans (healthy, filling, environmentally conscious) more than I liked the practicalities (texture) of it. I consider this initiative largely successful (chickpeas and black beans are now in my rotation a lot!), and it culminated in my purchase of COOL BEANS (a cookbook written by someone who absolutely adores and respects beans, which I think is wonderful).

Once that was successful, I embarked on a quest to eat more eggplant, another one of those elusive veggies that seems to be used a lot to create filling, tasty, vegetarian meals but that I've always felt slightly negative about. I'm like 80% done with this endeavor. The first 40% is this black pepper tofu & eggplant which is so easy and tastes absolutely incredible. The other 40% is the pasta alla normal from Six Seasons, a lovely cookbook that somehow turns vegetables, salt, and butter or olive oil into something magical with every recipe.

Rigatoni and Eggplant alla Norma

Ingredients

1 eggplant (~3/4 lb)

2 garlic cloves

1/2 pound raw hot Italian sausage (I like spicy, you can use mild. For a vegetarian version, replace with 1 caramelized onion)

1 pint cherry tomatoes (halve them if they're big)

oregano (fresh or dried) (I never use fresh oregano)

chile flakes

8 oz rigatoni (or whatever short pasta)

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

1/2 cup crumbled ricotta salata (or more parmesan, or skip it altogether if going vegan and add some nutritional yeast! I'm weirdly unmotivated to acquire ricotta salata, so I don't usually have it.)

Directions

First - prep the eggplant.

This is sort of a do-ahead recipe. The thing about eggplant is that it's sort of wet and spongey. It's sometimes better if you let it be dry and spongey (aka let is soak up the stuff), so this recipe asks you to cut the eggplant into 1/2-inch rounds, then into 1/2-inch wide strips then stick it in a colander and sprinkle with a little salt. Leave for 1-2 hours to draw out the excess water. When ready to cook, dry the eggplant with paper towel. Get it realllll dry-like.

I've expedited this step before - cut eggplant, put it in colander with salt for as long as it takes to cook the garlic and sausage, blot dry, and put in pan - and it still turns out amazing.

Cook garlic & sausage

Heat some olive oil in a Dutch oven, not too hot. Smash the garlic cloves and put them in the olive oil and cook slowly, til it's soft and smells nice and is golden but not burned, ~5 minutes.

If you're doing sausage - shape the sausage into 3 patties. (I really love this trick from this cookbook - for dishes requiring sausage chunks, do it by shaping raw sausage into patties, cook them til they're almost done, then breaking them up just to finish cooking. The texture is really nice). Ok so make your patties, cook them in the Dutch oven for about 5 minutes total (flip a few times), then break up into bite sized chunks. Scoop out of the pan and set aside.

Cook the eggplant

If the pan looks dry or you didn't do sausage, add another couple tablespoons of olive oil and raise the heat to medium high. Add the eggplant in a single layer and cook, turning as the strips brown on each side (6-8 minutes total). The recipe wants you to do this in batches. I rarely have the patience to do more than 1 batch for this, so sometimes I just toss it all in and fuss less over the exact brown color, and it still turns out really nice.

Cook the noodles

Boil water and cook noodles as instructed. Save 1/2 cup of cooking water before you drain. The recipe calls for very salty noodle cooking water, I have a hot take that it tastes good no matter how much salt you put in your pasta water!

Start making the sauce

Add the tomatoes, oregano, chile flakes, and caramelized onion (if using) back to the pot. Season with salt and black pepper. Cook until th etomatoes break down and everything gets all saucy, 6-10 minutes. Return the sausage to the pan if using.

Bring it home

Add the pasta to the pan. Stir and cook for a minute or two to let the flavors get into the noodles a little. Add the parmesan and stir some more. Adjust for salt, pepper, or chile flakes, and add pasta water as needed to get it to the right saucy consistency. Top with ricotta salata/parm and drizzle with olive oil to serve.

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Chicken Paprikash

I continue to enjoy cooking chicken. I thought I had made some good chicken before (on this very blog!!!), but then 2023 came along. My friend gifted me some Hungarian paprika from her travels, so one day earlier this year I decided to make chicken paprikash...and it was a huge hit. The people I made it for were delighted. My partner: "top 5 chickens I've had in my life." My friend: "the ultimate comfort food, reminds me of my grandma." My other friend: "when are we having that again?" You get the idea.

I used this NYT Cooking recipe, mostly. The best thing about this recipe is the comments. I am not Hungarian. I thank the Hungarians for introducing the world to chicken paprikash. I loved having chicken paprikash when I was there in 2008, and I love the comments on this recipe. They are largely an argument over whether this is "really chicken paprikash" or not. One helpful comment says "this is a very bad recipe and not just for Hungarians."

I leave judgment of the recipe up to the reader. All I have to say is that I made this dish, mostly following the recipe, and we loved it. Was it Hungarian? Probably not, as I am just a lady who made this in California for friends from all around. But was it delicious? It absolutely was, and I'll be making it many times over.

I skip the egg noodles and do dumplings instead, more on that in a moment.

