Tasty Oasis | Page 2 of 9 | Finding Comfort In The Kitchen

I Went to the White House Holiday Party! (And the Food Was Amazing)

February 18, 2016 By Karen

So a few weeks ago I mentioned that I went to the White House holiday party, and promised I would share more. Admittedly, it’s two months later, and the holiday season has long passed, but this was a life highlight so I don’t want to let it slide any longer. You see, when one of your oldest, closest friends in the world is so super cool that she works at the White House, and she invites you as her plus one to hang out in the East Wing with the Obamas, it’s kind of hard not to burst and brag all about it. Okay, so the President and Mrs. Obama only made a ten minute appearance, and were across the room, but I’ll be honest- it was amazing.

Apparently there are 20 holiday parties in three weeks, with 25,000 cookies baked, and 62 trees and massive amounts of lamb chops and latkes….

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 …

Easy 5 Ingredient Roast Pork Tenderloin

January 10, 2016 By Karen

A rainy Sunday, and I am still in my pajamas at 4pm. Not only did my crazy dreams keep me up during the night, but our newest family member, Sir Charles Popcorn Roosevelt Jacob III (aka Charlie) thought it would be fun to alternate sleeping on my head and attacking my hands and feet at all sorts of odd hours. I’ve learned that having a ten week old kitten is oddly like having a newborn baby. Your heart overflows with love and wonder at this mysterious little creature you’ve surprisingly been allowed to take home, and your levels of exhaustion cannot be described. Sure, I could have kicked him out of my room, but when this little grey fluffball wants to curl up and purr in my ear while licking my cheek, it’s really hard to resist! He’s our first family pet, and we’ve pretty much won the cat lottery. Adventurous, playful, and utterly cuddly, he seems to be a dog in a feline body. I’m a little bit obsessed. And a whole lot of tired.

So when given the options of what to do today, I really wanted to do nothing. Not even cook. Not make my Sunday batch of granola, or do the laundry, or finish sending out holiday cards. (Wait, you think those things are supposed to go out the week after Thanksgiving? So they can be displayed all month long on people’s mantels and enjoyed? Yeah, so does my husband. I….well, I can’t get everything together, and a good friend told me you have until Valentine’s Day to get New Year cards out, so I am going with that.) I just wanted to lie on the couch with a cat on my chest, reading my book club book. But you know, I still had to feed my family.

So what do I make when I don’t want to cook, but need to make sure that I have something healthy that will keep for leftover lunches during the week? This 5 Ingredient Roast Pork Tenderloin. It is one of those back pocket recipes I have been making for years that is so easy and quick to prepare, it takes no effort. No chopping, no cutting boards, it means that everything is ready to throw in the oven even before it finishes preheating. Dijon mustard, whatever fruit preserves are open in the fridge, and dried thyme and garlic powder. …

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. …

Cardamom Snickerdoodles

December 31, 2015 By Karen

December flew by, and while I have lots I want to share with you all about the last month, I’m going to save it for after the new year. (Here’re two highlights though: I went as a plus one to The White House staff holiday party (!!!), and we just got a kitten (!!!). Two crazy exciting things in my world that I promise to tell you more about.) But as the ball gets ready to drop, I just wanted to make sure to wish you all a happy and healthy 2016, and thank you for reading and cooking along with me this year. I love your comments and hearing about what you’ve made, and appreciate you taking the time to share it all with me.

And while I hope that the coming year is smooth and easy for you, I have do doubt there will be bumps along the way. There always are. Whether they’re silly and trivial, like the mess I made the other night before these cookies (my Oasis isn’t always so peaceful,) or they’re more serious ones, involving health, loss, or big life choices, remember that you can look for comfort in your kitchen in the form of healthy food to feed yourself or those you love, or a big bowl of cookie dough. Both are equally important. Both make things better.

And since so many people out there make all sorts of pledges to start diets after January 1st, I figure I better squeeze one solid cookie recipe in before midnight. I came up with these Cardamom Snickerdoodles on Christmas, and have made them a couple of times this week just to make sure I got the recipe right for you all. (I don’t know if you remember, but I kind of have a thing for all things snickerdoodle. Remember these: Snickerdoodle Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Cinnamon Frosting? They were one of the most popular recipes on the blog in 2015!)They’re soft and chewy cookies, spiced with a good amount of cardamom and just a hint of cinnamon, but not too sweet….

