Category Archives: Food

Baked Fish with Thai Basil and Peppers

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Today I put my money where my mouth is and bought a thirty-pound watermelon.  Yes, you read that right.  Thirty.  Pounds.  Thirty pounds!

Does this ever happen to you?  One minute I was innocently stopping by the store to pick up a piece of fish, and the next minute I was staggering to my car carrying a small child and a melon that weighed more than her.  Truth be told, I hadn’t even thought of buying a watermelon today.  The only reason I bought it was that it was sitting beside a much smaller but more expensive “petite” watermelon, making this organic behemoth an irresistible deal at $8.50.  Those marketing geniuses at my co-op know me so well.

And now I have thirty pounds of watermelon to dispatch.  Ideas?

Of course I started off by stuffing everyone with sweet slices and encouraging the children to organize a backyard seed-spitting contest.  And then I made a double batch of that outstanding Chilled Watermelon Soup with Thai Flavors–have you tried it yet?  And that, of course, meant Thai flavors for the fish I’d gone to the co-op to get in the first place.  (You thought I’d forgotten the point of this post, didn’t you?)
Every time I make this, J says it’s his favorite dish.  (I think he says that about other things too, though–isn’t that sweet?)  My favorite dish would probably be something involving chocolate, or maybe these baked eggs, but I agree that this dish is quite good.  And if fish isn’t your thing, you could certainly toss the pepper mixture with cubes of fried tofu and serve it over rice instead. Continue reading →

Watermelon Sorbet

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Avert your eyes from the pumpkin spice recipes.  Don’t speak of apple cider or fall sweaters.  It’s still the height of the summer fruit season, peaches tapering into plums.  And melons.  The melons have hardly begun, here in the Northwest.

Let’s not hurry things along.  Let’s enjoy this final week of summer.

And by “enjoy summer,” I mean “make more ice cream.”  Sorbet.  Clean, summery, refreshing.  Just the thing to cap off the feast that this season has been. Continue reading →

Roasted Cauliflower and Chickpea Salad

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Although our Dinner in White has come and gone, this salad endures.  And no, by that I don’t mean that I have week-old leftovers in my fridge.  (I mean, I might, but let’s not speak of that.)  I mean that I already had to make this salad again, and I am looking forward to having it on our table often throughout the winter.  Along with that smoky cauliflower frittata, of course, and the cheddar and dijon cauliflower soup and that whole roasted cauliflower and…I might almost be looking forward to fall.

Unlike most of the recipes I post here, let me warn you, this one takes an hour.  An hour!  But it’s mostly hands-off time in the oven, and it’s worth it.  The cauliflower emerges limp and tender, the chickpeas crisp-edged and meaty.  The pine nuts add crunch and the raisins sweetness and the whole thing will leave you actually happy that it’s cool enough to turn your oven on for an hour.  We most recently ate this dish with a grated carrot salad, baked orzo with tomatoes, and a piece of grilled fish.  It was certainly a feast befitting the harvest season. Continue reading →

How to Cook Chickpeas

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Last night it rained, an honest, garden-soaking, puddle-making rain.  It hadn’t rained in 48 days.  (Seattle’s record dry spell, set in 1951, was 51 days.)  On the way out the door this morning, wrapped in coats against the newly-brisk air, my four-year-old cheerfully sang out our family’s frequent admonishment to her toddling little sister: “No boots, no puddles!”  It suddenly felt like fall.

It’s as good a day as any to put on a pot of beans. Continue reading →

Bok Choy Slaw with Radishes

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Emmy Cooks is Foodista’s Food Blog of the Day today!  What a nice compliment.  If you’ve made your way here from there, welcome.  We’re glad to have you.  Grab a fork and come dig in!

I’ve had a bok choy and radish slaw rattling around in my brain ever since I saw this recipe on another beautiful Northwest blog (did you check out yesterday’s?), The Plum Palate.  I had in mind a radish slaw that gave me the first hope that I could ever love radishes, and I envisioned the pungent flavors of raw bok choy and spicy radishes tamed with a bit of sweetness and the acid bite of vinegar.  Do you do that too, imagine how things should taste and then tweak until you get them there?  I was happy with how this turned out, and even happier after the flavors had the chance to blend for an hour or so. Continue reading →

Healthy Cookies

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Welcome to Emmy Cooks! You can see some of my favorite recent recipes by clicking the “My Favorite Recipes” category on the sidebar (here are June, July, and August). If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to receive a daily recipe by email, or follow Emmy Cooks on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest.

Yes, I like vegetables, but I also like cookies.  And let me tell you, having three little girls is a good excuse to make cookies.  Lots of cookies. Chocolate Chocolate Cookies.  Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Bittersweet Chocolate Dried Apricot Cookies.  Hazelnut Tea Cookies.  Savory Oatmeal Cookies with Rosemary and Black Pepper.  Butterscotch cookies (go ahead, sandwich them with Nutella).

Those cookies above, as you may notice, do not fall into the health food category.  And that’s ok.  But these cookies below?  They come awfully close.  And they’re lovely.  And I will be making them often.  And I will let my kids eat them for breakfast.

The original recipe comes from Hannah, a fellow Seattleite, chef, and writer of Blue Kale Road.  You should go read her post, a sweet reflection on enjoying the ordinary moments in life, and then you should go to the kitchen and make these cookies.

It’s almost a granola recipe, maple-sweetened with oats and salt and cinnamon.  And since I love my olive-oil granola so much, I figured that olive oil would work perfectly here as well.  And it does.  Did I mention that these cookies are vegan?This batch was filled with fig jam, since I had two open jars in the fridge.  (How does that happen?)  Tomorrow maybe I’ll try raspberry.  Hannah says the cookies freeze nicely, assuming you have any left over for long enough to freeze.  We didn’t. Continue reading →

Lemony Carrot Salad with Cumin and Smoked Paprika

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To what lengths do you go to give away your surplus produce at this time of year?  Are you the proverbial neighbor who rings the doorbell and runs, leaving behind a 4-lb. squash that will take all afternoon to grate for zucchini fritters?  Do you casually drop by a friend’s house and “forget” a basket of plums that you don’t have time to make into jam?  Do you foist carrot salads upon unsuspecting dinner hosts?I admit nothing. Continue reading →

Baked Whole Wheat Orzo with Late-Summer Vegetables

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The lazy cook in me was intrigued by the baked pasta recipe that appeared on Smitten Kitchen today.  Because the pasta it used was orzo and (why did I never think of this before?) the orzo can be baked without pre-boiling, thereby saving you six minutes and the washing of an extra pot.  You’re welcome.Deb’s recipe, adapted from our favorite Yotam Ottolenghi, is for a cheesy (just-cheesy-enough, she says) bake with the usual Ottolenghian flourishes of lemon zest and oregano.  And it sounds lovely.  But once I started browning perfect summer vegetables–eggplant, zucchini, peppers, falling-apart fragrant tomatoes–I couldn’t bear to adulterate them much.  (If your tomatoes are less than perfect, by all means try out the original recipe’s suggestion to jazz them up with a few tablespoons of chopped oregano and the zest of a lemon; you could even add that chopped mozzarella.)  For me, whole wheat orzo, salt, and the heat of the oven were enough to make the pan of vegetables a hearty late-summer meal.  I crumbled feta on top at the end and browned it under the broiler, but it’s perfectly delicious without the cheese.  A tomato salad on the side provided a sweet little bite of acid to compliment the richness of the cooked vegetables.  (The Indigo Rose tomatoes were almost too pretty to eat.  Almost.) Continue reading →

Five-Minute Fresh Tomatillo Salsa

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Oh, school.  Its arrival is so bittersweet.  Even though I liked school as a kid, I was never quite ready for summer to end–who is?  And now that it’s my own kids heading happily back to class, a part of me is sorry to see them go.  (Another part of me is looking forward to a few mornings a week alone with my baby, of course, and to the single hour of silence in my day at her naptime.)

So yesterday we celebrated the Last Day of Summer Vacation with swimming, ice cream cones dripping onto the sidewalk, and an afternoon in the park.  Today dawned all business instead: breakfast, brushed hair, a stocked backpack, and then a bike ride to school to deliver our oldest to the rigors of first grade.  (It looked pretty fun, actually.)

And by the end of the day we were all exhausted.  Quesadillas, rice, beans from a can.  And this salsa.  This salsa!  It brightened everything right up.  Bring home a pound of tomatillos and a lime next time you’re out, and in five minutes you’ll be cheered right up.  Have the energy to go beyond quesadillas?  I love tomatillo salsa on black bean tacos, taco salads, huevos rancheros, and chilaquiles.  Especially chilaquiles.  Maybe it’s a good thing that the seasons are changing after all. Continue reading →

Colorful Vegetables with White Dip

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I love a picnic.  And we spent yesterday evening at the best picnic of the year.It was a party with friends and friends-of-friends, all in white at a waterfront park in Seattle.  The location was a secret until late afternoon, then the text messages flew, the final arrangements were made, and we began to descend upon the appointed destination.  White balloons fluttered at the park’s entrance, white lights lit the path to the water, and soon long tables were set with white linens and plates, flowers and candles.  Feasts were laid out.  The guests, of course, wore white.  A band kept time to the festivities and after dark descended, hundreds of white sparklers lit the air.  A very nice picnic indeed.

Luckily our friends are excellent cooks and we ate very well.  (They are great photographers, too; you can see my friend Knox’s photos from last year here and my friend Tara’s photos from last night here.)  There were meats and cheeses and chutneys and quince paste and three kinds of pickles.  There were salads in a palette of brilliant hues: beets with oranges and pistachios, roasted cauliflower and chickpeas, salmon nestled into greens, plums on a bed of grilled kale with ricotta, a saffron coucous with raisins.  There was a fancy cake.  And, in a nod to the party’s white theme, I brought vegetables with this dip.I also brought it because it’s so good.  It’s a savory, moreish way to eat your vegetables.  It’s perfect with green beans but I couldn’t resist adding blanched carrots and crisp radishes to the plate as well.  The more color the better, I say, at least on my plate.

Colorful Vegetables with White Dip (adapted from Gourmet): Okay, yes, the secret ingredient here is a can of anchovies.  Brave them, try them, even if you’re skeptical.  This is a gentle introduction for nonbelievers.

Drain and rinse a 2-oz. can of anchovies and dump them in a small pot with 2 big cloves of minced garlic, 2 Tbsp. water, and 2 Tbsp. sour cream (I used low fat).  Simmer for 10 minutes over low heat, stirring often.  Transfer the resulting anchovy-garlic paste to a food processor with another 1 c. sour cream and 1/3 c. mayonnaise and blend until smooth.  Optional: add 1-2 Tbsp. lemon juice.  (I like it both ways, with and without the lemon.)  Season with salt and pepper to taste.  Chill at least an hour before serving with blanched green beans or other blanched or raw vegetables.