GASTRONORMOUS

I guess I have heard of cooking pasta like a risotto before, but never thought too hard about it. Over at Bitten, Edward Schneider writes about using dried mushroom soaking liquid combined with chicken stock to cook ziti in this manner. The resultant dish looks ridiculously toothsome. I have never been able to make a brothy sauce for pasta totally satisfying, but cooking the pasta in the sauce itself seems to add enough starch to give it some body. I think a splash of red wine might work well to start the process off using a rissoto-ish technique, rather than the stock the recipe calls for.

This recipe for asian slaw over at the Kitchn, sounds suspiciously like the delicious slaw at Rice (I don’t love this restaurant, but the slaw is really good). The salad looks great, though I might experiement with lowering the oil-to-vinegar ratio in their recipe.  I love oil and vinegar coleslaws, and this looks like a great alternative to the mexican-style one I often make.

Eat It: Brooklyn recently ate at two restaurants where I also happened to enjoy a meal: General Greene for dinner and Buttermilk Channel for brunch (yes! they are now open for brunch, but only on Sundays). I forgot to take pictures at both of my meals, so please take a gander at EIB’s posts. While the dishes she (he?) ordered are completely different than mine, the tenor of the review is similar (although I think I might have more thoroughly enjoyed my brunch at BC). And yes, despite my treacherous brunch experience at General Greene, I trepidatiously returned and the dinner wasn’t bad!

Even though I am generally not the hugest fan of recipes calling for canned dough, I admit that this baked gouda recipe over at Half-Assed Kitchen has sort of rocked my world (and no, I haven’t even made it. Just thinking about it is doing the rockin’).

This is sort of old news, but: in case you need another reminder to check nutritional information before buying: mercury has been found in several brands of high-fructose corn syrup! As this article in U.S. News and World Report notes, very small amounts of mercury can do you damage.  It is scary to think about how many foods marketed to children contain the stuff.

These neoprene oven mitts featured over at the Kitchn look like the ideal alternative to those inflexible-but-very-heat-resistant silicone ones.

In case you have not yet realized your dream of eating an island of mac and cheese floating in a pool of sloppy joe (the mac and cheese floating in the sloppy joe, that is. I am not suggesting you might dream of literally eating mac and cheese while you are floating in a pool filled with sloppy joe. But if so, hey, who am I to judge?), then get yourself to Schnipper’s on 8th Ave, ASAP! (via Midtown Lunch)

Yum! I must make Food Mayhem‘s muy delicioso-looking take on Chex mix for my next gathering. It contains the unusual additions of a Guajillo pepper and tequila. Yes, I said tequila.

Eat Drink One Woman continues her entertaining Swedish adventure. Check out this cool, intimate little restaurant she found!

Emily Weinstein waxes euphoric about…pudding? Actually, all she mentions look awesome! Especially the butterscotch and chocolate-bread varieties. Hm, this might be a mandatory weekend activity….

Sorry for the long absence folks. I hope to begin posting more regularly.

I love beets, I love pickles, I love anything spicy. And thus, Mark Bittman‘s recipe for Mexican-style pickled beets struck a serious chord. My question is: where does one find the sour oranges his recipe calls for. And, uh, what are sour oranges?

Ketchup Macarons? I am not so sure about that. And even though he made them, I don’t think David Lebovitz is sold on them either.

The red kidney bean curry over at Smitten Kitchen looks pretty delightful (and not to difficult!).

Artichoke Heart’s sweet potato and butternut squash soup sounds like a great antidote to cold weather we are continuing to have (sigh!). I love the fact that it doesn’t have sweet stuff added to it (apples, honey, etc.) as so many of these types of soups do.

Holy Geshmoley! Eat Drink One Woman has moved to Stockholm for six months! I have never been, but must now visit if only to have the cardamum buns (and maybe sample the multiple varieties of tube cheese).

Whenever I go to a Korean restaurant, I inevitably get hot bibimbop, which I am drawn to mostly for the crispy and delicious crust of rice that forms on the bottom of the stone pot the dish is served in. Bitten offers a different region’s (the middle east’s) tasty variation on this way of cooking rice. I think I might make it this weekend!

I had never thought of making a polenta-and-beans dish, but this one over at the Kitchn looks great.

Smitten Kitchen‘s take on mushroom bourguignon looks like a hearty and satisfying meal for a day such as today in New York—with highs in the teens!

