Red Ramekin

I've moved!

2010-12-01T18:05:00.002-05:00

Both physically (goodbye Boston, hello San Francisco!), and virtually. Please come visit me here: www.miamorgenstern.com.Looking forward to seeing you there!

American as....

2010-05-31T10:14:00.006-04:00

Ah, three-day weekends. There is something so naughty and refreshing about having a Monday all to yourself; about eating breakfast in casual nibbles and bites from the kitchen over the course of an hours-long morning. And of course it's always nice to spend Sunday afternoon cooking out and sprawled in the sunshine, but it's so much sweeter when it then tumbles into a lazy Monday, too.For me the

New beginnings

2010-05-10T16:46:00.005-04:00

In lieu of apologizing, how about I just tell it like it is: it's been a pretty long time since I've hung around here at Red Ramekin.Although this space has always been a sort of creative haven for me to come and tell stories of heroic whole grains and demure spring vegetables, I decided to take a little break from blogging a few months ago, when other endeavors and changes began to take up more

Secret Ingredients

2010-01-06T11:53:00.006-05:00

As is likely evident from the nature of this blog and the eclectic quality of my cooking projects, I don't need to be convinced that cooking is exciting. Whether it's the marvels of wild yeast or the joys of homemade pasta dough, cooking never fails to intrigue me. But for those that are less enthused by home-canned jam and freshly-churned ice cream, I'd imagine that cooking can seem, well, not

Starting Fresh

2009-12-14T16:24:00.001-05:00

I'm back! Which I guess is the great thing about blogging: you can check out for two months, then announce "I'm back!" and make it seem like you were away on some exotic journey that didn't include 15-hour workdays, two ho-hum holiday parties, a few sick days, lots of nights in, and a bunch of clean-out-the-refrigerator vegetable soups. Not like that's what my little blogging hiatus consisted of,

Leftovers

2009-10-11T21:09:00.004-04:00

Leftovers are truly a staple here at the Red Ramekin kitchen. I can't start my week without making a big pot of something on Sunday night so that I can bring the leftovers to work for lunch. I bake big batches of muffins, banana bread, and granola bars and freeze them individually so that Jonathan and I can grab a quick snack whenever the urge strikes. I've even taking to saving my quart-sized

Refreshed

2009-09-10T16:28:00.006-04:00

Since last I posted here on Red Ramekin, Jonathan and I took a lovely (if too short) vacation to Italy - Tuscany, to be more precise - where we ate, relaxed, and found a bat (like, the animal, with wings) in our bathroom, among other things.We were there for a week - the perfect amount of time to break the routine, get some sun, and just be somewhere else for a few days. And it didn't hurt that

On cooking

2009-08-19T00:39:00.004-04:00

I know it's been slow around Red Ramekin lately - fitting, perhaps, for the slow kind of feeling that the end of summer seems to bring.And really, I have plenty of excuses for avoiding the kitchen. I've been working later, and Jonathan is out of town, meaning that dinners are sometimes had standing by the counter, picking at the odds and ends in the fridge and the pantry. And in true New England

When Life Hands You Tart Cherries

2009-08-04T21:34:00.006-04:00

One thing I love about the culinary blogosphere is the way in which seasonal cooking - something so earthly, tangible, and local - manifests itself on the collective blogging menu. With fall comes the onslaught of butternut squash and apple crisps, winter fills my reader with hearty stews, spring comes bursting forth with waves of shelling peas and asparagus, and by mid-summer, I've read about so

Salad: The Xtreme Edition

2009-07-18T23:04:00.006-04:00

Today's topic? "Xtreme" salads. For a post with this kind of title, I'd ordinarily start off with some kind of apologetic, sarcastic bit about how my yuppie life is so predictable that eating salad might qualify as being extreme.But not today. Because even if my yuppie life was completely wild and crazy (and not, um, boring), today's salad would still be extreme. And not because it has raisins,

Jicamuffins

2009-07-02T16:08:00.009-04:00

In my kitchen, there are generally two types of recipes that come to be made and eaten. The first are the planned, schemed, dreamed, or otherwise formulated recipes that I make after lots of thinking about ingredients and flavors. They are the ones that start with a simple idea or combination (pistachio and coconut? beets and curry? tahini and lemon?) and then finally come to fruition after lots

And While I'm at it...

2009-06-24T17:18:00.003-04:00

In the spirit of using this generally recipe-rich space to announce things like guest blog posts and the like, I thought I'd also mention that I'm (finally) on Twitter.It took a while for me to warm up to the idea, but now I'm tweeting away, like a whole-grain-loving, vegetable-consuming, bread-baking songbird.Follow me here: @MiaRoseMTweet you later!

Being the Guest, for a Change

2009-06-23T22:02:00.005-04:00

Anyone who knows me well knows that I love to play host. It's a rare weekend indeed when I'm not hosting at least one dinner, dessert, or brunch. I figure that if I don't host a get-together every so often, I won't have anyone to eat all of the culinary creations and experiments that come from my kitchen. And the quality time spent with family and friends is pretty great, too.But today, I'm the

I Spent a Week in San Francisco...

2009-06-05T12:21:00.007-04:00

And all I brought back were two bags of Rancho Gordo beans, some chili powder, and a dog-eared (but still precious) Madhur Jaffrey cookbook.Yes, it's true, Jonathan and I took yet another trip to San Francisco, the city that foodie dreams are made of. And although I only brought back a small smattering of the city's good things to eat, rest assured that while I was there, I did my fair share of

Why I Hate Peanut Butter Cups

2009-05-17T12:22:00.007-04:00

So, here's the thing: I hate peanut butter cups.When I was of trick-or-treating age oh so long ago, Reese's peanut butter cups were all the rage. They were the coveted morsels in many a re-purposed pillow case; sometimes saved for a rainy day, sometimes eaten all at once in defiance of the gods of belly-aches and sugar comas.And they've never really lost their charm, it seems, since most people

Pasta + Salad

2009-05-12T12:21:00.008-04:00

On May 5th, a certain apartment-mate of mine celebrated his birthday. Now, we aren't really the type to do big blow-out birthday celebrations, but we are the type to use birthdays as an excuse to spend a little more time in the kitchen, and to eat a few things that might not ordinarily work their way into our weekly rotation.We considered going out to a nice restaurant on Jonathan's birthday, but

Here to Stay

2009-05-04T10:42:00.005-04:00

I have to confess that the past couple of weeks haven't been the tastiest. On Friday, Jonathan and I moved to a new apartment, and for some reason it's just hard to eat well amidst the general disarray that a move inevitably brings.It's not that our move was an especially difficult or stressful one; in fact, we only moved about a hundred feet down the road, into another unit in the same apartment

Bagel Bust

2009-04-16T12:16:00.005-04:00

These days, it's not so often that I find myself home alone. Last summer I had a whole lot of home-alone "me" time, what with the not-having-a-job thing and Jonathan constantly shuttling back and forth between Boston and Cambridge. I filled leisurely mornings with jaunts in the sunshine, yoga, and hours-long breakfasts of fresh fruit and blog-reading. Afternoons usually brought more sun-seeking,

Just a Bit of Fluff

2009-04-13T09:34:00.008-04:00

Has it really been this long since I've last posted on Red Ramekin? I swear it feels like it's only been a few days. Maybe a week...or two.The irony of it all is that I've done an inordinate amount of cooking lately, even despite work and all of the other things that stand between me and the kitchen. I always wonder what readers think about the relationship between blogged and non-blogged foods

Brunch

2009-03-24T16:11:00.010-04:00

I think brunch might be my favorite meal. Oh sure, I love the food - fluffy scrambled eggs, thick wedges of frittata, bright salads, all manner of baked things, and fresh grapefruit juice (sometimes bubbly!) - but the best thing about brunch is that you don't eat it every day.Breakfast, lunch, and dinner all happen on a daily basis, albeit with varying degrees of decadence, but brunch? Brunch is

