Savory Steel-Cut Oatmeal With Sesame and Scallions

We are definitely in oatmeal territory here in New York.  There is a serious cold snap happening yet again, making it perfect weather to be cozy inside while catching up on episodes of “Downton Abbey” and “Boardwalk Empire”.  It’s impossible for me to watch these favorite shows without craving some kind of winter comfort food to enjoy along with the new episodes, though I’m trying hard to avoid inhaling large quantities of cheesy pasta or roasted potatoes these days.  Since I don’t have the patience for a slow-simmering soup, Steel-Cut Oatmeal with Sesame and Scallions really fits the bill these days.  Healthful yet satisfying, it comes together quickly and is ready for its close-up. 

I love how oatmeal acts as a catchall for a wide variety of toppings.  My family has been known to top their breakfast oatmeal with any combination of brown sugar, bananas, berries, dried fruit, toasted nuts, protein powder, wheat germ—you name it.

For years I’d regarded oatmeal as strictly morning food, but I was happily surprised to discover that my beloved steel-cut Irish oatmeal is a versatile backdrop for savory ingredients as well.  I wrote that post about the joys of savory oatmeal more than two years ago, and since then I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve topped my nutty Irish oats with salty shards of Parmesan cheese and a drizzle of liquid gold olive oil. 

But sometimes I need to mix it up, and lately I’ve been going for a soy-and-sesame flavor profile.  The tamari soy sauce and toasted sesame oil create unexpected layers of flavor when stirred into the cooked oats, while scallions add bite and a welcome pop of color. I sometimes add a few toasted sesame seeds if I have them on hand, as I like the way they add crunch while highlighting the sesame notes of the oatmeal in a different octave.

Chipotle Chilaquiles For A Fresh Start

Hello everyone. I am really happy to be back on this site at long last, and I truly have missed being here. I will try to make up for my absence with a plate of soul-satisfying Chipotle Chilaquiles, prepared especially for you. I realize that’s a lot to ask from a single recipe, but once you taste it, I know you’ll thank me.

The reason for my hiatus would take a year’s answer or none at all, and I will merely confine myself to saying that 2012 was Year Of The Major Curveball. There were huge personal upheavals and professional ones too, a year of trying to roll with the punches as gracefully as possible but with varying degrees of success. (As a result, most of my creative projects—such as this blog—got pushed to the furthermost edge of the proverbial back burner.) In coming to the end of a most challenging year, I was simply grateful that to have made it through 2012 and that everyone I love survived it too.

Whew.

However, some good things happened towards the end of 2012, such as this delightful new job and that crazy adventure. I also took myself to San Francisco for a late August escape, treating myself to some much-needed downtime in that beautiful Northern California light, along with a good dose of culinary inspiration. One of the most outstanding meals during that fabulous week was a plate of to-die-for chilaquiles from the Primavera tamale stand at the farmer’s market outside the Ferry Building. I’ve been on a mission to recreate it for myself ever since.

 

Chilaquiles, a traditional homey Mexican dish, are made by briefly simmering lightly fried corn tortillas in a brothy tomato-chile sauce. The trick is to cook the tortillas just long enough so that they soften a bit but not so long that they become mushy. I cheat a little by using thick-cut tortilla chips instead of the tortillas, and I don’t think the dish suffers in the least from this timesaving measure.

Elderflower Champagne Cocktail

I’ve been dying to tell you about my new favorite drink, a festive Elderflower Champagne Cocktail. I made countless pitchers of this beverage when the One-Year-Plan group gathered for our annual New Year’s Day 6-hour brunch, and I think that will be a yearly tradition from now on. I’ve waited to tell you about it until now because I think it’s absolutely perfect for Valentine’s Day.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

Here are your instructions for Valentine’s Day. First task: go to your local liquor store for a bottle of St. Germaine. If you’re not already familiar with it, believe me when I tell you that this delicate French elderflower liqueur is something that you will definitely want in your home. Floral and beguiling, it’s also extremely drinkable, as you can see from what little is left in my own bottle.

Secondly: pick up a bottle each of sparkling wine and club soda. You don’t have to splurge on fancy champagne for this recipe, not by any means. I usually use prosecco for this, or you can use any sort of inexpensive French or domestic sparkling wine that tastes good to you.

Savory Oatmeal With Parmesan and Olive Oil

Oatmeal has always been big in my family, and like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, each of us has a distinct way of personalizing his or her bowl.

