Dec 7
I get stuck in food ruts. Sometimes it’s because I just really like one dish (Fettuccine Alfredo anyone? Or Triple Pepper Pasta?) or it’s because I think there’s only one way to make a certain kind of food. Take Stir Fry meat (which the Co-op so nicely labels). I go home with that and I make Stir Fry. Well, I’m a bit over Stir Fry. Read more
Nov 1
Downton Abbey
If you have not seen Downton Abbey but saw and enjoyed Gosford Park (Julian Fellowes being the common thread, as well as corsets, cravats, and English aristocracy) you have just found eight hours of entertainment you’ll be glad to give away in front of a television.
Season Two doesn’t come out until next January (which I’m totally okay with – it’s the dead of winter for us here and a well-done weekly show will help the weeks pass), but I began to have withdrawals. I went to Barnes and Noble and found The American Heiress, which actually has a review right on the book jacket that refers to having Downton Abbey withdrawals and this being the perfect book to read until Season Two begins. Bingo.
Here’s a review. I read it while I was traveling to and from Walla Walla, WA a few weeks and couldn’t put it down. When I got home, I went straight for the sofa with Cassidy and kept reading until I had finished it.
I guess you’ve got about 12 hours of entertainment now…
You’ve gathered at this point that I do not make desserts often. If Frank ate sweets (other than Chocolate Chip Cookies, of which he can restrict himself to eating just one and have his fill), I would bake more often. There is then, only two reasons to bake: New [exciting!] recipe or house guests.
I made these lemon bars this summer, just as it teetered on almost too warm to bake weather. Now that the weather has dipped into the 50s and we’re not turning on the heat, I’ll take any excuse to use the oven. This is a recipe straight out of my childhood in St. Paul, in our red house that sat on the corner. My mom would take a break from her work, open Betty Crocker’s cookbook, and between me and my brother, would delegate who broke eggs, measured flour and operated our pale yellow Kitchen Aid (which has since been handed down to me).
For the recipe, I called home. My fourteen year old brother answered the phone, and read the ingredients and directions out loud to me. To make sure he had the right recipe, I asked if there was flour and lemon stuck to the page. I received confirmation – of course he was giving me the recipe that had food bits on it.
Lemon Bars
From Betty Crocker’s Cookbook
1 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon peel, if desired
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
Powdered sugar
1) Heat oven to 350ºF.
2) Mix flour, butter and powdered sugar. Press in ungreased square pan, 8x8x2 or 9x9x2 inches, building up 1/2-inch edges.
3) Bake crust 20 minutes.
4) Beat granulated sugar, lemon peel, lemon juice, baking powder, salt and eggs with electric mixer on high speed about 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Pour over hot crust.
5) Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until no indentation remains when touched lightly in center. Cool; dust with powdered sugar. Cut into about 1 1/2-inch squares.
Sep 29
Tomorrow morning I will be on a flight to visit this lovely place:
Where the hills really do roll:
And my 5 year college reunion at Whitman College will rock:
Because we’ll find lots of these signs:
Waterbrook Winery
This is one very easy and delicious weeknight dinner where flavor shines. The only requirement is a little marinating time.
I am moving (slowly) through Melissa Clark’s In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite and really enjoy the recipes. They all feel very homey and taste like Mom’s cooking you grew up with but with more herbs. And butter. Clark has a very realistic perspective on making food, which is that it has to please everyone, has to take less than an hour to cook so you can make it any night of the week, and that bacon is a fine addition. I appreciate this about her.
Cashew Chicken: never had it in my life. I can’t say it’s something that I see on restaurant menus and I didn’t grow up with this, so was intrigued to try something new. After getting the ingredients, I find out that Frank hates Cashews, so it had to be at least a little interesting, right? My argument was to be adventurous and try something new. Turns out, Frank didn’t mind this dish at all as long as the remainder of sauce stayed far away from his plate.
Spicy, Garlicky Cashew Chicken
Melissa Clark, In the Kitchen with a Good Appetite
Ingredients:
1 cup roasted salted cashew nuts
6 tbsp chopped fresh cilantro, with some stems
1/4 cup safflower or olive oil
4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 tbls soy sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
Juice of 1 lime, plus lime wedes for garnish
1 to 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded or not, to taste
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
3 pounds chicken thighs and/or drumsticks
Directions:
1. In a blender or food processor, combine the nuts, 2 tablespoons cilantro, the oil, garlic, soy sauce, sugar, lime juice, jalapeno, and 2 tablespoons water. Blend until smooth, scraping down the sides as necessary. Taste and season with salt and pepper if desired.
2. Season the chicken all over with salt and pepper. Smear on enough cashew mixture to coat the pieces thoroughly, but don’t make it too thick or the sauce will fall of into your grill. Set aside any remaining mixture. Let marinate at room temperature while you heat the grill or broiler. Or refrigerate for up to 12 hours before cooking.
3. Preheat the broiler or grill. Grill or broil the chicken, turning frequently, until it is crisp and golden on the outside and done on the
inside, 20 to 30 minutes
4. Sprinkle the chicken with the remaining 4 tablespoons cilantro and serve with lime wedges and the remaining cashew mixture.
As a side, our neighbors gave us a bag of beans from their garden, so we fried up bacon with chili peppers and sauteed the beans for about 5 minutes, cooked but still crunchy.
I have been listening to Pistol Annie’s album pretty much non-stop for two weeks and appreciate the Rolling Stones review of the album (below). Each song takes on a new subject and different sound, giving the album a lot of big personality.
