Cheever Sauce

I don’t always post the food I make in the order I make it, so it’s a little coincidental that I am posting two soy sauce based, glazed dishes, one after another. I love these dishes because accompanying soy sauce with flavors like ginger and honey, really masks its strong flavor, that sometimes tends to be a little too much for me, and I’ll eat something that is “glazed” any day.

Anyway, meatballs are allll the rage right now. The Meatball Shop (yes for all your non-New Yorkers, there is a shop…in Manhattan….that just serves meatballs….) is sprouting up new locations faster than you can say polpetta. And I can’t turn my head without finding a restaurant that serves up this delectable fair. 

To tell you the honest truth, I’m not a huge meatball person. I totally dig the whole concept of them, but for some reason they never really stuck with me. I enjoy them at restaurants and when others make them, but not enough to cook up my own. But something really struck me about these scallions meatballs. An asian meatball seamed like such an antithesis of meatballs. Shouldn’t this Italian staple be covered in red sauce and cheese? I was intrigued, which meant only one thing, it was time to roll up my sleeves and cook my very first meatball. 

All I can say is that I am now hooked! They were super easy to make - just throw all the ingredients into a bowl, mix, and cook. Each bite was loaded with the flavors of sweet, juicy, and tangy meat. It tasted like an inside of the most perfect dumpling…in the best possible way. The sauce/glaze that accompanied them was beyond restaurant quality, and I ended up jarring some to cook with eggplant later in the week. These are a must try that I can’t recommend enough. :)

Read on for the delicious recipe adapted from Canal House Cooking:

Sometimes I get carried away with what kind of food I can whip up in this little kitchen of mine. I have that mentality that if some of the top chefs in NYC can work out of some of the smallest kitchens in the United States, so can I. But I hear your plea for faster, easier, less ingredient dishes, so I am going to begin posting “Super Super Easy” meals that can be prepped in as little at 5 minutes, and ready to eat in less than 20 (Because I still feel that a lot of my recipes are just Super Easy).  I’m not talking about plain baked fish and steamed veggies here…I do have a certain caliber for what’s considered a delicious dinner. Just some basic ingredients that you might not think to put together, that can offer a wonderful, easy to make meal. 

So if you’re strapped for time, and looking for a last minute meal, resist the urge to visit your best friend Seamless and cook up a Super Super Easy CheeverSauce dish - you’ll surprise your closeted chef self with how easy it can be. The other week I only had salmon, bok choy, and other limited ingredients in my fridge, but this recipe is a classic case of how a little bit of this, and a little bit of that, goes a long way.

Onto the recipe from Serious Eats:

Everybody loves a great sandwich. A truly outstanding sandwich has just as much emphasis on the bread and a creative sauce, as the fresh and high quality ingredients that go inside. I am a sucker for sauces, especially on a sandwich, it just gives it that extra umph! we’re all looking for when we bite in between two pieces of bread. Big Macs didn’t become a hit for no reason…it’s all about the special sauce. So when I stumbled upon a recipe for an arugala and parsley aioli, I instantly knew I found the perfect companion to the roasted veggie sandwich I’ve been dying to make. 

Preparing a veggie sandwich is one of the easiest things you can do and I prefer my veggies over deli meat.  I chose some of my favorites to roast: portabella mushrooms,  red peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant. I put a little olive oil on the mushrooms, olive oil and garlic powder on the eggplant, and olive oil and rosemary on the tomatoes. I put everything on 1 baking sheet with the red peppers at 400 degrees, and watched them until I knew each was roasted properly. The mushrooms came out first, and I stuck my sheet back in to let the tomatoes, eggplant and red peppers cook a little longer. The peppers will be blistered and charred when done (Be sure to remove their skins before serving). Roast everything to your desired taste and remove from the oven. 

I spread a little of the Arugula and Parlsey Aioli on one slice of whole grain crusty bread from Balthazar, and goat cheese on the other. I topped off my veggies and added some arugala for added texture. It’s simple and delicious and packs up easy for lunch the next day. 

Read on for the recipe for Arugala and Parsley Aioli

Nothing encourages a stay at home and cook all day marathon like fresh fallen snow. Seems a bit backwards that during my first winter snowfall, a time when most people are out skiing, sledding, ice skating, and enjoying the fresh powder, I chose to spend the day in my kitchen. I’m not sure whether my pessimistic New Yorker attitude, dreading the thought of trekking through street sludge, only to discover that ongoing traffic won’t even slow down for me when I inevitable slip on ice while crossing the street, was keeping me indoors today. Because even without these homebody thoughts, something about the crisp winter air was telling me it was a day for cooking, and that same voice was telling me it was a day for cornbread.

