Lazy Stew

I know it's been warm this year up there in the east coast but I was up in the west coast for a couple of weeks, enjoying the best January weather ever.  It was 60 degrees there with lots of sunshine and it was so so easy to forget that it's winter and I should be sitting in bed with double blankets and a hoodie, drinking hot tea. It's not great to have a boyfriend who goes to school so damn far away, but I am loving the small handful of perks that come with it {hellooo best hot dog ever!}

Fast forward three weeks, and I'm back in the lovely boston just in time to miss the supposed winter storm that was supposed to make us all wish we were on a sunny caribbean island somewhere. There's snow on the ground and a chill seeping through my windows; I'm back to layering up on blankets while TC traipses around in a short sleeved t-shirt and iced coffee every morning showoff! In retaliation, I'm coming up with a full list of winter foods that will be happening up here in boston, which he won't get to have 😈😈😈. It's not the best revenge or anything - obviously the good weather is better, but it's still something right? 

I'm starting off with a lazy day stew that takes almost negative minutes to prepare, because I've been jazzed about starting this new meat delivery service that basically drops off nicely packaged organic meats once a month to my apartment from local farms in the Boston area. I'm guessing they drop off a roast every month in the winter, because I got this large chunk of chuck roast and it is amazeballs. Almost makes up for the fact that 1) It's winter, and I'm still stuck here in the cold; 2) I'm clearly so lazy I can't even bother to go grocery shopping anymore; 3) Does this mean I have to exercise to make up for the part where I clearly no longer leave my apartment anymore!?

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Lazy Stew
4 servings

How to do it:

• Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.
• Heavily season chuck roast with salt and pepper.
• Heat olive oil in a large braising pan, and brown chuck roast on all four sides. Remove the roast and saute finely chopped onion, carrot, and celery to deglaze the pan. Add beef broth {or beef broth + white wine}.
• Return the roast into the pan, and add rosemary, thyme, and the bay leaf. Cover the braising pan and transfer it to the oven for 2 hours. 
• After 2 hours, toss chopped celery, potatoes, and broccoli with salt and pepper. Add veggies into the braising pan, cover, and cook for another 1-1.5 hrs.  
• Serve shredded with blue cheese in a sandwich if you like to carb overload like me {yay!}, or just eat as is {boo!}

What you need:

• 2 lb chuck roast
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 1 stalk celery, finely chopped
• 1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, finely chopped
• 2 cups beef broth {or sub 1 cup white wine}
• 2 sprigs thyme + rosemary {dried is fine also}
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup celery, chopped into 1 inch pieces
• 1 lb red potatoes, quartered
• 1 head broccoli, cut into florets

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A New Year's Tart: No Bake Chocolate Tart with Hazelnuts and Sea Salt

2015 

• Finished my first year in grad school, and started the second. Learned to enjoy life a little more, take work a little less seriously. Decided that things will probably turn out okay. 
• Took an awesome trip to Morocco - visited many cities, finally got to see the sahara in person #lifegoals, cuddled a fennec fox.
• TC moved to Berkeley for school, which was a bit crappy. But got an excuse to go to San Francisco all the time {yay for great food, right??}
• Expanded my research horizons a little, which was scary and interesting at the same time. Managed to write a decent paper on samurais rebellions!

2016

• Resolutions, just two this year: 1) Quit second-guessing myself, 2) Be more conscious of my time - a little less procrastinating, a little more deliberate fun.
• Comprehensive exams - nightmarish but I expect that we'll all pass. And then on to be a PhD candidate for reals {!!!!!!!}
• A 2.5 week trip to Vietnam, Thailand, and Singapore right after exams, where we will eat eat eat eat eat and then eat a lot more. Visit my old neighborhood in singapore, be grumpy about everything that has changed. I heard the indonesian auntie who used to sell curry puffs down the street got replaced by a row of freaking restaurants?!
• Fieldwork, over the summer, in Burkina Faso. And hopefully lots and lots of interesting results will come out of it.
• Start of dissertation planning eek!

Happy happy happy new year everyone !!!!! Hope everyone has a fantastic 2016!

