Croton Aqueduct Bike Trip!

Go take a bike ride!  That’s my advice.  As I told you about here, this past Saturday Kyle and I planned a mini-trip to the Croton Aqueduct using MetroNorth’s Westchester Trails BikeRental.  We had so much fun!

Since food is always front and foremost on my mind, I’ll share what we packed.  In addition to two nalgenes full of water, we brought some rolls, baby carrots, plums, manchego cheese and my new favorite version of salami, wine cured with hazelnuts!  Into our backpack this went and we were off to Grand Central Station where we bought our package deals and hopped on the train.

Of course, as soon as we arrived at Dobb’s Ferry, it started to pour.  We huddled in the public library for awhile, got a coffee in a local café and I even got my hair cut at a barber shop!  This all killed about an hour, and literally as my hair cut was ending the sun came through and the skies turned a bright blue.  To the bike shop!  Endless TrailBikeworks was so nice, they took our vouchers with no problems and even offered to give them back if it started to rain again so we could use them on a sunnier day.  As it happened, the sun stayed out all day and we certainly feel like we got our money’s worth.

I won’t go into too much depth, but the trail is beautiful and very easy to ride.  We had to skirt a few puddles, but assuming you went on a day without a monsoon, you barely need to look where you are headed and can enjoy the beautiful scenery.  You can even see a castle which was so gorgeous and would be a good spot for a picnic.  The old conservatory is neat too; you can barely see me here waving from in front of it.

After about 14 miles we were pretty pooped so we bid adieu to Dobb’s Ferry and headed home.  Even if you are not a bike person, I’d urge you to at least walk this trail, it’s gorgeous and many joggers were on it as well as families out with strollers and dogs.

Inspirational Sunday

Borrowed and shared from CarlaJ

Happy Saturday!

This little chef wishes you a happy Saturday! Have you ever seen anything so cute?! Photo Source

Weekend Bike Trip

       One of the things I love about living in NYC is the sheer volume of things to do.  There is no legitimate excuse if you are bored in NYC.  That being said, one of the things I also love 
about NYC is the ability to get out of it fairly easily.  It might be my New Hampshire roots, 
but once the weather gets even a little chillier and summer weekend excursions are all gone by, my desire to be outside goes through the roof.  I want to go apple picking, pumpkin picking, forest walking, foliage viewing, etc.  

       Tomorrow, Kyle and I are trying something new, and taking advantage of one of MetroNorth’s One-Day (Outbound) Getaways.  We’ll be trying the Westchester Trails BikeRental.  This deal includes a round-trip train ticket and an all day bike rental which allows you to “enjoy a ride down the Croton Aqueduct. This remarkable car-free bike path has beautiful views of the Hudson River and historical points of interest and is an ideal day trip for those not up for a strenuous upland tour.”  Not up for a strenuous upland tour? Ha! We’d be up for it, but maybe we’ll start with this…  

The trail is described as being mostly flat, packed dirt, very scenic and 60 miles in length.  I’m thinking we won’t do the full 60, actually I’m certain we won’t.  Maybe 20?
 

Looks beautiful! Photo Credit

       I’ll let you know how this is, we’re excited!  I am planning a no frills, no effort lunch.  I’m thinking some grainy rolls, hard cheese, some fruit and veggies, maybe chorizo and iced tea.  Yummy yum!
 
       Have a nice weekend, please let me know if you’ve done any of the MetroNorth excursions or have any other fun fall day trips you recommend from NYC!

West African Peanut Soup

Morning!

Just to make things clear, I am not getting into the habit of posting recipes two days in a row.  I will suffer a burnout in an incredibly short amount of time.  It’s not even the cooking, it’s the posting.  I am hoping that as I get more comfortable with Blogger it becomes easier for me to get a post up.

So! West African Peanut Soup.  I’ve had this recipe in my e-mail for a while now, and I have it as originating from graciousbowl.com which sadly is no more.  At any rate, I tweaked it a little, as I tend to do.  The recipe I had called for canned whole tomatoes, I had crushed at hand so that’s what I used.  I made a few other minor deletions and additions as well.  Overall, this is a soup we liked more and more as we ate it.  I think it was because we didn’t know what flavor to expect, or that what it was what not what we expected, or something.  Once that surprise passed however, we enjoyed the actual flavor of the soup tremendously.  It’s thick, subtle (much more than we had anticipated) and unlike anything we had eaten before.  The scallions really gave it a boost that it needed, and I might forgo the chopped peanuts next time, as they are too bland to really add anything here.  

West African Peanut Soup

Ingredients:

) 2 cups chopped onions
) olive oil
) 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
) 2 Serrano chilies, seeded and minced
) 1 teaspoon grated peeled fresh ginger root
) 1 cup peeled and chopped carrots
) 2 cups peeled and chopped sweet potatoes
) 4 cups (32 oz) vegetable stock
) 2 cups crushed tomatoes
) 1 cup peanut butter (we always buy natural, which is less sweet than many people are used to, but has a real peanut taste as opposed to a sugary taste)
) 1 cup chopped scallions
) chopped peanuts
) Sriracha (or your favorite hot sauce)

I peel, chop, mince, seed, grate, etc in advance.  I have these cute little vintage aluminum jello molds from my Nonnie that I use as my little mise en place bowls.  If ingredients are added to the pot at the same time, I put them in the same little bowl, this way it’s one step, one motion and onwards.  Otherwise, I tend to forget the tiny amount of spice or peeled something I put on another counter.

