Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread

My brother, (he of the Doritos, and beans cooked in their can) recently got a job in Massachusetts that requires him to be on-site at 6am. He's been staying with us during the week to cut down his commute time, and when he can't sneak down the road to our grandmother's house he's been sharing meals with us. In the last week he has subsisted on peanut butter and jelly (on white), s'mores poptarts, lemonade, and a box of rice-a-roni that he brought with him because things like rice-a-roni just don't live in our kitchen. This week when I did my Saturday tour of the markets, along with the local vegetables, and the peanut butter ice cream (we all have vices) I picked up some things that I thought would be appealing to his, shall we say, discerning palate. Later while mulling over the contents of our freezer and pantry, I thought I should make another treat to keep him sated during his long day. Banana bread, specifically the kind made by our grandmother, is one of the only 'whole' foods I have seen him eat with a fervor usually reserved for Doritos ('pizza cravers', if you have them). In an effort to put something other than a sandwich in his lunch box I thought I'd make some banana bread of my own.

Whenever a banana goes past its prime on me, I pop it in the freezer. This Sunday four, brown, speckled fellows were waiting for me. Since I hadn't planned to make this bread when I was out buying more poptarts and doritos, I wanted to use what was on-hand. Brother doesn't like nuts, and he wasn't crazy about the ginger in my zucchini bread (no accounting for taste there) but I can't eat plain banana bread all week long without something in it to give it a kick. Chocolate, was my answer (and it so often is). I also keep a large bar of dark chocolate in the freezer...in case of emergencies... Cut up into chunks and shards it gives a delicious depth to banana bread that makes it interchangeable for breakfast or dessert.

Chocolate Chunk Banana Bread
(Makes one loaf)
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
4 ripe medium bananas, mashed well (about 1-1/2 cups)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4.25 oz dark chocolate, chopped

Butter the loaf pan, and line with parchment paper.
Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large bowl.
In a medium bowl mash bananas and combine with beaten eggs, melted butter and vanilla extract, make sure your butter is cooled, you dont want to start cooking the eggs.
Add the wet ingrdients to the dry and fold gently - you don't want to make the bread tough- until combined.
Transfer dough to parchment paper lined  loaf pan and bake 45- 55 minutes, a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. More...

Kitchen Seven Five: Weekend Edition

Brunch

Dinner Friday - Salmon 'burgers' and sweet potato fries

Crispy Cornbread - for succotash (recipe coming soon)

roasted

Red pepper recipe test, and Dorons Meatballs - Dinner Saturday

Saturday night called for cold beer

This was another weekend without interruption. We relaxed at home, caught up on the mountain of laundry that has taken up residence in our bedroom, and I cooked - a lot. Friday night there were salmon burgers and sweet potato fries. Leftover fries became sweet potato homefries for brunch with eggs and bacon. After my weekend errands, I roasted some red peppers (so much easier under the broiler rather than on the gas range!) and tested a Moroccan spiced red pepper salsa for the Food52 weekly contest.  We served it with some spiced meatballs and a fennel couscous salad. Early on Sunday, before the heat settled in, (its going to be in the nineties all week!)  I made a thin skillet cornbread (I have plans for this cornbread, look out later in the week) and banana bread laced with hunks of dark chocolate. Really you should try it, its fabulous.  Later in the afternoon we went to Providence, and when we decided it was much too hot in the city we took ourselves to a late lunch in Newport. It wasn't anything fancy by any means, a burger made with green onions and Boursin (mine) and some Cajun chicken  (the man's) accompanied by some local beer and possibly the best french fries I've eaten since high school. Later at home, we watched television parked in front of the fan, sipping wine. It was the perfect end to a very relaxing weekend. 

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Something to keep in mind...

(a peek into the kitchen behind kitchensevenfive)

If you cook, your family will eat dinner together.

If you cook, you will naturally have a more sustainable household.

If you cook, you'll set a lifelong example for your children.

If you cook, you'll understand what goes into food and will eat more healthily.

If you cook, you'll make your home an important place in your life.

If you cook, you'll make others happy.

If you cook, people will remember you.





Shameleesly riffed from the Food52 website. But its such a nice reminder, I wanted to have it here, too.

This weekend I'll be trial running some succotash, some cornbread, and a very unusual 'salsa'....but first, Im going home to have a cocktail with the man and pretend like this week of head colds, chest colds, and lack of sleep never happened. More...

