Are We Becoming Lazy Cooks?

A number of things disturb me about Sandra Lee...

There seems to be a trend in cooking, and it seems to be all about making cooking effortless. If any of you have been forced to sit through an episode of "Semi-Homemade Cooking with Sandra Lee" on the Food Network, you know what I'm talking about. We want amazing results with no effort. We believe that with a few tricks from Sandra Lee or Rachel Ray or whoever else is popping up on our television sets, or from the next Ten Meals in Ten Minutes or Less cookbook, we can produce the meal of our dreams by barely lifting a finger. We want fine dining results with Easy-Mac simplicity.

But usually, cooking takes a little dedication, a little forethought, some planning, some quality time spent in the kitchen and a little more than punching in two numbers on your microwave. Eating well at home is about caring about what you are cooking, caring about what you are cooking with and putting in the dedication to know that the time you have spent cooking is worth it. There is no magic bullet for cooking, whatever Sandra Lee may say.

Which is not to say, by any means, that cooking cannot be easy and that eating well needs to be beyond anyone's capability. Cooking can still be accessible, efficient and time-worthy. You well may be able to prepare a great meal in the time that it takes you to microwave a frozen burrito. And that's good news for all of us, because it means that you don't need to quit your job or not study for your test to have a great dinner tonight.

What it does not mean, however, is that cooking can be thoughtless and effortless. Do not be lazy about food! Know that the time or energy that you put into the food you make will be worth it. Even if you don't love spending hours upon hours in the kitchen (as I do), know that what time you do put into the food you eat - whether that be thoughtful consideration of where your food comes from or how you are going to prepare it - will be evident on the plate. If you want fast cooking, get good, fresh ingredients and prepare them simply. Spaghetti with olive oil, garlic and pepper flakes is a wonderful dish, and believe me, it's not that hard. Broccoli sauteed with some lemon, salt and pepper? Tasty! As you know, simple sandwich is simply spectacular. And I'm not saying that instant mac-and-cheese is to be done away with (if because I do occasionally fall prey to its creamy deliciousness), but just that it is not the only way to make easy food, and quickly.

And if you want to spend 4 hours in the kitchen next Saturday, I'm all for that too.

I'm just saying don't be lazy. If you put a little energy into it, you'll know what a difference it makes. Think about food and cooking. Think about it!

And if you still need to throw in an Easy-Mac every once in a while, I guess that's OK too. Though that neon-orange still scares me.

VOTE for the F•BOMB Food Truck!

While I would certainly encourage you to vote in the elections next Tuesday, that's not what I'm asking you to vote for in this post. Instead, I'm asking you to vote for the F•BOMB Food Truck! 


I submitted an idea to the GOOD.is competition "Food Truck Fantasy" where contestants were asked to enter an original idea for a fantasy food truck. My idea was a sandwich truck (sample sandwich pictured below) which doubled as a mobile food-education center. It was chosen as one of the top entires selected for voting. I would love your vote. The winner gets his or her idea featured on the GOOD.is homepage, as well as some other goodies. 

Here's how to vote:


1. Click here to go to my entry, where you can read all about it. 
2. Go to the comments section at the bottom of the page. 
3. Next to the "Login" box, enter any name you'd like. There's no need to sign up. 
4. In the comment box, enter FBOMB, along with any other clever comment. 
5. Hit "Post." 


Thanks in advance to anyone who voted! 

Shout out to Katie Simon for informing me about the competition and my sister Laura for inspiration with the name and slogan. 

Crafting the Incredible, Edible Sandwich

A sandwich I recently made with white bean spread, cucumber, red bell pepper, fresh mozzarella, tabbouleh, kalmata olives, fresh parsley, olive oil, salt and pepper on toasted foccacia.  Salty, sweet, savory, crunchy, toasty cool and refreshing all at once.

