Getting Crafty

2011-06-28T18:55:00.000-07:00

Luke and I moved a couple miles north, to an apartment where my friend Barbara used to live. It's big and bright, and surrounded by rose bushes. I'm excited to have an apartment where I can do some home remedy projects to make it look more like ours. I'll be posting before and after photos as I get stuff done around here. Right now the only room that is pretty much done is the kitchen, and with it's shockingly-yellow walls, it's my favorite room in the house:

It reminds me of a kitchen an old Mexican lady would have.

Look at that! Built-in cutting board counter, a feature I love.

Plus, there are nice shelves where for all my tea stuff.

And Luke doesn't mind when I announce things like "In our new house, we arrange dishes by color!"

Aside from the kitchen, I hope this place starts looking different this summer. (So that you know what to totally look forward to and so that I have a list that isn't on a scrap of paper that will sit in the bottom of my purse for a while until I lose it) In the next couple months I plan to:

- Find some cheap lamps, make them look like they weren't cheap.

- Paint the bedroom (did you know paint costs, like, thirty dollars a gallon?! I had no idea! Yikes!)

- Paint the entryway

- Make an end table for the livingroom

- Make a bench for the entryway (install some hooks?)

- Sand and refinish the patio

- Make rose petal jelly (as if we need any more jams or jellies. But I can't help myself).

- Make a headboard for our bed.

- Make a bedside table for Luke

Ooo-eee ooo-ah-ah, ting tang Walla-walla bing-bang

2011-05-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

A few weeks back,* Luke told me that if he lived in the middle ages, he'd want to be the village baker. He likes the idea of waking up in the wee hours of the morning to bake big loaves in a stone oven. When he lived in Guatemala, there was a baker in one of the towns that was a good example of what he has in mind: a fat man with strong arms and a big laugh.

*On a side note: I have no concept of time. Anything that was longer than a week ago is "a few weeks back." It could've been two weeks, it could've been six months. I don't know.*

When he asked me what I would be, my first thought was of taking the job of midwife. But I should leave that to someone who actually likes birth, and not just the idea of liking it. The job I would really choose is the herbalist/medicine woman/witch doctor. I like learning about herbs and plants and mushrooms- edible things that can be foraged, medicinal properties, etc. It would be fun to have a job of it (and if I was the baker's wife we could combine the two and give medicinal breads).

For my friend Drew's birthday I got to play medicine woman, and made him some tinctures. It was fun to research which herbs I wanted to use, which medicinal properties they had, etc. I ended up making a St.John's Wort tincture for mood elevation; nettle tincture for colds and hay fever; and a sleep tincture using chamomile, spearmint, lavender greens, and lemon balm.

As I do any time I want something to have a cute label, I asked Luke to do it.

Also for his birthday I finished his Christmas present that I never gave him. It's a magic bag. It can hold his tinctures, stuff for reiki sessions, books on shamanism, whatever. The front of the gray linen bag is embroidered with wheels ("chakra" means "wheel") with the corresponding color and number of spokes for each chakra. The crown chakra is represented by a lavender lotus (just to make it more interesting and because I was not about to embroider 960 spokes). This was a fun project. Though I don't believe in chakras the same way Drew does, it was fun to learn about them and the ideology behind taking care of them. And it seems like something a witch doctor should make, right?

Sewing, take two.

2011-05-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I spent a really lovely rainy afternoon listening to music, drinking iced green tea, and re-teaching myself to sew. I was working with a rainy-day gray linen and looking-forward-to-sunshine yellow eyelet, and it was perfect. Kind of. I talked to the sewing machine, the needle, and the fabric when, at various times, they all refused to do what I wanted them to. I yelled at nothing in particular when the tension would get messed up and there'd be a big knotted mess of thread, but then fixed without me knowing what I'd done to fix it. There was a huge pile of strings next to me when I finished.

But the first project turned out- better than I expected, even- and I was encouraged enough to start a second, a skirt for my sister-in-law's wedding on Saturday. Fast forward three hours, and I had to quit and go to bed, because I had a I had a boxy apron instead of a springy skirt, like I'd hoped. The longer I worked, the more frustrated I got and the less I knew what to do to fix it. I'm hoping that with a day of separation I'll be able to look at it anew, and won't have to go buy a skirt last minute.

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T21:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to go ahead and name this the best Easter I've ever had. Luke and I have decided that Easter is the holiday we do together at home, rather than spending it at one of our family's houses. Last year was our first one, and this year we outdid ourselves. We planned a lovely meal of:

salmon with a mustard herb sauce,

red potatoes with bacon, blue cheese, and green onions,

and roasted balsamic asparagus with poached eggs.

After lunch we went to a AAA baseball game. I love baseball, and this was a good game- the Bees beat Tacoma 10-5.

And now we're ending our night with a pizza party and You've Got Mail. A perfect Easter. Hope yours was, too.

Spring's here!

2011-04-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite time of year. Snow storms aren't bad any more because you know the snow will last a few hours, not a few days or weeks or months. The weather is unpredictable, and ever-changing. I can steal flowers and forsythia branches from the neighbors (just one or two per house! I'm not a total jerk- I never take enough to be noticeable).

The field behind my house looks green and inviting, and I can pretend that it's not going to dry up in a couple months,and be full of puncture vine that will stab me and Whitney through the blankets as we read for as long as we can until we're sweating and the pale skin we got from our Western European ancestors is pink and dried up (we can usually make it like, twenty minutes).

In April, these jerks don't exist.

But my favorite thing about this time of year is planning a garden. I have a dozen of scraps of paper scribbled with the plants I will have, those I might have, and those I should consider, if my tiny garden can magically fit more than I thought it would. I draw out little maps of my garden and divide up the space with twigs and twine. I love planting seeds indoors and seeing things grow. I like testing the garden dirt to see if it's dry enough: balling up a wad of dirt in my hands and throwing it to the ground to see if it's more mud pie or workable.Getting callouses from shoveling. Finding wonder in the living. And I love- I love- that soon my house and tea and dinners will be filled with things that I grew.

Today I learned:

2011-04-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

Mediocre sewing skills, if left unused for months, will atrophy into a Sunday afternoon of frustration. A simple sewing project will be abandoned after an hour. I'm going to have to ease myself back into this. Tonight? Embroidery.

I need to buy some chia pets.

2011-03-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago I was at work, reveling in a veggie sandwich from Apple Spice Junction, and I realized that for me, what makes a good veggie sandwich is the mushroom/sprouts combo. I spent every spare second of the day reading about the different kinds of sprouts, the health benefits* of sprouts, the best ways to grow sprouts at home, etc.etc. etc. On the way home I stopped at Whole Foods, where you can buy different sprouts in bulk. I bought just a little bit of three kinds- a sandwich blend (alfalfa, radish, broccoli, and mung), radish, and mung bean- in case this was just a phase and I lost interest after the first time.

For the radish, I spritzed a paper towel with water and stuck it in the bottom of a mason jar, with the the seeds over it. The sprouts molded before they were very big.

For the mung and the sandwich blend, I put about three tablespoons of seeds in the bottom of a mason jar, and used one of those paint strainers as a screen over the mouth of the jar, secured by the ring. I soaked the seeds for 12 hours, then shook out all the water, and left the jars to drain on my dish draining rack. I rinsed and shook up the seeds every twelve hours, always finishing by shaking out all the water and letting the sprouts dry out as much as possible. Within four days I had a really delicious blend for sandwiches/salads.

I also had a jar of really stinky mung beans.Turns out the paint strainer weave is too tight for the bigger beans; not enough water got out, and the beans went bad.

I'm debating buying or making a sprout grower because they look so nice, but trying to talk myself out of it because the jars work just as well (or will, once I get a looser screen for the big beans). What's nice, though, is that I can always have them on hand to add flavor and healthiness* to various foods. This week I'm going to experiment with sprouts in smoothies.

*Sprouts are a good source of protein, vitamin C, and a lot of other good stuff that prevents disease and cancer, and lower bad cholesterol.

2011-03-07T18:04:00.000-08:00

I'm baaaa-aaack!

I had to retake the bar exam, so the last couple months have been spent studying and working, with very little time for either social life or hobbies. The good news is that I think I did well (though I won't know until the end of April or beginning of May), so I probably won't ever have to do that again. The other good thing is that the exam got over just in time to start planning a garden. A lot needs to be done still to turn the city plot behind my garage into a productive garden, but I've got nothin' but time! I'm still working as a barista and volunteering with Utah Health and Human Rights Project, but without having to study, I feel free, free, free! So expect to hear from me more regularly. Expect new recipes and expect flowers and maybe expect a floppy hat.

Greek Pastries, Part 2

2011-01-16T07:49:00.000-08:00

My favorite Greek pastry (that I've had) is Galaktoboureko, which I've made with my boss a couple times now. A creamy, delicious semolina custard is wrapped up in layers of phyllo ('Gala' means milk in Greek. I think 'bourek' means pie). Sometimes it's made with lemon, sometimes with orange, sometimes a syrup is poured on top. The latest version we made was an orange custard with cinnamon sugar in the phyllo layers. It was to die for. Make it next time you go to a potluck or have friends over. Don't make it if you're alone- unless you're too skinny- because you'll eat it all and gain ten pounds.

Picture taken from here.

The recipe:

4 C milk
1 1/2 C sugar
1 C + 2 T unsalted butter
Zest and juice of 1/2 orange
3/4 C semolina
4 egg whites, whisked until soft peaks form (be careful not to beat it too much- you don't want stiff peaks)
1/4 C vegetable oil
2 T ground cinnamon
1/2 package phyllo
3 T powdered sugar

1. In a medium saucepan, combine the milk, 1 cup sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, and orange zest/juice. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Mix in semolina, and cook, stirring, until the mixture is thick, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from heat, and fold in the egg whites. Set the mixture aside to cool.

2. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a small saucepan, melt remaining 1 C butter with the oil; use some of this mixture to brush a 9-inch round or square baking pan. In a small bowl, combine remaining 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon cinnamon.

3. Unwrap the phyllo and top with one dry kitchen towel and one slightly damp towel, so the sheets don't dry out too much as you work. Working with one sheet of phyllo at a time, lay the sheets of phyllo so they fit tightly in the pan (filling the bottom of the pan and going up and over the sides) and there's a 1 1/2 inch flap sticking out over the top of the pan- you should use about three sheets of phyllo. Using a pastry brush, brush the phyllo with a generous amount of the butter mixture, then lightly sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar. Repeat until you have three or four good layers of phyllo and cinnamon sugar.

4. Pour the custard into the phyllo-lined pan and spread evenly. Working with one layer at a time, fold those little phyllo flaps that you left sticking out toward the center of the pan and "glue" them down with the butter mixture. Add 2-3 of layers of phyllo/butter/cinnamon sugar to the top, so that the custard is totally enveloped. Do not sprinkle the top layer with cinnamon sugar, or it'll burn. Prick all over with a fork, and bake (with a baking sheet below it to catch any drips) for about 45 minutes, until golden brown.

5. Combine remaining tablespoon of cinnamon with the confectioners' sugar, and sprinkle over the surface of the phyllo when removed from oven- it'll form a nice crust. Let rest 5 to 10 minutes before slicing. Serve warm, at room temperature, or cold- it's delicious however!

Greek Pastries

2011-01-06T16:49:00.000-08:00

I work at Kafeneio (ka- (like in cat), fuh-knee-o), a Greek coffee shop that opened up in Salt Lake a little more than a month ago. How is a Greek coffee shop different than a regular neighborhood coffee shop? Mostly it's just that we have cute/dorky Greek god- and goddess-named lattes (like "Hera's Temper" or "Hermes' Wings"). But we also sell Greek coffee, which is the same as Turkish coffee, if you've had that: made in an ibrik (or briki) served with the grounds in the bottom. Old greeks still tell their fortunes with the grounds, similar to reading tea leaves.

