Recipe: Plantain Nachos

So here's where I see the state of the country right now:

1. If you live on the East Coast, Midwest, or South, then I'm sure you've had it up to HERE with this soul-crushing winter weather we've had.
2. If you have any family or friends in those regions, I'm sure you're sick of reading their Facebook status messages about the awful winter they're enduring.
3. If you're in California, you desperately need some of the bad storms everyone else has been having and you kinda want them to quit their whining.

Right?

Our family is solidly in the first category.  But we have ways of coping.  One way is by declaring an evening "St. Martin Night."  Why St. Martin?  Because we've fallen in love with the island (I'll be making my third trip there next month), and we spend a good portion of the time we're not there wishing that we were.

What does one do on St. Martin Night?  We crank up the heat A LOT (one of the joys of radiator heat - it doesn't cost us an arm and leg in electric bills) and put on our vacation outfits.  We listen to lots of Marley and Gipsy Kings while making lip-smacking rum drinks (El Diablos and Dark and Stormys are both favorites).  Then we usually watch a beach-themed movie as a family, like Mamma Mia, Weekend at Bernie's, or...Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights.

This last weekend, we were in desperate need of a pseudo beach getaway.  So we made an imitation of the Plantain Nachos that we created while in St. Martin last November.  Sadly, we did have to substitute bagged plantain chips for the fresh plantains we fried on the island, but we refused to be deterred.  And, er, I did buy pre-made guacamole, albeit freshly made.  The bacon in the recipe?   A little odd, true, but I had some left over in the fridge and thought I might as well add it.  Who cares, though?  Island fever was the goal and we achieved it.

PLANTAIN NACHOS
Serves 3
4 c. plantain chips, approximately
1 c. grated oaxaca cheese (or queso blanco)
1 15-oz. can black beans, drained and rinsed
6 slices of bacon, cut into 3/4-inch slices
1 clove garlic, sliced thin
1/2 tsp. chili powder, or to taste
1/2 tsp. cumin, or to taste
2 tbsp. freshly squeezed lime juice
2 tbsp. cilantro, roughly chopped, or to taste
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
Guacamole, to taste
Salsa, freshly made or store-bought, to taste
Sour cream, to taste
Lime wedges or slices, for garnish

1. Sauté bacon in a medium-high pan until just crispy.  Remove bacon with a slotted spoon on to a paper towel-lined plate.  Pour out all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat.  Add garlic over medium heat and sauté until soft, about 2 minutes.  Add black beans and lime juice.  Stir until warmed through.  Remove from heat and add bacon, chili powder, cumin, cilantro, salt, and pepper.  Taste to make sure the seasonings suit you.

1. Assemble desired amount of plantain chips on plate.  Spoon desired amount of black bean-bacon mixture over the chips.  Sprinkle cheese over the dish.  Add desired amount of guacamole, salsa, and sour cream.  Garnish with lime slices.

SIDE DISH SUGGESTION: As a side dish, grilled fresh pineapple makes a great sunny weather addition.  Core and peel a fresh pineapple, then cut into large slices.  Brush with olive oil and grill until grill marks show and pineapple softens a bit.  Remove from heat and sprinkle with sea salt.  Enjoy!

Is it the same as laying on a white sandy beach?  Hardly.  But we got to feel super warm while wearing swimsuits and sarongs, and it made us forget about winter, if just for one evening.

Eat, drink, and make the most of it.

Photo experimentation: Panzanella

As you regular readers know (especially those on Instagram - follow me - "lauralutz"), I recently returned from a trip to Europe (Dublin, Zurich, and Hamburg).  We had some jetlag to deal with when we returned, of course, so I've been keeping my meals relatively simple.  One of those meals was Panzanella.  There are lots of recipes for Panzanella (here and here, for example), but I just did my own thing: bread, mozzarella, and tomatoes.  For the bread, I tossed the cubes in olive oil, salt, and pepper; I tossed the oil-saturated bread cubes in a nonstick pan over medium-high heat until they were toasted: croutons!  (Note: croutons are not necessary for this recipe; in fact, this is the first time I've ever toasted the bread.  Usually, I just tear up old bread and that's it)  For the tomatoes, I tossed those in olive oil, salt, and pepper as well.  At which point, I plated the dish.

So here's the thing: I'm not a trained photographer (obviously), and I've never taken a single class.  I have recently acquired a bunch of lenses, plus a fancy flash, and I'm in full experimentation mode.  Add a huge chunk of non-blogging, non-photo-taking time...and I'm such a newbie with all this.

