I came back into town late last week knowing that I wanted to cook a nice hearty meal with some oxtails I had bought earlier in the week. I also thought it would be fun for the girls to give the pasta machine another try. As far as the oxtails, I have never cooked with them before so I needed some guidance. I found this recipe from Mario Batali, but made a few changes. I substituted bacon for the pancetta and red wine for the white wine simply because that’s what I had on hand. It also seems that in the original recipe the meat is left on the bone, but I instead chose to remove the bones and incorporate the meat back into the cooking liquid (after reducing it a bit) to make a sauce not unlike a ragù. There is no pasta in the original recipe either - it is served more like a stew, but this was great with our homemade fettuccine and ended up being exactly what I wanted to make. Once again, I’ll do my best to use the pasta machine more often because it is easy, tasty, and fun for the kids. I made a similar proclamation almost two years ago, so we’ll see how it goes this time around.

We have a small farmer’s market across the street from our house that, until this year, ended in December. This winter, however, they have teamed up with the Can Factory Market so that we in the neighborhood can have our fresh veggies and pickles year-round. Mia, Claudine and I ventured over on an especially cold Sunday to check it out. I was actually a bit surprised by the selection. Lots of fresh herbs, good apples, and this beautiful orange cauliflower. Orange cauliflower is a bit sweeter than the standard white variety, which makes it perfect for roasting or sautéing. Make sure to get it nice and caramelized for the best flavor. We ate it with foccacia, roasted beets and salsify soup that day. Makes for a perfect winter meal.

Orange Cauliflower with Garlic and Lemon (serves 4)

1 head orange cauliflower, broken into florets (other colors of cauliflower can also be used)
2 Tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, minced
Juice of 1 lemon
Coarse sea salt and pepper to taste

Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in the cauliflower and blanch for 2 minutes. Drain and set aside. Heat the olive oil on high heat in a large sauté pan. Add the minced garlic and fry until it just starts to brown. Add the cooked cauliflower and continue to cook for several minutes, stirring occasionally. It should start to brown a little bit. When the cauliflower is brown enough for you, squeeze in the lemon juice, cook for another 30 seconds, and serve immediately.

Maybe it’s ironic, maybe it’s not, but back when Mark worked a regular old day job as a Pastry Chef, we used to eat like Kings. Yes, he’d leave at the ungodly hour of 4:45am in the morning every day, but that also meant that even after putting in a full day’s work he’d get home in the afternoon around 3. Back then, there wasn’t much to do after work except cook a nice dinner and play with the kids. Once dinner and bedtime routines were done, he’d be in bed himself by 9:30. So in his spare time, he’d plan meals, go to the store and cook these really great dinners and desserts pretty much every single night.

I think even you can see that we’ve been posting recipes less and less since we started this blog. One of the main reasons we set up sweet fine day was to post and archive recipes. It was meant to be a sort of collecting place and a first pass at recipe documentation for a future (waaay in the future) project like a cookbook. If you’ve ever known a chef, then you may know that many chefs don’t write recipes down in a manner that most normal people would be able to follow. At least in Mark’s case, it’s just measurements and maybe a bit of chicken scratched notes. There might also be a tiny drawing of what the dessert might plate like - I mean, like really little, a drawing smaller than a postage stamp - but often nothing else written down. But there have been fewer recipes on the blog and it most definitely is a reflection of what’s going on in our house.

So what are we eating these days? Sadly it’s been a lot of thrown together fare or stuff pulled from the freezer. There just isn’t as much time anymore, especially these days when we are at our busiest of the year. A few times a week if we’re lucky, there might be a roast chicken or pork, a pasta, and maybe some kind of easy build-it-yourself Mexican Food night, but we’ve been in a food rut and we’re getting tired of the same old same old. We’re often left craving satisfying food. Because of our finely tuned food budget, we only buy what’s on a grocery list which prevents us from buying a lot of crap at the store. The upside? Our monthly food costs are fairly low for a family of 4 and we rarely waste food ever (yay). The downside? Our fridge almost always looks empty and we never really seem to have any extra “stuff” to snack on (boo). Ironic, yes? So, dear readers, what are you making for dinners these days? ‘Cause as you can see from above, tonight we had Chinese take-out (hot and sour soup for my newly sore throat, oh no!). It’s something we rarely do so it was definitely a treat, especially for the girls who love wonton soup, but it’s not a habit we can take on no matter how busy we get.

