zucchini “pasta” with chicken, white wine, & tomatoes

You probably haven’t noticed this yet, but I’m not super big on “health food”.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I actually do try to eat healthy. In fact, when you bake as many treats as I do, you don’t really have a choice. You definitely need to balance the (delicious) unhealthy stuff with something light and green every once in a while. We try to make a green juice every morning before work, we (almost) never eat fast food, very rarely eat junk food (unless we’ve made it ourselves), and try to eat only whole foods (rather than heavily processed prepared ones). That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re in great shape or anything because, again, we also eat lots of sweets and homemade treats. It also doesn’t mean that we would ever consider ourselves “health nuts” or ever say we prescribe to any fad diets or trends in nutrition.
And then this weird thing happened.

At work we started getting all of these requests for a hand-held spiral slicer, and everyone asking for it said they wanted to make “noodles” out of zucchini. We had two options for spiral slicers at the time, but both of them are a significant investment, and neither of them are even close to being hand-held. Some people would go with those options, others would choose something else we’d recommend, but most would sullenly walk out empty-handed, after begging that we bring in their requested item. I always assumed these poor souls were on some annoying fad diet that forced them to eat soggy squash “noodles” when they’d rather be eating pasta, but the number of requests we were getting in such a short period made us take notice. After a long search, we finally found one we liked and a few weeks ago we started carrying it. The one we have now is called the “Spirelli” by Gefu, and can it be found here.

Even after we brought it in, and it started selling really well, I was still a total skeptic. Then one of my co-workers bought one and started raving about it. So, I decided I should probably give it a shot.

The other night I tried it out for the first time and was shocked at how easy (and kind of fun) it was, and Russell actually requested I make zucchini “pasta” again the next night. I honestly can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s pretty great. The texture of the “noodles” is way better than I expected, not soggy at all, a bit like an al dente pasta. Since zucchini has such a neutral flavor, it absorbs the flavor of whatever else you’re cooking, and doesn’t end up tasting at all “health-food-y”.

The one problem I had the first night was that when cooked, the zucchini gave off a ton of liquid and made the sauce really runny. I had to take the “noodles” out to reduce the sauce and then add them back in at the end. The next night I decided to try salting the “noodles” beforehand to get them to give off their liquid before cooking. Worked like a charm!
Some recipes I found recommend that you peel the zucchini for a more “noodle-y” appearance, but I don’t think the skins do anything negative to the texture, and the dark green skins have a lot of nutrients that you’d lose if you peeled them. I say leave ’em!

This method is actually super quick and easy too! You just cut the end off the zucchini and push and twist it through the slicer like a giant pencil sharpener. If you don’t have this tool you could also use a mandoline slicer or another spiral slicer, or even a julienne peeler, to make zucchini “noodles”. The only time consuming step is letting the zucchini absorb the salt and release its moisture, which takes about 30 minutes, but that can be done while you prepare the rest of the dish. If you time it right and work efficiently, the whole meal including prep time can be on your plate and in your belly in well under an hour. Even with frequent pauses to photograph the whole process, it only took me about an hour.

For this dish I paired the “noodles” with seared chicken and a white wine and blistered tomato sauce. Obviously this recipe could be adapted to be as healthy, or as rich, as you like. As is, it has little more than protein, vegetables, and a little seasoning and olive oil. I can’t believe I’m pushing zucchini noodles on my blog. I never thought this day would come. But they’re so GOOD!!!

Tender “al dente” noodles, sweet blistered tomatoes, tender perfectly browned chicken, sweet garlicy wine sauce, bright fresh basil… It doesn’t get any better than that!

Zucchini 'Pasta' with Chicken, Tomatoes, & White Wine

Servings: 4-ish
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4 medium zucchini
3 Tablespoons good olive oil, divided
2 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
salt and pepper to taste
1 pint ripe grape tomatoes
3 large cloves garlic, crushed or finely minced
1/2 cup white wine
handful fresh basil leaves

Wash zucchini and use a spiral slicer (like this one), julienne slicer, or mandolin to create spaghetti style “noodles”. Place “pasta” in a mesh strainer and sprinkle with about 2 teaspoons salt. Toss well and allow to sit for at least 30 minutes. Gently squeeze out any remaining liquid and discard.
Meanwhile, heat large cast iron or stainless steel skillet over high heat. Season your chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil to pan and sear chicken for 5-7 minutes on either side, or until nicely browned and cooked through. Set aside to rest.

