Giada's Stuffed Shells

Giada is clearly the best Food Network star. It's hard to not be charmed by her bobble head and ubiquitous cleavage. So much better than Rachel Ray, who has the audacity to make asian noodle soup with semolina spaghetti pasta. The horror! And I don't even want to get into her "chowda mac" and "stoup". On one of her shows, Giada made Stuffed Shells with Turkey and Artichoke. It looked really good and relatively easy. I generally don't like stuffed shells because there's usually so much ricotta cheese, I can only take a few bites before feeling full...but not in a good way. Her stuffed shells are really delicious, the recipe calls for ricotta cheese, but it still tastes light and healthy. Another great thing is that you can make a whole batch, freeze the ones you don't finish and eat them for a month! You just pop the frozen ones in the oven for 45 min - 1 hour, and dinner is done.

Here's the recipe (Giada made her own sauce, but I used a jar of 365 brand marinara sauce and it tasted just fine)

Ingredients:
1 box of jumbo shells
1 pound ground turkey
1 package frozen artichokes, thawed and chopped
1 (15 ounce) container of ricotta cheese
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup of chopped basil
handful of chopped parsley
3/4 cup grated parmesan
1 cup grated mozzarella
1 smal onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
olive oil
salt
pepper
1 jar of marinara sauce

Instructions:
- Preheat oven at 400 degrees
- Boil the shells in water for 5 minutes
- Sautee the chopped garlic and diced onion for a few minutes, add ground turkey, salt and pepper and sautee for another few minutes. Make sure the ground turkey is broken into small pieces
- Add the chopped artichokes and sautee for another 5 minutes, or until the turkey is cooked on the outside.
- In a large bowl, mix the cooked turkey and artichoke combination with with the chopped parsley, basil, 2 eggs, ricotta cheese (almost the entire container) and parmesan cheese together.
- After everything is evenly mixed together, start stuffing the shells with the mixture. Stuff the shells up to the top, it's ok if it's messy and there's stuff coming out of the top.
Cover the bottom of a baking pan with a layer of marinara sauce, put the stuffed shells on top of the sauce, cover the top of the shells with another thick layer of sauce, top it off with shredded mozzarella
- Bake at 400 degrees for 30 - 40 minutes, until the shells are soft

For you vegetarians, you can substitute the turkey with mushrooms, or just add more artichokes. It tastes really good, ask Nikki! It's not too heavy, and goes wonderfully with a salad and glass of white wine.

Maoz Falafel

A new branch of the Maoz Falafel Shop recently up, on Union Square East between 16th and 17th Street. I've been to the London and Barcelona branches of Maoz and the new one in Union Sq is just as good! Excellent falafel (not to greasy), a variety of toppings and sauces and great lemonade!

Apparently, some people don't understand the concept of falafel because i watched a grossly anorexic woman stare at her meal with shock and disgust and ask, "Is that what falafel is supposed to look like? Oh my god, it's just not what i expected. And also, can i have the falafel on a bed of lettuce instead of in a pita? I don't eat bread."

Kuma Inn

There are those rare meals that you know you'll always remember. Not only does the food taste out of this world, but it also makes everyone at the table simply ten times happier and more energetic. I think tapas especially has this sort of effect on people, because you're not just having a meal together, you're sharing the experience of eating. I had one of those memorable dining experiences last night at Kuma Inn. The occasion was for Samantha's 24th birthday. Now, I know you all are going to think I'm biased towards this place, because I love any sort of Asian cuisine, but Kuma Inn really is amazing. Samantha and Sarah both raved about every dish and we all breathed collective "wow"s and "oh my god this is amazing"s after we tasted each dish.

The restaurant is located on a dark and run-down stretch of Ludlow street between Delancey and Rivington. It took me a while to find the place, because there's no awning or visible sign. Just a piece of white paper with the the words "Kuma Inn" printed neatly on it, tacked to a propped open door. The restaurant is located on the second floor of what appears to be an apartment building. The only things that give away the identity of the place are the dozens upon dozens of restaurant reviews and ratings from all the various newspapers and magazines, taped to the foyer's walls. You walk into the restaurant and practically walk smack dab into the open kitchen. Kuma Inn is small, there are no more than 12 tables. The decor is simple...actually it's kind of bland...blonde wooden tables and chairs, hard wood floors, white walls with minimal decoration. But it's great, because there's nothing to distract you from the food.

We decided to order two tapas each, so six in total. The first dish that our waitress served us was the Mixed Seaweed Salad with sesame and chili oil. The bright green seaweed strands were cool and refreshing and the sesame oil gave it a rich coating of flavor.

Next came the barrage of seafood dishes: steamed mussels in kaffir coconut lime curry, drunken spicy shrimp with sake and thai chilis and seared ahi tuna with a thai chili-miso vinagrette. The mussels were perfect tender little morsels of fresh meat. The mussel shells were perfect scooping vessels for the delicious lime curry sauce at the bottom of the bowl. The squares of seared tuna were a toasted brown color on the edges and a deep reddish purple at the center. The meat was amazingly tender - it was like eating sashimi...only 100 times better.

