Dal with coconut milk

I have this fondness for using turmeric to make my food yellow. I don't know why I find this so appealing, but it's fun! This, the first and only (so far) dal I've ever made, was simple and yet delicious. Red lentils, clarified butter, some aromatics like bay leaf, mustard seeds, and garlic, some coconut milk and the fun yellow turmeric and you've got yourself a quick, tasty, yellow (I may have slipped in a little extra turmeric) dish. It's great over rice, and if I had some naan I bet it would have been great with that as well.

Polenta with kale and sausage

Here's yet another way to serve and eat tasty, nutritious kale--on top of creamy polenta made with milk and some parmigiano reggiano, along with slices of sausage. I always keep parmigiano reggiano on hand--it goes so well with so many dishes and is extremely delicious on its own as well. A little goes a long way in polenta. It doesn't make the polenta explicitly "cheesy" but it does add a nice savory depth and subtle cheesy quality. I had some nice lamb sausage on hand from my meat CSA as well as some braised kale tossed with some onions and a little bit of vinegar which contributes a slightly sweet yet acidic note to the dish, providing a contrast to the rich meat sausage and the creaminess of the polenta.

Pear sorbet

My very favorite sorbets are the kinds that taste just like the fruit itself, simple and yet intense in flavor, especially when eating them is like biting into a piece of fruit but in sorbet form. This sorbet accomplishes all of this. You take some ripe pears, puree them, mix in some cooled sugar syrup (basically some sugar dissolved in water), throw in a little bit of pear brandy or vodka, and freeze in the ice cream maker. Out comes something that tastes remarkably like a fresh, delicious pear!

A word of warning: This preparation is actually extremely simple and easy--and yet. I had to make this twice to get it right. The original recipe called for what seemed like a suprisingly large amount of sugar (one cup of sugar to 5 ripe pears), and I probably should have trusted my instincts. Ripe pears are already quite sweet on their own, but I figured some sugar was warranted, since after all it's pear sorbet, not simply ground up frozen pears, and also thought it might taste less sweet when it's frozen. The end result was an overly sweet sorbet. Not terrible, just pretty darn sweet. Also, this didn't occur to me until it was just a bit too late, but like apples, pears turn brown after you peel them. The first time I made the sorbet I made the mistake of letting the processed pears sit in the fridge while I tidied up the kitchen and before I started freezing the sorbet mixture.

Mistake!! It's a purely cosmetic failing, and didn't affect the taste, but I don't really want to eat brown sorbet. For my next attempt at the sorbet, I didn't want the sorbet so brown. Or so sweet. I halved the sugar and I decided not to introduce another ingredient - I didn't want to toss in some lemon juice to keep the pears from browning because while I love lemon, I didn't want it in the pear sorbet at all--not even a trace. So instead, I decided to simply work faster. I peeled and cut up and processed the pears as fast as I could go (which isn't really all that fast, but definitely faster than attempt number one), and got the whole mixture into the ice cream maker right away.

Much, much better. My second batch turned out just right in terms of sweetness, and while slightly browner than I prefer, it was so much more appealing. This definitely is a contender for my favorite sorbet flavor along with blood orange sorbet and lemon sorbet.

Chicken and broccoli stirfry

I love a good stirfry, and this is a delicious one courtesy of Cook's Illustrated--saucy, and saucy with the type of sauce you'd actually want to eat - savory and flavorful thanks to rice wine, soy sauce, a little sesame oil, and of course ginger and garlic, it goes perfectly with broccoli and chicken. Really, you don't even need the chicken--it's delicious with broccoli alone--but it's a good one-dish sort of meal and looks great with the green of the broccoli and the red of some red bell peppers. This is equally great over a crispy noodle cake, where you get the contrast of the crispy noodles and the stir fry and its sauce, or even just plain rice.

Tofu with ground pork and fermented black beans

Fermented black beans add a great dimension to both tofu and pork, so why not combine the two? This is a very simple, homestyle dish that is quick to make and tasty over rice. Tofu, ground pork (or not), fermented black beans soaked briefly in rice wine, scallions, garlic and ginger, some soy sauce--yum.

Cauliflower soup

Now, I finally understand why restauraunt soups taste so good.

The recipe for this creamy pureed cauliflower soup, which comes from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc at Home, calls for a TON of heavy cream--at least compared to the proportion of cauliflower to cream. After reading the recipe and doing the frankly terrifying math, I couldn't in good conscience use the whole amount called for, so I decided to use half the amount of cream and 2% milk for the rest.

The soup was still very rich, creamy and wonderful. I like cauliflower, but I loved this soup. I think in the future, even less cream might be just fine. A little goes a long way.

Fried beet chips as a garnish added a nice bit of color and another layer of sweetness to the soup.