Spaghetti and Meatballs

Last night, I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Since I'm out of work at around 6, and Wright doesn't get out until 8 or 9 if he's lucky, it's been a lot of fun to take the time to make quality homemade meals for dinner recently (especially now that its warm enough to walk down to Whole Foods). Plus, Wright and his roommate Mike generally think anything I make them is great, so it's nice to know I'll be getting complimented no matter what disasters occur!

After I shot down Wright's meatloaf idea (I'm 23, I'm not making meatloaf) for our meal, I decided to compromise by making spaghetti with meatballs. Boring, perhaps, if I didn't have three hours to kill/cook. But with the time on my hands, I decided I'd make everything (minus the pasta - not enough counter space) from scratch. I also put a salad on the menu, being the typical girl I am. I went to Whole foods straight from work, spent under $15 for a meal for three (with leftovers!), and the food was delicious. Timely, yes, but very, very simple. Below, the haphazard recipes, written by moi and therefore probably confusing. Just ask if you have any questions.

Shopping List:
- 1 28 oz. can whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes
- 2 carrots (at WF they have a "loose carrots" bin - clutch)
- 3 onions (I like Vidalia - they are sweet)
- 1 lb. fettuccine (one box)
- 3/4 lb. ground beef
- arugula (enough for side salads for everyone)
- parmesan

Other ingredients I had on hand (but you may not):
- garlic (need about 3 big cloves)
- bread crumbs (need about two cups)
- one egg
- olive oil
- balsamic
- salt, pepper
- mustard
- chicken stock (about 1 cup)

Get going on the sauce right away, because you want it to cook down as long as possible (it was about 2 hours in my case). Dice two of the onions. Heat a large pot on the stove at about medium, add about a tablespoon of olive oil, and once it gets hot, add the onions. Add a handful of salt and let them sweat, oh I'd say about 5-10 minutes, until they are translucent and soft and juicy. While they are sauteing (and you are occasionally stirring) peel and dice the two carrots and two garlic cloves, then add them to the pot. Stir around and let cook until the veggies are soft. Add some pepper. Then, open up the can of tomatoes and put them in the pot. Add the chicken stock to make it more liquid-y, then bring to a boil. Then, bring the heat down to low and let the sauce simmer and cook down, it will start to thicken up eventually. Keep taste-testing and add any spices you wish - I threw some paprika in there, and more pepper. You'll probably want to heave in salt and pepper at the end to really fill it out. Also, I like a sweet tomato sauce, so if you want it more rustic, head towards spices like oregano.

Make your meatballs about 45 minutes before eating. Preheat oven to 350. Dice your third onion (smaller dices this time) and your garlic and put them in a mixing bowl. Add to the bowl the ground meat, about 1/2 cup breadcrumbs, the egg, and some freshly grated Parmesan. Mix with your hands to incorporate everything together. Add more breadcrumbs if they feel too goopy. Pour the rest of the breadcrumbs in a separate bowl. Make even sized meatballs out of the meat, roll them in the breadcrumbs, and place them on a baking dish. I think we had almost 20 meatballs total. Whenever you are 20 minutes away from eating, put the meatballs in the oven and cook for 20 minutes, or until cooked through, might be more like 25 depending on your oven and the size of the meatballs.

Ten or fifteen minutes before eating, get the pasta going (the usual boiling water routine). Cook the whole box. To make a simple vinaigrette for the salad, put 1 tablespoon of balsamic in the salad bowl. Add salt and pepper, as well as 1/2 tablespoon of mustard. Usually I use Dijon, but last night I used a whole grain for fun. Whisk together, then slowly pour in about 2 tablespoons of olive oil, as you are whisking, so that everything incorporates. Taste, and add more of anything necessary. Then throw the arugula in the bowl and toss. I'm a big fan of really simple salads.

When you're finally ready (well, when the pasta is about ready), go ahead and hit the sauce with a little immersion blending. Unnecessary step if you don't mind a chunkier sauce, but I did like a half-blend, so that it was smoother, but still fairly rustic. Drain the pasta and put it back in the bowl. Add the sauce (we added all of it, maybe this is too much sauce for you though). Remove meatballs from oven. Serve pasta with meatballs on top, salad on side, while watching Gossip Girl. Monday night perfection!

May Flowers

Despite the exact date, we've certainly gotten our fair share of "April Showers" in New York the past week and a half - the rain just won't stop! Outside of my office window, however, the May flowers have finally arrived. When I started working here in January, my window view consisted of what I thought was a dead tree. But this week, it has suddenly bloomed, and not even with leaves, but with bright, beautiful, purple flowers!