Our briki

But the best part is that my boss, a very nice Greek lady, makes Greek pastries here in the shop. And yesterday she let me help her.

We made pasta flora, a simple pastry with apricot or strawberry jam covered in a lattice design. Then galaktoboureko, my favorite, a lemony custard wrapped in phyllo and topped with a honey lemon syrup and cinnamon.

Galaktoboureko (picture from Closet Cooking, a blog I like a lot).

But the best was making baklava. Easy but time consuming, baklava is layers and layers (and layers. I think the one I did last night had about forty) of flaky phyllo pastry, butter, and nuts. After baking, it's smothered in an orange and clove flavored syrup. Delicious!

The recipe:

2-3 lbs nuts (we used 2 lbs walnuts and 1 lb pecans)
1 C sugar
2 T brown sugar
2 T cinnamon
1/2 t allspice
1 t nutmeg
1 t ground cloves
1/2 t mace
one package phyllo sheets
lots and lots of melted butter
whole cloves

For the syrup:
2 C sugar
3 C water
1 t lemon juice
1 cinnamon stick
6-10 cloves
orange peels

1) Crush the nuts in a food processor. Don't break them up into a powder- you want it crumbly. In a big bowl, combine nuts, sugars, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and mace. Separate the mixture into thirds and set aside.

2) Butter the bottom and sides of a 9 x 11 baking pan put the phyllo in, one sheet at a time, and butter between each layer with a pastry brush. After 12-15 layers of phyllo, add the first third of the nuts, spreading in an even layer. Layer more phyllo on top- 6 layers or so, still buttering between the layers- and then do another layer of nuts. Six more layers, and the third and final layer of nuts. Use the remaining phyllo for the top of the baklava. Butter the top layer.

3) With a sharp knife, carefully cut the baklava into vertical strips about 1 inch wide. Be sure to cut to the bottom of the pan. Then cut the strips diagonally, again about 1-inch wide, to form small diamond-shaped pieces. Stick a whole clove in the center of each piece.

4) Bake in an oven warmed to 325 degrees for about an hour, until golden brown.

5) While baking, prepare the syrup: boil all the ingredients for 20-25 mins, stirring constantly. When thick and sticky, remove from heat. Remove and discard cinnamon, cloves, and orange peel.

6) Pour syrup over the baklava and put it back in the oven to bake for 5-10 minutes.

7) Let cool completely before serving.

The good thing about baklava is that it will last forever. It doesn't have to be refrigerated, and just gets better the longer that the flavors sit and mix together.

2011-01-04T14:45:00.000-08:00

So I forgot about blogging for a month. It was pretty uneventful month in terms of crafting, though:

I started some little felt ornaments with my mom, but decided they looked too much like something a seven year old would do in primary, and didn't finish them.
We had a back-to-the-box week where we made old favorite recipes that got put into the recipe box and never eaten again (I think we have the opposite problem as most people- we almost never eat the same thing), and ate out for an unhealthy number of meals.
I was going to sew a Christmas gift for my sister-in-law, Jenny, but kept putting it off so much that I ended up just buying her a new purse on Christmas Eve.
I haven't finished sewing the Christmas gift for my friend Drew.

So there you have it. Almost nothing to show for the month of December. Except these, the meals we made with our goat cheese:

Lukey made a pizza with barbeque sauce, goat cheese, pineapple, and smoked gouda. I was skeptical, but it was DELICIOUS. A great mix of flavors.

I kept it simple, with grilled veggie and goat cheese sandwiches on ciabatta bread. Balsalmic vinegar, goat cheese, and warm tomatoes, peppers and mushrooms is comfort food for me.

Chevre

2010-12-03T14:55:00.000-08:00

Growing up, my family had goats, usually two of them. We milked 'em morning and night, and got more than a gallon per goat on a good day. Mostly we sold the milk to families with kids who couldn't digest cow's milk (my brother was like that, one of the reasons we got goats in the first place. Goat milk is more similar to human milk than cow milk is, so it's really good for kids who just stopped breast feeding, or who have sensitive stomachs), but some people just liked having raw, unpasteurized milk.

One of our goats was a Nubian, the kind in this picture. Pretty cute, right?
Picture found here.
We also had a Saanen and an Alpine.

In some ways, the life of a kid with goats was a pain in the butt: having vacations hinge on whether you can find someone to milk while you're gone (and finding a neighbor in the suburbs who not only can milk, but is willing to do it twice a day for even just a few days is... well, about as hard a you'd expect); being a teenager and having to milk/feed them in the morning when you want to be sleeping in, and in the evening when you want to be hanging out; and trying to seem like just a normal kid when there are little handfuls of alfalfa that fell in your pockets when you fed the goats this morning.

But raising goats had it advantages, too: the milk's really good, as long as the goats are fed right; there were no unnatural hormones in the milk; blah blah blah we learned about hard work; and best of all- yogurt and cheese. My mom made lots of both, especially in the summer, when the goats produced the most milk (more daylight = more milk). Today, for the first time in more than ten years, I made goat cheese.

Chevre is the generic name for goat cheese, coming from the French word for goat. The kind of cheese most people think of when the think of goat cheese- that creamy, soft cheese that sort of has the consistency of a crumbly cream cheese- is the kind I made. and it couldn't be much easier:

Put a half gallon of goat's milk in a stainless steel pot (aluminum can change the taste). Slowly heat the milk to 195 degrees, stirring frequently so none of the milk starts cooking to the bottom of the pot. The milk will get frothy and start stinking the way that warm milk does, but it shouldn't boil.

Add 1/4 C lemon juice very slowly, stirring while you add it. As soon as it's all in there, though, stop stirring. Let the milk curdle. It'll look really disgusting.

Add a bit of salt and let it cool to 100 degrees.

Strain the curds from the whey for 2 - 4 hours, until it's the texture you want (I wanted ours to be more creamy, so I only strained it for about two hours). You can buy cheesecloth at kitchen stores, or sometimes at the fabric store, but my mom discovered something better: In the paint section at Home Depot, you can buy two paint strainers for about three bucks. They work as well as expensive cheesecloth, and they're reusable, cheap, and just the right size. They're good for jelly bags, too.

You could hook the bag on the faucet and strain right into the sink, but then you'd have to do the dishes before you make cheese, and what's the fun in that? Just jerry-rig something like this, and those dishes can wait!

And there you have it! Homemade chevre! Luke and I are each going to get one half of the cheese to make a meal for the other. I'll show you what we come up with.

Pumpkin season

2010-11-23T17:44:00.000-08:00

I heard somewhere that this was a good year for pumpkin farmers, and based on how cheap pumkins have been at the grocery store, I believe it. I made pumpkin cupcakes (which were a disappointment to me, but other people seemed to like them), and pumpkin pasta (next time we'll use cooked spinach, and no parsley) and the best pumpkin recipe so far, a creamy risotto.

Served with spinach and a spicy honey and sage chicken, the risotto was the best (and biggest) part of the meal.

The recipe:

1/3 C olive oil
1 C onion, chopped
1 T garlic, minced
2 C orzo
1 C cooking wine
5 - 5 1/2 C chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 sugar pumpkin (about 4 C)
1/2 C grated parmesan
4 T butter

Heat oven to 425. Bake 1/4 pumpkin until soft, about 30 minutes. When done, remove the skin and puree.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Saute the onion and garlic and stir continuously until softened (3-4 mins). Add the orzo and stir to coat.

Add the wine and continue cooking, stirring often, until it has been absorbed by the rice. Add two cups of stock and cook until absorbed. Add the rest of the stock one cup at a time until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is al dente.

Peel the remaining 1/4 pumpkin, chop into small pieces, and saute in a little butter until tender.

Stir the pumpkin puree and the diced pumkin into the orzo and reduce heat to very low. Stir in the parmesan. Serve.

*This recipe makes A LOT- main dish for four or five, side dish for eight- but is great as leftovers. I won't half it in the future, because I liked being able to have it for a couple days afterward.

**Traditionally, risotto's made with arborio rice. I like orzo because it has a similar chewy texture, but costs way less.

Lemon Curd

2010-11-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

Cold weather makes me want lemon curd. I don't know that it's traditionally a cold-weather food, but that's when I want it- something sweet and tart and comforting on cold mornings. I woke up a little earlier than usual on Monday so I could make a batch and enjoy it with cup of tea before having to leave for work. I've been eating it on toast just about every morning this week.

I think people over-think lemon curd. It's beauty is in its simplicity- both of flavor and of preparation. No need to strain it or use a double boiler. Just keep it simple, man. Here's my recipe:

6 T unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 C sugar
2 eggs
2 egg yolks
1 tsp. grated lemon zest
2/3 cup fresh-squeezed lemon juice (don't use the bottled kind. This is one time where it matters that you squeeze it yourself).

1) Cream the butter and sugar with an electric mixer, about 2 mins. Add eggs and yolks and beat for another minute. Mix in lemon juice. It'll look a little lumpy/curdly- it's cool.
2) Cook the mixture over low heat until it looks smooth- just a minute or two. Increase the heat to medium low and stir constantly until the mixture thickens, about 15 min (don't turn the heat up too much because the egg whites cook at a lower temperature and you don't want to see little white flecks in the curd).
3) Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon zest. Pour into half-pint jars. Keep what you think you'll eat in a week or two in the fridge, and put the rest in a jar in the freezer (or give it to a friend if you're unselfish. I'm not).

I mostly just eat it on toast (what a great way to perk up a morning!), but also used it to make Lukey my own version of a napoleon: I baked four-inch puff pastry squares for about fifteen minutes, until they were golden and delicious looking. Meanwhile, I sprinkled blackberries with sugar and cooked them over low on the stove, so they got syrupy. Then I layered the puff pastry, lemon curd and blackberries (two or three layers each- whatever seemed good proportion). It turned out pretty deliciously.

Winter Laze

2010-11-11T13:07:00.000-08:00

I've been getting ready for winter with more vigor than ever before- getting the garden ready, planting bulbs, and de-junking everything (because who wants to spend time inside with all this junk?). You'd think that with this getting-ready-to-hibernate mentality I'd be all about cooking. But I'm not. And thankfully, neither is Luke. For the most part, we're ignoring the fabulous, elaborate meals we have planned, and are instead making things that are quick and easy. For example:

The decadent carmelized onion and gouda quesadilla from Donna's cookbook (I won it for the Cinco De Mayo giveaway at Fab Frugal Food, and it has not disappointed),

Thai spring rolls with chicken, cilantro, plum sauce we canned a while back, and kiwi

How do you get a nice picture of something wrapped in opaque rice paper? Maybe you can. I can't.

and mushroom and onion turnovers (just saute the filling, fold it in puff pastry, then bake at 450 for about twenty minutes),

Luckily, quick and easy food can be just as delicious as a more elaborate meal. And now I've got some good meals planned for when I'm really in the mood to cook again.

mushaboom

2010-11-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

I got my garden all tilled up and spread with compost this weekend, and not a minute too soon:

Looks like it's really going to start being winter around here, and besides needing shoes that'll keep out the wet and cold, I'm ready to face my least favorite season.

While working outside, I found that a group of mushrooms that I'd seen growing on an old elm stump this spring are back again. I'd been told by a couple people from Mushrooms Society of Utah that they were probably Flammulina velutipes, or flaming velvet foot/flaming shank. Now that they've returned, I was able to take a spore print and double check with field guides to be sure.

And they are! So now I've got some really lovely winter mushrooms growing thirty feet from my back door, and I'm ready to experiment with them. Luke is too nervous to eat them (and even doesn't want me to), but I did my research and am confident, so I'll probably cook some up in a stir fry for one.

Little Boxes Made of Ticky-Tacky

2010-10-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

I just love these human landscapes in southwestern Florida (found here):

This one's my favorite- it reminds me of dandelion seeds blowing away:

I'm glad I live in a world where Google Earth exists. Have you ever used Global Genie? I like to spend a couple minutes every day looking at the streets of places I'll probably never get to go.