Roasted Kale and more Eggplant

In the middle of a week of cold rain, I've been wrestling with a cold. My ‘first of the season’, as they say...except its usually much further into the 'season' IF I get sick at all. This one is a doozy, its been a week since I first started feeling it, and its not giving up yet. Not an evening has passed where I have seen ten o'clock, more often than not, I'm asleep by nine. As a result, the eating and cooking going on in our kitchen has been limited. Over the weekend we ate salads, sandwiches, and leftover meatballs. Monday night we ate baguette, cheese, and an heirloom tomato while standing at the butcher block. (not the worst of our dinners I assure you). Tuesday I was determined to do something with our produce, and to turn on the oven to chase away the chilly air hanging around our house. Something hearty and healthy, that was also warm and comforting. Enter the roasted vegetables.

I've waxed nostalgic about eggplant before, but last night this eggplant was not destined for stir-fry or any kind of Asian application. I needed something a bit closer to home. Kale is another comfort food of mine, a hold over from early college vegetarian adventures. We eat it often, and even the man was heard to utter "I love kale" last night. Do you know what made the difference for him?

I roasted it.


Yup. After reading all those blog posts about kale chips, I succumbed. I didn't roast it to a chip level, only enough to reduce it (by almost a third) and to crisp its edges. The flavor is deepened, and it retains its texture. Prior to roasting it I tossed it in olive oil and crushed red pepper, which gave it quite a bite. All in all I probably used a bit too much since I have cold and my taste buds are off, so if you don’t like spicy, I would suggest halving the red pepper, or omitting it completely. The eggplant I roasted whole, turning the formerly dark, firm vegetable to something that resembled a giant raisin. (I find a bread pan worked really well, you don’t have to worry that your aubergine is going to roll out of its pan and into your oven) Once roasted our purple friend slips out of his skin very easily. Mashed slightly and combined with a bit of pasta water, lemon zest and a small handful of fluffy grated Romano (use a micro planer, you will get a very fine, quick dissolving shred) he makes a lovely, (if not slightly grey,) and toothsome sauce. What could be better to dress some whole-wheat penne? You can pile the quickly roasted kale up on top of your little eggplant-sauced pasta, and pretend for an instant, that its acceptable to eat your dinner while standing in front of the open oven door.



Roasted Kale and Eggplant ‘Sauce’
Serves four (or two, with lunches)


1 medium eggplant

½ bunch of kale washed and torn to quasi-bite size chunks (keep in mind it shrinks)

½ box whole wheat penne cooked to package instructions, ½ cup of pasta water reserved

¼ cup olive oil divided

Zest of a small lemon

¼ cup finely grated / shredded romano cheese

1 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Kosher salt, to taste

Black pepper to taste

Coat eggplant in a tablesppon of oil, salt and pepper and roast for 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

When the eggplant begins to resemble a giant raisin, toss kale in olive oil, salt peeper and crushed red pepper, lay on a baking sheet and roast for 5 minutes. Remove the veggies from the oven. In a large bowl, cut the top from your eggplant and remove the skin by peeling it back in strips, it should come off very easily. Using a wooden spoon combine the roasted eggplant flesh, zest, and cheese. It should be a rather ugly, greyish paste. Thin as desired with pasta water, and combine with hot pasta. Top with a healthy pile of roasted kale.

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Reading List

Readers, I have a miserable head cold. There is alot of unsavory stuff coming from my face, my throat is made, it would seem, of sand-paper and I'm more run down than my activities ( um, what activities?) should warrant. I have spent some time hunkering down with books, medicating with all kinds of tea, and (eventually after I caved,) medicine. I finished this beauty a few days ago (and I've made her maccaroons and her meeatballs already, although not well. My head is a bit foggy when I have a cold, and as fragrant as I know the meatballs were supposed to be, I couldn't even smell them. )

I've just started in on this book. Im a little terrified, to be honest... I'll keep you posted. More...

Peach & Cream Popsicles

The weather in Boston has been strange this week. I wake up at 4am, the fan is still blowing, and I’m completely freezing. I step off the train at night, and the temperature is a swampy ninety degrees. Fall, it would seem, is creeping in early. With its warm days, and chilly nights fall is easily my favorite season (I also grew up in an apple orchard of a town in New Hampshire, which helps...) but I’m not ready to let go of summer. I've just started to really appreciate the sun. That, and the peaches. I could eat them in or on everything, but despite my best intentions, they always end up getting eaten ‘the traditional way’ (in my hand with lots of napkins for soaking up juices, while I lean against the kitchen counter). The man likes a peach now and again, but mostly (and especially in Summer) he loves to eat popsicles. If one could buy popsicle futures, I would, based solely on the popsicle consumption in my own home, We buy them, quite literally, in bulk.