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Hazelnut Chocolate Sea Salt Tart
nine or ten inch tart

for the crust

what you need:

• 2 sticks cold butter
• 2 1/4 cup AP flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• pinch of salt
• 3 tbsp water

how to do it:

• Cut butter into tiny cubes. In a separate bowl, mix flour, sugar, and pinch of salt.
• Using fingers or a dough blender, mix butter and dry ingredients. If using fingers, smoosh the butter with the flour.
• After about five or ten minutes (mixture should be pea sized lumps), add water. Press everything together so that the dough comes together. Wrap tightly and refrigerate for 20min. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
• Roll out dough between two pieces of wax paper to desired thinness, and transfer to a tart tin or cast iron skillet. Gently line the top of the crust with parchment paper and fill with either pie weights, dried beans, or uncooked rice.
• Bake 425 degrees for 10-15min. Remove parchment paper filled with weights. Poke some holes if necessary, and continue baking for another 10min until crust is golden brown.

for the filling

how to do it:

• Coarsely chop chocolate and transfer to a large bowl. 
• Combine butter, cream, and sugar in a small saucepan. Turn fire to medium and allow it to come to a simmer.
• Pour wet mixture over chocolate, and stir until chocolate has melted and ganache comes together.
• Spread 1/2 cup hazelnuts at the bottom of the pie crust, and then pour ganache on top. Sprinkle remaining 1/2 cup of hazelnuts on top, and finish off with sea salt.
• Refrigerate tart for 3 hours, or until it has set.

what you need:

• 1/2 stick butter
• 1 cup cream
• 12 oz of your favorite chocolate mix {I used 8oz bittersweet, 4oz semi sweet}
• 4 tbsp sugar {less if using all semi sweet chocolate}
• 1 cup toasted hazelnuts
• Sea salt for sprinkling

Saucy Braised Meatballs

Happy 2 days before new years! 

So much excitement for the new year! I haven't made any new years resolutions yet, but they are clearing coming up soon, soon, soon. School just ended a week ago but too close to christmas, which means the number of cookies I made for this holiday season = zero. But I made up (am making up? will be making up?) for it with a bunch of other goodies, especially since TC came around to visit me for a whole 2 weeks. 

Well actually, the real reason (shh.) I baked absolutely nothing this past week is because I bought another le creuset and really felt like I needed to braise everything in sight.  This makes it no. 3(!!), a pretty braiser in white does this qualify as an LC addiction yet, or do I need 3 more??? I justified it by telling myself I hadn't bought one in a whole two years, that it was an early xmas gift to myself, that I really needed a pot wider than my 3.5 wide dutch oven. Obviously the real reason is that I suddenly fell in love with the color dune (which I found out gets so much hate by basically everybody else in the universe, what gives guys?!?)

We broke in baby no. 3 with a pound of meatballs - the easy kind that follows no recipe, just blind throwing and a non-fancy sauce. No regrets on the purchase obviously, although my bank account is a little mad at me...

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Saucy Meatballs
four servings (twenty-ish meatballs)

How to do it:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Mix everything except for tomato and basil leaves using your hands. It should be well combined, but not overworked!
• Roll out little meatballs, about 1.5 inches in diameter, and assemble in a wide pan with a lid.
• Combine drained canned tomato and basil leaves (plus other seasonings if you want!) in a food processor, and puree until very smooth. Pour over meatballs so that the pan is evenly covered with a shallow layer of sauce.
• Cover the pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 30min, until meatballs are soft and tender. Serve with lots of fresh veggies and pasta!

What you need:

• 1/2 pound ground beef
• 1/2 pound ground veal
• 1/3 cup grated parmesan
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 2 tsp oregano
• 1 tsp dried parsley
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
• 1 egg
• 28oz canned tomato, drained
• 1 handful basil leaves, plus any additional seasonings as desired.

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Pistachio and Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies

I can't believe it's the end of october! How time has passed. Clearly school has started up again {why else wouldn't you see me here regularly, right??} and I'm swimming in work again. Second year is different - less pressure to do well in school or take all the classes possible, but more pressure to produce some original research, which we all know will probably not be good anyway. There are some presentations coming up, and I can say with absolute certainty that my coauthors and I are not ready for it...but we're doing a great job pretending we're fine! And two elections on sunday - Cote d'Ivoire and Tanzania - both of which hopefully {fingers crossed} will pass by smoothly. 

