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Sep 17

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Squid linguine with chili and lemon

Squid_linguine

Hello from the other side! You may have seen on the Bowen Appétit Facebook page that there is in fact a baby here (a pretty cute one, in fact). He made his arrival three weeks ago today, and life has been pretty surreal since then. Let’s be clear that it took four capable adults to put together the dinner in this post – it shouldn’t have, but it did. There’s plenty else to do around here, even if it’s just sit around and watch the baby sleep, wiggle, eat, or anything else he does. (Really that’s about it.)

I’m pretty proud of myself for getting this post together, during what’s been a pretty trying few weeks. A trying few months, really, when you count how difficult the end of my pregnancy was. I generally don’t get too personal in this space, but I’ll just say that we’ve had and are still in the midst of one of the harder periods of our lives, and we’re hoping that soon we’ll be moving beyond what has been an unfortunately somewhat complicated start to our family of three. Keeping a small business going while dealing with a complicated personal life is an insanely difficult thing to balance, but I’m still planning to come back to teaching in early November and hoping to be in this space a bit more as time goes on.

Okay now, that’s been said. Let’s keep going to this dish, a simple but flavorful way to showcase seafood and to get a unique one-dish dinner on the table. I get a lot of questions about how to cook seafood and what to do with it, and this is an easy one to start with. Squid is quickly marinated in lemon, chili flakes, parsley, and garlic, then tossed with white wine and mint to make a beautiful sauce for fresh linguine (dried works perfectly well here too, and of course other pasta shapes would be just fine). Whole shrimp could be substituted easily, just make sure not to overcook it (take it off the heat when it’s just about to turn totally pink and opaque).  Read more

Jan 23

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I’m still here!

Contrary to what this blog might otherwise suggest, I have not disappeared in 2015! I’m still here, prolonging my return to real life after the holidays and re-acclimating to the beast that is a Midwestern winter. I’m even cooking a little, and here’s some proof:

bao

That’s a pan of chicken and shitake-stuffed bao, ready for the steamer – testing the recipe in preparation for Wednesday’s Chinese dumplings class. This was a very successful holiday season for Bowen Appétit, and the private classes we booked along with the normal class schedule have kept us quite busy and the house quite full of activity.

But this also means there will be new recipes here soon! And plenty of helpful cooking advice to go along with it. To be honest, I find the beginning of the year to be the perfect time for simple, intuitive, comforting home cooking – roasted vegetables, simple pastas, big salads – and I love to enjoy that time before getting back into cooking projects and in-depth recipes. (Aside from the testing I do for classes, of course … and no one’s complaining about the bao we’ll be eating tonight!)

Hope you’re all making the best of 2015 thus far – I’ll see you here again soon!

Oct 5

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Creamy parsnip soup with crispy prosciutto

Before I dive into this recipe, let me start you cold-weather climate folks with a counter-productive warning: Think about February.

Think about February, a gray day in February, cocooned in your warmest coat, trudging to the grocery, keeping that hope alive that you might find something green, something crunchy, something fresh that won’t break your budget. You’ll be more than ready to emerge from your steady diet of squashes and root vegetables, eager to peek out from under the soil and up into the light.

This is the image that is keeping me from eating squash, sweet potatoes, and parsnips all day every day, despite my excitement about their arrival. We are locked and loaded for a quick turn of seasons here (36 degrees and the slightest hint of snow yesterday morning – a short cold snap, but still NO JOKE), and while everyone around me seems to be jumping joyfully into a diet of starchy and subterranean vegetables, I’m trying to ease myself in for fear of running out of steam far before that cold, gray grocery store trip in February. Believe me: I’d gladly fill my meals with all matter of squashes and roots and everything else wintery – but I’m trying to remind myself that I have plenty of time. Where asparagus and berries and corn and tomatoes seemed to have come and gone in the blink of an eye, these root vegetables and I have a long, cozy winter to look forward to.

Parsnip_soup

We can get through this, people – we just have to pace ourselves. Read more

May 5

Weekend Links, May 5

Goats

Quick visit with my friends the goats, Madison zoo.

I’m excited to be speaking at the next Ignite Madison event on Wednesday, May 21. Food is the theme of the night, and I’ll be giving a talk about fear and eating joyfully. See more about the event and the rest of the line-up at the event’s Facebook page, and get tickets here!

I hadn’t made our staple granola in months, which is sort of strange, but realized I maybe needed to change things up a bit. Made a big batch of Molly’s lastest granola recipe yesterday, and I’m in love. Well-balanced, flavorful, and satisfyingly crisp. I used pepitas, poppy seeds, and flax seeds instead of nuts for me; almonds, pecans, and hazelnuts for Brett.

Snacks Quarterly – bringing together artists and other creative folk to talk about a favorite pastime. (Snacking, that is.)

How the Obamas are changing the White House’s own culture when it comes to health and nutrition.

“So I declared a spaghettata.” Love this. (If only I was ever up that late.)

Data on what people actually order at Chipotle. (Almost 60% of orders are burrito bowls?!) Fascinating – I would love to see this type of data for all sorts of different restaurants!

Speaking of fast food, new data on which cities partake the most. (First thing learned: Do not move to Florida. Second thing learned: Madison, WHOA.)

Milking moose in Russia.

By day, nurse. By night, an Instagram sensation crafting hip hop references from leftovers. (via First We Feast)

David Tanis, making me miss our time in Vietnam. (I took a class at that same cooking school in Hoi An and made rice paper that same way, which reminds me I really need to do that again soon. In case you’re also longing for Vietnamese food, you can see my recap from last year here.)

And if you want something completely unrelated to food, Gabourey Sidibe’s speech from the Ms. Foundation Gala is absolutely fantastic. Go read it.

This week’s meal plan:

  • Grilled mozzarella, prosciutto, ramp pesto sandwiches on sourdough
  • Massaman curry with carrots, potatoes, and mushrooms, jasmine rice
  • Thawed venison stew (need to clean out our freezer!)
  • Braised chicken legs with tarragon, grapes, and bok choy (one of my favorite recipes from my time at Hipcooks)
  • Breakfasts: granola (see link above!)

Feb 21

Weekend Links, Feb. 21

I’m on a quest for the perfect molasses ginger cookie recipe, which means I’ve made twelve slightly different mini-batches of four different recipes over the last week. Things are getting a little intense. For instance, my workspace this evening looks like this:

WL_221

Just a short list of links after this long weekend. Lots of great stuff out there, just haven’t had the time to sift through it all quite yet.

A brilliantly designed guide to cooking oils of all types, including when to use them and their relative health impacts.

I can’t say anything of this recipe, but Joy’s description of Sundays is pretty on-par. (Also that cake does look delicious and should be made post-haste …)

I’ve never been a big follower of Ruth Reichl – nothing against her at all, just haven’t had much contact with her work – but the guides she’s been putting on Gilt Taste lately have been absolutely fantastic. Completely in line with the way I like to cook – look at recipes like a template, then play with flavors and quantities and get creative. Here’s a great template for a good winter stew.

Happy short week!