Back in the Have

So I'm back in New Haven now. I have a new apartment, and a gorgeous new kitchen. I have been going a little nuts with summer farmers market bounty and just enjoying cooking in the big, open, kitchen with two large windows. Also, Mark Bittman's blog, Bitten, has been providing some delightful recipes.

Some of the things I've made:

-Tilapia with cilantro, lime, tomatoes, and crispy garlic (apparently this is Yucatan-style, according to Bittman).

-Scallops stir-fried with green and red pepper and eggplant.

-Cold eggplant salad with sesame dressing.

-A bread salad with cucumbers, olives, tomatoes, and fresh basil.

-pasta with fresh tomatoes, garlic and basil

-A nice simple yellow dal (Indian lentils) with onions and cilantro

- Molaha Mangai- a south Indian mango relish- basically raw mango with asofoetida, chili powder, and a little bit of toasted mustard seeds.

-fresh guac

-fresh peach salsa

-Blueberry/raspberry cheesecake bars (no-bake, no less).

-mango milkshakes

-Sauteed cherries (some of them poured on ice cream, some put in a pie)

Here's a picture of the cherries on top of some blackberry ice cream, and one of the cheesecake bars:

Honey

So, I guess this my own personal fiefdom of a food blog now...

In any case, made 4 recipes featuring honey this weekend- first, Alton Brown's homemade Protein bars and granola bars, which are quite good, and helpful because I'm at least temporarily back on the workout wagon, and they taste a hell of a lot better than their commercial alternatives.

Second, I made a Honey-topped salmon fillet, inspired by my friend Roja. The recipe is from her entertaining cooking blog, Tameshk in Kitchen. I ended up cooking carrots and potatoes in the same pan as the salmon, as well as an onion, and at the end, I threw in some red and yellow peppers. This was very good with a side of salad, some bread, and a glass of white wine.

Finally, I currently have roasting in the oven a leg of lamb, prepared in a Kashmiri style. It's called Raan, and you first rub the lamb (after removing excess fat) with a spice mixture of garlic, ginger, chili powder, cumin powder, tumeric, cinnamon, cardamom, and salt (I didn't have the cardamom, so I didn't use any), then marinating it with yogurt blended with almonds and pistachios and honey. It smells terrific right now, and I also added some cilantro to the marinade. It's roasting with some onions and green peppers, which will hopefully caramelize.

Quiche and Brie

So, I got some bloodwork done recently, mainly because of my family history of cardiac issues, and it showed some lipid factors were elevated- so my doctor has asked me to try to reduce the fat in my diet- in particular, to try and eliminate, for a while at least, cheese, red meat, ice cream, and butter (among other things). Now, I love all of those things, and have (or had) a lot of all of those things in my fridge. Instead of throwing them away, I decided to have a blowout weekend before embarking on the diet. Nicole was in Princeton, and we cooked two superb meals on Saturday: lunch was quiche with bacon, mushrooms, scallions, red and green peppers, jack cheese, and italian parsley, served with a mixed green salad with oil and vinegar and slices of blood orange; and dinner was brie baked in pastry with honey and pecans, served with red pears and green apples. Pictures: