December 2011
1 post
13 tags
Watch Shea on SHAPE's "Cooking School"
As the new year approaches, it’s resolution time. And with every bite of those Christmas cookies and each sip of that eggnog, you think yourself, “I’ll start fresh in the new year.” And the fastest way to a healthier life is to cook for yourself. When you’re making your OWN food, you’ll be a whole lot less likely to add another pinch of salt or that extra...
November 2011
10 posts
9 tags
The Perfect Party Hors D'Oeuvres - Baked Oysters...
Oysters are perfect for a special occasion. I personally love them raw, but not everyone is down with that. But that doesn’t mean you can’t serve them at your fete! These baked oysters are tender and succulent, and get some serious wow-factor from a topping of crimini mushrooms, shallots, white wine, and cream. Dramatically served on a long wooden plank over a bed of salt, and...
12 tags
Thanksgiving Day Game Plan!
So it’s the big day… and while you may think Thanksgiving is all about the cooking, it’s also really about the timing. If you’ve been following HIB’s checklists, you should have your appetizer, dessert, and cranberry sauce already complete. Here’s a list of what to do throughout the day so that all your dishes are ready to be served at the same time. And...
10 tags
Thanksgiving Prep: The Wednesday Checklist
Hopefully by now you have most of your Tuesday Checklist all completed! If not, get going! There’s actually not quite as much to do to today to prepare for your feast, so you have lots of catch-up time!
Today we’re going to focus on the dishes you can make-ahead. So far you should have your cranberry sauce already made, your garlic roasted, and your chicken stock all set to go....
11 tags
Thanksgiving Prep: The Tuesday Checklist
Thanksgiving should be a time to spend with family and friends, for relaxation, and for the promise of leftovers. It should not lead to any stress when it comes to cooking the perfect meal. Hosting Thanksgiving dinner may seem like a daunting task whether you’re cooking for 2 or 12. But in reality, with a little planning ahead and some pre-Thanksgiving organization, you can cook like a pro...
8 tags
Thanksgiving Dessert - Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
I’ve never been a huge Pumpkin Pie fan. I know, call it blasphemy, especially on the holiday that wouldn’t be complete without it. Unless, that is, you make a pumpkin roll - but that just seems way too old-fashioned or Paula Deen for my tastes.
Enter: The Pumpkin Whoopie Pie. The perfect mixture of cake and frosting, sandwiched together in the most decadent individual serving...
13 tags
How to Make Chicken Stock
It’s a good idea to have plenty of chicken stock on hand for Thanksgiving - it helps with everything from roasting the bird to thinning gravy to creating a perfect fall soup. Here’s a tip: pick up a rotisserie chicken for dinner and use the carcass for stock - you’ll have dinner AND delicious homemade chicken stock with no fuss!
You can use this same method with your...
11 tags
Apple and Butternut Squash Soup
This soup is delicious with just a few simple main ingredients: one butternut squash, one apple, and one onion. It’s really easy yet amazingly delicious, and the flavor gets better the second and third day - so it’s a great make ahead appetizer for your Thanksgiving feast!
BUTTERNUT SQUASH AND APPLE SOUP - serves 6
1 Butternut Squash (2-3 lbs)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 medium...
10 tags
Thanksgiving Side Dishes - Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Mashed potatoes are my favorite part of the Thanksgiving Feast. Not only are they terribly decadent, they’re also the perfect vehicle for homemade turkey gravy. My mashed potatoes get a little tang from sour cream and some extra flavor from two heads of roasted garlic - adding a wonderfully mild yet rich hint to these already special spuds.
Perfect Mashed Potatoes
2 lbs Organic Yukon...
8 tags
Thanksgiving Side Dishes - Roasted Brussels...
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be posting recipes, videos and directions for a fool-proof Thanksgiving! Here’s the first of our simple side dishes: Oven Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Parmigiano Reggiano and Lemon. Keep checking back for more recipes, as well as a guide to holiday food-prepping that will minimize your work come Turkey Day!
Roasted Brussels Sprouts:
These...
15 tags
Mulled Apple Cider - Simple or Spiked
Mulled Hot Apple Cider is literally fall in your mouth. It’s warming on a cold day, and it has the flavor of the holidays in every sip. Lots of fancy kitchen stores sell expensive mulling spices, but honestly, they go bad after a 6 months, and you probably won’t finish all of them before apple cider is out of season and hard to find. As long as you have some fresh ginger, cinnamon...
October 2011
2 posts
15 tags
Hungry in San Francisco - Walnuts
Walnut and Basil Pesto over Pasta - photo courtesy Raphael Rodriguez
It’s no secret that San Francisco is an amazing food town. I mean, the local, sustainable, and organic movement pretty much started in Northern California years and years ago and is now just a way of life. It’s down right inspirational, and exciting to see meet the young people upholding these ideals. Enter Three...
