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Honey-Lemon Roasted Chicken Thighs & Radishes

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Roasted Chicken Thighs & RadishesIn a continued effort to simplify my life, spend less money, and wash fewer dishes, I came up with this recipe for roasted chicken thighs and radishes.  And, of course, I’m always on a mission to eat well.  I’m happy to say, this chicken covers all of my needs.

This dinner is a 1-skillet situation.  Honey-lacquered chicken thighs are roasted over a bunch of halved radishes.  Once roasted, the radishes are tossed with the green radish tops and finished it with a squirt of lemon.  Eaten on a damp, chilly night, this had a lightened up comfort food quality that was just right for a rainy spring dinner.

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Pea & Scallion Pancakes

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Pea and Scallion PancakesTwice last week I had the good fortune of running across a recipe that I couldn’t wait to try and, more remarkably, I actually had all of the necessary ingredients for each recipe on hand and ready to roll.  My luck continued from there, as both recipes turned out every bit as good as I had hoped and will undoubtedly work their way into my repertoire.

The first was a recipe for gigante beans with lemon and fennel from the site, 101 cookbooks.  If you read my blog regularly, it’s probably no surprise that a recipe involving fennel and lemon caught my eye–they’re a couple of my favorite ingredients.  So that, plus the fact that I had just gotten a bug up my butt to clean the cupboard and wound up cooking off nearly every dried legume in the house and needed to find something to do with the enormous pot of gigante beans, propelled me to make the dish immediately.  It was every bit as good as the beautiful photos suggest.  You should definitely try them.  

The second recipe, and the one we’re actually going to talk about today, was for savory pea and scallion pancakes.  After cleaning out the cupboard, I was still on a bit of a cleaning binge and started weeding through old magazines which.  Needless to say, I spent the next hour sprawled out on the living room floor leafing through back issues of Bon Appétit.  I came across a spring pea feature and immediately zeroed in on these pancakes.  They were light golden with bright green pea polka dots and a smattering of green onions scattered over the top.  They looked tender, delicious, and exactly like what I wanted to eat at that precise moment.  I scanned the recipe, raided the fridge, and, within 10 minutes, was having a lovely little lunch.  Like I said, good fortune.

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Parisian Gnocchi with Arugula Pistou & Crispy Prosciutto

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Parisian Gnocchi 2

When people discover you have a food blog, suddenly everyone has a great idea for what you should cook next.  I get a whole lot of (well-intentioned) requests for things like gluten-free baking ideas, cute holiday treats, and homemade girl scout cookies/bloomin’ onions/pumpkin spice lattes/etc.  In other words, I often find myself gently reminding folks that I’m capable of eating an entire baguette on my way home from the grocery store so gluten-free baking is really not something I have a huge interest in, that “cute” is something I do very poorly, and there’s this special place called Pinterest where I’m sure those “top-secret” recipes you want me to recreate already exist.

So when my boss approached me with, “d’you know what would be great for your blog?” I braced myself and started thinking of ways to let him down easy and hold on to my job.  But he followed it up with, “Parisian gnocchi.  I think you readers would really like it.  Do you want my recipe?” 

Umm…yes, absolutely!  Finally, a suggestion I didn’t have to politely turn away! 

(Okay, fine. If you don’t know me in real life and you’ve never wandered over to my about page, I suppose it bears mentioning that my “real” job is waiting tables, so it helps that my boss happens to be the chef of a French restaurant.)

So armed with Vincent’s recipe, I went home to make Parisian gnocchi.  Parisian gnocchi are unlike the Italian gnocchi you’re probably more familiar with.  Instead of relying on potatoes, Parisian gnocchi are made with cheese-enriched pâte à choux, which is the same type of pastry dough that’s used make gougères, profiteroles, and other such treats.  Yup, copious amounts of cheese, butter, and egg–leave it to the French.  The cheesy choux pastry is piped into simmering water and poached.  From there, you can go ahead and eat them or shock them in cold water, then sauté and sauce them later.  I’ll walk you through the how-to and show you how I served mine.

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Cherry Marsala Olive Oil Cake

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Cherry Marsala Olive Oil Cake

The way I see it, there are 2 species of cake. There are the fancy, celebration cakes with swirls of frosting, bells, whistles, and the whole bit. And then there are the everyday cakes. I’m talking about the cakes that are made at a moment’s notice when you need an afternoon pick-me-up or when eating a salad for dinner only seems like a viable option if you get to round out the meal with a little slice cake.

Today’s cake, if you hadn’t already guessed, falls firmly into the second category. It’s nothing fancy, just a good, solid anytime cake to have in your repertoire. It’s the kind of cake that can be made on a whim, mixed up in less time than the oven takes to heat. Olive oil gives it round, fruity flavor and a splash of Marsala gives it a subtle but haunting Italian flavor. 

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Potato, Fennel & Leek Soup with Olive Tapenade

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Potato, Fennel, Leek SoupTo tell you the truth, I thought twice about bothering to post this potato and fennel soup.  I made it, took pictures of it, singlehandedly ate almost the whole batch, and then talked myself out of sharing it with you all.  I decided it was too basic, too boring, not worthy of your time.  

But days after it was gone, I found myself wishing for another bowl and I realized I crave simple.  Simple is good.  Simple is worth sharing.

This is a good soup for chilly, rainy spring days.  The fennel and leek flavors are light and cheery, the potatoes provide the thick, creamy texture that’s bound to bring you comfort when your surroundings are gray, and a dollop of black olive paste adds a punch of flavor.

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