The Bitten Word

Photos from Early Spring

To round out this week, we thought we'd share a collection of photos we've snapped so far this spring. It's a bit of a rainy day here in DC, but a beautiful weekend is on the way. We hope it is wherever you are, too. 

Have an awesome weekend. Cook something delicious. And enjoy the photos!

~ Zach & Clay

 

Though this looks like a Washington, D.C. cherry blossom photo, it was actually snapped outside of 1892 East Restaurant in Huntsville, Alabama. We flew down there to meet Zach's family a few weeks ago, and spring had already arrived. We loved 1892 (our first visit) and have been thinking about their take on Shrimp and Grits -- a butterflied shrimp, stuffed with grits, then deep friend and served with a tomato dipping sauce. Needless to say: delicious. 

 

While we were visiting Zach's family (they live in Tennesee, but it's usually cheaper for us to fly into Huntsville), we went to a cookout hosted by one of Zach's mom's colleagues. He lives on a farm outside Lynchburg (home of Jack Daniel's). This shot of Clay from that cookout is about as Tennessee as it gets -- barn, beer and a chicken.

Chicken Tikka Masala at Home

Bon Appétit (April 2013)

Do you ever go to a restaurant intent on trying something new? But you end up ordering the same thing you always get, powerless to select any other item from the menu, even though you really want to branch out?

For us, the answer's yes. And Chicken Tikka Masala is Exhibit A.

Every time we go to an Indian restaurant, one of us ends up ordering the dish, with its sweet tomato sauce that's screaming for a garlic naan to be dunked into it. 

When we first spied this recipe in the current issue of Bon Appétit, we thought about doing one of our Delivery vs. Homemade Challenges, like we've done before for Pad Thai and General Tso's Chicken. 

But let's do the math for this Chicken Tikka Masala:

               17 ingredients
            + a four- to six-hour marinating time for the chicken
            + another hour plus or so to cook the chicken
            ---------------------------------------------------------------
            Without a doubt: Takeout was going to smoke homemade in cost and speed.

 

How would this recipe stand up against delivery in terms of taste? We have a hunch.

Oil-Poached Tuna with Fennel and Orange

Food & Wine (April 2013)

We really didn't want to like this dish.

Well, wait, let's back up. Of course we originally wanted to like this dish, which is why we selected it from the most recent Food & Wine. The first time we oil-poached fish had yielded mixed results, so we wanted to try it a second time. Plus, the fennel and orange sounded like a delicious complement to the tuna.

But once we got into the prep, we quickly fell out of love.

Broccoli Rabe with Sausage

Food & Wine (April 2013)

Here are some things we like right now:

• Temperatures are up. Goodbye, winter coats! 

• Mad Men is back! Though we're sad to say that you're breaking our hearts, Don Draper....

• Our garden is starting to show signs of life. Little bits of green are peeking up through the dirt. Let's hope they're not weeds. More on that next week.

• The Cherry Blossoms hit their peak in our nation's capital this week. Yesterday, before work, we biked down to see them. We're so fortunate to live in such a beautiful city. 

Yes, spring is here, and we couldn't be happer about it. 

But here's something we don't like quite as much: We've both been incredibly busy at work as of late. And work, she takes up a lot of time. Between that and our thirst for more time outside, it means less time in the kitchen. 

We're still cooking dinner at home most nights of the week. But during the work week, we need meals that we can throw together in a short amount of time, with little thinking required. 

We need meals like this Broccoli Rabe with Sausage. 

New York Sour

Bon Appétit (April 2013)

Sometimes you want a cocktail to take the edge off.

Sometimes you want one in order to try a new ingredient, or a new kind of alcohol.

And sometimes you want a cocktail just 'cause it looks really freaking cool.

Enter: the New York Sour. 

Bo Ssam with Ssam Sauce and Garlic-Scallion Sauce

Momofuku, via The New York Times

There was a time when the thought of serving dinner for 16 would have scared the daylights out of us.

But that's just the challenge we faced last weekend, when through a series of circumstances we ended up hosting a large group of our friends for dinner (well, part of a dinner, but more on that below).

We needed a dish that would easily serve a group on a Saturday night, and we didn't want to spend all day in the kitchen.

We decided to go with this Bo Ssam served with two sauces, a Ssam Sauce and a Garlic-Scallion Sauce.

Bittens, are you sitting down?

We hope so, because this dish is about to BLOW. YOUR. MINDS.

This dish is, in a word, epic.

Spicy Glazed Onions

Fine Cooking (April/May 2013)

When's the last time you put down your fork and said, "Gosh, those are good onions"?

Have you ever said that?

Onions tend to get relegated to "ingredient" rather than "side dish." Nearly every recipe we make, it seems, starts with a diced onion. But we almost never see onions as a featured star.

If you're looking to change that, start with these Spicy Glazed Onions.

Dandelion-Lime Cooler

Adapted from Martha Stewart Living (April 2013)

Want to have a big sip of spring in a glass? 

Then mix yourself up a spring tonic, like these Dandelion-Lime Coolers. 

We spied a recipe for Sorrel-Lime Tonics in the latest Martha Stewart Living. They were practically neon in their greenness, and so unusual sounding, that we were eager to whip up a batch. 

The only problem? We couldn't find any sorrel -- the farmers markets were all out and there was none to be found at Whole Foods. So we grabbed something else springy and unusual-sounding -- dandelion greens -- and got to mixing. 

Honey-Roasted Radishes

Fine Cooking (April/May 2013)

We read somewhere recently that Americans waste up to 40 percent of the food we purchase -- nearly half the food in this country gets thrown in the garbage.

We like to think we're not that wasteful around the Bitten Word household (partly because we never met a leftover we didn't like, or wouldn't try to reinvent as a second dish).

Still, like everyone else, we go digging into the crisper occasionally only to find the remnants of bygone vegetables. Our Vegetable Board helps, especially in warmer months when the veggies are coming fast and furious from our CSA.  Those six months of the year are a bit of a vegetable gauntlet, as we race to use the vegetables before they spoil. (But don't worry, after too much winter, we're ready for the fresh produce onslaught. Bring. It. On.)

Radishes can seem especially challenging. We love them raw in salads, but rarely think to cook them as a side dish. Now, thanks to a feature in the April/May issue of Fine Cooking called "Radishes Can Take the Heat," we've got more than enough good ideas.

Crunchy French Toast with Cap'n Crunch Coating

Cook's Country (April/May 2013)

Our friends Drew and Ralph -- characters you know doubt recognize from many a dinner featured here on The Bitten Word -- have just opened a restaurant (a second restaurant, technically, that just so happens to be very favorably reviewed in today's Washington Post).

As they've been getting the new eatery up and running, they've been understandably busy, so we haven't been able to hang out as much. To make up for lost time, they invited us to come over to their house for brunch on Sunday. 

"What's for brunch?" Clay casually asked Drew a few days beforehand. 

"We saw this recipe in the latest Cook's Country that looks awes---," 

"The Really Crunchy French Toast with the Cap'n Crunch?!?!"

The answer: a resounding yes.

We'd spied this recipe when picking out April recipes. We loved the idea, but it seemed a bit of an overindulgence to just make for the two of us. 

But when friends invite you over for a French toast feast, you don't turn them down.