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
Thanksgiving Recipe Roundup
I’m often asked to recommend recipes for Thanksgiving, so here’s a few suggestions for you all.
I’ve never actually cooked a turkey, so this will just be sides and desserts. To be honest, that’s pretty much are all I care to eat at Thanksgiving dinner anyway.
Noticeably missing from this list are recipes for cranberry sauce (I use the one on the cranberry bag – no need to mess with perfection), mashed potatoes (there is no recipe, it’s instinctual if you’re Patsy’s daughter), and stuffing (I’ve never made it, that gets assigned to someone else).
Hope the...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 18, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Uncategorized Gluten-free thanksgiving Holidays recipes Sides Thanksgiving desserts Thnksgiving recipes Vegetarian thanksgiving Source Type: blogs
Orecchiette with Basil Pesto, Fennel & Sausage
As the weather turns towards winter, the basil plant on my windowsill begins to worry me. Sure, it has sun in that spot, but less and less with each day, and eventually not enough to keep it alive when cold winds pummel the adjacent glass. Time to harvest what basil remains before it’s lost. I had just enough basil for a batch of pesto, but no pine nuts. What I did have was a tiny jar of walnuts in my freezer – exactly the amount I needed! So I made a batch of pesto using my recipe for basil pesto, substituting walnuts for pine nuts.
I also had about 2 cups of homemade chicken broth in the freezer. So I sco...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 16, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Pasta Rice & Potatoes basil Chicken broth Orecchiette pesto sausage Source Type: blogs
Basil Pesto
Posting this recipe for easy reference in an upcoming post. Enjoy!
Print Recipe
Basil Pesto
Ingredients2 cups loosely packed basil leaves1/4 cup pine nuts2 large garlic cloves, peeled1/2 cup olive oil1/2 tsp salt1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
InstructionsCombine the basil, garlic, and salt in the bowl of food processor and grind till the mixture forms a paste. While running the food processor, slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Fold in grated Parmesan. (If freezing, hold the Parmesan till just before using the thawed pesto.)
Last updated 11/15/2...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 16, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Pasta Rice & Potatoes basil pesto Source Type: blogs
Eleven Madison Park Granola
They don’t offer this granola on the menu at Eleven Madison Park, New York’s award-winning, 3-star restaurant serving only plant-based food, with a tasting menu that will run you $365 a pop. Instead, all diners get a jar of the granola as a parting gift at the end of their meal, to serve at tomorrow morning’s breakfast. It’s actually a nice touch…
The restaurant wasn’t always vegan, and not everyone was happy when chef Daniel Humm decided to eschew all but plant-based foods when he re-opened the place in 2021 after a Covid hiatus. Although Eleven Madison was once purported to have a ...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 5, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Breakfast 11 madison park Dried cherries evelen madison park granola Source Type: blogs
Repurposing My Defunct iPad Mini
I hate Apple.
Everything they make becomes useless over time.
Take my iPad Mini. I purchased it in 2013 so that I’d have an easy-to-carry device to showcase our mammogram decision aid at the MedX Conference, where I had a poster presentation. It’s been rarely used since then. But yesterday, as I was squinting at a movie on my iPhone’s little screen while working out at the gym, and wondering if I needed new readers, I remembered that iPad mini. I could use it at the gym!
When I got home last night, I pulled it from the back of the desk drawer. After charging and resetting it, I was thrilled to...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - November 4, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Technology Apple hacks Ipad Ipad mini Old Uses Source Type: blogs
Enlightened Cream of Tomato Soup
Warning – The story behind this soup is a long one. A melodrama in three acts as it were.
Act I
It all started with a chicken that I purchased some weeks ago, in order to get a single chicken liver to use in a Bolognese ragu. After removing the liver from the little packet stuffed inside the chicken, I put the neck back in the cavity, put the chicken in the freezer and made the Bolognese.
Act II
Two weeks later, I took the chicken out of the freezer, put it in a pot with some veggies and water and cooked it, giving me a meat to make soft tacos for the a couple of dinners and lunches. And also a gorgeous...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - October 30, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Soups cream tomato soup Source Type: blogs
Philly Block Party Lemon Bars
We’ve owned our house in the Fairmount section of Philly for almost three years now, in anticipation of the day when we are ready to trade money for time, give up the daily grind that is the price for life in New York City, and move back home.
Well, I’m here to tell you that day has come.
A little sooner than anticipated.
You see, our landlord has decided to sell our Upper West Side apartment, and is not renewing our lease. Though I adore the apartment (small, but airy and sunny and the nicest kitchen I’ve ever had), we’re not going to try to buy it. Now is not the time to sink any part ...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - October 25, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Desserts Lemon Bars Philly Source Type: blogs
Blistered Shishito Peppers
Thanks to my daughter for turning us on to Blistered Shishito Peppers – a simple, fast, delicious and fun appetizer.
