They do have high nostalgic value, like this incredible recipe for salmon baked with asparagus and potatoes and flooded with tangy herb caper lemon sauce. I would make this sauce and put it on everything. HIGHLY recommended. Feeds way more people than you’d expect.

In New York I have a tiny tiny tiny kitchen, but it is full of love and cast iron skillets. There’s a farmer’s market not so far from me, and the fire alarm is permanently unplugged because it goes off every time I make an omelet, and we can’t have that. Besides the fact that I am a zombie when I get home from work, I hope this year will be full of hungry people and delicious meals. Enjoy the crumbs.

I buy a lot of things at the market (it should be clarified that I live alone)

For my first guests I made a mushroom ragout with poached eggs. After that one of them went to New Haven and the other fled to Kazakhstan. Not entirely clear if it was the food or the company.
The mushroom ragout part involved a lot of mushrooms.

The other part involved poached eggs:

And a really handsome hand model:

It began in the early afternoon with some prep. Pate Brisee in a food processor, i.e. the best kind:

I also made some basil sweet syrup (more on that later…)

And of course, very slowly caramelized onions

The meal commenced with this plate of goodies (with Manchego, Havarti, Jarlsberg and Feta)

It continued with a little appetizer of stuffed fried zucchini blossoms  (I stuffed them with red onion instead of shallots)

It went on to this onion tart

But we couldn’t help and have a drink before digging into the tart. My sous-chef/best-friend/cocktail-master/benetton-twin made this gorgeous Blackberry Caipirinha

Which was a perfect summer drink

And then proceeded to pull the tart out of the oven, burn my arm really badly, drop the tart face down, which meant we ate this instead. It was still delicious but a bit on the salty side.

Luckily, the faux Niçoise was still real pretty

Dinner ended with delicious grilled peaches, honeyed mascarpone, and the delicious basil syrup (an amalgamation of three recipes which worked real well)

And to all, bon nuit!

First course, yellow heirloom Gazpacho (with a lisp)

Salad course, Avocado and Grapefruit salad

Main course, super-salty goodness of a pizza. Potatoes, Mozz, Pecorino, and Spinach.

Finally, a strawberry clafouti. (Okay, that’s a lie. I made this a couple of weeks ago for brunch, and to be honest it was disgusting. But, it wasn’t my recipe, so whatever. And it photographed really well. In reality last night we had coffee ice cream covered in decaf freshly brewed espresso, that WAS my idea, and it was delicious. I commend me).

Cookies came from here, and the salad, from my mind. Sorry, no hyperlinke.

A whole chicken. WOAH.

A brisket bigger than my face

Carnage

Challah strands

4-braid and 6-braid

Shabbos stars

Beautiful stamping

Most notably I made cod croquettes, which are my all time favorite food, but which I’ve never made. After looking through every book and blog and not finding a recipe I really like, I came up with my own recipe, and I highly recommend it (this one fed 5 hungry girls, and I still have half a batch of croquettes frozen in my fridge). This recipe is not difficult, but it takes foresight, so it’s a perfect weekend project if you’re planning a meal of tapas.

Pilar’s Croquettas de Bacalao
Soaked 1 lb. salted cod overnight in cold water. You want to switch the water at least 3 times so that you get all the salt out. In the morning, cook the fish in whole milk, about 20 minutes until it’s soft but not falling apart. Drain and flake by hand (and take off any skin that might be left on the fish. Set aside, and make mashed potatoes– which is to say, boil some potatoes. I used 2 large potatoes, peeled and boiled. I mashed them by hand, added some salt and pepper and butter, and when that cooled, you add in the fish. At this point, you’re good to go, everything is cooked, and this mixture is dangerously delicious on it’s own, so try it and adjust seasoning as needed.
When you’re ready to fry these puppies, shape them into either balls or little sausages, dip in egg and roll in breadcrums (which you can season with some salt and pepper) and fry in veggie oil until golden brown. Careful, these are addictive.

About a week later, I went to my first superbowl party ever. I made onion dip, which I thought was no biggie, until I found out that the recipe called for:

That is 5 lbs. of onion, and one serving of carpal tunnel chopping those up

But they were very pretty 80 minutes later

You might want to half the recipe, because it makes this much dip

Finally, just yesterday, I made cinnamon buns for the first time ever. I don’t really like cinnamon, but who doesn’t love cinnamon buns? These are surprisingly easy, considering that they require you to make yeast dough, and are perfect for a brunch or a weekend breakfast. This recipe came from Nigella Lawson, via Butterflyfood. One thing about these, they photograph BEAUTIFULLY.

Against popular belief, someone actually WON the granola, my lovely friend Lily who lives in faraway San Francisco. More documentation of the happy recipient with her box of joy later, in the mean time, here some documentation of the surprise before it left the cold Northeast.

I made a couple of new things over the last few months. Highlights included these chicken meatballs in a spicy preserved lemon sauce.

Served with Orzo, these made me reconsider my suspicion of preserved lemons.

For dessert, made some Pear Clafouti, mostly because pears are pretty:

They were baked in what is essentially pancake batter. Everything is delicious in pancake batter.