caramelized onion & roasted garlic pasta

October 14, 2015 45 Comments

caramelized onion & roasted garlic pasta | two red bowls

A couple of months ago I stumbled on this caramelized onion and yogurt pasta by Diane Kochilas. It’s just like it sounds — tangles of caramelized onions and thick, strained Greek yogurt, tossed with sunshine-yellow pasta and a few ladles of starchy water, then served with nothing more than a generous grating of salty cheese on top. Yogurt in pasta! And by all accounts, super delicious. I’ve been meaning to try it ever since, totally fascinated by the idea that you could get a rich, alfredo-like sauce from Greek yogurt instead of cream. The one thing that continues to surprise me as time goes on is how rich foods tend to overwhelm me easier and easier these days — clearly this blog shows that I still love it as much as I ever did, but somewhere along the way, slightly more nourishing alternatives, especially when they’re not “lighter” substitutes but just really genius ideas that happen to be good for you, got super exciting. (15-year-old belly with an appetite for Jack-in-the-Box breakfast sandwiches every morning, where did you go?!)

bibim-bar! (a bibimbap party)

October 7, 2015 35 Comments

bibimbap party! | two red bowls

We had a bibimbap party this weekend! I don’t know whether it’s a function of living in frenetic New York, or having a lot of lawyer friends who are forever sucked back into the office on weekends or late nights, or even just being supposedly “grown-up,” but sometimes it’s startling how easy it is to blink and find that it’s been months since we’ve caught up with some of our friends. So, because the answer to everything is always food, B2 and I made it our goal every couple of months to shove all our random crap into closets, actually Swiffer the floors for once, and have people over for a low-key potluck. Earlier this summer we had a taco party where I made my first pico de gallo ever (I know, how) and Jessica‘s amazing Chipotle-style corn salsa, and overestimated the amount of meat people would eat by about 200% (I still have taco meat in the freezer). And this weekend we had a bibim-bar!

tomato bisque & apple-bacon grilled cheese // a guest post for the pig & quill!

May 14, 2015 15 Comments

Hi friends! I’m back! I’m just peeking in again this week to share a special little guest post for a radiant new mama — Emily from the Pig & Quill (whose baby shower from a few weeks ago was my excuse to nosh on about a year’s worth of cocktail franks) had her baby! I’m mildly obsessed with baby Lana James (and her fabulous name) so I can only imagine what it’s like for, you know, her actual parents — so I was super excited to be able to help out with a guest post while Emily and Chris are embarking on such an exciting new journey.

This tomato bisque and grilled cheese combo is one that I’ve actually been meaning to share since the tail end of last tomato season (oops) but it’s one of my absolute favorites, so I’m pumped it’s finally seeing the light of day. It’s one of my go-to freezer meals, so I figured it might be a good one to add to Emily’s arsenal — the soup is inspired by a creamy, comforting one from my college days, one that I loved to turn to when sick or when looking for a late-night pick-me-up after a long night in the library. It’s got an extra boost of umami from a few rashers of bacon, but a little less dairy to balance that out, and it’s perfect when paired with a grilled cheese amped up with tart apple slices and two different kinds of smoky cheese — in turn inspired by a great one B2 and I had at a quirky 24/7 coffee shop in downtown Honolulu. If you’re into making this for those rainy, slightly chilly late spring evenings we’re still having, canned tomatoes will do well while we wait — otherwise, it’s just a few weeks until their fresh cousins are back! And you can find the recipes over on the Pig & Quill this morning! Emily, thank you so much for having me, mama! Hugs and kisses and lots of soup to you and lovely Lana.

orecchiette with spring herb pesto & sausage

April 29, 2015 41 Comments

Were you a school lunch or a packed lunch kid? I was mostly a lunch-buyer growing up — I had my fair share of Lunchables on field trips and PB&Js in those fold-top plastic Ziplocs-without-Ziplocs, but my school lunch memories are dominated by plastic trays sliding along metal rungs, boat-shaped French bread pizzas, clammy and not quite melted in the center; paper cartons of chocolate milk and foil-capped orange sherbet; hard-shell tacos that I’d gleefully crush into a makeshift taco salad.

Korean soy-braised beef (jangjorim) // a Staub giveaway!

December 2, 2014 159 Comments

Hi friends! How was your Thanksgiving? How are you faring back at work this week? We spent a slow and peaceful Thanksgiving here in Brooklyn, just us and dumplings (and ramen and musubis and pie), with snow and wintry mix drifting down outside our windows. Our work phones went off zero times, our butts stayed firmly on the couch, and I don’t think we stopped eating once after the first potstickers went on the (coffee) table at 4 PM. I’m so excited to see family over Christmas, but still, our tiny, cozy Thanksgiving was all I could have asked for. If you celebrated, how was your holiday? I’d love to hear all that you ate!

Dark chocolate beef chili with a polar vortex on top

January 7, 2014 44 Comments

So, this weather, huh? I’d originally planned to post this ice cream that I can’t stop talking about, but then I heard it was supposed to be, you know, kinda cold outside this week. And somehow it seems like bad form to post something frozen when people are in danger of actually freezing. (Stay warm, folks!) So let’s talk about the ultimate warming food instead — chili. With chocolate!

The beauty of cooking for yourself is that you can make your food taste exactly how you like it best. It’s probably why I started cooking in the first place — dislike of overcooked pasta that mushes in your mouth, thinly tart tomato sauces, puckery-sour and flat at the same time. I like tomato-based sauces sweet, thick, and robust, with a healthy dose of brown sugar. In the same way, I love chili that is hearty, full of ground beef, sweetly smoky and spicy. (And, of course, cheesy as f.) No watery chili with more beans than beef for me.

Pork bulgogi (or jeyuk bokkeum, or Korean spicy BBQ pork)

October 9, 2013 20 Comments

I grew up in a relatively small city in the South. It’s big enough to have an airport, but small enough that that airport only has five gates (and one direct flight to NY that I never take because it costs approximately a billion million dollars) — big enough that some people have heard of it, but small enough that a nod and an “Oh, right, right,” is as much as they can muster. 🙂 (Occasionally, I’ll meet someone who actually drove through it.) It was also small enough that, growing up, I can remember the first restaurant of almost every kind of unusual cuisine opening up in town — the first Korean restaurant, Thai, Vietnamese, etc. — and I can also remember the first time I ever had any of those kinds of foods. The first time I had pork bulgogi, then known to me only as “Korean spicy BBQ pork,” I thought it was the most ridiculously delicious dish I’d ever tasted, and I thought that that one god-like restaurant must have been the only place in existence that could create such a magnificent mouth-party. Logical. (And thus began a lifelong love affair with Korean food.) READ MORE

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