Tag Archives: nyc recipe blogs

Helpful Tips for Beginner Cooks

People often say to me, “I wish I could cook,” to which I respond like Ratatouille:

remyratatouille-anyonecancook

And I mean it. Cooking is not like singing or being tall enough for basketball, it’s a skill that can be learned and even perfected over time. Furthermore, cooking at home is the cornerstone to eating a healthy diet, which makes it an essential skill for us all. I’ve actually already written two Tips for Beginner Cooks posts (over three years ago!) and am really resisting the urge to delete and rewrite them - holy CAPS and exclamation points! - but I’ll keep them up as a reminder of how far I’ve come as a writer and blogger.

Here are some tips to help you beginner cooks get over your fear and in front of the stove:

Start simple: You don’t wanna practice with recipes that require three pots, two hours and various hard-to-find ingredients. Choose simple recipes that require simple techniques and perfect them before moving on to more challenging dishes.

Safety first: Keep your oven mitts dry (wet ones conduct heat faster and will burn you immediately) and your knives sharp (dull ones are more likely to slip and cut you). And beware of steam burns, they’re the worst. Funny story: Back when I was a teenager, I decided to make marinara sauce from scratch. When it was done and smelling delicious, the final step was to blend. I excitedly poured it into my blender, which has a rubber top, and pressed the blend button. The top immediately shot up into the ceiling, the red sauce went all over the white walls and cabinets, as well as my forearms. Yeah, it hurt pretty bad… apparently, heat expands.

Mise-en-place (is not a region in France): Mise-en-place (meez en plahs) is French for “putting in place” and it’s a cooking term that refers to prepping your ingredients and tools before starting to cook. This means ingredients should be washed and cut up, and your spatulas and whisks located before cooking. Having the mise-en-place ready before cooking allows you to work without stopping to prep or find necessary ingredients in a hurry.

Read the fine print: Read the entire recipe before starting. It’s important to anticipate what’s coming up while cooking and you don’t want to be surprised halfway. For example - this has happened to me more than once - if you are making cookies and halfway down the recipe it instructs to chill the dough for three hours before baking, and you have to be somewhere by then, with cookies in tow, it won’t be fun for anyone.

It’s okay to improvise… sometimes: If you planned on making guacamole for your party and then suddenly realized you forgot to buy limes, don’t panic - there’s no need to deprive your guests of the magic that is guacamole! Just substitute with lemon. Since limes and lemons are so similar, your guests won’t even notice. However, if you’re making a roast beef recipe but accidentally defrosted a pork loin instead, it’s probably best to find another recipe. The point is: it’s okay to swap out one small ingredient for another, but doing so within reason. If you’re unsure if a substitution is appropriate, Google it.

Clean as you go: As a certified clean freak and organizational guru, this is my favorite tip. Don’t leave spice jars out after using them; don’t leave dripping Styrofoam containers on the counter; don’t let pots and pans pile up to be washed tomorrow. Aside from being gross and spreading bacteria, it will also lead to chaos while cooking. You don’t want a mess to distract you from executing the perfect dish.

Invest in high-quality tools: I could write a whole other post about this but I’ll keep it short. Invest in two good knives - all you’ll really use for the most part is a classic chef’s knife and a paring knife. Keep them sharp and never clean them in a dishwasher (it dulls them). The same goes for cutting boards - one wooden for produce, one plastic for fish and meat.

Learn your ABC’s: Practice various cutting techniques. YouTube is a great place to learn the difference between chop, dice, mince, etc.

Stay cool: Don’t worry or get discouraged if a recipe doesn’t work out. It’s just one recipe and you can try again later. The worst thing that can happen is that you’ll have to order a pizza for dinner.

What tips do you have for beginner cooks?

Sweet potato and carrot soup

Whereas many of you grew up eating candied yams and sweet potato pie, I only came to know this starchy vegetable a few years ago; these was only one kind of potato in Mother Ukraine - the brown kind. Now sweet potatoes are one of my favorite vegetables. They’re delicious, versatile, super healthy, and still retain an air of exotica to me.

Sweet potato and carrot soup

This gorgeous wintertime soup comes together easily and in no time, and with ingredients you probably already have on hand. It’s light yet satisfying, and the way the cool sour cream and grassy cilantro mingle with the sweet vegetables is just divine. Try it!