Some of you may have heard of the gourmet sandwich shop chain 'Wichcraft, originally from New York (it was started by Tom Colicchio, the judge on Top Chef). It's a pretty appropriate name for a sandwich shop, not only because its so clever of a name, but because sandwiches really are crafted. You do not just make a good sandwich. You craft it.

If I had to decide on a favorite food, it would probably the sandwich. Nothing, for me, can better encapsulate so many flavors, textures and contrasts. What can be both crunchy and silky smooth, both toasty warm and cool and refreshing, spicy and sweet all at once?

The sandwich can.

What can be the most satisfying, easy to make meal in the world? What can be the perfect meal or the perfect snack? What can please a little kid or the most discerning epicurean?

The sandwich can.

Maybe it's because a sandwich is more than the sum of its parts. Good sandwiches are about making things work together. It's about the heat of that pepper, the crunch of that cucumber, the creamy cool wave of the mayo and the crunch of the toasted bread. Whether it be a dozen ingredients or two, sandwiches are about the interaction between the parts.

Cucumber, mayo, olive oil, salt and pepper on whole grain.
 So simple and so good! 

That doesn't mean its hard to craft a great sandwich. In fact, I'm sure you've done it, many times. A peanut butter and jelly is a wonderful sandwich. Peanut butter and jelly work wonderfully together. One of my favorite snacks in the world is sliced cucumber, mayo, olive oil and salt and pepper on toasted whole grain bread.

 But perhaps you've been wanting to reach further- to experiment with what goes between those two beautiful slices of bread.  Here is a quick guide to sandwich crafting. Mix and match different types of ingredients. I think that savory and sweet work great together. Here are some examples of flavors you might want to consider and some examples of what to use:

• Something Savory...
• Meats like smoked turkey, salami, prosciutto, bacon, grilled chicken, roast beef, roasted pork, barbecued meat,  fish, shrimp.
• Eggs! (Fry them, hard boil them, soft boil them, poach them) 
• Vegetables like sauteed or roasted mushrooms, asparagus, eggplant, avocado, sauteed greens. 
• Beans, such as a garlicky white bean spread. 
• Something Sweet...
• Spreads like tomato relish, onion jam, fruit jam (goes great with meats).
• Produce like fresh fruit slices such as apple slices, figs, pears, peaches, etc, fresh tomatoes, sweet potatoes. 
• Something Fresh and Crunchy...
• Cucumber slices, fresh lettuce, arugula or other greens, alfalfa sprouts (they're good!), fresh bell pepper, red cabbage, red onion. 
• Pickled vegetables. Don't limit yourself to pickled cucumbers. Pickled carrot, pepper, and so on are also delicious! 
• Coleslaw. 
• Something Creamy...
• Mayonnaise! (try making it yourself, its easy and so good, though I do use Hellmann's quite often). 
• Soft cheeses like goat cheese, cream cheese, gorgonzola, etc. Or just melt some hard cheese. 
• Creamy salad dressing.
• Spreads like bean spread, olive tapenade, hummus, etc. 
• Something Spicy...
• Hot sauce.
• Hot pepper slices.
• Cayenne pepper, pepperoncino, or other dried pepper products.
• Curry powder.
• Something More...
• Any kind of cheese.
• Fresh herbs like parsley or chives.
• Garlic, horseradish, etc.
• A squirt of lemon, or lemon or lime zest.
• Olives and capers.

And don't forget, good bread is key to a good sandwich!  So go get the ingredients (I'm sure there are already some in your fridge or pantry). Then think it, craft it, assemble it, maybe go grill it or toast it. 

And don't forget to eat it, in all it's glory!

I would love for people to share their favorite sandwich, simple or complex as it may be, in the comments below. What is your perfectly crafted sandwich? Also, feel free to add to the tips and ingredients in the list above. 

Tonight's DRD: STEAK AND DONUTS

It's happened, folks. The most unholy combination of sweet and savory has come together as one in my kitchen.

And it was absolutely delicious.