One of my new favorite foods:

2010-10-20T18:24:00.000-07:00

POLENTA! Why haven't I tried it until now?! Why were the first twenty-five years of my life polenta-less?!

This week (four days in), I've had it three times. When looking up different ways to serve it, it seems most people like it sliced and fried on either side, which is how I've had it the past couple days. It's good, but I really loved it the first day- Sunday- when I made it creamy and porridge-like with a sauteed mushrooms and tomatoes fresh from the garden.

A perfect Sunday brunch.

I sort of made the recipe up as I went along, since every recipe I found was more or less the same as this, with minor variations in amounts, the cheese used, or had milk substituted for the water, or whatever:

Bring 4 C water, a teaspoon of salt and a lot of pepper to boil.
Add about 3/4 c cornmeal, and stir until smooth and thick- five to ten minutes.
Crumble in some cotija and a tablespoon or two of butter.
Serve with whatever.

(put the leftovers in a loaf pan, cover, and refrigerate. Then you've got the slice-able, fry-able kind).

Tea season

2010-10-20T07:20:00.000-07:00

With the weather cooling down, I've been drinking even more tea than usual. I bought plain green tea leaves at the asian market for just a few dollars, and have been supplementing with my mom's honey and things I've foraged and dried: rose petals (I'm excited for rose hips to be ready to be harvested!), chamomile, or lavender.

Besides the taste, I find I really like the ritual of making a cup of tea: Putting the kettle on, filling the infuser, steeping, and watching the honey melt as I stir it in. I think I'm going to start planning a tea garden for next year- bergamot, mint, lemon balm. Seems fun to have a variety of delicious drinkable things just outside my front door.

Twenty pounds (of tomatoes) lighter

2010-10-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

I ordered twenty pounds of tomatoes from our co-op, and what came were some of the most perfectly round, perfectly ripened tomatoes I've ever seen.

A third of them I cut into fourths, drizzled with olive oil and minced garlic, and slow-roasted in the oven for three hours. Those'll be used for pasta salads and rich soups. The rest I canned to use for tomato sauces during the winter, when there are only those good-looking-but-totally-flavorless tomatoes at the grocery store.

Cotija!

2010-10-18T14:57:00.000-07:00

Last week was one full of hispanic meals for Lukey and me. It wasn't intentional- I didn't plan the meals thinking, "Let's eat the food of our friends down south!"- but that's the way it ended up. Deliciously.

Luke lived in Guatemala for a couple years, and made for me the breakfast he had every day while there: black beans, homemade tortillas, and eggs with table cream. He fancied it up for me with a sprinkling of cotija and something he got very rarely- fried plantain (we used green bananas).

Turns out, ten years hasn't been long enough for Luke to like this meal again. I loved it, though, and was surprised at how good it tasted for how simple it was (the only spice was salt).

For dinner one night I made mexican corn cakes. I think because I never saw my parents use it the whole time I was growing up (and they cooked interesting stuff from all over the world), I'm delighted to find different recipes that use masa harina. This was one of those. Topped with tomatos from the garden and a slice of avocado, they were a simple, satisfying meal (and then for dessert I made my first flan with homemade caramel, and it was decadent and wonderful. Definitely one to save in the recipe box).

The best tasting (and least photogenic) meal was the night we had flautas. This is the meal that made me SO glad that I make extra food and preserve it- these flautas (I guess just taquitos that are folded instead of rolled?) were filled with the cilantro pesto that I froze this summer, and a little cheese. That's it. The meal was quick and so good that I made them again for lunches for days (until the last of the cilantro pesto was used up, actually. Time to replenish).

Bumble bee wallet

2010-10-07T18:18:00.000-07:00

The wallet I made Luke for Christmas didn't hold up all that well, and was a little bigger than he'd like, anyway, so I hand sewed/embroidered him a new one that's sturdier, and a better size. I asked him what sort of thing he'd want on a new wallet, and I'm happy with what he chose and how it turned out:

It's sewn on the cotton from one of those old fashioned flour sacks (online I found a lot of other cute things that people did with these old feed sacks, from chairs, to purses, to dresses).

A few good meals

2010-10-05T19:45:00.000-07:00

Had a few more recipes this week that were good enough to share:

Saturday we had Indian food: Matar "Paneer," which wasn't really paneer because paneer is a kind of cheese (which Luke and I are going to make sometime soon), and this recipe uses tofu. So maybe Matar Tahu? I'm not sure. Anyway, I like making Indian food because we get to use all those spices that taste and smell so good, but that we don't use very regularly- curry, garam masala, turmeric, coriander. This recipe had all of 'em, and the mix of flavors was very good (if you're from Utah: this reminds me of something from Curry in a Hurry). If you look at the instructions, you'll see that this was an easy meal to make; my only addition would be to the instruction about letting all the spices absorb: after adding the spices, let them cook together for at least ten minutes. The texture and flavor will be better because of it. I kept tasting every couple minutes, and the longer they cooked together, the better. Oh, and don't skip the step about pressing the excess water out of the tofu- it makes a big difference.

(My broken camera has an especially hard time with browns and yellows. You know how Indian curries look. This was like that.)

On Wednesday, we had a southern meal: catfish po'boys, okra, and baked yam wedges. I chose the meal with Luke in mind- this is the sort of comfort food he loves- and I knew it was a good choice when he talked about it for days before we made it and kept telling me, while it was cooking, how excited he was. The po'boys were a recipe from the Martha Stewart cookbook I got for Christmas from Marina, my mother-in-law. The okra was like I've never had it before, with a very interesting flavor (halfway between southern and Indian), with none of that okra slime (which really ain't so bad, but I know some people hate it). Luke, who doesn't really like okra, was crazy about it. The yam was just cut up and shaken up with a little oil and some salt and pepper and then baked at 450 for twenty minutes, stirring a couple times. The whole meal was very good. "It's not the best meal we've ever cooked," said Luke, "but it was just perfect." And then all night he kept telling me how happy I make him.

On Thursday we had broiled black pepper tofu and soba noodles with vegetables (we left out the mint). In years of eating tofu fairly regularly, I don't remember ever eating it like this- as a simple main dish, not just a part of a sauce or curry. I liked it! The lemony dipping sauce was good enough that Luke later used it as a sort of au jus sauce for a sandwich. The noodle salad was good for dinner, and then again for leftovers the next day. This dinner convinced me that we need to find more recipes that use sesame oil.

There were some recipes we planned but didn't try because stuff came up (I spent a couple days with my mom and sisters, and went out with Barbara, a mentor/friend/professor). So this weeks meals will be easier to plan!

Suddenly aware of how dumpy my hands are.

2010-09-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

Knitting is one of those crafts/hobbies that I've been meaning to get into for years, but never did (like linoleum block stamp making). Until this week! After a slight hiccup (realizing that I'd somehow doubled the number of stitches on my hooks, making what looked like teacup cozy), and having to restart, last night I finished my first knitting project- these simple fingerless gloves:

Look! Two! One for each hand!

So now I'm ready for this indian summer to be over, so I can sport these babies (though it's technically not an indian summer yet, right? Since there hasn't been a hard frost? I don't know. I'm just ready for sweater weather).

Week of dinners:

2010-09-24T09:09:00.000-07:00

Luke and I are continuing with our goal to spend $35 on a week's worth of meals. It's become sort of a weird obsession, not because we couldn't afford to spend more on groceries, but because the challenge is really fun. On Friday nights I spend almost an hour planning the menu for the next week, including an estimate for how much each item is going to cost, and then we go to the grocery store to buy everything at once (I remember a time when I'd get kind of sad if I didn't feel like I was being social enough on my weekends. Things've changed). It's become one of my favorite weekly activities (aside from Wednesday night quiz night) of the week.

This week was an especially good one for meals, so I thought I'd share the recipes:

On Saturday we had black bean soup with coconut milk and cilantro. My friend Drew had made it for a potluck last week, but ours turned out differently because we had the time to blend it and let the flavors simmer (he was in a hurry because all the potluck guests had arrived). Both ways were good. A creamy, spicy, vegan soup with a nice blend of flavors (would be good without the cilantro, too, for people like Whitney who don't like the taste).

Picture from Fab Frugal Food

On Sunday we had Asian chicken noodle soup, which was instantly a family favorite. We left out the mint, because we didn't want to detract from the lemongrass, ginger, and lime. Don't skip the sriracha- it makes the soup perfect!

Picture from Martha Stewart

On Monday we had caramelized salmon with mango salsa. So fresh and summery tasting, and not heavy. We ate it with tomato rice (rice + tomato bouillon in the rice maker), and it was a hearty (and very orange) meal.

On Tuesday we had tacos with homemade tortillas. For the tortillas, mix corn flour (buy a big bag of the Maseca brand for three dollars in the hispanic foods aisle of the grocery store) and water together until it's the texture of playdough. Roll out (I found it easiest to put a little patty between to pieces of seran wrap, and then smash flat (as opposed to actually rolling) with a cup), and grill. These simple tortillas are good with stuff in them, but if you wanted to eat them plain, you'd want to add salt to the dough. Soon we'll invest in a tortilla press, so we we can have round, perfectly uniform tortillas. I know it doesn't make them taste any better, but for some reason it matters to me.

Picture from Adventures in Shaw

On Wednesday we had grilled chicken gyros with tzatziki sauce. Rather than using pitas, we used a naan recipe my mom gave us (a favorite since our experiment with indian food). This dish was so good. So good!!! We changed a few things: 1) We didn't marinate the chicken for as long as we were supposed to, because we figured if we were cooking the chicken in the sauce, that was good enough. And it was. 2) We didn't remove excess water from the cucumber for the tzatziki sauce. We kept it wet, and eliminated the oil in the sauce. 3) we used cucumbers instead of red onion (partially because Luke doesn't really like onions much, and partially because the cucumber sounded better). This is one of those kinds of meals that if you ordered it at a restaurant, it would become the only thing you'd ever order there.

And last I didn't have dinner. I went to make dinner (at 11:30 p.m.)* and realized that I'd forgotten to get tofu.** Luke was getting off work at midnight and said he'd pick up some DiGiorno, but he ended up having a work meeting that kept him until two. I fell asleep around one thirty, waiting for pizza.

*One thing I find myself loving about it just being me and Luke is that we can eat dinner in the middle of the night if we want.
**Actually, I didn't realize it. I called up Luke at work, annoyed that the tofu had mysteriously disappeared (just like a can of black beans had earlier this week), and he reminded me that I actually hadn't gone to get it.

Carrot Juice

2010-09-22T23:50:00.000-07:00

When I was younger, I ate tons of carrots. One of my best friends in high school, Amy, lived half a block down the street, and her mom bought those giant five pound bags of baby carrots. When the two of us were feeling sixteen-year-old I'm-so-ugly-and-nobody-loves-or-understands-me angst, we'd sit and talk/cry/whine over the bag of carrots, sometimes eating all of it in just a few sittings.

Now, I hardly ever eat them. I like them cooked (especially with a little butter and dill), and I like them raw, but carrot aren't favorite vegetables. Not one of those veggies that I think of for a side dish or a snack. But I stumbled across an article last week about the health benefits of carrot juice, so I decided to make some.

I don't have a juicer, but I found a good way to make it without one: I bought a two-pound bag of carrots, chopped it all up in the blender, and then poured three cups of hot water over the chopped up carrots. I let the orangey mush sit for twenty minutes, then strained out the carrot chunks, using a spoon to smash the carrots on the sieve to get as much juice as possible. Then I poured three more cups of water over the carrots and did it again. For the two pounds of carrots I got two quarts of carrot juice, which is way more than I expected. I added the juice of three oranges, which was just enough to brighten the carrot flavor, but not cover it up at all.

Luke described it as "surprisingly refreshing," and even more surprisingly, he's going to start drinking it regularly, too (usually I can't get him to drink anything that's not caffeinated).

