Pork Dumplings with Celery Salad

I made another batch of the Shaved Celery and Mushroom Salad. I didn't like it quite as much this time, and I'm wondering if the reason is that I used only Cremini mushrooms rather than a mixture. To round out dinner, I fried up some pork and chive dumplings that I buy frozen in Chinatown (40 for $8!). I made a simple dipping sauce with equal parts Sriracha and soy sauce and drizzled it on both the dumplings and the salad.

Mint-Pistachio Pesto, Two Ways

Food52 featured a delicious looking recipe for Mint-Pistachio Pesto recently. I made a trip to the Greenmarket to pick up some mint and the nearby Wholefoods for pistachios. Then I broke out my food processor and whipped up a double batch of pesto that has worked its way into my last few meals.

Dinner Saturday: Roast Beef Open-faced Sandwich with Mint-Pistachio Pesto and Honey

Ingredients:

• 4 slices of baguette (Wholefoods Saturday)
• 1/4 lb of roast beef (Wholefoods on Saturday)
• 1/4 cup Mint-Pistachio Pesto (made on Saturday)
• 1/4 cup cotija cheese, crumbled (Wholefoods a few weeks ago, leftover from my Spicy Mayo adventure)
• 1 1/2 tbs honey (Greenmarket a couple of months ago)

Preparation:
I preheat the oven to 400 degrees. The sandwiches were easy to assemble. I started with bread, then pesto, then roast beef, then honey and more pesto, and finally the crumbled cotija cheese. The honey was an inspiration - it was perfect to balance the saltiness of the cheese, roast beef and pesto. I toasted the sandwiches for about 5 minutes to warm them and ate them with some heirloom cherry tomatoes, sliced and salted. They were too beautiful to resist at the Greenmarket that morning!


Lunch Sunday: Mint-Pistachio Pesto Linguine with Roast Tomatoes and Bacon

Ingredients:
2 slices of thick bacon (Wholefoods on Saturday)
1 1/2 cups heirloom cherry tomatoes (Greenmarket on Saturday)
1/3 box of linguine (from the pantry, mystery origins)
2 tbs grated Parmesan cheese (from the fridge, mystery origins)
Olive oil, salt, and pepper

Preparation:
I got the linguine water boiling and preheat my oven to 350. I cooked up the bacon in the oven for about 25 minutes (it was really thick). I'm getting really into oven bacon since there's less mess and it's harder to burn than in a skillet. Plus it fits better and stays nice and flat. I added the tomatoes, coated in olive oil, salt and pepper, to the oven for the last 15 minutes of cooking. I boiled the linguine and reserved 1/2 cup pasta water.

To make the pasta, I added the pesto, pasta water, crumbled bacon, roasted tomato, and Parmesan cheese to the linguine and gently heated it in the pot for about a minute. The meal was really good, although I might have stuck with regular basil pesto if I were making it again.

I have a half cup of pesto left that I plan to use up with some lamb or watermelon next weekend.

Shaved Celery and Mushroom Salad with Shredded Beef

I made an excellent salad for lunch today. I had some leftover celery from the Greenmarket last week and I wanted to use it up. I found a recipe on Food52 for a celery and mushroom salad that looked good, so I picked up a mixture of cremini, oyster, and shiitake mushrooms from the Greenmarket today. To make the salad filling enough for lunch, I stirred in some shredded beef stew meat I cooked up last weekend. Raw celery isn't usually my favorite, but it was the perfect foil for the richness of the mushrooms and beef. I'm definitely saving this recipe.

An Excuse to Eat Spicy Mayo

I didn't have much time for dinner or much food in my house last Friday, so I swung by Whole Foods and bought a shrimp burger from the seafood counter. I picked up some corn and cotija cheese as well. I thought the cheese would be in the fancy cheese section but it was just hanging out in the cheap cheese shelves.

To make the meal, I quickly boiled the corn, pan fried the burger in my cast iron skillet, and chopped up some Napa cabbage with the last of my pickled radishes. 

Now the best part of the meal was topping everything with spicy mayo.  I love spicy mayo and find a way to incorporate it into something at least once a month. The recipe couldn't be simpler:

• Big spoonful of store-bought mayonnaise
• Small glug of soy sauce
• Squirt of sriracha
• Sometimes a squirt of lime juice

I used to measure based on the recipe from Food52, but then I realized that I can just wing it and it always tastes fine. The spicy mayo tasted good on the slaw and the burger, plus it made the crumbled cojita cheese stick to the corn. The combination reminded me of the delicious corn sold by the street vendors near my apartment in Mexico City a few years ago.

Brisket Cabbage Wraps

I used the last of my leftover Dinosaur BBQ to fill cabbage wraps last weekend.

I steamed leaves of Napa cabbage for about 30 seconds then filled them the following mixture:

• Sliced brisket that I reheated with diced  shallots, garlic, and ginger
• Pickled radishes
• Ramen noodles (Top Ramen! Classy!)
• Sriracha sauce
• Scallions
• Peanuts
• Lime juice

Quick and yummy.

Early Summer Asian Slaw

We're having a massive heatwave in New York. The kind that makes me want to avoid hot food. I've made a couple of meals that are based on turkey meat and a head of Napa cabbage. The only time I had to heat anything was the original prep for the turkey wing, which I simmered in water with vegetables and seasoning, so I not only had moist meat, but also a nice turkey stock that I froze for later.

In addition to thinly sliced Napa cabbage and shredded turkey wing, this slaw had pickled radishes, fresh corn from the Greenmarket market, scallions, leftover edamame, and a yummy dressing of peanut butter, lime juice, soy sauce, white wine vinegar, ginger, and minced garlic. I topped the slaw with more lime juice and crushed peanuts (from a tiny packet I saved on a recent flight in a triumph of cheapness). Refreshing!

Black-eyed Peas and Pulled Pork plus a Sweet Potato Fritter

My friends and I had a delicious dinner at Dinosaur BBQ in Harlem on Friday night to celebrate our softball victory earlier in the evening. We shared fried green tomatoes, shrimp, and deviled eggs to start, then I had the pulled pork and brisket plate with sides of mashed sweet potatoes and black-eyed peas with kale. The servings were enormous, so I had some leftovers which I dug into for breakfast this morning.

Preparation
I fried up the leftover pulled pork and black-eyed peas with kale together in my cast iron skillet with some olive oil. After putting the mixture on a plate, I deglazed the pan with some orange juice and pored it on top to keep everything moist and sweet. I made a fritter patty of the leftover mashed sweet potato, dried it on a paper towel, and dusted it with cornmeal. I fried the fritter in my skillet with some fresh olive oil. Sliced green onions made the pork and fritter taste fresh, and some sweet cherries rounded out my breakfast.

Fun Fact
Eating black-eyed peas for good luck on New Year's Day was originally a Jewish Rosh Hashana tradition. Thanks, Wikipedia!