Steak and donuts. An unlikely combination, you might think. The original inspiration came from a conversation with my friend Solveig about the Southern comfort food fried chicken and waffles, served with syrup. Savory, meaty, sweet, and sticky. My reincarnation of that dish (which I've never actually had but which sounds amazing) was steak and donuts, served with Kansas City's own Arthur Bryant BBQ sauce.

The donuts were lovingly made by Damiano, hand cut, baked and coated in butter and cinnamon sugar. The steak simply seared in some butter and quickly tossed in the oven. The BBQ sauce, fresh from the bottle, drizzled over everything for a tangy, vinegar-spiked kick.

Solveig tells me this could really take off in Texas. Until then, I'll keep singing their praises here in Connecticut.

Fall Break Part 2: Flour Power

So during all the cooking that we did in Maine, there was one ingredient we went through a whole lot of: flour. It makes it way into just about every meal you eat, especially if you're making everything from scratch. During our four days there, we made pita bread, white bread, donuts, pasta, dumplings and pizza all 100% from scratch. And that uses a lot of flour.

Which is why I'm writing this post in support of people using more flour. I realize that not everyone has time to go home and bake some bread for lunch the next day, or roll out their own pasta every night, and I'm not asking you to. What I am asking you to do is to get a little closer to flour. Know where you meals come from. Know how they're made. And most importantly, know how easy they are to make -- from scratch! Get comfortable with having some flour on you counter (and all over your clothes). Because as anyone can tell you, food made from scratch is delicious. And as I can tell you from spending 4 days in Maine with only flour, yeast, water and some vegetables, eggs and cheese, you can make just about anything from scratch if you put your mind to it. 

To start, fresh pasta. As they say in Italy, pasta a mano (pasta made by hand). There are countless recipes and videos you can find online for fresh pasta. If you don't have a pasta machine or are intimidated by it (as they can be), just use a rolling pin, as we did in Maine. You'll have to put some muscle into it, but hand rolled pasta is a delicious treat. We had ours with light and simple cream, wine and parmesan sauce. 

Next, fresh baked donuts that Damiano made. These are wonderful, light and chewy with a cinnamon-sugar coating. And you even get to bake the donuts holes (munchkins!). How cute. You make a fairly simple dough, let it rise (we did this the night before and then stuck them in the fridge), cut them, bake for 8 minutes and serve at once.

We also had some freshly baked bread using a recipe from The Bread Bible. She calls this her "Simple Hearth Loaf." It takes a lot of work (definitely not the bread you're going to want to make if it's your first time, but this might be), but it pays off. It has a well-defined crust, chewy interior and lots of flavor. Great on its own or for sandwiches the next day. 

We also made some great pizza from dough that rose overnight (in the fridge), giving it lots of flavor. The crust was light, crispy, soft inside, and really tasty. One was a simple tomato mozzarella pizza (pictured above), the other with potato, onion and parmesan. Oh so good. 

Finally, Sarah showed us how to make some Georgian dumplings. These were made with a simple dough of flour and water, stuffed with mashed potato and onion, and boiled quickly. When you eat them, you dip them in cracked black pepper. Yum! 

The only downside to this post: these photos are all in shades of beige. But these made-from-scratch meals we delicious nonetheless. 

Today's DRL

Bagel, cream cheese, red pepper, capers, olive oil, salt, pepper. Sometimes the simplest things are the most satisfying.

Fall Break Part 1: Flatbreads

Honestly, if you've ever had flatbread - of any type - then it's probably one of your favorite foods. Tortillas, naan, foccacia, pita, lavash, puri, piadine, even fried dough and pancakes count. They're flavorful little packets of bready goodness, served warm and toasty with some flavorful fillings. They also make a great way to eat well with limited cooking resources, supplies, and money.

For the next couple of days I'm going to do a mini-series on what my friends Damiano and Sarah and I made during fall break in Maine. We were away from Wesleyan and were provided with a little rest and quiet, in addition to some spacious counter tops. That said, none of the things we made could not be made in our tiny kitchen at Wesleyan.

