Hey, you guys! Long time no see, and this is totally my bad. I've been drowning at work (and subsequently drowning in chardonnay at home) which leaves little time for taking Food Pictures or writing Blog Posts About Food. But I'm back and want to catch you up on some food I definitely cooked this fall but haven't actually recapped until now. Let's do this!

Like all White Girls Of Privilege, I overuse "literally". But bear with me -- I was inspired to make this dinner literally in August. J and I sadly had to attend a wake on a Friday afternoon and headed to a very early happy hour afterwards. We headed to one of our favorite Upper East Side places, T-Bar. It's a steakhouse on 73rd and Third, has a great bar, and a rollicking elderly Early Bird crowd.... with whom we dined the night in question.

We sat at the bar, ordered some drinks, and chose their Vietnamese Shrimp Roll to nosh upon. It was cool and crunchy and the dipping sauce was salty, rich, and absolutely to die for. By the time we finished the app and our drinks, we had decided to snag a table for dinner - it was probably ten minutes to 6 pm. Glorious!

The biggest inspiration from our impromptu night out? The rosemary olive French bread. Their bread basket has a broad selection of carbs, but the olives in focaccia directly lead to that recipe. We each had filets, doused bite after bite in their immaculate au poivre sauce, and filled in the blanks with their sautéed corn and feta casserole.

Days later, I realized I wanted to re-create all of the deliciousness. The menu had two main parts and a side dish.

Part 1: Vietnamese Shrimp Roll 'salad'
- 1 lb cleaned, deveined, tail-on shrimp
- 2 medium carrots
- 1 medium cucumber
- fresh mint
- 1/2 box Annie Chun's maifun rice noodles (not a paid endorsement, they're just skinny and delicious!)

Hoisin lime Sauce:
- juice of one lime
- 2 T hoisin sauce
- 1 T rice wine vinegar
- 1/8 tsp Chinese five spice
- squeeze of sriracha
- 1/3 cup canola oil

First, I boiled some water and poached the shrimp for about 3 minutes, reserving them into a colander and squeezing off the tails. Then, I cooked the rice noodles in the shrimp poaching liquid (cooking with the tails on add a TON of flavor, FYI). Then, I shredded the carrots and cucumbers in my food processor. I mixed the hoisin lime sauce, chiffonaded the mint, and then tossed all of the ingredients together.

Part 2: Schezuan Peppercorn Steak Au Poivre
Inspired by our filets mignon with au poivre sauce, I took a cue from the Vietnamese salad and chose Schezuan peppercorns.

First, I generously coated the steak with the peppercorns. They're a little spicier than regular black peppercorns. Imagine the faintest red chili pepper flavor in the background of that big, bold, spicy black pepper flavor. It's so fabulous.

I seared the steaks in a skillet - it looks like tuna, right?? - and weighed them down with a cast iron pan on top to be sure that the peppercorns really baked in. Once seared, I transferred them to a baking dish to finish cooking in the oven.

For the 'au poivre' sauce:

1/3 cup beef stock
1 cup heavy creap
1 T Dijon mustard

I poured the beef stock into the same pan where I seared the steaks to soak up all of that delicious peppercorn flavor. I then melted the mustard and whisked in the heavy cream.

Woo! Are you still with me? I also re-made T-Bar's corn and feta side dish. I cut kernels off of a fresh ear of corn. I love this tip I've seen on TV -- put a tiny bowl in a big bowl, stand the ear of corn on the tiny bowl, and when you slice off the kernels, they fall into the big bowl. Easy peasy.

I heated the corn in oil, seasoned with a pinch of salt and a few twists of cracked black pepper, and mixed with about 1/4 cup of crumbled feta cheese. Sweet and tangy perfection.

I will say this -- there are few things on this planet that I love more than dining out at a fancy Manhattan steak house. There is nothing like it. That said, this 'knock off' meal was a hit! For a Saturday night at home, each piece of this was so sublime and tasty. The steak? Perfectly cooked with that super spicy peppery flavor. Full disclosure: the whole peppercorns will probably break your teeth out of your jaw, which I learned after my first bite, so I ended up scraping most of them off and relying on the mustard cream sauce. But the searing process sealed in so much of the peppery flavor so taking off that rock solid crunch was a good thing! The Vietnamese shrimp noodle salad? Holy cow. There were a lot of leftovers of this that I brought to work for lunch. It is perfect served room temperature. The soft, tender noodles paired perfectly with the nice bite of shrimp, and the spiciness of the sauce mixed beautifully with the sweet carrots and cucumbers. Oh, and corn + feta is math I can do. The whole meal was a home run!

