Summer Eats

I can hardly believe how fortunate I have been to be able to spend my entire summer (so far) in New York. Yes, sometimes it's nice to have a hotel room to yourself, to dine out without having to worry about prep, cooking, or clean up. But then it gets tiresome, and at the end of a trip, all I really want is a simple home cooked meal.

These past few months, I have cooked and cooked and cooked. In the beginning, I was still used to eating out for way too many meals a week, but gradually and happily I have shunned restaurants and have turned to my own tiny kitchen for sustenance.

This summer in New York has been one of the hottest in years, which makes cooking sometimes a trial (not so much now that there are 3 a/c's in the apartment). However, the end results is always worth the sweat and tears (I've had to dice lots of onions this summer). Below are some of my standout favorites; simple dishes that I truly can't get enough of.


Truffle Hash Browns

A quick peel and julienne, a mist of olive oil, some salt and pepper and these hash browns are ready for the oven. Finished off with a light drizzle of truffle oil right before serving, its been a breakfast in itself many a time. Best kitchen tools: mandolin + Silpat

Salsa

Tomatoes, red onions, garlic, jalapeno, cilantro, salt and pepper is all I use. It's always better the second day, and so good on corn flour tacos.

I'm actually obsessed with corn tortillas. They're cute, they're cheap, their flavor really comes out when heated in a skillet on the stove: no oil necessary. And since I always crave tacos to go with my salsa, and I also already have all the ingredients for guacamole sans the avocados:

Guacamole

Avocados, red onions, garlic, tomatoes, salt and pepper, lime juice more for the color preservation than a main flavor component. For me, the lime should just give guacamole a bit of brightness; guacamole should never be limey. But perhaps that is just personal preference. Also since cilantro always comes it such huge bundles, cilantro is sometimes added.

And since there is cilantro, that usually means I need to make garlic - cilantro naan to use the cilantro, meaning I have to make butter chicken to go with the naan that uses the cilantro. Perhaps now you're getting an understanding of how I cook or rather why I end up cooking what I do? But I digress, butter chicken is hot and heavy, not quite a sultry New York summer dish.

Instead, to stay on the tomato theme (I've been eating a ton of tomatoes this season), bruschetta. One of my favorites and seeing that it uses the same basic ingredients of salsa, I can make a quick decision between one or the other, depending on the mood of my taste buds

Bruschetta

Tomatoes, yellow or white onion, garlic, julienned basil, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. Basil, good olive oil and balsamic and enough salt make this dish for me. Tomatoes...well tomatoes are rather a dismal fruit in the United States. Perhaps I should bite the bullet and start buying the $6/lb tomatoes from the farmer's market. Perhaps when I'm more baller. But with the right balance of the aforementioned key ingredients, decent bruschetta can be make with okay tomatoes. I usually do a bit of super aged balsamic for some sweetness, with some off the grocery store shelf kind for more acid and kick. Toasted puglia from Atlas Cafe rubbed with garlic and drizzled in olive oil and what a lunch or dinner or both sometimes. Parmigiano Reggiano to make things fancy.

However, every time I make bruschetta, I have a massive amount of basil left, that doesn't keep for long, which has spurred my pesto craze. It also helps that I usually have all the other ingredients to make this green delight around the kitchen with the exception to pine nuts, which I can never be bothered to get.

Pesto

Basil, olive oil, garlic, parmigiano reggiano, salt and pepper and perhaps a bit of lemon for color preservation and to cut the fat. So simple but oh so good. I could eat it fresh off a spoon. Oh wait, I always do that.

If not pesto then red sauce uses the rest of the basil and there is nothing better than a good simple red pasta sauce.

Red Pasta Sauce

Canned whole tomatoes, tomato paste, yellow/white onion, garlic, olive oil, bay leaf, salt and pepper, basil. Canned tomatoes are usually picked at the peak of the season these days and well let's face it, probably are more ripe in their canned form than 90% of the fresh tomatoes on the market. I love canned tomatoes and tomato paste.

I actually just made a sizable batch today. Enough for another red sauce meal. Today I pan seared some eggplant, then layered sauce, eggplant, mozzarella, ricotta, spinach in a large ramekin and baked until the cheese on top was golden brown.