It takes a lot to get back in the groove, but now that the big project has passed, and I’m looking forward to a serious food vacation, I think I can restart the documentation. So I’m back in action with a completely random dinner.

The beginning: a gift certificate to my favorite food store, and an enticing jar of harissa. Next: what to do with the harissa? Harissa means Moroccan, and I conveniently have a stockpile of that. (Stupid not to make it all the time, since it’s possibly the world’s quickest, easiest starch — and also really good with some honey for breakfast.)

Off to the store for some meat and vegetables. I had planned on chicken, but Bi-Rite was cleaned out (everyone cooks on Sunday night!), so I decided to try their pomegranate-marinated lamb leg. I don’t even like lamb, but hey, pomegranate, lamb, Morocco….

A not very long story made short: I cut some zucchini, red onion, carrots, and sweet peppers into large chunks, added a bit of sliced garlic, a few grinds of pepper, and olive oil, spread it in one layer in a casserole, and tossed it into a hot oven to roast. In the meantime, I cleaned the lamb (I hate gristle) and cut it into a few grillable slabs, then got the couscous going.

I’m not joking that couscous is the easiest starch. Here’s the recipe: Boil 1 1/4 cups of water and a bit of butter or oil. When the water is boiling, stir in 1 cup of couscous. Put the lid on and turn off the heat. After 5 minutes, fluff if with a fork. That’s it, really.

I gave the vegetables a good stir every 10 minutes for maybe a half hour, until they were good and soft, and starting to char. But I needed some kind of sauce. OK, so the Morocco thing went out the window, but here comes the harissa: Onto the vegetables I spooned a quarter cup or so of tomato sauce plus a heaping spoonful of the harissa, some salt, oregano, and thyme, then set the pan back into the oven to heat and thicken up. After a few minutes, I tossed the lot of it with some chopped parsley and cilantro and…wait for it…some diced homemade preserved lemon! (The lemons win the prize for longest-languishing ingredient in my fridge, and they’re actually not bad.)

The vegetables are delicious! Harissa isn’t too hot, and more complex than I’d guessed. The fresh herbs were a nice bonus, since I don’t always have herbs in the house. The thin slabs of lamb grilled up in about 10 minutes (I managed to not overcook them).

Final dish: a pile of couscous topped with a hefty scoop of vegetables, thick sauce, and chunks of grilled lamb. And all in about 40 minutes. Yum!

Still buried at work, but I am still eating!

One to file away for later: You know you’re an adult when you can come home after a long day, pop a chicken in the oven to roast, then fry up its liver with some olive oil, capers, and a dab of anchovy paste for a predinner snack, and no one says a thing.

The large glass of red wine is a nice touch, too.

radicchio

My deep love for radicchio may have something to do with its glorious color or some feeling that I’m doing my body good, but I chalk it up more to my undying love for all things Italy. Some of the farms around here grow the very Italian radicchio di Treviso, which I buy unfailingly at the market whenever it appears, generally with a quarter pound of pancetta in the other hand.

If you’ve never tried it, let me be the first to tell you that radicchio wrapped in a salty cured meat is one of the best goddam things you’ll ever put in your mouth.

So here’s tonight’s absolutely ravishing, surprisingly quick, and thankfully not-too-bad-for-you dinner (you’ll be glad when you’re licking your plate clean). You’ll need to run to the store for this one, but with only a few ingredients, the trip won’t take long.

What you’ll need for you and a friend:

about 1 cup of polenta
a pat of butter
freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
one or two heads of radicchio
3–6 oz. very thinly sliced prosciutto or pancetta
2/3 c. balsamic vinegar
extra virgin olive oil

Part 1: Make some polenta. I am not fond of the instant variety, and handmade is so, so easy: Just boil some water and salt it. Add the polenta (rough cornmeal) in a slow stream, whisking constantly, then simmer over medium heat, stirring often with a straight-bottomed spoon, for 20 minutes or so. You want it soft, so go with a ratio of 4–5 parts water to 1 part polenta. Add a little milk if you like, and always, always finish with a pat of butter and a good handful or two of Parmigiano-Reggiano. You’ll have more than enough for two.

Part 2: Quarter your radicchio. I prefer the tubular Treviso, but if you can only find round Chiogga radicchio, that will do just fine. Wrap each quarter tightly in a piece of prosciutto (if the pieces are narrow, use two). Heat a little olive oil in a pan and place the wrapped radicchio in the pan, seam-side down. Turn the radicchio often until the prosciutto crisps up. Remove the quarters from the pan and give them a nice sprinkling of pepper.