Saucy Chicken

Ingredients

6-7 bone-in skin-on chicken thighs

1 tablespoon avocado oil

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1 large onion (peeled & diced)

3 cloves garlic (peeled & minced) (I *still* hate working with fresh garlic, I tend to use pre-minced freeze dried garlic in stuff like this which overjoys me. Don't tell my purist friends).

3 tablespoons Hungarian paprika, sweet or hot or a combination -- I love this with hot paprika. I made this so many times that I ran out of the hot paprika my friend got me though, so I also ran through the sweet, which was also wonderful. When I ran out of hot paprika, I started adding about 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper to the 3 tbsp sweet paprika to get more heat. I thought 1/2 tsp was a small kick, I might go up to 1 tsp for a spicier dish.

3 tablespoons flour

14oz canned crushed tomatoes (the recipe calls for "1 cup" but I just put the whole 14oz can in and it's great).

1 cup vegetable broth (I only keep Better than Bouillon veggie broth around, I'm not really a broth purist so I default to veggie broth and this one is a good one. The recipe calls for chicken broth).

3/4 cup plain yogurt (the recipe calls for sour cream, but I always have yogurt around and rarely have sour cream. Recommend using a thicker yogurt, I like Strauss Greek. I also think this recipe is totally fine with less yogurt than 3/4 cup).

Dumpling ingredients

6 eggs

1.5 cups flour

a little salt

more vegetable broth

Recipe

Preheat oven to 400. Season chicken "aggressively" with salt & pepper.

Heat 1tbsp avocado oil and 1 tbsp butter in a large Dutch oven on high. Sear the chicken in batches, skin-side down, until golden & crisp, 8-10 min. Turn the chicken over and sear the non-skin side for ~7 minutes. Remove to a plate to rest.

Return pot to stove. Add onion to the schmaltz in the pot. Cook, stirring & scraping frequently, for ~5 min.

Add garlic, stir again, cook til softened (~3-4 min)

Add paprika & flour, stir well to combine. Cook until fragrant and the taste of flour has been cooked out, 4-5 min. (It will be dry, it's ok, toasty toasty!)

Add tomatoes and broth. Stir together, then nestle the chicken back in skin side up. Slide the pot into the oven (uncovered!) and bake for 25-30 min, until chicken is cooked to 165 and sauce is a bit thicker.

While the chicken bakes, make dumplings! Bring ~4 cups veggie broth to a boil in a medium saucepan. Whisk together the eggs, flour, and salt. I use a 1 tablespoon cookie scoop (filled halfway) to drop dumpling batter into the boiling broth. (I wish I had a smaller scoop, my dumplings usually turn out on the larger side, but they're really unfussy and supposed to be rustic. You can also use your hands and a regular spoon!). They're done when they're floating, or a bit after. Use a slotted spoon to bring them out. You might need to do this in batches.

Take the chicken pot out of the oven. Remove the chicken to a plate with tongs, then stir the yogurt into the sauce. Put the chicken back into the pot. Serve chicken over the dumplings!

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bright, zippy salad

When I'm working with a main dish that's really rich, all I ever want to put on the side is green salad covered in something so zingy it makes my mouth pucker a little. My partner loves to get a bargain on some of the less desirable meat cuts (london broil, tritip, etc) and then marinate + sous vide + sear them into something beautiful. When that happens, I like to make fresh bread (doesn't have to be amazing, focaccia or no-knead peasant bread will do just fine) and something like this salad.

The bright zippy salad that's really stuck with me is Alison Roman's "Celery Salad with Cilantro and Sesame" (from her book Nothing Fancy). I love how opinionated she is about her flavors. I don't always agree with them but I like that most of her recipes are bold. This one was no different, we raved about it for a while. I'd make it a little differently next time, so I'm writing it down, but let it be known I think the original recipe was excellent.

Start with the dressing:

1 tbsp fish sauce (I think soy sauce would work for a fully veg version)

3 tbsp rice wine vinegar (I don't usually keep rice wine vinegar around, so I think I did 1.5 tbsp rice vinegar and 1.5 tbsp white wine vinegar)

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

salt & pepper

2 tablespoons avocado oil (recipe calls for canola, I really only keep avocado oil around for a neutral oil which I love)

1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

Then the vegetables:

Celery - get a bunch of celery with leaves. Chop the stalks (recipe says 4 stalks, but I think you can use however much you've got) diagonally on the bias (put your knife at about 1:00, if the celery is at noon), and slice it pretty thin. I loved this shape.

Cut up the celery leaves (I usually toss the leaves but they were great in this)

1 bunch of cilantro, chopped (yes, use the whole bunch, this is something I love about Alison Roman. "What if a salad was just an assload of herbs" and then the Alyssa treatment, "yes and what if all those herbs were cilantro")

1 jalapeño, thinly sliced (I skipped this because I didn't have one but I do think it would be awesome)

6 scallions - slice them like the celery. (I didn't have scallions so I used perhaps 1/2 of a white onion sliced very thinly. It was great, and I feel like it would also be great with red onion or shallot)

2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds

The salad: toss the veggies together, then put as much dressing on as your heart feels is right.

