Sometimes, I get really wacky ideas. I’m not even all that sure where this one came from. One minute, I’m nosing around my pantry trying to find something I can call dinner, and the next I’m at the grocery store buying peaches: a girl with a plan.

For some reason, I decided that peaches and polenta would go really well together. I don’t eat polenta too, too often. As my brother says, “We’re not mangioni di polenta.” (Mangioni di polenta just means polenta eaters, but as far as my bro, and most Southern Italians are concerned, it’s an insult directed towards Northerners.)

However, I almost always have a bag of cornmeal in my pantry for cornbread and the like, and as I’m cleaning out my kitchen to head off on my summer adventures (Cannes, Mallorca, and Paziols), I decided to pull a few dishes together with polenta. Last week, I was eating it plain with sugar on top, like my mother used to make Cream of Wheat and Cream of Rice in the morning, but yesterday, I decided to have some for dinner.

This isn’t a sweet dish by any means: you could certainly sweeten the polenta itself to make it an adequate dessert, but for me it was dinner, so the only sugar was the natural sweetness of the fresh peaches (by the way, am I the only one who prefers yellow peaches substantially to white ones? I bought some white peaches by accident this morning, and while I ate them, I was horribly disappointed.)

I can’t wait to start eating all this fresh produce that’s out in stores now. Try this for a breakfast treat (or if you’re strange, like me, for your dinner.)

Peaches and Cream Polenta

1 cup 2% milk
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, grated
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 4 oz. container plain, lowfat yogurt
1 peach, cut into sections

Heat the milk over low heat and add the cinnamon, nutmeg and salt. Slowly add the cornmeal, stirring all the time. If you find that the cornmeal soaks up the milk too quickly, you can add a little bit of water. When the polenta is cooked all the way through, turn off the stove and spoon about 3/4 of the yogurt container into the pot and stir. Place in a bowl and top with peach segments and the remaining yogurt. Serve hot with extra cinnamon if desired.

I’m about to head out to Cannes for the film festival, and then to Mallorca with the Canadian for a month before I start my job in Paziols again, so I’ve been trying to save money. Food-wise, this means living out of my pantry: in the fridge, I have a bunch of potatoes, a lot of plain yogurt, some milk and some eggs. It was time to get creative.

I invented two different baked potato recipes last week, and both were amazing. I hadn’t had a baked potato in a very long time, so I was surprised at how easy they are and how different they taste from boiled or steamed potatoes.

Here are the two recipes… more stories to come shortly!

P.S. Sorry I’ve been so M.I.A. lately… I’m really working hard at starting up my other two blogs. Come by and check them out if you’re interested! Links further down the page…

Baked Potato with Spinach and Yogurt

1 potato
1/2 cup frozen spinach, heated and drained
3 cloves of garlic
1 tsp. olive oil
1 4 oz. container of plain yogurt
1 tsp. chives
salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the yogurt in a cheesecloth over a bowl to strain. Pierce the potato on all sides with a fork. Place the garlic cloves in a ball of tinfoil with some salt and olive oil. Place both the garlic and the potato in the oven on the middle rack. After half an hour, rotate the potato.

When the potato is fully cooked, after about an hour, remove it and the garlic from the oven. Remove the potato flesh from the skin, keeping the skins whole and about a centimeter of potato in the shells. In a bowl, mash the potato with half of the strained yogurt, the spinach, the roasted garlic, and the salt and pepper. Transfer the mashed potato back to the potato shells. Mix the rest of the yogurt with the chives and top the potatoes with the yogurt.

Curry Baked Potato

1 potato

1 tbsp. prepared red curry paste

1 4 oz. container yogurt

1/2 cup frozen spinach, thawed and strained

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the yogurt in a cheesecloth over a bowl to strain. After one hour, removie the potato from the oven. Remove the potato flesh from the shells. In a frying pan, combine the curry paste, the spinach and the potato. Heat through. Remove from the heat and stir in the strained yogurt. Return mixture to shells.

I found this picture lurking from when the Daring Bakers baked baguette back in the winter. This is what I did with mine, besides just eat it plain: slathered with mustard, some good roquefort cheese and slices of hard-boiled egg, this sandwich reigns supreme over most other sandwiches I’ve ever made… could be the homemade baguette, but I’m thinking it has more to do with the quality of the ingredients available here in France: spicy mustard, good flavorful blue cheese and fresh eggs.

Egg and Cheese Sandwich

1/2 baguette
1 hard-boiled egg, sliced
2 tsp. good, spicy mustard
2 oz. good blue cheese like roquefort or gorgonzola

Slice the baguette down the middle and spread both sides with mustard. Add the egg and cheese, and season with a grinding of black pepper if you like. Close sandwich and consume. Smile.

