From Fancy to Finger Food

Bonjour de France! I am in Grenoble, France for two weeks to learn about interferometry at IRAM (a European interferometry observatory). I've been eating a lot (90% of which has been bread) and doing a lot of science. I won't talk about the science here because truly almost nobody cares about interferometry. And because I've been talking about science all day. But food. That's another story. Grenoble is in the south of France, and while it's a reasonably large town, in some ways the culture here feels closer to that of rural France (which I've largely read about and gleaned from pop culture, rather than experienced) than to that of Paris. In part, that means that most of my meals have involved some glorious combination of potatoes, cream, cheese, bacon, and chicken. It's been a bit heavy, but to be honest, that's kind of my jam . Some days I've only eaten one real meal (either lunch or dinner), and then just some combination of pastries, ...

This one has been in the works for a long time. I really like the idea of making a panzanella where I grew the tomatoes and baked the bread myself, and finally my plants are giving me ripe fruit! For those of you who are unfamiliar, panzanella is essentially a bread salad. Traditionally it was made as a way to use stale bread, but here we will toast the bread to get a little extra flavor. Though I don't dislike greens, it's nice to mix things up a bit (I've been eating a ton of greens since I often get them in my CSA box), and this salad is all tomatoes and bread. The vinaigrette is very punchy, which I think is necessary in this type of dish and also makes it quite refreshing. Following a brilliant tip from a Serious Eats article on the subject, I salted the tomatoes and collected the juices to add to the vinaigrette, which really made it pop. I thought I'd want some sliced red onion in the panzanella, but I actually found that it wasn't necessary - ...

It's officially tomato season in Apt 2A, where the tomato plant:human ratio is 3:1! (I won't delve into the overall plant:human ratio, but it is very high). I picked my first harvest recently, most of which went into this salad. My cherry tomato plant, especially, has really exploded and I expect I'll soon be drowning in cherry tomatoes. Perhaps more importantly, this blog is a year old today! Although it has occasionally been neglected for long periods of time, I'm still quite pleased (and a little surprised) that I've been doing this for a whole year. Lots of people surprised me with their support and enthusiasm for my public ramblings about food (and occasionally plants), so thank you all for reading! In celebration, I've prepared one of the most summery things I could think of. Like all good summer recipes, this is more of a loose sketch and should be guided by whatever is freshest and most beautiful in your crisper at the moment. Or, in my case, whate...

The idea for these came to me shortly after plum season last year (of course), so I've been sitting on this for the better part of a year. I fully expected to have to run through several iterations of this before I hit on the right ratios in the syrup and the right amount of plums, but I was pleasantly surprised by how happy I was with my first batch! (Can you imagine if I'd had to plow my way through countless ice pop "failures"? The horror.) In these pops, the spices serve to support the plum flavor, rather than overpowering it, exactly as I'd hoped. Plus, if you use pink- or red-fleshed plums, the ice pops take on a lovely deep pink hue. If you have a different combination of dried/ground and fresh/whole spices, feel free to mix and match - just adjust the amounts accordingly. I do hope you make these - they're a snap to make and taste like summer. The taste of summer, incidentally, is why I haven't been posting much - I've been spending my...

I feel that I've spent far too much time this summer doing very responsible, adult things, such as paying bills and scheduling/attending an unholy amount of appointments. Thus, this is the perfect time to post this delicious and spectacularly unsophisticated recipe, which, quite honestly, is not even a real recipe. This is more what the New York Times calls a "No-Recipe Recipe", with loose measurements and easily scaled portions. You should feel free to add and swap ingredients to your heart's content. There's no time to take good pictures when crunchy delicious things await! Not pictured: the taco I had already shoved down my throat before I realized these would be good for the blog. These tacos were cobbled together from a few things I'd seen online over the years, plus some vague ideas floating around in my head and the need to use up awkward amounts of various Mexican-ish ingredients (see what I mean about this not being a real recipe?). As with mo...

Now that spring is practically over, I thought I'd share this delightful pasta I made a couple of weeks ago. But first, a look at this spring according to my phone and snapchat story. I joined a CSA this year (in which you pay a farm up front and get a box of fresh produce every week), and I've been having fun with some unusual ingredients like applemint and garlic scapes. Here are the contents of my first box from a few weeks ago: And of course, I've been making lots of trips to the farmers market(s) as well. And my tomatoes are finally in the ground! My herbs and garlic are doing wonderfully, as well. My fridge has been bulging with produce for the last month or two as I try to get as much rhubarb, asparagus, and strawberries as I can before their all-too-short season is up. When I saw this creamy lemon pasta on the New York Times cooking newsletter, I couldn't help but dress it up with some of that produce (plus a little Parmesan, of course). It wa...