I love Midtown Lunch‘s magnum opus on Cafe Zaiya. It is a lengthy and sweet portrait of an apparently quite popular midtown breakfast and lunch spot. The food does look great…if only I worked in midtown.

I am leery of fat-free cookies. Usually, whatever calories lost from cutting the fat are more than made up for with extra sugars. So what’s the point of losing out on all the richness imparted by fat? But when David Lebovitz says about a nonfat ginger cookie “this was one of the best things I have ever put in my mouth,” you sort of have to listen. I am a BIG ginger cookie fan, so though I am not much of a baker, I just might need to try this recipe.

I have stood and gazed into the window of One Girl Cookies in Brooklyn many times, admiring the sweet creations that are made with the precision of Martha Stewart and the fancifulness of a cookie fairy (you know about cookie fairies, don’t you?). But I have never gone in. The place just looks too fancy, and maybe too expensive, for me. But after Eat It: Brooklyn‘s rave review, I might have to force my way in, if just for a single peanut butter coconut cookie….

Miso is one of those ingredients that irrationally intimidates me. Like yeast. Or fava beans. I don’t know what it is. It seems to exotic for my simple refrigerator to hold. And if I buy it, will I use it? And in what? Well, how about Mark Bittman‘s great-looking green beans with walnuts and miso? As usual, his recipe looks easy, elegant, and delicious.

Holy huitlacoche! If only I had known about the theater-district restaurant Toloache before I last ate in the area. NYC Nosh gives it a mostly positive review. The quesadilla with corn and huitlacoche looks totally scrumptious.

Penne alla vodka is one of my favorite pasta dishes. I often order it when I see it on a menu, but I have never actually cooked it. It just seemed like something so delicious must be really complicated. But who knew penne alla vodka is actually quite easy to make? The Amateur Gourmet did, that’s who.

In case you haven’t had the daily recommended dose of cute yet today, you simply must check out this adorable five-year-old’s cooking show. The recipe? Yummy Yummy Citrus Boys. The kid is just precious, and actually mostly seems to know what he doing (in some cases the finer motor skills aren’t tuned enough, and he makes a couple “Is this right?” glances to his off-camera parents, but hey, he’s five!). Among the pearls of wisdom he dispenses: “In order to make a batter, you must mix it.” Adorb! [via boingboing via Grub Street]

Eric Asimov writes about “an absolutely delicious” Merlot. I will repeat that. A delicious [sic!] Merlot! I wrote once about a Merlot I enjoyed, but I admit that it was precisely the wine’s non-Merlot-like qualities that made it enjoyable. This one from Long Island seems as if it is good on its own characteristic merits.

Shecky’s (of all places) has a great compilation of Holiday Cocktail Recipes from bartenders at popular bars and restaurants. I know the Cosmo is totally over, but I can’t help wanting to try the Gingerbread Cosmo. Maybe I’ll just call it a gingerbread martini when I have friends over for some holiday cheer.

I love this: Half-Assed Holiday Apps! (from the Half Assed Kitchen, of course).

I love butterscotch. I cannot be more serious about this. I would rather have butterscotch sauce than chocolate sauce on my ice cream. I think blondies are ruined by the addition of chocolate. I hands down prefer a butterscotch cookie to a classic chocolate chip. This is why I find the Accidental Hedonist‘s buttercotch cookie recipe so alluring. Of course, I will probably never make them as I don’t own a kitchen scale, and don’t bake enough to warrant ever buying one. Alas, these cookies will be relegated to my sweet dreams!

This brown-butter brown-sugar shortie recipe, on the other hand, might be the stuff of sweet reality. Serious bakers will frown at the use of measurements by volume rather than by weight, but for amateur bakers with a sweet tooth, this recipe looks great. Only five ingredients! And, well, close enough to butterscotch to make me happy. I guess. Sniff. Okay, I’d still rather have the real butterscotch ones. [via Smitten Kitchen, via Gourmet]

Coming to you on Saturday!

I didn’t know if I was more excited about the new season of Top Chef, or the winsome repartee about it by Adam Platt and Josh Ozersky on Grub Street. It turns out Ozersky is off the gig this season, and Daniel Maurer has replaced him. While certainly witty enough, I am not sure the chemistry of previous TC-post-mortems is there yet. Maybe it’ll help if they come up with cute nicknames for each other as Platt and Ozersky did, it’d help bolster the fun quotient. Is it just me that loved Platt calling Ozerky “Cutty?”

