It’s the start of iced tea season chez Diana. The past few days have been so muggy that in the afternoon I’ve been dying to take a nap instead of sitting at my computer editing photos or sending invoices to clients. Which is where the need for icy caffeinated drinks comes in.
During the summer I usually keep a liter of iced tea in the fridge. If I’m feeling lazy on tea-making day, I just steep and chill some black tea. If I need to satisfy my sweet tooth, I whip up some bracing Southern-style sweet tea. And if I happen to eye some very nice-looking berries at the market, which is what happened this time, I’ll make a fruity tea concoction.
I can thank my first job out of culinary school for introducing me to how wonderful strawberries and rhubarb can be together.
The job was at an catering company in Manhattan that specialized in large-scale events. I worked in the pastry department, which meant that we could spend an entire day creating hundreds of portions of the same desserts. At times, the head count for certain events could be as high as 1,500. If you have ever done 1,500 portions of the same cookies, cakes, or pies, you know how tedious this can be.
Even though the weather has been getting warmer lately, there are still days when I crave a nice bowl of lentil soup for lunch. Especially if it’s a lentil soup that conjures up the Mediterranean sun and the seaside.
This Greek lentil soup (Faki) comes from The Essential New York Times Cookbook, which has a recipe revised from one that reader and Greek cookbook author Vilma Liacouras had sent in to the paper in 1977. I don’t think I had ever tried lentil soup Greek-style before, but wow, am I hooked now. It may become my go-to lentil soup. In the beginning of the cooking process, it may seem like your ordinary tomato-lentil soup, but the magic comes towards the end. You toss in plenty of parsley, mint, and basil. Then you stir in a generous amount of good olive oil. And finally, you add some red wine vinegar; that extra bit of acidity really brings the lentils to a whole new level.
A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a carton of strawberries from the market, fully intent on using them for making sorbet. At home while unpacking groceries, I decided it wouldn’t hurt if I tasted a couple, you know, just to see if they were sweet and ripe enough. And then a couple more. Before I knew it, most of the carton was gone, and I was still standing in the kitchen with strawberry-stained hands and groceries still needing to be unpacked.
I’ve been on a buttermilk kick recently. After developing a serious craving for buttermilk fried chicken a few weeks ago, but wanting to cook at home instead of eating out, I decided to research methods of doing a roasted version instead.
I’ve made orange bread countless times before but can’t remember coming across a recipe as great as this one, from James Beard’s American Cookery.
First of all, who doesn’t like a bread that perfumes their kitchen with a light citrus scent? Second and more importantly, the texture is pretty incredible, somewhere between sliced sandwich bread and a hearty banana bread. It’s light enough for breakfast yet hearty and sweet and filling enough to go with afternoon coffee or tea.
Although this drink isn’t made with Irish whiskey or beer, I think it’s pretty fitting for St. Patrick’s Day. It’s green and was possibly created by the Irish in Prohition-era Chicago. But most importantly, it’s very cold, which is fitting for this insanely early spring we’re having.
Many of the quick gin drinks I make at home — such as gin and tonics, gimlets, and gin rickeys — are mixed with lime juice. But I recently bought a bunch of organic lemons and have been looking for ways to incorporate them into cocktails. One easy drink is the Southside, a minimalist cocktail with easy-to-find ingredients: gin, lemon juice, mint, and simple syrup.
“After you have been a very good person for a very long time and are thin as a bean, you may decide to fall briefly into sin. You will want something simple and elegant that cannot be made without butter. There is only one thing that will do: shortbread.” – Laurie Colwin
I have written before about bookmarking pretty much every recipe out of Laurie Colwin’s books. It’s hard not to. She writes about classic, unpretentious comfort food that is old-fashioned in a back-to-basics way yet modern in ease and speediness. Dinners, especially weeknight ones, focus on roasts and braises practically anyone can make. Desserts are equally unfussy.