So I definitely recommend making carrot juice this way. From what I've been seeing online, you get more carrot juice this way than with a juicer. And it's a few dollars for a half gallon- much cheaper than if you were to buy it pre-made at the grocery store (and without any added sugars or preservatives). And plus, it just tastes good.

Potluck

2010-09-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

Drew and Len invited me and Luke, along with Lyndsey and her brother Nick, over to their house for a potluck. It was, by far, the best potluck I've ever been to. All the foods went together well, everything was beautifully presented, and everything was delicious. Luke brought fried mushrooms (he loves making fried food, and he's really good at it) and I brought Portabella mushrooms stuffed with artichoke lemon pesto, tomatoes, bell peppers, and pine nuts:

Lyndsey and Nick brought 'pizzas' made of naan with mozarella and grilled peppers:

And Len and Drew made baked ravioli smothered in tomato, mozarella, and basil:

Delicious!

Dust in the Wind Beneath My Wings

2010-09-15T21:39:00.000-07:00

A recent hobby of mine is going to a local pub (Piper Down, an Irish-themed pub) every Wednesday night for quiz night. The trivia is done by a group called Geeks Who Drink, and there are 'chapters' all over- Colorado, Washington Virginia, etc. etc. It's just about the most fun I have in any given week, even on weeks when we can't for the life of us remember the name of that "Dance Hall Days" song; or don't figure out that the secret theme to the round is horses, so all the answers to seemingly unrelated questions are also kinds of horses (quarter, morgan, painter, appaloosa). I live for times like the first, where one of the rounds was about various kinds of couches, and I discover a secret well of information on the topic (who knew?), or the science round when I remembered things like adenine as a nucleobase or and flourine as a halogen. I sit there stupidly while Whitney and Scott cover all the movie questions, and Luke covers most of the science, politics, and current event questions. The four of us make up our team: The Young Republicans.

The Young Republicans, minus Scott. As usual, Luke looks like he's drunk in this picture (though he hadn't had a drop of alcohol). And who am I married to, anyway? Whitney and I are looking pretty gay here.

We're pretty good- always placing in the upper half of teams who play (ummm.. except this week). The first week we went, we did the best we've ever done (sixth place). Tonight, our most recent quiz night, we did our worst: last place. We did epically bad. As a consolation prize, we're now the proud (?) owners of this baby:

It's inflatable and more than two feet tall.

which will stay inflated at least for a week or two, as reminder of when we were the least geeky geeks in the whole place (in a bad way). I don't think prizes are normally given to last place, we just did that bad. Still though, with three dollars for a stein of beer, and two and half hours of fun, I'm not too discouraged.

peacocks are the new owl.

2010-09-02T09:34:00.000-07:00

Did a little embroidery at Whitney's house during the last movie marathon (three buddy cop movies- Nighthawks, Freebie and the Bean, and In the Heat of the Night). I really like it, a peacock patch that I'll give to my sister, I think.

Keeping it real cheap.

2010-08-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

Luke and I have been challenging ourselves to eat well on $35/week. Between the two of us, that's about 31 meals; $1.13/meal per person. Without eating a lot of boxed/prepared foods (Ramen, frozen burritos, mac & cheese), it's hard. Hard, but satisfying. One thing that's helped is having a freezer chock full of nettles, stone fruit, soup, berries, stock, pesto, and homemade dough.

Another thing that helps is that I love preparing menus (on little scraps of paper left around the house. I'm my mother's daughter), and find huge satisfaction in being able to have gnocci, kebabs, curry (and soda), etc. and spending only thirty dollars. Tonight we tried a recipe from Everyday Food: grilled pizzas. The magazine had delicious-looking toppings of grilled asparagus and ricotta; or fontina, fennel and onion. We kept it cheap with peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, and a little sausage.

The whole meals cost us less than four dollars, and was delicious. If you like thin crust pizza, you'd like this. The dough recipe is here.

2010-08-23T21:51:00.000-07:00

Lukey and I made nettle ravioli for dinner tonight. Delicious.
(rough pictures for the next bit- camera on the fritz)

Nettle

2010-08-20T08:04:00.000-07:00

I talked my good mother into coming with me up Big Cottonwood Cayon to forage for stinging nettles. My mom's a good foraging companion because she knows more about plants than anyone I know (more than once I've sent her a crappy cell phone picture of a leaf or flower and she's been able to identify it faster than I could through the internet), so she teaches and quizzes me as we go along.

So to answer my mom's question of, "why on earth would we purposely pick stinging nettle?": it's soooo good for you- one of the most nutritious greens, in fact- more protein than most, lots of vitamin A and C, calcium, potassium, iron, etc. etc. And plus, it's kind of fun to learn how to live off the land, you know?

The reason the nettle stings is that the leaves and stems have little hairs on them that come off when you touch them, and inject you with formic acid (the stuff that makes an ant bite hurt) and histamines. I'll have to invest in some better gloves, because we quickly learned that the ones we were using were insufficient, and we got stung through them. When nettles are dried or cooked, the chemicals are neutralized, or something, and so they're safe to eat/touch (something Luke didn't believe. He wouldn't try the nettle til he saw me eat it with no throat/tongue swelling or death).

The plant is easy to find up in the canyon from spring to the end of summer. You wanna eat the young, not-woody ones, so earlier in the season is better, but the plants spread through rhizomes so you can find young ones even at the end of summer (you just have to pass up a lot for being too old). After bringing them home, I blanched them and froze them, and have been using it when I want to add something healthy to a bowl of pasta. It tastes like if spinach and swiss chard had a love child. Very good.

Elderflower syrup

2010-08-07T10:21:00.001-07:00

My mom took my sisters and Luke and I up the canyon in search of elderflower. We should've gone a week or two earlier, but we were able to find enough. I've been googoo gaga about elderflower since I first tasted a fizzy elderflower drink from the British store, and wished that it wasn't seven dollars for a liter. So I decided to make my own elderflower syrup, which I'll mix with soda water for practically the same drink for pennies, rather than dollars. (I hear that IKEA makes an elderflower syrup like this, which I will see if I can find next time I'm there, since I don't think I'll have enough to last me until next elderflower season).

I think this an awesome picture of Luke. I like how he wouldn't miss out on the flower-picking action just because he was smoking.

My sisters

The process is a bit time consuming, because you have to get all those tiny little flowers off the stems and into a bowl (the bark and leaves of elderflower plants are mildly poisonous), but it was a good thing to do while watching a movie.

I used about twenty heads of flowers. I put the flowers in a bowl with the juice and zest of two lemons. Then I dissolved four cups sugar in four cups water over medium heat, and poured the simple syrup over the flowers.

The mixture sat steeping on top of the fridge for five days with a towel over it, and then I strained and put it in the fridge.So that's it! Mix two ounces of syrup with two cups of sparkling water, and you have a refreshing, flowery, sweet-but-not-too-sweet elderflower soda!

Wild Plums

2010-08-02T12:30:00.000-07:00

My BFF Whitney picked me a big bag of wild plums from one of the houses where she dogsits. Last night I made jam. Deciding I wanted this jam to be thicker than usual, I boiled it a long time, forgetting how much pectin plums have-- turns out, I have a plum jelly with clumps of fruit. Still, a good flavor.

I had Lukey watercolor little plums for labels, because as easy at it seems, I couldn't draw plums that looked like plums (if we every make an apple jelly, though, I'm ready! I could also probably handle a banana, too. Too bad those aren't good for preserving). I liked the tags so much I made him do one for the plum chutney we're giving to my grandparents when we see them next week. Isn't it the cutest?

Stock

2010-07-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

I used the leftover bones from those game hens for homemade chicken stock. There are plenty of reasons to make stock, rather than buying it: Prepared stock at the grocery store is too expensive for what it is, and stock made from bouillon cubes doesn't taste as good. A homemade stock will give a richer flavor to the soups or sauces it's used in (when I was little I was always grossed out by the turkey simmering on the stove for the whole day after Thanksgiving, but the resulting turkey noodle soup was delicious), and will give the stock minerals (calcium, magnesium, and other stuff good for the joints/bones) and gelatin (which is good for digestion).

I've been collecting vegetables in the freezer for the past few weeks. Whenever there was a little left over after using what I needed for a meal, or I could tell I wasn't going to eat all of something before it went bad, the extra got put in a tupperware in the freezer. Celery, onion, potato, spinach, mushrooms, carrots, tomato (just a little, so it wouldn't overwhelm the flavor of the stock), etc. all got saved, instead of being thrown on the compost pile.

I read that raw chicken will make a better stock, but I don't ever buy whole chickens and cut 'em up for parts (though I probably should), so I just used the cooked ones, which works fine. I put the whole carcasses in the stock pot with the vegetables, covered them with COLD water (different flavors come out at different temperatures, so you start with cold to so every flavor gets expressed), and added some fresh rosmary, a few bay leaves, salt, and pepper (peppercorns would've been better, but I didn't have them). Then I brought it to a boil, turned it down to a simmer, and let it sit on the stove for six hours.

After that I strained out all the vegetables and bones, and separated the stock into tupperwares with one or two cups each, so it's easy to use when it's time to cook, and froze all but the stuff I am planning to use in the next week. Two game hen carcasses and leftover vegetables- all stuff that would've gone to waste- made me thirteen cups of chicken stock that I can use in soups, sauces, and for seitan.

Ew.

2010-07-23T00:20:00.000-07:00

Last night was one of those nights where Luke worked late and I cooked dinner for him. As soon as I saw it at the store (two weeks ago), I knew it'd have to be a Thursday night surprise dinner, and that he would love it. He did. Last night was the first time I've ever made cornish game hen.

And it totally grossed me out! I'm not a big meat person, and I especially don't like having to handle it when it's raw- and this was beyond mere handling: I had to pry the skin from the meat, and shove herbs in the space I'd made; then from the outside, I had to rub the skin in order to spread the herbs around in the breast. It was all very cold and slimy and gross.

This picture cracks me up.

In the under-skin cavity, I put about 1 1/2 tablespoons of a mixture of fresh rosemary, thyme, pepper, and olive oil. Then I basted them with butter, salt and peppered them, and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for an hour.

And they came out looking picture-perfect. They tasted really good, too: good mixture of flavors, tender, moist. Luke liked them as much as I thought he would (he likes eating things that make him feel like he's in the middle ages). But I don't like picking meat off bones, or shoving herbs under pimply chicken skin, or massaging raw chicken breasts, so unless he makes them, we'll probably never have these again.

Ravioli, Take 2

2010-07-21T22:20:00.000-07:00

This time with spinach and ricotta.

We remembered to try drying them for an hour before boiling. It didn't make a huge difference, but they were a little better- chewier, or something.

And we were better about sealing them, so none opened while boiling.

With a simple tomato basil sauce, they were quite good
(but not even close to as good as those butternut squash ones).

Sur La Table = pretty food

2010-07-19T22:54:00.001-07:00

For my birthday, Luke's sister Rachael gave me a gift certificate to Sur La Table. It was my first time going there, and it was basically my version of heaven. I spent forty minutes wandering up and down the aisles, picking up wonderfully unnecessary cooking tools and imagining all the things I could make (Shortcake cups that look like baskets? Molded shortbread? Properly funneled pies? (and if I'm ever rich, I would love to buy myself this)). I could've even stayed longer, but Luke got anxious to leave (he'd already gone to the Apple store, played with the new iphone, and come back). Before leaving, though, I was able to grab a couple not-needed-but-loved things that I've been wanting to get for a while- one thing I like about myself is how little stuff like this makes me so happy.

First, a tart pan. Pie tins work as just as well, but don't turn out as pretty. And it's impossible (for me) to cut a slice and get it onto a plate without messing it up a little. With a tart pan with removable bottom, you get beautiful looking quiches and tarts that look just as nice after being cut.

