I’ve been willfully ignoring the alarmingly warm November and going all in on squash season. Ed’s been working some late nights, and while my inclination is to crack open a box of mac n cheese and binge watch Netflix with cats, I’m hanging onto some of my pride with squashes full of grains. Nearly as easy, just as satisfying, and with a bright orange that wasn’t sprinkled out of a packet of powdered cheese.
If there was ever a time for comfort food, it was yesterday. When I’m feeling particularly sad or vulnerable or weak, I always fall back on trying to replicate the feeling of trekking through Long Island City in the rain and gorging myself on $5 worth of Indian tomato soup and samosas.
While we’re stuck in Steve’s Deli limbo, we’ve been trying to enjoy the freedom of living without a constant stream of nearly-expired sandwich fixings. Turns out that you can go wild at the grocery store without breaking the bank if you barricade yourself in the produce aisle and pretend that cheese doesn’t exist. After scooping up a handful of ramps for our local co-op, we decided to savor the last few chilly nights of the year and make a mushroom barley soup.
We’re not always the best at uncomplicated cooking, so lazy dinner nights normally end in take out. This time, we decided to do some strategizing and prep the soup beforehand, leaving the stock to marinate in the circulator. Packed with a medley of mushrooms and garlic, it turned out bright and earthy while still being surprisingly filling.
Bright and earthy vegan mushroom soup with fresh ramps, barley, and radishes.
Author: Disturbing the Peas
Recipe type: Soup
Cuisine: American
Ingredients
1 cup black barley
2 cups assorted mushrooms (shitake, oyster, and enoki)
4 bay leaves
1 tablespoon kosher salt, plus more
4 large eggs (optional)
2 small radishes, trimmed, thinly sliced
1 bunch ramps
Walnut oil, white wine vinegar, salt and pepper to season
Instructions
The night before you make the soup, go down and grab a beer and remember you've gotta soak the barley. Cover 1 cup barley with 3 cups of cold water and leave overnight.
The next evening, set the circulator to 68*C
While that's heating up you strain the barley and reserve the soaking liquid
Place the barley in rice cooker with mushroom stems and bay leaves and the appropriate amount of water.
Put in reserved barley water (2.5ish cups) into a vaccuum bag with mushrooms, black garlic, onion, bay leaves, and kombu and place in the circulator. If you have extra mushrooms lying around, toss them in! In this case, more is more. Optional: sweat the onions and half the mushrooms for a bit before bagging.
Have a glass of wine and relax! If you prefer a more protein rich version of this soup, toss some eggs into the circulator, they should be perfectly cooked once the broth is ready.
minutes before you serve, prep mushrooms, radishes, ice and peel the eggs, and quickly saute the ramps.
To serve: nestle and barley in a bowl, then top with radishes and mushrooms. Pour broth over the bowl and season as desired. We used a sprinkle of vinegar and walnut oil.
We grew up in a weird time for food. I, personally, come of age eating a hell of a lot of canned vegetables. Questionable textures, often drowned in butter and saccharine sweet. One thing my mother really did right, though, was artichokes. I have nothing but fond memories for spaghetti dinners that began with artichokes and lemon butter, and equally as many (potentially false) myths about the edible thistle. Did you know the Greeks ate artichokes before every meal as a palette cleanser?
My go-to preparation is normally steamed until tender and served with caper butter, but we’ve also taken to serving them alongside an herbed aioli [see: half mayo + half sage brown butter]. The dip is from one of our diehard favorite cookbooks, Maximum Flavor. They recommend roasting halved filled with garlic, but after a few attempts to change my ways I’m still a 100% advocate for steaming.
After a full out artichoke drought in the grocery store the last few months, we were pleasantly surprised to find a super affordable box of baby artichokes this week. Pinterest told us to bake them. Withsome hesitation from our previous disappointments, we opted to steam the quartered baby ‘chokes first and then toss in olive oil, panko, and parmesean and broil in the oven until crispy.
The final result was really satisfying, but definitely some room for improvements. The one thing I love about steaming is that it leaves the vegetable super tender and green. The added time for cooking in an oven tends to allow the artichoke to oxidize and dry out, and the outer leaves were a bit too tough to eat in their entirety. We had trouble deciding if it was the fault of drying out the leaves in broiling, or if the smaller of the bunch steamed more fully yielding a better texture.