The Shishito is mild pepper brought to the US from Japan and now widely available here in the United States. We got ours from Trader Joes, but you can easily grow them in your home garden.
The Shishito pepper likely came to Japan from Spain, where it is called a Padron pepper and is much hotter. It is believed to have mellowed after generations of selective breeding in Japanese soil.
The fastest and most fun way to get to know Shishito is to toss them in a little olive oil,
blister t...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - October 18, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Appetizers blistered shishito peppers charred shishito peppers Japnese food Source Type: blogs
Maccheroni alla bolognese
Before there was Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy, there was Regional Italian Cuisine, a cookbook tour of Italy’s regions through its foods and recipes. While Stanley’s show is a light aperitivo, this book is the ten course meal, with recipes for dishes that will make you feel like you’re one of the Famiglia.
Each chapter of Regional Italian Cuisine focuses on a different region of Italy, summarizing in sequential, gorgeous two-page spreads of perfectly balanced text and photos its climate, crops, food specialties, regional events and sights to see. It then follows with short, well-written ...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - October 13, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Pasta Rice & Potatoes Bolognese Bolognese sauce Emilia-Romagna italian Italy Italy regional cuisine Meat sauce Ragu recipe Regional Italian Cuisine Source Type: blogs
I was a poet and didn ’t know it…
My poem entitled “Then and Now”, written at the height of the Covid Pandemic, has been published in Ascensus, the Weill Cornell Medicine Journal of the Humanities. It’s an in-house publication, started in 2013 and run by medical students to showcase the humanities at our medical school.
I was privileged to give a reading of my poem at the Ascensus 11th edition launch reception last evening. It was a joy to be with so many artistically minded medical colleagues, whose works ranged from poetry to prose, photography, painting and music. A special shout out to Courtney Lee for her moving poem “Ho...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - October 7, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Uncategorized Covid poem COvid poetry pandemic poem Pandemic poetry Source Type: blogs
TBTAM Digest – A Weekly Newsletter from the Blog that Ate Manhattan
This article is a must read for all couples out there, so share it with someone you care about if you want to see their marriage succeed.
And that’s it for this week’s newsletter. Feel free to subscribe and share. If you have great links to share, let me know. See you next week!
Last updated 09/25/22 (Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan)
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - September 25, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
I Had Lunch at the CIA
Ever since reading Michael Ruhlman’s The Making of a Chef in 2007, I’ve wanted to have a meal at the CIA. No, not that CIA, although I hear they do have a half-decent cafeteria. This CIA is the Culinary Institute of America, one of the world’s finest cooking schools, located in Hyde Park, NY.
Long term readers of this blog may recall that it was Ruhlman’s tales of life at the CIA that led me to my first food blog – Butter Pig – whose author Tom Dowdy had written a diary of his own 3 months at the school. Blown away by what I had discovered, I bought the CIA textbook The Professional C...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - September 23, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Restaurant Reviews Bocuse Restaurant CIA Culinary school Hudson valley Hyde Park Restaurants Source Type: blogs
Spanish Sofrito and the Mediterranean Diet
Sofrito topped flatbreads
In the largest study of its kind to date, the Mediterranean Diet has trumped a low fat diet in secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease. The study was conducted in Spain, where participants assigned to the Mediterranean diet received free olive oil. They were also instructed to use sofrito – “a homemade sauce with garlic, onion, aromatic herbs, and tomato slow cooked in olive oil” – in their cooking two or more times a week.
Free Spanish olive oil and Sofrito as a required food group? I’d have moved to Spain to be in that study! But since that never happen...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - September 18, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Vegetables Vegetarian Mediterranean diet SOfrito Source Type: blogs
Foraged Sumac / Ottolenghi ’s Gigli with Chickpeas & Za ’atar
I first encountered wild sumac in 2015 in Pennsylvania’s Loyalsock Forest. I’ve foraged for it most summers since, both there
and along the Pine Creek Rail Trail.
This year’s sumac crop was a little disappointing. Despite how much I picked, most of the fruits had worm infestations that limited the amount of usable berries. (Note to self – pick sooner in the season next year…) Still, I got about a cup and a half of dried sumac for my efforts, more than enough for my needs. (If you want to know how to harvest and dry sumac to make the spice, read here.)
I used the fruits of...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - September 7, 2022 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Pasta Rice & Potatoes Chickpeas Ottolenghi Sumac za'atar Source Type: blogs
