Chile-Lime Popcorn

I have three words to say this evening: Chile Lime Popcorn.  You heard me.  Be prepared to be astounded. 

After a long-time addiction to Newman’s Own microwave popcorn, I’ve recently started making popcorn the old-fashioned way, on the stove in a heavy pot with a little oil.  It’s easy, inexpensive, and it tastes like the popcorn of my childhood.  Stove-popped pocorn is also a versatile canvas for letting your flavor imagination run wild.

I’ve had fun seeking out different kinds of popcorn kernels, and this organic multicolor blend from Fairway is particularly festive.

Heavenly Flourless Chocolate Cake With Rose Whipped Cream and Raspberries

It takes very little to prompt me into celebration mode with my friends.  In addition to birthday festivities, I am always ready to rejoice over creative milestones, finding new jobs and fantastic new apartments, not to mention new loves in one’s life.  Whether it happened to me or to one of my friends, I’ll also happily mark the anniversaries of any of these events with an appropriate beverage, no matter how many years ago the original event was.  A bottle of bubbly lends a particularly festive note to any occasion, but the more significant celebrations call for cake.  Especially when we're talking about a four-layer Flourless Chocolate Cake with Rose Whipped Cream and Fresh Raspberries.

I’m salivating again just looking at this.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I made this heavenly chocolate beauty last week for my 17-year anniversary of moving to New York City.  June Fourth was the very significant day in 1996 when I arrived in town with nothing but a violin, a suitcase of clothes, less than $300 in my bank account, and the invitation to crash on a friend’s couch for the summer. (Thank you forever for that, Lara!) I knew very few people and had no employment prospects lined up, but I knew that I had to stay no matter what it took.  I felt I was truly HOME for the first time in my life. 

New York is undeniably an amazing city, pulsing with a vibrant energy all its own.  I have had creative opportunities while living here that I never in my wildest dreams could have imagined once upon a time, and I am forever grateful. But it is the amazing friends who have come into my orbit throughout these past 17 years who have truly made my life so indelibly rich.  This colorful cast of characters has filled my heart with laughter and great joy, and how could I not throw a party for at least a handful of them each June 4th?

Kale Salad With Peanut Vinaigrette A La Houston's

I got knocked out with the flu this month, which was a major shock since I have the hearty constitution of an ox and rarely get sick. (My last cold was so long ago that George W. Bush was president at the time, the economy hadn’t tanked yet, and Daniel Day-Lewis only had one Best Actor Oscar instead of three!) I was in bed for a week and had no appetite whatsoever, but towards the end of that week I began craving kale in the worst way. I didn’t want just any kale dish; I wanted the Houston’s kale salad with peanut vinaigrette that my friends and I have recently become obsessed with. 

I found this baby red kale at the farmer’s market. Isn’t it gorgeous? It was worth the effort of getting out of bed for the first time all week. 

I know that everyone has a kale salad recipe these days, so much so that it’s a food trend in danger of overkill. I’ve even posted two different kale salad recipes here on Kitchen Fiddler in recent years, but I’m going to give you one more, regardless. And you won’t be sorry that I did, once you taste it for yourself. 

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.

Arugula-Stuffed Baked Potatoes

When I was a kid, my mother constantly tried out new recipes from her extensive cookbook collection. Mom rarely repeated a dish no matter how much the rest of the family liked it, since she had an ever-growing list of new things she wanted to cook. I’m the opposite in that I tend to make a recipe I like over and over again until I get sick of it. However, I don’t think I could possibly grow tired of eating these Arugula-Stuffed Baked Potatoes. And I think that once my mom tries these for herself, these beauties will be making repeat appearances at the family table as well.

One of my best discoveries of last year was the Sea Salt Baked Potatoes from 101 Cookbooks. This was the very first food blog I began following years ago, and author/photographer Heidi Swanson continually surprises me with her creativity. It’s worth checking out for the stunning photographs alone, and the mouth-watering super-natural recipes on her site always keep me coming back for more.

Talk about a winner! Imagine a baked potato, the skin crisp and flecked with sea salt while the inside is fluffy and tender. But instead of loading this spud with enough dairy products to alarm your cardiologist, the steaming hot potato flesh is drizzled with a rich mustard vinaigrette. A baby arugula salad, tossed with more of the vinaigrette and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese, tops the whole thing off.