Dressings and Sauces Archives

The Thai Lime and Lemongrass Sauce You’ll Want To Put On Everything (Including Roasted Salmon)

February 10, 2016 By Karen

We’ve recently made a concerted effort to eat home cooked foods more often, and drastically reduce the number of meals we have out. Instead of seeing it as a sacrifice, I’ve embraced the challenge of cooking more frequently for my family, and look for ways to add new dishes to the rotation. When the food’s good, it’s worth the effort. When it’s just mediocre, it feels like a punishment. So I am determined to put together a collection of manageable, easy meals that will not only be enough for dinner, but provide leftovers for lunches or the freezer. In the last week alone I found a new pork chop recipe that everyone loves, and finally figured out a way to use up extra pasta that people are tired of: spaghetti pie! (I’ll be writing more about that one soon.) It’s been rewarding, and inspires me to keep going.

But a few weeks ago, after many nights of cooking and a really long day at work, I announced to everyone that we would finally go to the local Thai restaurant we’d always liked. We hadn’t been in a while, but my little guy announced the week before that he wanted the calamari and dumplings, and wouldn’t let it go. So off we went on a rainy night, expecting a fabulous dinner. What we got instead was an expensive, underwhelming, extra salty and disappointing meal. I felt terrible. The only good thing about it (except for the company, and the fact that there were no dishes to clean) was the Tom Yum Goong soup. Otherwise, I spent the whole time wishing we had just stayed home and I had cooked the sweet and spicy chili shrimp my older guy had asked for in the first place.

So the next day, after fretting for longer than I should have, I decided that this just means I need to add more Thai food into the repertoire. I decided to start with that sweet and spicy …

Chocolate Pumpkin Nut Butter (Vegan, Gluten-Free, Refined Sugar-Free)

January 6, 2016 By Karen

Do you dream? Not big, what do I want the world to look like dreaming, but actual sleep dreaming? I do. I have technicolor vivid dreams that play out like complicated shows. They’re either long and involved and jump from scene to scene, or they’re straightforward, but in syndication, repeating themselves year after year, theme after theme. Anxiety dreams that are so cliched they’re embarrassing: I’ve missed every rehearsal, don’t know my lines, am missing my costume, and the curtain is about to go up, or I’ve missed every lecture, and now I have to take the final having never read the books. I’ve got a whole lineup that plays nightly, and I wake in the morning aware of how obvious my issues all are. Sometimes it’s revealing, other times it’s exhausting, but mostly it’s just constant. I dream almost every single night, and I tend to remember details for long stretches of time. I can still recall scenes of dreams I had when I was a kid, and the feelings attached to them. The familiarity I felt towards a celebrity after he had a part in the pictures in my sleep, the freedom of flying through the sky, with clouds all around, doing the breast stroke through the air because of course that’s the most realistic human flying move, or the stomach dropping horror of swinging and falling from the chandelier in the foyer of my childhood home. I depend on my dreams, and I appreciate them. But there are nights that I just wish I could sleep soundly and wake peacefully, rested and refreshed because my brain had simply shut down for the night.

A couple weeks ago was no different. …

Spiced Orange Cranberry Sauce

November 17, 2015 By Karen

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I wrote about it twice last year, when I shared the story of my dad and the pear and cranberry crisp with gingersnaps, oats and almonds, and when I wrote about feeling grateful and Dorie Greenspan’s maple-cornmeal drop biscuits. I love it for the food (obviously,) but more than that I love the traditions we’ve created around it.

We’ve hosted the meal ever since we moved into our home ten years ago. Family comes from near and far, and the best part is that for the last decade it has been low key and drama free. My parents separated when I was 14, so like many kids I had years of juggling holidays and figuring out whose house got priority which year, and there was often stress and nonsense involved. But as an adult with my own home and growing family, I chose to rewrite the terms. …

Korean Chili Honey Sauce and Grilled Chicken ( 3 Ingredients in Under 20 Minutes!)