Wash tomatoes and slice each in half, lengthwise. Add remaining olive oil to pan, add tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper. Cook tomatoes, stirring occasionally for 7 to 10 minutes until they are browning and starting to fall apart. Add garlic and wine, stir well, and cook down until wine is reduced by at least half, about 5 minutes.
Slice your chicken up into bite sized pieces. Arrange basil leaves in a flat pile, roll up into a “cigar” and slice into very thin strips. (this is called a chiffonade)
Add chicken and basil to pan with sauce. Add zucchini and toss to combine. I find this works best with long silicone tipped tongs. Cook until noodles are heated through, about 5 minutes.
Adjust seasoning if necessary, and top with a little fresh basil.

favorite roasted broccoli

So, when it comes to meal planning, I’m kind of old fashioned.

I’m not quite sure why, but I often feel like a balanced meal should have three components. You gotta have your protein, your starch, and your veg. I don’t know exactly when or where I picked up this way of thinking about my dinner plate, but it’s deeply ingrained. Maybe it was from my mother, or maybe my grandmother. When I was studying abroad in France, a chef once told me that plates should always feature odd numbers because odd numbers are more “beautiful” than even ones. Maybe that’s why I’m partial to having three different things on my plate.

I really like to experiment with new recipes, but when it comes to filling those three little voids I keep an arsenal of quick and easy go-to recipes for when I’m feeling uninspired or in a rush. One of my favorite vegetable preparations is oven-roasted broccoli. It’s super simple, super healthy, and super delicious!

I’m sorry that I waited this long to share this recipe with you, but for a long time I actually thought it was too simple to necessitate a full post of it’s own. It’s not really very original or innovative, and it requires so little work or thought that I assumed it wasn’t worth writing about. A few weeks ago I made this for my mother and she mentioned that she’d never thought to make broccoli this way, and I realized that some of you might enjoy trying a new technique too!

I know a lot of people like to steam or boil their broccoli, so I thought it’d be nice to share another idea that’s just as easy and happens to be (in my opinion) more flavorful. Cooking broccoli with water can make it taste, well, watery. Rather than losing any flavor, roasting your broccoli concentrates and intensifies it. It requires little more work than chopping fresh broccoli into large bite-sized florets, tossing with some olive oil and salt & pepper, and sliding into the oven just long enough to give it a bit of color.

This preparation pairs really well with any number of meals. I’ve even used this method to pre-cook broccoli for pasta dishes or salads. It can also easily be tweaked or gussied up to fit the flavors of whatever you’ll be serving it with. If you wanted to add a little extra flavor before roasting, you could toss the broccoli in a little soy sauce, balsamic vinegar, or hot sauce along with the olive oil. My favorite way to prepare it though is to roast it first and then squeeze a little fresh lemon juice over the top to bring out the fresh bright green flavor without overpowering or covering it up.

This will work with other vegetables too, but cooking time may need to be adjusted. I just made some fresh local asparagus (Yay!! Asparagus season!!), roasted it for a few minutes less, and boy was it wonderful! I don’t think this would work very well with frozen vegetables though, because they’d likely end up mushy and overcooked. Part of the appeal of this technique is that vegetables maintain a little bit of their crisp texture and bite, which frozen vegetables have already lost.

Cutting up your own head of fresh broccoli is super easy and worth the little (tiny) bit of effort. I usually turn the head over stem-side-up (or on it’s side) and work around the head with a sharp knife cutting the florets off where they branch out naturally, rotating the head as I work my way in. If some of the florets are especially large you can cut them in half or in quarters, from top to bottom. Simple. Easy. Healthy. Delicious.

roasted broccoli

Servings: 2-4ish
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1 large head broccoli

1/4-1/2 tsp coarse kosher salt (to taste)
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 lemon, cut into wedges (optional)

Preheat oven to 425. Cut broccoli into large bite sized florets and place in a large bowl. Add salt, pepper, & olive oil and toss toss toss until well coated. Spread evenly over a parchment lined baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes or until just starting to brown. Serve with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice if desired.

blueberry buttermilk bundt cake

Okay. I think it’s officially safe to call it spring without fearing that it’ll snow tomorrow.