Something to Hold You Over

2009-03-22T23:10:00.004-04:00

Well it seems (from looking at the calendar, not the weather report) that spring is finally here. And although I could have been fooled into thinking it was still February during my shorter-than-short walk to Whole Foods this evening (where else would I be going at 9pm on a Sunday night?), there are indeed glimmers of hope and sunshine.Most of all though, there are asparagus, leeks, chives, and

Preserving My Sanity, Among Other Things

2009-03-15T19:06:00.008-04:00

I've always said that no matter how busy life gets, there's always time to whip up a batch of homemade marmalade.OK, I don't really say that. But lately, life has been pretty busy, and I still managed to find a worthy Saturday time slot for slicing and dicing a few pounds of blood oranges for a surprisingly tasty homemade treat. This isn't to say that homemade marmalade is a working girl's best

February Daring Bakers: You Still Can't Go Wrong with Chocolate

2009-02-28T22:34:00.004-05:00

Well, another month has flown by - a rather busy one, as evidenced by the slow posting around Red Ramekin lately. Don't worry, I'm still cooking even though that sometimes means dinner is served at 9:30, but, while we're happy to eat at that hour, we usually aren't as happy to take a break between meal prep and chow-time to take some gourmet glamor shots.But another month's end means another

Victories, in Vegetables

2009-02-10T17:56:00.005-05:00

You know that consummately un-green, late-winter feeling? The one you get from not having enough fresh vegetables in your refrigerator (not to mention your diet)?If you're reading this from California or somewhere in the southern hemisphere, please skip directly to the recipe at the end of this post. For the rest of you, commiserate with me for a moment on the subject of winter vegetation, or

Bread, bread, and more bread!

2009-02-05T12:53:00.003-05:00

At this point, I'm sure you're sick of hearing me blather about bread. There's this post, about achieving whole-wheat nirvana, this one, about my dear sourdough starter, and even this essay, which is a treatise about the art of making bread itself.But there's more! I made my debut into the big bad world of food writing yesterday with a piece on conquering one's fear of using yeast, which I wrote

Granola, Revisited

2009-01-29T11:40:00.008-05:00

Do you remember way back when (a whole year ago!), when I was bitten by the granola bug, and produced a shocking number of batches of granola in the course of a mere few days? Well, I believe that I left you hanging with no recipe, but I also promised to update you with further granola developments as they presented themselves over the course of my granola-making career. It's been a while since

January Daring Bakers: Light as Can Be

2009-01-28T23:49:00.006-05:00

So I guess it's no coincidence that the Daring Bakers challenge I chose to skip - last month's French yule log - was a whole heck of a lot more complicated than this month's challenge, which I did indeed complete.While the seven components of last month's challenge were tempting, in the end I just couldn't manage to deal with all that cream, butter, baking, freezing, etc., etc., especially while

On Shortcuts

2009-01-25T21:57:00.004-05:00

I think it's fair to say that anyone who has the patience to make her own sourdough starter isn't exactly a slave to shortcuts. Slave to feeding mischievous masses of flour and water twice a day, perhaps. But not to shortcuts.It's not that I have anything against cooking shortcuts, really. I just like the food I make to reflect my own work, my own tastes, and my own style. And I like it to taste

A New Year, and a Promise Kept

2009-01-05T11:43:00.008-05:00

Well hello, blogging! Nice to see you again after an extended Christmas/New Year's break.As Jonathan and I tend to do whenever we have a few free days, we escaped to San Francisco for the holidays, and this time had the chance to stick around there for almost two weeks. So, that meant a total of three trips to the Ferry Building farmers market, several walks and jogs to the Golden Gate Bridge,

Christmas Confessions of a Cookie-Baking Jew

2008-12-15T12:41:00.009-05:00

For today's post, some thoughts on Christmas, and cookies (and coming soon: an original Red Ramekin Christmas cookie recipe!).