Vegan Cornbread Stuffing with Chipotle, Swiss Chard and Sweet Potato

November 22, 2015 By Karen

I’ve promised several friends that I’d share this recipe in time for Thanksgiving prep, so I think I’ve made it in just under the wire! As I mentioned earlier this week in my Spiced Orange Cranberry Sauce post, stuffing is one of my favorite parts of the Thanksgiving meal. I love it so much that we always have two different kinds at our table, ensuring plenty of leftovers. While some get repeated, there are always so many recipes I want to try that I like changing it up every year. A few examples we’ve loved were sourdough stuffing with mushrooms, apples and sage, herb and bacon cornbread stuffing, and even wild rice, fruit and pecan stuffing, which was a bit of a departure for us one year. Last month, while I was searching for a dish to bring to my cooking club for our Vegan theme night, I went directly to one of my favorite food blogs, The First Mess. My friend Felice turned me onto it a year ago, and even though my diet doesn’t skew vegan generally, I want to make everything Laura writes about. The photographs are stunning, and her flavor combinations always excite me. Assigned to a starch dish that night, I new instantly that I wanted to try what she called her sweet potato, chipotle + chard cornbread stuffing. I figured I could use this as an opportunity to audition it for our Thanksgiving dinner, and I am so glad I did! I mostly followed the recipe, but made some slight adjustments in order to double it to fit a 9 x 13 baking dish. (You know me, if I’m going to spend time cooking, I’m going to make sure there’s a large yield to serve for other meals or to freeze!) I also had to find a vegan cornbread recipe to use, because my standard one uses buttermilk (and bacon fat when I’m going all in!) Food52 pulled through for me on that end, and with a few changes there too I had a winner. With this vegan cornbread stuffing you have the sweetness from both the bread and the sweet potatoes, the smoky spicy layer from the chipotles, and a savory earthiness from the leafy green swiss chard. It balances perfectly, stays moist on the inside, but gets slightly crispy on top. I made a large casserole dish to share with friends, but decided to bake two individual ramekins as well for my family to try. The good news? Because I waited for daylight to grab some of the shots, I didn’t actually let my guys eat their stuffing for 5 days after making it! And you know what? It was just as delicious!

And it turns out it complemented the rest of our vegan cooking club meal as well. We had a fantastic lentil and nut loaf as the main course, which you shoud definitely make, …

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. …

Alice Waters’ Ratatouille

November 11, 2015 By Karen

Before the warmth of summer is completely forgotten, I wanted to make sure to share this ratatouille recipe with you all. While the farm markets may be closing, I have no doubt you’ll still be able to find zucchini, eggplants, peppers and tomatoes around, because this dish uses all the best that season had to offer. In a perfect world I would have gotten this to you weeks ago, but please indulge my off-season post! Fresh and flavorful, this warm and hearty vegetable stew is comforting on its own, elegant when served as a side to Coq au Vin, and perfect as a topping to polenta or a bowl of your favorite pasta. Sweetness from the tomatoes gets balances by bright thyme and woodsy rosemary, and fresh basil completes it. It is one of those “genius recipes” that is guaranteed to work, and Alice Waters deserves all the credit for it.

I’d always wanted to make ratatouille, but never took the time to follow through on it. But when September’s cooking club theme was announced, I knew immediately what I would contribute. French night, and I was on for vegetables? Ratatouille!!! Obviously, this was the push that I needed. The first time I made this I doubled the recipe and had two pots going at once, and I am so glad that I did. The leftovers are freezer-friendly, and perfect to pull out on a fall night. It also meant I had enough extra to deliver to my friend Al, whose doorbell I rang, all frazzled, still in my apron, who let me take kitchen shears to his herb garden an hour before I had to get to my supper club when I realized that I was terribly short of basil. It was a night of fabulous food and even better company, and participating in this is always a highlight of my month. (The roasted endive and pear salad, the piped french potatoes, and the chocolate pots de creme were all hits, as was the coq au vin. Really, everything was delicious.)

The second time I felt inspired to make it though was all thanks to my neighbor Catherine. Creator of the amazing gardening and food blog The Winebox Gardener, she sent me an email asking if I would take all of her ichiban eggplant that she’d just harvested from her garden. Since she was in the middle of a kitchen remodel, and wouldn’t have a chance to cook it any time soon, she had plenty to share. Who’s going to turn down homegrown eggplant? Certainly not me! I would love to have seen what she would have done with it though, because her writing, adventures around NY and NJ, recipes and photography always inspire me. You really should go check out her blog! (Follow her on social media too, in all the usual places: Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter!)

So if you’re looking for something that’s healthy, freezer-friendly, vegan, gluten-free, and all those good things, pick up some vegetables and herbs the next time you’re at the store and try Alice Water’s Ratatouille. It’s worth the effort. It’s satisfying and cozy all at the same time. And if you’re like me, and you find yourself falling into the pumpkin trap that surrounds us these days, there’s no reason you can’t throw some butternut squash or pumpkin into the mix, and with a little added sage, it will embody fall for you too. See, there, everybody wins. Now it’s seasonal! And please, let me know what you think in the comments, because I would love to hear if you make this or any other recipe on Tasty Oasis. All of your experiences and feedback helps me, and other readers, so please keep me posted!…