The recipe calls for drizzling with olive oil at the end. I didn't feel that was necessary (I liked how zippy it ended up being and I thought the olive oil would mute it a bit) but maybe you would enjoy that!

I also think this salad would be very nice with other crunchy, thin-sliced vegetables in it: carrots, snap peas, radishes, cucumber (although my favorite way to eat cucumber is just: with a little red onion, black pepper, and white vinegar), sugar snap peas, or cabbage. Lemme hear your ideas! I love how much this recipe inspired me to riff on it, and I wish you many bright, zippy salads this year.

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Marcella and Kate and Alyssa's beef & wine risotto, California style

I sometimes think of myself as a person that follows recipes pretty closely. My entire self-conception changed on Saturday when I wanted to try out a risotto recipe from Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking (which I just got) and ended up making something totally different but really pretty great.

The base recipe is Marcella's. It's for "Risotto with Beef, Rosemary, Sage, and Barolo Wine, Alba Style." I knew I wasn't going to be making this risotto because she says in the notes that if you don't use a Barolo, Barbaresco, or other nebbiolo wine, it's not this risotto and, while I absolutely love wine, I don't keep Barolo around (see footnote). So I already knew I wasn't going to be making this risotto. I used a Lodi Zinfandel. (Zins are often spicy and peppery and I like to drink them with sausages. How bad could it be? I thought it was great. I think a Cab or a Shiraz could also work. Keep it from California if you wanna stick to California-style).

The other big change I made was not stirring for 25-30 minutes. No thanks. I love to cook but I also love when my cooking appliances do the cooking for me, plus I really wanted to watch Burn Notice. This is where my recipe is Kate's: I love her technique for making risotto in the oven. (That butternut squash risotto is on point, by the way. I eat it for breakfast with a fried egg and sriracha on top). I also love the short grain brown rice in risotto - I stuck with white here, but I think the brown would have been great.

I also made like 100 other changes:

I used vegetable broth made from Better than Bouillon, Organic Seasoned Vegetable Base. I read somewhere that homemade vegetable stock is the best by far, and if you can't make your own stock, use this one. Making veggie stock isn't worth it to me - I really love this stock! Eating meat stock also isn't really worth it to me, so I almost exclusively use this in cooking and I've really never looked back.

I added 1/2 a white onion

I used olive oil instead of pancetta

OK, so that was only 3 more changes. Many variables though! I was nervous, and it turned out great! Also it was ugly. (...I don't know what I expected. Beef, red wine, and rice do not make a pretty color). It was like...very beefy tasting for something that only has 1/4 lb of beef in it for 6 servings. We ate it with a really bright green salad (arugula, romaine, pickled onions, cilantro).

Ingredients

5 cups veggie broth 3 tablespoons butter 3 tablespoons olive oil 1.5 tsp garlic, chopped very fine (I don't measure garlic this carefully) 3/4 tsp dried rosemary leaves 1 tsp dried sage (I've....never used dried sage? It ruled though) 1/2 white onion, finely chopped 1/4 pound ground beef (I used 93% lean) Salt & fresh-ground black pepper 1 1/3 cup hefty red wine 2 cups white Arborio rice 1/3 cup freshly-grated Parmesan cheese

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375.

Put the butter, olive oil, and garlic into a Dutch oven on the stove. Turn the heat to medium and stir. When the butter melts and the garlic becomes a "very pale gold," add the rosemary and sage, cook, and stir for a few seconds.

Add the onion and cook for 2-3 minutes until it softens.

Add the ground beef, breaking it up with your spoon and turning it over a bunch to brown it. Season generously with salt and pepper. At this point it should smell incredible. Those herbs, man.

When the beef is fully brown, add 1 cup of the wine and simmer until it becomes reduced to a film on the bottom of the pan. I think this took me like 10 minutes but the timing is an inexact science.

Add the rice to the pot and stir quickly until the grains are all coated in the delicious beefy wine mixture.

Add 4 cups of broth to the pot and give it a quick stir. Cover and bake at 375 for 45 minutes.

Take the pot out of the oven and uncover - it might look dry, which is OK! Stir in the last cup of broth, the remaining 1/3 cup of wine, the cheese, and that last tablespoon of butter. Make sure the cheese melts, then stir vigorously for 2-3 minutes. If it's too dry, add more broth or water.

Correct for salt. Serve hot with extra black pepper and parmesan!

Footnote: About Barolo. If we're friends, I have a story about a Barolo to tell you. The details are not important to this post, but the gist of it is: often times, the most expensive wine at a place is a Barolo and I don't think I'll ever be comfortable enough to use it in cooking. Yes, I'm sure there are affordable ones, and yes, I'm sure it matters. I'm sorry Alba.

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I LOVE CHICKEN THIGHS

Over the last few years, chicken thighs have really risen in prominence in my cooking rotation. I experimented enough with them in 2020 to learn how to make them taste great. Last weekend I made this sheet pan chicken thigh thing that absolutely slapped, which is when I decided I should devote some writing space to the lowly yet glorious chicken thigh. (We'll come back to the sheet pan recipe).