So for fun, here's a sample of my photos for this dish:

I didn't use a flash here.

No flash here either.

No flash.  Just kept changing the angle and F-stop.

I got my Greenmarket flowers into the action...

My particular favorite, of course...lordy...  Obviously, I introduced the flash here.

Less flash...

Even less flash...

I started playing with the flash angle.

I tried using less flash.

Still. Not. Right.

I'm unhappy with all of them, of course, but I kept the whole series as a learning experience. And it adds to the whole experience when Adam says over my shoulder, "Why are all your shots centered?  Try something off-centered!" and Bug says, "Mom!  Mom!  I can get the white board to bounce the light!  Can I be in the picture?  Can we just eat now?"  Lordy.

As for the Panzanella, it's such a lovely end-of-summer dish: simple, light, flavorful.  Normally, I dump all these ingredients into bowls, toss it around, and serve it as a bit of a mess.  This is the first time I've plated it this way and I thought it was pretty classy.

Between teaching at Pratt and our European vacation, this summer has gone by so much faster than I expected.  This was the perfect way to celebrate our return home (and our break from restaurant eating!) and the end of an incredible season.

Eat, drink, and enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

Dublin, Day 1

I'd say that dinner in Dublin at Dunne and Creszenci agrees with me:

Day One of my European vacation has been a smashing success.

Eat, drink, and fall in love with Ireland.

Homecoming

You didn't think I forgot, did you?

I won't bore you with details or any "I've been so busy!" type talk...that sort of thing is so boring.  In fact, I recently read "The Busy Trap" by Tim Kreider (New York Times), and it completely spoke to me; I vow to resist blabbing anymore about how oh-so-busy I am, particularly when most of it is indeed self-created (or self-inflicted?).

Besides, nothing like that happened anyway.  I haven't blogged for two simple reasons: 1) I've been feeling uninspired, and 2) I feel like I've lost my center a bit.  So I've just been focusing on really getting my house, my life, myself back in order again.  Which, believe me, is nowhere near as dramatic as I just made it sound.  All is well, actually.

So I don't have a recipe to share with you today but, given that I do share so much of my life here with you, I thought I'd show you what I've been up to.  It's been a lovely summer so far.   We've actually been without Bug for a solid month (a month!); she's coming home tomorrow and I'm beside myself with excitement.  And that's why I can't share any recipes with you, actually: Adam and I have been going out nearly every damn night!  I have done a shockingly tiny amount of cooking in the last couple months.  Which is okay and fine.  Sure, I miss cooking...but you do what you gotta do sometimes, right?

 My late spring started with a riverside NYC picnic to celebrate Adam's birthday:

I've eaten lots of ice cream in the past couple months, including Shake Shack's incredibly smooth and rich olive oil ice cream:

This was a highlight: another riverside picnic, this time to watch E.T. in Brooklyn Bridge Park with Adam and the Soul Twin.  Naturally, I ugly-cried...E.T. is just as lovely and heartbreaking to me now as it was to my 7-year-old self.  Luckily, the downtown NYC view I enjoyed this time was much better than my young heart could have imagined:

Bug graduated from elementary school.  Yowza.  Middle school, here we come (seriously, is that the face of a kid old enough for middle school?!):

Adam and I enjoyed a much-needed day at the beach:

We had our annual Ginger Man summer celebration (this was our 4th year), which wouldn't be complete without pretzels and beer (along with lots of laughter and our urban adopted family and friends):

Adam and I just returned from a four-day, Bug-free vacation to Tucson, which including many, many margaritas pool-side...

...and blue skies and sunshine...

Our next stop?  As if our summer hasn't been full enough, we leave this Sunday for a 3-week trip to Europe: Dublin, Zurich, and Hamburg.  I had grand visions of learning elementary German before leaving...but that didn't quite go as I planned.  So I'll just have to get by being able to count to ten to any German or Swiss citizen who asks. 

Thanks, everyone, for sticking with me - I do hope as the fall arrives, Bug starts school, and I'm in more of a routine, that I'll be here much more.  I've missed it very much.

Eat, drink, and stay centered.

  

NYC weather...

Good lord, guys.  I'll be back as soon as my Seasonal Affective Disorder has been addressed.

Eat, drink, and consider moving back to Arizona...