My mom always adds fruit to her oatmeal; sliced bananas, frozen blueberries, chopped apples and dried apricots are all fair game. Dad prefers steel-cut Irish oats and takes an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to breakfast. He mixes in protein powder for extra nutrition, granola and toasted walnuts for additional texture, and then he’ll add golden raisins as well as whatever leftover fresh fruit Mom has cut up for hers. As kids, my brother and I used our oatmeal as a vehicle for heaping spoonfuls of brown sugar, as that was the one of the few times our nutritionally-conscious mother allowed us to add sugar to our food. I loved the soft consistency of the brown sugar, reminiscent of slightly wet sand on the beach only to melt into dark rivers once it came into contact with the hot steaming porridge in our bowls.  My brother is now more of an eggs-and-potatoes man at breakfast so I don’t know how he doctors his oatmeal these days. However, I definitely have something totally new to bring to the table, for I have just discovered the joys of Savory Oatmeal with Parmesan and Olive Oil. Say whaaat?

Winter Fruit Salad To Welcome A New Year

Happy 2010!

I’m always hyper-aware of the FIRSTS of any new year, hoping that these choices will somehow set a good tone for a new year. The first music I listened to was Renee Fleming singing the glorious “Four Last Songs” by Richard Strauss, and my first beverage consumed in 2010 was a delightful Nicolas Feuillatte champagne, enjoyed on my roof exactly at midnight while watching the fireworks display over Central Park. And I must share the first new recipe I tried this year, for I know you are going to love this Winter Fruit Salad.

This is not your ordinary fruit salad, with random bits of chopped-up fruit indiscriminately thrown together. Instead, this is a beautiful bowlful of thin slices of crisp pears and tart apples mingling with dried apricots and figs, bathed in a fragrant syrup perfumed with vanilla bean, fresh ginger and star anise. I am so happy I stumbled across this recipe last week on Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite food blogs, and I know I will be recreating this many times this winter.

Dutch Baby Pancakes

I have been craving Dutch Baby Pancakes a lot lately. Maybe it’s partly because I’ve been missing the Junior Owens who are in the Netherlands this fall. My brother and his wife were both accepted by an artist residency program in Delft, and they’ve been given an apartment plus studio space for their use over these next months. As one who has lived in the same apartment for 11 years and has a hard time even making an emotional commitment to rearranging the furniture, I have particular admiration for Peter & Alison’s willingness to uproot themselves and pursue new creative journeys, wherever those opportunities may be. Luckily for them, they have an extremely adaptable child who seems to enjoy the adventure of it all, and Mac was particularly excited about this new chapter in Delft.

Since they were staying with me before flying to Amsterdam earlier this month, I wanted to make them a special send-off brunch before they went to the airport. Mac suggested making Dutch Baby pancakes, something we’ve had in our breakfast repertoire together for a few months now, and it seemed an appropriate and festive thing to have. The Little Chef got to show off his excellent egg-cracking skills as well as his ease with a paint brush as he coaxed melted butter up the sides of the pie plate. He was especially excited to make this for his dad, who had never tasted our version before.

Olive Oil Granola

Did you read the recipe for Olive Oil Granola in the New York Times last week? It totally grabbed my attention, for I’d never thought of such a thing. I have grown much more accustomed to encountering olive oil in sweeter contexts lately, though, with Mario Batali’s outrageous olive oil gelato at Otto being a prime example. I use it liberally in my Tiger Cake, and I drizzle a judicious amount of my very best olive oil over my blush-worthy Chocolate Toasts for an additional luxurious note. But using olive oil to make granola? Well, why on earth not?

I realize that I’ve never actually made granola myself before. This is strange because I love eating it, and I’ve certainly bought countless containers of it over my lifetime, but it’s odd that it never really occurred to me to make it myself. Maybe this reluctance is partly because I always felt that granola was my grandmother’s domain.

Marvelous Muffins To Greet A New Year

Happy 2009! Even though this is a time of great uncertainty, I am filled with optimism at the beginning of this new year, and I am hopeful that life will go in better and wiser directions for all of us. May 2009 be an adventurous and fruitful one for everyone!

I always make mental notes of my Firsts of each new year, hoping that these Firsts will somehow set a good tone for the upcoming year. We were on my roof deck right at midnight, watching the fireworks burst into celebration over Central Park as we clinked glasses of gorgeous Gragnano, and it seemed fitting that my first wine of 2009 was that beautiful sparkling purply-red wine from Naples which makes my heart leap for joy each time I have a sip of it. In a bid for clarity and a dash of brilliance in this new year, the first music I listened to was Glenn Gould’s dazzling recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The Bach was followed by my favorite Cleveland Quartet recording of the Beethoven Quartet opus 132, which I suppose represents my wish to live my life with more compassion and the courage to dig deeply. And my initial foray into the kitchen in this brand new year produced some mouthwatering Cranberry Ginger Pecan Muffins that I would love to share with all of you today.