For our first two meals, we had variation on a theme: stuffed flatbreads.

The first night we got there we had some fish tacos. Tacos are a great way to get creative while not getting too complicated. Don't just think your typical taco, rice, beans, salsa, cheese and sour cream. Mix it up a little. We had ours with some grilled fish, cheese, sliced red cabbage, lemon wedges, cilantro, spicy mayo and fresh corn salsa. I've included the recipes below. But remember, you can add anything to these and they turn out great.

A couple of helpful hints for making tacos (or stuffed flatbreads) in general:

• Add some flavored mayo (or sour cream, if you prefer). It makes it creamy and delicious. 
• Serve the tacos warm. I prefer corn tortillas, but be sure that you serve them pipping hot. 
• Add a couple of super fresh, crunchy vegetables to put on top. Cucumber, cabbage, shredded carrot, avocado, parsley, cilantro, red onion, etc... all work great. Concentrate on the veggies, not the meat/protein. The veggies are what make it poppin' and rockin'. 
• Don't just stick with the traditional stuff. Pretty much anything works in one way or another. Eggplant, mushroom and spinach with lemon mayo in a taco? That's totally delicious. 

For lunch the next day, we had pita with red cabbage slaw, avocado, cucumbers and onion. We didn't have any pita, so we made it. If you're looking for an easy way to make flatbread that's very forgiving, fun to make and so tasty to stuff in your mouth, try these. The recipe is from Rose Levy Beranbaum's book The Bread Bible (one of my favorite cookbooks). Here's a link from the blog "Smitten Kitchen" with a great photo guide to making the pita from The Bread Bible. As this blog says, even if they don't puff all the way (like ours) they still turn out as wonderful flabreads! If you can make pizza dough, you can easily make these. If you've never made pizza dough, you can still make them. And they're super fun to watch puff up in the oven. And they just taste so good. You''ll never want store bought pita again (though you could definitely buy some pita and stuff them how we did and they'd be delicious). Recipe below.

So I hope this opened you up a little more to the tasty, tasty world of flatbreads. Seriously though, flatbreads are a truly wonderful food. They can be stuffed with a limitless combination of ingredients, they're warm and bready on the outside, cool and refreshing on the inside. And they're just so damn good. Like I said, they're probably already one of your favorite foods. So what are you waiting for? 

Recipes after the jump.

Eataly NYC

Sam Sifton, The New York Times food critic, wrote an interesting review of New York's new Eataly. Eataly, the food emporium originally from Italy selling Italian food but also the "the dolce vita" experience has now opened up on this side of the Atlantic thanks to Mario Batali and friends. I haven't been in NYC yet, but I went in Bologna and in Turin when I was in Italy, and given what I saw there, I think that Sam Sifton has a pretty fair evaluation of  the place. It would be wrong not to point out, however, how absurd this one line from the review is:

"...in a city that is starting perhaps to out-Naples Naples for pie supremacy, Eataly’s pizzas are not yet worth the time spent."

Out- Naples Naples?! Please, Sifton. That's just wrong.

Below the jump I've included my review of the Eataly in Turin. If anyone's been or has thoughts about it, leave a comment and let us know.

I ♥ My Cast-Iron Pan

Maybe you have something you're attached to. A baby blanket, or a teddy bear, a pair of jeans, a sweater.  If you spend a lot of time in your kitchen, you become attached to certain items. Maybe there's an apron you have to wear, an oven mitt from your grandmother, a vintage ice cream soup or your favorite wooden spoon. Well, I'm attached to two things: my chef's knife and my cast-iron pan. Food that I cook with these things - and I swear this is true - comes out better. It tastes better. You could give me the sharpest, cutting-edge (no pun intended) knife out there and the shiniest, sleekest pan in the world. But I'd rather cook with what I have.

