The Best Turkey Meatballs

I've come to realize that a food blog with no pictures is doomed. I also really don't have any interest in investing in good photography equipment -- or even the time! -- so this will serve as my own personal recipe book, just one open to the public for browsing.

The following recipe makes the most amazingly soft turkey meatballs you've ever had. It combines a secret ingredient that my mother first discovered when she was trying to cut out cholesterol-ladden foods from her cooking: tofu!

She started "hiding" tofu into all the baozi and dumpling stuffing, and the result was a moist, soft, and flavorful meatball. Chinese cooking also uses starch to soften meats, which this recipe incorporates as well... Belts and suspenders, as we say in the law!

The best part about having a mom who hails from a completely different tradition and culture is that you get to incorporate the tricks of other ethnic cuisines! Trust me: this is amazing.

The Best Turkey Meatballs

Servings: 4 to 6

Ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey
1/4 cup tofu, mashed
1/4 cup bread crumbs
1 large egg
1 tbsp tapioca starch
1 tbsp soy sauce
2 tsp salt
shredded cheese (of whatever kind!)
thyme, oregano, basil, pepper

1. Combine the tofu, bread crumbs, egg, and starch with a fork or chopsticks.
2. Combine the ground turkey and seasonings with your hands.
3. Shape into meatballs. I like mine to be small, with a diameter of 3/4 of an inch.
4. Cook. There are two methods:

Option A: Bake on a baking sheet with olive oil at 360F for 20 - 25 min.
Option B: Cook in tomato sauce on simmer for 35 - 40 min.

Why you should make this:
#1. It's healthier than ground beef.
#2. Moist! Soft! Tasty! Meatballs!

Why you shouldn't make this:
#1. You are vegetarian.
#2. You don't like handling meat. It gets messy!

Summer Tacos

It's been a long hiatus from posting. I left New York City for a summer internship in DC, which kept me so busy that I hardly had any time to spare for my blog. Many friendships and memories were made, good food was eaten, and not much sleep was had. But I'm back now!

My best friend came to visit me for Labor Day. I took her to the Highline at Fourteenth Street, which was an ideal study spot. She is in medical school, and I am in law school; sadly, our fun visit consisted mostly of reading.

We did make time to visit Chelsea Market, where she made a beeline for Los Tacos No. 1. She had read about the place on Yelp -- "five stars with 62 reviews and one dollar sign are nothing to scoff at." Indeed! I can count on one hand the number of times I'd had tacos, and these were absolutely delicious. A day later, I felt I hadn't had enough and tried re-creating the magic.

I used leftover duck breast for the meat, and had I been more enterprising, I would definitely have marinaded it. I also made scrambled eggs with onions, spinach, and asparagus heads, but the winner of the night was the salsa. We hand-chopped every ingredient, but I wish that I owned a food processor.

This recipe is a keeper!

(I need to figure out how to download photos from my phone, eh.)

Mango Salsa
Serving size: 8

Ingredients:
1 mango, peeled and diced
6 or 7 plum tomatoes, diced
1 red onion, diced
1/2 cup of cilantro, finely chopped
4 cloves of garlic
Lime juice
Olive oil
Cumin
Cayenne pepper
Black pepper
Salt

1. Combine all the ingredients.
2. Enjoy! Or keep chilled in the fridge until consumption.

Why should I make this?
#1. Cheap ingredients.
#2. So many veggies. I ate them all, including the red onion, which I usually find too strong to like. I hardly recognized myself.
#3. No cooking involved. Perfect for the summer when no one wants to stand in front of a stove or turn on the oven!

Why should I not make this?
#1. You don't like to chop things finely and don't own a food processor.

Pizza Supreme

This pizza never gets old. The key ingredients also keep very well, so you can easily stretch out making a second batch a week after the first.

