Chicken Paprikash

This is a great dish when you want to shake up the standard grilled-chicken-breast-and-pasta routine. It’s ready in about than 30 minutes and hits the comforting spot and can be made less caloric by replacing the  olive oil-butter combo with PAM or half the oil and substituting sour cream for Greek yogurt (which gives it more tang).

Chicken Paprikash

(serves 4-6)

2 lb chicken thighs (skin removed), rinsed and patted dry, cut into 1-inch pieces

1 ½ tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp butter

1 medium yellow onion, halved and cut into thin half-moon slices

1 red bell pepper, cut in thin strips

2 tbsp sweet paprika

¼ tsp red pepper flakes

½ cup chicken broth (homemade or low sodium)

½ cup sour cream

1 package egg noodles or other pasta (optional)

In a large skillet, heat the olive oil and 1 tsbp butter over medium-high heat until it starts to sizzle. Season chicken with salt and pepper on both sides, then add chicken in a single layer. Cook until browned on bottom, about 3 minutes, then flip and brown on the other side. Remove chicken from skillet and set aside. Note, the chicken may still be pink inside but that’s fine as it will finish cooking later.

Lower heat under skillet to medium-low and add the butter. When butter has melted, add the onion, red bell pepper, paprika, and red pepper flakes. Cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, until onion is soft and translucent. Add chicken back to skillet.

At this time you may want to prepare your pasta. Egg noodles work best with this dish and after the water is boiling, only take a few minutes to cook.

After you’ve added the chicken back to the skillet, pour in the chicken broth. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat, cover skillet and simmer for 10 minutes over low heat or under chicken has cooked through and the broth has reduced a bit.

Add in sour cream and stir. Heat the entire skillet through and serve warm over pasta.

blooms, in space

70 degree weather today brought us outside and into Brooklyn. The cherry blossoms bloomed at Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and it seemed like everyone in the borough was out to see them. The trees were lovely and the early tulips were as well but the number of people and out-of-sorts children everywhere impeded the enjoyment; I’d recommend going on a weekday afternoon or early evening, where there aren’t 3 photographers with SLR cameras and tripods on every bud. Below are some of my favorite, humble shots of the flora.

Japanese cherry blossoms & koi pond, with monstrously large fish

Cotton-candy pink tulip

Gorgeous striped tulips

These early-bloomers will be gone in a few short weeks.

The second from last picture is really inspirational, tone-wise, for decor and clothing this summer. Coral oranges and sunny yellows are everywhere, from wall colors in this month’s Real Simple magazine room redesigns (a must-read) to shoes to nailpolish. I just bought bright yellow wedge sandals that I can’t wait to share in my next post. Until then, merry spring!

earth below us

The first burst of spring in the city really quickly melted into sticky heat. When it’s 89 degrees outside, the sun is beating down on the asphalt and your brain feels like it’s at boiling point, it’s tough to step back from the chaos and remind yourself to find pockets of calm, pretty, green and calm. CALM. Here is a smattering of what makes me happy right now.

Sauvignon blanc, especially the inexpensive but tasty Barefoot Wines version, chilled.

Madison Square Park at 7 PM, full of people and trees budding.

Promises, Promises on Broadway with Kristin Chenoweth and Sean Hayes. Excellent 60′s costumes, a fabulous version of “Say a Little Prayer for You” by K.Chen and a really sweet duet by the leads.

Macarons from Madeleine Patisserie. The rainbow glass display of their dozen of macarons is really beautiful and the pistachio bad boys are delicate but powerful. Bad cell shot below.

Dark rinse ankle jeans with flats.

Modern Family on ABC.

The triumphant return of the World Series Champion New York Yankees and watching the games in HD, in New York, far far away from having to hear about the Boston Red Sox every single day of my life.

Building with clean lines and large windows, like the Cooper Square Hotel and my favorite government building in Berlin on the Spree (below)

Copenhagen, 2008

From Natalie E lllum, poet:

“I am from the ocean,

sea salt tangled in my hair”

Spring has disappeared back into its winter mask this weekend. Like many others in New York, I am ready for the energy that comes with the city greening. Instead, I’m looking back to photographs (like this one, taken in Copenhagen’s harbor, 2008) and poetry (mine from Spring 2009 and others’) for the energy I’m missing.