That's because a lot of what cooking and food and the experience of eating comes down to familiarity. Home cooking, or dorm cooking or apartment cooking or where ever you cook is about being familiar and with your food. It's about being being familiar with the surroundings. With the people. It's about bringing back something from your childhood. When it's good, really good, eating takes you back to a certain place or a certain time or a certain person. Food is about engaging yourself with the present - the food, the company, the atmosphere - and linking that to something in your past. Even new foods that we love - that "best thing I've ever put in my mouth" - are probably so delicious because they bring you back somewhere.

Restaurant food can do the same sometimes. Good meals at restaurant bring you back somewhere. Really good restaurant meals simultaneously give you something familiar while pushing your limits. 

So I tend to go back to that knife, and that pan, a lot. Because cooking, at least home cooking, is about familiarity - the friendliness of a dish, the feel of the knife in your hands, the way the food looks on the table in the cast-iron pan. It's about seeing familiar faces, tasting familiar flavors. 

So yeah, I love my cast-iron pan and my chef's knife. I also love the feeling of sitting down to a home cooked meal, familiar as they always are. 

Tonight's DRD: Tomatoes with Issues

Fresh pasta with fresh, fresh tomato sauce. Does it get any better than that?

At the farmer's market last Friday, one stall was selling "Tomatoes with Issues" - ones that were bruised, squishy, etc - for really cheap. We bought the whole box for $2. Though these tomatoes had issues, they made for some real good sauce that Damiano whipped up. There's a recipe below. We added it to some hand rolled and hand cut pasta. Now that's umm, umm, good.

Roasted "Tomatoes with Issues" Tomato Sauce

The great thing about this sauce is you don't need perfect tomatoes for a super flavorful sauce. Even mediocre super market tomatoes will work well. But of course, use the best tomatoes you can find. 

-Halve 5-10 medium sized tomatoes (any variety will work). Place on a sheet pan and cover with a generous helping of olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for 30-45 minutes at 350 until fragrant and beautiful - they should be breaking down but still juicy (this can be done up to 3 days in advance, just put these in the fridge until you need them). 

-Chop a red onion and a clove of garlic and sautee them in olive oil and/or butter in a medium size pan until the onion is translucent. 

-Add the roasted tomatoes and let simmer for 20-30 minutes until the tomatoes are well broken up.

-Season generously with salt and pepper. Optionally, add pepperoncino for some spice, herbs like basil or Italian parsley, or whatever else you'd like. If it is at all bitter, add a small spoonful of sugar. 

-Mix with 1 pound of pasta and serve at once with plenty of grated parmesan. 

Tonight's DRD

For dinner tonight, we used ingredients from Middletown's Friday Farmer's Market. I was really impressed with the variety and quality of the produce they had. There's still the end of the summer produce coming in: delicious cherry tomatoes, beautiful greens, cucumbers, eggplant, radishes, as well as the fall produce which is just starting to hit its peak: fragrant apples of every variety, big, deformed squashes of every shape, color and texture, beautiful pears, and more. It was a really nice market and I think it made for a really nice dinner.

To start, we had some bruschetta with an herb-lemon ricotta and sauteed Japanese eggplant. These were really simple and tasty.

For dinner we had a delicious pumpkin and butternut squash soup with curry and a mixture of other  spices Damiano had brought back from India. It was thickened with coconut milk which gave it a really nice consistency. It was topped with some spiced, toasted pumpkin seeds which brought it all together. The base recipe was from the blog 101 Cookbooks, but we added a little twist by using extra spices, lemon, lots of ginger and two types of squash.

I like that our meal brought together some of the end of summer produce with some classic fall staples as well. As autumn starts, what have you all been cooking? Any ideas of things you'd like to make? Favorite fall dishes (savory or sweet) which you can live without? Leave a comment and let us know.

Happy cooking everyone!