Rolling Stones, 4 stars review By Chuck Eddy
September 12, 2011
On the debut by their ad hoc trio, Miranda Lambert and friends Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley show off the kind of hard-living wit and hardscrabble class consciousness that have become tough to find in Nashville. Their feisty brand of country mixes Great Depression redneck blues, rockabilly and even a little ’65 Dylan (check the rambling Bringing It All Back Home backbeat in “Takin’ Pills”) without sounding retro. Though they sometimes opt for woozy beauty, they’re best rip-roaring about not making ends meet: deep debt, thrift-store curtains, mufflers tied on with guitar strings, no-good husbands kicked out of the trailer. It’s heartbreaking and hilarious, in equal measure.
Pinterest has lately turned from inspirational ideas to directional leads for goods (which I think is how the site was intended to be used from the beginning). I came across some pins of Linea Carta goods on her Etsy site and had to share. I love her writing style (and am seriously thinking getting the customized stamp…).
Bon Appetit Tea Towel
Linen Coasters
Customizable Rubber Stamp
I really want to learn how to Can, but I can’t find the motivation to do it. So I’m learning the art of freezing. Freezing, as it turns out, is a great way to preserve the ripe flavors, is easy enough to pull out during winter and use, and doesn’t require any special tools or steps to avoid contamination (does anyone else get totally freaked out about that part?). I plucked out a nice variety of tomatoes on Saturday and Sunday (Beefsteak, early girl, cherry) and am a little relieved that they can all go into the pot together. Read more
I love this idea, and it’s so darn easy. This is going straight on the “This is what you do in MN when it’s zero degrees outside” list.
I think about my vegetable garden a lot – what will have grown during the day and will be ripe to pick for dinner, how to make it better, if I should make it bigger (there’s a trend every spring of sod coming out and more plants going in), and how to keep the dog, rabbits and squirrels out. I also think about how to balance the way I want the yard to look (for eventual house resale) with how to keep it functional (backyard to table eating for example). When Frank and I do go to sell the house, I don’t want the backyard vegetable patch to be a turn off. At this point, because the fence is just the cheap wire kind you poke into the ground, it would be pretty easy to see that with some sod and a year’s time, you’d never know it was this:
Veggie Garden, Late July 2011
But if I go with what I want to do this fall, it becomes a permanent fixture, which would look more like this:
Or maybe just dig up the whole backyard for this effect:
Okay, that probably would never happen (I don’t have an acre of land, to start with…) but I do love the look of no sod, and all plants. A few examples of inspiration, from The Pantry at Delancey and their kitchen garden in Seattle:
I love this fence
I’m off today to measure and see if my more permanent veggie home is a possibility, and how much I’ll need to do this fall so it’s ready for planting in the spring (I can’t believe summer is coming to a close, and I’m thinking about next spring). Happy weekend!
Did you watch The Pioneer Woman on Food Network last Saturday? No? Okay. I watched it and then made the featured chicken fried steak and here’s what happened: It made my house smell awful for two days and gave us stomach cramps. The upside was that it taught me how to make gravy and heightened PW’s likeability factor by calling balsamic “basalmic” and doing her own makeup (versus a makeup artist) so she could sleep in a little more. Rene Lynch from the L.A. Times wrote a nice article about it here.
Chicken Fried Steak with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
I didn’t use cubed steak because my co-op doesn’t carry it, so I used a top round which Lobel’s Meat Bible said would be okay. For the most part, it was, but I can’t help wondering if I should have made a special trip to Cub for cubed steak. Anyway, another lesson is that frying for more time until deep golden brown (the brown that starts to look like black) is good – that’s what will keep it crunchy.
This it is not a meal I would make often because I don’t think I’m making it right and given I’ve never had a proper chicken fried steak from down south, I’m probably not. Perhaps I should have known better when I asked “why isn’t there chicken in the ingredients list?”
I was turned on to Ruche from Tania of What Would a Nerd Wear, because, well, she’s adorable in the Ruche apparel. I haven’t purchased anything from Ruche (yet) but nearly laughed out loud when I noticed a new feature on their website: “Shop Industry.” The basic idea is that depending on what type of job you have, you dress a certain way.
"Product Manager"
Do you shop based on your style preference or profession?
So, we’ve all been told at some point that we are not supposed to wash our hair everyday because that is what dries it out and wreaks havoc. While I admire those who do this, I have yet to pull off nice “second day” hair unless I curl it. Lo and behold: Dry Shampoo. Have you heard about this stuff? The miracle product that extends the beauty of your hair between washes? I only found out about this product a few months ago and finally bought a bottle yesterday. Tried it this morning and could not believe how effective it is. Smells nice, gave my very straight glossy locks some texture and absorbed oils. I wish I had this stuff back when I had bangs. Anyway, sans bangs, I guess there are some really fancy $24 brands you can buy, but Suave was under $3 and did the job, very nicely.
Aug 18
I love Zara and wish they had online shopping so this midwest girl could get some fashionable pieces. I saw this, and I swoon.
One year ago today, we brought home Cassidy, our adorable Yellow Lab.
Over the last year, we’ve discovered that she thinks she is one of us, so sleeps with her head on our pillow, snuggled up between us. She’ll do anything for a treat and loves to run in the park. She will eat and destroy any toy that is not her galileo bone or Kong treat toy, but doesn’t touch anything in the house. She’s a smart girl and pretty disciplined: once she figured out how to get out of her crate (one month after coming to our house), we realized it wasn’t to ruin the house while we were gone, but because she preferred snoozing on the couch in the back porch. Read more
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