Whole Roasted Squash With Tomato-Ginger Chickpeas & Za ’atar
I read myself the riot act about 6 months ago, when my cholesterol level reached a new high. My doctor seemed nonplussed, perhaps because my cardiac calcium score was a perfect zero. But I was not happy. Yes, I had lost weight and was exercising, but to be honest, my heart belonged to cheese. And eggs. And ice cream. Something had to change. Breakfast was easy. The whole eggs (which I had been eating almost daily) were replaced by Starbucks Sous Vide Egg whites or oatmeal served with a side of chicken sausage. Lunches were yogurt or soup or vegan bean burritos or salad or tuna or peanut butter. I started snacking on nu...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - February 21, 2024 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Vegetables Butternut Squash Chickpeas vegetarian za'atar Source Type: blogs

Pretty Darned Near Absolutely Perfect Bagels
One of the challenges with making bread is that I want to bake more bread than my husband and I can eat. At best, it takes us a week to get through a loaf, slicing, freezing, thawing and toasting our slices one by one. When the sliced bread in the freezer piles up, I make breadcrumbs. Even with that, we still struggle to finish up what’s in the freezer before I want to bake bread again. My reason for not eating as much bread as I make is that I’m always on a diet. This is not the issue for Mr TBTAM, who can eat as much bread as he wants and still weighs the same as he did the day I married him. But the brea...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - January 18, 2024 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Bread Breakfast Absolute Bagels Everything recipe Source Type: blogs

Za ’atar
I’m excited about this season’s Za’atar, because its almost entirely from foraged or home-grown spices. We picked the sumac along a dirt road in Northern New Hampshire in late June. It was the most luscious, oil-packed, fragrant sumac I’ve ever encountered. (Read about how to find and dry sumac here.) The oregano and thyme hailed from Pennsylvania and New York City, grown in sis Rosemary and friend Paula’s container gardens, as well as my own window box in the mountains. I dried the sumac by laying them it for a couple of weeks on a cooling rack atop a baking sheet, and the other herbs...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 16, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Uncategorized food gifts handmade holiday gift homemade gifts spices Sumac Xmas gift za'atar Source Type: blogs

A Trio of Mushroom Dishes for a Trio of Mushrooms
If you’re ever in the Lake Winnipesaukee area, as we were last month visiting family, stop in at the New Hampshire Mushroom Company in Tamworth. If you’re lucky, the mushroom-growing rooms will be open to the public when you visit. Unfortunately, most of the crew was out giving a mushroom foraging tour the day we visited, so no back room tour for us. Nonetheless, we still managed to score a HUGE box of gorgeous shrooms – Lion’s Mane, Chestnut and Blue Oyster. I was a bit worried we’d never manage to use them all, but my fears were ungrounded, as we had several occasions the following week to s...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - August 4, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Appetizers Pasta Rice & Potatoes Dried mushrooms Lasagna Mushroom crostini mushroom toasts Source Type: blogs

Banana Bread (with Chocolate Bits)
I’m generally not a fan of bananas eaten anything other than in vivo, ie., peeled and popped into the mouth, fresh but not too ripe. I don’t like them in ice cream, oatmeal, cereal, cakes or even in fruit salads. Certain foods, in my opinion, just need to be enjoyed one-on-one, you know? But last week, in my mother-in-law’s kitchen, a few over-ripe bananas were calling out not to be wasted, so my daughter and I decided to make banana bread. I figured that since others were there with us that evening, I would be under no obligation to eat the thing I was making, and my daughter and I would have a littl...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - July 10, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Bread Breakfast Desserts Banana bread Chocolate chips Source Type: blogs

Ode to a Smoked Trout Lyonnaise
Moving to Philly and being retired means I get to visit Valley Green as often as I want. So, last week I met Susan for lunch at Brunos and a post-prandial walk along Forbidden Drive. There, we encountered a battalion of rubber-booted fisherman standing in the stream and parade of pickups and cars following a small tanker truck along the path. Yes folks, it was trout-stocking day on the Wissahickon. Which got me remembering the time Lou caught some gorgeous trout in the Loyalsock River, which we brined and smoked on the Weber in the back yard at our cottage. Gotta’ get Lou back up to the mountains this ...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - April 21, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Fish Salads bacon lyonnaise salade Smoked trout Valley Green Wissahickon Source Type: blogs

Late Winter Poem
Foretelling If you skirt shadowed sidewalks and keep to the sun, You will think that the worst of the winter has passed. Breezes with warm tones of spring days to come Brush your cheek with a promise that says this will last. At park side, a witch hazel catches your eye With sparkling jewels studding nature's gray weave Its flowers a happy late winter surprise Portending forsythia's bright yellow sleeves. Hold the breeze to her promise, Hold the light to the day, The forsythia blossoms are not long away. Margaret Polaneczky 2/14/2023 Last updated 02/14/23 (Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan)
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - February 14, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Poetry Central Park Spring winter Witch Hazel Source Type: blogs