I realize this isn't the most beautiful of images, especially with the screen in the bottom part, but I hope you can at least see the lovely purple color of the flowers! It looks much brighter in real life, I promise. Oh, and my office is on the 5th floor, thats why it is just the top of the trees (well, maybe it just looks like floating purple things...click on the image to get a little bit of a better view)

The image above is the view out of my window to the right. Just for fun, I thought I'd share my view straight ahead:


A rainbow of catalogues! Quite picturesque, if I do say so myself. And believe it or not, I do have to sort through these and find certain ones fairly often.


And this is what my desk looks like. I try not to be messy, but I'll be honest, it usually does consist of "organized" piles like this. Anyone who knows me well knows that although I put off an air of organization and cleanliness, I am really not very neat at all. Anyway, now you can picture me at the gallery everyday! I know you are so thrilled. Hope you enjoyed this lame post. I'm going to see Model as Muse at the Met tomorrow, so I'll try to post a review shortly thereafter! Have a great weekend.

A Rampalicious Vegetarian Dinner

On Saturday night, Wright and I hosted friends for dinner.  We played the usual "anything you don't eat?" game, and one friend was a vegetarian, which we aren't.  Here, a tale of the meal. 

Colleen and Phil were bringing wine and cheese, leaving Wright and I on our own for the main meal (which I think tends to be preferable when you're hosting, rather than trying to combine aspects or make them cook in your kitchen or deal with tupperware, etc.). Since the signs of Spring have been coming to New York in full swing the past few weeks, we spent the morning at the Farmer's market to prepare supplies.  Wright was really disappointed when I told him that no, we could not get a leg of lamb and make Phil starve. We'd do vegetarian, and I reminded him that even we have vegetarian meals sometimes without doing so on purpose.  It would be a healthy, fresh dinner. 

Since I've become creepily obsessed with Wright's immersion blender, I immediately thought to make soup.  Pasta would be an easy go-to, but I thought soup would be more creative.  Plus, it can be made in advance, so we could enjoy the wine and cheese without spending time in the kitchen (I say this as if the kitchen is separate from the living room, but of course it's not.  We ended up having cocktails on Wright's roof, which was perfect).  Anyway, we settled on a simple potato leek soup, and to promote eating [non-greenhouse] local foods, we grabbed some garlic chives to put on top.  I threw together a simple arugula salad, and Wright picked out a fresh baguette to do a roasted garlic bread.  

As I said, it was difficult to find anything actually grown locally and outdoors this time of year (not that I'm particularly picky about this, but when you go to the Farmer's Market, you might as well attempt to ride the wave of locavorism).  It being May 2, the only thing we could find (other than the garlic chives) that was in season for the area were ramps.  Now I've been perusing a few articles about ramps on various local-eating blogs (see post below), and they didn't sound all that exciting for the hype, but since they were the first crop of the season, we figured why not, and grabbed a bunch. 

Everything went swimmingly, and Phil and Colleen were excited to try cooking ramps.  [By the way, ramps are wild baby leeks, and they look kind of like scallions but leafier and with more of a bulb]. Since we were already being so brave with our decision to throw the ramps into the mix, we decided to hold back on the fancy preparation, so we (Phil) just sauteed them in butter and oil, holding the pan at an angle (like a Ramp!) so that the leaves didn't overcook while we waited for the bulbs to get tender.  

The verdict?  They were sweet, soft, and delicious.  The stems were a little chewy, but the flavor overall was great, and they were a lovely side dish for our soup and salad meal.  The crusty bread, fresh and simple salad, and creamy soup all made for a wonderful and surprisingly filling meal.  I'm sure Wright is grilling a steak for dinner tonight to offset the vegetable overload, but I for one felt great eating vegetarian - a light dinner was the perfect way to usher in Spring.  Almost as perfect as the buckets of rain we'll be getting all week, but that's a whole different story.  

Let me know if you want more info on what we made and how.  I'm sure I'll do a full post on the immersion blender soon, as it's my favorite toy. 

Blogs

So, during these four months without writing my blog, I began to read some more blogs. I've gone through a few phases where I stick to certain kinds of blogs, or have become overwhelmed with too many blogs, but at this point I've tried to hone down my reading to a few highlights, and occasionally doing a big re-vamp/exploration where I go through blog lists and hunt for new ones. It's kind of fun. It's 2009.

So, for your perusing pleasure during your last few hours of the work week, here are some blogs that I've gotten into. Not a particularly secretive list or anything, but I hope there are at least one or two that you've yet to discover.

