Tea cakes and sheet bakes

Welcome back to Five Things I Ate!  If you’re new, check out past posts here, which contain Even More Carbs and Dairy™.

Black sesame tea cake

My apartment — but why not yours, too?

This unseeming yogurt cake recipe, which is so humble it does not even call itself a cake, is the secret weapon in my baking arsenal. It manages to produce a beautiful loaf with the texture of pound cake and a muffiny, crispy top with a minimal number of ingredients. The original recipe is lemon scented, but the black sesame version I made last weekend might be the best variation yet. Just substitute vanilla yogurt for lemon, omit the lemon juice, and swap out a quarter cup of the flour with ground black sesame seeds (buy this for cheap in Chinatown, because everywhere else it’ll cost you an arm and a leg). Make sure to cool completely before slicing — otherwise the cake will crumble — and serve with a hot cup of oolong tea.

Labaneh at 12 Chairs Café

342 Wythe Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11249

It was freezing cold in Brooklyn on Monday — the thermometer hovered around 10 degrees — but 12 Chairs Café seemed like it existed in another climate and time zone. The Israeli restaurant was bustling and warm, filled to the brim with friends and family crowded around small coffee tables and perched on barstools, as disco music blared from the speakers. The service wasn’t the greatest — we had to remind the waiter several times of our order — but it was also one of the few places open for brunch on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The shakshuka I ordered was good, as spicy tomatoes and eggs always are, but nothing special. It was the labaneh we ordered for the table that I enjoyed the most. Served sprinkled with ample amounts of za’atar and a hefty drizzle of grassy olive oil, it was perfect to dip warm pita bread in.

Chocolate mousse with salted caramel at St. Mazie

345 Grand St, Brooklyn, NY 11211

I am coming to the realization that I can no longer shit on Williamsburg in good faith, because I keep recommending places to eat there. But are relationships not a complex thing, full of contradictions?  St. Mazie, bar and restaurant in, yes, Williamsburg, is one of my favorite places for girls’ night out. There’s almost always live music, a great happy hour champagne and oyster deal, and, my friend claims, a cute bartender (who happens to be missing whenever we go). Last weekend, I decided on a whim to order dessert with my half-priced wine — which made me wonder why I didn’t always order dessert during happy hour. The chocolate mousse with salted caramel checks all the chocolate mousse boxes: It is served in a cute champagne glass, it’s extremely chocolatey and silky, it has plenty of whipped cream, and even better, a drizzle of salted caramel.

Vegan kale, cashew and basil pesto from Trader Joe’s

Your local Trader Joe’s

This newsletter is — and always will be — a safe space for ingredients and diets of all kinds. That being said, I have come to the gradual realization that my body isn’t the biggest fan of dairy products. Actually, it’s a realization that I came across many years ago, and then again with every subsequent slice of pizza I ate, and maybe the mousse and labneh above, but have refused to accept. With renewed gusto for the new year, I’ve been focusing on what I can eat rather than what I can’t (in general I prefer this positive mindset over the negativity of dieting), hunting for non-dairy pantry essentials. Although I was initially skeptical when my friend tipped me off on this vegan pesto, that skepticism completely dissolved when I mixed some into warm gnocchi for lunch. The vegan, kale, cashew and basil pesto is every bit as basil-y and nutty as standard pesto, if not more. You don’t miss the Parmesan at all.

P.S.: If any of you lovely readers have a good recipe for vegan pesto — the ingredients on the label seem pretty straightforward! — please send it along my way. You can reply to this email directly.

Sheet pan spicy-smoky chicken and mushrooms

Coming soon to your kitchen

Do you ever stumble across a recipe that looks so good, you immediately go to the grocery store to buy all the ingredients? That’s how I felt about this post for sheet pan chicken and mushrooms. I then proceeded to completely ignore the recipe and invent my own seasonings and steps at dinner time, because I am nothing if not predictable. I was pretty pleased with the output, so I don’t feel too guilty about throwing the recipe aside. The secret is putting fish sauce on your ‘shrooms to make them extra umami. My notes: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Coat a pack of chicken drumsticks in ample amounts of olive oi, pepper, garlic, smoked paprika, chipotle powder and two dashes of fish sauce (!!!). Spread onto a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, toss a pack of sliced baby bella mushrooms and a pack of sliced shiitake mushrooms in the same seasonings. Add to the pan with the chicken, and bake an additional 20-30 minutes. Serve immediately while the chicken skin is still crispy and the mushrooms are deliciously smoky.

As always, if you liked this week’s letter — forward it to a friend or share it on your feed. Now go forth and make sheet dinners!

Soph