In brief

I'm taking serious advantage of my elective time. For instance, on Thursday I made two flavors of macarons: jasmine with a grapefruit filling, and "margarita" macarons consisting of lime shells with a spicy tequila buttercream.

The lime shells are kind of flat because I overbeat the second batch of batter. The flavor is spot-on, though!

Below are the recipes for each. Note that if you're using colored gels or powders, whip them together with the egg whites and sugar.

Jasmine macarons
contents of 2 jasmine teabags (usually a jasmine and green tea blend)
110 g almond meal (or ground blanched almonds)
200 g confectioner's sugar
90 g egg whites, left out at room temperature for at least 1 hour
30 g sugar
pinch salt

Pulse the almond meal, confectioner's sugar, and tea in a food processor or blender just until finely powdered. Set aside.

In a standing mixer with a whisk attachment, whip the egg whites, salt, and granulated sugar until stiff peaks form but the egg whites are not curdled or dry. Sift the almond mixture over the egg whites, discarding any bits that don't make it through the sifter. Working briskly with a rubber spatula, fold the two together just until a thick, ropy batter is formed. Using a pastry bag or icing plunger, pipe one-inch circles of batter onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. The circles should be 1.5 to 2 inches apart to allow good air circulation. Firmly rap the baking sheet on the counter 3 or 4 times to release any air bubbles in the macarons. Sprinkle a little more tea on top of the cookies. Let rest for about 30 minutes, or until a dry crust forms on top.

Bake in a 300-degree oven for 15 minutes. Check halfway through baking; if the macarons begin to brown, turn down the heat a bit. Cool the cookies completely on a rack before filling.

Grapefruit curd
1 tbsp plus 2 tsp grapefruit zest
120 mL (about 4 oz) fresh grapefruit juice
3 egg yolks
115 g sugar
3 tbsp butter
1/8 tsp sea salt
1/2 tbsp cornstarch

Whisk together the cornstarch, sugar, and salt in a small pot. Slowly whisk in the egg yolks, grapefruit juice, and 1 tbsp zest. Heat with the butter over medium-low, whisking constantly, until the mixture is thick. It should take about 10 minutes. Do not let it boil, or the egg yolks will curdle! Strain the mixture into a small container and fold in the reserved 2 tsp zest. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing over the surface of the hot curd to prevent skin formation. Cool to room temperature, then refrigerate.

Lime macarons
zest of 3 limes
110 g almond meal
200 g confectioner's sugar
90 g egg whites, left out at room temperature for at least 1 hour
30 g sugar
pinch salt

Zest the limes, reserving a bit if you'd like to sprinkle some atop the macarons. Pulse the almond meal, confectioner's sugar, and zest in a food processor or blender just until finely powdered. Set aside for at least 20 minutes to allow the lime flavor to permeate the mixture, since the zest will get sifted out.

In a standing mixer with a whisk attachment, whip the egg whites, salt, and granulated sugar until stiff peaks form but the egg whites are not curdled or dry. Sift the almond mixture over the egg whites, discarding any bits that don't make it through the sifter (including the zest). Working briskly with a rubber spatula, fold the two together just until a thick, ropy batter is formed. Using a pastry bag or icing plunger, pipe one-inch circles of batter onto cookie sheets lined with parchment paper. The circles should be 1.5 to 2 inches apart to allow good air circulation. Firmly rap the baking sheet on the counter 3 or 4 times to release any air bubbles in the macarons. Sprinkle some crushed sea salt and, optionally, zest on top; this really needs the hit of salt to work, so don't omit that! Let rest for about 30 minutes, or until a dry crust forms on top.

Bake in a 300-degree oven for 15 minutes. Check halfway through baking; if the macarons begin to brown, turn down the heat a bit. Cool the cookies completely on a rack before filling.

Jalapeno tequila buttercream
1 stick butter
3 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons tequila
pinch salt
2 small jalapenos (deseed if you want, or deseed and add some cayenne later to titrate the heat more precisely), finely minced
optional: 1/4 tsp cayenne
optional: food coloring of some sort

Cut the butter into chunks. You will want it room temperature, but not totally soft, when it's time to assemble the buttercream; let it sit out accordingly.

