smitten kitchen

We eat salad almost every single night with dinner, but if I told you about all of them, you’d be bored to tears. Ninety percent of the time it is some variation of arugula, radicchio, endive or butter lettuce with a basic vinaigrette. At least in the everyday salad department, I like it simple.

Most of the time. Other times, I am crafting a plan, and Monday night that plan included me avoiding our leftovers by being too full for them. Time for a confession! I’m terrible at eating leftovers. Day old meat has this, I don’t know, musk to it that turns my stomach. I can smell it before I taste it; I can barely choke down two bites. Just about the only foods that I find equally good, if not better in the days that follow are quiches, tarts, soups and legume-full things, like that chili. Unfortunately, on Monday it was just piles of that pappardelle ragu. Alex couldn’t wait to dive into it, but I made us a big, elaborate salad.

Now, I know there is nothing new about endive bulked with arugula, red onion, crumbled blue cheese, apples and toasted nuts but I will argue that this everyday salad warrants mention because I tried a spicy, candied pecan recipe I’ve long had bookmarked and loved it. Toasted spiced nuts are a fairly particular thing; around the holidays you see so many recipes, it’s nearly impossible to see the great ones from the greasy, heavy, oddly-flavored or soggy. In the end, of course, it’s just personal taste that leads you to one over the other and mine is very pleased with the texture and kick of this. Consider it, will you? And let me know if you’ve got a version you swear by.

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A couple months ago, I briefly mentioned making a wild mushroom soup from Gourmet magazine that was, you know, good, but also, eh. But shame on me, really, because last year we found the perfect, best-ever, fail-proof, tastiest recipe so why did I fall for the shiny new thing? Isn’t that the point of all this trial-and-error, anyway? I’m always trying to catalogue Recipes That Work, also called Recipes to Share you know, the ones that you try and you think “This is it. This is everything I have ever wanted from a [insert beloved grub here],” even if yes, I know, most people probably do not share my fanaticism about beloved grub. Lemon cake? Done. Banana bread? Found that too. Easy-peasy rustic loaf? Yup, and hooray for that. Chocolate cookies so good, it may bring tears to your eyes? That’s for tomorrow, because I am a tease, and also because I think about them again, I might eat five. Best-ever mushroom soup? I will never doubt you again.

What was missing from the bland mushroom soup was bulk. So many varied soup recipes come down to a similar process: a sauté of onions, leeks or garlic and herbs, a pile of vegetables simmered in stock until soft, then pureed and topped with cream, grated cheese or a splash of booze or if you’re super-lucky, all three. But if you want to make it taste like more than watery vegetables, you’re going to need some volume. Balthazar’s cream of mushroom soup has over two pounds of sliced mushrooms with a relatively small volume of broth coaxing it gently into soup form — there’s nothing more worthy of your spoon. You might, ahem, even determine that it tastes so good, that no, you will not share it and will instead eat it standing over the pot, hungry husbands be damned, even when they catch your selfishness on film. But then again maybe not, as you’re probably a nicer person than me. One can only hope.

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Alex cooked dinner last night and, oh, what a meal he made! Two weeks ago, my mother forwarded me this Tomato and Sausage Risotto recipe from her Martha Stewart Everyday Food newsletter — like it surprises you that it runs in the family — with only the caption “this was very good.” I have been meaning to make it ever since, but I guess we can argue I lost my chance. As I put together a grocery order on Saturday night, aligning it to recipes Alex would want to cook this week and food I could assemble for myself while working at home, this risotto was at the top.

Because it’s fantastic! And really, how could it not be? Mom recommends it. It’s thick, hearty, actually contains flesh (something of a rarity on this site, I realize) and enough greens that if you’re too tuckered out to also assemble a salad, oh, it’s already in there. Of interest to nobody but me, it’s also ridiculously easy to eat with one hand, so gloppy and chunky in all of the best ways, as well as a most delicious of one-bowl meals.

And then he did the dishes.

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Look, I understand that it’s too in the day early to start talking about mothers. And, at the age of 30, when I say mother, what I really mean is “me, sooner than later” so it sounds a particularly ill-chosen term, not to mention that my mother is a wonderful cook, as is my husband’s mother as was her mother and what I really actually mean is “this is not your (fill in the blank) deli’s/lunch room’s typical, watery/soggy/oily/white/mysterious two-ounce Solo container of forgettable and soon-to-be-chucked coleslaw.” But that makes for a terrifically bad headline.

Like most of us, I’ve never been a fan of coleslaw, as nearly every one I had ever tried was god-awful. I thought it was because I didn’t like cabbage, but this has turned out not to be the case. Then I thought it was because I didn’t like mayonnaise, but this, too, turned out to be a farce. (An aside: have you ever made mayo? It’s really easy! We should totally do it some time.) As it turned out, it was coleslaw, the way it is typically prepared (read: scooped from bucket of mysterious origin and packing date), that I loathed. Ding, ding, ding; we have winner!

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I got a real hoot (yup, said it) out of Molly’s entry a few weeks ago as her significant other and mine are clearly plucked from similar brine, that is, packed with a penchance for the pickled. (I’ll be here all week.)

One of the first big family events Alex took me to shortly after we began dating was a 55th birthday party for his father, no small affair, at a Russian restaurant. Course after course, platters arrived with pickled celery, lettuce and – I kid you not – watermelon to accompany the smoked fish, dumplings, caviar and all sorts of gamey meats. Do I need to mention the vodka? No, didn’t think so.

Nobody warns you that the food will not.stop.coming, thusly, don’t bother eating more than two bites of any course if you wish to make it to the end. I think its part of the fun for them, luring these newcomers in and watching them nod off at the table after too many sour cream-laden crepes and a misbegotten belief that they can handle their vodka like those from the old country. In fact, one of his family’s favorite stories to retell is when Alex brought home a friend from grad school and his mother laid out her typical 20-dish, 6-course feast (“I am worried I will not have enough food.”) including their favorite, pickled tomatoes. The friend had bragged that he couldn’t wait to try them, as they sounded delicious, but nearly spat his first bite across the table: “I didn’t know it was going to taste like a pickle!” he frantically tried to cover his tracks with while they laughed and laughed.

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