March 20, 2015 By Karen

I get so tired of my own cooking. I know I’ve said this before, so forgive me, but how many times can I feed my family turkey burgers or pasta? But normally, when I’m in a rush, I know I can knock those out with no thinking in 20 minutes, and it will be good enough. Will it be wild and exciting? No. Will it satisfy everyone at the table? Yes. But I am so BORED of it. And truthfully, so are they.

So even though I have been distracted with all the baking and sweets lately, I’ve been pushing myself to incorporate new flavors into our standard repertoire. The easiest way I’ve been doing that is by stocking my fridge and pantry with a selection of random ingredients from different cuisines. Za’atar from the spice markets of Israel improves all roasted vegetables, dried pasilla chilies from the mexican grocery story make for an amazing tortilla soup, and light and dark soy sauces and Chinkiang vinegar have brought chinese cooking into my home this week. And when I went to a new Korean store that opened up near a job I was on a couple of weeks ago, I brought home this Gochujang (Korean chili paste) that just makes everything taste sweet and spicy and fantastic.

A few years ago I bought a container of Gochujang for a specific recipe I was making, and that container sat in the door of my refrigerator for an embarrassingly long time. I would toss a spoonful into chilies and soups, or use it as part of a sauce on a stir-fry. It always reminded me of going to my favorite Korean restaurant in Manhattan on 32nd Street and ordering Bibimbap in a Hot Stone Pot. (Isn’t that fun to say? It’s almost as fun as eating this mixed rice dish with ground meat, vegetables and a freshly cracked egg on top that sizzles from the heat of the pot that it is served in, all tossed with Gochujang.) But even I am leery of cooking with something that has been opened for YEARS, and so I hit the new store on my lunch break with a plan in mind. I wondered the aisles and finally found the one with this prime ingredient. But of course, as luck would have it, there had to have been at least 15 different varieties of this red pepper and soybean paste that is so fundamental to Korean cooking. So being resourceful, I tracked down a little old woman who was also shopping and through a comical series of gestures (seeing we didn’t speak a common language,) she selected the brand I photographed above and made it clear that this was the best of the bunch. Honestly, I am not sure if I would have known the difference between the many options, but I can tell you that I love it.

I got home that night and I threw together this Korean Chili Honey Sauce and tossed it on a big bowl of vegetables, and immediately knew that it was going to be a game changer. I played around with proportions, and what I came up with is my happy place where sweet and spicy meet. The sauce alone takes all of 3 minutes, and you can put it on ANYTHING. Just hot water, Gochujang, and honey, it is packed with flavor and will brighten up whatever quick and healthy dish you have going on. Equally fitting for carnivores or vegans, your options are endless. …

Applesauce with Vanilla and Cinnamon

September 11, 2014 By Karen

When I think “apple picking,” I picture cool fall days, sweaters, hot cider, and crunching leaves on the ground. I do not imagine 95 degree weather, storm clouds blowing in violently, and getting caught in a torrential downpour.

But remember a few weeks ago when I wrote about NOT taking the kids peach picking? Well, my mom was in town visiting last week, and when she’s here we have to up our game a bit. She’s not one to just laze around, so on one of the hottest, grossest days of the summer we decided to pack the kids in the car and drive an hour away to go…peach picking. Yeah, that didn’t turn out so well. If you hadn’t noticed, it’s September now and peaches should have been picked around a month ago. So to satisfy the 3 year old in our midst, we managed to pull around a dozen unripe green peaches from the fruitless trees, and my vision of homemade peach ice cream for dessert that night was promptly shattered.

But luckily there was a silver lining to this ridiculous outing. Honeycrisp apples are in season now in New Jersey! We hadn’t intended to apple pick this early, (in fact, I didn’t even know it was possible,) but it was the saving grace to our day, and we hauled out 13 pounds of gorgeous crispy tart apples. We’re an apple family, and Pink Ladies and the ones we got are our favorites. Because we go picking every October, we’ve always been way too late for Honeycrisps, which happen to be one of the earliest varieties available. So this really did feel like a bonus, and made our entire crew happy. (And let me tell you, we needed a dose of happy because there was a whole lot of crank going on.)