I absolutely love starting a new year by hosting a party on the first day. It’s especially fun when that party is a brunch that begins around noon and lasts until long after the sun has gone down! The One-Year-Plan Club convened for our annual New Year’s Day brunch, and a merry time was had by all. Talk about setting a festive tone for the year!

The whole concept of the One-Year-Plan was my friend Ed’s brainchild years ago. He realized that not only he but also many of our friends had a plethora of creative ideas and projects that we wanted to get off the ground, yet we were all floundering without enough direction or a feasible plan of action. Making resolutions at the beginning of the year never seemed to work beyond the initial enthusiasm, so Ed’s idea was to create some sort of practical roadmap for helping these dreams come to fruition, as well as providing a system of accountability and encouragement for each other as we spurred each other on. We had an extended brunch on January 1, 2002 in which we discussed all of these ideas and goals for the future, and thus the One-Year-Plan Club was born.

The original New Year’s Day quartet was Jorge, Katie, Ed and I, but since 2002 we have grown as Alissa, Erica, Ben and Hannah have joined us. These friends and I have all watched each other make huge professional strides, satisfying career changes, and enormous creative and personal leaps over the years. We have celebrated each others’ successes together, no matter how big or small, and our One-Year-Plan Club has been an incredible source of support as well and a galvanizing force. There is real power in articulating one’s goals and crazy dreams out loud to trusted friends, for that is often the first step in making those very dreams become realities.

We used to go out for our January 1st brunches, but after experiencing interminable restaurant waits and servers who were either cranky as hell or still drunk from the night before, we now have our New Year’s Day brunch at my apartment, which is infinitely more fun. Not only do I love cooking for my friends, we also can linger as long as we need to and laugh as loudly as we want without the fear of inconveniencing any fellow diners. Trust me, that’s important because there is always high hilarity with this crowd, to say the least!

One of the secrets for a happy party is making everyone feel welcome the moment they arrive, no matter how far behind you are in your preparations. I used to get very stressed about that, wanting everything to be perfect the moment my guests stepped across the threshold. But thankfully I’ve discovered that nobody really cares if you still have last minute-cooking to do, especially if you greet them warmly and welcome them with a yummy beverage upon their arrival!

It was a brilliant sunny day, and we had an appropriately happy menu to usher in the new year. Today’s featured cocktail was my Pomegranate Mimosa, a glorious glass of sparkling plum-colored happiness. It couldn’t be easier to make, for all you do is fill a champagne flute about a third of the way with pomegranate juice, then gently pour in enough sparkling wine or prosecco to fill the glass. It’s fun and festive and is a welcome change from a traditional orange juice mimosa. Besides, what could be better than getting antioxidants along with your champagne bubbles?!!

I found a recipe for a spectacular baked egg custard that provided a huge pay-off for very little prep work. All I did was whirl eggs and milk with a few dashes of nutmeg in the blender, pour the mixture over grated gruyere cheese and snipped chives in a baking dish and then stick the whole dish in the oven for 40 minutes. Look at what happened! It rose magnificently and puffed up like the most airy soufflé, and we devoured every last bit of eggy goodness. It was all the more delicious when served with crispy Niman Ranch bacon, which I am delighted to report is now available at both Fairway and Trader Joe’s. (Happy new year to me!)

We made quick work of the egg custard and the bacon while they were still hot. But then there were the MUFFINS, which carried us through our entire afternoon and into the evening. One of our friends doesn’t eat gluten, so I had a fun experiment making these delicious gluten-free lemon blueberry muffins from the wonderful blog Gluten-free Girl. And since I’m still in cranberry holiday mode, I also made an enormous batch of Cranberry Ginger Pecan muffins. It’s these delectable little baked treats that I’d like to talk about today.

Imagine a muffin still warm from the oven, slightly crunchy on top and tender inside, studded with tart cranberries and chewy morsels of crystallized ginger. Chopped toasted pecans provide a textural contrast, and there is a lot happening in just one bite of these muffins. They are homey and satisfying yet sophisticated all at once. These are the perfect thing to eat on a cold winter morning with a big steaming mug of coffee, but I must say that they also work fabulously with a Pomegranate Mimosa!

The champagne flowed as freely as the coffee while my friends and I did a recap of 2008 at our brunch today. We actually NEEDED several hours to thoroughly celebrate each other’s various achievements and the exciting personal strides made over the past year, as well as the creative endeavors which are in the process of being realized! Though we may not accomplish everything on our lists in any given year, the One-Year-Plan is about daring to dream big and enjoying the journey as your friends walk alongside. We had so much to discuss about our goals for the upcoming year, and the baskets of muffins made their way around the table many times as we tried to come up with some practical plans of action.

There were only seven of us at the table today, and when the brunch began, there were 42 muffins. By the end, there were only FOUR muffins left. That should tell you something about how addictive and delicious they are, and I cannot wait for you to try them for yourself!