(Yield: 4 servings)

Ingredients:

2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 medium carrots, cut into 1″ pieces
1 large/2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1″ cubes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground coriander
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
3 c low sodium chicken stock
Sour cream and chopped cilantro, to garnish

Sweet potato and carrot soup

Procedure: Heat a soup pot over medium-low heat. Add olive oil and butter. Once melted, add onion and garlic. Cook until softened, 3-4 min. Raise heat to medium-high and add ingredients from carrots through cayenne pepper. Stir and cook until vegetables begin to caramelize, about 7 min, stirring occasionally. Then add chicken stock and cover pot tightly with a lid. Bring soup to a boil. Once boiling, turn heat down to low, crack lid, and simmer for 15 min. Take pot off heat and blend until smooth using an immersion blender (always exercise extreme caution and follow manufacturer’s instructions when using an immersion blender, especially with hot foods). Taste and re-season if necessary. Serve topped with sour cream and cilantro.

Sweet potato and carrot soup

Sweet potato and carrot soup

Strawberry basil hard lemonade

My life situation since the “Musings of a post-grad life…” post has, unfortunately, not changed - I am still on the hunt for employment. Spending weekdays at home in front of one’s computer, browsing, filling out applications and sending emails may sound harmless and optimistic but it is far from it. It is tedious and nerve-wrecking. What’s more is that being alone with one’s fridge is dangerous. Not only am I making constant trips to the kitchen for snacks (my thighs are already starting to resent me) but I also find myself peeking into the fridge and cabinets with the desire to put my chef’s hat on. Why spend yet another hour staring into the computer when I can be in the kitchen working on my next creation?

Stawberry-basil hard lemonade

This cocktail recipe is the result of me ditching my computer for my kitchen. Don’t judge me - it was past 5pm.

Stawberry-basil hard lemonade

(Yield: 1 cocktail)

Ingredients:

1 tsp granulated sugar

2 strawberries, chopped

2 basil leaves, chopped

1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

1 1/2 shots vodka

Seltzer water

Procedure: Place sugar, strawberries, basil and lemon juice into a glass. Muddle together for 1 min with a muddler/back of a wooden spoon. Add a few ice cubes, vodka and top with seltzer.

Stawberry-basil hard lemonade

Creamy avocado dip

In many of our lives (mine included), avocados only make an appearance in the form of guacamole, or amongst layers of meat, cheese and lettuce in a sandwich. This isn’t fair. There is no reason why this healthy and sinfully good fruit should not get to lead as exciting a life as its distant fruit cousins.

Here’s how this dip came to be: I was in the midst of making baked coconut shrimp for the fist time and wanted to make a dipping sauce for them, not unlike this kick-ass sour cream dip for fried plantains. Then I spotted an avocado at the bottom on my fridge. It looked so sad and lonesome that I couldn’t help but grab it by the hand and say, “Come along, friend!” (Hypothetically, of course). The ingredients for this dip ended up haphazardly on my counter and I just thought, “This may work.” And it did. Clearly, it’s not that different from guacamole, but it is a small step for avocado-kind.

What happened to the shrimp, you ask? Well, I didn’t adhere to any specific recipe (as I am, unfortunately, all too prone to doing) and although they turned out very tasty, they were also kind of ugly, so I will not share that recipe with you as of yet. For more information on avocados - nutrition, storage and dissection - watch my video!

Dip may be served with: crispy shrimp or other seafood, tortilla chips, chicken tenders, crudites.

(Yield: about 1 cup)

Ingredients:

1 ripe avocado

1 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp sour cream

1/2-1 tsp sriracha sauce, to taste

1 tbsp chopped cilantro

Salt, to taste

Procedure: Dice avocado, place into a bowl and mash with a fork along with lemon juice until pureed. Stir in remaining ingredients. Taste and re-season if necessary. Serve immediately.