Like I’ve stated before, baking isn’t my thing. But the chilly air was making me crave something that would compliment the warm and cozy atmosphere of my apartment, and nothing screams soul and comfort like corn bread. I love this particular recipe because it’s different than the cornbread I am used to in restaurants. Don’t get me wrong, I love the taste of a nice, sweet, fluffy, cake-like bread, but I try to keep things on the lighter side here, and this recipe does the trick.

This bread contains no butter, minimal sugar, and the sour cream (I used low-fat and it didn’t affect the flavor a bit) gives it a nice gooey consistency. The best addition is the Aleppo, which is a Turkish bright red pepper flake. This adds a subtle kick to the bread, which is a perfect addition to the corn flavor (If you don’t have aleppo flakes, feel free to use red pepper - but just use a fraction of the amount). The taste feels like less of a dessert and more like a bread with it’s grainy, hearty texture. It’s delicious on it’s own with butter and honey, but also amazing alongside a warm soup or chili. I will most certainly be serving it for breakfast tomorrow with a fried egg or two…

Onward for the recipe from Smitten Kitchen

Cooking comes pretty natural to me. Am I coming off too arrogant? I should pat myself on the back a couple more times and submit my blog to the James Beard Foundation with a statement like that. But what I mean by that is, cooking just makes sense to me. I get it. Chess? No. Cooking? Yes. So it came as a surprise to me that while I was surfing other food blogs for recipe ideas, a pretty basic Italian dish…sort of stumped me. I can’t put a finger on exactly what was so confusing to me about the idea of a rollatini, it seamed simple enough, but I nevertheless felt uncomfortable with the idea of rolling up some ingredients, in a breaded additional ingredient, topped with some more ingredients, and then baking it. Would this even work? Even the name of it -rollatini - sounded so foreign and uncertain to me. #foodbloggerproblems

 I guess because I never ate rollatinis growing up, and wasn’t familiar with the dish, (I’m guessing I spent my whole life scanning over it at Italian restaurants, in between the veal parmesean and pasta bolognese) I was sort of stumped out of pure jealousy. As a huge fan of stacking, why hadn’t I ever thought to roll up my ingredients and bake them all together? It’s genius. All of the sudden everywhere I looked I found a rollatini On menus, my interns leftover lunch, even a friend posted it to her food blog (Jewtalian - check her out!). So I decided it was time to buckle down and make some rollatini. With a protein craving paving the way, I decided to go the chicken route.

Apparently, you can roll anything inside a chicken. Chicken rollatini with zucchini and mozaarella, chicken rollatini Alfredo, Chicken rollatini with asparagus and pancetta…the sky’s the limits with this poultry, and while the options are endless, I decided to go basic. I found this recipe on Skinny Taste and boy does that Gina know how to lighten up a dish without sacrificing flavor. The whole process was extremely easy and painless and the end result was a perfect winter dish. The best part is that you’re getting all your flavors in one bite, and everything comes together in a simple and elegant way. I can’t wait to try a different version next time I cook it - and now that I am no longer a rollatini virgin, it’s time to get down and dirty - eggplant I’m looking at you.

Read on for the recipe adapted from Skinny Taste!

The holiday season has been in my rear view mirror for about a week now, and while most Americans are looking to ring in 2012 with their soup fasts, juice fasts, slim fasts, or raw food fasts, I welcomed the New Year with carbs, carbs, carbs. Whoops. Now I’m all about healthy eating, but certain circumstances led this dish to fall into my lap whether I liked it or not (I liked it). 

The photographer I represent is in the middle of shooting an amazing portrait series of the top chefs in America, a.k.a a food bloggers paradise. Being on set with these people is probably how CW actors feel at the Academy Awards. When it’s brought up that I write a food blog, I nervously laugh it off “Ha, oh that? ha..oh it’s silly really…nothing compared to what you do…hah…(eye wander around the room during an awkward moment of silence)…Oh but if you want to check it out, link it to your website, or give me a shout out in your next Food and Wine interview, its C as in cat-H as in Harry-E-E-V…yes that’s V as in Victory-E-R-S-A-U-C-E.com.” 

