Champagne Risotto

Happy three day weekend to all my lovely readers! I'm so happy that today is still my Saturday since I don't have to go to work tomorrow! I had a productive morning, running a 10 mile relay race with two girlfriends in Prospect Park. I definitely wasn't prepared for the cold - 20s with wind - I thought my toes were going to fall off! I was happy to have a delicious post race lunch - pulled pork sandwich, fries and a beer to wash it down.

I hope you all had a great Valentine's Day as well! Matt and I cooked dinner at home and watched Rush, which was a really good movie. I would definitely recommend checking it out! Our dinner menu was comprised of bruschetta, champagne risotto and chocolate cake, with a lemon raspberry champagne cocktail to finish off the night.

The champagne risotto was definitely the star of the evening. After blanching the asparagus in the chicken broth and cooking down the shallot, the time intensive (but completely worth it!) creation of this dish could really begin. I was glad to have some extra chicken broth since I ended up needing more than three cups to cook the rice enough without being too chewy.

The absolute best part of this dish had to be the crispy prosciutto. I've had prosciutto on its own, or with figs, but never cooked to a crisp. The crunch, the smoky bacon flavor...I could go on forever. I'm going to have to find ways to incorporate this into other dishes, or maybe I'll start sprinkling it on top of all pasta dishes. I think that's the right way to go!

Matt approves!

The risotto turned out wonderfully. The dish was creamy and pepper-y, with a crunch and freshness from the asparagus and smoky crunch from the prosciutto. If you're willing to put in the time for this dish, you'll be so happy with the outcome!

Poached Pear Olive Oil Cake

You're all going to fall in the love with this beautiful, easy to make poached pear olive oil cake. I loved the cake so much that I made it twice within a few weeks! I may be hiding the reason why I made it twice since that's usually not my style. Here's the real story:

I was writing a blog post so I had to upload pics from my memory card onto my laptop. After I had finished my post, a few hours passed and I decided I wanted to bake something. I had already bought the pears for this recipe so I got to work. I was taking some great pictures of the cake before and after it went into the oven, really loving my shots. I was so excited to blog about this recipe! Well, maybe an hour or so later, it all of a sudden hits me that I never put my memory card back into my camera. All of those lovely pictures never even existed. I definitely went to bed angry that night.

So here we are, with cake number two. This cake could not be easier to make. The pears are cooked in sugar water for about five minutes to soften them up and add a little extra sweetness. The cake batter was quick to whip up in my food processor. Just like that, I'm ready to put everything together and stick this bad boy in the oven.

The big lesson I learned from the first time I made this was not to overfill the loaf pan. I had too much batter and filled it almost to the top, which led to a lot of burning batter on the bottom of my oven. The second time around, I used the extra batter to make individual cakes in my muffin pan...yum! This cake is really tasty on its own, a refreshing lemon flavor coming out from the lemon juice and zest added to the batter.

This one turned out much better looking than the first since I had some trouble getting it out of the loaf pan before. The cake just looks so beautiful once you cut into it. Each piece has a cross-sectional slice of pear and this moist, citrus-y olive oil cake that perfectly compliments the mild sweetness of the pear. I highly recommend you try this cake right away...you won't be disappointed!

Wingin' It for the Super Bowl!

I'm definitely not a football fan, but I always enjoy watching the Super Bowl for the commercials and the food! It's not the Super Bowl without a few batches of wings and a cold beer to wash them down. I decided to make two types of wings since Matt is a traditional buffalo wing eater, while I like the gooey varieties.

Since we don't have a grill, I went for the oven baked route. I found two yummy recipes, one for buffalo wings and one for sweet and spicy ginger wings. I've never cooked with ginger beer before (yay, another new ingredient!), but these sound really tasty with both the ginger beer and fresh ginger.  I left the wings marinade for about an hour before cooking both sets of wings together in the oven.

The buffalo wing glaze was very traditional, Frank's Red Hot hot sauce mixed with some butter, before dunking the wings into the mixture. They had a nice level of heat for me, but Matt could have used more heat. We were wary of the Franks' Xtra Hot variety, but this may have been more up Matt's alley.

The glaze for the ginger wings turned out really great. The combination of ginger beer, ginger, soy, honey and a split habanero pepper produced a glaze with a nice balance of sweet, salty and a nice level of heat. Next time, I would cook the glaze down more so it really coated the wings and made them nice and sticky. What wings did you make for the biggest game of the year?

Siteseeing in the City

I had a whirlwind weekend, surprising my sister in Charleston for her bridal shower, and then spending yesterday back in NY with some friends visiting from China. Charleston was the perfect weekend retreat from the cold weather - I was basking in the 50s! It was great getting to spend a weekend with my sister and meeting a lot of her friends that I've only heard of by name. 

Once I was back in NYC, I had a tourist filled day, checking out the Statue of Liberty, walking through Central Park, and roaming around the American Museum of Natural History. Here a few pictures from my walk around the city.

