Five Years

I moved to New York on January 8, 2007. No job, no friends, and basically no clue about what I was getting myself into.

Tonight, five years after starting this no-longer-new life of mine, I shared a tasty North Carolina-style barbeque dinner at The Cardinal with two of my good friends. Everything we ate was excellent, from the moist beef brisket to the flavorful mac and cheese to the juicy pulled pork to the subtly sweet bread pudding. (And that's only half of what we ate!) Yes, it was quite the feast. Should I have commemorated this anniversary with something more typically "New York," like pizza or a deli sandwich? Maybe. But to me, more than anything else, New York signifies delicious food from all over, eaten with people from all over. So I think my dinner was very fitting.

If I could, I would grab your hand, and take you to every place I've ever loved to eat from these past five years so you could taste a bit of what my life has been like. We would grow fat and tired and broke, but it would be glorious.

On Moving (and food)

I've lived in the same apartment for 3 1/2 years. Aside from my childhood home, this is the longest I've lived in one place. My close friends know that I have a hard time with change and a really hard time not getting attached to things. (Ex. I had a nightmare once that my favorite coffee mug broke. It was pretty devastating.) I move today, and it feels like I'm losing a friend.

Moving is the worst. Not only has it taken a toll on me emotionally and physically, it's wreaked havoc on my eating habits for the past two weeks. The last home-cooked meal I ate was a week ago (Mexican-style eggs). I've been eating a steady diet of toast and leftover pizza because I've wanted to avoid making a mess in the kitchen. Not good.

I'm sad to leave my home, but I'm excited about the meals I'll create and share with friends in my new apartment. The best part about my new place? It's literally two minutes down the street from Trader Joe's!

My old place, pre-move

Bag Lunch: Chicken, Chorizo, and Olive Empanadas

Life is a little crazy right now, hence my totally neglecting this poor little blog. I mentioned making these empanadas WEEKS ago and I can't believe I've held off on posting about it for so long. These are too good to keep to myself. They're a little involved, but they're a great project for a chilly Sunday afternoon when you have some time on your hands. I used this recipe, but ignored the directions to double the dough. You basically have to decide what you'd rather have: extra dough or extra filling.

Make the dough before you get started on the filling. That way it has a chance to sit in the fridge for an hour.

Here are my seasoned chicken legs browning in my fantastic skillet. If you don't have a skillet, go out and get one from Target right now. Don't even finish reading this post. Just buy a skillet. It will make everything you make in it cook and taste 100x better. And I suppose you could swap out boneless skinless chicken breast here, but only if you want something that doesn't taste very good.

Remove the chicken from the skillet.

Saute onions, garlic, and bay leaves for a few minutes before adding paprika and chorizo to the pan to brown (I used spicy Italian sausage because I couldn't get my hands on chorizo).

Add olives, wine, and broth to skillet and bring to a boil before nestling the chicken legs back in the pan. Let the chicken cook in the skillet for about 30 minutes.

Remove the chicken and bay leaves from the mixture to cool. Once the chicken is cool, remove the skin and bones and chop the meat. Add the meat back to the skillet and let the filling cool for about 30 minutes.

I'll just let the recipes guide you on filling instructions, but basically you divide your dough in half, form balls, flatten into disks, and fill with about two tablespoons of filling (which you'll have leftovers of, but will eat over rice for dinner and love just as much as your empanadas). Below is sort of what they should (or can) look like. You can also crimp the edges with a fork if you don't want to get fancy like I did. Brush the tops with egg wash and pop them in the oven.

After about 25 minutes in a 400 degree oven you get beautiful, brown empanadas. These keep really well in the fridge, and they're good cold or quickly warmed in the oven (or microwave). Two empanadas and a side salad make a great lunch.

Notice the flaky crust and moist filling. These are a delicious blend of sweet, savory, and a little spicy. I made them for lunch, and they'd obviously be great for dinner, but if you made them a little smaller they'd make great appetizers!

Field Trip: Rockaway Taco

Now that summer's officially over, I'm going to post about my one trip to the beach. Timely, I know. I'd heard a lot about Rockaway Taco, so I had one chance to check it out. 

After riding so far out on the A train that we thought there was nowhere else to go, my roommate Jordan and I switched to a shuttle that took us out to Far Rockaway. It almost felt like we'd left New York, except that there was still trash and graffiti everywhere. 

Carne tacos. Biggest mistake of my entire taco-eating life (and the word taco was literally one of my first words). Never have I ever passed on a taco (not even Taco Bell), but the meat in these tacos--grisly and bland--was downright inedible. Jordan and I both trashed the meat and ate the corn tortillas with the guac, cabbage, and radishes.

Chorizo taco. Major improvement from the carne. The filling wasn't as spicy and textured as I like my chorizo, but it was still flavorful.