Flatbread Pizza Supreme

For 5 servings

5 whole grain flat breads
1 red pepper, thinly sliced
1 box of mushrooms, sliced
1 can of tomato sauce or tomato paste
1/2 lb of prosciutto
        or 2 cans of anchovies marinated in olive oil
arugula
mozzarella cheese, shredded
goat cheese, sliced
parmesan, shaved


1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Place the flatbread on a baking sheet. (No need to use oil. The bread will not stick.)
3. Spread tomato sauce (I prefer to use tomato paste that I thin out with water. I can better control the consistency and sodium levels).
4. Sprinkle with mozzarella, then arrange pepper, mushroom, and goat cheese slices. Make it pretty!
5. Tear prosciutto into strips, 1" by 2". Arrange onto pizza.
6. Place a small handful of arugula in the center. Sprinkle with parmesan.
7. Bake in the oven for 15 to 20 min, depending on desired crunchiness of the crust.

One more picture

Tips:
-- This is an old trick: cut pizza with scissors.

-- Don't go overboard with any one of the ingredients because your pizza may become unmanageable. You have to be able to let it sit on a tiny piece of flatbread.

-- Also, when saving ingredients over the course of the week, use vegetable plastic bags instead of saran wrap or foil. I will write another post about the all-purpose vegetable plastic bag later. Suffice it to say that the can of tomato, goat cheese, and parmesan will fare especially well if you tie them up in one of those bags.


Why should you make this?
#1. It's super easy, healthy, and delicious. There is no oil in this recipe, except for the natural oils found in the ingredients. Pretty cheap, too, except for the prosciutto.
#2. This pizza is all about using a little of everything. So many flavors melding in your mouth!
#3. It's the best cooking project to do with kids. I made pizzas with my ex-boyfriend's 3-year-old nephew, and it was the most fun I'd ever had cooking with someone else. Just prepare the toppings in advance, like they do in those cooking shows, so the child has complete creative control over the sprinkling process. You can adapt the ingredients so that they are friendlier to children's tastes. For example, skip the prosciutto and use pepperoni slices instead.
The only thing I would change about that particular pizza-making-with-nephew experience is that I would have used flatbread instead of pizza dough. Toddlers and dough-work will go nowhere. Also, once you discover pita bread or flatbread, it's difficult to ever go back to manually stretching dough and all that mess...

Why should you not make this?
I cannot for the life of me think of any reason. Maybe you don't know how to turn on an oven. Or maybe you can't afford to buy a baking sheet, in which case, you should borrow one in order to make this pizza.

Amour-Propre

How do you go about finding the matching sock, when you don't know even the color of the one you're holding?

Hot News

Starting tonight, I will get to read the New York Times online to my big, slobbering heart's content. No more deleting all my cookies after every tenth article. No more parsing out which articles are worth clicking on and which to read on CNN (shudder). No more reminders of why I'm now running up against the NY Times paywall.

I got this awesome orange tote to boot. Laundry and groceries, here I come!

OH, AND FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE

Health Is Your Best Friend

It's the first time in a month that I have felt healthy. Though I'm still fighting remnants of my last cold, I feel as though I'm no longer treading water -- exhausted and scared, as more waves wash up and over my head. In mid-March, I had severe loss of appetite, followed by one of the most prolonged bouts of my chronic gastrointestinal disease. The pain lasted about two and half weeks, during which I lost ten pounds. Just as I was recovering, I caught a bad head cold that laid me low for another full week. My poor immune system probably tanked under all the emotional and physical strain.

But every part of me now seems back to normal. All the gears are turning, the pipes cleared, and the motors running. Hopefully, I will be returning to the gym soon.

Just in time for final exams!

Second Celebrity Sighting!

During my second week in New York, I ran into a movie set on my way to Duane Reade for some Dayquil. I've always regretted not taking a picture of Adam Brody, and I promised myself, "Never again would I let propriety and discretion get in the way of documenting a celebrity sighting."

So my panties were put in a twist two days ago when I saw Harold Koh at Artopolis. I now need to work on my photography skills.

Brussels Caesar Salad

This is the poor law-student's version of a heavenly salad that Sarah McSimmons made for her 8-course Best of the Best dinner at City Grit on March 28, 2013. My friend David had an extra ticket and was kind enough to let me accompany him. It was one of the best meals I've had in New York in a long, long time.

