Seduction on the Stove

Here's what smells so damn good in the kitchen right now. It's the beginnings of sugo, or my great-grandmother's Abruzzese tomato sauce, which starts, as shown, with finely chopped salt pork and a bit of garlic browning in a pool of olive oil before beef and pork ribs get browned... before chopped onions, celery, bell pepper, parsley, celery leaf, basil all get mixed in and around.

The tomatoes come soon, but this part smells the most heavenly...

Holy Man, Holy Mother!!!!!

GUESS WHAT?!

I WON!

Saveur sent me a note today saying my recipe for my Parsley Pesto Pasta was a "huge, huge hit" with the editors, and they are going to post it today! Which means, dearest reader you, that you might just be here, reading this, thanks to them and that! My biggest squeeze of gratitude.

I will tell you that my blog is not full of professional, pretty photos, or many smart posts. This is my humble space for sharing what I love, which is being in my home kitchen and surrounded by good ingredients and friends and almost always a glass of wine. Thank you for visiting!

Ms. Kiwi Meets Roasted Peppers

The next great adventure of Ms. Kiwi involves roasted red peppers (see the colorful multitasking in the photo above) and stewed tomatoes, all slow-cooked and whizzed into submission before submitting to my stomach.

On the side, a little peppery salami and a feta-parsley pesto with green garlic over homemade flatbread. And Virgil's cream soda, of course.

Perfecting Parsley Pesto Pasta

I adore alliteration, even if I'm told to use less of it in my writing. I can do what I want here! So it is: Perfecting Parsley Pesto Pasta.

Saveur is having a big home cook contest for the best pasta recipe, and I really, really want that Sur La Table gift certificate!! I will show you all the neat things I get if I win.

The contest runs through the month of March, so I was looking to do something seasonal and simple but also stunning (s, s, s, s). The solution is parsley pesto, because there's always entirely too much parsley in one bunch for anything other than pummeling that stuff into submission (and pesto).

Here was a first go, paired with spaghetti and asparagus, because that's in season in March, too... at least in my part of the world. If not yours, hopefully you'll see the light of day--I mean, spring--soon.

I also got to use my new mortar and pestle to pestle-ize the pesto, which was positively thrilling!

Twitter Stew

That is what I shall always call this meal: Twitter Stew. I am just learning about Twitter. It is somewhat scary. I have to face that, despite my job as a writer and my Communication degree, I am falling into a generational divide, slightly unable to keep up with internet trends, and I'm just 27 years old. JUST. To the tiny twittering tweens, that's OLD.

Back to the point: I found this recipe on Twitter from @amandahesser, who for some reason or another was posting recipes involving citrus and olives. It was cold and rainy (and continues to be) here in my new home of SF, so a lamb stew with pre-cut butternut squash that I had sitting in my fridge, along with those ingredients, sounded spot-on perfect.

The whole delicious thing took 10 minutes to prepare, then cooked for 30 more, and I'd barely finished catching up with my friend Janelle, who was over for dinner, before dinner was ready. Then, we paired it with an awesome little find from Bi-Rite's frankly very impressive wine selection: 2008 Musar Jeune--a fresh, unoaked red from the culty Chateau Musar made of Cab, Cinsault and Carignan grown on limestone soils. Hearts and stars, and all that.

We don't really have furniture in our new home, just flowery plates and rugs borrowed from the 'rents, so there we are on the floor. See? Moving is fun! SEE??!

----

Note: This MAY soon appear on a new and exciting blog called SameBrightStar Cooks! If my East Coast partner in crime gets on it and cooks this sucker up on Sunday. Here's hoping!

Not So "Short" Ribs

Our most recent trip to the Meat Hook sent us home with nearly $70 worth of Korean style short ribs. There were 13 of them at approximately three feet long:

So we put round three to use a few nights ago by rubbing them with ras el hanout and then serving them, grilled, with a bunch of stuff we had on hand in the fridge: feta-stuffed peppers and a lovely fresh salad of cucumber, tomato, spicy mixed greens and parsley.

Oh! And I almost forgot about the adorable little fairytale eggplant from Lani's Farm (quite probably my favorite vendor at the Union Square farmers market on Mondays and the Dag Hamerskjoewlrjdklxfd one on Wednesdays) that we pan-roasted and snacked on while we prepped. Looook at how cuuute...

Tomatoes and Basil are HERE!

Goodie goodie gumdrops made of tomato and basil! The most delectable summer flavor pairing has arrived, and I am taking full advantage. First stop: fresh tomato, roasted eggplant and basil chilled down (900 degrees outside) and heaped onto toasted baguette.

Second stop: tomato, basil, parsley, zucchini, feta frittata.

Third stop, coming soon: gazpacho!

Except When You Don't. Because, Sometimes You Won't.

Thanks, Dr. Seuss. It's true even in my exploratorium of a kitchen. Bang-ups and hang-ups happen. Like the miserable parsley and green garlic pesto over leftover potatoes and fusili pasta and peas.

Sure, it looked pretty enough. But it tasted terrible. Like, who wants that much parsley? Especially over old potatoes mixed with pasta. Ugh, and peas! This woman had to have been lying when she called the dish "tasty."

Then there was the near Vita-Mix homicide. So despicable it's embarrassing. And it was dangerous--my dear sweet Vita-Mix almost bit the dust; she smelled of smoking motor and went into overload protection mode... twice. Poor, poor Vita: You're worth more than even the tastiest almond butter. But this one wasn't tasty. It was pure horror, all those waxy fresh almonds whipping themselves into a thick, sticky glob, and not getting any more silken with additions of olive oil, water, peanut butter, Nutella (each added in subsequently desperate attempts to salvage the pricey almonds from total failure). This photo from my trash is frightening:

I swore off cooking for two days after these miserable mishaps. Ordered Chinese takeout, of all the ghastly scenarios possible.

Then I inherited a wok...

Poppa Provides: The 22.5LB Wild Striped Bass

Yo. This is massive. So massive that Josiah actually won discounted fishing trips for the rest of his life. Also so massive that we have enough fish to feed us for about a month. We literally made 22 1/3-pound bass fillets from this mother!

Here's dinner number one...

This erases my carbon footprint from those stupid tomatoes I bought earlier this week: A completely sustainable and local meal of wild, line-caught striped bass and peas, potatoes, baby fennel, green garlic and herbs all bought from the farmer's market. 

This was really simple, involving just boiling the fingerlings until they were tender, then sauteeing them up with green garlic and little bits of baby fennel with snap peas thrown in at the last moment to keep them crisp and fresh. Then we chopped up a bunch of dill, cilantro, parsley and fennel fronds while the fish were seared, two minutes a side, in a pan with butter before being finished in the oven for another two minutes. Butter, lemon and herbs were mixed together, then slathered over the fresh, tender, slightly sweet and very mild fish.

Ridiculously delicious.

Fat Sausage

Look at that big bad boy. Oooh-ee! Chicken apple sausage all glistening in duck fat juices. Quite savory all browned up and served over a bed of warm cabbage-apple slaw and buttery, parsley mashed potatoes. Ja, so German!