Some of my favorite places to see around the city are:

• Views from Top of the Rock
• Central Park Conservatory Garden
• Chelsea Market (so much good food!)
• Taking the tram to Roosevelt Island and seeing the creepy house at the south end of the island

What are your favorite NYC attractions? Tell me in the comments section!

Leek and Potato Soup

Hopefully I haven't become too predictable with the onset of cold weather, but I'm always craving a satisfying bowl of soup that warms me up from head to toe. After going for a run in Central Park yesterday (I know, what's happening to me?!), I already knew I wanted to make soup for dinner. I tend to gravitate towards soups that are, at their core, veggies and broth that I can blend up into a thick soup with my immersion blender. I found this recipe for leek and potato soup that I knew would hit the spot!

Sticking with my resolution to use new ingredients, this was the first time I've cooked with leeks! The leek and potato mixture made our apartment smell amazing as they were cooking down. I still need to figure out what I can to do with the leek tops since I have a lot left over that I don't want to waste. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

While the veggies and broth were simmering, Matt caramelized the mushrooms (another resolution to cook together more often!). We both forgot how much they cook down so we only had enough for our two bowls of soup. Luckily I forgot to buy more butter for another recipe so I was able to pick up some more at the grocery store so we don't miss having these with our bowlfuls today!

We blended the soup smooth, not leaving it chunky as this recipes suggests - whichever you prefer will still produce a delicious soup! We added a generous amount of salt and pepper to really bring out the flavor from the veggies.

Each bite of this soup was the perfect mixture of flavors and textures. The soup itself was creamy, with hints of citrus from the lemon juice. The mushrooms were perfectly caramelized and gave the soup some chewiness and a great earthy flavor. The creme fraiche cooled the soup down a bit, and the green onions (I already had some in the fridge so I used them instead of chives) offered a little crunch and just the right amount of raw onion flavor without overpowering the dish. I would make this soup again in a heartbeat!

Black Bean Pita Pizza

Happy Tuesday to all of my lovely readers! I'm always looking for motivation and ideas to try out new recipes, but sometimes nothing speaks to me. I don't know how that happens when there are so many delicious recipes out there, but I guess when there are so many options, it's hard to know where to start! Luckily, I have a hungry husband who I can ask for suggestions when I'm stumped as to what I should whip up in the kitchen.

I recently had a recipe brain fart and Matt suggested pizza so at least I had a starting place! There are so many directions you can go in when it comes to pizza so I started combing through my options on Foodgawker. I came across a very appealing recipe for Mexican style pizza that uses a black bean paste instead of your typical sauce. Black beans, cilantro, hot sauce and cumin? Sign me up!

This black bean paste is AMAZING. You can just eat it on its own with tortilla chips and call it a day. The paste is about the consistency of hummus, but the bits of cilantro and warmth from the cumin really make this "sauce" delicious. I would recommend making this recipe for the paste alone! I only made half of the amount called for in the recipe, which still left some extra at the end - I certainly wasn't complaining about having a yummy snack the next day!

Since my grocery store was completely out of pizza dough (I know, I'm too lazy to make my own), I went with the next best option and bought pita! Who doesn't love an individual pizza that you don't have to share with anyone? After cooking the pizza in the oven with the black bean paste and pepper jack cheese, I topped it with some shredded lettuce, diced tomato, and sour cream (just for Matt since sour cream is not my cup of tea).

These pizzas were really delicious, primarily from the black bean paste. In case you didn't get it by now, you've got to make this paste! The gooey cheese and crisp, crunchy lettuce really make this a satisfying and quick dinner to make during the week. Let me know what you think!

Enchiladas Verdes

My husband made enchiladas verdes last week, using two new ingredients that we've never cooked with before - tomatillos and cotija cheese! We made some improvisations along the way to make the recipe work for us, but they are turned out very delicious!

We cooked the tomatillos, serrano peppers and garlic in our cast iron Dutch oven, lined with aluminum foil, since we didn't have a griddle pan. It worked really well, blackening the veggies until they were ready to be blended into a delicious sauce. We only used 2 cups of chicken broth for the sauce, which already made the sauce pretty watery. We ended up adding several scoops of cornstarch to thicken it because it wasn't doing it on its own once we started heating it up.

We also decided to lightly crisp the corn tortillas in a pan instead of frying them, which worked out well, but took longer than frying. I think next time we would want to fry them, just to see if there is a difference.

The sauce was really spicy from the serrano peppers, but once we dipped the tortillas in the sauce, rolled up the chicken and lettuce/cilantro mix inside, and slathered on some creme fraiche (I couldn't find any Mexican crema at my grocery store) and cotija cheese, the sauce really mellowed out and wasn't too overwhelming. We had these again the following night and the sauce was even more flavorful than when we first made it.

I would definitely recommend trying the dish! It takes some work with all of the steps involved, but it was a lot of fun (to watch) - I was the kitchen supervisor for this meal while Matt cooked a delicious dinner for me!