Classic Mussels with Shallots and Thyme

Welcome to the 100th post here on The Cilantropist!  

Over the last year this blog has grown and developed, and I am relishing in every moment of it.  I can barely believe that I have shared 100 posts with you!  I am committed to bringing you fresh, seasonal, and delicious food (plus cakes and cookies, we can't forget those!) and I do my best to only share things that I think are excellent.  Compared to when I first started, The Cilantropist is so much more like what I dreamed it would be, and it is still evolving.  Keep your eyes peeled for a few changes and additions in the weeks and months to come, but be assured that you will still always be able to find great food over at this corner of the web.  

I also want to give a big shout out to YOU!  Each and every one of my readers, please know that I love love love having you here and it means the world to me knowing that you appreciate food, family, and friends.  I also adore your comments and emails - they make me smile and laugh, and they brighten my day each time I read one.  (And I read all of them!)   I truly appreciate that you share my blog and recipes with family and friends, since feeling connected to people is really at the heart of my cooking.  I hope you will continue to follow along with me as I create another 100 recipes and share stories from my adventures in the kitchen.  

I can also say that over the last year my passion for food and cooking has increased exponentially, and everything about it brings me so much happiness. I am more conscious of what I eat now, and more committed than ever to eating sustainably and locally, and working more towards living a hand-crafted life.  This doesn't mean eating only organic or natural foods - that is just not realistic for me right now - but it does mean shopping at the farmers market as often as possible and making dishes from quality well-sourced ingredients.  Very simply, I think it is a healthier way to live and eat.   

So I thought, for this 100th post, that I should share one of my favorite dishes with you since I can source all the raw ingredients from my farmers market.      

Are you able to find fresh bay leaves?  I think they are just beautiful. 

This classic dish of Mussels with Shallots and Thyme has its roots in traditional French cooking since it uses a broth made with cream, wine, shallots and herbs, to steam open fresh mussels.  I made this dish for the first time almost four years ago, when my boyfriend and I discovered we could get fresh Carlsbad mussels at the farmers market near my apartment.  Nowadays, I can get everything else I need to make it from the farmers market as well, including fragrant thyme and beautiful green bay leaves.   

Miso Salad with Baked Tofu

My boyfriend is in town for 6 weeks (happy dance!), so it is no surprise that the amount of sugary goodies I have been consuming has skyrocketed.  He has an insatiable sweet tooth and I can't say I have the inclination or the will power to refuse him.  In my opinion, the sure cure for this type of overindulgence is to eat a healthy meal with lots of veggies. (And then of course, reward myself for making such a nutritious choice by having a cookie for dessert.)  So in the hopes of rescuing what fitness I have left, I decided to make this Chopped Salad with Baked Tofu.  And then go out for a run.   

Oven Roasted Grapefruit-Cilantro Chicken

Have you ever roasted a chicken before?  If your answer is yes, then you have experienced what I think is a singular pleasure: after more than an hour of sitting around doing absolutely nothing, you get to open the oven and pull out a gorgeous, golden roasted bird.  Your family, friends, or guests will oooh and ahhh as they appreciate the beauty of your creation.  Their mouths will water in anticipation as they breathe in the aroma of freshly cooked chicken, herbs, and spices.  Meanwhile, you (the triumphant chef) can give a careless toss of your head and say, "Oh, it was really not hard at all!" And you can say that because it is the straight truth.   


Until about a year and a half ago, I had not experienced this pleasure for myself.  When I was growing up, my mother or grandmother roasted a turkey every year for thanksgiving, but we never had a whole roasted chicken for a special occasion or a Friday night dinner.  Because our thanksgiving turkey took such a long time to make (and more likely because my one-time personal attempt at turkey roasting was a debacle), I mistakenly assumed that producing a successful roasted chicken must be a tricky thing that required some kitchen magic.  Oh how wrong I was!  The recipe that convinced me to conquer my chicken anxiety was Ina Garten's "Perfect Roast Chicken" from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.  This was one of the first cookbooks I ever received, and it remains at the top of my list of favorites; I have yet to try a recipe from this book that is not satisfyingly delicious and deceptively simple all at once.