One night during our vacation in New York, we decided we were either going to have dinner in Little Italy, or Chinatown. With too many choices, we wandered the streets reading menu after menu, when we finally ended up going to a restaurant called Singapore which specialized in Malaysian cuisine.
I tried a mango dish, which turned out to be interesting. The entire mango was sliced up tossed with some lightly cooked vegetables, jumbo shrimp, and a sweet/spicy sauce.
After visiting the Tenement Museum, we decided to have lunch at Katz’s Deli. Since it was mid-afternoon, we thought that it would be a less busy time to visit, but found ourselves among hundreds of other people lining up for their famous pastrami on rye. This monster of a sandwich was well worth the wait! The picture below doesn’t do it justice though–we didn’t think to take a picture of it until I was down to the last third of my half of the sandwich…
The pastrami was hot, fresh from the cooker. There were 10 or so meat cutters preparing sandwiches to order, and while we waited for our turn at the counter, I counted nearly 20 pieces of pastrami carried across the busy sandwich prep area. While, on the outside, the pastrami looked identical to the “black pastrami” we can get at the supermarket at home, inside it was moist, nearly falling apart, and had a different flavor altogether. When we saw how much meat was packed into a sandwich, we opted to share one and were both satisfied with the portion size we opted for.
Behind the counter there were hundreds of salami sticks hanging. While there are “Send a Salami” signs posted all over the place, apparently the hanging salamis are only for decoration.
This is the view from our table, showing only the front quarter of the deli. The round sign hanging from the ceiling points to a table where a scene of the movie When Harry Met Sally was filmed.
Nathan’s, with it’s mustard yellow paint job, was the first thing we saw upon our arrival to Coney Island. It was also one of the few dining establishments that was open. Most of the amusements and storefronts were closed since April is not beach season in New York.
I can’t say that I am a huge fan of the hot dog, but since we ended up at Coney Island (e.g. O.O.B. on steroids) around 5:30 and we were hungry, it was an opportunity to be had.
We ordered the classic or original (whatever it was called) with sauerkraut and onions. Considering we had walked at least 15 miles over the course of the day, these dogs didn’t last long (and I’m almost ashamed to say I truly enjoyed eating one of them)!
I found this recipe in an Everyday Food magazine while visiting with my grandmother. I ripped it out of the magazine with the intention of trying it, but somehow it managed to go untouched until this morning. Since I had all of the ingredients on hand, and had a family gathering to attend, I thought it would make a simple, healthful appetizer. I was pleased with the results, and will make it again soon. The rosemary was an interesting flavor in combination with the crushed red pepper flakes and fresh lemon. We enjoyed it with Rosemary Olive Oil Triscuits, but it would also be good with tortilla chips, pita chips, or the veggie chips recommended in the recipe itself.
Last weekend we had a New England Boiled Dinner with my parents, and with the leftover broth, my mother made a pea soup. Tonight we enjoyed some of the soup for dinner, with some easy little pizzas made with Arnold Multigrain Sandwich Thins. To make the pizzas, spread 1 tsp. of pesto on each sandwich thin, then top with pizza cheese, sundried tomatoes, feta, and crushed red pepper flakes.
Pea Soup Recipes
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1848,155165-243198,00.html
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Split-Pea-and-Ham-Soup-I/Detail.aspx
These second recipe sounds similar to my mom’s recipe, though she did not add any ham to it. The ham flavor was in the broth since it was leftover from cooking all of the ham and vegetables for the boiled dinner. In addition to split peas, she also added some chick peas, and a can of golden hominy.
This recipe is from a friend of a friend, and it is the BEST veggie burger recipe I’ve tried so far! I baked them for longer than recommended since I wanted them to be crisp on the outside, but aside from that I followed the recipe and I plan to add this one to my binder of “keeper” recipes!
Black Bean Veggie Burgers
1 (16 oz) can black beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 green bell pepper
1/2 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 egg
1 tbsp. chili powder
1 tbsp. cumin
1 tsp. Thai sauce or hot sauce (I used Sriracha)
1/2 c. bread crumbs
Preheat oven to 375 degrees and lightly oil a baking sheet (or use cooking spray). In a medium bowl, mash black beans with a fork until thick and pasty.
In a food processor, finely chop bell pepper, onion, and garlic. Then stir into mashed beans.
In a small bowl, stir together egg, chili powder, cumin and chili sauce.
Stir egg mixture into the mashed beans. Mix in bread crumbs until mixture is sticky and holds together. Divide mixture into four patties.
Place patties on baking sheet and bake about 10-20 minutes on each side.
This is a “grown-up” mac and cheese recipe that actually has vegetables in it. Yes, it’s another from Memere’s stack of recipe magazines, but the recipe can also be found online at www.rachaelraymag.org.
I’ll definitely make this again, but probably a smaller batch. There’s something not so great about microwaved left-over goat cheese….
For her birthday, my mom requested something frozen, yet light, with ginger. After a little searching, I found a couple of recipes that I was able to meld into one dessert.
Both recipes call for fresh ginger. The cake recipe is from the Chow website. The cake is moist, and has the most ginger flavor I’ve experienced in a cake. The frozen yogurt recipe is from www.thekitchn.com. I did make a few modifications on the frozen yogurt recipe. First, I used one carton of nonfat vanilla yogurt instead of the plain whole milk yogurt. I cut the sugar down to half a cup, since the vanilla yogurt was sweetened. I also used light coconut milk to cut back on saturated fat. The texture was similar to sherbet, but worked nicely to make a fresh and light dessert with a lot of flavor!
This frozen yogurt cake was fairly easy to put together. I baked the cake in a springform pan early in the day, and later in the day I made the frozen yogurt. I used a large serrated knife to slice the cake into two thinner slices, leaving the bottom slice in the pan, and reassembling the pan to be able to contain the frozen yogurt. Then I spread half of the frozen yogurt across the first layer of cake, placed the second layer on top of the yogurt, and topped it with more frozen yogurt. For color, I sprinkled a little Li Hing Powder over the top.
Normally I use the cornbread recipe conveniently located on the side of the cornmeal container, but since I had buttermilk on hand I tried this one. I have to say that it was one of the best cornbread recipes I’ve tried at home! Usually I cut back on the sugar and I don’t use butter, but this time I just followed the recipe. Wow…
The recipe can be found at www.allrecipes.com. It’s definitely worth trying! Next time I will try to lighten it up a bit by substituting half of the butter with apple sauce. We’ll see how that works out…
These pancakes are easy to make, packed with nutrition, and very flavorful. They can be served with maple syrup, but with the curry and natural sweetness from the sweet potatoes, they really do not need the syrup!
The recipe can be found at http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Sweet-Potato-Pancakes/Detail.aspx. The only modification that I have made is to use a nonstick pan, and cut back on the amount of oil used for cooking.