Whip the egg yolks and salt in a stand mixer until thick and pale. In a small saucepan, mix the sugar, tequila, and jalapeno. Boil until it reaches the soft ball stage, then remove from heat. With the stand mixer on a low setting, slowly and gently pour the hot syrup down the inside of the bowl. When all the syrup is in, turn the stand mixer to high and beat until the mixture reaches room temperature. At that point, start adding your butter about 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing well between each addition. When the butter is completely incorporated, whip on medium-high speed until the buttercream is thick and silky.

Protip: if it breaks/curdles, microwave a small amount until it's melted, but not hot or boiled. Whip this into the remainder of the buttercream at high speed to reconstitute the frosting.

All the Single Ladies

My helpmeet is away at his annual conference. I'm busy living the no-stop New York single life, which so far entails:

1. Having to do my own dishes. It's so good to come home from work to find a nice, clean kitchen. Now if I want that, I have to do it myself. Dammit, Andy, get back here and do some chores!

2. Chasing flies around the room with a bottle of Clorox GreenWorks (tee em) cleaning spray. A few flies got in the house and are buzzing around making me feel desperately unclean. I read online that a sprayed solution of dish soap kills them just as well as any nasty bug spray and figured I'd just try what I happened to have on hand. It's pretty effective... when I can hit them.

3. Eating ramen. I read something by David Chang about how his childhood snack consisted of Top Ramen with an egg, butter, and seaweed in it. I added an egg, seaweed, and the tiniest curl of butter, plus some chard, scallions, roasted carrots, and sesame seeds. Serves a particularly gluttonous one. It's heavenly.

Thrilling, right?

Year of Hell

Incidentally my favorite of Star Trek: Voyager's "there has been a time accident and now these events never happened" episodes.

I was prepared to really hate intern year. One month later, I'm kind of really enjoying myself. There were definitely some low points*, but I feel like I did an okay job and met some interesting patients. I'm now back at Bellevue for a much less time-intensive two weeks on a palliative care elective after a benchmark weekend. I finished my rotation, hit a deadlift PR**, and cooked something fancy to boot.

[pictures of gorgeous fresh produce pending Andy's return with my laptop from his annual Big Science Meeting]

Mussels were only three dollars a pound at the Greekmarket, which means that I could get two pounds and still have large amounts of cash left to blow on fresh vegetables*** for these mussels in Thai broth. I used sweet corn kernels and husks in the base, flavored with ginger, garlic, fish sauce, Sriracha, and lemongrass. There's a bit of coconut milk in there to finish it off.

There is a fresh Thai basil and corn salad at the bottom, then a bunch of vegetables, then the broth, then the mussels, which I steamed over a bit of the broth with some added charred husks for smoky flavor (and then discarded that portion of the broth, obviously). The bread I brushed with a lime compound butter, then grilled on my George Foreman.

Lamingtons are an Australian dessert traditionally composed of cubes of cake coated in chocolate or jam and rolled in shredded coconut. My version used a shiso cake dipped in a hard lime glaze before being rolled in sugar, with a homemade plum sauce (not the Chinese kind, the farmers market-plums-and-star-anise-and-honey kind) and Szechuan pepper custard sauce. The presentation was not what I envisioned, sadly, but that custard was beyond fantastic.

*Point one: I gained four pounds. Dammit, Kirsch, have some control.
**I'm a little proud. Plus, it'll hopefully help me rectify Point one.
***$6 of greens, $6 of herbs, plus purple carrots, heirloom tomatoes, plums, summer squash, eggplant, corn, shiitakes, and more! I may have overcelebrated my first Saturday off in a month.

By its cover

Chioggia beets are unremarkable on the outside, but slice them open...

Gorgeous, right? Looks even better raw, but I forgot to take pictures (just have a Google!).

This is sliced roasted Chioggia beets and baby zucchini and summer squash with sorrel pasta, crispy sorrel and kale "fries," and a walnut Parmesan tuile over an incredibly silky Northern bean puree.

That dish actually happened two weeks ago. This is what happened on Monday:

God, these pictures are worse than usual!

On my last day off (before today, during which I mostly slept), I took Andy to Teardrop Park. It's my favorite park in Manhattan, in small part because it's conveniently close to the Tribeca Whole Foods (cheap lunch and fun games of How Many Obnoxious Brands Can You Spot On One WUCer!) and in large part because it's gorgeous. We gorged ourselves on salad and fruit* with an ice-packed fresh whole mackerel beside us. Unlike the quart of strawberries, half-pound of cherries, and whole watermelon, it lasted until the next day for me to cook up.