I already mentioned in my tacos post that they make a really nice taco. I have this recipe basically memorized now: Preheat oven to 375. Heat oil in a Dutch oven. Cook boneless skinless thighs (~1.5 lbs, i.e. 1 package) for 2 minutes on each side in the oil. Put the lid on and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. Put the Dutch oven back on the stove and take the chicken with tongs and put it onto a cutting board. Cut it into little cubes, then put it back in the Dutch oven full of schmaltz and turn the heat back on. Add your favorite spice blend (see the taco recipe for some exact amounts, but this is an art not a science), fry until the chicken gets a lil brown and crispy, and put it in tacos with some avocado, onion, cilantro, and lime. Boom.

For a while I was not willing to cook anything other than boneless skinless meat at home. I don't really have a good reason, and I like to think of myself as a fairly unafraid cook, but here we are. I still haven't done a whole chicken, which I worry takes me out of the ranks of great home chefs! I believe I could do a whole chicken, but we're back to the thighs again. What if you had a whole chicken that was just ALL THIGHS? Well, you can, it's called the mega pack of chicken thighs at Safeway. I truly never want to eat a breast again. Anyway, I eat thighs and legs and stuff with bones and skin on them now, and I've sworn off chicken breast basically forever unless I'm eating somewhere very bougie and it's like the chef's recommendation or something.

Anyway. Thighs with bones and skin. Miracle! The next thing I started doing was marinating. I think I started marinating when I made Chetna's chicken curry. It has a yogurt/ginger/garlic marinade and it's fantastic. I also realized a few things making this, namely that I was, in fact, able to cook pretty great Indian food at home, and those deep rich flavors that I love come from a nice marinade + getting your spices right + heating your spices right! After that I started like...marinating some chicken thighs at 4pm and skillet cooking them at 7, which was such a huge improvement over just salting/peppering them and skillet cooking. Throw in a loaf of bread and a green veggie and that's a perfect dinner.

Generic marinade I used a few times: 1/4 cup white wine, 1/4 cup olive oil, 1 lemon (juice + zest), 2 minced garlic cloves, salt and pepper, 1/4c chopped fresh herbs (it says parsley and oregano, I think it can be whatever you want. I mostly only keep cilantro around which is a whole other post).

When I forget to leave time to marinate, I can always come back to what I've just been calling "that chicken." It's an Alison Roman recipe so maybe I should call it The Chicken? Its real name is Garlicky Chicken Thighs with Scallion and Lime. Anyway, it's awesome and it requires no advance prep and it's definitely weeknight-friendly. Basically, you brown the chicken thighs, then add a crap ton of scallions (whole!), a little soy sauce, a little lime juice, some garlic, and some water, then let it simmer for like 25 minutes, and then add more scallions and herbs. Dip crusty bread it the sauce and serve it with a green veggie (can you tell I like bread and try to eat vegetables?). Maybe have a bottle of Chenin Blanc! Life's short. I think this meal is fast, green, pretty, and delicious.

This all came back to a head this weekend when I did have time to marinate, and went with a yogurt marinade recipe that, as I said before, absolutely slapped. I cannot even begin to explain how delicious this chicken was. It's a yogurt/lemon/turmeric marinade (so it's a really pretty color), and then you cook the chicken thighs with chickpeas and spices and red onions, stir them around in oil and schmaltz, and then scatter lightly pickled raw red onions and herbs all over the top and serve with a turmeric yogurt sauce. MY GOD. The yogurt sauce!!! The delicious chicken! The chickpeas! The pretty red onions! It was maybe the best thing I have ever cooked. (Maybe). I served this one with some homemade bread (basically a no-knead, I baked it in a loaf pan) and a real fresh green salad (romaine, arugula, tiny diced celery, cilantro, and tiny diced sugar snap peas), and some sliced cucumber with rice vinegar and sesame oil and salt and pepper. (My beautiful boyfriend put together those beautiful vegetables, credit where credit is due).

Life: enriched.

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I love tacos

Hello, my name is Alyssa and I LOVE TACOS. They might be my favorite food. I love crappy Americanized tacos and vegan tacos and tacos from a truck. I love tiny tacos and huge tacos, I love tacos that are bursting with filling and tacos that are mostly tortilla. I like hard shell tacos and soft shell tacos and flat tacos (which I guess are nachos? Who's to say).

I love to go out for tacos and I love to stay in for tacos. When I go out for tacos, I like the simple "street taco" style...the double corn tortilla, some meat, white onion, cilantro, and a lime on the side. Maybe some avocado (not guac!) if I'm feeling fancy or hungry, although if I'm hungry I might just get another taco.

When I stay in for tacos, I now have a few go-tos that I'm really in to!

These cauliflower tacos are awesome. I love the avocado and the pickled onion. The cotija is nice but I don't think it's necessary, and these are vegan without it (vegetarian with it). Sometimes I sub sour cream. I even like the beans in it, which aligns with my goal of eating more beans. I like to fry the beans in a little olive oil and salt before mixing them with the roasted cauliflower.