So…I’m guessing many of you can relate?

Thanksgiving is sort of funny at our house. You’d think there’d be the traditional Thanksgiving spread in all its American glory, but turkey is usually just an afterthought. Yes, we did have turkey, but it never made it to the table, hence the missing bird in the photos. It usually goes straight from the oven to the kitchen counter where it gets shredded and put on a platter - there is no formal carving of the bird in a sit-down ceremony (and crap, I now realize we forgot the canned cranberry sauce. We never forget the can!). And if you must know the truth, in the last couple of years, the turkey plus trimmings has been catered in from restaurants. Shocking, huh?

I’m sure now that Mark doesn’t have to work holidays anymore he’d love to cook a traditional Thanksgiving meal one year. This is only the 2nd Thanksgiving he’s had off as he’s worked ever major holiday, including Christmas, at his old restaurant job for 5 years (yeah, if you’ve been reading this blog long enough you’ve heard me complain about how much holidays majorly sucked for that reason). But still, there was plenty of other cooking to be had in the kitchen today including 2 desserts, a sort of novelty these days since Mark has had no time for “recreational” baking.

All in all, it was a relaxing day. I got in a full day’s of work, but it was not stressful since much of it was done on the couch with the kids watching the Macys Thanksgiving parade and during the time my dad took the girls to the playground. We took an afternoon family walk and then ate ourselves silly.

And what does a ridiculously picky kid like Claudine eat on Thanksgiving? She had 3 giant slices of Asian pear, an orange juice and a donut. It was similar to her Thanksgiving meal last year. What can you do? At least she miraculously ate some swiss chard this week which was probably the first vegetable her stomach has seen in weeks, maybe even months. Sad, but for that…I am thankful.

I have to credit our neighbor Alison for describing something so delicious that it compelled me to head straight to the kitchen to make it right away. Ya’ll know that I don’t cook. And you’re probably thinking “KALE? Kale is what inspired you to cook after all those years of not cooking?” Yes! And it was good! And totally worth the eczema on my fingers flaring up from handling all that garlic and lemon juice.

Now, we have to give credit where credit is due. Alison ate this delicious Kale salad during lunch one day at Al Di La, a neighborhood restaurant that is showered with much adoration and praise. She wanted to try and recreate it at home and did, and then I got the recipe from her when I overheard her going on and on about it. So this recipe is totally unscientific since not a mention of actual measurements of any ingredient was exchanged. I just gathered all the things I needed and winged it. I also left out the homemade croutons as I’m not such a fan of hard pieces of bread in my salad. Here’s what I did:

1 bunch of kale
1 clove of garlic
as many anchovies as you can stomach
oil from the bottle of anchovies
lemon juice from 1 lemon
pecorino cheese

pepper

Wash the kale thoroughly, dry and set aside. Mince the garlic very finely. Chop up the anchovies and toss with the kale, which you should remove from the stem and cut in small pieces, along with the garlic and a good amount of the oil from the anchovies. Toss in the lemon juice and add some pepper. Finish with grated or thin slivers of pecorino cheese. That’s it - but adjust the ingredients to your taste (maybe you want less garlic and more pepper, etc). But I swear you will love it and say to yourself “Why is this soooo good?”

One of my weaknesses if you don’t already know, is pork belly, in it’s many forms. I bought some while shopping at the Korean grocery the other day. In the past I have braised it, roasted it, braised it again, so I figured it might be time to try something different. Perhaps something a little bit less heavy? I ended up trying a Japanese stew of sorts, cooking the meat along with Kabocha squash in dashi. Tasty it was, but less heavy it was not (it put Jenna in a food coma). A “light pork belly entree” just might be the biggest culinary oxymoron of them all.

Pork Belly and Kabocha Stew (serves 6-8)

2 Tablespoons canola oil
2-1/2 pounds pork belly, cut into 3-inch squares
3 slices of fresh ginger
4 cloves garlic
1 kabocha squash, peeled, seeded and cut into large chunks
4 cups dashi
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the oil in a large ovenproof pot. Add the pork belly pieces, skin side down and cook on medium-high heat until browned, about 8 minutes. Remove from the pot and set aside. Remove all but a small amount of the oil from the pot. Add the garlic and ginger, cook for one minute. Add the squash and stir briefly. Return the pork belly to the pan, skin side up. Pour the dashi into the pot until it almost reaches the top of the pork belly pieces. Bring just to a boil, then transfer the pot to the oven. Cook for 2 hours, occasionally adding more liquid if it gets reduced too much. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 30 minutes in the liquid. Remove the pork and kabocha from the liquid. Slice each piece of pork into thin slices, and serve with the kabocha, using a small amount of the cooking liquid as a sauce or soup.

I see many similarities between the eating habits of my children and the eating habits of my sister and I when we were children. In both cases the older child is the more adventurous eater, and the younger is much more selective (read: picky). Tomatoes illustrate this point very well. My sister was the one eating our neighbor’s cherry tomatoes off the vine, and I was the one who wouldn’t eat even a drop of tomato sauce on anything. Even today I am not terribly crazy about tomatoes, except when summer rolls around. I love the different varieties of tomatoes that you can find at the farmer’s market. Not just the heirlooms, but even a simple yellow tomato, which is naturally low in acid - perfect for a fresh and quick gazpacho. I don’t think I have ever made a gazpacho with any other kind of tomato. And it gives me just a bit of hope that Claudine will someday become a better eater, seeing how my eating habits have changed from when I was a kid.

Yellow Tomato Gazpacho (serves 3-4)

1/2 cup whole almonds
5 medium-sized yellow tomatoes
1/2 teaspoon fresh grated ginger
1 small clove garlic, peeled
2 Tablespoons high-quality olive oil
2 Tablespoons sherry vinegar
juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste
Finely chopped sorrel, for garnish

Toast the almonds in a dry skillet over medium heat for several minutes, until lightly toasted. Set aside to cool for a few more minutes. Combine the remaining ingredients along with the toasted almonds in a blender and blend until smooth. Chill for at least one hour before serving. Garnish each bowl with the chopped sorrel. Serve immediately.

Spending a week right in the middle of farm country means that tomatoes and fresh, sweet corn are just about as good as they get right now. After picking up a pound of Peconic bay scallops from the local fish store, I decided they all would make a nice succotash. Succotash usually refers to a dish that includes corn and beans of some kind and occasionally tomatoes. I skipped the beans and added bacon in its place. It was almost the perfect seasonal meal - Long Island scallop season is actually from November to March so the ones I bought were frozen, but they were still almost as delicious as any scallop I’ve ever had. Even Claudine tried a piece, and it must have agreed with her because she wanted a few more.

Bay Scallop Succotash (Serves 4)

1 pound bay scallops
1 clove garlic, minced
zest of one lemon
4 slices of bacon, chopped
1/2 cup flour
3 Tablespoons butter
2 ears corn, kernels removed
1/4 cup white wine
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 large tomato, cut into 1-inch cubes
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons chopped parsley

Mix the scallops, garlic and lemon zest together in a bowl, and refrigerate for 30 minutes. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the bacon and cook until crisp. Remove the bacon from the skillet, leaving the fat, and set it aside. Mix the scallops and flour, then put them into the pan with the bacon fat, along with the butter. Cook for several minutes until golden, stirring once or twice. Stir in the corn and cook for another minute. Add the lemon juice and wine, stir for another 30 seconds. Finally, stir in the tomato and reserved bacon, season with salt and pepper, then stir in the parsley. Serve immediately.

Jenna: This dish was sooo good! But I think a large part of it had to do with the quality of the scallops and local corn.