Spring Strawberries

More than 30 strawberries in the pot.

Mermaids: Mardi Gras King Cake with a Twist

My friend Rebecca went to college in New Orleans and suggested we mark Mardi Gras with a New Orleans King Cake for dessert following our Sunday dinner party. The traditional version of the cake has a plastic baby doll hidden inside, but I suggested a small plastic mermaid (the kind you find on the side of a cocktail glass; we keep a few in our garden). Our friend Maya was the lucky one who found the mermaid in her piece of cake.

Leftover Meat Mondays: Pasta with Sausage and Baby Broccoli

Mr. MVP and I talked about being part of the "Meatless Monday" movement. We didn't have to be convinced that going meatless at least one day a week can be good--for the environment, for your health, for your wallet. So we enjoyed a few consecutive meatless Mondays. But then we had extra chicken from a Sunday barbecue and wanted to make tacos with the leftovers on Monday. And then we had some remaining steak from another Sunday dinner and decided to make bolognese sauce the next day with the leftovers. We grill a lot on the weekends and don't like to let leftovers go to waste, so now we're going to try for Meatless Tuesdays or Wednesdays and we're going to make sure we compose leftover meals that don't feel like leftover meals--making them good enough to be prepared and enjoyed any day, even if you aren't trying to use what you don't want to waste.

Yesterday: 
Italian sausage on the grill, part of a mixed grill and pizza dinner

Leftovers: 
Sausage

Today: 
Pasta with baby broccoli and sausage. While pasta of your choice is cooking, cut the leftover sausage into bite-size pieces. In a saucepan, saute several cloves of garlic in olive oil until garlic is soft but not browned. Add 1/2 cup vegetable stock and baby broccoli and cover until broccoli is tender but still firm. Remove broccoli and add sausage bites to the saucepan with a splash of some more vegetable stock and cook on medium until heated. Toss pasta with sausage, broccoli, and parmesan cheese. Enjoy.

Blood and Chocolate: Valentine's Day Dinner

For our "Blood and Chocolate" dinner, we served steak for dinner and chocolate fondue for dessert. Guest brought the steaks: rib eye, New York strip, filet mignon, chuck roast. We added buffalo tri-tip to the mix. (It wasn't all meat; we also had roasted root vegetables and a salad of mixed greens with pears, Pecorino Romano and crispy prosciutto). Dessert was chocolate fondue (recipe from Eric Ripert via Food & Wine), with pound cake, toasted croissant, banana, raspberries, caramel, and sugar shortbread cookies for dipping.

Photo: Eat Lotsa Lobster

Photo taken in Santa Barbara, CA. Words to live by: Eat lotsa lobster.

Touchdown: Chili Recipe

Mr. MVP said the football playoffs called for chili dogs, which gave me a chance to play with my recipe.

Chili Recipe
3 lbs. ground meat (pork, beef or combo)
2 10 oz. cans of pinto beans, drained
2 28 oz. cans of chopped tomatoes

1 carrot, chopped

6 cloves of garlic, chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 chili pepper, chopped and with seeds removed

1/2 jalapeno pepper, chopped and with seeds removed

1 tbsp. chili powder

1 tbsp. oregano
1 tbsp. sweet paprika
1 tbsp. smoked paprika
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1.5 oz. dark chocolate (1/2 large bar)
1 tbsp. honey
1 cinnamon stick

Brown the meat with salt and pepper (optional: add sprinkle of paprika).
Layer ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on high for four hours.
Serve and enjoy.

Burgers: Rectangular and Just Right

Best thing since sliced ciabatta bread? Mr. MVP had the ingenious idea to make rectangular burgers to match the ciabatta bread.

Apple Pies: One for Breakfast, One for Dessert

Fired Up: Peeps on a Stick

Ever wonder what would happen if you toasted Peeps on a fire like you would ordinary marshmallows? Toasted marshmallow goodness, with a crunchy candy coating from the caramelized sugar. Yum.

Donut Ghost: Happy Halloween

Photo taken at Zelda's Corner Deli in Venice Beach, CA.

Leftovers: Chicken Ramen Noodle Soup

Dinner Saturday night included two whole can chickens. We had a small amount of meat left and all those bones--perfect for us to make a rich chicken stock for a Sunday supper of chicken ramen noodle soup. I follow the basic recipe for making chicken stock and use a crockpot. The soup could not be more simple: make noodles; heat chicken stock and simmer with chopped bok choy for a few minutes; add leftover chicken; add cooked noodles; serve; enjoy.

Chicken Stock

Remains of a cooked whole chicken

2 bay leaves

Handful of whole peppercorns

3 crushed cloves of garlic

Half an onion

1 carrot

1 celery sprig

1 tbs. fresh rosemary

Filtered water (enough to cover chicken)

Sriracha hot chili sauce, to taste

Cook in crockpot on high for 2 hours. Let sit and skim fat from top with a spoon. Strain broth with a cheesecloth and serve immediately or transfer to a glass jar or bowl and refrigerate for use later in the week.

Rabbit Drinking Beer

Do you own a rabbit whose been driven to drinking, after enduring years of carrot abuse? Call the helpline at...

He may look all cute and peaceful now, but just wait until he realized that's the last one...