Fish taco. I've mentioned that I don't like fish, but I had a bite of Jordan's taco and was really pleased with the taste. The crunch of the batter, slaw, and radishes, in combination with the creamy aioli and tangy lime, was really, really nice. In reading reviews of Rockaway Taco (and assessing my personal experience) I see that I completely failed by ordering the carne and not the fish taco. Live and learn.

Plantain and black bean quesadilla. Not really a quesadilla in the traditional sense, this was more of a taco with melted cheese. This totally saved the Rockaway Taco excursion for me. The creamy beans, sweet plantains, and salty cheese nearly wiped the memory of the horrendous carne taco from my mind.

Here are some other pictures of our Goodbye-Summer beach excursion.

Mauling my chorizo taco

Jordan enjoying her fish taco

Goodbye, summer!

Why I'm not cooking this week

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick (a book I spent the better part of the last year and a half working on) was released on Tuesday, and to celebrate Scholastic threw Brian a party at the American Museum of Natural History. It was epic, to say the least. I even got to go behind-the-scenes and see 80 million-year-old fossils that were recently excavated!

That's the cover on the ceiling and the mass of black in the middle is a blue whale.

As if the release party wasn't special enough, the next day I had the rare opportunity to see a rough cut of Martin Scorsese's Hugo (based on Brian's novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret) at Mr. Scorsese's office! He wasn't there, but it was still amazing to see the film with the people that made the book happen. It was a great thank-you from the Scorsese's after how hard we worked on the movie companion. (And by "hard" I mean I wasn't sleeping or eating regularly and I lost the ability to form coherent thoughts or express myself properly.)

Cover copyright Scholastic 2011

The movie is so true to Brian's work, and it was such a privilege to be there with him as he watched the movie for the first time. The trailer really doesn't do the film justice.

Movie poster copyright Paramount 2011

So, all this to say that I haven't been home to cook this week or pull myself together enough to post the amazing things I've made recently, including some out-of-this-world chicken empanadas. You'll just have to wait.

Bag Lunch: Whole Grain Rice Salad

Fall is around the corner, which means this recipe featuring cherries is a bit ill-timed, but I made it weeks ago and want to share it with you before it has to hibernate for the winter.

I found this recipe in Super Natural Everyday when I was killing time at Barnes and Noble last month. I was too cheap (and poor) to buy the book itself, so I took pictures of the recipe with my iPhone. I am nothing if not resourceful. The author, Heidi Swanson, has a blog that showcases her incredible food photography and super-healthy recipes.

Here's what you'll need:

• 3 1/2 cups cooked whole grain rice (still warm, or reheated)
• 4 handfuls baby spinach
• 2/3 cup walnuts halves, toasted (It was 7:30 am when I made this, I did not toast!)
• 1 1/2 cups cherries, pitted
• 1/2 extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
• salt
• a few basil leaves
• a bit of goat cheese or feta (I used feta)

Here's what to do:

• Combine the hot rice, spinach, and most of the walnuts in a large bowl. Toss until the spinach wilts a bit. 

• Make a cherry vinaigrette by combining one-third of the cherries, oil, vinegar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt and blending until smooth. Take a moment to appreciate how gorgeous the pink vinaigrette looks and then add a generous splash (or giant drizzle) of the dressing to the salad. 

• Tear the remaining cherries in half and stir most of them into the rice. Taste and add salt as needed.

• If you're serving this at an event, turn the salad out onto a platter and finish with the last of the cherries, walnuts, basil, and cheese. If you're taking it to work, like I did, just add these last ingredients in the previous step, before you salt the salad.

Unfortunately, because I made this in the morning before work one day I don't have any pictures of the process, so this is the only surviving picture. Ignore my nasty, tape-encrusted cutting mat in the background.

Word of warning, this delicious salad is best enjoyed the day you make it. I learned the hard way by eating it for a few days. The cut side of the cherries turns brown, and the walnuts become waterlogged. Not terrible, but not necessarily good eats, either. I guess you can remedy this by making the rice mixture and stirring in the dressing and add-ins each morning when you pack your lunch. I know cherries are probably scarce, but run out and make this if you can!

Breakfast: Dressed-up Greek Yogurt

I hate cereal. There, I said it. It's boring, and I am inevitably hungry an hour after eating it. Not only is it not satisfying, it's expensive.

So this morning I ate a bowl of Greek yogurt, walnuts, blueberries, and honey. I keep honey and walnuts in the pantry, so that was free, but okay, berries and yogurt aren't exactly cheap. Small price to pay for a breakfast that's more interesting than a soggy bowl of shredded wheat. Not to mention more filling because of all the protein in the yogurt and walnuts.

It's 11:30 and I'm not starving for lunch like I usually am. Eff you, cereal.

There's yogurt under there, I swear.