These particular popsicles came about because of two peaches that were lost in the back of the refrigerator. They were looking a bit worse for the wear, and while they still smelled good and tasted delicious, they were a bit too juicy to eat the traditional way. I simmered pitted diced peaches in a combination of Gosling’s rum, crystallized ginger, and lemon zest. You can simmer them for a long time, to ensure the alcohol is cooked out, or just until the fruit collapses, which is what I did. This all got pureed in the food processor, and then combined with plain Greek yogurt. And a little fruit juice if you need to thin out the mix. It only made six popsicles, (which is a shame because they will probably be gone by Friday,) but its something I will experiment with, until fall really does set in and I find myself preoccupied with apples.



Peach & Cream Popsicles


2 peaches, scrubbed, pitted, and diced

3 tablespoons dark rum (I used Goslings, because it was on hand, and I like how sweet it is)

1 tablespoon crystallized ginger, chopped

Zest of a small lemon, (or zest of ½ of a naturally sized lemon)

½ cup of plain Greek yogurt

1-3 tablespoons, as needed of fruit juice (I used apple) to thin them

Special Equipment: a popsicle mold, or dixie cups, saran wrap, and skewers
Combine the peaches, rum, ginger, and lemon zest in a small sauce pan over medium-low heat, cover and cook until peaches collapse on themselves, and the rum has all but disappeared. Set aside to cool.
When peach mixture is cooled, blend in food processor until smooth, add yogurt and blend again, to combine. Thin as needed with juice.
Fill popsicle mold, and freeze, at least one hour. Then hide them in the back of the freezer, unless you want to share, which I hear is overrated, when it comes to popsicles.

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Zucchini Muffins

Let me tell you about my mornings, circa one week ago: I would drag myself out of bed 15 minutes too late, shower, makeup, water and a vitamin, and then out the door to the train. By the time I get to work I'm ravenous, and runnng on fumes. I succumb to the siren song of the coffee shop (literally three doors down from my office, I can smell donuts and muffins all day) and I indulge - daily- in a crummy (not crumbly) muffin, an oily croissant, or a nine-thousand calorie bagel. Not anymore my friends. Today I was up on time, ate a banana, my vitamin, drank my water and also scarfed down a chewy, moist, veggie laden muffin laced within enough walnuts and crystallized ginger to make me feel like I could open my own coffee shop. 

I wouldn't say these are necessarily a strictly breakfast muffin, and in short order you could probably sweeten and spice them, frost them with cream cheese frosting and make a (slightly) healthier cupcake. The ginger, along with the reserved nuts and zest that add cruch to the top go a long way toward making this a sweet and spicy treat at any time of day.

I found the original recipe for these beauties over at 101 Cookbooks, which (for someone as afraid of baking as I am) is an INDISPENSIBLE website (but you already knew that, right? Forgive me, I'm sort of new here.) I removed the poppy seeds, added some flax seed (these are breakfast muffins, right?) and changed around the spices a little bit, to incorporate a spice that my Lebanese neighbors have me hooked on: allspice. (I'll be sad when winter comes and I'm not able to smell what my neighbors are cooking when I get home. Its always inspiring) You very well could take this into a harvest – muffin area and sub out some of the zucchini for shredded carrots, shredded beets etc. I wouldn’t eliminate the zucchini entirely without making some adjustments to ensure there is enough liquid in the mix. Feel free to pull out the nuts, flax seed, zest and ginger and sub in something you prefer (or nothing at all and have a traditional zucchini bread). Next time I make these, (which might be next week, the way zucchini is showing up on the farmer’s market tables) I am going to add toasted coconut, and maybe cocoa nibs, and eat it as a dessert..

Zucchini Muffins Adapted from 101 Cookbooks

Note: this will make approx 24 muffins, or 12 muffins and a loaf of bread

1/2 cup crystallized ginger, fine dice

1 1/2 cups chopped walnuts

zest of one medium lemon

zest of one medium orange

1/2 cup - (1 stick) - unsalted butter

3/4 cup white sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar, lightly packed

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups grated zucchini (3 medium) squeeze out most of the liquid before use

3 cups unbleached all purpose flour

¼ cup ground flax seed

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 tablespoon curry powder

Preheat your oven to 350°F. Line your muffin tin with liners or parchment paper squares

In a small bowl combine the walnuts, citrus zest, and diced ginger. Separate approx. ¼ cup. And set aside

In a mixer, cream the butter and sugars. Add the eggs one at a time scraping down the sides of the bowl as you go. Add the vanilla extract and slowly add the grated zucchini

Separately combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices. Slowly add these to the wet ingredients on a low speed . Remove the bowl from your mixer and stir in the walnut-ginger mixture.