Giant Muffin Billboard

When your average 80x40 advertising billboard isn't getting enough attention, try bringing the idea to life, like they did with this humongous giant muffin.

And to think, this is how people would advertise their products before the internet came around...

Leftovers: Italian Mashed Potato Pancakes

Most people love the day after Thanksgiving for turkey sandwiches. I like the potato pancakes. Our family makes what we call Italian mashed potato pancakes, from a recipe we got from my grandmother. The pan fried pancakes are made from leftover mashed potatoes, Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs, chopped fresh Italian parsley, an egg, grated parmesan cheese. When I was growing up, we had them whenever there were leftover mashed potatoes and mom put ketchup on the plate for me and my brother so we could dip warm pancakes in the cool ketchup, much like the way we used maple syrup on breakfast pancakes--it's still comfort food for me. I called Mom for the recipe recently and she gave me the ingredients listed above. Measurements? I improvised. Truth is, it depends on the amount of mashed potatoes you're starting with. What I did is approximated below; you can scale according to your own amount of leftovers.

Italian Potato Pancakes

4 cups of mashed potatoes

2 cups of Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs

1/4 cup chopped fresh Italian parsley

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 egg

Olive oil for pan frying

Ketchup

Blend ingredients in a bowl. Heat olive oil in frying pan while you form pancakes. Pan fry on medium heat. Add additional oil if needed. Serve and enjoy (ketchup optional).

Will Tip for Bacon

Tip jar on the counter of the Lardon food truck.

Mmmmm, Meatballs: Family Recipe

My grandmother loved to tell the story about how I loved meatballs when I was a baby. She told me I would eat little pieces of meatballs while seated in my high chair. This much is certain: the meatballs were delicious, so why wouldn't I devour them? My great-grandmother was an Italian immigrant who came to Brooklyn with traditions and recipes she passed down to her family, and I subsequently grew up with Sunday suppers that almost always included one dish made with a rich, red sauce. The Sunday morning smell of onions and garlic and olive oil in a pot on the stove? Anticipation. Add tomatoes and cook it slowly for hours? That's home.

Spaghetti and meatballs were a staple for us. Sundays during autumn also meant that meals were planned around NFL football game times. This Sunday, I made meatballs for the evening game (go Giants!). I won't print the entire recipe here because my meatball-making involves seeing and feeling the mixture (it feels like it needs more egg or it looks like it wants more breadcrumbs...). But these are my ingredients: ground beef, breadcrumbs, eggs, chopped garlic, chopped Italian basil, chopped Italian parsley, parmesan cheese, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. I mix it in a glass bowl with a wood spoon and make sure it's combined but a little gooey, then gently form balls of the mixture--not packing, only loosely forming--and delicately drop the meatballs into the pot of simmering red sauce. As Aunt Stef puts says, you want the meatballs to feel like they're going to fall apart when you put them into the pot; this makes the meatballs tender, not tough. I let them cook in the sauce slowly, for an hour or so.

Yard Sale Gem: American Woman's Cookbook

Dad picked this up at a yard sale for me: "The American Woman's Cookbook" by Ruth Berolzheimer (1941). The cover is held on by tape, but it's in otherwise great condition. Not surprisingly, I have been entertained by the dated material (certainly the section on "Entertaining Without a Maid" was good for a chuckle) and also a bit surprised by some of the recipes (see "Opposum Roast"). I plan to skip the recipe for braised calf's brains with oysters and all the others for opposum, squirrel, reindeer, and pigeon (potted pigeon, pigeon pie, AND pigeon and mushroom stew). But the classic buttermilk waffles, chocolate cream pie, and pan broiled steak look mighty fine and there are some useful charts (like the one pictured on cuts of beef) and how-to instructions on basic cooking techniques that stand the test of time.

Song in my head since getting the book: "American Woman" by the Guess Who (obviously); I like the Jimi Hendrix version but I could not find any good YouTube videos for that.

Seasonal Delivery: Mallomars

One of my family's mottos is this: Food is love. Credit goes to my late grandmother; "Mangi mangi! Food is love," she'd say. This comes to mind often. Today I recited it like a mantra each time I popped a Mallomar cookie in my mouth. The annual package from Mom and Dad was delivered today with boxes of the cookies from the East Coast, where the cookies are made available in September--after the long, hot summer and when the cookies are least likely to melt on shelves. I decided to mix vanilla bean gelato with a Mallomar. Love, indeed.

Clam Bake Before and After

Soda Can Chicken on the Grill

Mr. MVP gives a spin to the traditional "beer can chicken" recipe by using a ginger ale can instead of beer. We also pour out half the soda to make room for sprigs of fresh herbs from the garden. (One time we went for a real ginger kick and added fresh chopped ginger to the can.)

The chicken we get comes from the Santa Monica Farmers' Market--organic and free range from a Santa Barbara farm.

The bird is salted and chilled a few hours, then brought to room temperature before it's placed on the can and seasoned with spices (paprika, cumin, chili powder). Finally, it's grilled to perfection on the Weber over direct heat. Juices are captured in the pie pan and then reduced in a sauce pan on the stove with some of the skin for a little drizzle on the chicken when it's served. Yum.