As luck would have it, last week, chef Missy Robbins brought over some of her favorite ingredients for the photo shoot, and before I knew it, I had $200 of shaved truffles on my hands. This is what I know about truffles: 1. they are very rare and thus very expensive, and 2. I absolutely love how they taste. Cooking with truffle salt or truffle oil is always an added treat to any dish, but I had an inkling this would be the first, and possibly last time I would cook with fresh truffles. And when life gives you truffles…you make pasta. Starchy foods and liquid fats perfectly compliment this fancy ‘shroom, and you typically want to keep your ingredients simple so that no strong flavor overthrows the truffle, which typically infuses its flavor and smell to everything around it.

So how convenient it was that Chef Robbins also left me with some wonderful homemade pappardelle. This wasn’t any ordinary pasta. Her famed Italian dishes are known to be some of President Obama’s favorites, so when she offered me pappardelle made fresh that morning in the A Voce kitchen, it was something I just couldn’t turn down…I don’t care how many articles I’ve read telling me how bad white carbs were for me. 

I had the perfect recipe to compliment my ingredients - another Bethenny Frankel “healthier” spin on a classic Italian dish. I prepared my version a little different than hers, by melting the small amount of butter she called for in a separate pan, allowing it to brown so I could add the nutty flavor and aroma of browned butter to the sauce. I also let it reduce for about 15 minutes longer than she called for and added some sage to the mix. Overall the recipe was extremely easy to make, and bursted with flavor, tasting ten times more indulgent and decadent than it was. The dish can be made with just truffle oil, which is sold in most supermarkets these days, and I would recommend using whole wheat fettuccine when you make this at home, that is unless you have some of your own homemade pappardelle on hand :) . 

Onto the recipe adapted from Low Fat Creamy Mushroom Pasta: 

¿Te gusta la comida Mexicana? Same here. After recently getting back from a work trip in LA, I find the city’s culinary triumphs usually stick with me upon my return. Yes, NYC is home to some of the best pizza, bagels, and pasta in the country, but I have to say, Los Angeles has got its Mexican food down to la perfección. Even the Manhattan favorite La Esquina pales in comparison to the mom and pop restaurants that line the Hollywood hills.

Still in a full craving mode this week, I wanted to cook a delicious Mexican meal, but still keep it CheeverSauce friendly. Also, Mexican food is great to make for dinner because it still tastes delicious (if not better) the next day for lunch. And we all know how I feel about lunch.  I decided going the salad route was the safest bet, but because I sacrificed tortillas and cheese in this recipe, I had to make sure all the other ingredients popped with flavor. This meant sautéing shredded chicken with chili powder and spices, and adding other hearty yet healthy ingredients, like a black bean and yellow corn salsa. I also swapped sour cream for Fage 0% Greek yogurt and I swear (trust me, my roommate was originally skeptical at first, only to completely take back her original doubts once she ate it) you can hardly taste the difference. While completely eliminating the fat, yet still offering a creamy texture and sweetly sour taste, Greek yogurt is the best healthy replacement to sour cream. 

I know a lot of you die hard Mexican fans may think this salad isn’t true Mexican fair and I can’t agree with you more. Trust me, I wanted to melt cheese all over this. But I can promise you it is an amazing healthy alternative packed with authentic flavors, and it completely satisfied my Mexican food cravings until I get to fly back to LA - or even Mexico - for the real thing. :) 

Onward to the recipe:

Brussel Sprouts have a bad rap in my opinion. They tend to stick out as one of those dreaded vegetables you hid under your napkin or fed to your dog as a kid…right next to the broccoli. I can’t pinpoint when exactly my relationship changed with them, but it’s safe to say that New York City restaurants, with their unwavering ability to offer delicious side dishes played an important role. It feels like one day (or at least as of 4 years ago) this once discarded vegetable came in vogue, and all of the sudden brussel sprouts with lemon and pancetta, brussel sprouts with bacon and shallots, brussel sprouts with garlic and parmesan, were offered on the menus of every restaurant north of China Town. I do love my side dishes so I was on board,  I didn’t even care if they were charging me $10 for fancy miniature cabbages on top of my already $35 meal. I was hooked. 

The best of the best (in my opinion) are served at Tartine, and since the restaurant is conveniently located down the street, I found myself falling into an addictive trap. So I decided to whip up my own batch that was heavily inspired by my West Village favorite, and the results were nothing short of perfection. 

