Salmon cakes with lemon yogurt sauce with roasted asparagus and arugula salad

I've been making this dish for a few years, since I came across it in Gourmet in 2008. It has that "everyday special" vibe that I love, but is pulled together really quickly and only contains ingredients I usually have around the kitchen anyway. For some reason, eating foods in fried cake form is just plain fun (like the black bean cakes from this summer). Here I've formed them into large cakes for a main course, but you could easily make teeny little cakes for appetizers.

I love these salmon cakes in particular because you start from whole salmon fillets and hack them down to the texture you like. Definitely don't use the food processor, you want some nice big chunks of fish as well as some that has been finely minced (which helps hold them together with the bread crumbs and egg white). 
The yogurt sauce is the perfect accompaniment; creamy and tangy.

Udon noodle and miso soup with avocado and peanut salad in ginger dressing

I've tried (in vain) to ignore the reports of crippling snowfall in other parts of the country but deep in the heart of Texas, the weather has finally turned as well... this displeases me. I'm one of those people that become miserable when temps dip below 80 degrees, so the threat of an overnight freeze is particularly shitty news. Winter. I hate it so. But I do like toasty fires and have a darling collection of cozy hats... so there's that.

The real silver lining on this looming prolonged torture cloud is a change in cuisine, a chance to bring back all those lovely hot soups and stews I couldn't imagine cooking a couple of months ago. This is another great staple from the Bible, How to Cook Everything by Mark Bittman. There are a couple of potentially unfamiliar ingredients, but nothing you wouldn't be able to find at any Asian market (and probably at most upscale grocers).

I suspect most of us have had miso soup at some point, likely a steamy little bowl with soft cubes of tofu and some scallions at a sushi bar. Miso is most commonly prepared by fermenting soybean paste but the internets tell me you can make rice or barley miso as well. Any will work in this recipe. Dashi is a stock made of bonito flakes (dried tuna flakes) and kombu (dried kelp, which brings the umami. You want this. Umami is good). Udon are thick wheat Japanese noodles that are traditional to the dish, but if you couldn't find them you could certainly substitute any noodle you like. And of course, you can add any meat you like or none at all; here I've just used a few shrimp.

Ziti alla Papera

 

Apologies for the sparse posting... That pesky World Series required extensive time commitments to hang out at the ballpark and drink beer, then we were entertaining out-of-towners a couple of days, and I've been forging the frontiers of science like a mofo at my day job. I was hardly cooking, and even when I was it was quick easy ol' reliable recipes all the way. Fortunately, Farmer Dad has been plowing away (heh) at the farm. The terraces are all cut, the pond is completely dug out (and is a gorgeous teal color from the underground streams filling it) and we've just started to sow grass and cover crops for the winter.

This is another recipe discovered during my nightly bedtime viewing of Molto Mario reruns. Of note, there is no herbage or seasoning in this sauce except salt, pepper, and a little parsley at the end. I was concerned about that the first time I made it, but honestly, it's staggeringly delicious as is. I would never have guessed that half of the meat is duck, but flavor and texture wise, you can tell it clearly isn't all pork. The duck gets so soft and delicate, it brings not so much a duckyness to the sauce as a sumptuous melt-in-your-mouthy richness. It adds a lot of complexity to the simple, somewhat expected sweetness of the onion and tomato. It would really overpower the flavor profile to add any other herb than parsley (basil would be an especially bad fit, so don't be tempted). Which is not to say the parsley isn't important, I actually think the tiny hit of fresh grassyness is key.

Sea scallops with chanterelles and Sherry, Champagne risotto, and roasted Brussels sprouts

Now, don't get me wrong; I love slaving away all day on terribly over-complicated and tedious recipes, but special little weeknight meals are my favorites. The speed with which they get on the table is due to simple but sophisticated flavor combinations and quick cooking techniques not employed because they are simple and quick, but because they cannot be improved upon with complication.

The recipe is adapted (based on what I had around) from Suzanne Goin's beautiful and much-blogged-about cookbook Sunday Suppers at Lucques. Although this is only the second time I've cooked from it (I made the yellow tomato gazpacho at the height of summer tomatoes and it was so good), I can't recommend it enough. The recipes are organized not only into lovely four course meals but also into seasons, based on what's typically available from a farmer's market that time of year. So cool. As much as I adore a scallop, the chanterelle mushrooms are the true stars of this dish. I found these gorgeous blue-foot chanterelles at Central Market for the bargain price of $40 a pound. [To minimize the choking risk, I suggest you resist sharing this fact with your husband after he mentions how delicious they are. Fortunately, it dislodged quickly and dinner resumed.] Fear not, you only need 6 or 7 bucks worth for this dish.

Turkey shepherd's pie

 

This is my light take on a classic. I substitute ground turkey for the beef or lamb, pack it full of veggies, and skip the cheese altogether (I honestly just don't think it needs it). The result is heavy on flavor, light on damage. It also reheats very nicely, making it ideal to stick in a lunchbox.

The vegetables I used on this occasion are carrots, mushrooms, and zucchini, but the possibilities are endless. Frozen peas would be pretty classic, but you could use spinach, green beans, whatever you want. You are the boss of you. Clean out that fridge.