Entries from The Amateur Gourmet tagged with 'easy'
Chickpea Salad
Cheap and easy: that's my new motto (and reputation), especially at lunch. Yes--times are hard, even for your friendly Amateur Gourmet. "But you just went to Momofuku Ko," you might say and I'd say back, "Yes, and wiped myself clean!" Especially now that I've done my taxes: to quote my rabbi, "Oy!" No more lunches out, then: from now on it's sandwiches and leftovers. And the occasional chickpea salad like the one you see above....
Rachel Wharton's Bodega Beans
Monday night I went to a friend's play reading that let out at 9:30. I was starved. I considered grabbing a bite (I was in the No Man's Land of 35th and 8th Ave.) but then I decided I'd head home and grab a can of chickpeas from the bodega and make bodega hummus. (See here). As fate would have it, though, on the subway I ran into the unmistakable, inimitable Rachel Wharton of The Daily News who I journeyed to Queens with this summer. Rachel has a degree in food from NYU, so I put her to the test: "Rachel," I said, "I want to make a quick easy dinner with something I can get from my corner bodega." "Beans," she answered. "Beans?" "Yes," she continued. "Beans. I ate beans all through college. With some onion, garlic, or whatever you have, they're delicious."...
A $5 Dinner from the Corner Bodega [Homemade Hummus with Homemade Pita]
There are moments when I don't want to plan a dinner, but I don't want to order in either. In those moments, I think about quick solutions: what if I buy some bread and make an egg salad sandwich? Why don't I heat up leftover French onion soup? Or--in recent days--why not make some polenta? Tonight, coming back from a day in the city, I craved hummus. Not the kind you buy already made, I wanted to make it myself. I also wanted homemade pita bread. Every time I have hot, homemade pita bread (like the kind you get at Snack Taverna, for example) it's so much better than dried-out packaged pita bread, I vow to make my own from now on. But I never do. I tried it once with whole wheat flour and didn't love it. Tonight, though, would be different. Before getting to my apartment, I popped into the corner bodega (Craig calls it that, I used to just call it "the corner store") and bought the following: - a can of chickpeas - packets of yeast (yes, they have dried yeast at our corner bodega) - a lemon That was it. I had garlic and olive oil at home and flour too and that's all I'd need. The grand total? A little more than $5. Not bad for a Sunday night dinner....
Blueberry Disaster
I fully support, endorse and celebrate the spirit with which Nancy Silverton wrote her newest book, A Twist of the Wrist. For a chef as particular as Silverton (and believe me, having made her sourdough bread from scratch, that woman loves detail) it's refreshing to see her let down her hair, so to speak, with a book that grants the reader permission to skip the farmer's market in lieu of canned, jarred and boxed foods. For any other chef, it'd be an act of heresy; for Nancy Silverton--of the La Brea Bakery & Pizzeria Mozza, both groundbreaking California institutions--it's an act of humility. The book seems to say, "Look, home cook, I know you're busy; so here's a way to make delicious, restaurant-quality food at home for much less money in much less time." What could be wrong with that?...
Easy Tiramisu
Tiramisu is a dessert I've only eaten at restaurants--usually with my family. For some reason, the alchemy of its components always eluded me. It seemed like it might be very tricky to make. And then, for the Sopranos finale, I decided to give it a go. I pushed aside all the more complex recipes that involved egg yolks and heat, and used one right out of the Sopranos cookbook. It took less than ten minutes and the results were pretty dynamite. Here's how to do it....
