I dusted off my old Canon G11, and did my first test shoot at dinner last night.  We went to see Spring Breakers, (which is the ultimate comedy of 2013) and decided to class up the evening with a pre-Spring Break dinner at The Black Cat.   

Had a top to bottom lovely experience there.  Really interesting menu items, and also has a rad bar.  Note to me: please eat brunch there.  Another tid bit I learned is that all the art was curated by the folks at Poster Child Prints.  

Here’s some photos of foods, I’m not the greatest photographer, sorrrrry. 

Snap pea salad with radish, mint, almond, lemon vinaigrette, ricotta salata

Beef cheek tacos, cabbage, chipotle pickle crema, cotija

Scallops over celery root puree and wilted kale

Fried catfish, corn pudding cake, fried green tomato, green chile sauce, creole shrimp, creme fraiche

Obvious confession: I love eggs.  They’re comforting, they have interesting properties, they’re so versatile, and they’re just a great companion in the morning, late night, and all the times in between.  They know when they are the star of the show, and they know when to let their friends shine too.  Like the perfect mate.  I’ll stop here for now.

I’ve been poaching a lot, just check my instagram for the proof.  A few people have asked me how to do it and I reply with the answer of our generation:  ”YouTube #duh.” Youtube-hashtag-duh. I learned from this Jacques Pepin video which you can check out here. 

Above is a carrot pesto rice bowl with feta crumbles, poached egg, watermelon radish. Just one of the myriad of treats that change daily at Sqirl.  Food game is strong, coffee game is strong, and jam game is off da chain. If you’re in the area, stop in.  If you’re not in the area, get there. 

(Photo credit: T.J.)

I’d like to be blogging as much as I am cooking, but unfortunately I can’t type as fast as I eat lately.  I want to change that!  Pictured above is a salad I made for a little dinner date a couple of months ago.  A couple of months ago!  Ugh, Sam.  Either way I think it’s still relevant because we eat every day, and now that I think about it, this salad is going to be amazing as a Spring time side piece.

There was a lovely piece in Food & Wine on a dinner party that Erin Fetherston threw with Chef Michael White.  They made this pretty little sal sal that caught my eye, because 1. it was so dang cute lookin.  2.  it has pom seeds.  Pom seeds are a special fruity delight in my world.

Before I reveal this awesome recipe to you, here are 2 fun things I learned from the salad:

1. Hazelnuts are also called “Filberts.”  I much prefer its stage name.

2. Hazelnut oil is very hard to find during the winter months.  Literally called every grocery store and specialty store between Culver City and Los Feliz with just mere minutes before I was supposed to be at dinner , and could only locate hazelnut oil at the Bristol Farms in West Hollywood.  So a word to the wise, get your ingredients ahead of time.

Alright onto the recipe!  

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There were many a late night at work or DJ’ing where I’d be so exasperated and tired and find myself stumbling into Son of a Gun in the 11 o’clock hour mumbling “I’ll have…the…chicken sandwich” to the hostess as I collapsed into an empty chair.  The sandwich was my spiritual guide, my refuge to comfort me during hard times.  And so yah.  A fucking sandwich holds a special place in my heart.

Fortunately my heart and stomach have room for more than one fried chicken sandwich.  Free Range LA is that new bish in town, the fried chicken sandwich that could. Its modest dwelling is a tiny tent at the Melrose Place Farmer’s Market, only on Sundays from 10am - 2pm.  I read up on it before visiting, and I had very low expectations upon arrival.  Tempura batter?  Very predictable choice when trying to “be different” and “make it your own.”  Couldn’t be that good.

But holy patron saint of poultry, Free Range is no joke the best chicken sandwich I have had in a long time, and even trumps the last fried chicken sandwich I had at Son of a Gun.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you FREE RANGE LA.  Or what I like to think of as a FREER ANGELA. The chicken is free range chicken, no hormones, etc etc. And the cut is encapsulated in a wonderfully crisp tempura pocket that holds in all of the juicies.  Then it’s topped with a zesty slaw of cilantro, cabbage, and pickled onions.  A layer of honey mustard aioli is smathered onto the chick for a finishing touch, and then…

The bun.  That bun is perfectly soft and toasted.  It’s not brioche, I was told they use a “regular ass roll.”  Which I think plays well and lets the chicken be the star.  Brioche is very heavy, flashy, and can be a bit of a ball hog, think young Kobe Bryant.

