Guys, I f*cking hate January. Sure, December is cold, but January is freezing, and I don’t like wearing gloves.All of the twinkling lights on Fifth Avenue are gone, the Christmas music has stopped playing on the radio, every interaction no longer ends with a warm Happy Holidays!, and worst of all, no one is drinking. We’ve found ourselves at home many nights this month, avoiding our sober friends and the brutal temps, which means we’re cooking even more than usual. Lucky you! These are a few recipes that have been helping us through the worst month of the year.
RECC CENTER
Gaby’s Reccs:
What’s cooking:
My second annual chocolate caramel Swiss roll for my best friend’s boyfriend’s birthday. I make a dark caramel sauce using this video and beat all of it into a pint of heavy cream, then use that as the filling in this recipe.
Girl shit: I'm discovering old Lana Del Rey songs I've never heard before, flipping back and forth between Girls and Sex and the City, and finding Sylvia Plath’s fig tree very powerful right now.
On my radar:
Citrus season happening in the winter has never really clicked for me, but this year I plan to embrace it and really take advantage of it. The last fruit I remember eating is freeze dried raspberries folded into ricotta gelato, so...
Court’s Reccs:
What’s cooking:
A riff on this pasta, but closer to this one, cooking the cabbage way, way longer because nothing “caramelizes” in 10 minutes. Also riffed on this a few weeks ago with the sweet baby cabbage Trader Joe’s sells, and was pleased with the results. Cabbage is in—get with the times!
What I’m eating:
A sumo a day keeps my dreams of ever owning a home at bay. Or, a sumo a day keeps your seasonal depression at bay! Whichever way you look at it, you should be eating them and then turning the peels into candy.
What I’m reading/watching/consuming:
NOT consuming this collab because I’m not exaggerating when I say the smell of the buffalo one sent an actual chill down my spine.
credit: bon appetit // this graphic should say “kill me” not “kiss me”
On my radar:
On nights where the bare minimum feels like a high bar, I’ve been living on quesadillas with the (surprisingly good and blatantly overpriced) grilled chicken breasts from Wegmans. We’ve been running through our freezer stash from New Mexico, but I’ll be placing an order for these tortillas as soon as those are gone.
I love French toast. It’s more exciting than waffles and more reliable than pancakes. I like the golden, eggy triangles that diners serve — those first bites still hot and crispy from the flattop, dragged through sweet puddles of maple syrup. I really like the huge French toasted challah slices at Palace Diner in Biddeford, Maine. Each piece is thicker than an inch with an interior reminiscent of custard and a crust as crackly as crème brûlée. Ripping into a piece is a truly holy experience. This recipe is the closest I’ve come to making anything remotely similar in my own kitchen. It starts with letting challah (or if you’re in Brooklyn, ACQ milk bread) slices soak overnight in a milky, vanilla and cinnamon-heavy mixture, then showering them with sugar in the morning. They bake on a hot, buttered sheet pan until the slices start to sizzle and caramelize. Butter and maple syrup are, although completely redundant, necessary toppings.
Live somewhere with a working fireplace? I envy you. For the rest of us, an expensive candle, a digital yule log, and another kind of fire will have to do. My boyfriend has been talking about this recipe for weeks and now I can safely say he was right. The NYT adaptation uses boneless skinless thighs, but we opted for breasts and doubled the recipe. And, since one of us is severely intolerant of lactose, we only did cheese on one side (though the broiled, bubbled mozzarella is clearly the best part of the recipe). On the side, I made this rice because I haven’t stopped thinking about it since that video got posted, and it kind of worked? It was basically dinner and dessert in one. We’ll be making this chicken all winter long, unlike this one NYT commenter:
Real Pesto
I apologize in advance for not having a real recipe for this, but last weekend I went back to basics and made a real, classic pesto. I realized in every pesto I’ve made over the last few years I’ve subbed in pistachios for pine nuts, or mint and dill and kale for basil, or added a big dollop of miso at the end. All of those versions are delicious, but something about a classic, creamy pesto made with buttery pine nuts, tons of basil, good olive oil and parmesan cheese is so sharp, rich and comforting. Pesto inherently tastes like warm weather to me, but it’s also hearty enough to warm you up and keep you full on any of these cold winter nights.
What are you cooking in this cold weather? Help us stay warm…
cabbage pasta and miso pesto, thanks yet again for seeing into my soul