I’ve often heard that the difference between French food and Italian food is the mindset: the French seek to make something incredible out of what seems like nothing. A croissant is just butter and flour, when it all comes down to it. A baguette is yeast, flour, water and salt. For the French, it’s all in the technique.

The Italians, on the other hand, seek to show off the best of the ingredients, barely adding anything at all. Prosciutto è melone is just that: prosciutto and melon. When I used to stay with a friend whose mother was Italian, she always served us an appetizer of thinly sliced cucumbers and salt: one of the best things I’ve ever had.

When I was in Italy, I came upon this phenomenon once again. I was there with a class of Americans, most of which had never been to Italy or tasted true Italian food. My professor usually ordered for us in restaurants, suggesting a dish he had tried in that restaurant, and also ordering an assortment of fried appetizers. I tasted some of the best pizza, spaghetti with tomatoes and mozzarella, and insalata caprese I’ve ever had.

I use the term insalata caprese lightly. We had taken a boat to Capri from our home base of Naples, and after hiking most of the island (whining and moaning the whole way… I won’t lie), we found a spot by the water and ate our lunch. I had bought one tomato and one ball of buffalo mozzarella, and there, with very little ceremony and over a plastic bag to catch the milk from the mozzarella, I created my own insalata caprese.

My new food blog is going to be a collection of all of my original recipes! You may recognize some of them from this site, but the stories are new, the photos are mostly new, and a lot of the recipes are new! Check it out here.

My travel blog is going to be very exciting… with lots of stories, and although this time I’m trying to branch out from food writing, we all know that for foodies that’s not too possible. There’ll be lots of suggestions of things to see and places to go when visiting most of the cities I’ve seen. Check it out here.

This post has been hanging around on my computer for awhile, and I was getting awfully tired of seeing my last post, so I decided to come by and give you all something new!

As I previously mentioned, the Canadian is a big tuna fan. I had made him tuna once before, but it turned out too salty for my taste, so when he begged for tuna a second time, I obliged, but with a different recipe.

This was a second recipe I found on epicurious, here. I don’t like teriyaki sauce, so I subbed a mix of sesame oil and honey. I got nervous about the over-saltiness of the marinade from last time, so I didn’t marinate these for as long… I wish I had, because the tuna itself didn’t take in a lot of the flavor, but my God the mayonnaise was good! I wanted to put it on everything! I used half fromage frais (plain yogurt works) and half mayonnaise, and it was divine. The whole thing was served over wasabi-scallion mashed potatoes. I preferred this by far… much less salty. But it wasn’t quite enough for the Canadian.

He requested tuna dinner a third time, and I asked him which of the two he had preferred, and the answer was the first. I knew that it had been too salty for me, so I mixed it up a little and came up with my own recipe, an amalgamation of the two. As he didn’t love the mayonnaise, I left it out, and I didn’t have time to make the potatoes. The tuna on its own, however, was by far the best of the three: we both agreed.

Seared Tuna

3 tuna steaks
2-3 tablespoons white sesame seeds
2 teaspoons wasabi paste
2 teaspoons sesame oil
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon white or cider vinegar
2 cups frozen green beans, thawed
1 tablespoon vegetable oil 

Combine wasabi, sesame oil, honey, soy sauce and vinegar in a large glass dish. Set the tuna in the marinade and allow to sit for 30-40 minutes, turning occasionally. Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and heat the vegetable oil. Coat one edge of each tuna steak in seeds and sear, 1-2 minutes per side. Remove tuna and keep warm. Add green beans to skillet, adding remaining marinade. Cook until heated and serve green beans on the side. (Note: if you have time to make wasabi-scallion mashed potatoes, you should DEFINITELY do that as well, and make more sauce/mayonnaise.)

I got Bill Granger’s coconut bread recipe care of Luisa at the Wednesday Chef, and I have to say, it’s incredible. I’ve had these photos lying around for a really long time… I kind of forgot to post about this, and now that it’s been so long, I don’t really remember the circumstances of it, except that this was amazing and the Canadian and I fought over the last little bit.

All I remember is that I subbed white sugar for superfine, and that I used the same shredded, unsweetened coconut that Luisa did. The way I made it, it’s not terribly coconutty… kind of in the way that zucchini bread doesn’t really taste like zucchini. In my opinion, the dominant taste was the cinnamon (that could be because I added a bit more than I was supposed to… I also added nutmeg and cloves, but I’m into improvising like that.) This would be a good bread to make even for someone who thinks they don’t really like coconut… the only problem being that you sometimes get a strand or two in the bread. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, so I’m going to stop. Coconut bread=good. End of story. Go make it.

Oh, also, if you’re feeling very, very bad, toast a slice of this bread and spread it with some really good, unsalted European butter. It’s divine.

I once got in trouble for using hyperbole with the Canadian. It’s a long story that ends with me going from two cheese graters to none and my mother sending us an industrial-grade steel grater through the Post, but I learned my lesson. No more hyperbole.