For meat tacos, my old favorite way of making the filling was honestly just frying up some ground beef til it got brown, then adding some jarred salsa in until it tasted right. I still like eating that but I've recently been trying to eat less beef (not none, just less) and finding things that taste just as satisfying but are better for the planet really help with that! So I've been moving more toward a chicken taco recipe like this one, which calls for boneless skinless thighs and is basically:

- season thighs with salt and pepper - fry them 2 min per side in a little olive oil in a dutch oven (on the stove) - put the lid on and bake them for 20 minutes at 375 - take them out of the oven and cut them up into small cubes (for some reason I don't love shredded meat on tacos?? I don't really understand, but I wanted to see if I'd like small cubes better and I absolutely do! Weird) - return the chopped chicken to the pan (with all the oil and schmaltz), add seasonings (the linked recipe has the specifics of the blend, but I think it works great with a flexible blend of cumin, paprika, chili powder, garlic powder, and onion powder), and stir around for another minute or two.

For toppings, I just put whatever I have in little bowls on the table. In order of importance: diced onion, lime wedges, chopped cilantro, avocado, sour cream, salsa, halved cherry tomatoes, cheese (I like jack or cotija), or whatever you like. I also like the crema from the chicken taco recipe, which I usually make with yogurt/sour cream + sriracha + lime zest/juice + salt, adjust as needed.

For tortillas: the only good way I've found of heating a corn tortilla from a store is to fry it in some oil on the stovetop. Don't skimp, the oil holds it together. I like to dry fry flour tortillas one by one on my griddle. This is the most annoying part. I'm open to heating the flour ones in foil in the oven if I'm making tacos for a lot of people, but if it's just me then the dry fry is really easy and quick and I think it tastes better. I like La Tortilla Factory traditional for flour tortillas; I'm less picky about corn ones. Also, taquerias will sell you straight up tortillas if you ask (I am lucky to live in a place with a lot of amazing taquerias).

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salad that doesn’t suck

I have what experts call Complicated Salad Feelings. (I suspect a lot of people have CSF, as somehow salad has become involved in some pretty crap societal nonsense that, despite many of our best efforts, sometimes rears its ugly head in my jerkbrain).

My feelings about salad, however, have changed since I got stuck in my damn house and started to, as they say, “enjoy cooking.” Sometimes I have multiple vegetables that need to be eaten, like, tonight. Sometimes it’s too hot to roast things. Sometimes (all the time) I live in California in wintertime, the land of persimmons (an objectively mediocre fruit). And sometimes I have Quar Buds to share a big old salad with, which I think is really critical.

Anyway here are some Startlingly Good Salads:

## Apples, Celery, and Shallot

slice an apple into slices that are like 1" by 1" by 1/4". Peels are fine!

thin slice some celery stalks

thin slice a shallot

shake it all together in a bowl

add some sunflower seeds

add craisins

add a little chopped parsley if you have some lying around (personal note, I simply don't see the point of parsley beyond making something look kind of green)

Dressing: 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/4 cup lemon juice, a tablespoon of maple syrup, salt, and pepper. Shake in a mason jar, put as much on the salad as feels right. Startlingly good. (Source: https://www.forkintheroad.co/crunchy-celery-apple-salad/)

## Greens, Citrus, Avocado, and Shallot

get a green. baby spinach, adult spinach, and arugula work great! just like whatever you're feeling / have a sad bag of in the fridge.

add a blood orange (peel it and chop it into the size of chunks you might want to eat on a salad fork)

thin slice a shallot and throw that in there

right before serving, add some avocado chunks in there

pistachios are pretty good too

Dressing: citrus vinaigrette! The vinaigrette ratio is typically 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. Do that, add a little salt and pepper, then squeeze a little orange juice in there! Or lemon or lime juice, or whatever you have on hand. Garlic? Chopped shallot? Sure. Put it in there, shake it up, dress accordingly.

A variation on this salad is the citrus and avocado salad from Salt Fat Acid Heat. Peel the citruses and slice from top to bottom (in nice rounds), add red onion, avocado chunks, and maybe some beets if you have them lying around! Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt.

## Winter squash and Kale Panzanella

kale

roasted winter squash, of any variety

some kind of onion or allium (I'm noticing a shallot pattern for myself, yum yum, but this is pretty good with raw shallots, onions of any color, or even lightly or darkly caramelized onions)

dried cranberries

light dusting of grated parmesan

stale bread (anything but grocery store bagged bread, did you by chance do a sourdough experiment early in Pandemic and fail miserably like I did? great news, a flat failed sourdough works great for this!) -- rip or cut it into crouton-sized pieces, toss with olive oil/salt/pepper, toast in the oven for a bit until it's cronchy

Dressing: your favorite balsamic vinaigrette.

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pizza opinions, part 2

It’s been something like five months since I last wrote about pizza, and I have been practicing! I have MORE OPINIONS that I’d like to write down for my future self (hey grandchildren! see?! I used to be SO COOL. also, there was a pandemic when I was 31. you probably heard about it already, but I’m probably still not over how shitty it was!!! At least I learned how to make pizza).

