oven-poached flounder in lemon caper sauce

final flounder 2When I first saw this recipe in the New York Times almost two months ago, I was salivating. It sounded like the perfect, light summery dish — with a white wine reduction, to boot. Who doesn’t love a white wine reduction? I remember the first time I made one: a few summers ago, with sauteed ramps; it was divine.

It sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite simple. A reduction is the result of boiling or cooking down a liquid until it reduces to the consistency of a sauce.  The liquid can be just about anything but is usually a wine or a (veggie, chicken) stock. All you’re doing is evaporating the water from whatever liquid you are using by turning up the heat. It’s kind of amazing, actually, to sit and watch it reduce. Then the taste — my goodness — it instantly intensifies the overall flavor of any sauce.

Need proof? Even B loved it! Check out the photo below: he almost cleared his plate. I always joke that the amount of food he finishes is tantamount to how much he loves me. He hates when I do this. But on this night, we were at about 98% — something I wouldn’t let him forget. The next morning, he finished the breakfast I cooked for him — 100% of it.

What good is food that you can’t guilt someone into eating?

prepping lemon caper sauce

fish inbaking dish

B eating flounder

RECIPE oven-poached flounder

sweet + spicy: tequila cocktail time!

sliced fruit for sangriaI’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: tequila is the best and only drink. It gets such a bad rep because people associate it with that last shot of the night, when they probably shouldn’t be drinking any more anyway. Instead think of it as you do a wine fine, scotch, or whiskey — that you sip pleasantly on the rocks, perhaps with a splash of lime juice or agave. That’s how I usually take it.

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coconut curry swordfish

swordfish, final“I thought it would have fins on the end… or something,” B says to me as he glides into the kitchen, peering over my shoulder into the pan — his sense of smell and curiosity getting the best of him from where he sat in the living room.

Fins! Fins? Or something.

The guy just wrote a book; I’ll cut him a break. This is one fish — and CURRY — he’s not familiar with. BA-DUM.

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apron anxiety’s asian-inspired mahi mahi

mahi finalA few weeks ago I read Apron Anxiety, the hilarious and heartfelt memoir of Alyssa Shelasky. It’s an adorable, fast read — I devoured it in two, maybe three days — about her love affairs in and out of the kitchen. Since most of her stories revolve around food, she pauses between every few chapters to list the recipes of the dishes she mentioned. It’s very Nora Ephron-esque, which of course I love.

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farro salad with chickpeas + leeks

farro finalI don’t know about you, but lunch is always the hardest meal for me to figure out each day. I know I’m on a slightly different schedule than most of you and am craving slightly different food, but I’ll venture a guess that we all want a few of the same things out of our high-noon (or 10 a.m., 2 p.m., whatever time) feeding.

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roasted cauliflower, chickpeas + brussels sprouts in mustard + parsley

roasted veggies, finalThis recipe, adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook “It’s All Good”, is one of the easiest side dishes (or even full meal) I’ve ever made. You literally toss everything in a pan and roast it! Squeeze a little lemon, sprinkle a little chili pepper flakes and parsley — and voila.

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gwyneth’s roasted leeks in shallot vinaigrette

final leeksDo you know about leeks? If not, it’s time to get familiar. They are one of the sweetest members of the onion family, and they are as versatile as they are delicious. You can oven-braise them as I once did with carrots and beets, you can caramelize them as a base for risotto, or you can saute them to use atop a simple grilled fish as my mom did the other day. (A satisfied recent leeks convert — she raved about it afterwards.)

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