I want to tell you that my first thought was “Apple Pie!” But here’s my confession: I’ve never made one before. I know, you’re probably thinking, “how can I possibly be reading this woman’s food blog if she’s never made an apple pie? Isn’t that one of the most basic things people in this country make?” Well, yeah, it might be. And around a dozen years ago I marked a recipe for this amazing sounding Apple Pie with a Cheddar Cheese Crust, and went so far as to make the dough and stick it in the freezer, but I never actually got around to baking it. (It’s a bit embarrassing.) So no, you’re not getting an apple pie post here. I’m sorry.

My first thought was actually, “Applesauce!” Because applesauce is one of my ultimate comfort foods, and it takes such little effort to make it homemade. It’s something my mom loves, and so I’d frequently find it on her stove when I was a kid. Especially at Hanukkah, when it was mandatory to have sweet fresh applesauce to serve with the salty crisp potato latkes she would fry up. When my kids were first eating solid foods, I would make it all the time, but I admit that I buy the little pre-packaged cups at the market way too often these days to stuff in lunchboxes. There’s nothing particularly wrong with them. There’s no added sugar, or funky ingredients, but it’s a waste of money and plastic and I never feel really good about it.

Because I know homemade applesauce, with just a touch of vanilla and cinnamon, tastes ten times better than anything you can buy in the store….

Mint and Coconut Chutneys

September 1, 2014 By Karen

I called my mother-in-law, Ammini, as I drove to work the other morning for our standard review of the kids’ schedules. After telling me the story of how my older son fell off his bike the day before, she came out with the loveliest statement any busy mom can hear: “I just cooked Rava Kichadi and Dad is making Chicken Curry with Chapati, so we’ll leave that for your dinner tonight.” Okay, maybe that exact line won’t ring bells for everyone. And if you’re raising your eyebrows at the unfamiliar sounding dishes, just know the main point of that sentence was: “Guess what? We cooked so you don’t have to!” And that is a beautiful thing.

From Kerala, (the southernmost state in India,) my in-laws are both fantastic cooks, and their traditional dishes are mouthwatering. Customarily, it’s often just the wife that cooks in an Indian household, but because Brian’s mom was a nurse working the night shift, his Dad had to make his way into the kitchen. Granted, since they both retired she’s back to doing 95% of the cooking, but Dad will jump in to make certain favorites. And I’m lucky because not only do they cater for our family on a frequent basis, but they’ve also been generous in sharing their experience and techniques so that I can make Indian food on my own. Before we got married, I remember going over to their house and I walked into the kitchen to find on the counter two cutting boards, two serious chef’s knives, and two whole chickens waiting to be broken down. I had mentioned in passing that I wanted to learn how to do it, and all of a sudden I had my own private master class waiting. (Okay, to be perfectly honest, it was fun and manageable at the time, but I still find myself buying already cut up pieces at the store. At least it’s something I know how to do!)

These days my lessons are more informal, and what just happened is a perfect example. After Ammini told me she was bringing dinner, she continued, “But the Rava Kichadi needs some chutney. So can you make that?” Chutneys are typically thick sauces that are made with fruits, herbs, spices, sugar, and acids like lemon juice or vinegar, and are used as condiments in Indian meals. They don’t require hard to find ingredients, and you don’t need to serve them with Indian food to enjoy them. And it’s a great way to use up fresh herbs that may be dying in your crisper. But truthfully, instead of just using the cilantro I had at home like any smart person would do, I decided I was in the mood for the mint and coconut chutneys that my favorite South Indian restaurant serves, so during my lunch hour I ran to a local farm-stand and picked up some fresh mint….