Point the first: sauce! It’s easy!! I know it from memory now and I can use whatever tomatoes you want me to! I once made it with SMALL YELLOW TOMATOES from my friend’s backyard. What a delight. I didn’t even peel the small yellow ones! I just cut them in half and chucked them in the saucepan. To recap:

heat some olive oil in a pan

add minced garlic and however much dried oregano feels right

add tomatoes! canned crushed, whole blanched (maybe like 7?), or even just halved cherry tomatoes. whatever!!!! the fresh ones make the sauce turn out sweeter and brighter, and the canned make the sauce turn out richer.

add garlic powder, onion powder, a little sugar, and some salt (I forgot about the salt in my Detroit pizza post).

simmer it until it seems to be a good thickness

blend it in an immersion blender if you want. chunks are also fine. I like to blend it when I use fresh tomatoes and leave it when I use diced.

Hot tip: sometimes I make the pizza sauce ahead. It takes 15-30 minutes to simmer, which is annoying when I'm doing other pizza prep. A person could also buy pizza sauce, and I wouldn't judge them. I just like the flexibility of only keeping plain tamatoes on hand. Plus sometimes I need to use up tomatoes because my roommate likes to order 10 pounds at a time.

Point the second: cheese! I have done a number of cheese experiments. Final verdict: get the whole milk mozzarella, the kind in a brick! Not the kind in any sort of liquid or that is labeled "fresh" at all. It's just too wet! Get the brick, shred it yourself. I think this cheese is better than all of the following: pre-shredded mozzarella from the store (it's usually part skim, and I want the fat in the cheese! it also has stuff added to it so it melts weird), fresh mozzarella (too wet), non-mozzarella. I've added things like goat cheese and parm to the pizza as well but I didn't love using those as the ONLY cheese.

Point the third: toppings. I like spicy italian sausage if I'm having meat and shallots, raw onions, caramelized onions, or thin-sliced bell pepper if I'm not having meat. If it is summer, I also like fresh corn, chili oil, and cilantro (post-bake). If I have basil, I like basil too (pre-bake). For the sausage, I like to remove it from its casing, cook it in the frying pan while gently smashing it into a variety of chunk sizes with a wooden spoon until it's just brown, but not cooked through. It will cook the rest of the way in the oven. (I have also tried cooking it all the way through on the stove, boiling then slicing into coins, and mild sausage, all of which are not as good as gently cooked spicy sausage in my book).

Point the fourth: crust. No crust has come even CLOSE to the "overnight straight" pizza crust recipe from Flour Water Salt Yeast. Just...not even close. The Roberta's pizza from the New York Times turned out fine, but I do not think there are enough instructions in that recipe to make a good pizza. There are perhaps too many instructions for my liking in Flour Water Salt Yeast but it does make a crispy, chewy crust. My main issue is getting it thin enough, but I like a thick crust. To get it thin, I think it needs to sit at room temperature for a little while. I also enjoy the developing tension in the dough ball, which I find kind of hard to describe with words, but I did suddenly "get it" one morning, which was very satisfying. I used the same tension technique on tiny dough balls to make buttery dinner rolls for Thanksgiving, which was a roaring success.

Hot tip: I like to use parchment paper plus a generous amount of olive oil from a squeeze bottle to help the raw pizzas be both movable (to the oven) and releasable (from the pan when they are done).

Hot (literally) tip: I like to use 1 pizza steel (what a lovely housewarming gift) and 1 cast iron pan to make pizzas. I preheat them in the oven, as hot as it goes (my new oven gets up to 550!! I sometimes put it down to 525 because the crust browns pretty fast). Shape the crust on parchment paper + olive oil just on the counter. Then get out the hot pizza pan, put the crust (including the parchment paper) in the pizza pan. The pans get very hot, do not touch them. Only touch the parchment paper. I poke the paper down with a fork to make sure the crust is touching the hot pan. THEN put the sauce and toppings on and bake for about 10 minutes. The parchment trick also usually means if I mess up and put all the toppings on before the pan transfer, it is not a disaster. Just move it in really quickly and maybe fold it up like a wonton (gather the diagonal corners at the top), doing your best to keep all the toppings on.

With these principles, it's also pretty easy to make pizza using a store-bought crust. Both Safeway and Whole Foods sell pizza dough in bags, which also turns out pretty good if you just use that plus the parchment/oil/hot oven. Main tips for that dough are (1) definitely don't follow the directions on the bag -- do not bake at 400!! and (2) if you can't stretch it out into the shape you want yet, put it back in the bag (or, if you threw that away, drizzle it with some olive oil and wrap it in plastic wrap) and let it sit at room temp for 30 minutes.

I don't want to brag, but I'm going to do a small brag: these pizza experiments have yielded pizza that's WAY better than any spot that delivers to my house in San Francisco. (The results are NOT better than all the sit-down pizzas in SF, but I haven't had sit-down pizza since before the pandemic which started 9 months ago, so here we are). When we can, come sit down at my house and we'll have a good time. Bring salad.

[yetanotherfreakingfoodblog]

ragazza salad

“recipe”: https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/Farro-Kale-Salad-35984054

I quote “recipe” because this is a dish from a restaurant, so this is a secondhand recipe.

There’s instructions in there, but it’s a really simple and lovely concept.

First: start cooking some farro, however your package says to. I did 1 cup.