Now add another tablespoon of oil and the balsamic to the pan and boil it until it has reduced and thickened up a little bit. This is your sauce — wonderful on the food, but don’t hold your face over the pan, or I guarantee you’ll start sneezing.

Time to eat: Spoon some polenta onto your plate, then a couple of quarters of radicchio. Spoon some sauce over both…then eat quickly before your friend steals it off your plate.

I tend to go a little nuts when I have a day off, which partly explains the parade of treats coming out of my kitchen this weekend. My oversupply of clementines explains some of the rest: clementine jam, yogurt (sweetened with the clementine jam), and candied clementine peel, which fortuitously, I learned, turns out to be one of the few things Shelli can stomach in her early pregnancy.

The big news is that after several years of drooling, I finally did it and purchased my first-ever piece of Le Creuset. (Thanks to my always generous brother, who blessed me with a big-ass gift card for Christmas, nudging the decision-making.) I am in love.

I went with the dual-toned red, 5.5-quart size — the most versatile, in my opinion (I really don’t cook massive roasts all that often), and thoroughly manageable, which means I won’t strain my back pulling it out of the oven. I brought it home less than 24 hours ago and have already used it twice.

Le Creuset demands braising, so I headed straight for Bi-Rite for something worthy of the maiden voyage. Beef, clearly, and the Bi-Rite folks actually had boneless chuck roasts, perfect for a lovely brasato al Barolo (beef braised in Barolo wine — or Cabernet Sauvignon if, like me, Barolo is a little beyond your budget). (Later I took my first shot at the now-infamous No-Knead Bread. More on that later.)

If you’re going to go large, you might as well go all the way, so I decided to pair the beef with some homemade pappardelle. Why not? If I had more time on my hands, I’d make pasta all the time. After you dig out the pasta machine and get a little workout kneading the dough (don’t skimp on the kneading!), your work is nearly done. A little rest, a spin through the machine, and a little cutting, and you’re ready to go.

Maybe it was cook’s intuition, but the pasta turns out to have been a great call, since it turns out that I overcooked the beef. Sigh. Backup plan: Shredded and resubmerged in the braising liquid, with some peas thrown in for sweet and color, beef in Barolo makes a brilliant pasta sauce. We’ll call it Pappardelle con Sugo di Bresato…e Piselli.

Despite what any of those right-coasters might believe, California is not really all that warm. If you’ve ever visited San Francisco, you likely made an emergency shopping run to pick up a cozy sweatshirt or jacket to warm up when the fog started rolling in. It’s not foggy now, but it’s damn cold. I mean blowing-on-hands, shoulder-cramping cold.

I know, it sounds like a sissy claim when I tell you it’s in the 30s (”Oh, big deal, we had a blizzard here in Denver!” “It’s pouring muddy slush in New York!”). Well, remember that skiers and East Coasters expect it to be cold in the winter, so they do things like insulate their houses and buy double-paned windows. They might even have parkas and central heat.

In any case, in the weather of two sweaters, jacket, scarf, and gloves, it’s French onion soup time, if you ask me. Skip out of work early, swing by the store, and get a pot going now.

If you’re like me, you probably didn’t get around to making any beef stock this week, so go ahead and use your low-sodium canned stuff. I cheated and made some broth out of the veal demiglace I’ve had languishing in the fridge for a couple of months, but it’s really the onions and cheese that matter.

You need real Gruyère (you’ll blanch at the cost, but buy it anyway) and about five pounds of sweet onions. If you can find only generic yellow onions, or white ones, don’t bother — you need sweet ones, or they’re just never going to caramelize, which means you’ll have oniony soup but not the luxurious browned deliciousness your freezing innards are craving. Some thyme is also nice. And a little bread.

Slice your onions as finely as you can. Your eyes will ache as you sob out a flood of onion tears (unless, as I vow to do next time, you put on some goggles, or you’re just not sensitive to the stuff, in which case I hate you). When you’re done, melt a few tablespoons of butter in a nice big, wide, heavy pot and start cooking your onions over medium heat. You’re going to want them to cook fairly slowly until they start to brown, which can take nearly an hour. Seriously. Just toss them around every few minutes to cook them more or less evenly.