Underneath it is a dollop of paprika aioli with roasted potatoes, pan-seared shallots, and pan-roasted asparagus. There's a relishy type thing with tomato, mixed olives (including these green Castelvetrano olives that I'm a little obsessed with), red wine vinegar, cayenne, and lemon zest. Mackerel is an oily fish; while it takes well to fatty preparations like a rillette, or being smoked in cream sauce, I vastly prefer it with something vinegary. If I had time, I'd have done an escabeche using the relish and its curing liquid, but the dish was thrown together between 8 and 8:45 p.m. after I got home from long call. It shows in the presentation... Either way, that relish may be one of the best things I've ever made.

Other than a few quick curries, it's mostly been eggs and vast amounts of kale. Maybe at the end of this week I'll do something nice, and blog about it in a timely manner!

*[rips open watermelon using flimsy plastic knife and bare hands**]
That... may have been the most feral thing I've ever seen.

**This is why I lift.

Underwhelming

Huh. I'm actually... kind of really enjoying myself. That's almost a letdown after all the stress. I mean, I have definitely made some mistakes and harbor some embarrassing inefficiencies, but overall... yeah. I could get used to this.

The "sleep, cook, exercise: pick two" deal is a teeny drawback. I've gone with options A and C for the last couple days, opting for beans 'n' greens tonight and an entire head of kale with a can of tuna and half a pint of blueberries last night. Yeah. You read that right. I'm not ashamed. I'm also developing an addiction to almond milk. I steeled myself to finish off the container I bought for the protein bar recipe, anticipating the weird taste of sweatsocks traditionally associated with this kind of fare. Turns out that first of all, I'm eating enough protein bars for breakfast and lunch that the remaining almond milk will come in handy, and second of all, almond milk with blueberries is fantastic. So is almond milk in chai tea.

Final countdown

T minus eighteen hours until my first day as a doctor--specifically, as an intern, the juniormost workhorse of all hospital workhorses. I've got a few goals for this year, other than that whole "do no harm" bit. The most serious is to improve the sense of clinical intuition that all great attendings seem to have in spades. I remember the first time I (accurately) had that sensation, and how rewarding it was: a very intelligent, well-spoken, healthy and spry elderly gentleman in the ER with a couple days of "gastroenteritis" who, despite his protestations that he just felt dehydrated from all the vomiting, didn't look quite right to me. I'll spare you the HIPAA violation, but in short, he ended up being admitted to the medicine floor and quickly escalated to the ICU for something much more significant and unusual than gastroenteritis. It was incredibly gratifying to be rewarded for pursuing more thorough investigations than the chief complaint warranted on the basis of a few physical exam findings and an odd sense of disquiet.

My least serious goal: stay physically fit. The long, meandering walks I've been taking can't continue--at least not at their current frequency--but I'm determined to resist the pull of takeout and free conference food and cafeteria snacks. To help myself along both physically and financially, I've come up with a recipe for protein bars that are neither disgusting nor candy bars in disguise.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has gone through the drugstore/grocery store/Bellevue gift shop ritual of painstakingly reading the nutrition facts of each brand of protein bar on offer, calculating protein:calorie, protein:sugar, and protein:dollar ratios. Most of them are... well, let's just say unsatisfactory, and some of the ones that aren't taste like chalk. The Bellevue gift shop has some good options, including MetRx and Protein Plus, (my personal favorite both for the taste and the absolutely fantastic ratios). But even buying Protein Plus bars in bulk, which we did to bring to Iceland, gets a little pricey. The date bars I've used in the past for on-the-wards snacking are more expensive, more messy, more time-consuming, and more carbohydratey than these puppies... I'm a convert.

WolframAlpha has a nifty function that, given ingredient inputs, will output a thorough nutrition profile of the total. These have, minus the optional chopped nuts and dried fruit but including the optional oats, about 206 calories, 20 g protein, 14 g carbs, and 10 g fat per serving. Of course, most of the 6 g of sugar comes from the chocolate chips, and most of the fat from the nut butter; if you wanted to be really crazy, you could reduce or omit those ingredients, but of course, those are the tastiest elements!