Next make a green goddess dressing. There’s a version in the recipe link which seems great. I did approximately that, but I couldn’t find fresh tarragon so I used basil and cilantro (my most favorite and treasured herb) instead. To make green goddess dressing, blend all these ingredients in an immersion blender:

- 1/2 avocado - 3/4 cup buttermilk (they say lowfat) - 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar - 2 tablespoons chopped fresh tarragon (???? what even is 2 tbsp of a fresh herb?? I just chucked in a handful of cilantro and like 8 basil leaves) - 1 scallion (white & green parts), coarsely chopped - a little fresh ground black pepper - salt to taste

To finish: mix the cooked farro with kale or little gems. (The amount is an art, not a science, but for reference: to serve 3, I cooked 1 cup of farro, and added 1 sandwich bag full of chopped kale). Add something, fresh, crunchy, and thin-sliced. Traditionally this is radishes, but my housemate doesn’t like radishes, so I used rainbow carrots. Chop up 1/2 avocado (more if you’re long on avocados -- the 1/2 is nice because you can use the other half of the one you used for the dressing but personally I could have used more). Artfully add little stripes of radishes/carrots and avocado. Drizzle green goddess dressing over the top. Marvel at the beauty. Enjoy stirred.

I’m not really a “salad person”....except when the salads are incredibly great, and I think this is the best salad I’ve ever had. I think about it often, and (as mentioned) I’m not a person who thinks about salad. When I’m hungry, I want this salad! (I also want pizza, and coincidentally or maybe not this salad is from a pizza restaurant so maybe this is all just a whole Pavlov thing, I have no idea). You can order it at Ragazza, a lovely little spot for pizza and wine and friendship and salad on Divis and Page. They change it up sometimes (sometimes it’s lentils instead of farro, sometimes it’s little gems instead of kale) but it’s always a gorgeous, bright, stick-to-your-ribs, good ol’ California salad.

[yetanotherfreakingfoodblog]

who the hell are ya?

Listen. It’s a fundamental question of human existence, or maybe just human existence in the modern age, or maybe just human existence in the modern age in an individual-centered culture. Anyway, thank you for asking. I realize that you didn’t ask, I just titled the post that way, but I thank you for making it this far.

I’m a lady in my early 30s who’s white and employed and lives in one of those mind-bogglingly expensive coastal cities. I value community, justice, joy, levity, relationships of many kinds, integrity, and a wide variety of other things I once enumerated in a dropbox paper document with the help of an internet worksheet on values. 

I LOVE to eat. I’m an okay cook who’s gotten a lot better since the Big Rone made its US debut. Since I can’t “hang out with friends” or “go on dates” or “visit my family” in these times, I find myself with some spare time (!!), so I’ve rewatched New Girl twice, come up with a startup idea, started an online class about React Native, and gotten better at making my own food. Clearly the next step is to start a food blog. (Real talk, the reason I’m here is more about keeping track of what recipes I’ve enjoyed in a format that’s more fun than a dropbox paper doc) (what IS it with me and paper docs) but I like when recipes are communal (harken back to my values) so figured I’d make them public).

I solemnly swear to write the recipe first, then write my feelings second, so if you’re one of those a-holes who complains about people’s personal anecdotes on their personal food blogs, well, you’re probably not going to be reading this anyway, but if you are, you can have the recipe first.

I ❤️U! 

[yetanotherfreakingfoodblog]

detroit style pizza

Recipe: https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2017/02/detroit-style-pizza-recipe.html. (Something I like about Serious Eats is they usually also provide an explainer piece on how the recipe was developed and why, food-wise, they make the recommendations they do! So I recommend the Detroit pizza explainer).

I will write my version here, so you get the ✨true alyssa experience ✨.

FOUR HOURS BEFORE YOU WANT TO EAT PIZZA:

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whisk 300g bread flour, 5g instant yeast, and 9g of salt.

Add 220g of lukewarm water. Not hot, hot will kill yr yeast!

Mix with the dough hook on low speed until the dough comes together.

Let the dough rest for 10 minutes. (Perhaps play a few games of internet boggle, or take out the trash).

Mix (again with the dough hook) on medium low speed for 10 minutes until it makes a ball. It should stick to the bottom while it’s mixing. (I don’t know what to do if it doesn’t stick to the bottom but instead rides around the bowl like some sort of tilt-o-whirl. Probably that means it’s too dry? But not sure...it’s never happened to me). I use KitchenAid speed 4 for this. Sometimes at the end of 10 minutes it doesn’t make a ball; in that case I crank it up to like 8 or something for like 30 seconds and it usually does make a ball.

When you have a ball, cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set in a warm place for 2 hours. (I usually turn my oven on to 100 degrees or something and set it on top of the oven. If it is that warm, you might be able to get away with less than 2 hours, but yeah usually I just set it and forget it).

INTERLUDE: consider going for a bike ride, doing your laundry, watching a movie, or having a beer in the park 6 feet away from a friend! Come back in 90 minutes for the sauce making.