Warm and Delicious

Speaking of a small kitchen being no excuses for good food, take dinner the other night. I'm in the kitchen with my roommate Damiano who is boiling some potatoes, presumably to eat boiled potatoes. I go into my room for 5 minutes, come back, and sitting on the counter are beautiful, hand rolled potato gnocchi scattered among a sprinkling of flour on the counter. He made them in 5 minutes! Now even I'll admit I used to think gnocchi were one of the hardest things to make from scratch (in fact, my parents recently told me the most inedible thing I had ever cooked for them was some handmade gnocchi back in middle school).  But give it a try. These were absolutely wonderful, topped with a little rosemary garlic butter and parmesan.

Tiny Kitchens and Why It Doesn't Matter

Just so you all have an idea of where I'm cooking, here's my kitchen. It's not the smallest kitchen ever, and works pretty well. Try getting more than 2 people in there and, well you know what they say about too many cooks in the kitchen. 

Cooking in a small college kitchen requires you to get creative. It makes you use up what you have (we only have a mini-fridge, in the bottom left of the photo). It makes you do a lot of things with your hands that you might otherwise throw in the food processor or some other gadget (remember, there was some point in history when everyone was making it with their hands). It makes you deal with stoves that decide to start smoking every time you turn them on. It also make you better at cooking. 

The New York Times columnist and cookbook author Mark Bittman certainly thinks so, his kitchen is as small as ours (then again, he is "The Minimalist"). And as much as I may disagree with Mark Bittman on his recent column about food processors (who purees an entire fish, head included?), I think he's right on this one. Being in a small kitchen is no excuse for bad food. Much as anyone (myself included) would love a six burner Viking range, not having one is no barrier to cooking and eating well. 

So if you're in college, or in a small apartment, or in any apartment or house for that matter, get creative!  The next time you want to make a meal, try just using what you have around and see how it turns out. There are probably a lot more delicious meals waiting in your fridge and cabinets than you think. Next time you want to make a dough with a food processor, use a fork and your hands. Next time you're about to order take-out, or go to the dining hall, try making something new. Make it simple and easy. There's no lack of simple recipes on the internet for inspiration. But you don't need recipes if you don't want them. Think about your favorite foods and flavors you like. Try recreating a dish you love. Cooking is more forgiving than you might think. 

So experiment. It won't turn out perfect every time, but that's how you become a better chef. Make it again. Try it a different way. And next time, add more salt, goddamnit! 

Today's DRL

I think that Italian cooking gives us good insight into how to effectively cook in a small kitchen with fairly limited resources: cook simply, with fresh ingredients. Whether you are cooking in the kitchen of a four star restaurant or on a propane burner in the woods, you are going to get the best food when you use simple ingredients and don't screw around with them too much.

For lunch today's Dorm Room Lunch I made an open faced egg sandwich with grilled bread, mayo, cucumber, yellow tomato from the farmers market, capers and a fried egg. Simple and really tasty.

Jamie Oliver and the Food Revolution

If you do one thing today, watch this. I'm serious. Just do it.



Jamie has a really unique view on this issue. He is not a doctor, a crunchy granola hippie, or a politician. He is a chef and a father who understands the profound importance of food in our lives, not just that we all deserve to eat well, but that eating well is intrinsically connected with living well. We are killing ourselves with our eating habits. The way we eat needs to change and I think what Jamie says so well is that we can change it. Its not that hard. It's about giving people the resources they need to eat and live well. Teach someone how to cook. Introduce kids to fresh food.

Jamie calls it "tangible change." Nothing is more tangible to me than sitting down to a beautiful, freshly made, healthy meal. Get involved in making that change a reality for yourself and for people around you.

What else can we do to help this movement? It's worth checking out this site for new ideas about this movement (and you can vote for you favorite).  And watch Jamie's fantastic series on ABC from earlier this year Food Revolution!

Tonight's DRD

Made some soup with what we had in the fridge. Soup is a great way of using up what vegetables you have lying around. It had collard and beet greens, potatoes, white beans, broccoli, tomato, and topped with a little creme fraiche and chives. Simple and super flavorful.