We are well into January now, and all of those New Year's resolutions to subsist on green smoothies and sorghum grain bowls may be looking more aspirational then realistic at this point. Enter Beef Stroganoff, a rich and sumptuous cold weather hit packed with umami meatiness, the tang of sour cream, and the piquant brightness of white wine and mustard. Beef Stroganoff is the perfect old-school counter to the self-flagellation that too often accompanies the new year, and beats the joy out eating. This New Year resolve to eat food you love!

In Pittsburgh we are beginning to see the first glimpses of spring. As I write, rain and fog are rolling over the city -- an oddly welcome change after months of snow and ice. With Saint Patrick's Day festivities this weekend, we thought it appropriate to celebrate the coming end to winter with our streamlined take on the rich and unctuous Flemish Beer Braised Beef & Onions, Carbonnade de Boeuf. This dish uses beer for 100% of the braising liquid, so pick one you really like. I used my homebrewed brown ale, which has a rich toastiness and mild bitterness. Be careful using a bitter or hoppy beer, since the cooking will concentrate these flavors considerably. While this dish takes some planning ahead (around 4 hours start to finish), it is straightforward to make and works every time. Your house will be filled with the enticing aromas of caramelized onions, braising meat, and simmering beer. 

A few years ago we traveled to India. India is the place where Paul’s brother and sister-in-law met, and where Paul’s brother lived and worked for a number of years. It is a vibrant country with a huge diversity of cuisine. We learned early on in our travels, how hard it is to recreate dishes in our home kitchen without some hands-on experience of the regional cooking techniques and ingredients. Having struggled to master Indian cooking at home, we signed up for a cooking class in each region we visited, and Goan Vindaloo was at the top of our list. 

Pork Vindaloo is a spicy, garlic and vinegar seasoned pork dish that comes from the South Indian state of Goa, known for its unique blend of Portuguese and Indian cuisine. Vindaloo’ s name comes from the Portuguese words ‘vinho,’ wine (vinegar) and ‘alhos,’ garlic. Introduced to Goa by Portuguese colonists, Vindaloo evolved with the addition of Indian spices and seasonings. Vindaloo is a uniquely pungent stew with a strong punch of garlic, vinegar and mustard, mellowed by rich coconut milk. Madhur Jaffey, an award winning Indian cooking authority, is a wonderful resource if you are looking to make Indian food at home, and our recipe for Pork Vindaloo follows in her style of simplified Indian cooking.

I find that I often prefer the idea of retro foods much more than the actual foods themselves. This vintage salad is a mustardy crisp exception. Celery Root Remoulade is a traditional raw bistro salad, well loved in French cuisine. Just leave it to the French to transform a hairy, knobby, alien-like root vegetable into a delicate salad. If you've never cooked with celery root before, don’t let external appearances fool you, while this root crop may look like a deformed, sprouted potato, celery root adds a nutty, nuanced celery-like flavor to raw, salads, soups and is fantastic in mashed in potatoes. We serve Celery Root Remoulade as a pungent fall coleslaw and find it pairs particularly well with meat and seafood dishes. 

In these chilly first days of spring, Red Cabbage Slaw bridges the divide between the hearty stewed dishes of winter and the fresh colors of spring.  Red cabbage is the perfect cross-over vegetable for this task, with its' sturdy wholesomeness standing up beautifully to a winter filled with pickling, braising and roasting.  Red cabbage effortlessly adapts to its new role, partnering with picnics and barbecues in this savory slaw.