Now for some fast food (and an award!)

A few weeks ago I was singing the joys of slow food, the kind of lazy weekend cooking most of us like to do now and then. But equally satisfying is a speedy weeknight dinner, like sesame-drizzled sockeye salmon with stir-fried vegetables.

This isn't much of a recipe; I wasn't even going to post about it. Sometimes I'm not sure what makes a dish blogworthy. Most of the food I make is fairly pedestrian, occasionally dressed up for the sake of a photo, but originally conceived of and ultimately executed with the sole purpose of being something delicious to eat.

Anyway, this one turned out pretty good-looking, so I thought I would post it. I roasted the salmon first on the stove and then in the oven, and stir-fried bok choy with carrots, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, and Chinese rice wine. When everything was done, I drizzled sesame oil over the fish. A quick, satisfying dinner.

In other news, I am thrilled and honored to accept the Honest Scrap Award from Kate at Serendipity. Thanks, Kate!

If you haven't checked out Kate's blog, you are missing out. Not only is Kate a wonderful cook, writer, and photographer, but she has a life most of us only dream about. She's an American living with her husband in Belgium, and her blog details her incredible experiences living, cooking, and eating abroad. I highly recommend you add Serendipity to your daily reading list.

In addition to the nifty badge, the award comes with a few instructions.

1) Post the award on your blog and present the award to seven others whose blogs you find brilliant in content or design, or those who have encouraged you.

2) Tell those seven people they've been awarded HONEST SCRAP, inform them of the guidelines, and ask that they link back to you.

3) Share 10 honest things about yourself.

I'd like to first pass the award to some fellow bloggers who early on encouraged me. There are several other loyal bloggers who I would happily pass the award to but I think they've already received it.

Food Gal. Food Gal is in entirely different territory from The Hungry Dog: she actually makes her living through her blog. And, she's probably already received this award about 100 times. But, I wanted to mention her, because I really enjoy and admire her blog and she has always been kind about reading my blog and posting comments.

egg to the apples. Mark encouraged me from the beginning, and was the first to link me from his site! That was very exciting. And, if you haven't checked out his blog, which is a cool mix of recipes, music lyrics, and gorgeous photography, you should.

Test with Skewer. Shaz's blog documents her ambitious cooking and baking experiments in Australia, which range from Malaysian Mondays to Eating our Way Through the Alphabet. She has boundless creativity and energy and has always been an avid commenter at The Hungry Dog.

For all around coolness, I'd like to give the award to:

wasabi prime. She's very funny and has a great approach to food. Plus, she loves dogs. I suspect we'd be fast friends if we met in person.

The last three are blogs I've recently discovered that I really like, for both the design and writing.

The Kitchen Sink

East Village Kitchen

The Cookbook Apprentice

And finally, for my 10 honest things.

1) I love Los Angeles. If you live in San Francisco, you're supposed to hate it, but I don't. I went to college in L.A. and in the years since I graduated, I have always had a little longing to move back. The husband is entirely on board with this. So, one day The Hungry Dog might be coming at you from sunny Los Angeles.

2) I used to think blogging was stupid. It seemed like a very self-indulgent thing to do, and one which I mocked freely until I took the time to actually read some blogs. I was surprised to discover that among the dross, there is some incredible writing out there. I still kind of hate the word "blog" but have resigned myself to it.

3) When I go to work, I feel like I am in a little play. Every day I put on my work costume and go to the set and exchange lines with my fellow actors. Don't get me wrong: I like my job fine, and I like my coworkers quite a bit. But, the Hungry Dog that goes to work is not the real Hungry Dog.

4) I am a terrible movie watcher. I often space out and miss some small but critical detail and then am completely lost. Also, I frequently fall asleep. I cannot tell you how many movies I have been informed by the husband that I have already "seen."

5)  I have a fantasy of moving to the north shore of Kauai and opening a little bakery. Because it's a fantasy, I don't have to worry about all of the reasons why this would be a difficult and probably foolish endeavor.

6) The most comforting smells to me are brewing coffee and steaming rice.

7) Four years ago I had the chance to help out the pastry chef at A16 for a few weeks, while I considered pastry school. The experience, though fun, convinced  me I am not cut out for the restaurant world.

8)  I've hardly traveled and feel it is a hole in my life that I want to begin filling in 2010.