Food blogs: This is where I began my blog-reading habits a few years ago, and still my favorite kind of blog.
Smitten Kitchen
I recently discovered this blog and couldn't believe that I hadn't found it before. I love it.
Bitten
Really great, simple recipes.
Foodstuff
My cousin is a wonderful cook and currently in culinary school. She writes a wonderful blog about all of her adventures with food.
Big Girls, Small Kitchen
This blog is a great break from the prettypicturesandrecipes hole that many food blogs fall into. The "quarter-life-cooks," who are friends of a friend of mine, share their recipes and experiences with entertaining in New York.
Grub Street
I love New York Magazine.
Orangette
I recently read Molly Wizenberg's book and couldn't put it down. Thus, I realized I needed to catch up on her blog, which launched the book. Backwards, I know, but the blog is great.
United Taste With Richard Reuben
Richard Reuben was a cooking instructor I had at ICE last summer. His blog focuses on fresh, local ingredients, providing recipes and whimsical writing. Great for keeping up with what is growing locally.

Art/Fashion/Culture blogs: I used to read these a lot more, but have recently trimmed my selection down to a few necessary highlights.
Style File
The best.
The Cut
The funniest.
Vulture
I read it for the Lost episode recaps every Thursday morning. Hilarious.
Artlog
A friend of Wright's started this website, which is somewhat New York focused, but provides great info on exhibitions, shows, and parties.
The Sartorialist
As I said, I used to read a lot of these types of blogs, but really have cut down to only Scott's. I find him to be the most timeless, since a lot of these are too trend-driven for me.
The Moment
A great combination of things, this is the blog for the Times' "T" magazine. They could work on the formatting, as its not my favorite, but still interesting.

Home/Lifestyle blogs: Is it dorky that I love these? Well, I do.
Design*Sponge
I love the sneak peeks into various homes and apartments. Some people are so creative! This blog makes me really excited to move.
The Pioneer Woman
This blog has won countless awards. At first I didn't really understand why anyone would want to read the random musings of a woman who lives on a ranch in the middle of nowhere, but I've grown to absolutely love it. Ree is a transplanted city girl, now raising four kids and running a cattle ranch with her "Marlboro Man" cowboy husband. Its quite funny, and she takes beautiful pictures.

OK that's all for now. have a great weekend!

PS. How many times do you think I used the word "blog" in this post? It's really difficult because there are no other words for it. It sounds so funny when read aloud.

Rayuela

Last night I met friends for dinner at Rayuela, down on Allen St., and had such a great experience I have to share it with you. I'd never been before, but looking at the menu, reviews, website, etc., beforehand, I expected a crowded, hectic LES restaurant with an intimidating and overwhelming menu. Not so. The restaurant was beautiful, service outstanding, and food melt-in-your-mouth.

I think my friend Charlie summed it up when he described our waitress as the greatest waitress he's ever met in his entire life. It was true. She was bizarrely perfect in her friendly but not too friendly demeanor, back-of-her-own-hand knowledge of the menu, and instinct on what we should order. It was really quite odd how perfect she was. She ordered everything for us and it couldn't have been better. We were literally stunned! If you are an aspiring waitress, definitely seek her out for training. I don't even know how to describe it - we could not stop talking about her unparalleled skill.

Anyway, beyond that, the restaurant was perfect for what we needed. As a group of 7, we were whisked upstairs to a central table that was still quiet enough for us to hear each other (very important when half the group doesn't speak English as their first language). The restaurant was described by our waitress as a fusion of flavors from all spanish-speaking countries, thus blending fruits from the Carribbean with spices from Mexico with heartier meat dishes from Spain and so on. We went with it.

We started off with the appetizer special (upon waitress-of-the-year's recommendation), fresh guacamole with jumbo shrimp and lump crab. It was so good I considered ordering a solo portion for my main. The seafood was scrumptious and subtle - a perfect ratio of meat to avocado - and guac a perfect mix of everything that makes guac my favorite food in the world. I'll let you all know what happens when I attempt to put shrimp into my next guac. (Ahoy, disaster!)

Next we had three of their ceviches. Being solely a shellfish eater, I can only speak to the Langostina ceviche, which was lobster done in a spicy pineapple ceviche. Again, out of this world. The other two - a tuna/watermelon and "seven powers of the sea" were spoken of highly by my tablemates. After that, all seven of us licked our plates for the main course; choices ranged from beef to duck to paella. I had the duck breast marinated in a sugarcane sauce atop a corn bread. I am still dreaming about it.

After three courses and three bottles of wine, we knew better than to let our waitress even start talking about dessert. Of course, it was wonderful company - a reunion of friends from the art fair in Holland that we all worked at - which will always make a good meal better, but in this case, it made an already excellent meal just plain outstanding.

For menu, info, etc. www.rayuelanyc.com