In a soup pot, heat your olive oil and when ready sauté your onions.  Once the onion is almost opaque, add the ginger, cayenne and chilies (right in the center).

Give it a minute or two, stirring occasionally, and then add the carrots to the mix.  

Another few minutes and it’s the potatoes turn.  Finally, after the potatoes have sautéed for a few minutes with everybody else, pour in your stock and bring to a boil.  Give it a minute, and then reduce to a simmer for the next 15 minutes.

After this has simmered for 15 minutes, pour in the tomato puree and combine well.  Use your immersion blender and CAREFULLY puree everything until you have a nice consistency.  I don’t mind chunks, some do, play to your crowd.  

Now add your peanut butter, turn off the heat, and stir for about a minute until the peanut butter is totally incorporated into the soup.

I topped ours with the chopped scallions and peanuts and a healthy glob of Sriracha.  We had two bowls each and I don’t regret a minute of it!

Baked Eggs with Creamy Polenta, Spinach & Garlic

I saw this yesterday on theKitchn and knew I had to try it ASAP, I'm glad I did! Creamy, cheesy polenta covered with garlicky spinach and topped with what is essentially a poached egg. YUM! To be honest, I was a little daunted by the polenta as I've never made it before. As it turns out, it's a cinch to make! And, either I had an incredible amount of good fortune, or the rumors online that it's notoriously difficult are overblown.


Ingredients to Serve 4:
) 1/2 cup of uncooked polenta
) 1/2 teaspoon salt
) 1/2 cup grated/shredded parmesan cheese
) 1/4 cup milk
) 1 teaspoon olive oil (frankly, this is to brown the garlic and eventually toss the spinach with, I just kinda eyeballed it)
) 6 cloves minced garlic
) pinch or two red pepper flakes
) colander full of stemmed spinach (I realize this is vague, but the original recipe calls for 10 ounces which is too much math for this chef, so I rinsed enough in my colander until it looked like enough, I'd estimate 1/2 lb?
) 4 eggs
) 4 oven safe ramekins (or mugs, small bowls, crocks, etc)
) 1 roasting pan that will fit your ramekins inside it

2 cups water, 1/2 cup polenta,  1/2 tsp salt

First we make the polenta.  Bring 2 cups of water (double check the amount of water on your specific polenta brand) to boil in a small pot, once it's rolling, pour in your polenta and salt.  Stir this fairly constantly, it was quick to enter into a lava-like state with small burbles of REALLY hot polenta flying into the air.  Just stir.  Depending on your brand and whether you've used instant or traditional polenta, this will take between 5 to 45 minutes. 


Once the polenta is cooked, turn off the heat and stir in the parmesan and milk.  Keep stirring until the parmesan dissolves entirely and the milk is absorbed.  Now you can put it to the side.

stir, stir, stir your polenta!

Put a teakettle on to boil (or however you usually acquire boiling water) and preheat the oven to 375 F.  In a skillet, brown your garlic and red pepper flakes.  Once they are fragrant, dump your rinsed and stemmed spinach right on top:

browning garlic and pepper flakes

polenta all done on the back left, water heating up on the front left and spinach, garlic and pepper flakes on the front right

Now it's time to get artsy!  While everything is doing its stuff, put 1/4 cup of your delicious cooked polenta into each ramekin.  Once the spinach is done (all wilty and mixed well with the garlic) divide it evenly on top of the polenta and crack an egg on top of each.  Put you ramekins in a roasting pan (heeding directions below) and pour your boiling (teakettle, big pot, microwave, etc) water in to the roasting pan until the water comes halfway up each ramekin.

4 ramekins squeezed into one roasting pan

Now- if all 4 of your ramekins fit perfectly with no wiggle room into a roasting pan (like mine did) you are good to go!  Otherwise, theKitchn suggests you put a dish towel on the bottom of the roasting pan with the ramekins atop it.  This will keep the ramekins from sliding all over when you add the boiling water.  And now look, we are all learning new techniques.

Pop the roasting pan into your preheated oven and set your timer for 15 minutes, after which you will remove the pan and cover it with tin foil.  Before you cover it, the ramekins should look something like this:

Cover with tinfoil and pop it back in the oven for 2 minutes for a nice runny egg (as we prefer) or about 6 minutes to be thoroughly cooked through.  Carefully remove the ramekins from the hot water and give a good crack of black pepper to each.  We had a green salad on the side:

YUM!

The polenta was unreal, so cheesy and luscious and somehow it had a smoky flavor.  The spinach cut through the rich flavor and the egg yolk worked its way through everything.  I would make this again soon.  I think the polenta would really yield to a lot of flavor choices, so any herbs or flavored liquid other than water would really come through.

Let me know if you try this or have any suggestions, and I know, I'll get better quality picture next time!

Grand Return

And, I’m back!  Like ripping off a Band-Aid, the faster you do it the better it is.

A little re-vamp and a new weekly program and I’ll be up and running, please stay tuned.  In the meantime, this looks delicious and I will be making it tonight.  I'll let you know!