We usually try new things when we cook, but quiche is one of the few things we make on a regular basis. It's so cheap, so easy, and so yummy! And for a meal that lends itself to so many variations, we almost always have it the same way: spinach, mushrooms, and cheese. This quiche was good (after his first bite, Drew started swearing. In a good way), but what I'm really looking forward to is making tarts with light, flaky crusts and brimming with bright fruit.

My second purchase was a fluted ravioli cutter. Who needs it, right? But I've wanted to make ravioli for a while, haven't, and saw this as a way of getting me excited and motivated. And it worked. Tonight Luke and I made butternut squash ravioli with a browned sage butter drizzled on top. It was much easier than I thought it would be, and after eating huge platefuls, Luke and I leaned back and complimented ourselves on what good cooks we are.

The recipe (makes about 30 ravioli):

For the filling:
1 small butternut squash
salt
pepper
cinnamon
nutmeg
about 1/4 c mozzarella

For the dough:
3 C flour
1/2 t salt
2 eggs
About 3/4 flour

1. Cut the butternut squash in half lengthwise and scoop out the seeds. Brush the cut sides with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and put in a 400 degree oven for about 30 minutes.
2. When the squash comes out of the oven, let it cool while you make the dough.
3. Sift together flour and salt. Make a well in the flour mixture and crack the eggs into the well. Lightly beat the eggs with a fork. Mix the eggs and flour together, and slowly add water until a stiff dough forms.
3. Knead the dough til smooth, and then cover and let it sit fifteen minutes.
4. Scoop the squash out of the shells, add dashes of cinnamon and nutmeg, and add the cheese.
5. Divide the dough in half and roll out each half as thin as you can get it- between 1/16 and 1/8 of an inch.
6. Put the filling in little globs (about 1 t) about 1 1/2 inches apart on the dough. Cover with the other rolled out sheet, and press the sheets together around the filling to create little pockets. Cut with the ravioli stamp.

7. (Looking at recipes now, after the fact, I've learned that you should let the cut ravioli dry for an hour. We didn't do that, and it turned out well, but I will try that next time to see what a difference it makes).

8. Cook the ravioli by boiling it in salted water for 10-15 minutes.

9. Meanwhile, melt 2-3 T butter a pan, add sage (about 1/2 t), and brown.
10. Drizzle butter over the ravioli and serve.

It was so good!

Fishing

2010-07-07T21:31:00.000-07:00

Until a couple weeks ago, I hadn't been fishing since I was eleven and my grandpa took me. In the summers, he lives in a motor home on a really pretty piece of land in the mountains of northern Utah. A little stream runs through the property, and he took me fishing for german brown trout. He had to put the worm on the hook, because I couldn't stand to feel it writhe as I stabbed it, and what we caught we ate for dinner. Fishing was quiet, and I liked it well enough.

Turns out, fishing's even better on a big boat in Strawberry Reservoir with your best friend and his family/friends (four guys ranging in ages from 18-50 who call themselves "Team Olsen"). I drove up late Saturday night, ate steak and campfire potatoes, and slept in a two-man tent with Drew and the dogs. In the morning, we watched the yorkshire terriers chase pot guts through the sagebrush, and then went out on the boat.

Most of fishing was sitting with my feet up, a quarter on my fishing line (so it would 'pop' when the fish were biting), and tropical Mike & Ikes by the handfuls. Kansas, Journey, Dire Straits, and Dixie Chicks blared while my sunburn got progressively worse. We used powerbait instead of worms, which was good- all of the guys we were with swore by a different flavor, and one insisted the secret was to use the orange bait and shape it to look like Nemo.

And I caught the biggest fish of the day! After only getting a crawdad during the first two and a half hour, it was great that in the last hour I caught a great big (21-inch) cutthroat. I was hoping to bring home something I could eat, but they're doing population control for the fish, and you can only bring home cutthroat that are smaller than 15 inches or bigger than 22. Still, though, I was pretty stoked.

The one thing I didn't like about fishing (aside from the resulting sunburn, I guess) was worrying about the fish we'd caught and released. The hooks we used were supposed to dissolve extra fast, and the guys I went with were experienced fishermen who could very quickly measure the fish to get it back in the water as soon as possible if it wasn't the right size. But what I didn't know is that fish that are released go through a period of shock, and just float on top of the water for a bit. We'd sit there, cheering them on as they soon came out of it and started flopping, twisting, and eventually swam away. The fish I caught took especially long to get over being stunned, and it was at least three or four minutes of me feeling sad/guilty before he finally snapped out of it and dove down into the water.

Anyway, fishing's fun. I'm going to get a license (I only got a day license, because I wasn't sure if I'd like it enough to go again) so I can go out again.

Jammin'

2010-07-06T23:00:00.000-07:00

It's canning season! We got twenty-four pounds of peaches from our food co-op, and last week we made some jam, since we only have a couple pints left over from last year's peach batch. Again, we made plain peach (which we mostly use as a syrup for pancakes) and peach ginger (which has been a big hit with everyone who's tried it- good on toast, good as a chicken glaze, good on ice cream, etc).

Then this year we added to our jam repertoire a peach lavender jam that I think will be lovely (haven't tasted it since it gelled, only while it was cooking). We made the peach like normal, and then added the lavender water that resulted from dried lavender flowers steeping in boiling water for twenty minutes. I'm imagining crackers with cream cheese and peach lavender. Or warm bread with a unhealthy amounts of butter and cold peach lavender jam. If it's half as good as I imagine it to be, it'll be delicious.

summer night dinner

2010-07-02T07:45:00.000-07:00

Luke and I do about 95% of the cooking together, which is why it's fun, every once in a while, for one of us to cook for the other. I've grown to really like Thursday nights, when Luke gets off at 11 pm. In the winter, by eleven I'd be feeling sleepy and lazy. In the summer, I've waited for it to cool down outside, had a nice walk to the grocery store, and have dinner ready just a couple minutes after he gets home. Midnight dinners happen a lot at our house during the summer.

We get food from a co-op every week (if you live in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Texas, Washington, Nevada, or Arizona, I highly recommend it- Bountiful Baskets- for $16 you get $30-40 worth of fresh produce), so all I needed for summer vegetable. sandwiches was some french bread and mozzarella. I cut the bread in half lengthwise (somehow, in my head, eating half a loaf of french bread with tons of stuff on top didn't seem like too much for two people. I was wrong!), brushed with olive oil (and next time, balsamic vinegar), and piled with grilled and fresh veggies: eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, and tomatoes. Topped with cheese, broiled for a bit, and we had fantastic summer night sandwiches.

2010-07-01T00:09:00.001-07:00

When I started getting into new crafts/hobbies a couple years ago, I promised friends and husband alike that I wouldn't become the kind of girl who made sachets to stink up the house, car, or my underwear drawer. So far, I've kept my promise. Stinking up the house has been the unintended effect, though, of tonight's project: drying lavender.

My mom harvested me a big bucketful, and tonight I opened the back door to let in some fresh air, and turned on some favorites, like this one:

Meiko - how lucky we are

Found at abmp3 search engine

Then I de-leafed, tied, and hung up the lavender to dry. The whole house (granted, we've got three rooms) smells lovely, and I think it'll be a couple days before I get the smell off my fingers. I'm looking forward to exploring lavender's culinary uses- I see a lavendery summer in my future.

Sundays at home

2010-06-13T18:34:00.000-07:00

Luke and I spend one Sunday a month at each of our parents' houses. The other two Sundays are for us to relax at home and spend time together. We decided that we want to start making big breakfasts together on the Sundays at home, a 'tradition' we'd like to continue when we have kids, too. This week, the first week, we made tomato/spinach/bell pepper omelettes, toast, and the strawberry basil lemonade.

Isn't our new table cute? I've spent almost a month looking at consignment shops and antique stores, and finally settled on this blue formica one, which fits perfectly with the 50s tablecloth-turned-curtains in our kitchen.

We took our coffee out to the porch, and then we spent the afternoon up the canyon hiking and mushroom hunting (it's still a little too early, I think, but we found a couple kinds).

I think this summer, Sundays are going to be my new hobby day. And this was a good one.

Lemonade

2010-06-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

The weather still feels like spring in Utah right now (and I love it!) but I've been hankering for some summery drinks (and using the reamer I just got). Last night I made some lemonade concentrate. I juiced six lemons, and brought the juice to a boil with about 1 1/2 cups each water and sugar.

(Then I did it all over again, because after filling the mason jar with the hot lemon concentrate, I stupidly decided to rinse it so it wouldn't get sticky, and the jar broke in my hands. Even though it was one in the morning, Luke could tell I had my heart set on morning lemonade, so convinced me that we really should go back to the store for six more lemons.)

This morning, I filled the glasses a little less than half full with the concentrate, added some muddled basil and strawberry purée, a couple ice cubes, and filled the glass to the top with cold water (I think next time I'll try sparkling water, because a fizzy lemonade would be good, too). It was, seriously, the best lemonade I've ever had.

Best part? I still have enough concentrate to make it a couple more times.

quaking aspen

2010-06-09T17:18:00.000-07:00

My best gal pal, Whitney, started an etsy shop where she has a lot of itty bitty cross stitches for sale: Adam and Steve, an old couple, some french sailors with their cat, and some non-gay-themed ones, like this mushroom that I love:

She's going to let me join her in her little shop, and we'll have some of my embroidery (framed and as brooches) and some cross stitch/embroidery collaborations.

This little quaking aspen embroidery (photo taken at a weird angle to avoid most of the glare) was supposed to be included, but once I was finished, I couldn't give it up. After having it for a couple weeks I felt like I was ready to sell it, but now Luke's become attached. I guess I'll just have to make another.

The branches an outline of the tree were done in couching. It's a simple stitch, but it uses two needles, so the whole time I was doing it I kept thinking of it as "Extreme Embroidery!!!!"

Garden Party

2010-06-07T23:36:00.001-07:00

May was a slow blog-posting month. Between graduation, a sister-in-law's out-of-town wedding, and spending most of most of my time studying for the Utah bar exam, I haven't been spending too much time on hobbies. But I'm back!

My birthday was at the end of May, and I planned a late-night garden party for myself. There was a three gallon recycled glass cooler (like this one) with limeade and all the mix-ins for cocktails (mint, basil, strawberries, tequila, vodka). Rather than a full meal, I served bread, flat bread, crackers and dips: hummus; sundried tomato and pineapple (I tried to replicate the one from Paradise Bakery, and think that besides being a smoother texture, it was a pretty good match. It seemed to be the favorite of the night); sweet onion (my favorite); Coriander-Chile Pinto Bean; and a tomato basil butter. Ash brought a delicious bruschetta.

For decoration, Drew and I put blankets on the grass surrounded by candles in mason jars. I used some of my vintage fabrics to make some fabric banners, one which hung between a tree and garage, and one that we draped around the table.

It was a little early for the garden to be far along, but I did have a couple pots filled with snap dragons, dahlias, and celosia. I also had jupiter's beard and daisies in a bud vase Whitney found at an antique store and gave me for my birthday.

So everything was beautiful, and just as I'd planned it.... And then it was too cold to enjoy. After ignoring everyone's shivers for an hour, we moved the party inside, where (despite not being as pretty), we warmed up and had a good time.

Excellent Flavor

2010-05-19T00:54:00.000-07:00

I adore this painting/plant marker that I got from my friend Christopher. I saw some he'd made for himself and loved them so much I commissioned him to make some for me. This one came in the mail yesterday, and I couldn't be more pleased with it. I've always liked his style (more examples of his cool art here and here and here), and am glad to have some of it in my house. Thanks, dude!

Only semi-related:

2010-05-16T11:14:00.000-07:00

This blog's supposed to be about me developing hobbies. So why a picture of my graduation?

1) I like this picture because of how clear I am in comparison to all those dudes/dudettes whose hands I'm shaking;
2) I just graduated law school. I don't have to have a reason!
3) Every time Luke wanted me to stop studying and give him attention, he'd tell me it was time to give up this silly little law hobby of mine.