Weekend recap and a recipe for Leftover Turkey Gumbo

I hope you have all had a pleasant long weekend; or at least a pleasantly long one.
Since we don’t have many relatives who live nearby (let alone on this side of the Atlantic), my parents usually have Thanksgiving dinner with their friends and I have it with mine. Screw my birthday or New Year’s - friendsgiving in the best day of the year, because there’s nothing like spending a whole day preparing a feast to share with my favorite people in the world. But as it turned out this year, I had a small dinner with my parents instead. My mom and I got to cook together and it was nice. I did get to see my friends later at night though, since we decided to go shopping at midnight. None of us urgently needed to buy anything but I was just curious what Black Friday would be like, since I’ve never done it before. The funny thing is that most of the stores didn’t really have special deals - they were just open at a strange time - but people were still stuffing their shopping totes and pulling plastic out of their wallets as if in preparation for the apocalypse. It’s amazing how much humans love to hoard possessions and how willingly we succumb to tricky marketing strategies.

New sweater and necklace thanks to Black Friday

The following day I had to go downtown to the passport office and submit a renewal application, where I waited on line for an hour and a half. It wasn’t the best place to hang out on a Saturday afternoon but at least Rene was there to keep me company, God bless his heart. When we finally got out, we headed straight to the Shake Shack nearby. I got to indulge in one of my favorite treats - Shake Shack’s perfectly crispy crinkle fries dipped into their silky custard. Some of you will probably think this is gross but it will only be those that haven’t tried this yet. I ordered the custard special of the day, which was called “Pumpkin pie, oh my!” - vanilla custard blended with a whole slice of pumpkin pie. Eating this completely erased my memory of the previously annoying 1.5 hrs. “Oh my!” indeed.

Later I got around to making this soup, which is another Thanksgiving tradition I have. It’s a simple recipe and it is the best way to use up leftover turkey.

(Yield: 4-6 servings)

Ingredients:

3 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp flour

1 yellow onion, diced

1 large carrot, diced

1 celery stick, diced

1 green or red bell pepper, diced

1 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp poultry seasoning

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

4.5 c turkey or chicken stock

1 c shredded turkey meat (or chicken, if made year-round)

Salt/pepper

1 c prepared white rice

Chopped scallions

Procedure: Heat a large enamel soup pot over low heat. Add oil and flour and whisk together for 2 minutes, until the roux is a light caramel color and smells nutty. Add vegetables with 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper, and other seasonings. Stir with a wooden spoon and cook for about 10 min, until vegetables have softened, stirring occasionally. Then add stock, stir, cover pot tightly with a lid, increase heat to high, and bring soup to a boil. Once boiling, remove lid, turn heat down to medium-low and simmer for 15 min. Then add meat and simmer for another 15 min. (Soup should thicken slightly). Serve soup hot, topped with white rice and scallions.

How was your weekend?

Do you have any experience with Black Friday?

What Thanksgiving traditions do you have?

Vegetable pancakes

I am currently in the last semester of my undergraduate education, and with each day, I care about schoolwork less and less. Some of you are probably thinking, “Oh no! But school is so important.” While I agree, I also believe that tending to that which makes one’s heart smile is equally as important (unless it’s killing babies/cooking drugs, in which case one should seek help). That is why on the first day of my Sandy “staycation”, I was ecstatic - no school, no work, can’t go outside, nothing to do but make love to my kitchen. Seriously, at this point, all I want to do is explore new recipes, work on my photography, choose my words, and hit “Publish”.

These pancakes are just one of the scrumptious things I made that day.

This is another one of my mom’s recipes. The outside crisps up while the inside stays delicate and soft - topped with cold sour cream, these little guys kick ass. Warning: next day fridge leftovers will not be good so I urge you to eat these fast, with which I don’t foresee you having a problem.

(Yield: about 20 little pancakes)

Ingredients:

2 medium russet potatoes, peeled

1 green squash, peeled

1 large carrot, peeled

2 garlic cloves, minced

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 c all-purpose flour

Salt + freshly ground black pepper

Vegetable oil for frying

Sour cream for serving

Procedure: Shred vegetables (preferably using a food processor).

Working with a handful of vegetables at a time, squeeze out as much liquid from vegetables as possible with your hands. Then combine vegetables with garlic, eggs and flour in a bowl. Season with 3/4 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper.

Heat a skillet/griddle pan over medium heat and add enough oil to cover the bottom. When hot, spoon batter onto skillet and press down on each pancake with spoon to flatten. Pancakes should be 2-3″ in diameter.

Cook about 4 min per side, flipping once, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve immediately, topped with sour cream.

What would you be doing if you didn’t have to study/work?