Russell and I, along with our pups, have been spending a TON of time out in our little yarden lately. We plan to do a lot of entertaining back there this summer, so we’ve been trying to get the space lookin’ purdy and comfortable. As I said in my last post, we didn’t have stairs to get out there until the end of last summer, so now that we do, we really want to make the most of the space. I also mentioned in my last post that there used to be a big picnic table back there when we moved in, but it was really poorly built and rickety, and the heavy snowfalls this past winter finally caused its demise.

For a while now we’ve been looking into getting a new table to replace it, and over the weekend we actually went and got one! A while ago we found a nice large (and relatively affordable) outdoor table at Ikea but we didn’t end up buying it because it was too big for us to get home. We don’t have a vehicle so trying to transport a big ol’ table takes some serious planning. Shipping would essentially double the price, renting a car in the city is outrageously expensive, and as soon as you utter the word, “IKEA”, car services and taxis see $$$ signs and find fun new ways to charge extra.

We have some friends who have a truck, but at first we thought it was too big a favor to ask of them. If you’ve never been to the Ikea in Brooklyn, or driven home from it, let me tell you, it’s a serious ordeal. Basically it’s like asking someone to drive you into the center of hell and back. As much as I love Ikea, the Ikea in Brooklyn (especially on a weekend) is a total madhouse filled with pushy grumpy humans who would happily gouge your eyes out if it meant they got their swedish meatballs before you did. After much hemming and hawing, we finally we decided to swallow our pride, cross our fingers, and just ask them. Miraculously, they actually said YES!

We knew that this big favor deserved a BIG thank you, so we decided that the best thing to do was to fill their bellies with something wonderful. Since the weather somehow seems to be getting warmer and warmer, I thought a nice summery blueberry bundt cake would be just the thing.

I know I’ve said this before, but I really do LOVE bundt cakes. Perfectly impressive and elegant without being too much hassle or fuss. I think it might be their retro 1950s ladies-society-club kind of feeling that I find so charming about them. Or maybe it’s because they remind me of my grandmother. Do I really need a reason?

I know it’s technically still Spring, but I just decided to dive straight into Summer with this cake. Unfortunately the markets aren’t as ahead of schedule as my appetite so I had a hard time finding fresh blueberries that weren’t a gazillion dollars. I suppose I could have tweaked my recipe a bit and used another berry, but I’m a taurus and my mind was set on blueberries. I ended up using frozen ones and was a little worried about how it’d come out, but they actually worked really well. I mixed them into the batter while they were still frozen so they wouldn’t be get mushy, and tossed them in a little flour first to make sure they were evenly distributed throughout the cake. You’ll want to do this step even with fresh berries, btw.

Not to toot my own horn, but this cake is freakin’ incredible. It’s crazy moist, super delicious, and wonderfully tender. It’s a bit like a pound cake, but not quite as dense, and is full of ripe berry sweetness without being cloyingly sugary. The berries are juicy little flavor bombs that practically burst when punctured with your fork. The tang from the buttermilk pairs perfectly with the lemon, which is the ideal complement to the flavor of the blueberries, and the blueberry lemon glaze is the cherry on the sundae. Can you believe the color of that glaze by the way? I knew the blueberries would give the glaze some color, but I wasn’t expecting it to be such a bright vibrant pink!
Pretty and tasty! The total package!