I have adapted this recipe slightly from the Cranberry Harvest Muffins recipe in The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, reducing the sugar since I don’t think it needs that full amount. The original recipe calls for hazelnuts, but that felt too labor-intensive since I just wasn’t in the mood for toasting and rubbing the skins off of the hazelnuts on New Year’s morning! I’ve substituted pecans for the hazelnuts in the recipe, since I love pecans and always have plenty on hand. Instead of the dried Calimyrna figs in these muffins as the original recipe states, I’ve replaced it with an equivalent amount of diced crystallized ginger pieces. You could substitute almost any one of your favorite dried fruits for the figs, but this particular combination of zingy cranberries and hot-sweet ginger with crunchy pecans makes my taste buds dance a happy jig. And THAT is a fabulous way to start a new year!

(Jorge, Ed and Katie have bought New Year's party glasses for each new year this decade. I kept wondering what's going to happen next year, for how will they make those party glasses without the two zeros in the middle of the year??? As you can see, this brunch lasted so long that it's definitely dark outside!)

CRANBERRY GINGER PECAN MUFFINS

adapted from a recipe in The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten

It is important to use a very light hand when making muffins, so be sure not to overmix the ingredients! These are fabulous when served warm, but they are equally delicious at room temperature. Store any leftovers in an airtight container or a resealable plastic bag, though if you are anything like the One-Year-Plan Club, you may not have any left!

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1-1/4 cup whole milk

2 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten

½ pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 cups fresh cranberries

½ cup coarsely chopped crystallized ginger pieces

¾ cup coarsely chopped pecans, lightly toasted

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup dark brown sugar, packed (you can use light brown sugar if you don't have dark on hand, but I like the caramelly quality the dark brown sugar adds)

Preheat the oven to 375°. Line 24 standard-size muffin cups with paper liners.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and ground ginger together in a very large bowl. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the milk, beaten eggs, and melted butter. Stir quickly just to combine. Add the cranberries, crystallized ginger pieces, pecans, and both sugars, and stir just enough to distribute evenly throughout the batter. BE SURE NOT TO OVERMIX. The batter will be very thick.

Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each one to the top. (Depending on how big your muffin tins are and how thoroughly you fill them, you may have enough batter to make a few more muffins.) Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes until browned on the top and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Christopher Walken and the Goat Cheese Soufflé

The title of this post may seem like an odd juxtaposition, but it actually refers to my first extended conversation with Christopher Walken on this day in 1999. And no, I’m not making this up.

Many of you may be wondering how someone like me would have an opportunity to discuss anything, much less a soufflé, with the likes of Christopher Walken in the first place. The short answer is that we worked together in 1999-2000 on my first Broadway show, “James Joyce’s The Dead”. As for the longer answer? Let me give you a little background to set the scene.

A play entitled “The Dead” starring Christopher Walken suggests something rather dark and disturbing, since this is an actor quite well-known for playing psychologically unstable characters. But this wasn’t even set in a funeral parlor, as this play-with-music was based on the poignant final story from James Joyce’s The Dubliners. “The Dead” presents the thoughts and actions of one man (as played by Walken), on the night he and his wife attend a party given by his two aunts. It is a story of lost love, emotional paralysis and the power of memory, and a heartbreaking revelation leads to a moment of real epiphany at the end of the play.

But before that painful realization, there was a party where everyone sang and everyone danced. Most of my fellow musicians were off stage behind a scrim, but there was actually a part for a violinist on stage, as played by yours truly! For seven months I got to transform myself into a late 19th century Irish lass night after night, accompanying and interacting on stage with Christopher Walken, Blair Brown, and Marni Nixon, among other brilliant actors. There was a beautiful score by Shaun Davey (who wrote the music for "Waking Ned Devine”), and I absolutely loved playing those jigs, reels, and some achingly lovely Irish folk songs. Those seven months were some of the happiest of my life, and I STILL get totally choked up thinking about what a special time that was and how much I loved being a part of that world.

But as for the goat cheese soufflé discussion with Christopher Walken? It took a little time before we got to that point, as I think it’s fair to say that I was a bit shy around him at the beginning of the play’s run. It totally cracked me up when he introduced himself as “Chris” on our first day of rehearsal together, but I had a hard time separating the man hanging out in the green room with all of us from the one I’d seen on the big screen all these years. I kept having flashes of him as Diane Keaton’s crazy brother Duane who has a death wish in “Annie Hall”, as the heartbreaking solider who plays Russian roulette in “The Deer Hunter”, and who can forget him as Captain Kunz delivering the infamous “your daddy’s watch” monologue in “Pulp Fiction”! I wanted to have something a little more interesting to say than, “Hey Chris, how’s it going?” but I hadn’t found a good opening yet.