You can do it, Brucey!

2010-04-29T21:59:00.000-07:00

Remember that part in Matilda when Ms. Trunchbull makes Bruce Bogtrotter eat that entire chocolate cake? This weekend, for my brother JB's birthday, Luke and I made (what I think of as) Brucey's cake. It was a double layer cake with dark chocolate frosting, and was really moist and delicious. And because JB is a guy who appreciates pretty things, we put a ring of crystalized flowers around the top.

The recipe:

12 tablespoons softened unsalted butter
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
heaping 3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and lightly flour two 9-inch round cake pans. In a bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well incorporated. Beat in vanilla.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three additions, alternating with buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape bowl as needed.
Pour batter into pans.* Bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pans 10 minutes before inverting cakes onto rack to cool completely.

*Our pans overflowed a little, so I'd suggest using all but about 1/2 - 3/4 cup of the batter.

For the frosting we used this recipe from Martha Stewart.

What I didn't know until today is that there is a recipe for Bruce Bogtrotter's cake in Roald Dahl's Revolting Recipes.

Cookbooks

2010-04-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

I've got my eye on a cookbook that's being given away at Fab Frugal Food, a site I check multiple times a week for good recipe ideas (check out this week's Meatless Monday recipe, a black bean soup with coconut and cilantro). It's a whole cookbook of delicious-looking (and tasting, I'm sure) quesadillas.

Wishing and begging for this book has made me realize that almost as much as cooking, I love reading cookbooks. I've discovered I'm quite good at reading a recipe and knowing if I'll like it, or what I could changed to make it better- a skill I like to think I got from my grandma, who used to pour over recipe books (though she was a crappy cook. Everything bland and everything overcooked. I guess all the cookbook-reading didn't do her a lot of good).

At the thrift store, I've found some good ones for just a dollar or two- a Better Homes and Gardens vegetarian cookbook, a book of muffins and quick breads, and a Thai cookbook that shows not only how to make traditional Thai meals, but also home-made curry pastes and flowers out of carrots and chilis.

The Bon Appetit 30-Minute Main Courses book almost has more pages marked for me to try than pages that are unmarked.

And in my little collection of cookbooks is a book I have not yet used, but love for it's looks: Fannie Farmer Junior Cook Book, published in 1942 and inscribed "To Meg from Grandma," containing directions for everything from toast to layer cakes to Susie Salad:

and besides that, red-edged pages with cute little pictures at the beginning of every section:

Crystalizing flowers

2010-04-16T00:25:00.000-07:00

I think it's cool that when I tell Luke that I've been learning about edible flowers, and now I want to use little paintbrushes to paint individual flower petals with egg whites and then sprinkle them with sugar, not only does he not think I'm an idiot, but he wants to do it with me. We candied/crystalized about a hundred little flowers, both cherry blossoms and forsythia. After the painting/sugaring, the flowers have to dry for at least twenty-four hours.

A lot got ruined trying to take them off the pan the next day (next time we'll use wax paper), but we still had enough to make spring cupcakes for some friends. Paired with cupcakes and frosting, you couldn't really taste the light floral flavor, and they just tasted like sprinkles (for a full tutorial on crystalizing flowers, go here).

I think it'll take a few more times before we really master it, but I'm excited to try crystalizing other flowers (like johhny jump-ups!), and just exploring edible flowers in general. Tulips supposedly taste kind of like cucumbers or fresh peas, marigolds like saffron, bachelor's buttons like clove, etc. etc. There's a lot to learn.

Experiment with Indian food

2010-04-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

Tonight Luke and I tried one of my very favorite Indian dishes, Saag Aloo (or Palak Aloo). We used the recipe that I found here, and it was good, but not quite what we've gotten in restaurants. We'll have to try again sometime, with a few changes.

We also tried naan for the first time, which I think turned out as well as it could have without a tandoor. We'll definitely be making that again, and Luke's already looking forward to trying peshwari naan.

The real hit for the night, though, were the monastery lentils (a name that came, I just read, from a time when poor catholic monks would eat lentils as a substitute for fish on Fridays or during lent). The recipe is my mom's, and it's such a simple recipe with no really exotic spices or anything, so I'm always surprised at how good it is. The recipe:

1/4 C oil
2 C onions, chopped
2 carrots, choped
1/2 t thyme
1/2 t marjoram
3 C chicken or vegetable stock
1 C lentils
1 lb tomatoes, chopped

1. Fry the onions and carrots in the oil until limp.
2. Add the thyme, marjoram, chicken stock and lentils and bring to a boil. Turn down to a high simmer and cook until lentils are the desired consistency (about 15-20 min).
3. Add tomatoes, heat through, and serve.

Makes tons- we'll be (happily) eating this for days.

Spring flowers

2010-04-11T22:41:00.001-07:00

The best thing about spring- better than the warming weather, the cherry blossoms, the daffodils, and new leaves- is forsythia.

I love forsythia as much as ever, and, like last year, I've gone about my city stealing a branch here and branch there to brighten up my house. Luke says he's sad when forsythia season is over and I stop pointing out every one we see as we drive down the road (and I choose to believe he's not being sarcastic).

But because all those other things about spring (the warming weather, the cherry blossoms, the daffodils, and the new leaves) are nice, too, I don't discriminate and collect pretty things for every room.

In the kitchen: a big, gaudy vase full of forsythia that's as wide as my whole table.

In the living room: a much more demure bouquet of daffodils.

And for the bathroom: Grape Hyacinth/Muscari

One thing that's nice about living in the same area for a while is that I remember where I collected flowers last year and the year before. I was especially glad to remember this one, a variety of double daffodil (I can't figure out which) that I have only seen at a law office near the city library. I think it's just the prettiest:

Sourdough: attempt #2

2010-03-31T22:33:00.001-07:00

A relative success! I tried a sourdough french bread, and we liked the hard crust and soft middle. Still needs a bit of tweaking (I'm reading up on how to make it more sour), but I'm pretty impressed with it.

2010-03-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

I think I'm a pretty good cook, but where I need a lot of work is in baking. I almost never bake anything, and when I do, it's nothing fancy, nothing especially delicious. My friend Ben gave me a sourdough starter that dates back a hundred and fifty years, or something crazy like that. On Sunday I tried my first batch of sourdough bread, and it was bad. Mediocre flavor, terrible texture. I'm going to try again tomorrow and hope for something more like this:

And less like the spongy brick I threw to the compost pile without even finishing a piece.

I'm looking forward to warm summer nights with fruit and freshly-baked bread for dinner.

2010-03-29T16:40:00.001-07:00

Yesterday Luke and I made an asparagus tart for my family, a recipe we got from the Martha Stewart book I got for Christmas. We baked a puff pastry sheet for about ten minutes. Then the pastry is covered with asparagus shaved using a vegetable peeler to make long, thin strips, then tossed with a little oil and salt and pepper. After baking for about ten minutes, the tart is sprinkled with cheese (we used an Italian mix, rather than plain parmesan, as the recipe called for) and baked for five more minutes. All of us liked it quite a bit. It was easy, fast, and simple.

Then last night, at Fab Frugal Food, the Meatless Monday idea for this week was a spaghetti using that thinly-sliced asparagus instead of spaghetti noodles. After peeling them, the asparagus is steamed for a minute to make it soft. Sounds good- we'll have to try it sometime soon. Asparagus is one of my favorite spring foods!

Spring!

2010-03-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the Vernal Equinox. I wish I would've been outside planting cold crops and turning the compost and enjoying fifty degree weather (and otherwise celebrating the change in seasons as a representation of future food, flowers, and babies); instead, I was inside at work all day, spent the evening at Whitney and Scott's house for the Three Best Friends Saturday Triple Feature!!: Volume 3, and have a newly broken foot, so probably wouldn't be too productive shoveling compost anyway.

However! I did plan ahead enough that we were able to share a bottle of Sima, a Finnish spring mead, for the first day of spring. My mom lived in Finland for a year and a half when she was twenty-one (trying to convert Finns to the LDS religion, which is apparently almost impossible). While she didn't make a whole lot of foods from Finland when I was growing up, we did usually have this fermented lemonade in the spring.

To make it, you put the peels of two lemons in a gallon bowl/jar, cover them with boiling water, and add 1/2 C brown sugar, 1/2 C sugar, lemon slices (pith removed), and 1/4 t yeast (I used a multi-purpose yeast for sparkling wine, but regular baking yeast works fine, too).

Let the sima sit, covered, for one or two days on the counter. The yeast will start doing its work, making carbonation. After a couple days, bottle the sima, and add a five or six raisins to each bottle. Cork the bottles. As the drink gets more fizzy, the raisins start to float.

When the raisins are floating, put the drink in the fridge to cool before drinking (or just drink right away. Sima's good lukewarm, too). I didn't put the bottle on the left in the fridge soon enough after the raisins starting floating, and so much CO2 built up that the cork popped off and hit the ceiling.

If you drink right away, the fermentation is little enough that it's okay to serve to kids- like kimchi, vinegar, etc. If you let it sit longer, it will quickly become as alcoholic as other wines. We're considering trying a batch like that, but it's so good this way, I don't know if I can wait long enough.

The number of raisins you get when you pour the sima into your class is a sign of how many kids you're going to have: three for me, six for Luke (uh-oh!)

I'm spending this first spring Sunday hanging out in sweatpants, drinking sima in front of the picture window in the livingroom, and updating my Netflix queue. Luke's on the couch next to me on his computer, and we're not really talking, but just doing that being-together-without-doing-something-together thing. So pleasant.

Happy Spring!

Now I just need to make bagels.

2010-03-15T23:22:00.001-07:00

There are two foods, both easy, that I always want to make but never get around to: granola and bagels. It's been at least a year that I've been telling Luke that "one of these days we need to make bagels/granola," and he tells me, "you've been saying that for forever."

Well, today we finally made granola. We went with a vanilla granola with dried apple and strawberry bits. It's good, but we now have ideas of what we want to change for next time- bigger oats, walnuts, more of the honey/oil/sugar mixure, so it's a little more clumpy.

After dinner, we made parfaits with strawberries, greek yogurt (with a little honey mixed in), and granola, still warm from the oven. Very yummy. Also good is that our house now smells wonderful, and there's plenty left over for breakfasts and snacks.

Sweet Pea

2010-03-04T09:57:00.000-08:00

I don't know, maybe it's dorky, but last night when I was reading Martha Stewart Living, I was delighted by this:
If I didn't know better, I'd think the tattoo artist was looking at this picture when he was tattooing me last October. Love it.

This week I went to my old house and dug up my perennials. This move has been hard for me, and maybe it's melodramatic, but it was therapeutic to undo a lot of what I did, making it feel less like "my" house/yard. One of the things I moved to my new little garden is a sweet pea. This will be its third year, and the roots are getting pretty substantial; I hope this is the year that it really takes off. I love this flower.

Dinner surprise

2010-02-28T00:29:00.000-08:00

I took a nap when I got home from work today, and when I woke up, Luke was grinding mint in the mortar for a dinner he'd chosen: mint pesto with pecorino and edamame, and turkey meatballs with pancetta.

I made the meatballs while he finished up with the pesto, and then Drew came over for dinner before we headed out for a movie (Up in the Air) at Brewvies.

For a while, I've been asking Luke to choose some meals he'd like for us to make. This is why. This is not a recipe I would've chosen to make, but it was so so good, and we'll definitely make it again.

One nice thing about this huzzzzband of mine is that he likes surprising me like this. A fancy dinner half-made when I wake up from a nap. Omelette and rye toast ready when I got out of the shower the other morning. House spotless when I come home from work. Being married is awesome (and the tax benefits!).

Week of Dinners: Day 7

2010-02-24T10:23:00.000-08:00

No picture for the seventh day of dinners, because Luke and I neither cooked nor ate together. Luke had leftover miso soup at home, while I watched Olympics and ate biscuits and gravy at Drew's house.

