M’smen with Zucchini, Yogurt and Mint

I was on Hot Bread Kitchen’s website last week checking out their selection of breads and tortillas and came across a soft, buttery-looking flatbread called M’smen.  It’s a Moroccan style bread that’s served with sweet or savory fillings or toppings.  On Saturday I grabbed a hot decaf coffee from my corner store and walked to the farmers’ market to see if I could get my hands on some M’smen before it all sold out.  I squeezed through the river of shoppers, dogs and strollers over to the Hot Bread Kitchen stand and saw a stack of M’smen waiting for me.

Arugula Fennel Apple Salad with Chives

What does a food blogger do when they are gifted with a box full of fresh local produce?    Most likely they’ll do a happy dance which is exactly what I did when I got to take home a box of excess goods from my new company last week.  Out of the box I pulled leafy greens, pears, apples, cheese, milk, sausage, bread, cookies, green garlic and fresh herbs along with simple recipes for the contents of the box.

BBQ Sides and Condiments

I started a brand new job this week at a company in Brooklyn that is doing some really cool things with locally farmed foods.  I am so excited that I finally found a place where I can merge my skills and my passion for food.  To celebrate, I decided to have a small BBQ celebration. I ended up cooking for about 12 hours straight in preparation.  When I start cooking, it’s hard to get me to stop.  I start rummaging through the fridge and cabinets looking for ingredients that I can turn into dishes.

Two Ingredient Banana Chocolate Ice Cream

My sister and I drove an ice cream truck one summer when I was in high school.  Every few mornings, we had to drive it to the headquarters about thirty miles away to stock up on ice cream.  It was always about a hundred degrees in the truck.  We would rumble down the highway with the door slid wide open for a breeze.  With the pedal to the metal, thirty five miles per hour was the fastest the truck could go.  It was so loud, we would have to scream over what sounded like a tin box scraping against asphalt.  At the warehouse we would buy however much ice cream we could afford and load it in to the freezers on the truck. 

Homemade Almond Milk

A few months ago I discovered OMilk, a brand of almond milk made right here in Brooklyn without gums, preservatives or stabilizers.  I’ve had commercial almond milks and they’re whatever, but OMilk was so good, I quickly developed an addiction to it.  I would go out of my way to the few stores that sell it and fill my bag with those milky white bottles of cold creamy joy.  Now that I know what a cinch it is to make at home, I can have fresh almond milk without even leaving the house (except to buy almonds).  

Romesco Sauce (w/ Grilled Spring Onions)

Once again I found myself amongst friends and strangers scooping up romesco sauce with charred spring onions, stuffing them into my mouth with my bare hands and chasing them with gulps of bottomless rosé.  Yes, it was my second time at Back Forty West’s annual version of Calçotada, a Catalonian celebration of spring where a crap load of spring onions are blackened on a grill, dipped in romesco sauce and eaten in abundance.  

Radish, Watercress and Mascarpone Crostini

I was disappointed when I heard that Betto in Williamsburg had closed, either temporarily or permanently; the internet didn’t know which one it was.  Betto was hidden on a quiet side street and had a clean airy feel and lots of slick wood furnishings.  It was also quiet and peaceful, not what I was expecting from what seemed like a trendy new spot.  My first visit there was with my sister last summer.  We were toasting her big upcoming move to LA with tall slim glasses of bubbling, blood-red Lambrusco.  

Mascarpone and Lemon Zest Gnocchi

Working on the deck in a tank top under the warm sun while guzzling Mexican Cokes is enough to make me want to call in sick for the whole summer.  All I want to do is drink cocktails on a lawn chair, cook up a storm and garden until I pass out.  We took a ride to Home Depot this weekend to buy a big box of starter plants and a car load of wood to build new planters.  Alan power-sawed the planks behind a cloud of wood dust as I dug dirt out of planters and nudged baby plants into the holes.