This cake is sure to be a hit at your next picnic or barbecue. If you’re like me, I’m sure you’re going to want to invent some occasion to have people over, just to have a reason to make this cake. I promise your friends won’t mind.

blueberry buttermilk bundt cake

Servings: 12-16
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adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Cake:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting pan and berries
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
Zest of 2 lemons
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Glaze:
2 1/2 cups confections’ sugar (or more, if desired)
Juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
1/2 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan.*see note.
In a medium bowl, whisk or sift flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
Add lemon juice and vanilla to buttermilk and set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix sugar and lemon zest until well combined to scent the sugar. Add the softened butter and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. With the mixer on a low speed, add your eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition. Alternate three additions of flour and two additions buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, scraping the bowl between additions. Do not over-mix. Toss the blueberries with about 2 tablespoons of flour to coat, and gently fold them into the cake batter. The batter will be very thick so don’t worry if the berries squish a little.
Spread batter in the pan and smooth the top. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, rotating the cake 180 degrees after 30 (to make sure it browns evenly). If using frozen berries, you may need to add 5 to 10 minutes more. The cake is done as soon as a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean. Set cake pan on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes, and invert cake onto rack to cool the rest of the way.
When the cake is completely cool, prepare the glaze. Mash the blueberries in the lemon juice with a fork or potato masher. Press through a sieve or fine mesh strainer to remove the skins and get out the maximum amount of juice. Add the powdered sugar to the juice and whisk until smooth. Add more sugar if you like a thicker glaze.
Place cooling rack and cake into a clean jelly roll pan or baking sheet to catch any glaze that drips off the sides. Pour glaze over cake, letting it trickle and drip down the sides. If desired, you can collect any excess glaze in the baking sheet and pour another coat. Let the glaze set for at least 15 minutes before serving. Cake can be stored, covered, at room temperature for 3 to 4 days.

*To prevent sticking, I coat every inch of the pan with softened butter using a pastry brush, and then dust the inside with flour and tap out the excess. Refrigerating your pan while you prepare the cake will help firm the butter for extra insurance.

a little yardening

I’m aware that yardening isn’t actually a word (yet), but I don’t actually care. Our outdoor space doesn’t have a solid identity or clearly defined purpose, so rather than fight it, I just let it be what it wants to be, a yarden.

Easter Sunday was warm and sunny here in Brooklyn so we spent the bulk of our day in the yarden and I thought I’d tell you a little bit about the space. I plan to do some work back there this year so I thought it would be nice to give you some back story and show you what it looks like now (and what it used to look like). About half of the outdoor space is made up of a cement patio, which is pretty great for entertaining, and a mix of exposed dirt and a few plants that I’m trying desperately to keep alive. There isn’t enough sun to sustain grass, so it’s not quite a “yard”, and there aren’t enough thriving plants or well-defined beds to call it a “garden” so I just combine the two terms and there you have it: Yarden.

When we chose our apartment, one of the biggest selling points was that we would have access to some outdoor space. The house was a mess, as we discussed here, but the garden space was even worse. We knew it was going to be a lot of work, but the (relative) affordability, the prospect of outdoor entertaining, the size of the outdoor space, and the possibility of getting a dog, made us move quickly to sign the lease.

The first time we came to check out our apartment it was late in the spring, but the weeds had already grown high enough to disguise the heaps of nasty lurking back there. We arranged our lease agreement to give us access to our new place 15 days before we needed to leave our old digs. We used the bulk of that time to deep clean and paint the interior, but on a few occasions we ventured into the back yard to investigate. We immediately realized we hadn’t been paying very close attention on our first visit. We knew there was a lot of crud back there, some of it was in plain sight from our bedroom, but as we went further out into the garden area we realized it was much worse than we thought. I don’t know if the previous tenants were criminally insane, or just slobs or what; but there were literal bags of garbage, like big black contractor bags full of yuck, hiding between the weeds. Once we started clearing the tangle of weeds all sorts of disgustingness started turning up. Beyond bagged garbage, there were also rotting stuffed animals, rotting outdoor furniture cushions, rotting articles of clothing, rotting pieces of wood, rusting sheets of metal, various plastic bags and toys, and lots and lots of broken glass. LOTS of broken glass.