Of all the courses, this salad was the only one that was both memorable and somewhat replicable. I've been meaning to try it, but my go-to is definitely not salad. I don't like vegetables -- the less the merrier. However, my friend Candice was coming over for dinner today and people seem to like green things just fine, so I figured this was my golden opportunity. The recipe still needs tweaking, especially the caesar dressing, but I'm very happy with it. Definitely a keeper!

Photo Credit: Candice

Shaved Brussels Sprouts Caesar Salad (with Anchovy Dressing)

For 2 servings

For the Caesar dressing (makes 1 cup)

1 ½ tsp of anchovy paste

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 whole egg

2 ½ tblsp lemon juice

1 tblsp Grey Poupon mustard

2 cups olive oil

salt

pepper

For the toasted breadcrumbs

1 tblsp olive oil

1/3 cup breadcrumbs

salt

2 tblsp grated Parmesan

For the rest of salad

A dozen large Brussels sprouts

2 grilled chicken breasts

For the Caesar dressing

1.     Place all ingredients except for the olive oil in a mixing bowl. Combine.

2.     While the mixer is on low, slowly drizzle the olive oil, thread-like, into the mixture. Process until smooth.

(This dressing can be stored up to 3 days in the fridge)

For the toasted breadcrumbs

1.     Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Add breadcrumbs and stir until the breadcrumbs absorb all the oil.

2.     Fry for 5 min until golden-brown. Transfer to a bowl, and add salt, pepper and grated Parmesan. Toss with a fork until the cheese has melted, making sure the breadcrumbs don’t clump up. Set aside.

For the rest of salad

1.     Rinse the Brussels sprouts, and discard any bad outer leaves.

2.     Discard the stems. Slice the sprouts horizontally, either with a food processor, a mandolin, or a knife.

(I used a knife and my slices were pretty rough. This was fast and the heart of the sprouts stayed intact through the cooking, which is aesthetically pleasing.)

3.     Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Toss in the sprouts and fry for 6 min.

(Flip, rather than stir, and do it as little as you can. A little bit of charring adds a kick of flavor. Less stirring preserves more hearts – Ain’t that true about life.)