Corn Radish Salad + Onion Meatloaf

As I've heard from plenty of you before, sometimes the hardest part of figuring out dinner is what to cook on the side. Wandering the Greenmarket on a lunch break a few weeks ago, Side Dish Inspiration struck when I saw a massive bunch of radishes next to a heaping pile of fresh sweet corn. I had to have them both.

At home that evening, I cut the kernels off of the two ears of corn and diced up the radishes pretty small. Since the corn was so fresh, I didn't even consider cooking it. It was so crunchy and sweet in it's lovely natural state and totally held it's own agains the tart spice of the radishes.

I then set out to dress up these pink and yellow beauties. I had on hand a jalapeño, a bunch of cilantro, a lime, and the other half of a radicchio head. I added them all (just the juice of the lime) to a blender, added some oil, salt and pepper, and gave it a whir.

I also found a way to use up the other onion soup packet - meatloaf! I dumped the mix into a pound of ground turkey, added an egg and some breadcrumbs, mixed, and baked until cooked through.

I tossed the corn and radishes with the dressing... which ended up way more brown than green, thanks to the radicchio. Looks gross, tasted fresh and spicy and herbal. Promise.

All in all, this was a home run weeknight dinner - quick to put together and really delicious. Sweet and crunchy salad punched up with a zingy dressing paired with a juicy and onion-rich turkey meatloaf. I lucked out finding such perfect fresh corn and hope I can score some more before the season truly ends!

Pad Thai Quinoa

Since starting my new job at the end of August, I have been religious about bringing lunches to work. It continues to astound me at how much money I'm saving just with an hour or so of prep work on Sunday afternoon. In NYC, a standard lunch could run you $10 - $12 for a chopped salad, or a hearty sandwich, or even a soup combo with either. Take out? Possibly even more. Do that five days a week, four weeks a month, and that's $200 minimum on lunches!

One of my favorite big batch, make ahead, bring to work meals are quinoa bowls. You add in whatever protein and vegetables you want and portion it out across multiple days. The first actual recipe-based one I tried - and LOVED - was Iowa Girl Eats' Thai peanut pad thai bowls.

You'll need:

1 cup quinoa, well rinsed in cool water
1 3/4 cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 teaspoons peanut oil
6 oz chicken breast, thinly sliced
1 cup coleslaw mix
1/2 cup frozen shelled edamame
2 green onions (scallions), chopped
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1/2 cup salted peanuts, chopped

To stretch my dollars even more, I used veggies I already had in my fridge or freezer. Instead of edamame, I used frozen corn and frozen peas and swapped the coleslaw mix with 1/2 a carrot and 1/2 a radicchio head, both shredded.

For the Pad Thai sauce, you'll need:
1/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 tablespoons water
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon peanut butter
2 teaspoons chili garlic sauce (I used harissa since it was in the fridge!)

You start off cooking the quinoa. Bring the stock to a boil, add the quinoa, lower the heat and simmer with the lid on until the liquid is absorbed. I also seasoned the broth with some Chinese five spice to add another layer of flavor - unnecessary, but I'd totally recommend. Just like All The Real Chefs tell you to salt your pasta water, I've started seasoning my quinoa water. Game changer, just saying.

For the sauce, combine all ingredients in a bowl, whisk, and zap in the microwave for about 20 seconds. Whisk again and set aside. Whisk your egg with some sesame oil and keep aside, too.

Once all of your stir fry ingredients are prepped, heat oil in your pan (I used olive instead of peanut, sue me) and cook the chicken. Once no longer pink, remove from the pan and set aside. Into the same pan, add all of your vegetables and stir fry until tender. Once they've started to soften, push everything to the outside, dump in your whisked egg and scramble it.

Add the chicken back in, the quinoa, the peanut sauce, and the peanuts. Mix until everything is coated and do your best not to immediately start scooping spoonfuls into your watering mouth.

I mean.... dang these are good. All in, this takes about 30 minutes start to finish, including prep. In those 30 minutes, I made lunch for an entire week. Once the final mixture cooled a bit, I portioned it out in to Tupperwares and stacked them in the fridge.

This has your protein from the chicken and quinoa, some sweetness from the vegetables, some heat from the peanut sauce (and a squirt of sriracha - I'm That Girl who keeps a hidden bottle at her desk!), and some crunch from the peanuts. I can't get enough of it!