Hey there all! This is the first post of 2012. To kick off this momentous occasion I am bringing you a quick and delicious dinner idea. I made a pasta salad last night and it was damn good, so you should eat it too. Below are the details. Enjoy!!


What you need:

Salt and pepper

1/2 box of rigatoni
8oz black eyed peas, frozen


I large shallot, or two small, diced
1 large garlic clove, or two small, diced
a generous handful of sundried tomatoes in oil cut into bite sized pieces
6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon of lemon juice

1/3 cup of mix of red and green sweet peppers diced
1/4 cup of cherry tomoatoes quartered
a handful of basil leaves
1/4 of pine nuts
1/4 of pickled banana peppers, slice
1 tablespoon of parmesean cheese
4oz package of salami

Italian salad mix


Step 1
In a large pot boil water, generously salted. In small pot add the peas and cover with water and add salt.

Step 2
Meanwhile, dice the shallot and the garlic and place in a bowl large enough to hold the whole salad. Cut the sundried tomatoes into bite sized pieces,then add to bowl. Add the vinegar and the lemon juice and then slowly blend the olive oil into it, season with salt and pepper. Let this sit.

Step 3
Check on the beans. They will be tender when ready. If ready turn off heat. Add pasta to the large pot when it is at a rapid boil. It will take about 14 to 15 minutes to cook the pasta. Do not cook al dente. Cook until the pasta is fully tender. This is important.

Step 4
Chop the peppers and the tomatoes and set aside. Check on the pasta. When ready ladle the pasta out of the water with a slotted spoon. You want a little of the pasta water to drip into the bowl as you transfer it from the pot to the bowl. You don't want to pour the pasta water in, but as you transfer the pasta from one to the other, just enough will fall into the bowl. Then laddle in the peas as well. You want to Gently fold in until all is incorporated. Then you will put plastic wrap on top. Put in fridge for 30 minutes.

Step 5
Cut the salami. Toast the pine nuts and set aside. Chop the basil and put on top of the cut peppers and place plastic wrap over them until the pasta is ready to be taken out.

Step 6
Take the bowl out of the fridge. Fold in the peppers and tomatoes. Then fold in the salami. Then fold in the pine nuts and the parmesean cheese. Taste it. It may need a dash of salt and pepper.

To serve: I served this dense salad with undressed italian greens, which balanced out the meal. Eat it!!

Fennel: What's For Dinner

Picture sourced from: Johnson's Back Yard Garden

Last night I made a dinner that used fennel in two dishes, Iron Chef style. There were fennel seeds in the sweet Italian sausage and I used a small fennel bulb two play two parts in the meal. Half the bulb went into a Cannellini bean and sausage dish from Mark Bittman's Food Matter's Cook Book and the rest went into a salad conjured from my imagination.

The flavors of the main dish were hearty and simple. The sausage was broken up and browned; to this, I added, per the recipe, garlic and red crushed peppers. Then I added the greens with the zest, and lastly the beans. I loved how everything played together. The beans were silky and mild against the liquorish crunch of the fennel. The dish was rounded out with the less assertive, Brussels sprouts,which were tender, but still firm, creating a nice foil to the beans. The sausage speckled the dish with a little decadence. It was all very nice. I was proud that the addition of the fennel and lemon zest really worked with the recipe.

To complement the main course, I threw a salad together.

What I used:

half of a small bulb of fennel, slivered
a sliced apple
olive oil
lemon juice
black pepper (I would have preferred white pepper)
sea salt
Parmesan cheese, shaved
dry dill, a dash

Put fennel and apple slices in bowl. Squeeze a little lemon juice, dust with seasoning, including dill. add a judicious amount of olive oil, only to barely coat. Mix with hands gently. Serve on plate and dot with olive oil and shave the cheese over the salad. Yum!!!!!

Will dance for food

So my friend Yuki was very awesome and made me a wonderful dinner a few weeks ago. We had chicken with potatoes and bacon. She also made broccoli. It was supper tasty. Below is some questionable dancing from yours truly.

Pasta Rituals

So if you're anything like me, when you come home from work you're tired and you're hungry and the last thing you want to do is get into some complex and time consuming meal preparation. Don't get me wrong. I love food and I love cooking, I'm just so hungry when I get home that I fall on my most primal instincts, which are A) get a snack, B) find the quickest way from point a (hunger) to point b (dinner).


The first thing required in my A to B dinner tactic is to make sure I have snack food at home. I bought some blue corn chips a while ago and they have served me well. At other times I've done a sliver of cheese and crackers or left over steamed plantains slices. Carbohydrates seem to be a common theme.


Pasta is a staple because it is both cheap and fast. My friend made pasta with peanut sauce for me and since then I have reconsidered my dislike of wheat pasta. Consequently, I always buy the wheat variety, but I tend to vary the shape to keep things fresh.

I also buy sauce. I know there will be hecklers who will go on about how I could very easily make my own, which, in a pinch, I've done before. Don't forget, however, that one of the highest values in this whole adventure is speed. You can't beat pouring from a jar.

Additionally, I keep Parmesan cheese in the house. I have a chunk of it and grate what I will mix into my pasta with a steak knife. To recap, having to make you're own pasta sauce is a load of crap, but grating your own cheese will certainly, the palate, please. (Sorry, I couldn't help myself).

For a long time I was only eating pasta. It was really sad because when I lived near the Park Slope Coop, I always ate great produce and I varied what I ate quite a bit. I was lamenting my addiction to pasta and my lack of vegetable eating, but not really doing much about it until I went to visit my aunt.

While I stayed with her she made extravagant meals every night. There was a lot of grilled meat, but what struck me the most was her sauteed spinach and the green peppers left on the grill. I was in heaven, it tasted so good and it was just the inspiration I needed to re-inject the color green into my daily eating habits.

Now that I'm back in New York, I am still eating my pasta but I've also added a lot of green to my plate. I supplement my meal with mixed salad greens that are drizzled with olive oil and toasted sesame seeds and some other cooked greens. The first week I had sauteed spinach just like my aunt made. I ate it cold out of the fridge for a week. The following week, however, I opted for steamed kale drizzled with olive oil and a sprinkle of pepper flakes.

Adding the green hasn't added much time to my meal prep, but it sure has added flavor and nutrition. When I get home, I get my snack food out. I heat the water for the pasta. take out the pre-washed greens and put them on a plate. I then take out the cooked greens and put them on the plate too. I take out the olive oil and the pasta sauce and the cheese. The pepper flakes and sesame seeds are already on the table. I season my greens and cook the pasta. When it's close to done I drain the water and put the pasta, still in the pot, back on the heat. I pour the sauce on with the cheese, mix for a minute or two and serve. This whole ordeal never takes more than fifteen minutes and it's just so yummy.