Figs and Pecorino

New York City is in the middle of an October heat wave that has sucked my will to live: our building had to turn off everyone's air-conditioning a couple weeks ago so we've been melting away in our apartment with 85-degree temps outside.  We'd buy fans...except there's no damn room for them, such is life in a tiny apartment.  All our windows are open...which lets in all the noise and, annoyingly, very little breeze.  Bug can't sleep, we can't sleep. We're all grumpy.  It has not been pretty.

So yesterday I declared that there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that I was turning heat on in this place in order to cook.  Which ended up being untrue, alas.  I found a recipe in Jamie Oliver's Jamie's Italy for sticky figs and it struck a chord with me.  All it calls for is taking a pint of figs - or however many you have - and halving them.  Then you put them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Jamie calls for them to be baked at 120 degrees for two hours but my oven only goes down to 170 degrees.  So I did that for two hours.  Done.  That's it.

I paired the figs with a crumbly, salty Pecorino.  This is one of those cases where you should find the best Pecorino you possibly can since it's one of the stars of the meal.  We added Prosciutto di Parma, rustic Italian bread, and dipping oil (really good-quality oil, sea salt, pepper).

Very little heat, very little fuss.  I know there are some of you who read this who will say, "They had only that for dinner?!"  And the answer is a resounding YES.  It's too damn hot to eat anything else.  Seriously.

Eat, drink, and keep it simple.


UPDATE #1: Naturally, Bug didn't want anything to do with the figs (though we did make her try just one) so she had a sliced apple.  She also wasn't a huge fan of the Pecorino - she thought it was "spicy".  But she ate almost that entire pile of prosciutto - I had to add more to the board - and she had bread with butter slathered on it (she claims, falsely, that she's "allergic" to olive oil).  This is such an easy meal to cater to picky eaters.

UPDATE #2: Foolishly, I forgot to mention what we drank and thanks to my good friend Daphne for reminding me!  Per Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page's What to Drink With What You Eat, I drank a Riesling: Arthur Metz 2010 from Alsace.  It paired very well, but didn't wow me.  Adam had the winner: Brooklyn Brewery's Monster Barleywine.  It was huge in flavor, but didn't overwhelm the cheese or figs.  It was an unexpected, much more interesting pairing than the Riesling.  I highly recommend it.

David Chang's Roasted Corn

I've been rushing to get this damn post done because you've gotta try this dish before summer is over and fresh corn is gone for the season.  My friend Eric (of Moscow Mule fame) sent me a Facebook message back in July, and here's what he told me:

Have been thinking about your butter-sauteed corn with cilantro. Am sitting at the bar at Momofuku Noodle; Chang's doing the same thing with roasted corn, bacon, cotija, scallions, parsley. Superb. I LOVE summer. (Though as a jersey boy, I can say, still too soon for corn)

Um, yes, please.  Naturally, I was excited for anything involving corn and bacon but, more importantly, this was a corn dish I could make for MC (my mother-in-law) that didn't involve cilantro.  No one hates cilantro like MC, believe me.  So I made this first while at her place in Oregon, throwing in everything, measuring nothing.  Then I came home and came up with a recipe.

It manages to be hearty yet light, subtle yet flavorful.  I have to confess that if I didn't have a family to cook for and I was making something for just myself, I'd probably make this dish, put it in a bowl, and that would be it.  Drunk with a crisp Sauvignon Blanc in front of Downton Abbey...

David Chang's Roasted Corn* **

Serves 4 as a side dish

Ingredients:

5 ears of corn, shucked 

4 slices of bacon, roughly chopped

1 medium shallot, medium diced

1 scallion, thinly sliced

1 tbsp parsley, finely chopped

1/2 c. cotija cheese, crumbled (substitute with ricotta salata or feta, if needed/desired)

2 tbsp fresh lime juice

Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper

• Heat a stovetop castiron grill (or for you lucky people in the 'burbs, heat your outdoor barbecue) on medium-high heat.  Rub corn lightly with olive oil.  Place on grill.
• Heat medium stainless saute pan over medium-high heat.  Chop bacon and add to pan.  Cook until just-crisp and browned.  With a slotted spoon, remove bacon from pan onto a plate lined with paper towels.  Lower flame to medium-low heat.
• Leaving the bacon fat in the pan, add shallots.  Saute until tender - be careful not to burn them.  Take off the heat.
• Meanwhile, once corn is browned and has a slight sheen to it, remove from the grill and let cool.  Using a sharp chef's knife, cut kernels from the cob and add to a large bowl.
• Add reserved bacon, scallions, parsley, shallots, lime juice, and cheese to the bowl.  Toss.  Taste for seasoning, and add salt and pepper as needed.

