Cooking and the City

July 28th, 2010

Erin's Chopped Salad

A lot of restaurants have their own versions of a chopped salad – this is my version, interpreted and modified based on some of my favorites! I love chopped salads because there are small pieces of so many different things, you get tons of flavor in each bite.

If you happen to be invited to a dinner party or potluck in the near future and the host asks you to bring something, volunteer this. Guaranteed to be a crowd pleaser.

Erin’s Chopped Salad (serves 4)

3 heads romaine lettuce, chopped
1 cup diced cucumber
1 cup diced tomato
1 15.5 oz can chickpeas, drained & rinsed
1/3 cup chopped roasted red pepper
1/4 cup chopped kalamata olives
2 tbs capers
2 tbs parmesan cheese (I prefer small chunks of fresh parmesan)
1 tbs chopped fresh basil

For the dressing:

2 tbs fresh lemon juice
2 tbs red wine vinegar
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs chopped fresh herbs (use anything you have on hand – I use a mixture of tarragon, rosemary, sage, parsley & basil)
Salt & pepper

Great tip for assembling this salad – choose your favorite salad bowl and add all of the dressing ingredients to the bottom of the bowl and stir together (you can also use you favorite bottled balsamic or red wine vinagrette if you prefer.)

Then add the lettuce and toss to coat. Now add all of your vegetable toppings, then the cheese and top with fresh basil. Toss again and that is it!

My mom always likes to serve a salad on the side with dinner, but gets sick of making the same old salad over and over again (sound familiar??). She happily obliged to my offer to whip up my chopped salad; both of my parents loved it!

You can also assemble all of the salad ingredients and leave the dressing on the side and eat it up all week long. Serve it with sliced grilled chicken on top for a delicious lunch or have it alongside dinner. Because of the great mixture of flavors, it goes with anything.

Enjoy!

July 23rd, 2010

Restaurant Week

One of my favorite weeks! $27 lunches and $35 dinners at some of the best restaurants in NYC. However, buyer beware…$35 for dinner may seem like a bargain but there is always some off-the-restaurant-week-menu ordering that is bound to happen, i.e. alcoholic beverages. The amount of food you get is definitely worth the money, but dining out is still a splurge, even at $35 for 3 courses. At least for me.

The nycgo website is really helpful because you can all of the restaurant week menus – definitely a good idea to check them before you make your reservation; some restaurants only have 2 options for each course and even if you like the restaurant when the full menu is at your diposal, you may not like the dishes they choose to feature for restaurant week.

I chose Tribeca Grill based on their awesome menu selection and prior experience there with a great meal…with my Mom as my dining partner! We made sure to order different things for each course so we could taste & share.

My mom started with the heirloom tomato & goat cheese salad:

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While I had the braised artichoke & fennel salad

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with crunchy marcona almonds and manchego cheese, one of my faves. Both were so fresh and tasty.

We each went with seafood for our entrees; hers was the red snapper with couscous and summer squash:

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And mine was the pan roasted salmon with beet & apple chutney:

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Yum to both!

Also a side of onion rings…see what I mean about things magically appearing on the table that aren’t part of the $35 prix fixe?

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One of the wonderful things about restaurant week is you don’t have to debate on whether or not to order dessert – you’re just getting it!

The Morello cherry financier – deeeevine. I’d never had a financier before…it was like a sweet & moist pound cake with sour cherries studded throughout. Need to try to make this one at home.

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So if you’re looking at this food and wishing you could eat some too, GREAT NEWS – if you’re missing restaurant week, you still have time to experience it – Restaurant Week has been extended through September 6th. Take advantage and make a visit to that restaurant you’ve been dying to try!

July 22nd, 2010

The Frisky Oyster

If you are ever on the North Fork of Long Island, you have got to make a trip out to Greenport to dine at The Frisky Oyster. During my girls weekend on Shelter Island, we took the ferry over for dinner. This was my second time eating there and it might have been even better than the last!

