Ham Sandwich Indicted!

It's been a crazy few weeks at Ham Sandwich HQ.  A murderer got his just desserts (don't kill people, kids, it's not cool...and you'll go to prison), the Ham Sandwich celebrated another year on the planet ( Ad Hoc at Home AND The French Laundry  cookbooks? swoon ), and triathlon training started. Along with that last little project comes a revamping of some eating habits, which is good, I suppose, but unfortunate since I've been in a baking mood for a while. (I'm looking at you, butter-loaded recipes by Ree Drummond and sweet dough recipes in April's Bon Appetit... ) Week 1 of training started with this dish for dinner (and several lunches): polenta cakes with black bean and corn salsa (two times the corn!) and a shrimp and mango ceviche, courtesy of the talented and charming BF.  Polenta, essentially coarse grain cornmeal, is easy to cook with and pairs wonderfully with a million different things.  You can cook it and eat it right away, spooned o...

(Is that a fractal I see?) Cauliflower, I think, was for a long time an underrated vegetable.  It's to be expected, I suppose, when your entire existence pretty much revolves around being placed on a raw credite platter to balance out all those other colors.  I'm fairly confident that the only time I saw cauliflower in my house growing up was when it was slowly oxidizing on a vegetable plate with a bowl of Ranch dressing. In the last few years, however, it seems like cauliflower is experiencing a sort of Renaissance. Elevated from its raw and odiferous existence by a good roast or a hot sear in a pan, cauliflower becomes tender and sweetly nuanced.  "Rediscovery" might be a strong word, but it definitely seems to be experiencing an increase in popularity: Michael Ruhlman is roasting whole heads  of it and basting it with brown butter, it's showing up in "steak" form as a vegetarian main dish, back in 2010, Michael Symon engaged in a cauliflower...

It's Super Bowl weekend, and maybe you care profoundly about the outcome, and maybe you don't. But regardless, someone you know is probably having a party as an excuse to eat a bunch of ridiculous food and check out some commercials that you've probably already seen online. If you're expected to bring something to a party this weekend (or hell, any party, ever), you should probably bring pimento cheese.  Those of you from the South are probably familiar with pimento cheese, a spread/dip of shredded cheddar cheese, mayo, and chopped, roasted red peppers. And chances are, if your mom/aunt/grandma made it, you have very strong feelings about how it should taste. If you're from Yankee territory, you might have heard of it via any of of the articles / magazines declaring Southern food last year's (and probably still this year's) big "thing." Maybe you're intrigued, maybe you're grossed out. You should be the former. True, this is a d...

In last week's Wayward Seed CSA share, I received about a pound of unshelled English peas.  After freeing them from their pods, I was left with a bowlful of tiny, beautiful, bright green orbs and decided that since there  were so few of them, I needed to really showcase their flavor.   I remembered that Chef John Dornback of  Basi Italia had offered a pea puree appetizer at the Taste of Dine Originals event, and decided to use that dish as inspiration.  They had served the lightly mashed peas on a single-serving spoon topped with shaved Parmesan.   Since I had just purchased a baguette from Omega Bakery at the North Market (not-so shameless plug: Go there! Get their bread! It's amazing!), I decided throw together a pea and Parmesan "hummus" to spread on said bread. Twenty minutes later, I had a party-worthy appetizer that looked and tasted of early summer.  The sweetness of the peas is balanced by the salty ...