To make matters worse for a new addiction, this fine sandwich is mind blowingly only $7. You can’t get real chicken for that price anywhere. 

www.freerangela.com

Mmmhi.  

The past few weeks have been rough,  I’m going through a weird time in my life.  Blegh.  But I turn to food in times of crisis.  I’m no stranger to amazing food, but I am still relatively new to cooking it, and lately this exploration into the kitchen is really doubling as therapy for me.  My friend Louise gave me a copy of Ina Garten’s “Barefoot Contessa Foolproof” and it’s awesome, especially if you’re a novice.  First of all the recipes are both useful and GOOD quality dishes, not so so difficult to make.  And then she really breaks down the steps, things to watch out for during your cooking process which is really comforting for me.  Ina also shares some legit pro tips on picking out a menu to serve, how to plan a dinner party, and her 10 commandments of cooking.  I highly recommend this book for anyone who breathes oxygen and needs food to survive.

On one particularly sad times day, I ventured to make her seared scallops recipe.  I learned so much about cooking from this recipe, particularly that celery root is totally not what you think it would be, and that grapeseed oil is the shiiiiiit.

Read on for the recipe.

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bone marrow

salumi plate

cocoa agnolotti with beef cheeks

black truffle pizza

scallop crudo

doughnuts

i said doughnuts!

Baked Brie is one of my go-to cold weather snacks because the gooey warm cheesiness makes me feel all cozy.  Kind of like eating a shearling lined blanket.

It also looks impressive at a party but secretly it’s the easiest thing to make because well you’re not really making anything at all, just assembling parts with a touch of sick plating skills.

Bake the brie wheel to gooey levels, toast the pecans, arrange on an artisanal cheese board of your liking, drizzle the honey, surround it with fancy town crackers.  I like the raisin rosemary crisps from Trader Joes.  And I’m out.

Morning dudes.  I decided to revive the little online coffee diary that I keep on Hearty Magazine.  Forgot about that little booger.

Check it out!

“Coffee & Then Some”

“Coffee & Then Some”

“Coffee & Then Some”

I’ve gotten very friendly with this turkey chili recipe I found on Milk & Mode.  In fact I’ve made it twice in the past 3 weeks.  The recipe is called “quick” followed by “turkey chili” and that pretty much sold me.  As advertised, this chili is fast and easy to make, it stores well, and best of all it’s good for you.  You can really load up on a heartwarming bowl of fiber and protein without the starchy heaviness that I personally crave in the winter.  Save the starchies for a hot bowl of ramen UNGH!

Oh shit! Almost forgot to mention that if you look closely at the ingredients list (which you sooo should be doing anyway), there is some cinnamon incorporation which gives the chili an extra special holiday kick.  You will love it.

Stuff you’ll need:

1 large onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
Olive oil
1 pound ground turkey (dark meat is always preferable)
Salt and pepper to taste
4 tablespoons chili powder
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 teaspoon oregano
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (crucial)
1 14-ounce can black beans, drained

Here’s what you do:

1.  Get an extra large sauce pan because we’re making 6 servings of this joint.  Over medium-low heat, sauté the onion and garlic in the oil about 3 minutes.

2.  Turn up the heat to medium-high and throw in your turkey!  Break up the turkey into chunks as it is cooking, brown the meat until it loses its pink color. Now add salt, pepper, and the chili powder—get it sizzly so the spices get cooking—and then add the tomatoes and the remaining spices.

3.  Turn down the heat, simmer for 10 to 15 minutes, and add the drained beans. Cook for another 5 minutes, or until the beans are warmed.

