Luscious Life
A couple of weeks ago, we decided to go on a detox to cleanse our bodies of, well, toxins. We ended up eating a mainly vegan, gluten-free, no caffeine, no alcohol diet for about 2 weeks. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad and we really did feel better. In fact, we’re still following some of the same rules! Of course we added alcohol back into our diets, c’mon guys, it’s summer…
Even though we were cutting out a lot of our normal foods, we still wanted to be able to eat tasty dishes while sticking to our diet so we did quite a bit of research. While recipe-searching, we remembered Lagusta of Lagusta’s Luscious and Bluestocking BonBons. Lagusta recently approached me (Caroline) to create a banner for her vegan chocolate company and that’s when we also discovered her amazing New Paltz, NY-based vegetarian home meal delivery company (everything looked soooo yummy). When we started the detox, we turned to Lagusta for some recipes and a little get-to-know-you.
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Special Requests
Last week was Heather’s birthday and her only special requests were that we do a low-key, intimate dinner and for it to be gluten and meat-free. We were happy to oblige, being that she is one of our nearest and dearest friends. So we had a bit of a challenge on our hands since we love our bread and gluten, but we’ve been meaning to try a vegan/gluten-free week soon so this was a good test. The dinner was successful and very grown-up, a small dinner party in our make-shift dining room.
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Special Guest Food Adventure: Joel Speasmaker at Good Fork
By now, you all know our honorary NumNum’er Joel Speasmaker of Forest Design. He has been on many of our food adventures in addition to taste testing several of our at home eats. So it was only fitting that we ask Joel to his own food adventure, and he chose The Good Fork in Red Hook, Brooklyn. We took Bryn along for the ride, being that its one of her favorite restaurants.
The Good Fork serves high quality, seasonal foods without the snooty attitude. Its actually all about comfort, from the staff, to the atmosphere, and most importantly, to the food.
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Rockin’ Bowl: African Chickpea and Spinach Soup
It’s true, we post an awful lot of soups here on NumNum. But I’ve got a confession to make: I’m kind of a lazy cook (fyi, this is Lisa writing. Caroline is far from lazy, and not just when it comes to cooking!). I also tend to be lacking in the cash flow department, especially the closer it gets to payday. So soup is often my go-to dinner, especially on these arctic winter days. Easy and cheap are pretty good selling points, and when you throw delicious on top of all that, well, you really can’t go wrong. For African chickpea and spinach soup, you can even add healthy and vegan to the list. In this case, the majority of the soup’s deliciousness comes from its secret weapon of an ingredient: peanut butter! Who knew?
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J’ai faim!
We’ve been wanting to try something from Ginette Mathiot’s I Know How to Cook ever since we got our hands on this lovely French cookbook, printed in English for the first time ever since its 1932 publication. We decided no dish has that je ne sais quois like a rich and fluffy cheese souffle. And wouldn’t you know it, we’ve got a handful of ramekins that had been begging to be used. Since it was our first foray into the world of souffle, we were more than a bit intimidated but this lil’ recipe was so easy and came out just the way a souffle is supposed to: risen to a golden brown that practically melts in your mouth with every bite. Consider this fair warning though–the main ingredients are butter, cheese, and eggs so if that sounds like a nightmare for your tummy proceed with caution. We decided to balance out the cheese souffle’s richness with a veggie dish: green beans in a tomato sauce. But the joke was on us since that tomato sauce turned out to be more of a gravy, making the combo a decidedly heavy one. But what did we expect from France’s version of Joy of Cooking? It was all tasty nonetheless.
oh johnny!
When I moved to New York nearly three years ago, Babycakes bakery was one of the first spots Caroline took me to (kindred spirit, obvz!) and it was pretty much love at first bite. So of course I was THRILLED when owner Erin McKenna’s cookbook came out, packed with recipes for all the goodies they sell. The banana chocolate chip bread was one of the first things I made and it was such a hit with my mouth, I’ve had trouble getting past it to sample anything else. But I recently tried my hand at her recipe for Johnnycakes and while they’re not epic like the bread, and my version didn’t look anything like the photo in the book, they can hold their own with my tastebuds. I’d never had a johnnycake before so I’m not sure what the original is supposed to taste like, but these vegan, gluten-free puppies came out somewhere between cornbread and scones, making them perfect breakfast bites. Erin recommends topping them with agave nectar which is quite tasty, but honey and maple syrup work just as well.
Butternut Squash Soup + Chubble Bread = Match made in Heaven
We are always a bit sad to say good-bye to summer, but saying hello to fall means welcoming the wonders of butternut squash soup and chubble bread back into our lives and THAT is something to get excited about. This is the dynamic duo of seasonal dinners, and once you make it, I promise it will become an autumn staple. I am a butternut squash soup connoisseur, if I do say so myself, and this version is my absolute fave: thick and smooth and oh-so-tasty with just the right hint of thyme and sage. It’s great on its own, but paired with the garlicy, oniony, cheesy goodness of chubble bread (I didn’t name it, but I love to say it!), it is outta this world. So do yourself a favor and invite this pair to dinner. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself wanting to lick the bowl. And who are we to stop you?!
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FRRRRRRREEEENNNCCCCHHH TOAST
Lisa loves brunch and she loves french toast, even more she loves saying: “frrrrrrrrreeeeench TOast,” a la the drunk girl from The 40 Year Old Virgin. So for her birthday, I whipped up some Pumpkin French Toast to start her birthday day off great.
It’s best to make this perfect fall breakfast treat with day old bread, cause fresh bread soaks up too much batter and no one likes mushy french toast. Also, I sliced up super thin slices to make my own cinnamon toast crunch (resourceful!). Read on for the deets.
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These fruits are made for eatin’
Most of us know by now that a tomato is actually a fruit and not a vegetable. But if you’ve been getting tomatoes at the grocery store as opposed to the farmer’s market, they don’t taste like either. In fact, they barely taste like anything at all. But the tomatoes that come from a farmer are oh so sweet. And luckily, heirloom tomatoes are plentiful at the farmer’s market this time of year, but the end of this bounty’s in sight so I’m eating them up as if there’s no tomorrow. You can bite into an heirloom like it’s an apple and still have a delicious experience but this easy recipe for an heirloom salad really brings out the amazing flavors. And isn’t it pretty? Well, guess what…it tastes even better than it looks.
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Food to our ears
So many food adventures…and this one leads us up to Greenpoint. Eat Records (124 Meserole b/w Leonard & Eckford) is a small record shop and great eatery. I remember going here a couple years back when it was WAY different and kinda peculiar. It was literally a record store full of characters like in High Fidelity but with a cafe that served “food.” I put “food” in quotes because it seemed like when you ordered something, they’d go out and get it from another place and bring it back to serve it to you. All in all, it was a strange place, but now, it’s a whole new story and boy, is it amazing!
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