I happen to love broccoli, even when it is “squishy,” but when The Amateur Gourmet proclaims a recipe the “Best Broccoli of your Life,” I take it as an imperative to try the recipe. It does look and sound incredibly tasty.

As part of her “Thanksgiving Series,” Food Mayhem features a recipe for pumpkin lasagne. Um, yum!!

Too-sweet sweet potato haters, rejoice! Bittman offers four marshmallow-free sweet potato recipes. As someone who thinks that sweet potato (and butternut squash) recipes often skew so sweet as to mask their earthy, savory characteristics, I was thrilled to see this post. The shredded SP’s with brown butter and sage look especially enchanting.

Or, if you really like sugary sweet potatoes, why not use caramelized onions to sweeten them up! As seen over at the Kitchn. Sounds scrumptious!

Accidental Hedionist has a piece about cooking with beer. I’m talking like red sauce. With beer. The idea sounds too intriguing to not try, if you ask me.

Artichoke Heart has a recipe for dolmades, which I love, but have never found the guts and determination to make–they seem so labor intensive. These look worth all the work.

I love anybody who has the guts to make a dish that combines rice and potatoes. I’d serve it over pasta with a side of bread. But seriously, it looks delish. [via Bitten]

Nothing against the color blue, but these pumpkins look like they need oxygen. [via Serious Eats]

There aren’t many vegetables less sexy than cabbage, but Smitten Kitchen makes it look irresistable when combined with mushrooms in a savory galette. If my kitchen wasn’t getting torn up this weekend, I would totally try this!

I once went to Shopsins‘ restaurant when it was still located in the West Village (is is now in the Essex Market in the Lower East Side). I was equal parts in awe of the huge and inventive menu and terrified by what conditions might be like in the kitchen (cooks kept coming out of the kitchen wearing the most unbelievably filthy aprons I have ever seen). The place seemed kid friendly, with toys strewn about, though the staff was comprised exclusively of salty types who sprinkled every conversation they had with a few NC-17 curse words. Well, now Kenny Shopsin himself has cookbook, called, unsurprisingly, Eat Me. I can’t imagine every recipe from their menu being represented in a single book–the menu is that huge, but I would say the book is worth the purchase, just to see if it includes the recipe for the carmel pecan coconut bread pudding french toast. Yes, bread pudding french toast. [via Serious Eats]

I like cupcakes as well as the next chick does, but I think we have enough cutesy cake shops in New York, thanks. Grub Street reports on the opening of three more cupcake shops, including another Magnolia Bakery at times square. Oh well, maybe it’ll keep a few tourists out of the Village.

Well, it is isn’t exactly a moose burger, but…wait! That’s a good thing! I am intrigued by Food Mayhem‘s bison burgers with apple smoke salt. I am trying to imagine what apple smoked salt is like. Maybe I’ll just have to find out.

Midtown lunch is now doing a Happy Hour column! A smart addition to the great NY office-worker oriented blog. His first post is about the dive Rudy’s in Hell’s Kitchen. Before the Hubs, I once had a blind date at Rudy’s. It did not go well. Not well at all. But I won’t hold that against ML!

Just in time for Octoberfest, Eat It has a review of Radegast Hall Biergarten in Williamsburg. Get thee there before the good weather runs out! Auf wiedersehen!

The Vendy Awards finalists have been announced! [via Midtown Lunch] And, P.S., forget about the food, who designed this awesome lucha-libre logo with a fire-breathing taco dude wrestling a mustard-wielding hot dog dude??

Today is free ice cream day at your local Cold Stone Creamery! Donations go to the Make-a-Wish Foundation [via Gothamist, via Midtown Lunch]

It seems I can’t go a week without mentioning Mark Bittman. Here is his cornbread recipe, which does indeed seem “easy and forgiving” as he says. Last time I made cornbread I used a stone-ground-type cornmeal from the health food store, and it was really awful. That was enough to turn me off of cornbread for while, but I might just be inspired to try it again now…

If Molly’s slow-roasted tomatoes from the Amateur Gourmet don’t make you drool, then don’t come over to my place on Saturday, because that is when I might give the recipe a try.

The only downside to this great post about banana ice cream (with cocoa nibs and mace!) is the lack of photo of said ice cream. [via Epi-Log]

Zowie. The new JFK Jet Blue terminal will offer 400 different wines at restaurants throughout the terminal. 400!! The terminal will also boast many gourmet, organic, kosher, etc. items. And, you know, Dunkin’ Donuts too. [via Grub Street]