Although I don’t read it every day, Poetry Daily is great for 3-minute a day wordsmith inspiration. As for those stuck in cubicles or tiny offices, Travel Photographers Networks grabs your out of your weather-weariness and into the bold, bright world. Until I can get out into some good weather and feel human again, I’ll be living vicariously through these sites.

Pysanky season

I’m the first to admit that I’m not a particularly crafty person but I do have one artistic party trick: Ukrainian Easter eggs. A stylus with a miniature vessel is filled with beeswax, warmed over flames and in even strokes, carefully applied to an egg which is then dipped in dfferent dyes, the beeswax sealing the brilliance underneath each successive layer.

I started this year’s eggs two weeks ago during a stressful time at work and for me, it’s more so entwined with a therapeutic repetition and, of course, tradition, that I don’t often stop to think about both how beautiful they are and how you can use them for different purposes. This morning, Design Sponge, one of my favorite design sites, posted a post by the BBB Craft Sisters on making pysanky with more modern designs. Very cute and original, love the use of dusty pink as a background color as opposed to the more traditional black.

Pysanky themselves have a very long history in Ukrainian. They were pagan creations originally, designed to celebrate spring and pay homage to the Sun God. One legend says that pysanky were treated as talisman, warding away evil for the year. Like many cultural traditions, pysanky were adapted and then appropriated by Christian societies, although many of the motifs, including triangles, spirals and stylized leaves and flowers date back to ancient patterns.

For the neophyte pysanka maker or art lover, one of the better pysanky guides is a book, sold now mostly used, that my mother has had as long as I can remember. It’s available at Amazon starting at around $40 (click on picture for the Amazon link)

Pysanky really require you to consider color and tone, how one pattern in a given color will look against another. The use of white space is also very carefully thought of because instead of being what it left behind, the very first marks you make are to preserve the white lines and space of the egg. It’s almost thinking backwards because you are aware of what will be uncovered at the very end when you melt all the wax while also adding more and more wax and colors as you go on.

Enough babble. Here are some of my completed pysanky from years past.

Guess which egg is not traditional...

My eggs mixed in with my sister's

The eggs are blessed in a church the day before Easter, along with paska (Easter babka), hardboiled eggs, butter (often shaped into a lamb), salt and kobasa (smoked sausage). I’ll post pictures when I have my basket ready. I tend to go more old-school in putting together my basket than some of the newer ones I’ve seen with Philadelphia low-fat cream cheese, V.O. or whiskey,or chocolate bunnies (with an ear nibbled off..)

Update: some shots of this year’s basket and blessing ceremony.

Where I indulge my French fantasies

On last night’s episode of No Reservations, Anthony Bourdain frolicked around Provence as much as Anthony Bourdain can frolick, meaning he was less openly surly and the soundtrack was all plinky French pianos and accordions. In one scene, the mother of a friend quietly worked in a sun-drenched corner on an aioli. Aioli is often compared to or confused with mayonnaise but it’s quite different: an emulsion of garlic with olive oil slooooowly streamed into a light mix that it not quite a paste, not quite a sauce. As good at the aioli looked over simple fish, the real scene stealer was the mortar and pestle that Grandmere was using.

Even though the inherent Frenchiness of its use is what attracted it to me yesterday, cooks from Mexico to Japan use variations of a mortar and pestle to grind spices, vegetables, and meats. But secretly I may love the clean curves of the mortar and pestle even more than its usefulness.

This red one from Le Creuset (via Sur La Table) is great not only for the shock of color but also because it is one of the only Le Creuset products that I can afford at this time.

For those looking for more a traditional, white mortar and pestle, Amazon has several selections for really good prices. Keep in mind that these are not very large vessels and you really want to weight the feeling and heft of the pestle (bat-like mixer) and the steadiness of the mortar (bowl)

The mortars also are great for serving in as well. Guacamole would look really appetizing against the crisp white and a creamy golden aioli would pop against Le Creuset red.

Space in Bloom, take one

“In general, people were not road maps. people were not hieroglyphs or books. They were not stories. A person was a collection of accidents. A person was an infinite pile of rocks with things growing underneath.”

(Lorrie Moore, Birds of America)