Served with a bowl of lemon caper aioli, any minor setbacks in preparation are quickly eclipsed by the joy of eating a giant bowl of “vegetables” dipped in mayo while binge watching Seinfeld. 10/10
We spent the first day of the new year catching up on some much needed sleep, cracking open new notebooks, and gathering our thoughts so that could dive into 2016 with new energy. The last few months have been uncertain and tumultuous, so it’s always nice to take a step back and assess the goals that remain a constant and enjoy the progress we’ve made so far.
The Pittsburgh Public Market that Steve’s Deli occupies announced its search for a new home. While we’re excited to see what the move brings for our future as well as the PPM’s, it also brought on a wave of uncertainty that stifled a lot of our creative juices. Which brought us to resolution 1….
1. Focus on staying energized and pushing forward in areas we have complete control.
Sometimes it is hard to avoid feeling burnt out, especially with the prospect of finding a new home for the deli on the horizon.
Instead of focusing on questions we don’t have answers to, we’re resolving to focus on maintaining a schedule that helps us stay creative while building our brand and our skill set. Tweaking menu items, streamlining our business practices, and planning content in advance will help us map out our immediate goals. We plan to make an effort to post continually on our progress, helping us reflect on our achievements rather than our uncertainties.
2. Create better rituals.
We’re both diligent to leave the kitchen and the office outside of our home cleaned up and in perfect order before we leave work for the day. It is always nice to start the day off with a clean slate and we need to focus more on implementing those ideas at home. Putting away the last few dishes rather than sinking into a vegged out netflix-coma makes it easier to feel energized in the morning.
3. Waste less.
I try to keep this is as my constant resolution, but sometimes old habits die hard. Waste less time, waste less money, waste less materials. Waining produce from the deli isn’t always the easiest thing to see as showcase dinner staple, but we’ve been focusing on incorporating overstock items into our home cooking before they’re due to hit the compost bin. This has helped us scour our pantry and become more inventive while limiting trips to the store.
A hearty bowl with bold, bright flavors and an array of great textures.
Author: Disturbing the Peas
Recipe type: Veggie Bowl
Serves: 4
Ingredients
4 hard boiled eggs
1 head of romanesco broccoli
2 lbs medium red potatoes
1 large china rose radish
1 bunch parsley
3 garlic cloves, smashed to a paste with a little salt
1 tablespoon chopped anchovy
1 tablespoon chopped capers
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
Herbs to taste
Instructions
Preheat oven to 500 (broil)
Cube potatoes and boil for 12 minutes
Drain and place in oven for 10 minutes
Chop romanesco into chunks roughly 1" long and roughly the same size.
Place romanesco broccoli in microwave safe bowl with one tablespoon of water. Cover with saran wrap and microwave for 1 minute 40 seconds, or until tender. Watch the steam when you take it out.
Chop radishes
Combine garlic, anchovy, capers, dijon, vinegar, and olive oil and emulsify with immersion blender.
Place cooked potatoes, steamed broccoli, and radishes in a serving bowl. Drizzle with sauce, top with parsley, eggs, additional herbs, salt as desired.
A few weeks before our official opening for Steve’s Deli, Table Magazine asked us about our favorite fall sandwich. The issue dropped last week and we’re really excited to be a part of it. See our full recipe below and make sure to grab a copy of the current issue with some killer additions from Thin Man Sandwich Shop and The Vandal.
Ingredients
1 baguette
1/2 cup pitted sour cherries
1/4 cup red onion chopped
2 sprigs thyme
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
3 tablespoon butter
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1 lb boneless butterflied lamb leg
4oz creamy firm cheese (we used Cypress Grove’s Lamb Chopper)
1 bunch sage chopped into ribbons
salt and pepper
juice of 1/2 lemon
Preparation
For the jam:
Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a small sauce pan
Add onions and cook until translucent
Add thyme, cherries, balsamic vinegar, sugar and a pinch of salt, cover and cook on medium low for 15 minutes (until jammy).
Remove from heat and reserve
For the lamb:
Chop lamb into 1 inch chunks and generously season with salt and pepper.
In a medium skillet, melt 1 tablespoon of butter and saute garlic.
After about a minute, add lamb and sear on high until rare (about 3-5 minutes).
Reduce heat and add your choice of cheese, top with a lid to melt.