Fill your muffin tins. The mix will look wet, but it is supposed to. Bake for about 45 minutes and as soon as your fingers (or tongs) can handle it, pull the muffins from the tin to finish cooling, this will keep them from getting that slick skin common in quick breads.

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Kitchen Seven Five: Weekend Edition

Dark n Stormy

the best store-bought salsa you'll ever eat.

limed onions, recycled jar.

sizzle

fish tacos - dinner 8/13

this is what you can buy for $34 at the farmers market.

matzo ball soup, and a salad - dinner 8/14

simmering spinach, eggs, and cheese

baked eggs & baguette

zucchini muffins - so delicious, lookout for a post.

what to assemble, when the man eats leftover soup for dinner

Pasta with Pursulane and Lemon - dinner 8/15

Jiffy Pop

We were both home all weekend so I did a lot of cooking and cleaning and things that generally needed to get done when you have a house (I’m still learning, we’ve only been here 2 months). After cleaning out the refrigerator, I took advantage of the cooler Boston weather and made an enormous amount of chicken stock. Later that day, after being stung by a bee (in the face, of course,) out in our backyard this stock became dinner. I was in no mood to do anything but throw things in a pot, (but I obviously wanted to eat, while I held the icepack to my face) I made some enormous matzo balls and a salad and called it a day early. The next day, looking less like Quasimodo, I took it upon myself to make zucchini bread, which I will post here later this weekend. Not shown here, (because I haven’t quite gotten to the point of taking my camera into restaurants) was a really delightful Pimm’s cup (the man had a gimlet) and some fried stuffed green olives on Friday night. Fried olives are definitely not in the good for you category, but they were delicious, and Im hoping to replicate them at home. More...

Hot & Sour Eggplant (and Noodles)

There are a million and one things to do with an eggplant. When you come from my family, with my half Sicilian, all Italian father, immediate thoughts go to eggplant parmesan. Thick rounds of eggplant cozied up to a half a gallon on tomato sauce (laced with olives, obviously) and blanketed in enough romano (pronounced 'rrrrrromano') to make your hand cramp over the grater. Delicious and comforting as eggplant parmesan is (and never actually made with parmesan in my house, oddly enough...)

Its not 'summer-y'. It makes me have to turn the oven on. When its eighty-odd degrees, I do my best to not turn on the oven.

On top of that, while Italian food is where I am most comfortable; the man did not grow up with a ‘Nonna’, or an Easter dinner that involved spaghetti and antipasto before the requisite turkey or ham. The man’s favorite flavors are decidedly Asian: ginger, chilies, wasabi, and recently, anything in a peanut sauce garner more affection than anything else that comes out of the kitchen.

It is the mans love of Asian food that had pushed me to the food-focused internet in the first place. In search of wasabi glazed salmon for a birthday dinner when we were both too poor to go out. I drove down to Cape Cod from my North of Boston apartment with a grocery bag of wasabi powder, mirin, and bok choy and a print out from the internet with full intentions of impressing the man. I’m pretty sure I undercooked that salmon, and after it was plated it had to be re-wrapped in foil and put back in the oven...

Asian food is not always my biggest success, but I have come a long way from that misguided salmon dinner, and some variation of stir fry or another Asian dish makes the menu once a week in our kitchen. This dish is a riff on hot and sour Schezuan eggplant. Same sauce, more things to sit in it.

Hot & Sour Eggplant with Noodles

1 medium sized eggplant, or 2 skinny chinese eggplant, cubed

2 small heads of bok choy, cleaned and roughly choped

1 medium white onion, sliced

1 bell pepper, cut into strips
3 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 tablespoon grated ginger (admittedly this is from a jar, if you use fresh, use a teaspoon)
1 tablespoon chili paste (I cheated here and used 2 tablespoons of sriracha, I was out of chili paste)

2 teaspoon cornstarch

salt

vegetable oil

1 package of your favorite rice or wheat noodles, prepared to package instructions
 
Place the eggplant cubes onto a large plate, and sprinkle with salt, let them sit for 20 minutes while you open your mail and gape at the electric bill. Rinse well, and drain on paper towels. In a small bowl, stir together the soy sauce, red wine vinegar, sugar, chile paste, cornstarch, and ginger. Set the sauce aside.

Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Fry the eggplant until it softens and begins to brown, 5ish minutes. Add the onions, bell pepper, and the bok choy. Cook them together with the eggplant for another 2-3 minutes, until your bok choy is wilted ever-so-slightly. Pour in the sauce, and cook and stir until the sauce is thick and the eggplant is evenly coated.

You could put this atop a lovely nest of noodles at this point, or if you're me you can add the noodles to your vegetable mixture, give a quick stir and then eat the whole mess with chopsticks, cross-legged at the kitchen table while the man makes you laugh so hard white wine comes out of your nose...you know, whatever you prefer. More...

Good News

The movement to limit 'Factory Farming' is gaining momentum. you can read more here.

What does this mean? It means cleaner, healthier existence for the animals that we eat. It means less antibiotics in your food, which is NEVER a bad thing. 

On the other side of the coin, it could mean a hike in meat and egg prices. I but cage free eggs already, and I only buy meat when its on sale, although we don't exclusively  buy organic meat...yet. It will take some finagling of our rather restrictive budget to make that a reality, but its in the works. The man will not survive without the occasional chicken dinner, so we will learn to work around any increase in price.

Its interesting to me that standards for all of the animals / animal products we consume could be judged not only by their quality, but by the quality of life that they cam from. More...

Kitchen.Seven.Five

So readers, I apparently did a really poor job of researching the name of this blog before I went ahead and started it. While I found a lovely woman by the name of Elle who runs her New England kitchen here, I totally missed the fact that  elleeats.com exists, and has existed for some time. I'll be changing the name, and the url...to Kitchen.Seven.Five , its a not-so-subtle nod to the home the man and I are building together, and the cooking that goes on there. I hope you'll stick with me through this hiccup, and we'll taste many more things together!

Thanks
xo-Elle More...

Arugula Pesto Pasta and the MBTA

The other night after a particularly hellish 2-hour delay on my commute courtesy of the MBTA, I finally arrived home at almost 8pm starving, cranky, and generally full of rainbows. Thankfully I had the presence of mind (psychic powers?) before boarding the train to pick up a magazine. Since I avidly read Last Night's Dinner, (cooking her way through Melissa Clark's 'No Sweat' feature,) I decided to give Rachael Ray's August magazine a try. Sometime around when they were evacuating the train one stop before mine, I found dinner in its pages.

We had a rather large handful (handfuls?) of arugula left over from the salad the other night, and I scored some basil and a smallish tomato from the garden of a family member (cat sitting and plant watering has its perks!) In our fridge there were a few slices of capicola, which took the place of the bacon, after a slice and a turn in a hot pan.

I made a half batch of the sauce, because we were low on arugula, and subbed in some Romano cheese for the Parmesan, (it's a personal preference thing, go with your gut on it). I made mine a bit thinner with pasta water, due to the fact that I wasn't paying attention to what I was doing, but it came out tasty anyway.

The sauce went over some wheat pasta. Shells, because that was what was hanging around the pantry at eye level when the water was boiled. The capicola was sprinkled on top, after it got just a bit crispy around the edges. I ignored the asparagus, because the man hates asparagus, (don't even get him started on swiss chard, because that is not to come within 5 feet of him) and I swapped out the fresh ricotta for a quick tomato salad (chunk tomatoes, mix with torn herbs - parsley, rosemary, and basil in this case, and drizzle with oil and vinegar ) which I sat directly on top of my steamy pasta. This particular version of pesto is a definite hit, around here because the arugula has a pleasant bite and freshness that knocks the basil back a bit. I was left wishing that I had made more pesto to stick in a jar and eat later (maybe with a spoon).

Yesterday, sick of shooting from the hip at dinner time I trudged to the grocery store. Check in later this week for something (hopefully) really delicious.

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What To Eat While Camping In Bear Country

I went against the grain this weekend, skipped the farmers market (this is the second time I've missed it all summer, I'm seriously considering taking a half day this week to hit another one) in order to camp and shoot some 'antique' rifles in Northern NH. I'm not usually a camper, target shooter or a sleep-on-the-ground-in-bear-country-during-black-bear-season kind of a girl, but this was so much unplanned and unexpected fun. Unplanned being the key term, as we didnt even pack until 9am the day we were leaving, and I didnt pack any food. That would be up to our host, my brother.