4.  Now for toppings! Avocado chunks, shredded cheddar cheese, chopped fresh cilantro, or sour cream are fine add-ons.

5.  I mentioned that the chili works well as left overs.  So next morning you can put a fried egg hat on a hot chili scoop and you have yourself a champion breakfast.  (picture below) Also makes a great side companion to a sandwich.  Make some late night nachos with it!  Put it on a hot dog!  Really the possibilities are endless!

Photo credit:  Mark Iantosca/Carol Han, my iPhone

Today many of my loved ones are down and out with some sort of LA winter bug, so I’ve been running around checking on them.  You see I’m not sick because I just got a flu shot so I’m immune and will be turning into a zombie any day now.  But prior to turning into a flu shot shawty, I was sick too and it was a major bummer.  That day I made myself a homemade soba broth, and it really did the trick.  If you’re under the weather and want in on some soba therapy, you’ll need access to a Japanese market, k?  And this recipe makes about 10 bowls of soba, so please adjust accordingly, or you’ll be eating soba for a week which may or may not actually be a bad thing.

Stuff you’ll need:

14 oz dried soba noodles

1 spring onion

1 package of enoki mushrooms

For the soup:

2/3 cup of mirin

2/3 cup of shoyu

3 3/4 cups water

1 oz kezuri-bushi

1 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

3 3/4 cups dashi stock or the equivalent in dashi-no-moto

Here’s what you do:

1.  Typically I’d start by pouring a glass of wine, but if you’re sick, skip the wine and take a swig of DayQuil or something instead.  So we’ll start by making the soup.  Get an extreeeemely large pot.  I mean BIG.  Cookbooks always say “large sauce pan” when what you really need is a giant muhfugger of a pot.  Put the mirin in first and bring it to a boil, then add the rest of the soup ingredients except for the dashi stock.  Bring back to a boil then reduce the heat to low.

2.  Skim off the scum (it’s kezuri-bushi scum, you’ll know it when you see it) and cook for 2 minutes.  Strain the soup then put back into a clean pot with the dashi stock.

3.  Now for noodles.  Bring 9 cups of water to a boil in another big ass pot.  Add in the noodles and stir frequently to prevent them from sticking.

4.  When the water foams, pour in about 1/4 cup of cold water to lower the temperature.  Repeat when the water foams again.  The noodles should be softer than al dente pasta.  Strain the noodles and rinse under cold water.

5.  In your serving bowl, add your hot broth, and then add some soba noodles.

6.  Sprinkle some sliced scallions and some enoki mushrooms.  Other great add-on ideas are tempura or fishcake.

Itadakimasu! Hai!

Leafing through the internetz last weekend, I saw cutie chef Jenny Park and her food outpost Trails Cafe photographed on The Selby, just dripping in rustic cuteness.  The avocado sandwich!  The famous egg in a basket!  (I’ve been at a dinner party with Jenny before, she makes some bomber Korean chicken wings too.)  It’s been years since I’ve eaten at Trails, so I took this as a strong sign from the heavens that it was time to EAT go for little hike in Griffith Park and maybe casually drop in at Trails and coincidentally want to eat everything.

To make a long story short, I hiked that mountain, triumphantly stepped up to Trails, and was rewarded with “Uh we sorta just ran out of eggs in a basket.”  You know that emoji with all of the facial features scrunched inward that you use to illustrate feelings of fury or constipation — that’s what I looked like.

Them Jeans (you’ve read about him here before) to the rescue.  He was like “Yo We KaN ToTeZ MaKe Da EgGz, SaMz.”  And that’s what we did, pero with a little twist!

Here’s how we did what we did.  I mean we freestyled it from the cross section diagram on The Selby, so nothing is exact.

Stuff You’ll Need:

1 Loaf of multigrain bread

12 eggs

Chives

Rosemary

Parmesan

Cracked Pepper

Pesto Sauce (we made our own tho)

Pancetta*

Baby asparagus*

(*aforementioned Them Jeans twist)

Okay! Here’s what you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Completely made up that number, but it sounded right.  Then make your pesto sauce.  Or buy it.  I really don’t care what you do for pesto.