Now here’s a technique I learned from James Patterson, which I think concentrates the flavor a bit: Add a half cup of your broth and cook it down; repeat three more times. I added some sherry at this point, too, just for kicks. Now add 7 or 8 more cups of broth, plus some sprigs of thyme, a bay leaf, and salt and pepper. Simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes, and adjust your salt (don’t skimp on the salt). It’s ready!

I don’t mess around with crocks (well, fine, I don’t have crocks), but you can’t beat cheese toast: Slice some of your bread, sprinkle with Gruyère, and broil for a minute. Add a toast or 5 to a big bowl of the soup, then sprinkle with even more cheese, and pour some wine. Could dinner really be any easier?

(Oh, and to answer your unasked question: Yes, your house will smell like onions when you’re done. But you’ve smelled worse, trust me.)

A beautifully wrapped caramel
(image lifted from Epicurious)

I’m still here! Just quiet. I’ve been cooking like mad since before Thanksgiving — and eating too, which I suppose could explain the lethargy.

Highlight of the season: Made my very own salted chocolate caramels. Oh, mama. Trust me: A chewy, not-too-sweet, teasingly salty caramel a day can ease a lot of post-holiday pain.

Of course they’re not difficult (I rarely get complicated), but it was nice to find a recipe in Gourmet in December. You make your caramel and add some chocolate partway on the path to 255°. A bit of very nice sea salt is key, and I actually don’t regret spending something upward of $9 on a box of the flaky Maldon variety. I just may cook these up all year.

Back soon — and with a new camera to boot, I hope! Look for uncopyrighted photos here soon.

Thai coconut milk soup (tom kha gai): I used to think this sounded too exotic for a casual night dining alone, but a hundred weeknight dinners can’t be wrong. I’ve made this so many times, in so many different ways — well, all you need is a few pantry items.

Lemongrass is good. In fact, I went with the soup tonight because I happened to have three stalks of it in my fridge (it keeps for weeks — or try dried). If you don’t have that, go with limes. Or lemons and limes. Coconut milk, obviously.

Most recipes call for chicken, but I had frozen shrimp. Perfect. Even better is the Black Japonica rice I made alongside (jasmine is fine, but something nutty with some bit to it is even better). It’s easy, I swear.

I don’t like lots of bits in my soup, so I make a quick stock first: Peel your shrimp and save the shells. Heat some oil in a pot and toss in the shells, some smashed pieces of lemongrass, a few slices of ginger (or even ginger from a jar), some sliced onion, a little garlic, and some spice. If you have dried chiles, you can use those, but red curry paste is even better — I used a couple of large teaspoons. Sauté the aromatics in the oil for a few minutes, then add about 4 cups of stock or water. Let that boil and then simmer for a while — 5 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever works for you.

Strain the stock to get all the bits out (eating lemongrass is a bit like gnawing on wet toothpicks). In the same pot, sauté a little more finely chopped onion and ginger in a little oil, then pour in the stock. When it’s hot, add the shrimp, then a can of coconut milk. If you have some shiitakes, you can throw those in, too. The shrimp will only take a minute or two to cook through. When it’s done, squeeze in a lime or two, add a few splashes of naam pla (buy some fish sauce, seriously — it’s good, cheap, and keeps forever), and some cilantro, if you have it.

Done! Scoop it into a bowl along with a few spoonfuls of some rice, or some noodles. Hot.

You heard it hear first! Yahoo! launched a food site. And it looks pretty good, honestly.

To hell with Rachael Ray and her goddam EVOO, but I love the idea of being able to search recipes on Food & Wine and Epicurious (which the manager of the team actually cofounded). And the site is quite pretty.

I’m a little depressed that they didn’t intuit my natural talents, ferret me out of my Yahoo! cube, and beg me to join the team. But then again, they’d have to throw more than food and money at me to get me to move to L.A.

I’m not really all work and no play; I just have too much work, so I can find time for the play but rarely the documentation of said play.

But play is screaming for attention tonight, because I’m making ice cream.

I clearly don’t do this enough, because I actually forgot to stick the mixing arm in the bowl until after I’d started the machine. But it’s a crying shame, honestly. Homemade ice cream is ridiculously easy — it just takes some investment in an ice cream machine ($50) and the dairy aisle. Helpful as well are several guests or a strong personal resistance to temptation. (Thankfully I am not the type to smother my sorrows in a pint of cold fat. However, it means that making ice cream is often kind of a waste in my house, since I don’t pack that much away.)

