No longer updating, but hope you enjoy the recipes!
Unfortunately, I got too busy to go back to blogging, after I was forced to take a break from it in 2015 because of tendonitis.
But you can still follow my cooking, eating, and travels on instagram: (@spontaneoustomato)
Kimchi Kimbap and Easy Pickled Cucumber Banchan
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For Paula’s birthday earlier this month, she requested Bulgogi Chicken.
I was happy to oblige her, but we make Bulgogi Chicken so often around here (one of us tends to request it about once a week…), that I felt like it wasn’t quite fancy enough for a birthday feast.
I decided to go all out and make some Kimchi Kimbap (sushi). If there are two things I’m grateful that Paula loves (almost) as much as I do, they’re cilantro and kimchi. Thank goodness we agree on such controversial edibles, I don’t even want to think about how complicated our meals would become if we didn’t.
Kimbap is a Korean dish featuring rice (bap) and other ingredients rolled up in seaweed (kim). You might recognize it as maki-zushi. I love kimchi, but it had never occurred to me before to put it INSIDE kimbap until the last time I was in Seoul and a friend and I ordered “Korean junk food” (think deep-fried street food) for delivery, and there it was… (You can see pictures of our street food take-out near the end of my Travel Photo post: Markets and Street Food in Seoul.)
I also made homemade Cucumber Banchan, because no Korean meal is complete without banchan (side dishes), and these slightly spicy cucumber pickles are about the easiest banchan you can whip up while you’re also in the midst of preparing several other dishes.
Continue Reading: Kimchi Kimbap and Easy Pickled Cucumber Banchan…
Cara Cara Cocktail
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Happy Valentine’s Day!
The following post and recipe has little-to-nothing to do with the fact that I happen to be posting it on this, the 14th of February, but since I forgot to prepare anything heart-shaped or chocolatey in advance, let’s just pretend these cocktails are Valentine’s-Day-appropriate. (They are, after all, a little pink-ish, and– more importantly– best enjoyed with someone you love.)
Assuming anyone out there is even keeping tabs on me and my blog-related promises, you may remember back when I said some cocktails would be “coming soon” to my blog.
So… it turned out that was a lie.
I just know so little about fancy drinks or drink-making. My go-to cocktail (both at home and when I’m out) is a Gin & Tonic. When I want a little variety (and a little less sugar) then I order a Mojito or a Salty Dog instead.* But that’s about my range.
Chicken Tagine with Chickpeas, Chard, and Dried Figs
Three years ago I took a linguistics field methods class focusing on Tashlhiyt Berber (an indigenous language of Morocco).
My favorite part of the course? In the first two long stretches of speech that our speaker recorded for us, she explains in Tashlhiyt 1) how to make Moroccan Mint Tea, and 2) how to make Chicken Tagine.
We then worked with that data as a group twice a week for approximately ten weeks. I always left that class hungry.
For months I was thinking about, dreaming about, and writing linguistics papers about Chicken Tagine. I must have discussed it with my parents because they had the brilliant idea of buying me a tagine for my birthday; they commissioned an artist friend of theirs to create one.
The only reason this beautiful ceramic tagine hasn’t appeared on my blog earlier is because I just hadn’t found the right recipe to share with all of you… until now.
Continue Reading: Chicken Tagine with Chickpeas, Chard, and Dried Figs…
Pain à l’Ancienne Baguettes (Guest Post)
I had been thinking about this recipe for months before I finally tried it.
I have to say I was a little intimidated by the name and the process, but when I finally made Pain à l’Ancienne for the first time, I quickly realized how incredibly simple the recipe was. First of all, these are NO-KNEAD baguettes! It’s a two-day process, but the first day only involves assembling and mixing the ingredients. The shaping (if you can even call it that) and baking is all done on the second day.
This is a perfect recipe to try if you know you’re going to have a busy weekend but still want fresh bread. You can definitely assemble everything on a Friday night, put it in the fridge, and go out (my disco-naps take more time than the day-one steps for Pain à l’Ancienne). The next morning, you can take the dough out to de-chill while you go out for brunch and shopping. This dough is pretty forgiving if you find that you’ve spent a little too long out running errands or having fun.
Cara Cara Orange Chocolate Cake
I tasted my first cara cara orange about two weeks ago.
I can’t even count how many I’ve eaten since then.
Perhaps I’ve been incredibly vitamin C-deficient as of late, or perhaps they’re just divinely delicious.
If you’ve never had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with a cara cara orange in person, they seem like your typical navel orange on the outside, but the fruit inside is a ruby-tinged pinkish orange, and the flavor is distinctively flowery and surprisingly sweet. (Surprising because the bright pink color might lead you to expect a cameo appearance of at least some of the bitterness of a grapefruit, but there is little to be found.)
Spanakopita with Kale (Kale-akopita)
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If I had all the time and money in the world, I would:
1) Travel (and eat)
2) Cook (and eat) (and share)
Of course I’d do other things, too– like read books, do yoga (level 1, forever!), and study language flashcards– but the first two account for most of my daydreaming, maybe because they are the most limited by logistics, money, and time.
Part of all that cooking would be to perfect as many recipes as I could for all the things I love to eat, maybe focusing on the foods of certain parts of the world at a time. India might come first, then Thailand, then there would probably be a tricky eight-way toss-up between Japan, Korea, Turkey, Italy, Singapore/Malaysia, Vietnam, Morocco, and Greece… (I’ll stop now before that list gets any longer.)
spontaneous tomato 