a sunday supper feast

i spent this past sunday back at one of my favorite places in all of nyc, the sunday supper studio, 

cooking a vegetarian feast from my new book. 

we started with my favorite ever easy, elegant salad: 

Roasted Broccolini, Chickpea and Kale Salad with Ricotta 

(recipe coming)

see our whole menu, here

the beautiful table + floral installation by fox fodder farm

gorgeous rainbow chard from good eggs  

the star of this barley risotto with swiss chard, radish and  preserved lemon 

i added carrot, celery, onion (hidden under the pile of chickpeas), 

parsnips + bay leaf 

to chickpeas before cooking them. 

those parsnips were so delicious.

karen welcomed guests with fat, soft 

pretzels from pelzers pretzels (of philadelphia fame) + mustard. 

i can't stop thinking about these. 

some of our guests and now, new friends. 

my favorite quote of the night: 

"i have never eaten a plateful of vegetables so fast!" 

karen had a few quince on the countertop, which we added to our grand finale: 

my pear frangipane tarts. 

(recipe coming, so, so good.)

the end. 

more photos, details and recipes coming tomorrow! 

Roasted Beets with Ricotta + Pistachios: Sunday Suppers, part ii

Good morning! Isn't this a beautiful site to wake up to? These are more of the lovely photos by Karen Mordechai from our valentine's sunday supper dinner. This is the first course of our feast ~ Roasted Beets with Ricotta and Pistachios ~ one of my favorite recipes from my book, The Newlywed Cookbook. She caught me as I was plating 24 of these jeweled beauties for our valentine's guests. Swing over to her site {sunday-suppers.com} for the recipe, along with more photos and the recipe for my Braised Short Ribs with Gremolata and Melted Polenta. I'm still dreaming about how good that was....

food styling :: Sarah Copeland
photography :: Karen Mordechai for Sunday Suppers

Carrot Soup with Hazelnuts + Blood Orange Oil: Sunday Suppers, part i

I tend to be a fan of the understated. When Karen from Sunday Suppers called with the idea of hosting a valentine's supper together, promising our approach would be anything but obvious, I knew she'd come up with something novel and chic. She always does. But I didn't count on this earthy brilliance--twigs, spelling out L-O-V-E, taped to the white washed walls behind the table which she dressed with tiny blooms. It was just right. 

And, it was the perfect setting for teaching exactly the kind of cooking I believe love thrives on -- simple, beautiful food with flavors that shine. Carrot soup, with a little care, is the king of earthy brilliance. Start with fresh carrots, as close to home-grown as possible {we have the farmer's market to thank for ours}, and simmer them into a silky soup with onions, ginger and water. Then, once pureed, finish them with fresh pressed carrot juice for pure, vibrant flavor. With a garnish of yogurt, roasted hazelnuts and a simple homemade blood-orange oil, this soup is art for the eyes and the mouth. 

P.S. This soup is an early preview of my new cookbook, Feast, which I just saw the cover of today! 

Carrot Soup with Hazelnuts and Blood Orange Oil

Serves 4 to 6

4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, plus 2 tbsp for blood-orange oil

1 yellow onion, thinly sliced

1 garlic clove, smashed

1 in/2.5 cm peeled fresh ginger, chopped

2 lbs/910 g organic carrots, peeled and chopped

4 to 5 cups/960 ml to 1.2 L water

1 sprig fresh thyme

Sea salt and freshly cracked pepper

2 cups/480 ml fresh carrot juice

1/2 cup/120 ml full-fat plain yogurt

½ bunch of chives, snipped or chervil

1/3 cup roasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped

1 blood orange, juiced

Heat 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender, 6 to 8 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger, and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the carrots, thyme and enough water to cover (4 cups if you like a thicker soup, 5 cups if you like yours thinner) and bring to a boil. Cover loosely and reduce to a simmer. Season with salt and pepper.

Cook until vegetables are completely tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the thyme, remove from the heat and purée until smooth, about 3 minutes. Stir in fresh carrot juice, reheating over a low flame as needed to warm through. Season and keep warm over a low flame until you are ready to serve.