Extra-chocolatey protein bars

30 g (1/4 to 1/3 c) raw almonds
optional: 20 g (1/4 c) oats
30 g (1/4 c) cocoa powder
1/4 c semi- or bittersweet chocolate chips (can up to 1/3 if you like a sweeter bar)
3 tablespoons nut butter (preferably not the processed, sweetened type)
3/4 c vanilla protein powder
1/2 c chocolate protein powder
nondairy milk
optional: assorted chopped nuts and dried fruit

In a food processor or blender, grind the almonds and oats, if using, until they are mostly the texture of coarse sand; you don't want it to be completely ground just yet. Add in the cocoa and chocolate chips and pulse until blended together. Dump into a bowl and add the protein powders and nut butter. Slowly add the nondairy milk, blending with a spatula, until the mixture becomes a thick, somewhat tacky dough. Line a square pan with parchment paper, with enough overhang to completely cover the pan when folded over. Sprinkle the chopped fruit/nuts on evenly, if using. Pat in the dough and fold the parchment over it. With your hands, pat and spread the dough until it completely fills the pan and covers the chopped fruit/nut layer. Freeze or refrigerate until firm, then cut into 8 pieces; I like to keep mine frozen so they stay cold until I'm ready to eat them at work.

Leftovers

Way to forget to post this for several days, Hannah.

It's generally easy to avoid owning single-purpose kitchen items when your kitchen is the size of most people's closets. You just have to think, "Will I be able to fit my hand in the drawer if I purchase this? No? Am I willing to throw something away in order to own it? No? Back on the shelf." (Exceptions: I do own a mandoline, to make up for my amateur knife skills, and a KitchenAid pasta attachment, because fresh pasta needs no excuses.)

Much more difficult is avoiding single-purpose ingredients. You know what I mean: those extracts and vinegars and cheeses that one and only one recipe requires. Plenty of times I'll concoct a substitute or just move on to the next recipe--I'm looking at you, black vinegar--but sometimes I just have to have it. Thus the head of black garlic that's been languishing in my fridge for months. Thus my habit of allowing a couple stray ounces of goat cheese to go crusty, because who can finish a log of goat cheese that fast, anyway?

But no more! Time to use up a lot of black garlic!

This is black garlic cod with mushroom agnolotti, frizzled kale, and a celeriac and parsley puree.

Have a quick agnolotti tutorial:

Agnolotti can be folded-over squares or circles; I went for
squares, not in the least because it gave me an excuse to buy
a square cutter (for a dollar!) that will really help with biscuits.
The dough is an egg-enriched pasta rolled out to the second-
thickest setting on my KitchenAid.

Place a quarter-teaspoon of filling slightly off-center toward
one of the points. Trust me when I say that's enough filling.

And fold over, pressing around the daub of filling to get out
all the air. Seal with a little water if necessary.

I also did a black garlic chocolate budino with raspberry red wine coulis and a crunchy hazelnut biscuit (which was supposed to be a tuile, but I decided to try a new recipe that did not tuile at all). It was pretty transcendental... so transcendental that we gobbled it down before taking pictures. Ditto the pad see ew made two days ago, and the blueberry pie with the best filling I've ever done (red wine, leftover raspberry coulis, and allspice in the filling, as well as a bit of ground tapioca for texture; the tapioca or tapioca flour can be found in the bulk section of your local food coop or, likely, Whole Foods).

And I also made goat cheese gnocchi to use up the aforementioned goat cheese. No pictures; just recipe.

Goat cheese gnocchi

7 oz goat cheese, slightly cooler than room temp
3 egg yolks
125-150 g flour (1 cup ish, if you don't have a scale)
salt and pepper

Cream the goat cheese and egg yolks until thoroughly combined. Gradually add the flour until the dough is tacky but able to be handled; salt and pepper to taste. Do not overwork, or the gnocchi will be dense and tough. Chill for at least 30 minutes, 1 hour preferred.

There are a few techniques for creating the dumplings: rolling little snakes of dough and cutting off snippets, squirting them out of a pastry bag, or rolling them gently between your floured palms. I prefer the third option; I am unable to get fluffy gnocchi with the first technique for some reason, and I hate cleaning pastry bags. Do whichever you prefer. Roll the finished dumplings over a fork to get the classic ridged appearance.

Bring a pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Boil the gnocchi until they float, at which point they should be cooked through but tender to the tooth. Optionally, sear in a buttered pan before serving.