So that's it! The end of Heather-takes-pictures-of-her-food week!

Week of Dinners: Day 6

2010-02-22T21:20:00.000-08:00

One of my new favorite meals: miso soup with soba noodles, spinach, and tofu. So good!!

For dessert: coconut tea with lychee and boba

Week of Dinners: Day 5

2010-02-21T19:57:00.000-08:00

Today my mom and two younger sisters came up to hang out with Luke and I. We played dominoes and talked and for dinner ate "fresh mex" salads like you'd get at Cafe Rio/Bajio/Costa Vida.

You can't see it all, but this freshly-cooked tortilla is packed with black beans, sweet pork (Luke's mom gave us the easy recipe- pork roast, picante sauce, and brown sugar), lettuce, cheese, mango salsa, guacamole, and cilantro lime dressing.

Week of Dinners: Day 4

2010-02-20T16:50:00.001-08:00

I spent all day at work, and now we're heading to Whitney and Scott's house for some movies. So tonight for dinner we're having:

Turkey and provolone sandwiches from my work. Sandwiches I take home on Saturday evenings so they get eaten over the weekend and not thrown away on Monday morning. Sandwiches made on fluffy, freshly-baked kolaches by this really kooky guy, who I assume is Johnny, because he owns/runs Johnny Kolache's deli.

Week of Dinners: Day 3

2010-02-19T21:57:00.001-08:00

Gnocchi with sweet tomato and mushroom sauce*, and a spinach side salad with pear ginger dressing.

A bowl full of gnocchi

Tonight was the first time that Luke and I made gnocchi. It was really fun, especially waiting for the pasta to float, indicating it's done. Now that we've tried making it with regular potato, we want to try it with sweet potatoes or squash.

For dessert: vanilla ice cream with warm carrot and walnut bread (which I did not make, but got for free from a Winder Farms lady who seemed to have a crush on me).

*It's a bummer both last night's and tonight's dinners kind of look like dog food piled on pasta (tonight's sauce is kind of a weird color because it's made with golden tomato sauce- canned last year- which doesn't look nearly as pretty as the tomatoes it comes from). They were both delicious.*

Week of Dinners: Day 2

2010-02-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

Honey sesame "chicken" with baby bok choy. We made the seitan last night, and it simmered while I read recipe books and Luke made Spanish conjugation lessons for me. We brought dinner to Ben's house, where we watched six episodes of Better off Ted.

A week of dinners: Day 1

2010-02-17T18:13:00.000-08:00

Spinach and mushroom quiche, made while the Comcast guy was hooking up the internet, Luke was smoking cigarettes, and I was drinking a stein of Diet Dr. Pepper.

Truffles

2010-02-16T14:32:00.000-08:00

For Valentine's Day, my mom and sisters and I made truffles for friends. The best were the oreo (Luke said he was 'ridiculously impressed' with them), but we also made white chocolate lime coconut that were very good.

Making truffles was fun, and way easier than I thought it would be. Luke and I moved over the weekend, and are going to make up a couple batches to bring to our new neighbors.

Meat of Wheat

2010-01-26T23:09:00.000-08:00

A week or two ago, I was looking online for good vegetarian recipes (I don't intend to be a vegetarian again, but I do want to cut out most meat), and I stumbled across a recipe for seitan, which I'd never heard of before but have eaten dozens of times. Seitan (pronounced 'say-tahn') is that fake meat they serve in restaurants (I've only had it at Chinese places). It's got a more meat-like texture than tofu, and the flavor can be varied a lot with experimentation.

So I've been obsessed with seitan for the last week: comparing recipes, reading about how nutritional it is (very little fat, few calories, a fair amount of fiber, and tons of protein), talking with Luke about all the dinners I think we could make with seitan as a substitute for the meat, etc. etc. etc. Tonight we finally made it, and it was actually as good as (if not better than) I'd built it up in my head.

Seitan, post-simmer, and before frying with a little oil for General Tso's "chicken"

Basically, it's made by making an elastic-y log out of wheat gluten flour mixed with water (we also added soy sauce, nutritional yeast flakes* and garlic for more flavor), and then simmering that log in a broth for an hour (we used a vegetable stock, a little soy sauce, and red pepper flakes). Our recipe resulted in three big, puffy hunks- about two servings each- that can be used in all kinds of meals.

We made general tso's seitan, with orange and green bell peppers, water chestnuts, broccoli, and mushrooms, and it was GOOD! We wish we'd discovered seitan two years ago, when we first started cooking together. This opens up a whole new world of nutritional cooking!

*I just learned about nutritional yeast, too. It's a deactivated yeast that makes up a complete protein, is a good source of B-complex vitamins, and tastes really good, too.

New hobby

2010-01-20T16:05:00.000-08:00

So my newest hobby- this one having nothing to do with the craft/homemade world- is learning Spanish.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: my biggest regret from high school is not learning Spanish (and in high school I was obsessed and snobby about bad music, had a livejournal called 'friendless' and was a terrible girlfriend to a nice boy. So this is saying a lot). Then in college, something like three quarters of the boys I had crushes on were hispanic- why didn't I learn it then?! I started taking a class in one of my last semesters, but the professor talked about religion too much, so I dropped out. I don't blame myself for that one.

I had my first community ed class last night. I think that knowing Spanish will be incredibly useful and important, especially because in the next year I'll graduate, take the bar, and become an immigration attorney. So wish me luck (or, um, 'suerte').

Back into it.

2010-01-18T16:45:00.001-08:00

First there was finals, then a holiday when we were broke and lazy. Now here it is, the middle of January, and Luke and I haven't done any real cooking for about a month. We're getting back into it, though.

I found a really good cook book at the thrift store for a dollar-- there are so many recipes I want to try, and they're all quick-- and the first we tried from it was a mustard maple chicken that we served for my mom and sisters when they came for a visit. It was a hit, and as easy as sauteing chopped onions, adding brown mustard and maple syrup to make a glaze, and putting it under the broiler. Try it. It's good. It'd be good on vegetables and any kind of meat.

Something else we tried was some apple rings that I got at a new blog I found, Fab Frugal Food. They were indeed "fab." Apples battered and fried like onion rings, but then sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and drizzled with a creamy cinnamony syrup. Delicious.

Poor Man's Christmas

2009-12-26T09:15:00.001-08:00

One thing about being totally broke is that you've got to be creative with the Christmas gifts you give (because I think two years in a row is the most you can go without giving presents to your best friends, and I'd already used those up).

One that I had a hard time giving away was a little wallet that I made for my husband Luke. It was on an oatmeal muslin (the lady cutting at the fabric store kept calling it 'muslim'), and embroidered with a simple little fern and fiddlehead:

For my sister-in-law, Jenny, I made an apron with a frilly ruffle:

For Eber, a satchel; for Drew a kelly green wallet with embroidered feather; and for Whitney a vegetarian cook book, and recipe box with twenty or so of my favorite recipes.

Oh, and for Ariel, the weird moon shoes she gave me last year:

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T09:07:00.000-08:00

Christmas Tree

2009-12-25T08:00:00.000-08:00

My mom, little sister Mari, and I spent about twelve hours designing, cutting out, sewing, stuffing, and hand-embelishing little 'quirky bird' ornaments inspired by the ones I saw in Crate and Barrel. I loved the way they turned out, and loved our tree this year- birds, Scandinavian straw stars, and little bearded men:

Yummy recipe

2009-12-02T12:23:00.000-08:00

My friend Len gave me a copy of this month's Real Simple, which has tons of ideas for Christmas presents, wrapping, and recipes. Last night I made one of those recipes, a caramelized onion tart, and I think it was one of my favorite things I've ever cooked. Top ten at least.

And it was so easy!

Ingredients:
1-2 T butter
a medium onion (I used a white one)
medium red apple, chopped in small pieces (I used Gala)
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
one sheet puff pastry, thawed
1/4 C sour cream

-Preheat oven to 400
-Caramelize the onion in butter on medium heat for 10-12 minutes
-Add the apple, salt, and pepper and cook another 3-5 minutes so the apples get soft
-Prick the puff pastry all over with a fork
-Spread pastry with sour cream, leaving 1/2 inch border on all sides
-Spread onion/apple mixture over the sour cream
-Bake until pastry is puffy and golden- 15-20 mins

Getting in the Christmas Spirit

2009-11-20T11:09:00.000-08:00

Next Wednesday I'm getting together with my mom and two sisters to have a craft day. We're spending the whole afternoon (no school because of Thanksgiving) making Christmas ornaments. I've spent the last week trying to decide which projects to do, and think these ones are for sure:

Quirky Birds from Crate and Barrel

Pinecone Elf from Martha Stewart

Patchwork Trees from Sew Mama Sew!

Stained Glass Cookie Ornaments from Simply Recipes

Also, I'm really hoping to win this Flea Market Fancy giveaway. All that pretty fabric would be nice for holiday crafting.

2009-11-19T10:21:00.001-08:00

Most of my hobbying lately has been cooking with Luke. We've been going to one dinner party/potluck after another (can you call it a dinner 'party' when there are just four of us?) and trying to cook good meals for just the two of us.

Luke and I also inoculated a log with mycelium- I found a good log on the side of the road and brought it home to drill with holes and fill with spawn (live fungus mixed with sawdust and grains, grown on a small wooden dowel), in hopes that we can grow some oyster mushrooms. Hopefully, we'll have something like this by the end of next summer:
We did it a little too late in the season, but we have a lot of spawn left so whether it works or not we can do some again next spring, summer and fall.

And lastly, lookit!

Luke's brother and his wife are having a baby in a couple weeks. I don't know any babies, so this little girl (London) is going to get a bunch of presents from me because I want to make teeny tiny things. These little booties will probably only fit the kid for a couple weeks to a month (and if they have a big baby, they might not fit at all), but I'm really happy with them. Now I just need to buy a two little buttons for the ankle straps, and they'll be done!

embroidered brooches

2009-10-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

I've been making brooches for other people, and then liking them so much when they're done that I wish I could keep them for myself:

some non-descript flowers

acorn:

shasta daisies:

It's good embroidery practice- I finally mastered bullion stitches while making this rose:
I made a coneflower one, too, but my sister stole it (to be fair, I steal things from her all the time).

Next hobbies I'll try: brewing mead and making buttons.

Split Pea

2009-10-07T11:23:00.000-07:00

Living in a tiny duplex apartment has its drawbacks (like not being able to have a bedframe for our huge bed because it makes us unable to open/close the bedroom door), but one big advantage is that a single piece of furniture has a huge impact on the whole look of the house.

Last week I took out the table, an ugly card table never used for eating, but for piling with mail and homework and sewing scraps. In its place, we decided we needed a china hutch, because our tiny duplex apartment doesn't have much cupboard space for all the dishes I buy from thrift stores. We bought the hutch for $20 from D.I. (my favorite thrift store), but decided it was too kitzchy even for us:

So we repainted it with a bright white and a color that matches very well with the rest of our house, split pea. I don't know why, but I really like that my house is decorated in a color called "split pea."

I love it. It looks good and makes our the awkwardly small space between our kitchen and our living room look much more complete. Now we're painting the bedside tables in our bedroom to match. Maybe with some split pea-colored cutains in the living room, our house will be done for a while.

fall quilt

2009-10-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

It's fall! The weather switched a couple days ago, but yesterday was the first morning when I didn't want to get out of bed because it was so cozy. Last night I woke up at 4 am to put a new blanket on the bed. I went with this one, a quilt made by my great-grandmother:

She made the leaves out of her old clothes (and it looks like she was a snazzy dresser!), and it's kind of hard to tell that they are even supposed to be leaves, because the drawn-on stems have faded, and on some patches, the fabric itself is so torn and tattered that really all that's left is the applique edges.

