smitten kitchen

My first day back to work after New Years started with my laptop flat lining, having to clean the office pantry microwave after my oatmeal blew up in it, finding myself completely and frantically over my head in a new bit of work I personally requested the week before and a wind-tunneled trip to the new Apple store to gaze at the shiny brightness. In short, I had hoped to be gently eased into 2008, but since that wasn’t in the cards for me, I ended it with a dinner of French Toast. What? Tell me that you’re not jealous.

But you know what else I did, you know, in my maple syrup haze? I completed one half of one of my smittenkitchen new years resolutions! See that over there in the sidebar? Yup, that would be a cooking or kitchen Tip of the Day from little old me. (Hat tip to problogdesign.com for spelling this method out so clearly!) I’ve got a few kinks to work out–like an RSS feed for that category, as I’ve realized these aren’t working–but as I populate the archives, you should start seeing bits of information I’ve picked up over the years spit out to you in bytes. Comments are open, so if you find my Buttermilk Recipe, for example, to be totally off its rocker, feel free to tell me so. It wouldn’t be the first time.

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Happy New Year!

I had no idea how busy I’d been in 2007–and this is just a subset of what was cooked in the Smitten Kitchen this past year! Dare we top this in 2008?

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I know. I know what you’re thinking: this is out of control. This non-stop sugar/butter/egg/flour assault needs to stop. Our hips! Our abs! For the love of all that was once taut and perky, Deb, no more desserts! And I want you to know, I couldn’t agree more. I, too, strive for balance. I, too, swore those jeans were looser before Thanksgiving.

Yet Dec. 30 is no time to be burdened with these lofty soup-and-salad goals. What else will we have to live down, and resolve ourselves better than, on New Years Day? Salad in December is like… mistletoe in January.

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First I talked about madeleines, and although they’re lovely (though mine were less so), they don’t exactly have a high originality quotient. Then I totally side-stepped my week of non-cooking by throwing some “new feature” at you, and now, well now I’m going to tell you that you can make a salad out of cucumbers, tomatoes and onions. And I know you’ve got to be thinking: you don’t say!

Although on another week–perhaps one without heaps of barbeques for all that red, white and boom spread about–I might skip over the simple Israeli Salad, I know that if you’re still looking for that easier-than-pie dish to bring to a pot-luck barbeque tomorrow, we really need to talk. Israeli Salad isn’t just as dish, as much as it is a palette to build your salad dreams upon.

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As we often do at the end of a summery day, Alex and I had a barbecue last night. No, we haven’t moved out of our “penthouse,” nor have we figured out how to reappropriate our one square-foot fire escape landing as a deck, nor did we didn’t schlep out to Brooklyn where open spaces are less of an anomaly. Nope, we had it right inside our own apartment. Alex made a massive batch of “his” barbeque sauce, I made the baked beans, we slivered some cabbage and tossed it with coleslaw dressing, seared some chicken sausages from Whole Foods (that completely freaked me out because they had black beans, whole ones, inside–ew) and popped open a couple cold ones.

When you’re as barbecue-obsessed as we are, you can’t be limited by your lack of grill and patio. These everywhere-but-nyc standards are just minor setbacks, wee hurdles to overcome. The only thing you really need for an awesome barbecue is good company and failure-free recipes.

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