10 tags
Guarapo, Por Favor!
This post is not the first time I have expressed my love for Guarapo, that delicious, cold, refreshing, pressed sugarcane juice. Whenever I head down to Miami, my first stop is Latin America Market where they serve up the freshest guarapo in town - pressed to order - from local sugarcane. It’s a Miami mainstay in an unassuming spot, but worth the trip west of downtown. Watch here to see...
September 2011
2 posts
16 tags
Make this Marinade: Cuban Mojo
photo courtesy eatinglocalinthetropics.blogspot.com
Despite what many people think, Cuban food is never spicy. Instead, it’s tangy from citrus and pungent from loads of garlic. That combination is the quintessential sabor cubano, and it comes from their signature sauce: Mojo.
Before you make Mojo, you have to first find Sour Oranges. They’re local to the tropics and are easily...
10 tags
Hungry in Queens - A Soup Dumpling Tour of...
Tiffany Yeh is a great sport. She spent the summer with Raphael and me (and James the Dachshund) as Hungry in Brooklyn’s intern. Now that she’s back at SUNY Albany, we miss her very much. But we wouldn’t let her leave without a bang: since she spent the past few months learning about Brooklyn’s food culture, we figured she could teach us a few things about her own. In...
August 2011
4 posts
14 tags
Buttermilk Ranch Dressing
I’m usually a vinaigrette kind of girl, but boy do I hate to waste ingredients. So whenever I have buttermilk around from baking or pancakes, I make a jar of Buttermilk Ranch Dressing to use up the rest of the carton. And guess what? It’s almost as easy as opening up a bottle of the store-bought stuff that usually contains MSG and loads of preservatives. Watch the video and learn...
12 tags
The Perfect Greyhound
We just got back from a pretty awesome trip to Northern California. While there, we shot with a pretty rad pie company called Three Babes Bakeshop that operates out of a shipping container in the back of a super cool cafe. Then we visited a walnut farm near Stockton and a small family vineyard and winery in Healdsburg. But don’t worry, even though we were hard at work, we still found...
11 tags
In Season: Ground Cherries
In New York City, pavement usually prevails. So we were pretty surprised when we came across The Queens County Farm, a working organic farm in—you guessed it—Queens! As we were wrapping up our shoot about pasture-raised chickens (coming soon!), our tour-guide and farmer extraordinaire Kennon Kay showed us a pretty obscure crop in season right now: Ground Cherries. These...
11 tags
Caffeine Cupcakes - Cocoa, coffee, & cola
My friend Michael Cyril Creighton and I go way back - back to the days when we dressed up as holiday characters together for our special editions of Best Night Ever at Vh1. Ah, the good ol’ days. But now we each have our own web series, and we thought it was about time for another collabo.
Michael plays Jack in his creation, Jack in a Box, a hilarious show about the trials and...
July 2011
4 posts
8 tags
How to make Kale & Cabbage Salad
This time of year, the market is full of leafy greens, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out exactly what to do with them. Take kale for instance. You’re probably used to it braised or sauteed; but kale is also delicious raw if prepared the right way. So move over lettuce! We’ve got a recipe for a Tuscan Kale and Red Cabbage salad that’s crunchy, tangy, delicious, and...
6 tags
The Amazing Taste of Brooklyn
photo courtesy of mappery.com
Our friends over at POGO Events have a pretty awesome Saturday planned for August 7th. The Amazing Taste of Brooklyn will certainly be an Amazing Race, minus zip-lining through a jungle. You will, however, experience an adventure of taste as the race takes you through some of the borough’s finest food establishments. Here’s what they have to say about...
4 tags
Classic Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Locally made, high quality, great tasting. Those are just some ways to describe confections from The Madelaine Chocolate Company. Located in Far Rockaway, Queens, they’ve been family-owned and operated since the thirties, and certainly take pride in both their roots and their chocolate. We here at Hungry in Brooklyn were lucky enough come across a staggering amount of Madelaine’s goodies. As we...
14 tags
HiB Video: Three Summer Cocktails
With July 4th just one day away, it’s time to start thinking about drinking. So we here at Hungry in Brooklyn decided pair the season’s freshest ingredients with what else? Liquor! Check out our step-by-step lesson for three refreshing summer cocktails: The Classic Cuban Mojito, Shea’s Bluberry Gin Sparkler, and Spiked Strawberry Lemonade. They’re so delicious,...
