A simple Valentine’s menu featuring grilled tri-tip steaks topped with a savory horseradish butter and served alongside smashed potatoes and butter lettuce. Jump to recipe. [Read more…]
lamb ragù over polenta
There’s something undeniably wonderful about having a fragrant, slow-simmered ragù on the stovetop for an entire Sunday. The richness permeates the air and gives the entire day a slow and luxurious feel. Languorous weekends have been in short supply for us lately, so smelling this ragù all day almost felt decadent.
Lamb is a favorite in this apartment, doubly so for stews and slow sauces. The heartiness of lamb shoulder and neck (the cuts we used here) is just unsurpassable. To keep the richness and fattiness of the lamb from being overwhelming, we use red wine and red wine vinegar to give the dish a little bracing edge, which is tempered by the sweetness of tomato paste. The trio of carrots, onion, and celery give it a classic feel, while the garlic and bay leaves keep it from being a staid dish even if it doesn’t have any unusual ingredients.
roast beef with simple madeira sauce
Making roast beef on a Sunday makes me feel like I’m in a Village Green Preservation Society-era Kinks song. It’s like being nostalgic for a time and place I never lived in. All mugs of draft beer and darts tournaments, dropping by to say hello to the vicar, admiring the thatched roof of my house, or whatever people in rural England used to do.
People don’t really do Sunday roasts like they used to, but it’s really a pretty simple thing to do and it makes Sunday dinner feel like more of an event. This roast beef used a simple eye round roast I got from the farmer’s market. The sauce is a simple madeira reduction that had a sweetness, but wasn’t overpowering, and complemented the beef nicely. I thought about doing a real madeira sauce, but once you start dealing with demi-glace and such, you’re signing up for a lot of work. Better to keep it simple. [Read more…]
a simple dinner and a toast to twins
Last night we had pan fried steaks, roasted new fingerling potatoes (made in the toaster oven — it has been hot in NYC), and green leaf salad with balsamic and peaches. We drank some Lambrusco and toasted to the health and happiness of our friends’ brand new twins. We toasted to them again later in the night just in case the first toast didn’t stick.
I know many of these week night meals are relatively unremarkable, but I want this blog to be about the simple meals we eat every day. I love a good show pony dish as much as the next lady, but we should also be eating delicious stuff day to day. This meal was very simple and took both of us maybe twenty minutes, plus roasting time, to make. The ingredients were all fresh from the McCarren Park Farmer’s Market and highlighted what is in season right now. I would also like to note that the steaks were grass fed, organic steaks from Arcadian Pastures. They sell fantastic meat at the market every Saturday and that’s where we do all of our meat shopping.
In general I prefer salad with very few major ingredients. Just lettuce, salt, maybe some herbs, and a delicate dressing. Anything but iceberg seems to collapse under too much heavy stuff. I do have a few exceptions, mainly cheese (!), sometimes tomatoes, and some fruits like pears, apples, and peaches. Last night, it was peaches. The addition of the fruit always means we are going to eat all of the salad, and it isn’t going to be a chore at all.
This hardly counts as a recipe, but I’m going to post it anyway:
Salad with Balsamic Vinegar and Peaches
an amount of lettuce, thoroughly washed
1-2 super ripe peaches diced
1/2 – 1 clove garlic crushed and minced
sprig of tarragon or herb(s) of your choice
1 tablespoon dry balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon good olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
Put the lettuce in a bowl. Combine the balsamic and olive oil in a proportion you like, and whip vigorously with a fork, add the minced garlic and some of the tarragon, and whip again. Right before eating, dress the salad with you fingers, just coating the leaves. Throw in a dash of salt and a few good turns of pepper. Toss the peaches and remaining tarragon on top, and serve.