As I made the bed this morning, I decided I want to make a quilt like this. I'll have to buy the fabric, though, because I don't wear patterns or very many colors, so it'd end up being a pretty boring quilt. Is it silly to plan my next quilt when I'm not even half done with my first?

Look at this!

2009-09-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

My brother and sister-in-law just went on a month-long trip to China. Look at the papercut owl they brought me back (and notice the little baby owls in the middle):

I love it!

Double gray

2009-09-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

Of my hobbies, my very favorite is card and board games. I learned how to play Phase 10 when I was five. I remember family vacations to California where we played Rack-o on the porch; a reunion where I was asked to go play somewhere else because my six-year-old self, trying to impress the adults with how well I knew the game, kept giving away the hands of the parents around the table ("it's okay that you're skipped, dad, because on your next turn you can go out!" "Oh! Aunt Carolee, you got a wild!"); and standing up excitedly for my elaborate tile-switching in Rummikub.

Luke and I play one or two games of Phase 10 every day. In the course of our two year relationship, we have gone through similar phases with Skip-Bo, Battleship (though that was short-lived), and Guess Who. And now I'm introducing him to Dominoes.

The box came with a bunch of different ways to play, but the only way I've ever played was Mexican Train, because that's the only way my grandparents ever play. With only two people playing, the train doesn't get as elaborate, but it's still fun to see what it looks like by the end of the round:

Guess who won the first game?

spider aster brooch

2009-09-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Here's another little brooch I embroidered, inspired by the asters in my front yard:

Quilting, take one.

2009-09-23T14:42:00.000-07:00

Whitney and I decided to try quilting for the first time. We got a bunch of books at the library, and I loved just about everything in this one on Amish and Mennonite quilts. I decided to do a Chinese Coin quilt, like this one by Oh Fransson!:

Mine's going to be in dark browns and olive greens, and I've got a lot of the patches cut out, though I still have a fair amount to do, and a need a few more fabrics. I'm more than a little obsessed with stacking the patches, then laying them out to look at how they look side-by-side. I've never done a crafty project that has taken as long as this one will. I'm excited to start sewing, though.

tomatoes.

2009-09-17T10:36:00.000-07:00

I've been getting at least one of these zebra tomatoes a day:
They're heirlooms, so I'm going to save some seeds and plant them again next year (but I'll have to get those six foot tall tomato cages, because these plants are tall enough to fold over and touch the ground).

They're a smaller tomato, a nice size for lunch for one person. Mostly we've been slicing them up, heating them through, and eating them on toast. Luke also experimented with a recipe he made up called "green spaghetti," which had the zebra tomatoes, green peppers, parmesan, and interestingly enough, green apples. It was sour and very yummy, and I liked it just as it was. Luke says he needs to perfect it.

We're still waiting for the prettiest ones, the red ruffles to get ripe. They're still green and hard as rocks.

Babies, Babies, Babies!

2009-09-15T18:56:00.001-07:00

Luke and I have been really moony lately, but we don't plan to have a baby for another two or three years, when I'm done with school, we've been to New Zealand, and we've settled in a house that's close enough to the city for me to get to work easily, but far enough that we can feel like we live in the country. In the meantime, I obsess about baby names and the things I'm going to make for my babies when I do have them. These include, but are not limited to:

"Itty Bitty Baby Dress" by Made by Rae

"Library Day Dress" by Soil on Etsy

Pixie hat by Border Stories

Animal Baby Blanket I found on How Tuesdays, the etsy how-to blog

Baby Shoes by My Sweet Little

Hot pink gray matter

2009-09-14T07:38:00.000-07:00

This weekend I made this pillow:
For this sister:

It's totally not my style, but it turned out how I wanted it to, and I think (hope) she'll like it (she's fourteen and very picky. It's hard to tell).

When you smash seventy-five hot pink rosettes into a small area, you get what looks like a coral reef. Or hot pink brains:

Tweed Buttercup

2009-09-12T09:04:00.000-07:00

I made what I think is the cutest thing I have ever sewn, but because of crappy lighting and a crappy camera, I can't get a very good picture of it. Regardless:

It's a purse for Luke's sister, who had a birthday a couple weeks ago. I made it from the Buttercup Bag pattern from Made by Rae. It took me way longer than it should have, and at one point I was got really frustrated (let's be honest, I had to leave the sewing machine in order to deal with my I-just-wish-I-could-do-something-right mope session) after sewing the lining in wrong. Twice. But I really really love the way it turned out, and want to make myself one.

Gooseberry

2009-09-10T14:08:00.001-07:00

I baked a gooseberry pie before coming to school today. I haven't ever had one before, but based on the little finger-licks I got while making it, I think it's going to be yummy. I'm looking forward to eating it with my best friends Drew and Whitney tonight when they come over to play cards.

Time for a garden feast

2009-09-09T12:16:00.001-07:00

pantry shelf

2009-09-08T12:42:00.000-07:00

Spent all of my Labor Day yesterday canning fruit and jam with Luke and my sister Mari. Twenty-seven quarts of peaches, four pints of peach jam, and seven pints of peach-ginger jam. I found out that everyone likes lining up the canned food in their pantry as much as I do, loving the contrasting colors and bottle sizes.

Sunflowers

2009-09-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm really bad about posting every day. We don't have the internet at our house (we got rid of it during the summer because I wasn't in classes and it seemed like a good way to save a little money), and going to school or the coffee shop hasn't sounded fun.

I've been really obsessed about sunflowers lately, because we have monster ones growing outside our front door. I like leaving the house every day, because it's so nice to be surrounded by fifteen feet of flowers. I like the traditional bright yellow ones a lot, but mostly I love the chianti variety. When they first bloom they're brown, and then in a couple days fade to a pretty red.

This week I made a sunflower brooch, and idea I got from tiny happy, one of my favorite blogs (a tutorial here). I like the way it turned out. Here's a close-up of my boob:

Spinning yarns.

2009-09-05T00:15:00.000-07:00

Whitney and I went to the Storytelling Festival today- twelve hours of stories. Another twelve hours tomorrow. That's a solid day of stories, friends. It's funny- almost entirely old people, a fair amount of middle-aged ladies, and then me and Whitney. We're not so far gone that we like like it when the storytellers break into dorky folk songs. And we (not-so-quietly) make fun of the kid storytellers that think the key to a good story is being overly flamboyant:
One of the best things about the Storytelling Festival is people-watching for the coolest old people.

Month of pictures: Day 1

2009-09-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking that for the month of September (or these last 28 days of it), I want to post a picture a day, as I've seen and enjoyed in other blogs. For today:

Usually Luke and I do all of our cooking together, but one day I wanted to cook for him. I wanted a summery meal that we could eat on our porch with a bottle of white wine. I made this, a baked salmon with a sweet chili citrus glaze. It was super easy and very yummy. The recipe:

2 fish fillets (salmon halibut, tilapia)
alt to taste
1/2 t finely grated orange zest
1/2 t finely grated lemon zest
1/2 t finely grated lime zest
2 T freshly squeezed orange juice
1 T freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 T freshly squeezed lime juice
1/3 C Thai sweet chili sauce

Preheat oven to 425
Put the fish in a single layer in a baking pan. Season with salt.
Combine all the zest and juices with the chili sauce in a small bowl.
Spoon over the fish.
Bake 12-15 minutes, or until cooked through.

Failures

2009-05-26T00:01:00.000-07:00

Haven't had the best results in the crafting world lately: a tank top I tried to sew, thinking bias tape wouldn't really be necessary (and of course it was); a summer dress that, no matter how much I tried to fix it, always looked like it was maternity; and skinny little zinnias I've been growing in my windowsill that just keep getting taller and taller, but never fill out or get adult leaves (my mom laughed when she saw them).

One of the more disappointing failures were the Maitake mushrooms I was trying to grow. From the start, they took much longer than they were supposed to, and even though they went through every expected phase, they took so long that they started getting moldy before ever totally maturing. We saved a handful of almost-mushrooms, and we'll see how they taste.

Some Maitake well on their way to being ready to harvest.

I've also failed to follow through on a lot of the embroidery I've started lately. One was a Ukranian-inspired flower embroidery for my mom for mother's day. The other, an anatomical heart for my dear friend Drew's birthday. Both have been sitting around my house, untouched for the past week and a half.

Not everything has failed lately. The garden is starting to do well, we made some pretty yummy salmon for mine and my brother's birthday dinner, and our house has been full of pretty bouquets of lunaria, iris, muscari, and penstemon. So I'm still optimistic that I can crank out some things that I actually like.

In time for May Day:

2009-05-04T09:21:00.000-07:00

Columbine's up! So are scarlet runner beans, swiss chard, peas, zucchini, and chives. There were some yellow squash, too, but I was clumsy enough to knock the pot off the window sill and now have to start over.

I like growing plants from seeds so much more than from seedlings. One of the first things I do every morning is get a status update on my plants (and many mornings I have to text Luke so he knows what changes to look for when he comes home from work). It's so satisfying to be able to see the major daily changes and to watch things to go from a pile of dirt to something really beautiful. Plus, the success rate is lower, so it feels like the seeds that make it and grow are little champs. I imagine I'll feel similarly if I ever get pregnant. "(something like) Thirty-five percent of fertilized eggs don't become babies. I'm so proud of you!"

Here are some white Hyacinth beans that are going to be climbing up my neighbor's porch railing- she is too busy to garden and gave me permission to use up her half of the lot (we live in a duplex). All planted at the same time, it's cool to see the different stages of growth all in one pot:
One of the things I like about these plants is seeing the seed shell being sloughed off and big adult leaves fold out of the pod underneath. Plants are more interesting when they do so much of their initial growth above ground like that.

Daffodils

2009-04-19T16:10:00.000-07:00

This week I stole these:

And embroidered these:

Foxglove

2009-04-14T22:49:00.000-07:00

Last week I embroidered some Foxglove. The lighting's not great, so they look more red and less purply than they are. They turned out well, I think. Something I've discovered about embroidery is that I love doing it, but don't know what to do with it. I don't want all my stuff covered in embroidery- I'm not 6/60! I haven't had the motivation to use my sewing machine the last few weeks, either, so that limits my possibilities even more. But man, do I love stitching!

Spring Flowers

2009-04-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

Spring is really here now. It's been raining a lot more than it usually does for Utah springs (it seems like there's not much of a transition between winter and summer here). I've started feeding birds every day, and I like hearing them outside my window every morning. My flower bed is starting to fill in, too. I've got grape hyacinth, tulips, and pink hyacinth in a color I'd never seen before- it's not the normal pastel pink, but almost magenta.

This week I planted irises and day lillies in a bed in the side of the yard. It took an hour and a half to clear all the old leaves and wandering grass from a 3 x 6 foot area, and I got a sunburn, but it looks really nice. Only twelve more feet to go...

Got a good compost pile started about a month ago, and it's already looking really good. I threw in the old sawdust log from the shiitake mushrooms, and I'm hoping that there's some leftover mycelium that will help everything decompose.

As for the rest of my gardening: a lot will be planted when it stops raining long enough for us to get outside and plant. We have swiss chard, peas, sweet peas, and lettuce (we're going to try from seeds because the starts we planted last weekend didn't seem to take the transplant well). I've also started a bunch indoors so they'll be ready to go outside at the end of may, when we're sure to have warm enough nights. We're looking forward to yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, chives, thai and sweet basil, and a dozen or more kinds of flowers.

Forsythia

2009-04-02T09:12:00.000-07:00

My mom and I used to drive around our local neighborhoods at the beginning of spring, looking for forsythia. She would get upset when people would trim the bushes down into neat little hedges because, "They're supposed to be free and wild!" This year, my husband and I went out walking with our clippers for some late-night forsythia-stealing. One branch from the neighbors across the street, two from down the street, and pretty soon we had a nice bouquet to put in our bedroom.
This week I embroidered this little forsythia bush on white cotton knit (which was a nice material to work with). I haven't decided what to use it for yet, probably a little clutch wallet or pencil case.