Tonight I’m going for the gold (well, speckled ivory, really). We’ve been invited to a dinner party as one of a group of “gastronomes,” which I’m assuming means I need to bring something interesting.

I’m going back to my Advanced Baking and Pastry days, when I kicked some serious ass with an apple charlotte and some fancy accoutrements, including a dramatically long, curled caramel tuile that, sadly, is not going to make an appearance tomorrow. The revised plan: individual apple tartlets with caramel sauce and sour cream ice cream.

(Writing this, I realize I should really be serving tarte tatins. But dealing with blazing-hot caramel in small pans I don’t own in someone else’s kitchen…maybe not such a good idea.)

Sour cream ice cream is brilliant: your favorite vanilla, rich and flecked with loads of real vanilla bean, but with a vivid tang and a filthily decadent richness you aren’t going to find at the corner store. The closest relative is certainly crème fraîche ice cream, or yogurt-flavored gelato from Vivoli in Firenze — which, by the way, has nothing whatsoever to do with “fro-yo.” (European yogurt is the best because it’s fat.)

I couldn’t locate the recipe I used in school, so I went with this version from Gourmet. It’s still churning, but after several dozen tastes…well, I’m optimistic that I can save a little for the party.

Sour Cream Ice Cream
(Gourmet, 1996)

2 cups half-and-half
1 cup sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise
8 large egg yolks
2 cups (1 pint) sour cream

In heavy saucepan combine half-and-half, 3/4 cup sugar, and vanilla bean and bring just to a boil. Remove pan from heat. in a bowl whisk together egg yolks and remaining 1/4 cup sugar and hot half-and-half mixture in a stream, whisking. Return custard to pan and cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until 170°F on a candy thermometer.

Remove pan from heat. Scrape seeds from vanilla bean into custard until combined well and discard pod. Stir sour cream into custard until combined well and strain through a fine sieve into a bowl. Chill custard until cold and freeze in an ice-cream maker.

Makes about 1 quart.

Yes, I’m back. To anyone paying attention: I apologize for disappearing. Let’s catch up. It’s not like we haven’t been eating.

The latest: I’ve been on the “save money, don’t go to the store” angle this week…well, actually, this month, which explains why the pantry is running thin. I’ve been getting a little too spendy on the outings (culinary and not), but that’s always a fun excuse to play the pantry challenge. What can you make based almost entirely on pantry and freezer ingredients?

(I make exceptions for essentials like onions, garlic, carrots, and lemons, which are easy to keep on hand in bulk. So can you.)

My pantry-challenge meals lean toward grain and legumes without question. The house is officially bereft if I’m out of canned tomatoes or pasta. You can always make something brilliant with those two lifelines and spices alone; even better if you’ve got some meat (bacon? pancetta?) or jars of capers and olives on hand. Talk to me about pasta. I can go on for hours.

So tonight I’ve got leftover baked pasta with broccoli and goat cheese (no tomatoes!) waiting for me, but last night I went “healthy” by hitting the dried beans. Easy as hell, and I’ve prepped the freezer for pantry raids down the road.

The procedure: The moment I walked in the door, I poured a bag of bulk dried chickpeas (maybe a little more than a pound?) in a pot with two inches of water to cover and got them going over high heat. No presoaking, no fancy prep. Dried beans, water. Poured a drink and sat down to finish some work.

About an hour later, I dug a couple of Italian sausages and half a bag of frozen spinach out of the freezer, chopped some onion, carrot, and garlic, and located the leftover tomato sauce from the pizza I made last week. Browned the sausage, then softened the vegetables in olive oil. I deglazed with some sherry — the chickpeas nearing done — and added the tomato sauce, sausage, and my favorite, pimentón.

When that mixture was bubbling satisfyingly, I ladled a few scoops of the chickpeas with their cooking liquid (and the couple of cloves of garlic I added halfway through cooking) into the pot, simmered a little while, added the spinach, some parsley, and a dash of sherry vinegar, and presto! Done. Actually quite good, and perhaps half an hour of active cooking time.

Almost as great: several pints of cooked chickpeas prepped for the freezer and an even faster meal another day.

What do you make when you’re too lazy to go to the store and too cheap for takeout?