Freezer Favorite: Pork Potstickers

I get cravings. It starts as a thought, over time becomes a strong desire and finally ends up as an all consuming urge to fulfill. Brownies. Brick Chicken. Linguine alle Vongole. These are all examples of foods that, once they have a hold of me, you'll find me in the kitchen or on my way to a restaurant no matter what time of day it is. Strangely, I can't recall one craving from my pregnancy, but that's probably because I freely indulged every urge the minute I felt it. Last week, while I was salivating over anything dairy, I also started thinking about Chinese food, specifically Pork Potstickers and Peking Duck. While I'm pretty sure Peking Duck is above my paygrade, Pork Potstickers are doable.

Much Ado About Chutney

Just a quick one here, but I've been receiving numerous questions about what to do with the chutney left over from Monday's virtual dinner party. I too asked myself the same question since the paneer cheese ran out way before the chutney did. Here are a couple ideas for what to do with any leftover Apricot-Orange Chutney. To read the original post, click here: A Potluck of Spice & Everything Nice.


Option 1: Tuesday night rolled around and we still had a good two cups of chutney in the fridge. I also had a head of bok choy, about a cup of snow peas, a garlic scape and a bunch of scallions all from our CSA. My husband suggested a stir fry, but I took it one step further and here's how: Place a large frying pan over a high heat and add a quarter cup of chutney and a splash of chicken stock. Bring it to a boil and add the bok choy, chopped, and the snow peas. Saute for about 3 minutes and then add the garlic scapes and scallions, all chopped, to the pan. Cook for just a couple more minutes and serve over brown rice. It was amazing!

Option 2: On wednesday night, I turned on the oven to 400, salt and peppered two pork chops, smothered them in chutney and popped them in the oven for about 15 minutes. The result was caramelized and juicy goodness.

Option 3: Finally, for a snack yesterday, I took some triscuit-type organic crackers, topped them with ricotta cheese and a dab of chutney. Such easy perfection.

There you go, three totally different things to do with all that chutney. Enjoy!

Simply Sausage

I can barely remember it now, but I was once a Citigroupian. Every day I would take the E train out of Manhattan and into Long Island City where the Citigroup building rose, a single skyscraper all by itself, over the blocks of town houses and pockets of factories. There wasn't much in LIC in the way of food then, but every morning my friend, J, and I would go down to the deli for a bagel and chat with our deli friend whom we called the Swede.

One day I had a hankering for sausage and so I asked the deli manager, "How's your sausage?" Flustered, he looked down at his pants and then up at J and me and just stuttered and blushed. I, of course, didn't have a clue what his problem was, so I turned to the Swede who was busting his gut as hard as J was and asked if they had any sausage. After that, I finally caught on. I promptly exited the premises and went to the cafeteria.

Well, today I want to tell you about Farmers' Market sausage where when you say those three words, the men don't blush, stutter and look at their pants. They reply, "It's amazing." This past Friday, I pushed my baby girl down to our local market on West 97th street and bought some seriously fabulous pasture raised and farmer made sweet Italian pork sausage. I was tired and didn't feel like fixing a complicated feast so instead I fixed a simple one of grilled sausages with local Rao's marinara sauce and some Jerusalem artichoke spaghetti. Yum yum is all I can say.

Approximate Dinner Cost
• W/Wine - $25
• W/o Wine - $15
• Leftovers - Zip
• Breakdown - Sausage $11, Sauce $3, Pasta $1 and Wine $10