Now brussel spouts are delicious just tossed with olive oil, some salt and pepper, and then roasted in the oven until tender, but a tiny bit more effort and a little more ingredients can give you some amazing results. I made these at our Thanksgiving dinner, and nothing is more satisfying for a food blogger than people “Oooh”ing and “Ahhh”ing what you brought to the table. Did you just make a yummy noise? 

The recipe is super easy and very CheeverSauce friendly since it’s the perfect dish for my no measuring philosophy. The sweetness of the dried cranberries offsets the bitterness from the spouts and the almonds offer a nice texture and crunch to the dish. Cooking them in white wine adds a punch of flavor that pulls together all of the ingredients perfectly.

Onto the recipe!

It was dark by 5:30 last night and according to the new notification screen on my iPhone, (time to upgrade to iOS5 people) it’s going to snow tomorrow. Since it looks like we are getting dangerously close to winter, what better way to hold onto these fleeting fall days than to bake a light, delicious, and a little summery? cake. 

Apparently yogurt cakes are a French thing. And we allllll know the only other acceptable alternative to a girl from Connecticut pretending to be a New Yorker, is a CT girl pretending to be a New Yorker pretending to be a Parisian ;) . Yogurt cakes are my kind of thing because they’re one of those rare baking gems that don’t require complicated measuring. The math is based on the volume of your yogurt cups, to which you add an equal amount of sugar, a double amount of flour, a little less than one of oil, two eggs, and some leavener and flavors like a little vanilla, citrus zest, or rum (Thanks Smitten Kitchen for the fun fact). I decided to go the lemon route and top it off with the blueberries and raspberries I had in the fridge. 

The best thing about this cake is it’s flavorful and fluffy yet not too sweet. I also found that the more days that went by, the better it tasted. However it was gone sooner than I hoped since I gave half a way to a friend and the leftovers regrettably served as my breakfast for the next couple days. 

Onward for the recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Lime Yogurt Cake with Blackberry Sauce

I finally did it. The Union Square Farmer’s Market and I met last Saturday. My sister and parents came in for the day to check out my other sister’s new apartment, grab some dinner, and drop off my winter coats (got to love NYC’s apartment storage situation). And because New Yorkers for some reason have the need to feel guilty if they don’t go outside on a nice day, we found ourselves walking around my sister’s new neighborhood. So my arrival at the market was more of a let’s wander around USFM because we have nothing else to do before our reservation, and less than an I need to visit the market to pick up fresh produce, cheese, and meats for all my dinners this week and support the local community. Not surprisingly, I fell in love with everything fresh and delicious the market had to offer, but I was lucky enough to stumble across Squash Blossoms!

Squash Blossoms are SO SO DELICIOUS and I was shocked to see them available for sale. Apparently squash blossoms are generally unavailable to all but home gardeners and habitués of farmers markets. Because they parish so fast, few supermarkets bother to keep them in stock.

I had my first stuffed squash blossoms at Aurora Cafe in Williamsburg. I went three years ago specifically for the squash blossoms. They were a featured dish on one of those video restaurant reviews they used to play in the back of the cabs. This restaurant was serving an edible flower, stuffed with creamy mozzarella and goat cheese, lightly fried than drizzled with sweet honey sauce? At first I was like Whhaaaat and then I was like…Waiiiit - driver please head to 70 Grand St…Yes. In Brooklyn. Go. 

So when I saw these squash blossoms not only for sale, but accompanied with a convienent recipe - I knew they were begging to be made. The result? They were the perfect fall midday treat. Light yet decadent. Salty yet savory. Earthy yet milky. 

This recipe can easily be adapted with other types of cheese (I recommend any kind of goat, ricotta, or mozzarella. Also try using tempura batter (flour, egg, and water) rather than the cornmeal for a lighter taste.  

Click here for the recipe adapted from Windfall Farms. 

Figuring out what to make for lunch is…the…worst. Lunch to me is that awkward middle child that isn’t getting enough love because its older and younger siblings are getting all my attention. Living in New York doesn’t make this neglected relationship any easier. Whether you’re a slave to the boardroom, working long hours on Wall Street, or salvaging the days of old Madison Ave, “homemade lunch?” doesn’t fall off the tongue in a 9 to 5 as easily as “take-out?” does. 

