Roasted Beet Salad with Toasted Pistachios and Caramelized Onions

My dad came over for dinner yesterday to see the new house, so I threw together a simple one-dish meal using beets from the Passyunk Square Farmer's Market and other random ingredients from the pantry. Being out of blogging-mode, I didn't think to take photos, but imagine magenta half-moons and flecks of white goat cheese amidst green romaine lettuce leaves and you're pretty close to seeing the finished product.

Roasted Beet Salad with Toasted Pistachios and Caramelized Onions

Salad
Bunch of fresh beets
1/4 onion, thinly sliced
Handful of shelled pistachios
Head of romaine lettuce
Goat cheese

Vinaigrette
Balsamic vinegar
Honey
Dijon Mustard
Almond oil
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut off leafy green tops of beets, leaving a short stem. Wrap beets in foil and roast in oven till tender, about one hour.

Meanwhile, caramelize the onions in butter with a teaspoon of sugar on low heat. (If onions are already sweet onions, e.g., vidalia, you don't need the extra sugar.). Caramelizing takes about 30 minutes. Let onions cool.

Toast the pistachios for about 5 minutes. Chop coarsely once cool.

Wash the lettuce leaves and prepare the vinaigrette (see previous posts for more specific vinaigrette directions).

Once beets are ready, let them cool for a few minutes before peeling off their skins. Slice into half-moons and let them reach room-temperature.

Once all ingredients are cool, dress the salad. Mix in the beets, onions and pistachios. Drop in small plops of goat cheese and lightly toss. Serve with bread. (I picked up a loaf of Pain au Levain from Metropolitan Bakery, a rustic sourdough).

Busy Tizzy

So my life over the past few weeks has been consumed by the Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and moving, leaving little time for blogging. However, the kitchen has been painted, a fridge has been acquired and I am refurbing a vintage dining table... photos and posts are forthcoming.

In the meantime, check out this Philadelphia Inquirer article about the midcentury modern trend...

http://http://www.philly.com/philly/home/gardening/20080919_Mad_for_midcentury.html

Fridge

So I have to buy a refrigerator. The house doesn't come with one. In my original offer, I asked for one (and a washer/dryer). In my counter-counter offer, I took all appliances off the table. It worked, since he accepted the offer. It just means I am suddenly in the market for a fridge.

For some reason, this feels more adult to me than buying a house.

If I had my druthers (and around $4K), I would get a Northstar:


I have neither my druthers nor $4K. Instead, I have fairly low standards and $200.

I have a few options on the table. I could always purchase one from a Lowes/Sears/Home Depot kind of place. But that doesn't feel super great with me, especially since I am trying to furnish the majority of the house with used things. And they tend to be more than $200.

My friends Kate and Dom told me about a place that buys used appliances and refurbs them: Appliance Warehouse (www.appliancewhse.net). I spoke to the owner yesterday and he was super friendly. It helps that I want a basic unit: white, freezer on top, nothing fancy or special needed. I just need to figure out all the different door measurements, though we will most likely have to take the fridge doors off its hinges to get it in the house. Philadelphia rowhomes are notorious for their narrow doorways.

He actually said he had a nice unit coming in next Friday (with an ice maker! how adult is that???) that would probably work. Cost: around $200.

Another possibility is buying one off of a client of my real estate agent's. The client is closing on a house later this month and wants to get all stainless steel appliances for the house. The fridge is fine, but just not the right look. My agent thinks that might be able to come my way for around $100. We still haven't heard back from the client.

I just want something that will keep my food cold. That's really it.

If you have my druthers and $4K... www.elmirastoveworks.com

If you have a sense of social responsibility and a budget... www.appliancewhse.net

Too close for comfort

So today was a rather intense day. I've been going back and forth with the seller since yesterday, negotiating on various repairs identified during the inspection. He was playing hardball. I was playing hardball. The reality is, I understand that owning a home means assuming a great deal of responsibility. And I know that I will be responsible for repairs and maintenance starting on day 1 of ownership. I feel psychologically, emotionally and even financially prepared to take this on. However, I was not comfortable dealing with certain issues, specifically those related to shoddy work done by the seller during the rehab process.

My agent advised me to walk away. I cried at my desk at work. My agent totally went to bat for me with the seller and we finally came to an agreement.

I don't particularly like roller coasters, including the emotional ones.

But we are back on track and things are moving forward. The repairs must be complete by August 15th, at which time I will reinspect the property with my agent. Providing all is in good shape, we are still set to close on August 22nd.

But it reminded me of how important it is to maintain emotional distance from the house. I could have walked away if I needed to, but I didn't want to. I really didn't want to. And things are still tenuous, so while I need to make plans, I also need to be ready for anything.

That said, I'm still thinking about colors for the kitchen. Damn it. This is pretty hard.

Kitchen To Do List

1- Repaint walls
2- Purchase fridge
3- Remove cabinet doors (maybe...)
4- Buy/create more counterspace
5- Utilize wall space
6- Knock down the wall between living room and kitchen; install an island

kitchenredo

Home inspection was this past week and all went very well. No major issues with either the foundation or the roof, but many little things I'm currently negotiating with the seller. It also gave me the opportunity to take more photos of the house, the kitchen in particular.

It's a rectangular floor plan, with black and white subway tiles on the wall, ceramic floor tiles and 3 large windows. It also holds lots of room for potential.

Back door leading out to patio

New cabinets

New stove

Looking in from the living room

Side wall

Corner where fridge will go

Things I love about the kitchen: the natural light, the retro tiling, and the possibility of knocking down the wall between the kitchen and living room and adding an island, thus opening up the floor plan, letting in more light throughout the first floor and adding much needed counter/socializing space. That project won't happen for at least another year. In the meantime, I'm looking to paint the space, buy a fridge and figure out some creative ways to maximize space.