Except now. Because I have to tell you: this may be the best soup ever. Which will shock all of you when you realize how simple and cheap it is. But first, a sidebar.
A long, long time ago, I used to live in California. San Francisco, to be exact. When I was in the sixth grade, my parents sat us down in our New York apartment and told us we were moving.

I adored San Francisco. I wanted to stay there for my whole life. In retrospect, I believe I would have been very happy there: I dig the whole Birkenstock thing. Although I would probably be a very different person today. For one, I believe the vegetarian thing would have stuck. But that is another story for another day.

This story involves the fact that, although I loved San Francisco, my parents are New Yorkers, through and through, and somewhere in their minds, I think they always knew that the move to California was temporary. And so, we took advantage of our short time there and really saw San Francisco. We went below Mission Street, we went to Angel Island, to Ghirardelli Square… and to Napa.

Napa was my parents’ favorite place of all. At twelve, I was less than thrilled with the prospect of spending the whole afternoon in the car (my brother was going through a period where he experienced extreme motion sickness. Curvy back roads in Napa? Enough said.) But it was all worth it if I knew we would be going to Tra Vigne.

I may have only been to Tra Vigne two or three times, but it is one of the most vivid meals (or combination of meals, I suppose) in my memory. There was the famous “Tra Vigne Chicken,” which my mother has almost replicated 100% with its distinct blend of spices (the secret is cinnamon, by the way). There was the cheese plate that came on a marble slab at the end of the meal with real honeycomb to go with your cheeses. And then there was my favorite: lentil soup.

I have always had odd tastes, I suppose, but from the moment I tasted that soup, I was hooked. Goat cheese was sprinkled on top and it melted in to mix with the lentils, which had retained the perfect texture. I loved that soup.

I had long since forgotten about it, but as I was going through my pantry, trying to find something to make for dinner, I stumbled upon a can of lentils, and the whole thing came rushing back. I called my mother, who had bought the cookbook years ago, but it was to no avail.

“Michael Chiarello? It’s not even worth it. He leaves out all the key ingredients. The recipe for that chicken? It doesn’t even mention the spice rub.”

Damn. Well… onto the experimentation. Onions, for sure. And potato, I think, for the texture. Lentils… wine (everything’s better with wine… and it is a vineyard recipe.) And then I had a strange thought. Cinnamon had been the secret ingredient in the chicken… was it possible? No. That’s crazy. And yet, I still did it.

I don’t know if I was right. It’s been so long since I’ve eaten that soup… I remember the experience more than the taste. I do know that what I created was astounding. I slurped it up for dinner last night, and even though I was stuffed, I couldn’t help scooping a few last spoonfuls off of the serving I had portioned for tonight.

I am not Michael Chiarello. I am going to share. But you will not believe that it could ever be this simple.

Best Ever Lentil Soup

1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon olive oil
1 glass red wine
2 new potatoes, diced small
1 can lentils, not drained
1/4-1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 oz. goat cheese
Sweat the onions in oil with a bit of salt until they color slightly. Add the wine and scrape all the yummy bits off the bottom of the saucepan. Add the potatoes, lentils, chicken broth and cinnamon. Cook until the potatoes are cooked through and the flavors have melded, about 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and blend slightly with an immersion blender, leaving about half the lentils whole. Stir in more chicken broth if necessary. Serve with goat cheese crumbled on top.

Especially as the weather starts to get warmer, I find myself fantasizing, not about towering baked goods or complicated, long-cooking stews with tons of ingredients, but about the simple things in life.

Lots of people out in the blogosphere have been posting about their crazy post-it notes (I know I just read another one… but I can’t for the life of me remember who it was… if it was you, tell me.) I think all of us crazy food people have them. The scraps of paper that litter my handbag and get tucked into notebooks no longer read “applesauce + mashed potatoes,” “Baked pasta… cinnamon? crème fraîche?” (Yes… I have some weird thoughts when the weather is cold.)

Now, however, my post-its say something more akin to, “corn salad with jalapeño” and “apple coleslaw.” Spring is coming, and spring to me means simple. Produce with just some herbs or spices, showing off their true flavors. A ripe avocado with simple vinaigrette for lunch, just enough acid to set off the sweetness of the fruit (yes… avocado is a fruit).

Or prosciutto e melone for dinner, with one of the real European cantaloupes instead of an American muskmelon, the pure sweetness jumping out with every bite, mixing with the saltiness of the ham. I don’t even mind the juice dripping down my chin… and I hate messy food.

Yes, pleasure is truly in the simple things. Like a blog award. When I told the Canadian that my blog had won an award, he asked what it meant. Did I win money? A prize? No… I tried to explain to him, but he didn’t get it.