9) I'm constantly learning how to be a strong, kind, optimistic, and forgiving person from my dog. She has comforted me in times of grief; made friends out of strangers; forgiven us for leaving her in strange places; and survived shots, baths, surgeries, and chemotherapy with  her cheery disposition intact. In addition to loving her absolutely, I admire her.

10) In spite of my food snobbery and everything I have ever written on this blog, I really like In-N-Out burgers.

Perfect apple almond crisp

When the weather is cold and you've had a hell of a week, it's a good idea to make an apple crisp.

On friday, I arrived home after a very long week of work, feeling the need to make something simple and soothing. Our produce basket was overflowing with apples, so I started to think about an upside down apple cake. Mark Bittman recently ran a recipe in the Times for a maple pear upside down cake, and it's been on my list to make, swapped out with apples. But the husband really loves apple crisp, and since he'd had a rough week too, that's what I settled on.

I always use the apple crisp recipe from Baking Illustrated and I cannot imagine finding a better one. I'm not sure what makes it so good--if it's the ratio of butter to flour, or the fact that you chill the topping before you sprinkle it over the apples and bake it. Whatever the reason, this recipe is a real winner.

Usually I use walnuts, but as I had no walnuts and plenty of almonds, the almond apple crisp was born. Then, in rummaging around for the cinnamon and nutmeg, I also discovered a little bottle of almond extract I had forgotten about. A splash seemed like it would provide a lovely perfume to the whole dessert.

The crisp turned out exactly as I hoped. The apples were soft but not mushy, and full of warmth from the spices and extract. The almonds made the topping much crunchier than it usually turned out with walnuts--and, we decided, much better. We ate it with vanilla ice cream, which I consider mandatory with fruit desserts. No matter how great a crisp, crumble, or pie is, it's guaranteed to be better with ice cream. Actually, that goes for most things.

If you do not own the Baking Illustrated cookbook, I highly recommend it. It's a cookbook for the very nerdy, containing only a handful of glossy photos and long paragraphs of explanation preceding most recipes. The writers make clear the reasoning behind all of their measurements and directions. While I don't read every word, I do read quite a bit of it, and I appreciate the great care that went into the creation of each recipe. And to date, I have yet to make recipe from the book that hasn't worked out perfectly.

But back to the crisp at hand, or at fork...

The smell of apples baking with cinnamon and nutmeg is irresistible on its own, but if you add almonds, it might just send you over the moon. The crisp was sweet, crunchy, and full of appley goodness--exactly what we needed to smooth the edges of a rough week.

Chicken and grits

When you marry a southern boy, you find yourself introduced to all kinds of new foods.

A lot of them are sweets: Derby pie, chess pie, jam cake, buckeyes, and bourbon balls. Derby pie is a chocolate and nut candy bar in a crust. Chess pie is a gooey, brown sugar pie. Jam cake was a surprise and a revelation to me, and writing this is a reminder to me that I've always meant to make it myself. The husband's dear mother hand-wrote the recipe for me years ago and I've failed to make it yet. You might picture some kind of a layer or swirl cake, a plain-ish cake cut through with jam. Well, you'd be wrong. Jam cake is more like a spice cake with raspberry or blackberry jam stirred into the batter, giving it a pinkish hue. Then it's frosted with caramel icing.

Buckeyes are balls of peanut butter, sugar, and butter half-rolled in chocolate to look like buckeyes. Bourbon balls seem self-explanatory.

I like some of these treats, particularly the jam cake, but the southern things I've come to like best are savory, like grits.

I make grits all the time. They're quicker than polenta and go with everything. When I feel decadent, I make them with a little cream and some grated cheese: are there two more beautiful words than cheesy grits? When I feel disciplined, I make them with water or chicken broth and a little milk.

I made grits the other night to go alongside our weekly roast chicken and some kale sauteed with bacon and garlic. Now, if I were really keeping it southern, the chicken would have been fried, there would have been some cream gravy drizzled on top, and the kale would have been cooked into a grey oblivion. That's one thing I can't get behind with southern food--the need to turn all vegetables brown or grey with overcooking. I'll take my veggies green, thank you.

I like to think of this as a hybrid dinner, a little California and a little Kentucky, wrapped into one delicious package.