So easy, right?  We served this alongside seared tuna dusted with sweet paprika (recipe).

I'm seriously planning on making this two or three more times before the summer's over.  And I don't mean to be bossy, but so should you.

Eat, drink, and who needs a fancy restaurant?


(NOTE: After posting this, I found an actual recipe for Momofuku's corn: Corn with Bacon and Miso Butter. I'll try the miso butter next time, for certain...but I have to admit that I like my addition of lime.  And Eric was specific in Momofuku's use of cotija.  So, in summation, this is absolutely one of those recipes you can adapt to your own tastes and change up as you please!  Try anything - this is damn near foolproof.)

* That's what it has become known as in my house.  Better than those ridiculously long titles that everyone's using now that list every single one of the ingredients, right?  Can you imagine?  "Roasted Corn with Bacon, Shallots, Parsley, and Scallions"?  Um, no.

** This is officially the first recipe I've ever made up on my own, including all the notations and measurements.  So I'm a little nervous.  If you notice anything off here, let me know.  I'll use you as my official recipe testers!

Summer of Riesling

A couple of girlfriends and I are doing the Summer of Riesling Crawl, hosted by Chairman Grieco of Hearth Restaurant and Terroir Wine Bar (see the Riesling tasting from last year).  Last night was our first night out, and here's a photo from City Winery:

They have wine taps!!!!  This is the tap handle.  Pretty cool, right?

Big Gay Ice Cream

I finally, FINALLY went to the Big Gay Ice Cream Truck last night with my pals Jen, Jack, and Chris (Note: I probably don't need to even tell you this, but the pics were taken with a phone camera...):

I ordered the vanilla with fig balsamic syrup.  The syrup was delicious but Jen, Jack, and Chris had the right idea getting the Monday Sundae (twist ice cream, Nutella-lined waffle cone, dulce de leche, sea salt, and whipped cream).

RIP Herbs...

Just back from vacation so I'll be up and running this weekend - I have a stellar recipe I can't wait to share with all of you.  But I wanted to make an announcement:

I KILLED MY HERBS.

Remember these?

 Well, when you don't water them for two weeks while you're out of town, this is what happens:

Likewise, the garlic chives I so bravely rescued during our move to Manhattan?  Here's BV (Before Vacation):

And the AV (After Vacation):

When we arrived home and I saw the state of things, I yelled, "They're dead!  My herbs are DEAD!"  Adam, being a brilliant stater-of-the-obvious, replies, "Well, yeah.  What did you think would happen when we left and didn't arrange for someone to water them?"  I sputtered, "But...but...I thought they'd be okay!"  Adam just raised his eyebrow at me.

I'll be getting some new ones at the market this weekend but, in the meantime, I'm in mourning.

Eat, drink, and study basic horticulture (read: plants need water)!

Oregon Food and Wine: EZ Orchards

Oh, Oregon.  Why are you only 70 degrees and raining in July?  On the day that we're supposed to be barbecuing ribs and celebrating all the July birthdays in our family*?  Why????

But it's also given me a chance to hole up in MC's (my mother-in-law) house and write about the tremendous couple of days I've already had.  With a glass of wine next to me, of course.  The days have been full of food and wine, and I'm happy as a clam (...or a crab, seeing as I'm a Cancer...).

One of the first places we go when we arrive in Oregon is EZ Orchards, which I mentioned here (you can also "like" them on Facebook).  It's truly a community spot with mostly local produce, as well as local cheeses, homemade baked goods, and supplies for the home.  Every year we visit and I stock up on both EZ Orchards' Marionberry Jam and AJ's Walla Walla Sweet Onion Mustard:

 And every year I pine for one of their gorgeous tablecloths and never buy one:

Their berries are particularly beautiful:

It has also become an unofficial tradition that I make caramelized onions every time I visit MC:

The Walla Walla sweet onions are just so unbelievably sweet and rich - I love pairing them with salty salami (as I did last year) or on a burger with blue cheese (which I did this year).

Oregon - and Salem, in particular - is such a well-hidden secret.  We know that it's one of the best states in the U.S. for beer, but it's also an incredible food mecca.  It's a secret that Oregonians, for the most part, would rather not be revealed for fear that the state would be overrun (by Californians, in particular...).  EZ Orchards is a perfect example of Salem's hidden charm.

Eat, drink, and support local business.

* Bug, my grandmother-in-law, and me, in this case.  It's also my sister-in-law's birthday today - happy birthday, Kellee!!!