Stir together the blood orange juice with in an additional 2 tbsp of finishing oil. Ladle the soup into four or six shallow bowls, and garnish with a dollop of yogurt in each bowl. Finish with a drizzle of blood-orange oil, hazelnuts and a sprinkle of chopped chives. Serve warm.

recipes + food styling :: Sarah Copeland
styling + photography :: Karen Mordechai for Sunday Suppers

Date Night {Roman's}

ft. greene, brooklyn

Last night we had dinner with our friends Katie and Parker at their new neighborhood restaurant,  Roman's.  The meal was simple, satisfying, actually kind of perfect. Romans serves like kind of food that you could make at home but tastes especially good when someone else has done the work for you—things like stretched mozzarella on toasted bread, hen of the woods mushroom toasts with telleggio fonduta, and tagliatelle in a light rabbit ragu. It all adds up to a belly that’s not overly full, but incredibly satisfied.  And they have a pretty savory beer list too. Try the Aventiunus Doppelbock.

Between the four of us, we don’t each much meat, but we share a philosophy on eating humanely raised meats sold directly to the consumer.  Roman’s is the kind of place that celebrates that too, so go ahead and order the beef rib agnolotti {if it’s still there, the menu changes daily}. It helps to have your very own butcher, as Roman's does {Marlow and Daughters} but we won’t begrudge their good fortune since they’re not greedy with their resources. You can get quality meats from their butcher too, just down the road apiece.

Romans

243 Dekalb Avenue

Ft. Greene, NY

718-622-5300

Marlow & Daughters

95 Broadway

Williamsburg, Brooklyn

718-388-5700

B is for Brooklyn {and beer}

brooklyn, ny

Last night, on north 11th street in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Brewery released the latest in their Brooklyn Brewmasters Reserve Series, Cookie Jar Porter, a smooth malty brew rich with the familiar flavors of oats and raisin. I'm not sure what I enjoyed more, the taste on tap or the actual cookies they were inspired by {from Feed Your Soul Bakery}. Both were DE-licious. The truth is I never met an oat I didn't like. If you're not careful, I'm likely to put oats into parts of your meal you never dreamed possible. But I still believe they they are most at home on the sweet side. Last month I dreamed up an oatmeal bark with a dark chocolate coating, layered it with bananas and an oatmeal-infused cream fool-style and called it Fool of Oats. Get it? Full of Oats? Anyway, the Food Network Magazine, where it appeared in the current issue, called it a parfait. Call it what you like, you can get the recipe here.

Oats aside, my favorite part of the the Brooklyn Brewery is their collectables -- bottles that date back to when Brooklyn brewed the world. Brooklyn was once home to almost 50 breweries, the first of which made its home there in 1822. Sadly, the industry went flat by 1976, when every brewery, including the 11 on a 12-stretch block from Bushwick to Williamsburg called Brewer's Row, had closed. But local brewers like Brooklyn Brewery, Six Point Craft Ales and Kelso of Brooklyn are giving the borough and its beer culture a welcome revival. And with all those grains {oats, wheat, barley}, that's a revival even the most health conscious among us can get behind.

A movable Feast {Pedaling, part iii}

For four Sundays running, András and I have been pedaling from our little nest in L.I.C. over bridges and through the woods to new adventures we go. It's a tradition that dates back to one of our very first dates, and is as much about feeding as it is about finding our way in the world together.

These last few weeks, our two wheels have taken us to Boneshakers biker cafe in Greenpoint, run by cyclists who declare "Death Over Decaf" and make killer stacks of avocado, sprouts and eggs on salted bagels, and to Bierkraft, a tiny slip of a beer library with over 1,000 pints. We've lunched at the fashionable Five Leaves {try the housemade ricotta} with our friends Josh and Doris {that's Josh on his wheels above}, then rolled over to Walters in Williamsburg, past Saltie and beyond the legendary Peter Luger, promising to return another day. We've looted the curiosities of Kill Devil Hill, where on a shelf that held a pair of vintage glass piggy banks {"Jesus Saves" and "Satan Spends,"} I found just about the prettiest pickles I've ever laid eyes on, from Brooklyn Brine, and an old enamel bread box that had to come home with us. And then, we found our way to the Radegast Biergarten, where we could have stayed all day among the steins and hand-stuffed sausages, if not for the fast fading sun and the creeping cold, and that constant cup of hot cocoa back in L.I.C that beckons us home.