June 2011
1 post
8 tags
HiB: Pittsburgh Edition - Ramps
It’s good to be back! After a long break to recharge our batteries as Hungry Nation went through a transitional phase, we’re back and ready to take on the summer with lots of great episodes.
Our first, HiB: Pittsburgh, explores the humble Ramp. Because they’re the first signs of spring, chefs LOVE them. Though they’re no longer in season, you’ll probably be...
May 2011
3 posts
9 tags
Hungry in Brooklyn: Season One Wrap Party!
*photo by Matthew Craig
This past Monday night, Hungry in Brooklyn hosted our Season One Wrap Party at the Brooklyn Kitchen to honor the chefs, purveyors, and supporters of the show. It was an amazing night - Anthony and Angelo from Roberta’s did their magic right in front of us, busting out delicious pizzas all evening long. Salty sweet snacks and desserts from our friends at Ovenly,...
April 2011
1 post
10 tags
Eat organic, drink organic
One thing I love about blogging is having the opportunity to be part of a virtual community of like-minded people. Enter Mark Walker, creator of WineLife365 - a blog that pairs well (pun intended) with HiB because it’s all about taking the intimidation out of wine.
Not too long ago, Mark asked me to write a post for his guest-writer section aptly named BYOB. Check out the article to...
March 2011
2 posts
8 tags
Dinner for Two* First Course: Bacon & Potato Leek...
We had such a great time filming the first season of Hungry in Brooklyn. Looking forward to embarking on Season 2, but in the meantime, here is the first recipe from our season finale, HiB: Dinner for Two. This Bacon and Potato Leek Soup is hearty yet elegant - the perfect first course to a special dinner made with love.
BACON AND POTATO LEEK SOUP
1/3 lb thick-cut bacon
1 large leek,...
13 tags
HiB: Peconic Bay Scallops
Scallops can sometimes be a bit intimidating to the home cook. But the bottom line is they’re really easy to make and require very little effort, but a little bit of know-how.
Our adventure begins in Montauk fishing with the guys at Montauk Shellfish, a fishery dedicated to sustainability and making sure that generations to come will be able to enjoy the fruits of the sea. It was a...
February 2011
4 posts
12 tags
Simple Vanilla Ice Cream
Ice cream is by-far my favorite dessert, and it’s actually really easy to make at home provided you have an Ice Cream Machine. The beauty in making your own ice cream is that you control everything about it. Buy the freshest cream from the farmers market, the best milk from grass-fed cows, organic and fair trade vanilla beans, farm-fresh eggs…you get the picture. When you have taken...
We'll Answer Your Questions on Simple in Sixty!
Is there a kitchen technique you’ve always wanted to try but you just don’t know how? We’re gearing up for our next episode of Simple in Sixty and we want to know what you want to learn! Leave a comment here or go to our Facebook Fan Page and post your question for a chance to have an entire show dedicated to you!
11 tags
Hib Video: Cooking with Beer
Some of the first liquids that come to mind when you think braising are wine, stock and broth. But we forget about beer - and some may argue that because beer is made from grain (barley/rye) and herbs (hops), it pairs with certain foods even better than wine, which is obviously made from grapes. I’m not so sure I agree completely with that statement, but I will admit it’s fun to mix...
9 tags
Valentine's Day Oyster Platter
Throughout college I was a hostess at a fancy Manhattan restaurant, and nothing gave me more anxiety than Valentine’s Day. Even now I refuse to eat out on the 14th, because I know what goes into it: prix fixe menu, shuffling guests in and out, and tables so close together you end up sharing food with strangers. Enjoy your favorite restaurant on an off night, and do something more romantic:...
January 2011
5 posts
13 tags
HiB Video: Grits
I have to admit, I didn’t really like grits before this episode. When Harry at The Brooklyn Kitchen suggested we feature them, I took it on more as a challenge than an ingredient I was genuinely excited about. And you know what happened? I have come to love them. I realized that my only experience I had ever had with grits had been the gross instant variety that tasted more like slop...
10 tags
Beurre Monté - A technique for decadence
I love butter. I REALLY love butter. I love it melted, whipped, clarified, or cold. But then a few years back when I came across Beurre Monté in Thomas Keller’s French Laundry Cookbook, I realized this was perhaps the perfect application of butter. You see, Beurre Monté is melted butter that remains emulsified. Once butter reaches about 160 degrees, it separates into the milk solids and...
15 tags
"Hungry in Brooklyn" Supper Club - December 2010!
Last month we had our December Hungry in Brooklyn Dinner Party and it was a great success! I had every intention of getting this post up right away, but then all of a sudden it was Christmas and I found myself in Sonoma County. I drank wine. A lot of it. Every single day. I got very little work done, and thus I understand France a lot better now, even after having studied abroad there in my...