Joy at Joy of Desserts has awarded me this Excellent blog award! Joy has only been blogging since March, but her blog is already a hit, so go check it out! The rules of the award require me to find 10 more blogs to award, so here they are…

A Blithe Palate is one of the most beautifully written blogs out there. It may be about food, but Cath has a writer’s soul.

I couldn’t not include Ivonne from Cream Puffs in Venice. Way back when this was just an ickle baby blog, Ivonne helped me to learn how to come into my own in the blogosphere, not only through her helpful hints, but also by setting an amazing example.

I’m constantly heading over to Culinary Concoctions by Peabody to see what new baked good Pea is cooking up. Everything I’ve tried has been amazing!

As you can tell from my blog, I’m definitely not a vegan, nor do I cook fat-free, but Susan at Fatfree Vegan has made vegan food interesting to me, and her writing makes me want to try even some of the strangest of vegan foods.

I think everyone already knows about Jaden over at Steamy Kitchen, but I couldn’t resist sending out another thank you for her amazing and hilarious writing.

Some of the stories and recipes at Finding La Dolce Vita could be my own… but that’s not the only reason I love this beautiful blog. Venturing through familiar recipes and gorgeous pictures makes me feel at home again.

I have loved The Wednesday Chef ever since I heard the premise, but since then, my love for Luisa’s blog has grown to encompass her writing, her recipes and her beautiful photos.

Simply Recipes is what it promises… and a whole lot more. I find myself adding nearly every one of Elise’s concoctions to my “to try” list.

A fellow cook in France, Lucy at Lucy’s Kitchen Notebook has one of the most beautiful blogs I’ve ever seen. Not only is the actual format gorgeous, but her stories wonderfully woven around her recipes and her life in Lyon.

Chefs Gone Wild is still new on my blogreel, but I nevertheless find myself looking forward to what has happened next on this blog that sometimes reads like a sitcom with haute couture cooking to match.

Thank you so much for brightening my day with your words and your recipes. Now, it’s your turn: go and find ten of your own excellent blogs, and link to them and to me. Then come back here and let me know when you’ve done it, and of course let the people you award know as well!

I’m sorry for abandoning you. I have no excuse. I could cite the fact that the Canadian has left, once again, this time for Cannes, which has left me with just little ol’ me to cook for. I could say that my aunt was here all last week, discovering Paris for the first time, but every time I look at the list of posts just waiting to be written up and posted, I know: I’m lazy.

But, dear reader, today I had the fortune of creating a recipe so delicious, I had to sit right down and share it with you. Isn’t that exciting?

While my aunt was here, I had roasted a few chickens for an Easter dinner, and so I had a new vat of homemade chicken stock just waiting to be used. So I went through my list of recipes to try and found this recipe for Chickpea, Ginger and Coriander Soup. This soup may have changed my life. Not only is it astoundingly delicious, but I realized how easy it is to make soup for one. Soup had always been a daunting task, one I never attempted for fear that I would never finish it. But this soup makes two neat servings, perfect for lunch for two, or, as I did, dinner two nights in a row with a green salad.

But that doesn’t tell you what’s up with the pink stuff in the bowl, does it? Basically, this soup reminded me of how much I love my immersion blender. I used to use it all the time for tomato sauce, until I realized I liked the chunks of tomato and onion, and so it was abandoned. After using it to make this soup though, I realized I was in love with it. My immersion blender is magical, taking chunks of odd ingredients and bringing them together in harmony in a bowl. (Wow… snap out of it, Emily.)

This soup created itself. I had bought a pre-boiled beet at the farmer’s market, but had yet to use it for a salad. I’m leaving for the weekend, and so I didn’t want to buy other salad ingredients. I also had some new potatoes left over from Easter. What to do… soup? OK, immersion blender, if you say so.

I boiled the potatoes in some chicken stock from my vat, and when they were cooked through, I chunked and added the beet to warm. I seasoned with salt and pepper, and then the immersion blender took the stage.

What appeared was so perfect and pink that I almost didn’t want to add anything else, but I had planned to throw in a pot of yogurt for some calcium, and I’m so glad I did. Some dried chives (use fresh if you have them) and a roquefort garnish finished it off… and I was free to enjoy my perfectly portioned bowl of soup, one for now, and one for later.

So thank you, dear reader, for not losing faith. This soup has given me the will to delve back into my list of posts to write, and very soon, you shall be hearing from me (and my immersion blender) again.

Love,

Emily

Beet-Potato Soup with Roquefort

1 cup chicken broth
5 new potatoes
1 large beet, boiled and peeled
1 4 oz container plain yogurt
1 tbsp. dried chives (or two fresh)
crumbled roquefort
Bring the broth to a boil and add the potatoes, chunking them to help them cook more quickly. Cook until soft. Add the beet, chunked, and cook until heated through. Remove from heat and blend with immersion blender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add yogurt and chives. Serve in bowls with roquefort crumbled on top.