Blog Posts by Milk and Mode

Scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and cream cheese













Brunches are one of my favorite meals to host. The requisite dishes are usually simple, quick, and easy, leaving you plenty of time to relax with your guests, and there's just something great about starting the day off with good, home-cooked food and lots of friends around you. Also, brunch drinks are the most fun alcohol category around--sparkly champagne mixed with fresh OJ, a tomato-juice-drenched Bloody Mary with lots of spice--how could you go wrong?

This no-fail scrambled eggs dish from Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook is a total crowd-pleaser, and takes about 10 minutes to whip up. All pictures by Mark Iantosca.

Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese
Serves 4
Ingredients:
8 organic large eggs
Splash of milk
Big pinch coarse salt
A few fresh grinds black pepper
Big knob unsalted butter
1/3 pound smoked salmon, torn into bite-sized pieces
1/3 cup cream cheese
2 teaspoons finely sliced fresh chives, for serving

Directions:
Whisk the eggs together with the milk,

Read More »from Easy Weekend Breakfast: Scrambled Eggs with Smoked Salmon and Cream Cheese

Whoever invented quesadillas should be sainted. The hot, melted cheese, bits of chicken or shrimp, mushrooms, peppers, and whatever else you fancy sandwiched in a crisp, toasted tortilla--it just doesn't get much better. Also, it's a ludicrously easy dish. Just chop up your choice of ingredients into little bits, toss them into a fresh tortilla, fold said tortilla in half, and toast the whole thing in a hot pan until everything is all golden and melty and delicious.

You can't really go wrong with quesadillas, but this particular ingredient combination happens to be especially good. I love queso fresco, a mild, crumbly, nutty cheese that happens to work really well with lots of diced up peppers and cilantro. Perfection.

Quesadillas
Serves 2
Ingredients:
2 (8-inch) flour tortillas
2/3 cup crumbled queso fresco
1 tablespoon chopped roasted red pepper from a jar, drained and patted dry
1/4 teaspoon fresh cilantro, chopped
Vegetable oil for brushing tortillas
Kosher salt

Directions:

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Shrimp Risotto Italian food is my personal zenith when it comes to cooking. It's a crowd pleaser (who doesn't like Italian food?), it's varied, filling, soothing, delicious, and it's easy more often than not. More than any other type of cuisine, I turn to it in a pinch, when I want to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes with minimal effort. When I've had one of those days, there's almost nothing better than digging into a big plate of spaghetti coated with a homemade batch of luscious tomato sauce with butter. It's food for the soul, a balm for the weary, and any number of other cliched platitudes that happen to be absolutely true when it comes to cucina italiana. Can you tell I love Italian food yet? Yes? Good. Now let's talk exceptions.

Don't get me wrong, I love risotto. I order it at restaurants. I get ridiculously excited if someone offers to make it for me (this has only happened once, now that I think about it). I eat it with a kind of zeal that may or may not be mistaken for gluttony. I

Read More »from Shine Supper Club: Shrimp Risotto

I had my first taste of pimento cheese when I went to a friend's birthday party in Hell's Kitchen. His girlfriend had surprised him by having his favorite restaurant in Atlanta ship some of his favorite dishes right to NYC just for the party. Among the ribs and the slaw and the pulled pork sandwiches, were bowls of a sharp, creamy cheese spread peppered with bright red pimentos. The bowls were surrounded by little triangles of white sandwich bread to accompany the cheese, and I must've consumed a whole loaf's worth by the time I was done marveling over the deliciousness of it all. Pimento cheese is practically it's own food group down South and it's so good, that I couldn't help feeling that I'd somehow been cheated out of years of pimento cheese pleasures.

This recipe uses piquante peppers because I like a little heat in my cheese, some mayo, a bit of cream cheese, and the best hunk of extra sharp cheddar I could find, grated down finely into tissue-thin shreds. It was so good that

Read More »from Perfect Pimento Cheese

The last time I was in Paris, I consumed bowls and bowls of haricots verts, the skinny little green beans that the French do so well. In real life (a.k.a. America), I hate green beans. They're too bulky, have little flavor, and feel weird in my mouth when I'm chewing them. In France, however, they're thinner, more delicate, and have a decidedly sweeter taste. Plus, they're always prepared simply--just boiled in hot water for a few minutes, then dressed with good olive oil and sea salt. Delicious. When I saw a basket full of haricots verts at Eataly over the weekend, I immediately scooped up a few handfuls to eat at home. Makes for a good afternoon snack or a simple, healthy side for dinner.

For more delicious appetizer recipes, check out Milk & Mode!

Haricots Verts
Ingredients:
Extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled
Kosher salt
Haricots verts, ends trimmed

Directions:
Heat 1/4 cup olive oil in an 8-inch saute pan over low heat. After a minute, add the garlic and cook it

Read More »from User Post: Simple Side: Haricots Verts

When faced with a menu filled with delicious pasta options, I'll almost always go for the simplest options. I love spaghetti coated with nothing but cheese, pepper, and butter. I prescribe to the belief that there's almost nothing better than a perfect tomato sauce. And I love that classic Italian dish that involves some sort of al dente pasta mixed with a hearty combination of savory sausage and bitter green broccoli rabe. It's a true "bloke's" meal (at least, according to Jamie Oliver), and being the voracious eater that I am, I end up having it more often than I probably should.

When I tried to make it for my boyfriend and I one Sunday night, however, I found that the bitterness of the broccoli rabe overtook the flavor of the dish, and distracted from the delicious heat of the Eataly-made spicy sausage. The fact that the pasta was perfectly cooked with just the tiniest hint of bite left in the center, was also tragically overshadowed. (I happen to have a sixth sense for the exact

Read More »from Fettucine with Sausage and Kale

This is one of my absolute favorite quick, one-skillet meals that I start craving every time it gets a bit chilly out. The tiny, sweet apples that crop up at the farmers' market in October just beg to be fried with some meaty, flavorful sausages to balance them out. To me, this dish is the epitome of comfort food, and it's so quick that I actually made it for breakfast not once, but twice this week. In case that means nothing to you, my mornings are usually a frenzied whirlwind of trying to get to the gym, feeding my dog, showering, washing my hair, answering urgent emails on my Blackberry whilst simultaneously brushing my teeth, etc. In other words, if I have time to make a recipe on a workweek morning, trust me, it's ridiculously fast and easy. And in this case, it's also more than substantial enough to eat for dinner, if you're so inclined. I love a recipe that multitasks, don't you? Recipe below serves four, but feel free to cut it in half and save some for leftovers if you're

Read More »from User Post: Quick and Easy Fall Breakfast: Sausages with Apples and Onions

They say the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I don't know about all that, but I do know that if you feed a man a steak--especially this steak--chances are good that he'll lick his chops, eat the whole thing in one fell swoop, caveman-style, and declare it the best steak ever made. He'll be talking about the steak for weeks afterwards. He'll be talking about YOU for weeks afterward. And you'll be sitting pretty knowing that it hardly took any effort at all.

That said, it's not all about the man here. One of the greatest joys in life is biting into a juicy, perfectly cooked steak, and what girl doesn't want to treat herself to that kind of thing once in awhile? That said, it can be difficult to get a steak just right, especially in the winter months when you don't have a smoky grill at your disposal. Some of the best pieces of meat I've ever had have been at David Chang's restaurants, Momofuku Noodle Bar and Momofuku Ssam Bar. The man just knows what he's doing. And until

Read More »from User Post: The Perfect Date Night Meal