If you're Russian, you love pelmeni. Fact. Instead of opening a bag
that's been in the freezer for who knows how long, we decided to make
them from scratch. Turns out, it's surprisingly easy.

The dough is 3 parts flour to 2 parts egg plus a splash of water to
keep the dough moist. After kneading, let it rest for 30 minutes. For
the filling, we went with beef with grated onions, garlic, salt,
pepper, and paprika.

Once dumplingified, drop them into salted boiling water for about 6 minutes.

And now for the family secret: top them with sour cream mixed with
Russian mustard.

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Grilled pizza is magical. It takes about 15 minutes (10 of which are
prep) and the results are consistently delicious. The order of
operations for a grilled pizza is critical. First, stretch it out on a
well-oiled sheet pan. Then, throw the dough on the hot grill and wait
for the first side to get a nice char. Flip it and throw on your
cheese. Wait a minute for the cheese to melt, then spread the sauce.
In this case, I made a walnut, basil pesto. Once the underside is
crispy, take it off heat and enjoy.

In case you're wondering, this was store-bought fresh dough. Making
dough is easy enough, but why bother?

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Rustic, simple cooking is so amazingly satisfying. The other day, I
picked David Tanis', Heart of the Artichoke. The first recipe I
flipped to was his, very un-British, version of beans on toast. It
couldn't be easier: take dry cannellini beans and boil them for two
hours with some garlic cloves, salt, chili flakes and rosemary. I
didn't have rosemary so I opted for fennel seeds. When the beans are
ready spoon them over some toasted bread, sprinkle with parsley, some
more chili flakes, a little olive oil, and eat. I finished it off with a good squeeze of
lemon.

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While some people might break in a new grill with a steak or
burgers, I decided to grill off some bacon for a delicious bacon,
lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwich. The BLAT is maybe the only time
that I will willingly smear mayo on a sandwich, or anything for that
matter. I was inspired by this Men's Health (health?) recipe.

If you're in SF, you MUST get some Dirty Girl Farms early girl
tomatoes. They are amazing and won't be around much longer.

Dang that's a good sandwich.

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Few things in this world are as delicious as fresh, in-season creamed
corn. I had a serious hankering for some today and found a great Thomas Keller recipe on Epicurious. I pretty much made it word for word.
My only substitution was using heirloom shell beans instead of favas.
This recipe is a bit more involved than my usual fair. It took about
an hour start to finish. Well worth it.

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I've been cooking this meal at least once a week for about a month. It never gets old. Start to finish it takes under a half hour, probably closer to twenty minutes if you're a master multitasker. The eggplant recipe comes from the fantastic Momofukufor2 blog. I made the kimchi a little while back and, after about a month sitting in the fridge, it has become markedly more delicious than after the first week or two. Put the two together over some fried rice, throw some scallions on top, pour the remaining glaze over everything, and eat it up.

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On a recent episode of the Good Food podcast, a
chef described a really simple succotash made from fresh corn, cherry
tomatoes, summer squash, onions, and olives. He may have said
something about beans, but I've selectively forgotten that part. This
dish couldn't be simpler. Roughly chop the ingredients, toss them in a
pan with some olive oil, salt and pepper. Done.

I'm not a barbarian, so of course there's a runny egg on top.

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Last week, I stumbled on Alisa Burke's Sweet and Savory Peaches recipe. If ever there was a photo set that got my mouth-a-waterin', this was it. With stone fruit peaking at the markets right now, the timing couldn't have been better.

On my weekly trip, I picked up some nectarines and a bunch of basil. Whole Foods had some awesome La Quercia Prosciutto Americana. After wrapping them up, I busted out my panini grill and threw these bad boys on. Absolutely delicious. An ear of yellow and white corn rounds everything out. Late summer on a plate.

Here's a great video about La Quercia and their awesome prosciutto:

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The following will come as no surprise to anyone that knows me: I love
pickles. In the vast world of pickles, a good kimchi is probably my
second favorite. First prize will always go to a super-garlicky,
over-sour, green-gray kosher dill (think Guss').

This is my second attempt at kimchi. Previously, I tried the Momofuku
version, which was good though a little on the sweet side. This time
around, I watched about ten different Youtube videos on the subject.
The one below was the closest to what I ended up making, except that I
added salted shrimp and left out the fruit.

Now we wait...

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What do you do with leftover rice? Fry it, of course. Fry the rice.
Fry some eggs. Sautee some asparagus. Layer it all with sesame oil,
a little soy sauce, a sprinkle of Maldon salt, and some chives. Devour.

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Polenta with runny eggs has quickly become my go-to weekend breakfast. The two ingredients go amazingly well with just about anything you have in the fridge. I love it with bacon, sausage, salsa... Today, I decided to go with bits from my farmer's market haul: fresh favas, broccolini and fennel. I gave the greens a fast sauté in butter and olive oil while the polenta was cooking away. Speaking of the polenta, on a recent trip to the Ferry Building, I picked up some Italian buckwheat polenta from Boulettes Larder. Frankly, I was hoping for a more pronounced buckwheat flavor, but it was great nonetheless—especially after I added a huge handful of cheese. Lastly, I topped the whole thing with a couple of sunny side up eggs.

Can't beat that.

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Nate Appleman is an awesome chef. He's been getting a ton of press in recent months, first for leaving SF in a huff and then, more recently, for opening Pulino in NYC. Regardless, his two local spots, A16 and SPQR, are great. Well, truth be told, I haven't been to A16, but I have been cooking from the A16 cookbook and everything has been delicious. This recipe is no exception. I'd never cleaned and gutted a sardine before, but that proved exceedingly simple, if a little messy. Once ready, you throw them into a very hot oven for a few minutes. Other than that, it's just fried bread crumbs, green garlic, mint, capers, and lemon juice. I had some roasted beets laying around, so I threw together a simple arugula, beet and fromage blanc salad. Whole dish took under a half hour.

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There's something about the Momofuku cookbook that I find far more exciting than any other cookbook I own. Maybe it's that the flavor combinations are ones that I'm familiar with and enjoy, but have no experience preparing. Also, many of the recipes are very simple, which is always nice.

Last night, with guest coming over, I dove into Momofuku cookery fo' realz with four course of goodness. Shoutout to Kasey over at Eating-SF for turning me on to Momofuku for 2, which really got me excited about making the meal. 

Course 1: Apple Salad with Kimchi Puree, Bacon, and Maple Yogurt

For the past week, I've been fermenting some of kimchi, and this turned out to be a great use for it. This dish is completely unexpected and absolutely delicious. If you happen to have the ingredients lying around, and, save for the kimchi, most of us do, you can make this salad in about fifteen minutes. Chang's recipe calls for Labne, I used Greek yogurt.

Course 2: Pan-Roasted Asparagus with Slow Poached Eggs and Miso Butter

Ok, seriously, slow poached eggs are magical. Put some eggs into 140-degree water for 40 minutes, and in the end you have perfectly poached eggs. Just crack open the shell and out plops the egg. The egg, miso butter combo definitely has a mayo-like thing going on.

Course 3: Clams in Bacon Dashi

This is the second time I've made this dish. It turned out just as delicious as on the first go-round.

Course 4: Fried Lemongrass Pork Sausage Ssam

I made three pounds of this thing. Three pounds of sausage meat! This stuff is awesome (and a bunch of it now lives in my freezer). I was excited to end the meal with something a little less refined; something homey. These messy lettuce wraps fit the bill perfectly. I learned that one can never have enough fish sauce vinaigrette.

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