THIRTY MINUTES BEFORE THE DOUGH IS DONE RISING: make the sauce. (I really liked this pizza sauce and have made it for other pizzas as well. It’s relatively rich because of the canned tomatoes. If you have fresh tomatoes, perhaps because your roommate ordered 10 pounds of tomatoes for 3 people to eat before they go bad, I recommend this recipe, which has you boil the fresh tomatoes for 2 minutes and peel their skins off, then proceed as usual. It was hella fresh and bright).

Mince 3 cloves of garlic, or measure on 3 lil spoonfuls of jarlic (you know, garlic in a jar. I’m not here to judge; I have an ex-boyfriend who was always criticizing my garlic chopping skills and it really sucked, so do whatever brings you joy -- just get some garlic going, ok?)

Measure out 2 teaspoons of dried oregano.

Heat up 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a saucepan.

When the oil is shimmery, add the garlic and oregano. Cook it for 30 seconds. ONLY THIRTY SECONDS!! IT’LL BURN REAL FAST!!! Don’t walk away!!

Dump in a 28-oz can of crushed tomatoes. Stir it around a bit with a wooden spoon. Scrape the bits off the bottom and stuff.

Add 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, and 1 tablespoon of sugar. (I’m gonna be honest with you, we didn’t have garlic powder and onion powder so I just skipped those two things and it’s still pretty good. Don’t skip the sugar).

Stir, then let it simmer for 30 minutes, stirring as the spirit moves you. 

After 30 minutes, set aside.

WHEN THE DOUGH IS DONE RISING:

Preheat the oven to 550F, or however high it goes. Mine only goes to 525, and I’ve measured it and it’s a bit cool, so don’t stress it.

Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil into each of two 8x8 pans. If you are fancy, or a big pizza fan, you could use the Detroit style pan featured in the Serious Eats recipe. I am not fancy.

Split your dough ball in half and put 1 ball in each pan. For each, turn to coat it in oil, then try to spread it to the edges. Put it as far to the edges as you can get it without ripping it. It probably won’t go that far, it’s ok.

Let them rest for 30 minutes.

INTERLUDE: watch 1 episode of Dead to Me, or: PREPARE YOUR TOPPINGS!! You can put whatever you want on this, I’m not here to tell you how to live your life. I like to put sausage and red onion, maybe some basil at the end if we have some and I’m feeling fancy. Really not the traditional Detroit toppings though. Kenji and the City of Detroit recommend pepperoni and this very salty Wisconsin brick cheese, which honestly tastes IN-CREDIBLE, but you have to special order the cheese and we never have pepperoni around. I just use normal Safeway-brand part-skim mozzarella. I do not recommend using a wet veggie (like bell peppers) -- either dehydrate (bake) them before putting them on, or just save them for a salad. Anyway. If you’re doing it my way, thinly slice the onion, and cook the sausage. You can cook it however you want -- I’ve tried it crumbled, but what I like more is to take 2 frozen sausages, boil them for 15 minutes, then slice them once lengthwise and a bunch of times into tiny half discs. They’ll cook more in the oven and get kinda brown, it’s delightful.

WHEN YOU ARE DONE WAITING FOR YOUR DOUGH TO STRETCH AND YOUR TOPPINGS ARE PREPARED:

Stretch the dough all the way out to the edges of the pizza pans. There’s a trick for the corners in the Serious Eats recipe! Check it.

Top the pizza! Traditionally, pepperoni goes on first, then thicc blocks of cheese, then 3 rows of sauce, then more pepperoni. I’ve done it in the more “regular pizza” style of sauce, cheese, sausage, onion, basil at the end, and I’ve done it in “trying my best to be Detroit” style: sausage, a bunch of shredded cheese, 3 rows of sauce, more shredded cheese, the rest of the sausage, more shredded cheese if I’m feeling hungry.

Bake! Stick the pans in the oven and bake til the cheese is brown and bubbly. If you are wondering whether it’s brown and bubbly enough, I’d leave it in a bit longer. Let that crust crisp up.

EAT!

Ok, now that I have the recipe out of the way (HAHA) I can tell you personal stories. I personally love Detroit pizza. It’s a thick bready crust that’s chewy on the inside and crispy on the outside. Like focaccia. A Pizza Hut pan pizza, but actually delicious. My friend (a professional chef) made it for my when he threw me a dinner party for my 30th birthday party and it was the beginning of a love affair (between me and the pizza).

I still respect you if you’re more of a “traditional Italian” type, or like if you’re from Chicago or whatever. I was born in Wisconsin and the pizza of my childhood was cut into squares. I don’t like New York pizza that much (IT’S FINE, I JUST DON’T UNDERSTAND) (minus Roberta’s, which I loved because I had some spicy honey situation there once and it blew my mind, and I’m also attempting to replicate their pizza crust AS I TRANSCRIBE THIS RECIPE). Anyway, if you’re a pizza purist, maybe this isn’t the pizza for you. If you want some damn delicious dinner, though, and for SOME REASON you’re stuck at home all day...

I’ve struggled a little with bread during the pandemic. I made 4 sourdough loaves, 2 of which were very hard, one of which was ok but flat, and one of which was pretty awesome but very dark on the outside. It was a lot of sweat for not as much reward. This pizza has felt much more satisfying to me: still some sweat, but much much more reward.