I know, I know - what do I know? I might not have experience living a life that entails the jobs above, but I certainly have experience living with people who do (and plus, I would still rather eat a yogurt, crackers, eggs, canned soup..basically anything that’s already in my fridge then whip up a meal in the middle of the day). Despite all this, when in the past I have taken the time to cook lunch, all the magic happens the night before. That’s the key people, because no one is going to prepare themselves lunch in the morning before running out the door - see New Yorker Scramble. Cook ahead and you’ll find a little bit of planning and some Tupperware goes a long way for your waistline and your wallet. 

This dish was another gem from Smitten Kitchen. You could easily serve it with dinner, but this batch went straight to the lunch containers. I was dishing it out generously to my roommate and a friend who were instructed to report back. The findings turned out to be fabulous. This is a perfect salad for this time of year because it utilizes one of the many delicious ways to eat squash. Lentils are very cheap, so the big splurge here is the cheese. The goat cheese is the perfect counterbalance to the spiced squash, and brings all the combined flavors of the salad together when you reheat it the next day. (CheeverSauce note: allow the cheese to generously melt around your veggies and lentils.)

Continue for the recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Nothing like a quick lunch post to kickstart the weekend. This recipe came together in the snap of the fingers and is a great vegetable alternative to typical deli meat sandwiches. I also like to classify it in one of those trendy “5 ingredients or less” challenges that seem to cover every cooking magazine these days. 

I love portabella mushrooms. They’re plump, juicy, smooth in texture, and cook up perfectly when roasted with a little bit of olive oil and sea salt in a mere 10-15 minutes.  Add some goat cheese and greens to the mix and you got yourself a class A midday meal. 

Continue for the super easy how to:

Stepping outside the past couple days, I am finally getting those wonderful hints of cool and crisp, yet still wonderfully warm air that NYC fall brings. Everyone around seems to have a little extra pep in their step, because us New Yorkers know that our sweltering concrete heat, and hot, humid subway days are finally behind us. So store away those bathing suits and summer shorts, and bring out your cable knits and cashmere, because I am welcoming fall with wide open arms.

What better way to ring in October then a cozy, hearty, vegetable and bean stew. For those of you who are thinking “gross!” - shame on you - stews are fantastic! And this particular one, topped with a toasted whole grain roll, fresh grated parmesan, and a fried egg, is so delicious you’ll be making a triple recipe and freezing the rest for when gasp!…the snow starts to fall and you’re hibernating in your apartment until late March.

When I first started writing this blog I conducted a bit of research on other popular food blogs. One of my (and more then 10,000 others) favorites is Smitten Kitchen, which is actually run by a fellow New Yorker. So for the next couple posts, get ready for CheeverSauce’s Smitten Kitchen dump - because I cooked up about 3 recipes I bookmarked of hers, and was dying to try this weekend. 

I have to admit I cheated a little on this recipe. I took full advantage of NYC grocery store’s tendencies to have a full display case of pre-chopped vegetables. So this recipe took fraction of the time for me because my carrots, celery, onions, and garlic were all conveniently prepped for me, and all I had to do was throw them into a pot. Hey, when you’re in the center of the produce aisle and on your right side you have perfectly chopped veggies and on your left you have full vegetables that come with a vision of a cutting board, sharp knife, food scraps, extra garbage, too much time, and a future arthritis bill, who could blame me? 

Onward to the recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen’s Chard and White Bean Stew:

WHAT a beauty right? I was casually shopping at this organic grocery store next to my apartment the other day, and when I sauntered over to the produce section to find what local veggies they brought in for the day, to my delight I see….PURPLE VEGETABLES. 

First of all, call me a culinary delinquent but never in my life have I seen purple string beans and purple peppers. And these weren’t produced in some biotech lab in Texas, these were locally farm grown!! I could hardly contain my excitement and knew I immediately had to use these veggies in my next post.

I prepared them in a salad so I could eat them raw and in all their purply glory. The kale looked amazing as well and was eager to make a raw kale salad since I had only been eating the green cooked.  Kale is a “meatier” green when raw, and I love it in salad because I feel it gives it more substance. (P.S. One cup of raw kale offers more than a full day’s recommended value of vitamins A, C and K. It is also a source of calcium, magnesium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, copper and manganese - aka time to get on the kale bandwagon)  I threw in some yellow cherry tomatoes, (for both taste and aesthetic reasons) toasted some sunflower seeds and made my own sunflower lemon dressing in a mason jar, which topped the salad of perfectly. 

How to make…