2. Saute some diced pancetta and baby asparagus that you’ve chopped into 1” pieces.

3. Ooo the funnest part.  Remove the crust off of each slice of bread, then gently work the slice into a muffin cubby. Repeat for all muffin cubbies in your tin.

4.  Then line each bread cup with a layer of pesto.  Follow this action by cracking an egg into each cup.  Then top each cup off with some chive, parmesan, rosemary, asparagus, pancetta, cracked pepper.  Looks something like this:

5.  Now bake dem breads! I said bake dem breadssss! For I guess 15 minutes?  Haha yah, real technical over here.  When the crust is golden brown and your stomach is growling, it’s time dude.

The baked eggy cups were so much fun to make and a total crowd favorite. And I no longer had that bitchy constipated look on my face.  Everyone wins.  Thank you Jeans for coming through in the clutch, and thanks for the inspiration Jenny! I still have yet to try your eggs in a basket but oh believe me girl I am coming for them.

Breakfast is my man.  I never understand people who say they “aren’t into breakfast” because I for one am always starving when I wake up, and my singular motivation for getting out of bed every morning is to put something delicious in my tum.

Yesterday as I was on the stairmaster and bookmarking recipes on food blogs, I came across an easy huevos rancheros recipe and thought yo let’s turn this joint into a handroll.  Buuuuut the problem isssss, I’m doing the LiveFit trainer, and by its dietary guidelines, huevos rancheros is a no-no as it can be heavy with sauce and cheese. So I came up with a light and easy alternative to achieve classic Mexi flavors and still get a well-balanced breakfast. This is obviously not classic huevos rancheros, this is the reeeemiiiiiiiiix.

Stuff you need:

4 Ezekiel brand tortillas

8 eggwhites

1 can of black beans

For the homemade guacapico:

1/2 white onion

1 avocado

1 tomato

1/2 lime

1 fat clove of garlic

1 bunch of cilantro (I go muy hard on cilantro)

salt

pepper

Here’s what you do:

1.  I start with the guacapico.  Dice the avocado, tomato, and onion and throw them into  a bowl.  Mince the garlic and add that in.  Chop the cilantro finely and add that in too.  Chop more cilantroooooo and that in.

2.  Squeeze the lime and add salt and pepper.  Yum!  Adjust the amount of ingredients according to your liking.  Some people like spicy so add diced peppers. I love cilantro if you didn’t pick that up by now, so I will add a lot o’ dat.  Stir it all up and boom.  You’ve got yourself some guacapico goodness.

3.  Now for the handroll wrappers.  Heat up some olive oil and warm up a tortilla on a pan.  The  tortilla will start to curl when it’s warm, and at that point, you’ll pour 2 egg whites on top of the tortilla.  Yep on top of the tortilla.  The egg whites will begin to coagulate onto the tortilla, and when they solidify a bit, flip that bad boy over.

4.  You’ll get a feeling that the eggs are cooked, at which point remove the tortilla/egg from heat.  Cut the tortilla in half and now you’ve got 2 wrappers.

5.  Fold a wrapper into a conic shape with the egg-side facing inward.  Pop open that can of black beans, and spoon some black beans into the cone, and then spoon in some of your guacapico.  

6.  Do the same for the other wrapper.  You should have enough ingredients to make about 8 handrolls so the whole family can enjoy, or you can be a gordita and eat it all yourself.

I liked my creation so much that it’s now 4 in the afternoon, and just made more of it while typing out the recipe for you.

If you try it for yourself, let me know how it turns out please!

I was later told by a Montreal native that Olives + Gourmando is a tourist spot. But fuck it, if the bread is good, the bread is good.  It’s got rustic and adorable written all over it: mason jars, quirky sayings scrawled in chalk on the walls, large wooden community tables, homemade granola.  Olives et Gourmando is a great place to stop in for a salad or sandwich if you’re wandering around Old Montreal.