I have never camped with my brother. His favorite food is kielbasa, and he inhales pizza flavored Doritos at an almost inconceivable pace, considering his thin frame. So what did I eat while in his care? I ate hamburgers, made only of hamburger, not even salt and pepper. I ate sausage. I ate beans cooked inside their can over a fire. I ate white toast. I drank cheap beer and my own weight in bottled water. (a mistake when you have no toilets, I learned,). I cooked everything over a campfire with nothing but an old grill grate and a pocket knife. I felt like a pioneer woman. -Like a pioneer woman in a covered wagon, not an uber successful blogger.

The only thing I can say about this trip that might set anyone aflame with culinary jealousy is that I sat on the tailgate of a pick up truck and road down a grass path, picking raspberries and blackberries and shoving them into my mouth as we drove. Take that for fresh fruit and put it in your hat, farmer market. When we got back to our own little kitchen at home, exhausted, dirty, but more happy and rested than a night on the chilly New Hampshire ground should warrant, what did we eat? We ate salad. We stopped at the priciest of chain grocery stores and bought vegetables and an in-house roasted chicken, (supposedly organic and free range, and not pumped full of preservatives, but realistically, I didn’t know, and at that point I didn’t care.) Arugula, red radishes, a lemon cucumber (score!), green peppers, tiny yellow cherry tomatoes, and Vermont Creamery goat cheese found its way onto our plates. Topped with a small roasted chicken breast. Drizzled with Julia Child’s fail – safe dressing, a lemony shallot laced vinaigrette with enough Dijon mustard to really keep it together. I dumped the dressing ingredients into a Ball jar, capped and screwed on the lid and gave it a hearty shake. It made my night to eat vegetables. It also made my night to shower, sleep on clean sheets, and sip pinot noir in my living room with my feet, now sorely in need of some professional attention, up on my coffee table.

I ate that salad so fast; I don’t have a photo of it for you. The dressing is so vibrantly good that I could bathe in it, and so I will share it with you. As ridiculous as it is to share a salad dressing with you as the first recipe and a salad dressing that has been around as long as it has, at that. Put down the Good Seasonings, and pick up the mustard, because this, my friends, is worth the little time and trouble it may cost you.

Julia Child’s Classic Vinaigrette

 1 tablespoon shallot or scallion, finely minced (we had a bit of shallot, but most often I use scallions)

 1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard (I used store brand, shocker.)

 1/ 2 tablespoon of kosher salt (I thought this was too much, so I salted to taste)

The juice of 1 enormous lemon, or 2 ‘normal’ lemons

2 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Freshly ground pepper (to taste)

Dump all of the ingredients in a jar, cap securely, and shake until the mustard has emulsified the oil and vinegar. The dressing will look ‘cloudy’. Dress greens, potatoes, the protein of your choice, or your pasta salad

So much for a healthy and unprocessed life. More whole foods to come this week. I promise. More...

Day One: A Mission Statement...Sort Of.

 For all of the readers and those that found your way over from my previous blog, welcome! I'll be keeping my original blog as a personal diary and a way for me to keep up with things that are personal and important to me....but since cooking has become a recently discovered and oft-blogged-about passion, Im going to be blogging this little outpost from now on.

I'm hoping to keep this my corner of the 'blogosphere' (ok, can I say that I hate that term?) an honest representation of what I cook, what I eat, and the way I go about it. There will be ups. There will be downs. I can guarantee that there will be days when you get a snapshot of Thai takeout. That being said; my overall mission is to keep away from overly processed food and completely out-of-season produce. I want to cook and to push myself to learn to do it better. (baking: I’m talking about you)

I have spent this summer moving into and unpacking a house that has a fairly acceptable kitchen. I wake up at 8am on Saturdays to go to the farmers market, (and supplement that trip with a jaunt to the local chain grocery store,) I also killed a few perfectly lovely squash plants in my first attempt at a vegetable garden.

Lest you think I'm part of that semi-affluent blogger / writer / work from home movement, I'm not. Truth is I'm rather tightly budgeted. I’m twenty - five, and trust when I tell you, my already over-taxed Massachusetts paycheck gets halved a few times over for student loans before food enters the financial equation. On the other side of that, I’m also from a family of what my father affectionately refers to as 'kitchen dwellers'. When we congregate (and we're a big family, so we do congregate) we all stay in the kitchen. We eat in shifts on holidays. Quite a few of us are burgeoning foodies: we discuss recipes, grocery stores’ fliers, and will squeeze a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie in after any meal, when presented with the opportunity. So I suppose food has always been a part of the equation for me.

I’m looking forward to cooking and sharing with you. More...