Ideas, anyone?

Apologies, Apologies

I have been very negligent in my kitchenplay upkeep as of late. I still have BBQ tales from Texas and more recent ice cream cake making adventures to share.

But the big news is that I am in the process of buying a house in South Philly. Much still needs to happen in the next few weeks, such as house inspection and mortgage approval, so keep your fingers crossed.

Provided all goes according to plan, I will be documenting the updating of my new kitchen on kitchenplay. I'm envisioning a sea foam green/orange creamsicle color palatte circa 1950s/60s.

I will also be exploring the culinary possibilities of my new neighborhood, Newbold. While it is actually only 4 blocks from where I currently live, it isn't a place that I have frequented at all since moving to Philadelphia. I hear tales of amazing Indonesian food, the South Philly Taproom, and an upcoming coffeeshop/take-out beer place. Stay tuned...

And in the meantime, I will be featuring other foodie blogs on the site that can keep you occupied till my next entry.

A bit of shameless self-promotion...

My friend Cellis is a former colleague with the Gotham Chamber Opera. He is so smart and fun that I often forget he is a bit younger than me... almost twenty years younger... and yet that doesn't stop us from gabbing about opera and dancing to Madonna till the early morn.

He recently started his own blog and wrote a very sweet post about kitchenplay. I just have to share...

A Special Sponsor
http://www.kitchenplay.blogspot.com/ is a very nice website hosted by a dear friend and gives awesome recipes for food. I've looked at it since January when it all started. It goes from peppers to chicken in the recipes but either way you go it's a recipe for a full stomach. If you don't know what to eat tonight just take a peek at http://www.kitchenplay.blogspot.com/.

Thank you Cellis!!!

I'm a Pepper!

As a kid, I loved Dr Pepper. I don't drink soda much these days, but one sip of Dr Pepper takes me back to the soda machine at the Community Arts Center in Wallingford, PA, on break from a rehearsal or a making-fresh-bread-and-turning-it-into-art class.

But childhood adoration aside, I recently realized how little I know about Dr Pepper. For instance, what IS Dr Pepper? Who was Dr Pepper? And I also didn't know that the home of Dr Pepper is none other than Waco, TX, on the way to Austin from Ft. Worth.

So I decided to make a stop at the Dr Pepper Museum, determined to finally learn the secret behind the taste.

I learned nothing.

I did learn that it is definitely not prune flavor, as some have proposed. It is a combination of 23 flavors concocted in the late 19th century to reproduce the smell of the soda fountain, as told to me by the animatronic founder of Dr Pepper, Charles Alderton.


The name is also something of a mystery. Legend is that Charles Alderton was in love with a girl and wanted to impress her father, so Alderton named the drink after the man. Originally, it was known as a Waco.


Before getting back on the road, I had a really good Frosty Pepper: a vanilla ice cream float with Dr Pepper. At the museum's soda fountain, they make the drink with carbonated water and Dr Pepper syrup, with a couple puffs of compressed air. It was delish.


http://www.drpeppermuseum.com/

Cowtown

While I have spent the past month blogging about New Orleans, in reality I have been living and working in Ft. Worth, TX. And I have been eating, of course. Here are some highlights...

The Love Shack

The Love Shack is a casual burger place in the heart of the Ft. Worth Stockyards. The menu is simple: burgers, fries, onion rings, shakes, Abita root beer on tap.

In the name of research for kitchenplay, I ordered the Dirty Love Burger, topped with crispy bacon, cheese, Love Sauce and a fried quail egg. Love Sauce is a Texan twist on McD's special sauce: mayo and ketchup with rib seasoning and chopped pickles. The burger was good, with tasty, peppery beef. They grind their beef daily, a 50/50 combo of prime tenderloin and prime brisket. It was cooked medium, though, and I'm more of a medium rare kinda gal. The egg is a fun addition, but it didn't contribute much to the overall flavor.

The best thing about the meal was stealing my friend's onion rings: shoestring onion rounds in a light, crispy batter. The best onion rings I have ever had.

And the atmosphere is great... seating is outdoors spread out amongst three levels. Live music was on the stage and misting fans made the heat more bearable.

Paleteria La Flor de Michoacan

Paletas, Mexican popsicles, are great- fresh tasting and always offered up in fun flavors. I've been to two paleterias in my life, here and in Durham, NC. Both were no-frills settings with large stand alone freezers. I chose rice while my friend got strawberry crema. The rice paleta was totally awesome, with soft grains of rice and tons of cinnamon. The paleteria didn't close for another 20 minutes, so we went back for more. For round two, I got coconut and Cynthia got pecan. The pecan was disappointing, too sweet and without enough nutty flavor (though the layer of fresh pecans at the bottom of the popsicle was a nice touch). But the coconut was really good, creamy and rich, just like a coconut popsicle should be. But the rice paleta was definitely the winner.

La Playa Maya

La Playa Maya is where Cynthia, a Ft. Worth native, said I could find real Tex-Mex. And with the exception of a seafood cocktail appetizer, everything was delicious. The cocktail was ceviche and octopus in a ketchup sauce. Asise from being a ketchup sauce, it was also an overly sweet and thick ketchup sauce. I also ordered Cowboy Enchiladas, marinated beef enchiladas with queso. Those were great.

By the way, queso is awesome, and nothing back east quite compares to the real thing. Yes, the consistency is eerily similar to Veleveta, but the taste is closer to real cheese- a great combination.

Top that with deliciously seasoned rice & beans and $2 frozen margaritas, and you have my new favorite spot in Ft. Worth.

Up Next: Bats, Barton Springs and BBQ in Austin, TX