Guess who's nominated for a Best Food Blog Award?

No! Not me sillies.
That would be a little presumptious of me, no?

However, a few of my favorite food blogs are nominated and I couldn't resist spreading a little love and encouraging others to vote for them.

So anyway, Saveur holds the Best Food Blog Awards each year and there are a lot of categories, like Best Photography, Best Regional Cuisine Blog & Best Original Savory Recipe, to name a few.

From Saveur's website:
In SAVEUR’s ongoing mission to chronicle “a world of authentic cuisine,” we find what we’re looking for more and more in one place: online. We’re thrilled to shine a light on the very best of the best in the second annual SAVEUR Best Food Blog Awards — and we need your help. After going through all your nominations for the best blogs, posts, and photographs on the web, we’ve narrowed the field down to finalists in each category — and it’s time for you to pick a winner! Voting is open from April 26 – May 12. We’ll reveal the winners on May 17. Start voting today!

Head over to Saveur to vote your faves but check out the categories for a few of my favorites:

Best Cooking Blog:

Smitten Kitchen (http://smittenkitchen.com/)

Best Culinary Travel Blog:

Traveler’s Lunchbox (http://www.travelerslunchbox.com/)

Best Video Content:

Food52 (http://www.food52.com/)

Best Cook-Through Blog:

Alinea at Home (http://alineaathome.com/)

Remember, voting ends on May 12!

P.S. Anyone else checking out the Future of Food Conference live? Prince Charles said some very inspiring things about agriculture.
"The entire food system is at the mercy of the increasing price of oil."
"We must have 'agri-culture', not 'agri-business'."
The current panel is on the future of agriculture, but panels III & IV are beginning at 2:15 and 3:15 and are on Health & Nutrition and the future of International Food, respectively. Check it out!

Cod vs. the Crazy Life

I live a fairly chaotic life. I have one of those jobs that never leave you. I rarely spend 40 hours a week in the office and when I do, I end up spending much of my nights and weekends catching up on work I couldn’t get to or attending work events.

I try to plan better and go food shopping once every two weeks to cut down on cost and impulse shopping (never walk into the grocery store hungry!) but my schedule sometimes doesn’t permit it.

On top of that my boyfriend and I live in separate homes that we both own and spend our weeks bouncing back and forth from place to place. On any given day I can be found carrying around a rolling shopping bag filled with clothes, sauté pans, ziplocks of jewelry and other miscellaneous necessities.

Why am I spilling my guts on my topsy turvy personal life? No, I’m not pitching a reality show. I just happened to find myself yesterday in the fortunate position of being able to cook dinner at home (With all of my high-quality cookware and ingredients to keep me company), but also in the unfortunate position of having no actual plan or food for that matter. Oh, and we planned dinner for 6:30.

So, all I had to do was figure out what to make (I’m still on a diet L), pick up all of the ingredients, cook it and get it on the table in an hour and a half….ha!

Luckily I stumbled upon this fantastic cod recipe that required little purchasing on my part and fairly little time and effort (roughly 30 minutes). With a little bit of rapid fire cooking and a blind eye to kitchen mess, I managed to get dinner on the table in pretty good time.

The Mediterranean flavors quite simply sing and compliment the cod beautifully. I served it on top a bed of steamed spinach (though sautéed would be tastier) and tri-color orzo (Go full throttle on that one- make it with chicken stock and mix in some of the tapenade) but a nice rice pilaf and roasted veggies would be nice accompaniments.

Seasonal Saturday!

Lately, it seems everyone has gone green. Whether to cut down on energy costs or to truly limit our "footprint" on the world, this new way of thinking has taken hold all over the country.

In the culinary world, this behavior has been around for a long time, but only bits and pieces have leaked out to the mainstream kitchen. Suddenly, the home cook is being asked to take a stand...What's better? Farmed or wild-caught? Free-range or organic? Most recently, which is better for my family? Organic or Local?

Phrases like "sustainable seafood" and "eating seasonally" have made their way into our everyday vocabulary.And yet, many people don't understand the importance if this method of cooking and eating.

Seasonal eating is a very simple practice. You try to eat foods (namely produce like fruits and vegetables) that are in season in your area.
Again, why is this important?
In my opinion, there are three very good reasons for eating seasonally: nutrition, freshness, environmental damage.

And would you like this polenta gift wrapped?

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

Well, I’m asking for forgiveness dear readers (but please don’t forget me!). See, I didn’t mean to stay away for so long. I just have this life outside of this blog (as much as I wish I didn’t) and it kind of took over.

At first, it was party planning and then more party planning. Then it was home(s!) repair. Then it was work and more work and then even more work. By the time I inevitably realized the work just WOULD. NOT. CEASE. I was riddled with guilt and fear.

Would I just continue on and pretend nothing ever happened? Would I overcompensate by deluging you with multiple posts? Should I throw up a quick commentary post to let you know I’m still here? Does any of this really matter?  (Who knows?!)

I eventually came to the conclusion that I would have to come back with a bang. Someone once said, “Apologizing is like leaving a gift on the doorstep and hoping it’s appreciated.”

