New York [Pizza], I Love You
This week I'm back in the Big City and trying not to melt. Plus a recipe for Succotash Salad with Basil Vinaigrette.
I am officially back in Brooklyn. It feels good, strange, small, hot, exciting, like home, and far from home all at once.
We drove through Manhattan on our way back and while it is much quieter without the mass presence of tourists, the locals are out and about, business as usual with the addition of masks.
My neighborhood of Park Slope feels livelier than ever with outdoor dining everywhere. The energy that was onced behind restaurant doors is now lining the sidewalks and filling the air with music and chatter. It's Parisian vibes, mixed with New York grit. This city is not dead.
Our first food stop was PIZZA. After getting a rude reminder of how nothing is ever easy in this city while dropping off the rental car, we set out to get our New Yorker legs back with a stroll from Downtown Brooklyn to Park Slope. On our walk, the first food smell to hit my nose drew me in immediately. Before we even rounded the first corner we were sitting at an outdoor table eating two slices of New York pizza from Norm’s on Adams Street. I don’t know if it was due to being gone for so long, being so hungry, or the pizza being *that* good, but our Margherita and Pepperoni slices were perfect 10s.
We left the coolness of Autumn behind in the mountains, and have stepped back into the thick and sticky air that is a New York City Summer. Adding masks to the already hard to handle heat is more than daunting. I have a lot of applause to give to those of you who have been doing this for the last three months and in temperatures beyond 90F. It is not comfortable. But seeing what I estimate to be 97% mask compliance and positive cases staying below 1% in the entire state of New York (the previous global epicenter) for a month makes me grateful and proud to live here. It just means my walks have shrunk from 4+ hours to 30-60 minutes because I honestly can’t take the heat.
What I’m Cooking
Even the apartment stays hot. I miss the open air and space that a house in the countryside offers. Save for a handful of days, I never hesitated before turning on the stove or baking bread, but this is a different environment. I’ve been sticking to low maintenance cooking to minimize the amount of heat I add to an already overly warm apartment. Highlights in my hot kitchen this week were
Succotash Salad with Basil Vinaigrette Before hitting the road I picked one final harvest from my mom’s garden. She and the kids helped me pack a bag full of tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, carrots, and corn. Then, I turned some of that into succotash, a no-cook dish that uses fresh, raw corn removed from the cob (recipe below).
Bits and Bobs Salads and Grain Bowls This has been my go to, no cook lunch option. I’m just grabbing small amounts of anything already prepped and waiting in the fridge and putting it on top of some greens and grains.
Something for Dinner
Ravioli with Pork Bolognese This was the first meal I cooked after we got back, and I cut all of the corners I possibly could. Frozen/refrigerated ravioli is one of the quickest meals to pull together. It only takes 3-4 minutes in boiling water to go from frozen solid to ready to eat. In the before times I often kept a pack or two from Trader Joe’s in the freezer, plated it with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese for dinner in a pinch. I haven't been to Trader Joe's since March, and I miss it.
For this version, I browned one pound of ground pork with salt, pepper, garlic powder, red pepper flakes and oregano. Then, I poured half the jar of a store bought sauce into the pan and let it simmer with a little added vinegar and maple syrup. The whole meal took less than 20 minutes and was a big win on a hot day and my mood approaching hangry.
Shredded Turkey Breast in Spinach Sauce over Brown Rice a.k.a Leftover City This was another corner cutting dish. We thawed a cooked turkey breast the day before, which I served with the succotash and found to be terribly dry. The next day I found a pint of sauce I tossed into the freezer months ago that was leftover from a tofu saag paneer dish I made. It was just enough sauce to simmer the shredded meat in and bring it back to life (figuratively). I sliced a few garden tomatoes and basil to freshen it up even more.
Something Sweet
I would consider myself a fool to be baking cookies right now so I’m nibbling on a loaf of my mom's zucchini bread that I carried back with me, and eating Ben & Jerry’s while the humidity hangs between 88-94% daily.
Weekly Bread(s)
Have I mentioned how hot and humid it is here? Not the best environment to be nurturing sourdough in, and definitely not the best environment to be cranking up the oven.
Classic Sourdough I stuck with the basic recipe and method I’ve been following to try to find my Brooklyn bread baseline. The dough rose A LOT overnight, and was a bit sticky going into the banneton, tipping me off to the possibility of being over proofed. Given that I’ve been working on my sourdough game all summer and haven’t had many encounters with over proofed dough I think I’m doing okay.
I used the cold bake method again, which is a double win since it reduces the amount of time that my oven is on at a high temp, but the dough definitely didn’t rise to its potential so I’ll start troubleshooting with my next loaf. The first step I plan to take is reducing the amount of starter I use from 50g to 30g to help prevent the dough from exhausting itself.
Recipe: Succotash Salad with Basil Vinaigrette
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
4 ears of corn, kernels removed from the cob
2 cups cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup basil, finely chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste
Instructions
Remove the kernels from the cobs by holding the ear of corn at an angle and run the blade of the knife down the length of corn moving the knife away from you. Rotate the corn until you’ve removed the kernels from all sides. You can save the cobs to make corn stock and freeze it for later.
In a large bowl, gently stir the corn, tomatoes, and onions together.
In a smaller bowl, whisk all of the remaining ingredients together. Taste for seasoning and adjust as needed. Pour the vinaigrette over the corn mixture and toss until well coated. Serve chilled or at room temperature.
Thanks!
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