My baby sister {not so baby anymore...} won third prize at the esteemed chopin competition this past week!!!!!!!! It's basically like winning third prize at the olympics. It was crazy, so crazy, to watch her on the live feed and see all of these photos of her performance, and watch the polish paparazzi swarm at her post-performance. My parents went to poland for the final round, but I was stuck in boston thanks to midterms week I should so have ditched those midterms. I can't believe that she's 21 already, and that she's made it so far in her career as a pianist. I still remember when we were much younger, and she said she would rather be a cartoonist because she wasn't sure how much she actually enjoyed piano. I remember when we used to look at glossy magazines of these glamorous performers in these big competitions - the photos, the accolades, the performances, their biographies - and think how absolutely crazy it would be to be one of them. How impossible it would be to get there, to make it that far in music.

And now she's made it, and every time I think about it, I tear up a little ahhhh!!!!!

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Pistachio and Sea Salt Chocolate Chip Cookies
12 large cookies

How to do it:

• Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together until well mixed.
• Cream butter and white sugar together with a mixer for 5min (it may look "mixed" after 30sec, but its better if you fluff it longer!). Add brown sugar and continue for another 2-5min, until the mixture is well incorporated and fluffy. Add eggs and beat until incorporated.
• Mix dry ingredients into the wet ingredients in three separate batches. When the cookie dough has come together, stir in (by hand!) the chocolate chips.
• Refrigerate cookie dough for at least 2 hours, preferably overnight. 
• When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Roll balls of cookie dough, about 1.5inches in diameter and place them on the baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Press down on each cookie dough ball to flatten, and sprinkle with sea salt.
• Bake for 10-12 min, until the side have set but the centers are still looking a little undercooked. Allow the cookies to set, about 5min, before transferring to a cooling rack.

What you need:

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 1 3/4 cup AP flour (or preferably: 1 cup cake flour, 3/4 cup bread flour)
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup semi sweet chocolate
• 1 cup shelled, toasted pistachios
• Coarse sea salt

Bacon Fried Rice with Roasted Bok Choy

We have about 3 weeks left before TC has to pack up and move out to California to go to law school, which he is apparently completely unexcited about. I'm bummed about him moving across the country and completely, totally jealous that his winters are going to be so much better than the absolute misery that I must endure in the Boston snow.

On the brightest of sides, this means I basically get a completely-justified-no-one-can-judge-me 2 week long vacation. No one will fault me for helping my boyfriend move to a new city, right? I can’t wait to explore San Francisco of course, because the last time I was there I was about 12 years old and all I remember is this amazing white hoodie I bought with a giant sequined dragon on it {coolest hoodie ever}. This time I’m going all out - I’m making my list of restaurants and coffeeshops and I’ll just have to hit them all up.  

Before TC leaves, I've been threatening to make all of his favorite foods, all the time, so that he doesn't forget about me in his three years of being away. I'm obviously kidding sort of totally kidding. But I did make this fried rice because it's definitely one of his favorites. It's simple and delicious and completely non-healthy thanks to the bacon! bacon! bacon! but it's made with brown rice so let's just agree that its health benefits cancel out the bacon! 

The fried rice should always be paired with bok choy because my mom said so, but have you ever grown up with a vegetable that can never be prepared a certain way? For our super chinese households, the idea of roasting bok choy is basically heretical, but oh my god it is so delicious that way. TC loves it, but no one tell my mother...

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Bacon Fried Rice with Roasted Bok Choy
2 servings

for the bacon fried rice

What you need: 

• 4 strips of bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces
• 1/3 cup frozen corn
• 1/3 cup frozen peas
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 2 cups cooked brown rice {or white rice}
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 tbsp shaoxing wine or chicken stock
• 1 tbsp red pepper flakes {optional}
• 1 tsp toasted sesame seeds {optional}
• salt and pepper to taste

How to do it:

• Over medium-high heat, fry bacon in a wok or deep pan until the fat has rendered. Add frozen corn and peas.
• When corn and peas have cooked, push the mix along with the bacon. Pour egg into the pan and reduce heat to low. Slowly scramble until egg has cooked, and mix in the corn, peas, and bacon. 
• Add rice and turn the heat up to high. Dig a well into the middle of the pan and add soy sauce and the shaoxing wine or chicken stock. Stir everything together and fry until rice is toasty. Add red pepper flakes and sesame seeds {if using} along with salt and pepper to taste.

for the roasted bok choy

What you need: 

• 10-12 heads baby bok choy {I used Taiwan bok choy, which I think roasts better than Shanghai bok choy}
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp sea salt

How to do it:

• Preheat oven 400 degrees. Toss bok choy in olive oil and spread onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with sea salt and roast for 10min, until leaves are lightly charred and the stalks are tender but still crispy.

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