So here is my gift to you: Polenta

(Record scratches)

What? You didn’t know that polenta is the coolest thing under the sun? Hear me out… 

The "heart" of my family and my table

Hi guys. I’ve been feeling a little under the weather lately and haven’t been up for blogging so much. However, I promise I’ll have a whole bunch of new content this week starting with this great lunch/snack/side dish item.

Artichokes. Yum.

Let me begin by telling you why I love this vegetable. My mother, a pure-blooded Italian-American, is generally more of the Semi-Homemade Sandra Lee School of Cooking, as opposed to the Pancia Mia Fatti Capanna Italian Nonna School of Cooking. She’s a good cook but like many mothers, she likes her short cuts and recipes her mother used to make rarely made it to the dinner table (They did occasionally make it to the holiday table which is why I was blessed to eat Calamari and Anguilla as a child…right up until my cousin told me they were eel and squid! Forgiveness for this is impossible.).

Also like most mothers, Mom tried not to buy pricier items until they came on sale. This accounted for the “extreme cereal binges” of my youth in which my mother would purchase multiple boxes of my favorite cereals and then vigorously encourage me to eat them all before they expired (To this day I have difficulty opening that cabinet in her kitchen).

There were a few family dishes that my mom did make for us and steamed artichokes is one of them. Due to the high price of artichokes, this precious commodity only came around when there was a sale, which made them a delicious treat for my sister and I to enjoy.

Tasty Tuna Skewers

I don’t know if you caught it in the news (granted, there has been much heavier issues on there lately), but New Jersey is partially….underwater. This week has been a little crazy but I finally got a chance to get back to the blog.

I was searching though Hors d’Oeuvres (it is the reason I started this blog!) for a recipe I could blog about that still fit in with my diet and I stumbled upon a tuna skewer recipe that I never paid much attention to….boy, will I now!

These tuna skewers were delicious! The marinade is fresh, light and citrusy with a real sharp note from the garlic and stays that way with each bite. It’s a perfect dish for winter because roasting is a great way to bring out the flavor of out-of-season tomatoes. But don’t discount this for spring or summer either, those bright flavors will really sing with a pitcher of lemonade on your patio!

So many salads in so little time...

Sorry for the cell phone picture!

You may have noticed a string of healthy posts on my blog in the past week. There's a reason for that. I'm on a diet (insert melodramatic music here). Specifically, I'm on the 17 Day Diet, a diet that involves tricking your body's metabolism into burning more fat, thus creating weight loss. All kidding aside, it's fairly strict but not all that difficult to follow. I'm actually quite happy with the results so far.

Anyway, the worst part of this diet is all the salads! I hate salads! I like my lettuce stuffed in sandwiches or buried under a pile of pulled pork. On this diet, I may have gotten used to salads but that doesn't mean I have to like them. Enter the 17 Day Diet Eggplant Parmesan.

This is a great meal to break up the monotony of most diets. It may not be your grandma's eggplant, but it's a healthy, simple, and surprisingly tasty alternative. I've had it a few times and been very happy with the results.

 

Kale Chips? Did we run out of potatoes?

That's the question you might be asking yourself as you sit down for the big game and someone sets a heaping bowl of these babies in front of you.
But trust me, they're worth it.
These little crisps are a healthy, tasty, innovative (and trendy!) alternative to classic potato chips and really easy to make.
There are a few different versions floating around the internet, some with vinegar and others with seasonings like chili powder, but I think simple is the best way to go (at least to start).

A Healthier Risotto that Doesn't Compromise on Flavor?

Recently, I began taking classes at the Institute of Culinary Education (recreational for now). It has been a wonderful experience and I’ve met many amazing people—from the instructors to the sous chefs (Shout out to Jesus!) and students.

One of my classes was on risotto. Now let me tell you something. I love risotto. I try to make it as much as possible because risotto is definitely a dish you get better at over time.  So, when I saw this class, I quickly signed up.  I also love mushrooms, so when I was tasked with preparing the Mushroom risotto (more on that below), I was on cloud nine!

Our instructor was the incredibly talented Peter Berley. Chef Berley was former executive chef at the world-renowned Angelica Kitchen, an organic, plant-based restaurant. He has also written numerous books, including the recent Flexitarian Table: Inspired, Flexible Meals for Vegetarians, Meat Lovers, and Everyone in Between, which is an amazing book that not only helps meat-lovers and vegetarians share meals together in a way that doesn’t require the vegetarian to eat side dishes or the host to cook a separate meal, it also helps you think seasonally(Remember, not only does choosing in-season fruits and vegetables give you more flavor, in-season produce  also contains more nutrients)

I’ve worked with Chef Berley before and I was excited, not only to try out different risotto dishes but to discover different grains (farro, barley, rye berries) to use to prepare “risotto style” dishes. To be a true risotto, a dish requires a short-grain rice such as the popular Arborio. However, you can prepare risotto-like dishes using the same or similar methods.

Here are a few steps to making a typical risotto: