Barley Salad with Green Olives, Walnuts, and Raisins

The latest installment of my Weekday Lunch series, making midday meals the best part of your work week.

This time of year, our house is mostly a calm shade of grey. The scarce daylight hours feel like borrowed time, where after lazing around for a few two many minutes, I suddenly freak out that the sun is half gone, and drag my sluggish, slippered feet into the kitchen to bask in what little brightness is left before dusk. Hey there, January. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

As winter has tightened its hold, I've taken comfort in the various components of meals I've stowed away in our freezer. There are bags of cooked barley and brown rice, blanched green beans, and even kabocha squash braised in coconut milk. There is plenty of stock -- some poultry, leftover from Thanksgiving, and some vegetable, made from my carrot peelings and celery and leek scraps. These bits find their way into dinners and lunches: the stock becomes soup, the rice gets tucked under my new favorite aloo muttar (recipe soon!), and that kabocha -- I ate it alone, because it was perfect.

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Just before we left for Berlin, I took half a bag of the frozen barley and made this lovely salad that Heidi shared in the December issue of Food and Wine. Yes, I'm talking about salad. In January. Pick that jaw up off the floor.

Barley salad mise

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In my neck of the woods, non-kale greens are many months away. If a girl is gonna eat salad in January, she needs some variety. That's why I took a page from Heidi's playbook: Heidi is the queen of "grain bowl"-type dishes that combine all sorts of grains with whatever vegetables, nuts, seeds, and fruit are in season. I've been inspired by many of her concoctions, and this one is no exception. It's the sort of salad that flexes to meet the needs of your pantry and the occasion. You could double the barley and have a nicely-flavored grain side dish, or increase the amounts of the other ingredients to make it heavier on the fresh stuff. If I were doing that, I might add some diced celery, which would fit right in.

On substitutions: Heidi calls for farro, which I love, but man, is it expensive. I use it from time to time, but barley is a more economical choice. She also calls for Pecorino cheese. I rarely have it in the house, but I always, always have Parmesan. As tempted as I was to swap, I didn't, and I'd recommend you don't either. The Pecorino brings a clean, bright saltiness to this salad - one that doesn't overpower the olives and goes so well with the walnuts. Stick to Heidi's guidance on that one; she won't steer you wrong. Ditto on the Castelvetrano olives. Castelvetranos are juicier and fruitier than other olives, and much less salty and briny than the ones with pimento tucked inside, for example. They sound exotic, but they're actually quite easy to find: they're the big forest-green ones with taut skin. You can find them (pitted and ready to go!) at the Whole Foods olive bar, and TJ's also carries jars of them on occasion. Go forth.

Make it vegan: This salad becomes vegan in a snap. Skip the pecorino, add an extra quarter-cup or so of olives, boom.

it's a beaut

Barley Salad with Green Olives, Walnuts, and RaisinsAdapted from Heidi Swanson's recipe in Food and Wine

1 1/4 cups farro or barley (1/2 pound) Fine sea salt 1 cup walnuts (3 1/2 ounces) 2 1/2 cups pitted Castelvetrano or other green olives, chopped (11 ounces) 4 scallions, white and light green parts only, finely chopped 1/3 cup minced chives 2 tablespoons golden raisins 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice 1 tablespoon honey Shaved Pecorino cheese, for serving

Combine the farro or barley with 4 cups of water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil and simmer, partially covered, until the grain is tender, about 20 minutes for farro and 45 minutes for barley. Drain, and spread it on a baking sheet to cool.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spread the walnuts on an unlined rimmed baking sheet, and toast for 7-9 minutes, until very fragrant. Let cool, then chop coarsely.

In a large bowl, combine the farro, walnuts, olives, scallions, chives, raisins, crushed red pepper, olive oil, lemon juice and honey and season with salt. Toss well. Transfer the salad to a platter or serving bowl, garnish with the cheese, and serve.

Heidi says the salad can be refrigerated overnight - just bring it back to room temperature, and add the cheese just before serving.

Blueberry Oat Muffins

A couple weeks ago, before our (glorious!) trip to Berlin, I got a group email from a cook friend asking if anyone had a favorite recipe for blueberry muffins. We all wrote back with our favorites, and a few themes emerged: good blueberry muffins need the tang of sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk. They need a good amount of sugar (sorry, I know I'm breaking the cardinal rule of healthy January blogging, but it's true). A crumb topping can be polarizing: some swear by it, while others (cough) think the craggy, sturdy top of a blueberry muffin is delicious as is and best unadulterated. (Though, before you peg me with hard, pale, winter tomatoes, let me say that I'm still very much on team crumb-topping for everything else. Coffee cake is best when the ratio of cake to crumb makes you furrow your brow and ask whether the thing can honestly be called a cake.)

To this inquiring friend, I sent along my all-time favorite Cooks Illustrated recipe. Another friend swore by Ina Garten's formula. And then, even though there wasn't enough flour in the tub, and only three of us were eating breakfast, I yanked a ziploc of blueberries out of the freezer (yes, I freeze summer blubes in portions perfect for blueberry muffins, everyone does that right?) and whipped up a batch of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, substitutions-galore blueberry muffins, 12 for the three of us. And guys? They were perfect.

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I know this is the umpteenth oat recipe I've posted recently. And yes, I know, you all have blueberry muffin recipes you love and swear by, you don't need others. I still love the CI originals, and I'd still recommend them to anyone in search of a keeper. But these, with their oat flour and a tiny bit of almond flour, were perfect in a Kim Boyce, Good-to-the-Grain kind of way. They tasted toasty and nutty; as my brother said, they tasted like they were loaded with brown sugar (nope).

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Now they're here, which means they're in the permanent collection. I hope you'll make and love them as much as we did.

Back from Berlin! I know it's been quiet around here for the last couple of weeks, but boy, did our vacation do me good. I can't wait to share all the delicious little nuggets of our trip with you. There's so much deliciousness to share! Stay tuned.

One year ago: Monkey GingerbreadTwo years ago: Adobo Black Bean Soup Three years ago: Duck Confit Four years ago: Thai Cabbage Salad with Cashews and Chili-Coconut Dressing Five years ago: Sicilian Caponata Six years ago: Lawsuit Muffins with Mango

Oat and Almond Blueberry Muffinsheavily adapted from a basic Cooks Illustrated recipe

1 cup (4.5 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour 1/2 cup (1.75 oz.) oat flour 1/2 cup (1.75 oz.) almond meal 1 tablespoon baking powder 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 egg 7 ounces (1 cup) sugar 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled 10 ounces sour cream, yogurt, or buttermilk (whatever you have on hand, though I especially like buttermilk here) 1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat oven to 350. Line muffin tin with paper liners and grease with either butter or nonstick spray.

Whisk flours, almond meal, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. Whisk the egg in a second medium bowl until uniformly pale colored, about 20 seconds. Add the sugar and whisk vigorously until thick and homogeneous, about 30 seconds; add the melted butter in 2 or 3 additions, whisking to combine after each addition. Add the sour cream in 2 additions, whisking just to combine.

Add the berries to the dry ingredients and gently toss just to combine. Add the sour cream mixture and fold with a rubber spatula until the batter comes together and the berries are evenly distributed, 25 to 30 seconds.

Divide batter among greased/lined muffin cups. Bake until light golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes, rotating the pan front to back halfway through the baking time. Invert onto a wire rack and cool 5 minutes.

Bite-Sized Fig and Olive Cookies

Somewhat embarrassingly, D and I have a knack for "discovering" places that, quite definitively, have already been discovered. Take, for instance, our trip to Tuscany back in 2007. After roaming the streets of Florence for 45 minutes or so in search of a spot to sit and eat, we happened upon a dimly lit trattoria with a vegetarian pasta sampler on the menu that caught our eye. Five bite-sized courses and a bottle of house wine later, we were a bit slicked, a bit stuffed, and very happy. We ordered lots of dessert, ate it all, and promised ourselves we'd go back again before leaving. We went back the next night; we ate exactly the same thing. What a find! We fancied ourselves adventurers. Then, in 2010, a friend shared his plans to head to Tuscany and asked for recommendations. We couldn't heap enough praise on that little trattoria we'd found. It's so authentically Tuscan! I gushed. You can't find anything like it in the States. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught another friend of ours smirking. Have you been? I asked. Yep, he had. And he'd loved it so much that he'd invested in the chef, who had since opened outposts in San Francisco...and Washington DC. My little hole-in-the-wall was not only a global brand, it had a branch in my backyard. That'd be Acqua al 2, on Capitol Hill. Oops.

Then there was our first trip to Paris. Roaming around one Sunday morning, we stopped for brunch in an adorable little cafe. Over great bread, dips, spreads, and quantities of jam bordering on obscene, I marveled at our luck; we'd thought we were in a bit of a dead zone, food-wise, and I'd started to give up hope of my last breakfast in Paris being anything special. Then we found this place, and all was right with the world. Especially the spreads. I even bought a jar of their jam, and thought I might cry when the rather unsympathetic French airport official insisted that I leave it behind, since I'd forgotten to tuck it into my checked luggage. What would I do if I couldn't slather that jam on my morning toast back in America? Would I have to wait for my next trip to Paris to eat such a delicious breakfast? I was both smitten and sad. That is, until I discovered that this "local cafe" had exploded all over the world, including in my neighborhood (yet again), and made all its jams and spreads with all sorts of crap that isn't fruit or sugar. Yeah, it's Le Pain Quotidien. I'm a joke.

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Fortunately, on our second trip to Paris, I was more cautious. I did research. Armed with stacks of print-outs from Chowhound and David Lebovitz and Clotilde, I managed to avoid Paris's version of big-box stores (hello, Paul) and found spots with heirloom recipes, old-school methods, and one-of-a-kind offerings. We ate epoisses and even mimolette. I tasted every honey Maison du Miel sells. And of course, because we were tourists and we could, we made the great pilgrimage to Poilâne.

Poilâne is definitely the most famous boulangerie in Paris, and surely one of its best. If I lived in a city with an abundance of good bread (I'm thinking San Fran, New York, Paris; what others would you put on this list?), I'd find the best bakery in my neighborhood and that's where I'd buy bread. I can't imagine most Parisians schlep to rue du Cherche-Midi just to get a Poilâne loaf. But if I visit a city with an abundance of good bread, you better believe I'm going to find the best loaf, and schlep as far as I need to schlep to get it. In Paris, that place is Poilâne. That loaf is the miche, a plain sourdough with plenty of whole grain flour and baked in a wood-fired oven. Blessedly, they have no outposts in the US. Poilâne is as French as it gets, and though I wish I could eat Poilâne bread every day, it's satisfying that we spent some of our time in Paris eating things we can't eat back home.

Bread is what made Poilâne famous, but it isn't the only thing they sell. Off to the side, on a tall, skinny shelf, I found a small stack of boxes containing the other super-famous Poilâne product: Punitions,® or "punishment cookies," tiny sablé cookies with scalloped edges in slightly varying shades of pale tan. The cookies contain butter, sugar, flour, and egg. That's all. They are perfect: sturdy enough that they don't shatter when you bite into them, but still delicate and very buttery. Quite a punishment, indeed.

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Dorie Greenspan tracked down the recipe for the unassuming little cookies (of course she did), and I followed the recipe to a tee, for once. My cookies came out plain and perfect; very French. But we Americans are contradictions as beguiling as "punishment cookies:" we are Francophiles through and through, and yet, we insist on tinkering with perfectly simple French recipes. And so it was that I made one batch of plain cookies, then used the other half of the dough as a base for chopped dried figs and oil-cured black olives and a little orange zest.

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Hear me out on the olive thing: these aren't the wow-these-are-so-olive-y shortbread (which I love, by the way). In these little cookies, olive plays a supporting role. The fig and olive and orange (or lemon, if you prefer) give the cookies sweet and savory flavor, but you can't quite put your finger on any of the three. Try them, maybe.

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The platter on the center of our table has held a dwindling pile of these guys for the past several days. As of Tuesday, they were gone. It's going to be quiet around here for the next little while, as we take some desperately-needed time away. But don't worry: I'll be filling up that platter with plenty more deliciousness this new year. Stay tuned, friends.

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Bite-Sized Fig and Olive Cookiesbasic recipe adapted from Poilâne, via Dorie Greenspan

Makes about 50 cookies, fewer if you use a larger cutter (as I did for half of this batch)

Whereas typical sugar cookies are made using a mixer, these are made in a food processor, ensuring a smooth yet sandy texture.

If you decide to make these cookies the traditional way, without additions, reduce the cooking time to 8-10 minutes. The moisture in the olives and figs necessitates a longer bake.

1 1/4 sticks (5 ounces; 140 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature Slightly rounded 1/2 cup (125 grams) sugar 1 large egg, at room temperature 2 cups (280 grams) all-purpose flour 1/4 cup chopped oil-cured black olives (pitted, of course) 1/3 cup chopped dried figs 1 teaspoon orange or lemon zest

Put butter into the bowl of a food processor and process, scraping down the sides of the bowl on occasion, until butter is smooth. Add sugar and process again, scraping down the sides of the bowl, until butter and sugar are combined. Add egg and continue processing until mixture is smooth and satiny. Add the flour all at once, and pulse 10 times. Then add olive, fig, and zest, and pulse 5 more times, until dough forms clumps and crumbs.

Turn the dough out onto a work surface and gather it into a ball. Divide the ball in half, shape each half into a disk, and wrap the disks in plastic. If you can afford the time, chill dough completely, up to 4 hours. If you're in more of a hurry, chill the dough 1 hour before rolling. Dorie says you can roll them out immediately, but I found the dough too sticky to handle effectively. (The dough can be wrapped airtight and refrigerated for up to 4 days or frozen for up to 1 month.)

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Working with one disk at a time, roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface until it is between 1/8 and 1/4 inch (4 and 7 mm) thick. Using a 1 1/2 -inch (4-cm) round cookie cutter, cut out as many cookies as you can and place them on the lined sheets, leaving about 1 inch (2.5 cm) space between them. (You can gather the scraps into a disk and chill them, then roll, cut and bake them later.)

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until they are set but still pale. (If some of the cookies are thinner than others, the thin ones may brown around the edges. M. Poilane would approve. He'd tell you the spots of color here and there show they are made by hand. I've heard that le French foodies prefer the darker ones, and I do, too; they taste toasty and caramelized.) Transfer the cookies to cooling racks to cool to room temperature.

The cookies can be stored in a tin at room temperature for about 5 days or wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 1 month.

Chicken with Butternut Squash and Lime

A certain one of the two people who inhabit this apartment would like the other one of us to make chicken more often, where the certain one of us is not me, and more often is every day. Alas, we can't always get what we want, if we're not the ones who do the cooking.

But lucky for her, two of our friends had babies in last two weeks, and the holidays have had everyone out of the office, leaving me with loads of downtime and plenty of reasons to cook. So last week, I made a big, tasty mess in the kitchen. I mixed and rolled and baked and oops! ate too many of three batches of cookies, and I made enough mujaddara to feed a medium-sized army, and because the elf on the shelf was watching, I made a big pot of chicken with enough for our friends and D. The best part? It's chicken that smells and tastes like an involved weekend project but comes together like a quick weeknight dinner. Just in time for your New Year's resolution to cook more at home. We know each other well.

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I started with a recipe for butternut squash khoresh (stew) from Food of Life, a Persian cookbook whose recipes my Persian friends swear by. Tweak tweak, etc etc. I wound up with something simpler and less fussy: browned chicken, soft butternut squash, and plenty of tang from lime juice and a bit of julienned lime zest. If I hadn't been making it for families with young kids, I might have added some diced fresh red chile. Still, the dish works great as is.

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These drumsticks made great dinner one night. The second night, I took the meat off the last two drumsticks and tossed them with some rice and greens for dinner #2. The bones went straight into the freezer, waiting for the weekend to become stock - which I used to cook more of that butternut squash with a little coconut milk. That's stowed away in the freezer for a day not in January where the laziness has set in.

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I've never been big on New Years resolutions (which is good since it turns out, people rarely keep them). However, I do see this time of year as an opportunity to recommit myself to small but important things I value. For example, over the next few weeks, I'll be bringing Tamar Adler back into my kitchen. I love the way Adler cooks and prepares several basic components in advance, and combines them in different quantities and styles over the course of the week to make eating diversely and excitingly at home a stress-free proposition. If you missed her elegant, dare I say sexy? video on the topic from a couple years ago, it's worth a quick watch. That's my grand plan for Jan.

And then, because we all need a bit of inspiration and aspiration, I've refreshed my Kitchen Resolutions with a bit of a wish list for 2014. If you're up for crossing any of them off my list along with me, let me know. Maybe there's a group project lurking in there somewhere.

January: Let's do this thing, shall we?

More great January fare:

One year ago: Fasolakia, Greek-Braised Green Beans Two years ago: Mujadarra with Spiced Yogurt Three years ago: Mushroom-Pea Curry Four years ago: Crispy Kale Chips (remember when these were brand new?) Five years ago: White Beans with Caramelized Sweet Potatoes Six years ago: Whole Wheat Sables

Chicken with Butternut Squash and Limeinspired by a khoresh recipe from Food of Life serves 6

I made this in a big roasting pan and loved how easy it was to brown the chicken and cook off the stew all in one place, without having to brown the chicken in batches. That said, a heavy-bottomed pot or dutch oven would work well here, too, as long as you make sure to brown the chicken in batches to ensure caramelization.

2 1/2 lbs. drumsticks or other chicken pieces 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable oil (or substitute canola or olive) 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon tumeric 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 teaspoon pepper 1 red or yellow onion, halved and sliced juice of 3 limes (about 1/4 cup) zest of 1 lime 1 cup water 1 tablespoon brown sugar or honey 6 cups of cubed butternut or kabocha squash (about 1 1/3 lbs.)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Add oil to a roaster, a heavy-bottomed pot, or a dutch oven, and set over medium-high heat.

Combine cinnamon, tumeric, salt, and pepper in a small bowl. Pat chicken dry and set on a clean plate in a single layer. Sprinkle spice mixture all over chicken.

Brown chicken in a single layer (in batches, if necessary) for about 3 minutes per side, until golden and starting to crisp. If using a pot or dutch oven, remove browned chicken to a plate while you brown the remaining pieces.

If you're using a pot, once you've browned all the chicken, add onions to the pot, toss to coat with drippings, and cook 5 minutes, until some pieces have started to brown. If using a roaster, it's fine to add the onions in once you've flipped the chicken and brown them simultaneously.

Add chicken back to the pot/roaster. Add lime juice and zest, brown sugar/honey, water, and squash. Stir once or twice to combine everything. Cover pot/pan, transfer to the oven, and cook covered with foil for 20 minutes, then another 25-30 minutes uncovered, until everything is cooked through and juices are bubbling.

Serve immediately, or reheat in a 350-degree oven for 10-15 minutes before serving.