Celebrating spring with Canal House Cooking’s oysters with sausage and chilled avocado-cucumber soup.

Oysters and hot sausages. They pair surprisingly well together.

Despite the fact that the temperatures were barely cracking 40 degrees and snow was predicted to fall up in New England, there was no way I wasn’t going to let the first day of spring go by without marking it in some substantial way. I ended up flipping through my Canal House Cooking books, and landed on a couple of simple recipes that caught my eye: oysters with sausages and chilled avocado-cucumber soup. Michael suggested making cutlets or roasted chicken, and just like that we had a menu that felt properly celebratory.

I’ve sung the praises of the Canal House Cooking books previously, as their slow-fried chicken thighs are a favorite around here as is the ever-so-simple Italian Greyhound, and what I like about them is that they are incredibly unpretentious and you really feel like you’re hanging out in their riverside kitchen studio in Lambertville, New Jersey. Some of the recipes are more complicated than others, but what I love to do is discover little combinations that I otherwise would not have thought of going together, like oysters and sausages.

07.07.13: appetizer (gazpacho andaluz/gaspatxo andalús)

Gazpacho andaluz/gazpaxo andalús

One of the things that was challenging during our trip to Barcelona last year was trying to stay well-hydrated. We’d be the obnoxious Americans carrying around the giant 1.5 liter bottles of mineral water (sin gas) while we walked and went sightseeing, but the weather was warm, even for the first day of fall. Even then, nothing ever felt like it was properly slaking our thirst; that is, until I realized that the key to hydration, at least for me, was eating (drinking?) lots and lots of gazpacho.

It seemed odd at first–given its Andalusian provenance, I wasn’t expecting to find it as readily as I did in Barcelona–but I’m pretty sure the restaurateurs knew that few other foods are as fully restorative during hot weather as even a small serving of this soup. Thanks to unseasonably cool weather once we came home, though, my craving for gazpacho completely vanished and I didn’t think of making it again until a few weeks ago when we were in the middle of the first of a series of unpleasant heatwaves. Loosely following a recipe from José Andrés, I immediately remembered the appeal of this dish: an abundance of water-logged vegetables that help you stay hydrated, but do so while also helping you feel full. (Thanks, fiber!) That it requires minimal prep work and that a blender does all the work is icing on the cake.

03.24.13: tapas (pollo con ajo, ajo blanco de malagueño, y rossejat de gambetes i aiolli)

Ajo blanco de malagueño (or, white gazpacho)

Yes, that’s a whole mess of Spanish and Català up there in the post title.  No, I make no apologies.

This meal was a bit ambitious for us, even for a Sunday night: in the mood for some delicious José Andrés-style tapas after hearing about Michael’s visit to Zaytinya during his recent trip to DC. Picking four dishes (the three listed here, along with a variation of this salad), I made a plan to get some of the work done early in the afternoon, after my workout but before I went down the street to see the Chilean movie No at the local non-profit movie theater. I really thought that I had it all in hand: I made the sofrito for the rossejat after we got back from the store, and everything else was pretty much self-explanatory. Or so I thought.

MAMSM: Basque-style mussel and white bean stew.

Basque-style mussels and white bean stew.

I know the first post in this series was for an agua fresca, but I should make it clear that juicing is not something we do at all, but every once in a while I’ll crave something sweet and light and that fresh drink mix does the trick nicely. But then I see things like this interview and I’m kind of boggled by anyone being satiated by only drinking a few juices during the day and waiting until the evening to eat a meal of solid food. Then again, there’s no way I could do what I want to do powered simply by juice, because you can’t lift heavy or lift in volume on what appears to be a very limited amount of calories, particularly in the protein realm.

Because that’s the thing about doing things like barbell deadlifts and squats: for me, I need to feel like I have some serious fuel in the tank to get over the mental hurdle that is pulling a series of heavy triples in a row, or doing a circuit that calls for ten to twelve rounds of pressing sixty pounds over my head and squatting it on my back, all the while feeling confident that every time I do so I’m completely in control of the barbell in my hands. Fueling those pre-workout dinners with something that’s both filling but not stuffing can prove to be a challenge, but I find a nice balance with seafood, especially when I pair it with beans or quinoa.

01.02.10: dinner (spicy black bean soup with a Spanish twist).

 

Spicy Black Bean Soup

Oh January, we meet again.

 

Now that the holidays are over, New York has a tendency to descend into its winter-long hibernation. No one wants to do anything because it’s either snowing, has snowed or is just too damn cold outside, so you can either pull on the Hunter boots and see what’s shaking at the local watering holes a block or two away, or you only venture out to collect provisions from Fairway and the local wine shop and cocoon in your apartment. It’s the perfect excuse to spend the morning flipping through cookbooks, particularly new ones acquired during the holidays, looking for that perfect project to warm up the apartment…but there is also the temptation to want to indulge in comfort foods because it is so cold outside.

11.28.10: dinner (stracciatella and fritatta, inspired in part by Nigella)

Stracciatella of Tarragon, Semolina Flour and Pecorino Cheese

I have to say that I kind of love the habit of coming home after a weekend trip to Pennsylvania and indulging in a soup and an eggy dish. We did it back in August with gazpacho and our ugly-but-delicious tortilla, and after Thanksgiving we toasted to our uneventful Amtrak ride with lovely stracciatella and a simple fritatta. As we worked together to make the meal, both Michael and I started to channel Nigella Lawson a bit because both of these dishes seemed like ones you might see on one of her many BBC programs: fast, loaded with vegetables but all with a heavy does of indulgence. There may have been some bad British-accented commentary going on as we cooked, but I won’t say for certain. All I will confirm is that dinner came together in very short order that night–and that’s something, I think, we could all use in this otherwise hectic time of year.

11.29.10: dinner (Catalan mushroom soup and El Clásico)

Sopa Gairebé Fredolic

You may have noticed a dearth of anything Thanksgiving-related (save for our annual pre-Thanksgiving duck, of course) here on the blog. That, my friends, was intentional: I’m not the biggest fan of Thanksgiving food to begin with (a little roast turkey goes a long way for me) and depending on the year and whose house we’re staying at, we tend to not do a lot of cooking. That probably sounds a little strange given that we cook so much on our own, but Thanksgiving is a day so steeped in food traditions that we’ll defer to them–well, at least until we get to take over the reigns of hosting the meal down the road. As for this year, Michael did an excellent job in roasting a 19-pound bird and I brought un poco de España into the mix with a few early-afternoon tapas that were well-received by my in-laws.