4.     Season with salt, and plate immediately.

5.     Slice the chicken breasts.

6.     Plate the chicken, sprinkle with bread crumbs, grate more Parmesan, and drizzle with sauce. Enjoy!

~~~~~~~~

Why should you make this?

#1. Brussels sprouts are delicious!

#2. This is a totally jazzed-up Caesar salad (with anchovies, no less!). Had I the time, I would have used duck breasts. If POTUS were ever to show up to your house, you wouldn’t serve up your run-of-the-mill salad, would you? You need something like this in your cooking repertoire.

#3. It’s salad, so it’s healthy. My last three dinners have been tuna sandwich, Nutella sandwich, and scallion pancakes. Nada más. They say scurvy (that lovely disease where your teeth fall out of your gums due to a lack of Vitamin C) is now no longer a problem for sailors, as it was in the 17^th century; instead, it is most prevalent amongst college and graduate students. Can’t imagine why…

Why should you not make this?

#1. All this work for a goddamn salad? What is this... gussied up veggies thing? Yeah, that's right... it better be POTUS coming over to dinner tonight.

Fully Loaded Miso Soup

This is my go-to soup when I'm trying to take it easy.

I love miso soup at Japanese restaurants because it's the perfect appetizer: whets your appetite without filling you up. However, for a full meal, you need to add a little more substance. Any ingredients beyond tofu, scallions, and miso paste are optional. Experiment!


Fully Loaded Miso Soup

Servings: 2

Ingredients:

3 cups of water

3 tblsp of miso paste

1 cup of soft tofu, cubed small

handful of chopped scallions

~~

A dozen udon noodles (here, inaka udon)

1 cup of white mushrooms, thinly sliced

1. In a secondary pot, cook udon noodles until al dente.

2. In your main soup pot, bring the water to a boil. Then simmer.

3. Dissolve the miso paste by stirring and crushing against the sides of the pot.

4. Bring soup back to a medium boil. Add tofu. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes.

5. Add mushrooms and noodles. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

6. Add scallions and boil just a little longer (1 min max).

7. Serve in nice big bowls.

Why should you make it?
#1. It's an easy, well-balanced, almost-vegetarian meal. The only problem is that it can be really salty. You can control the sodium level by putting more or less of the miso paste.
#2. No blender, no fuss. Minimal chopping, and simply boiling some water.
#3. It's perfect year-round, including the summer because there's little stove-top time. It's a necessity in certain parts of the country. For example, by the end of this year, I will have spent three consecutive summers in the humid swamp that is D.C, and I certainly stay away from the oven like the plague during that time.

Why should you not make this?
#1. You have to find miso paste. It's not that difficult -- find an Asian grocer and look on the refrigerated shelves. It does mean braving all that crazy ethnic... stuff.
#2. It's not actually proper miso soup. I just dissolve miso paste in water. Japanese people use all sorts of broths, etc, and they probably put different miso pastes to different uses. I go to the grocery store and pick up the plastic tub whose color or branding looks most appealing. I can't taste the difference, and unless you're a super-taster, neither will you!

Food without fuss is the best!

First Gray Hair

This morning I pulled out a 1-in-long stub of hair that was most decidedly gray. I was putting my hair up and noticed this one little strand didn't shine quite right. It was just... too bright.

This is cause for great concern: my mother didn't start getting her first white hairs until she was in her 40s. My hair is my greatest vanity. It's black, thick, and straight. It's so shiny that flash photography reflects off of it as white. It's so slippery that I've stopped going to hairdressers to get up-dos because I have trouble walking out the door while high on hairspray. Also, my favorite party trick is taking a 1/8th-in-thick strand, tying four knots, one around the other, and shaking the strand for ten seconds. The knots fall right out on their own.

Law school, I curse you.

Easter Poems

I was able to go outside without a coat today, and I'm a scaredy-cat when it comes to cooler temperatures. This year, Easter brought with it a hint of spring, but as a New Englander I'm always suspicious about April weather, and I fear this won't last.

This is a perfect day to re-read my favorite poet, E. E. Cummings.


Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and


changing everything carefully


spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and from moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and


without breaking anything.


~~~~~~~~~


it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another’s, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another’s face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be –
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

Springtime Lox Sandwich

I'm a 20-something law student who loves to eat good food. This shall be a chronicle of random thoughts. I don't expect anyone to read this, so if you found your way here randomly, I feel so so sorry for you.

Today, a recipe for my new favorite sandwich: springtime lox.

Springtime Lox Sandwich

For 1 serving:
2 slices of multigrain bread
2-3 slices of smoked salmon
9 thin slices of cucumber
Goat cheese
1 tablespoon of Grey Poupon mustard
1 tsp of honey
milk

1. Toast the bread.
2. Mix the Grey Poupon, honey, and a dollop of milk. Stir and add milk until a sauce-like consistency is reached.
3. Spread honey-mustard sauce on one slice of bread. Spread goat cheese on the other.
4. On the goat cheese, lay flat the cucumber. On the honey mustard, lay flat the smoked salmon.
5. Combine both sides of the sandwich. Eat.

Why should you make this?
#1. New Yorkers love cream cheese and lox on a bagel. This is a variation that's perfect for spring. It's lighter (bread as opposed to bagel), and the goat cheese adds a little kick to the salmon.
#2. Cucumbers are healthy, light, and perfect for spring. The salmon and goat cheese surprisingly do not overwhelm cucumber's delicate flavor.
#3. The first dish that I make with smoked salmon is garden rolls. This is a great way to repurpose the little bit of leftover cucumber and salmon.

Why should you not make this?
Smoked salmon is freakin' expensive in this city! This is why I wait until I go home to Mommy in Boston, and she takes me to Costco or BJ's, where I buy a pound of smoked salmon for $15. Yay!