The food speaks for itself:

Goat Cheese & Crab Stuffed Squash Blossoms

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Blue Cheese Stuffed Black Mission Figs wrapped in Proscuitto

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Sweet Corn Bisque

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Okra Fries

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Veal Milanese

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Seared Tuna with Cashew Sticky Rice

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Key Lime Pie

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Brownie a la mode

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Strawberry Shortcake

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Things don’t get much better than great food, atmosphere & cocktails with some of your favorite people. We were very sad to have to leave and head back to sweltering NYC, so we detoured a bit on the way home…

A stop at Bedell Cellars for some wine to drown our sorrows:

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A break at Love Lane Kitchen for some nosh to fill our bellies in case we got stuck in traffic:

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And a few purchases at a farm stand to bring a little bit of Long Island back with us:

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*Sigh*…wish I was still there!

July 20th, 2010

Sunset Scene

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of being invited out to Shelter Island. I’d never been before and I was going to get to spend some quality time with girlfriends I don’t get to see often…excited? Yes, I was.

Shelter Island is gorgeous…rustic and quaint and so close to the city! You should really go for a weekend if you haven’t already…the drive out along the North Fork is lovely or you can train it to the ferry. Just the fact that you get to ride a ferry is reason enough to go.

First item on the agenda of our girly weekend was a visit to Sunset Beach. The hotel is only open for the summer season (as is much of the island) and is trying to be a sort of French, boutique style beach hotel with an oceanfront bisto restaurant.

We were there on a Friday, whereas most people were still at work so it was nice and quiet. This meant a pretty empty beach and free parking which was definitely a plus (we also were thanking ourselves when we drove by on Saturday and the place was PACKED and mildly a scene of fabulous drunk people).

Check out how cute it is!

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Most beachtown hotels are high priced and this is definitely one of them…weekday rates start around $400 so you can imagine how expensive a weekend there might be. After a few hours baking on the beach, we decided to submerge ourselves in the luxury of the place and have some overpriced lunch. Directly on top of the bar/restaurant pictured above is a rooftop deck with more tables for dining.

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Amazing views! We were honestly just so happy to be in such a pretty place, spending time with each other and not at work, we didn’t care that everything on the menu was around $25. That is a lot for lunch…even by New York standards. So what did we do? We each ordered an entree and split a bottle of wine.

I went with the Salad Nicoise which was fairly traditionally prepared with all of the usual suspects; olive oil canned tuna, boiled potatoes, haricot verts and tomato. But, they jazzed it up with fava beans, slivers of radish, fennel and artichoke hearts, a hard boiled egg and a whole caper berry!

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It really was quite tasty and fresh. A perfect light meal before sitting on the beach for the rest of the afternoon. We didn’t end our dining endeavours with lunch…we ventured into Greenport on Friday night for dinner at The Frisky Oyster. Remember when I was there back in April when the bf and I toured the wineries? Check out my last adventure to the North Fork:

The Frisky Oyster delivered another delicious meal – will share details tomorrow!

July 14th, 2010

Biggest Mussel Ever

I swear there was a mussel close to the size of my palm in this bowl.

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The bf has been telling me about these mussels for a while…raving about them of course. We walked into The Impudent Oyster in Chatham this past Saturday for lunch and I was almostttt tempted by the other delicious items on the menu. That was obviously because I’ve never had the mussels before…because once you have, why would you order anything else? The bf was clearly of that mindset and quickly snapped my attention back to why we were there – to eat mussels.

Not just any mussels, the Portuguese style mussels served in a spicy tomato broth with chorizo and a garlic herb roll on the side. Bread is obviously required when eating mussels, but a fresh baked butter & garlic covered roll is a treat. At The Impudent Oyster one must not only dip but drink all of the broth with the giant soup spoon that is provided.

I couldn’t believe I finished my bowl! I couldn’t help myself…they were the biggest and best mussels I’ve ever had.

Giant bowl of mussels + Cape Cod Beach Blonde draft beer = serious afternoon nap. We had all these grand plans, like playing golf, but the mussels did us in. I can’t wait to go back and eat them again. If you’re ever on the Cape, stop by this fine restaurant in Chatham, grab a seat at the bar and order some mussels.

Ok, how many times did I use the word mussels in this post? Geez.

Recent Posts

Erin's Chopped Salad

Restaurant Week

The Frisky Oyster

Sunset Scene

Biggest Mussel Ever

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