French lesson time! Pain  is French for bread, which you likely know. Mie means "crumb", and refers to the dense, moist crumb this bread has. The crumb is the interior of the bread (i.e., not the crust). A dense crumb means that the bread has very tiny air pockets in it, while an open crumb refers to a bread more like ciabatta, which has beautiful big bubbles inside. The crumb of pain de mie makes it perfect for slicing, so it's often used for sandwiches or toast. I've been eyeing this recipe for a while, and I finally had some time the other day while I was working from home. I had some downtime while I was running some things for my data, and I used those intervals to make the bread. It came out beautifully, and it's delicious! It looks so professional but really doesn't take much effort (it does take most of a day, but it's largely downtime).  I also had a chance to get out some pent-up aggression by whacking a stick of butter with a rolling pin....

I realize now that the name of this recipe is sort of punny. It wasn't intentional, but I'm leaving it because I'm the type of person who loves food puns (and most other puns, for that matter). It's finally spring! Going through the blog archives, we just skipped straight from the dead of winter to asparagus-laden tables at the farmers market. If only that's how it went in real life... It was a rough semester (hence the lack of posts since January), but because of Michigan's weird schedule, I've been off for a few weeks now. I've got a lot of recipes to post! This is actually one I just made the other night. The farmers market has finally had asparagus the last two weeks, and I have been out-of-my-mind excited about it. Asparagus is one of those things I rarely bother buying out of season, because it's generally pretty sad, so its arrival at the farmers market is a big deal for me. I generally wake up early on Saturdays and head over to the ...

Well, it's definitely winter. I'm back on my citrus kick (not that I was ever really off it, but I bought something in the neighborhood of 10 lemons this week, all of which had a specific purpose). I've been dying to make crêpes ever since I got a couple of sturdy, super-nonstick pans for Christmas, and so these crêpes were born. When I was in Paris (sigh...), there was a crêpe stand down the block from me, and it took everything I had not to grab a crêpe every day (and even when I allowed myself to get one for lunch while I was out, it was generally a Nutella one - a questionable meal). The crêpe stands in Paris are fantastic - just large enough for a big, round griddle and a few toddler-sized jars of Nutella. The crêpe-makers expertly pour just the right amount of batter onto the griddle and sweep it into a paper-thin circle using a tool that looks very much like a squeegee. I don't know how they do it, but every. single. time. they manage to flip this giant, papery ...

My aunt and uncle got me a gift card to a local olive oil and vinegar store (which has cooking classes!) for Christmas, and as usual, my aunt put together a beautiful little gift basket to go with it (thanks, Aunt Kathleen and Uncle Tom!). The basket had some fun spices in it, plus a little jar of chopped roasted garlic. I'd been meaning to play around with adding flavors to my go-to no-knead bread recipe, and this garlic seemed perfect for it. I added some lemon zest and dried parsley, and it was delicious! Check out that crumb! This bread, plus last post's chicken noodle soup , will make a lovely lunch for this week as I write, and write, and write to finish my proposal and paper... Lemony Garlic & Herb Bread Yield: Two one-pound loaves Adapted from The Italian Dish Ingredients 1.5 cups lukewarm water (100-110 degrees F) 1 tbsp active dry yeast OR 2.25 tsp (one standard 0.25-oz packet) instant yeast 2.25 tsp kosher or other coarse salt 1.25 cups all purp...

I am back, after an exceptionally long and entirely unplanned hiatus! The last few months have been busy and, at times, stressful, so I suppose something had to fall by the wayside. I certainly didn't stop cooking during that time, though, and I missed sharing recipes. Today's is a classic: chicken noodle soup. While I've always liked chicken noodle soup in principle, I've had a lot of bland and/or over-salted versions that left me none too enthusiastic about the dish. As usual, I had to look no further than smitten kitchen to find a recipe that did the trick. Simply browning the chicken and onions before making the stock makes all the difference in the world, and cuts the simmering time for the stock to just 20 minutes. In case you are skeptical of how big of a difference this can make (as I was), check out my stock just five minutes after dumping in the water: Magic. After the full 20 minutes, you get a beautiful, rich brown stock: Add in some veggies and egg...