After the seafood dishes were delivered, the sauteed green market mushrooms with baby bamboo shoots, pork dumplings and chinese sausage arrived shortly thereafter. The chinese sausage is supposed to be one of their signature dishes, but I didn't think it was that spectacular. I thought the seafood dishes were way better. The meat was a little too tough and the sauce was extremely sweet and tart.

I was too busy wolfing down my food that I didn't remember to snap this picture til the end of our meal:















For dessert we ordered the coconut lime panna cotta and fried plantains. The pale green panna cotta, topped with one mint leaf and three blueberries, was served in a small glass tumbler. It was smooth, rich, fragrant, think...it was like a thinner custard. AMAZING. One of the best desserts I've had in a long time.

For 6 dishes (actually...now that I'm thinking back, i think we ordered an extra dish, so 7), 2 desserts and a coconut water, the bill came to about $80...a steal in my opinion for food that tasted so good.

Other highlights:
Sam Rockwell and the Mac Commercial Guy dining behind us!
BYOB!!
Foxy Brown and Lily Allen blasting from the speakers!

Go immediately...bring your friends, your loved ones, just tell someone about Kuma Inn!

Lazy Meal

This post is for Jordan, who wants to see a show that can top Rachel Ray's 30 Minute Meals...5 Minute Meals perhaps. This dish takes little preparation - all you have to do is chop some stuff, stick it in the oven, slap some sauce on it and it's good to go. So I don't know what to call it....so I'll just call it Lazy Chicken with Hummus

Ingredients:
3 pieces of thinly sliced chicken breaast
handful of chopped parsley
2 medium sized zucchinis, chopped
cumin
juice of one lemon
olive oil
salt & pepper
hummus and/or babaghanouj
bagged salad

Directions:
Preheat the oven at 350 degrees
Slice the chicken into little pieces
chop the zucchinis
chop the parsley
combine the chicken, zucchini and parsley in a baking pan
Sprinkle some cumin on top (maybe 1 teaspoon? i kind of just eyeball it...less if you don't really like the taste of cumin)
sprinkle the salt and ground pepper on top
Whisk together the lemon juice and olive oil (again, just eyeball it...enough so that all of the chicken and zucchini will be be covered, but not drenched in the lemon juice and olive oil)
Cover the chicken and zucchini with the lemon/olive oil combination, shake the pan a little bit or combine everything with your hands
Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes (or until the chicken is cooked)

mix it in with the bagged salad and add a few generous dollops of hummus and/or babaghanouj on top.

Not exactly the most flavorful thing you'll ever eat, but it's good, filling and healthy.

Weekend Wrap-Up

This was quite a weekend eating fest! A bunch of us went to Nikki's Grandma's house in New Jersey to celebrate Passover. It was so great to get away from the city, even if it was only for a day and a night. What's more relaxing than driving down tree-lined, winding dirt roads, swerving to avoid beavers on the road and listening to Kashmira sitting in the back of the car singing along to a song with the lyrics, "drop Ds on that bitch"?

The Passover dinner was amazing. I got my annual fill of haroses. Everything from the matzo ball soup to the brisket and matzo and vegetable hash was delicious. The chocolate cake was fantastic - it definitely didn't taste anything like those flat and hard flourless chocolate cakes that I've had before. Apparently the matzo meal is what makes the cake so moist.

I'm so glad Nikki is my friend. And Jewish.

In addition to the Passover meal, here are some other culinary highlights from this weekend:
- Essex Market Restaurant
This is the restaurant attached to the Essex Street Market. The dishes are a cross between Jewish and Latin cuisines - reflecting the ethnic and cultural diversity of the lower east side. Unfortunately, the waiters and waitresses were not wearing tight graphic tees and skinny jeans. I ordered the blackened catfish, which came on a bed of potatoes, chopped scallions and shrimp. The fish was tender and flaky, and the cream sauce that came with the dish was rich without being too creamy and nauseating. Everyone else's dishes look great as well - I saw crab cakes, potato pancakes, filet mignon and mac & cheese. Despite the difficulty with the reservations (you have to put down a credit card and will get charged a fee for missing your reservation), I have nothing bad to say about the service. Especially since our waitress so graciously gave us 8 drink tickets so she could make room for another party. The atmosphere was laid-back and the decor was simple: high, airy ceilings, simple black tables and chairs, lighting that was dim enough so that everyone appeared to have a rosy hue, but bright enough to still see what you were eating. Thumbs up!

-Sally Lunn's
An adorable Tea Shop in Short Hills, New Jersey - Molly has been raving about this place for years. We stopped in to have scones and tea on Saturday afternoon, before the Seder. My scone was warm and moist and came with clotted cream and fruit jam. Nothing is worse than a hard and dry scone! Eating pieces of a warm scone topped with cream and jam, following by a few sips of earl grey tea from a dainty teacup is the best thing in the world. It makes me feel like a little girl and an old lady all at the same time.