When it came to the plant life back there, there was (and still is) a huge old mulberry tree that basically shades the entire yard and drops big juicy disgusting mulberries all over for about a month out of our short summer, along with a small dying fur tree that I ended up deciding to cut down, a sickly plum tree that always tries to produce fruit that never quite gets ripe before they rot and fall off the branches, a gigantic climbing rose vine that was plagued with some kind of mildew which caused the flowers to shrivel and die before blooming, a large patch of old day lilies that refused to flower, and a 3 foot high jungle of assorted weeds. My first order of business was to cut down the dying fur tree and cut back and dig out the rose vine, which was so large and old that it had started to grow into the plum tree and choke it out. Once I got the vine out of the way, I also had to do some major trimming to the plum tree in the hopes of nursing it back to health.

I’m no gardening expert, so the past few years have been a bit of trial and error. Even cleaned up and tidy, our outdoor space is a challenge. The two horrible words that have turned my green(ish) thumb into a brown(ish) one are… DRY SHADE. We have no connection for a hose, and the soil refuses to hold onto moisture. It’s full of sand and weird construction materials (I’m still digging up bricks and chunks of cement), and tends to go bone-dry very quickly in the summer. The mulberry tree shades about 95% of the yard so anything that needs good sun refuses to thrive. In the beginning I was simply focusing on the shade aspect and planting things like ferns and other lush leafy shade plants, but the dry soil has caused the untimely deaths of MANY innocent plants. A few things have done alright, but one of the only things that seems happy back there are hostas. This year I’ve decided to focus my attention on planting a jungle of big leafy hostas in many sizes and colors, so the yard at least appears to be lush and healthy. I’ve also been researching drought tolerant shade plants a lot recently, so hopefully I’ll have some better luck this summer than I have previously.

To get the year started right, Russell and I recently took a trip to the farmers market hoping to find some new plants, a flat of annuals, and maybe some herbs to plant in containers. Unfortunately it was a bit too early for plants at the market so we went to Home Depot to see what we could find there instead. Even there it was too early for most things, but we were able to find some pretty purple pansies and a few herbs.

When we were married last summer we used some big galvanized aluminum pails at the bar as ice buckets, and after the wedding we hung onto them. We also bought some nice rich garden soil to fill them with and have been hoarding it under our stairs and waiting for spring. So, when we came back from our plant hunt we busted out the drill and made some drain holes in the bottoms of three of the pails to turn them into planters. I decided to use one of them to re-pot a lemon tree I planted from seed several years ago. It’s never given me any fruit, and since it needs to live in a pot and come indoors for the winters, I don’t know if it ever will. Regardless, I really like my little tree and decided it was time to give her a bigger home this year.

Now that things are warming up, the few plants that have survived the arid conditions are starting to poke their heads up to say hi. We have a few daffodils in bloom and the spiky points of the hostas are starting to push their way up through the soil. We’ve also done our best to improve the soil with composting, and the day lilies are doing better now too. For now they’re short and grassy looking, but a few of them flowered last year so I’m hoping this summer they’ll be even more productive.

It’s a bit too early to do much of anything else, but I hope to set to work beautifying the yard in the coming weeks. For now we’re doing our best to clean up anything the wind may have blown into the yard over the winter, make sure anything that is coming up is happy and healthy, and tidy up the patio space as much as possible.

As for the furniture and entertaining aspect of our outdoor space, we have a few chairs and benches and a swinging love seat that was back there when we took the apartment. There used to be a big table back there too, but it was really poorly built and basically fell apart over the winter, so we’re hoping to replace that very soon. When we first moved in the only way to access the yarden from our apartment was by hopping down onto a chair from our bedroom window, which is about 4 feet from the cement below. For the first few years we and all of our guests would climb out the window and hop down onto that chair. We used to have to lean way out the window to set the dogs on the chair so they could go out and do the things they needed to do back there. Much alcohol has been consumed out there since we’ve moved in so, as you can imagine, there have been a few spills and tumbles. Thankfully none of our friends were ever seriously injured! My amazing mom came to visit last summer and helped me build a set of stairs, and we could not be more happy or grateful to have them. It’s hard to imagine a time without them now, but they have improved the function of the space more than you’ll ever know!

So there you have it, our humble little yarden.

Have any of you been working on any yard work our outdoor projects lately? Do you have any horror stories about disgusting yards, challenging soil conditions, or drunken tumbles out apartment windows?