8 tags
8 tags
HIB Video: Whole Trout
Trout is delicious and easy to prepare, but the whole-troutedness of it might make you decide to pick up a different fish that is skinless, boneless, and filleted into a perfect package. Well, my friends, you are missing out! Trout is not only delicious and easy to prepare, it’s extremely inexpensive. The recipe below is for one trout, which is a great dinner for two when paired with other...
December 2010
2 posts
11 tags
Happy New Year - Festive Cocktails
It’s almost New Year’s Eve which means it’s time to start thinking about some fun cocktails. HiB’s good friend Tim Monaghan is quite the bartender, and he’s compiled a list of his three favorite festive drinks, which he demonstrates in this holiday special. One very cool thing is that so many of these liquors are being produced locally these days. Tim uses Breuckelen...
8 tags
Christmas Baking - Ovenly's Holiday Hot Tarts
I fancy myself a savory cook, not a baker, but it’s pretty tough to avoid baking around the holidays. Luckily our friends over at Ovenly were nice enough to teach me a few things about pie dough using locally milled flour from Cayuga Pure Organics - and they put that pie dough to good use for their signature Hot Tart - Ovenly’s version of the pop tart with a grown-up twist. Check out...
November 2010
6 posts
9 tags
Thanksgiving Recipe: Pureed Parsnips
Parsnips are a deliciously sweet root vegetable in-season after the first frost. So here in the Northeast, Thanksgiving is the perfect time to enjoy them. This week on HiB, we visit Paffenroth Gardens to learn about how to pick the perfect parsnip. Then we head over to Eat in Greenpoint, where Chef Jordan whips up a roasted parsnip gnocchi hearty enough for a cold fall evening. Then it’s...
7 tags
Heritage Breeds = Happy Turkeys
How many times have you heard “Happy Turkey Day” in reference to Thanksgiving? Probably way too many, especially considering that most of the turkeys you’ll find on tables across America on November 25th were anything but happy, and their lives were never respected. But then there are a growing number of amazing farmers like Jan and Mike Rogers at Blue Moon Farm who are raising...
10 tags
Tagging Along - Chef John at the Greenmarket
Before Chef John Adler of Franny’s rocked our world with a delicious Pumpkin Crostini on HiB: Pumpkin, he invited us to join him on his tri-weekly trip to the Union Square Greenmarket, where he procures all the fresh and local produce for the restaurant. Perhaps he was excited to teach an eager pupil about the ins and outs of the Greenmarket, or maybe he needed a couple extra hands to help...
8 tags
Thanksgiving Recipe: Cranberry Sauce
As Thanksgiving approaches, I simply can’t wait for the cranberry sauce. It’s perhaps my favorite holiday side dish; and it may be one of the few foods that Americans truly consume seasonally, when cranberries are at their peak (provided it’s fresh cranberry sauce of course). No one’s putting cranberry sauce on their plate in mid-July, right? But the anticipation for this...
Thanksgiving Recipe: Fresh Whipped Cream 2 Ways
Homemade whipped cream is a very simple and elegant way to spruce up a bakery-bought pie or add a special touch to your own baking. The best part about whipped cream is that it’s so simple! You’ll be able to whip up these homemade versions faster than your significant other can break the seal on the canned stuff.
Vanilla Whipped Cream:
1 cup local heavy cream
1/4 cup...
October 2010
8 posts
12 tags
HIB Video: How to Cook with Pumpkin
It’s almost Halloween which means pumpkins are at their peak! On this episode we head to New Jersey to visit Phillips Farms, where farmer Marc Phillips shows us the different varieties of this scrumptious squash. Then we head over to Franny’s in Brooklyn (one of my favorite restaurants) for Chef John Adler’s pumpkin crostini - a delicious mound of sauteed pumpkin atop toasted...
HIB Video: Cooking with Wine - One-Pot Coq au Vin
It’s no secret that I love wine. I love it. And I love cooking with it - particularly red- not just because it gives me an excuse to drink WHILE I’m cooking but because the flavors are perfect for braised meats and stews. Now that there’s a chill in the air, it’s time to dust off the dutch oven and stew it up with this super simple Coq Au Vin. It’s so delicious,...
8 tags
NYC Food and Wine Festival: Thrillist's Bacon and...
Our good friends over at Thrillist threw their second annual Bacon and Blues party last night as part of the NYC Food and Wine Festival. Since Bacon is one of my favorite food groups (right up there with cheese, chocolate, and pickles), I couldn’t pass this one up. The event was hosted by celebrity chef Todd English of Olives fame, and he certainly was the host with the most: if giving a...