paper anniversary

hello! i feel like i all-too-often start out posts apologizing for the big gap of time between, but i feel i've barely been keeping my head above ground lately - working lots, but more than that, working extraordinarily odd hours that have turned the idea of a "sleep schedule" into a sadistic joke and me into an exhausted, cranky pastrarian (pastry chef/contrarian.) the little bakery where i work is lovely in almost every way, but it is un-air-conditioned and poorly ventilated and that basically means there are precious few daytime hours when i can work without my butter melting all over the table; i end up working in the middle of the night here, the early morning there, a regular day between and basically yawning my way through the rest of the week. so - my apologies. ac is (fingers crossed) being installed as we speak and i hope to return to a semi-normal work schedule.

but this is a post long overdue - sam and i celebrated our one year wedding anniversary a few weeks ago, in quiet, old-married-people fashion, as is our way; we stayed in, made a big seafood feast, and watched back-to-back episodes of law and order: svu, aka the most romantic show on television.

sam visited our favorite fish market in new jersey and grabbed a couple of live lobsters, a dozen fresh oysters, and some jersey corn on the cob; i picked up some fingerling potatoes and truffle oil with a vague idea for a fancy potato salad. we decided to keep it simple - boil the lobster and serve with drawn butter, serve the raw oysters with a simple mignonette, steam the corn and make the salad.

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potato & arugula salad with truffle oil & goat cheese

1 bag of fingerling potatoes

1/2 container washed baby arugula

about 1/2 teaspoon fresh or dried thyme leaves

a couple teaspoons of truffle oil

a splash of olive oil

about 4 oz goat cheese

salt & pepper

steam the potatoes and cut them into quarters (or so - bite sized pieces.) sauté them for a bit, to crisp them up, with some olive oil, then just toss it with everything else. ta-da! so simple, so delicious.

i sprinkled the corn with a little old bay, just to add a little something.

we even ate a bit of our extremely freezer burned cake, which was. . . extremely freezer burned. ah well. it was a lovely night, and very us; i feel so incredibly lucky to have found such a smart, funny, incredibly considerate, loving and thoughtful man to spend my time with; it definitely helps that he's crazy tan, handsome, and talented too.

and a happy birthday to my little sister, esther, who is one of my favorite people on the planet (and who is finally starting to like seafood, hallelujah!) love you lady!

cooking your nemesis

don't worry, faithful readers; this is not the post where i lose my mind and post a cannibalistic recipe. no, tonight i conquered one of my great cooking rivals - scallops. these (and potato gnocchi, which is for some reason absolutely impossible for me to properly make from scratch and cook without turning it into a slimy mush) have been my great culinary failing every time i've tried to make them at home, and it's hard to express the frustration this causes me - i'm trying to think of it's other-job equivalent, and while an athlete blowing the game winning shot, or a doctor missing a diagnosis seem too serious, i imagine it's a similar feeling on a smaller scale. every time i've tried to make scallops they've ended up more steamed than seared, and inedibly raw in the middle. utterly depressing.

sam's been out of town all week, so i've been working long hours and trying to catch up on sleep. tonight, after a particularly long day, i decided to treat myself to a decadent meal - and figure out scallops once and for all. they're one of my favorite foods when cooked properly, and they sell fantastic dry scallops across the street from my bakery - so i bought a few and headed home, determined to get it right.

success! i can't tell you how great it feels to win battle scallop after so many failed attempts. it turns out my mistake was the same one i have when it comes to trying to grow rosemary - paying too much attention, and fussing too much with it.


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pan-seared scallops with cannellini bean puree, shredded asparagus, duck prosciutto and fried egg

3-4 bay scallops (mine were "dry" scallops, meaning they hadn't been stored in liquid at the store, so they didn't need rinsing - if yours aren't, make sure to rinse and drain them thoroughly before cooking.)

1/3 cup canned cannellini beans

2 T chicken (or vegetable) stock

2 T butter, divided

1 T olive oil

a couple tablespoons of diced duck (or regular) prosciutto

3 stalks asparagus, shredded with a peeler

kosher salt

1 egg


you'll need two pans; one smaller one, for cooking the sides, and one cast iron pan for the scallops.

first, prepare the bean puree. take 1 tablespoon of the butter, and place it in the smaller pan; on medium high heat, melt the butter, then add the cannellini beans and sautee until they start to brown. remove from heat and blend thoroughly with the chicken stock until you have a nice, thick puree. set aside.

season scallops with a healthy sprinkling of kosher salt, then turn the heat back on under the smaller pan, and add the remaining butter and olive oil to the cast iron pan on medium high heat. add prosciutto to the small pan, then add scallops to the - now very hot - cast iron pan, and DON'T TOUCH. leave the scallops alone for 2-3 minutes, until they develop a nice brown crust all over the bottom. meanwhile, add the shaved asparagus to the now-crispy prosciutto. start plating with a big dollop of the bean puree in the middle of your plate, surrounded by the asparagus and prosciutto (asparagus only needs about 30 seconds in the pan with the prosciutto.)

flip the scallops and cook, again without moving, until you have a nice caramel brown on both sides. meanwhile, using the same small pan as you did for the beans and proscuitto and asparagus, fry an egg. plate the scallops on top of the puree, and then top it all of with the fried egg (i used a circle cutter to make my egg look a little more perfect, but obviously that isn't really important.)






di-vine. the scallops fell apart under my fork, and were perfectly buttery and sweet; they paired well with the creamy cannellini bean puree, slight bitterness of the asparagus and salty fattiness of the prosciutto. the egg on top (an addition i would make to nearly every meal if given the opportunity) just adds a bit more richness to a dish that is certainly rich enough as is. . . but is all the more delicious when bathed in soft-cooked egg yolk.

it was a satisfying end to a long but productive day, and i'll be adding scallops to my regular meal rotation from now on.

xo audrey

squid sausage

good morning! forgive my little sabbatical - i started feeling pretty sick thursday afternoon and have basically spent the last few days sleeping, working, and not much else-ing. i started to feel better this monday, but i still can't get past this super sleepy feeling that's been preventing me from waking up early enough to take any outfit photos.

despite my sleepiness, i've had a pretty good week so far; monday night sam and i finally got to see tune-yards, after a couple of failed attempts, and last night a good friend came over for some hang time (sam is off fishing & foraging with a buddy for a couple of days) and i made us a super delicious dinner, inspired by this post i saw on the tasting table. i read over the recipe, thought about what i had in my fridge, and made a few adjustments; here's how it turned out.



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chorizo & yellow onion-stuffed squid

6 squid, tentacles removed & cleaned
2 links of chorizo
1 t olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, diced
about 1 t thyme leaves
1/3 cup panko
12 or so cherry tomatoes
8 stalks of asparagus
salt & pepper
olive oil or bacon fat for cooking

heat olive oil over medium heat in a medium sized pan; once hot, add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until transparent. while cooking onion, start a small saucepan of water boiling; drop in cherry tomatoes, cooking for a minute or so, until skins start to burst. rescue them out with a slotted spoon and plop them in an ice bath for a minute or so; set aside.

next tackle the asparagus; with a very sharp peeler, carefully slice it into thin shreds of asparagus. drop this into the still-hot water from the blanched tomatoes for 30 seconds or so, then strain out and set aside.

at this point your onions should be ready. take the chorizo out of its casing and add it to the pan, using a wooden spoon or spatula to stir and break up the meat as much as possible; cook until it's thoroughly browned. at this point add the tentacles of the squid and cook just until they're opaque; take the pan of the burner and dump its contents into a bowl. add the panko & thyme.

now take your squid bodies; make sure anything that feels like cartilage has been removed and they are well-cleaned, them simply use your fingers to stuff them full of the chorizo mixture like they are little sausage casings. fill them about 3/4 of the way full, then use a toothpick to seal them up.

using the same pan you used for the onions & chorizo, add your bacon fat (or olive oil, if you're using that) at medium heat; once hot, place the squid in the pan and let them cook for about 3 minutes on each side, until the skins are totally opaqued and a bit crispy in parts. you don't want to overcook at this point or they'll get really rubbery.

and that's it! to plate, i carefully peeled back the skins of the blanched tomatoes but left them attached at the stem, then plated the asparagus, topped with a touch of olive oil, a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, and a liberal shake of salt & pepper, then topped off with the squid. the asparagus provided a nice background to the greasy meatiness of the chorizo, and the texture of the squid makes a perfect container for this filling. this looks a lot tricker than it is, and i think it's a good dish to impress a somewhat adventurous eater.














how was your weekend? cooked anything delicious lately? i'm always on the hunt for new recipes!

xo audrey