Chicken with Dried Mushrooms & Tomatoes
When it comes time to figure out what to make for dinner, I love the internet as much as anyone. I usually head straight to the NY Times Cooking section, or to Epicurious, Saveur or Food 52 for ideas and inspiration. But one weekend this past year, with our Philly travel plans cancelled by an upcoming storm (there is nothing worse than the Jersey turnpike in a thunderstorm with tornado and flood warnings), I had the unexpected luxury of free time on a Saturday morning. Sitting with a cup of coffee, I opened Biba’s Taste of Italy, a cookbook whose spine I had yet to crack in the year since it had been gifted to me by ...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - January 19, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Meat & Poultry Borgotaro braised Chicken Dinner party Dried mushrooms Emilia Romagna italian Make-ahead PGI Porcini recipe Stove top Tomatoes Source Type: blogs

Roast Cauliflower with Vadouvan Butter
In the “How did I not know about this before?” category, allow me to introduce you to vadouvan, a delicious Indo-French curry spice mix that will blow your taste buds and your mind. Thanks to bro Joe for turning me on to vadouvan, though the real credit goes to the French colonists in seventeenth century Pundicherry, India who created the spice mix as they blended French and Indian cuisines. Vadouvan is complex and piquant but milder than traditional curry, and a truly exotic treat for your taste buds. Joe learned about Vadouvan from his buddy Mourad, the modern Moroccan chef whose book Mourad-New Moroccan ...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - January 16, 2023 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Vegetables cauliflower French curry vadouvan Source Type: blogs

Goug ères
Gougères. The perfect appetizer for the holidays. So impressive, so fancy, so French. And yet, they are so easy to make. Even better, they can be made ahead and frozen, then simply reheated in the oven when your guests arrive, as they are best served warm. Gougere are simply a savory cream puff. I first learned to make cream puffs in college, when I spent my summers in the dessert kitchen of a sleep away camp in New Hampshire. My boss, whose late husband had been a French-trained chef, brought his recipes into the camp kitchen and ran the place like it was the French Laundry. She taught me how NOT to put the knives...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - December 18, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Appetizers Recipes best cream puff easy gougere Gougeres make ahead Make-ahead Source Type: blogs

Moroccan Baked Beans àla Mourad
In my continued quest to cook as much as possible from my pantry, I honed in on two cans of Great Northern Beans, originally bought to stock our summer cottage larder, but never used. I suspect that they were several years old, and had made the trip up and back from NYC to Pennsylvania at least twice, if not more. (We empty the larder at the cottage when we shut things down for the season.) Canned beans have a shelf life of 2-5 years, so I knew I was on safe ground using them, and I was determined they were not going to be traveling anymore, unless it was to my kitchen table. Also calling to me was a jar of homemade toaste...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - December 7, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Uncategorized beans feta moroccan mourad onion tomato Source Type: blogs

TBTAM DIGEST – Nov 30, 2022
Cross-publishing here for those without a substack subscription (Which is free)… Happy almost December! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving and are enjoying the in-between holiday time. Here’s what’s been going on in my neck of the woods…. What I’ve been cooking on the blog Farro with Oyster Mushrooms and Onions – You call it Thanksgiving. I call it a chance for a sweet potato bake-off. Spanish Stuffed Peppers – An original recipe from The Blog that Ate Manhattan. With a little help from my friends (and family)… Where I Ate Valley Green Inn in the Wissahickon Valley.&n...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - December 1, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

Spanish Stuffed Peppers – The Evolution of a New Recipe
My love affair continues with Sofrito, the Spanish slow cooked tomato-olive oil-mirepoix that’s a staple in a healthy Mediterranean diet. I now make it regularly, storing it in small jars in my freezer and searching for ways to incorporate it into the foods we make. For example, these stuffed peppers, a recipe I am proud to say I came up with all by myself. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true. I had a little help from my friends (and family). Let me tell you how it went down… Last week, while at the market, a beautiful multicolored fresh pepper medley caught my eye. I knew I had a pound of lean g...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 28, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Meat & Poultry Rice Vegetables bell peppers corn fish sauce Flor de garum mexican recipe SOfrito Spanish Stuffed Peppers umami Source Type: blogs

A Thanksgiving Sweet Potato Bake-Off
I hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as mine. We did our usual back-to-back Thanksgiving dinners, shuttling between mine and Mr. TBTAM’s families, trying not to eat too much or too little at either one. This year, my family eschewed the homemade turkey and instead had a relaxed luncheon at the Valley Green Inn situated on Philadelphia’s Wissahickon Valley Forbidden Drive, one of my favorite places in the whole world. I’ve biked, hiked, walked, or run that trail countless times over the years, alone and with friends and family. The place is so special to us that my sister Fran’s a...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 26, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Vegetables Candied Goguma Japanese sweet potatoes Korean sweet potatoes Thanksgiving Source Type: blogs

Farro with Oyster Mushrooms & Onions
One of my goals in retirement is to shop more at the farm markets, in order to support local farmers and eat more seasonally. It’s something I could never find the time to do when I was working. (Though I have friends who managed to do so even with full time jobs, so really, what was my excuse?…) Although I adore the Union Square Green Market, it’s a bit of a schlep to visit on a regular basis. Thankfully, we have a wonderful farmer’s market every Sunday here on the Upper West Side, on Columbus Avenue just behind the Museum of Natural History. That’s where some lovely-looking oyster mushro...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 21, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Pasta Rice & Potatoes Vegetables Vegetarian Farro Food waste leftovers mushrooms Oyter Mushrooms Source Type: blogs