Category Archives: General
Happy New Year
Happy 2008! I have tons of photos from the trip home to upload, and lots to write about. In the meantime, here I am with my Dad, midway up Mt. Bachelor on my lone ski day last week. Shortly after this was taken I cracked my tail bone on a tile floor in the lodge and was out of commission for the rest of the trip. Sigh. Dad looks pretty hip in his snowboarder-style bandana, right?
(Photo by Sunriver Photography)
Back soon with actual food, which I know has been more than a little sparse in these parts recently. I pledge to get back to cooking as soon as possible!
Quick soup
So I had two bunches of chard in the fridge, and lots of leftover pork… I decided to make soup to use up at least some of each. (I still have a bunch of chard left.) How gorgeous is rainbow chard? Vegetables make me happy:
I cooked an onion in a bit of olive oil, and then added in the chopped up pork to brown a bit:
Then I rinsed and threw in a can of organic salt-free cannelini beans:
Then I poured in a good splash of dry vermouth, which I use as a substitute for white wine in risotto, etc. After that heated up (and smelled wonderful) I poured in a can and a half of the Swanson’s “Natural Goodness” chicken broth, which is lower sodium and tastes better. I let that cook for a while, then let it sit because Ben was running late. When he got home I heated the soup back up and added in the chopped up chard:
Which filled the pot all the way up and then immediately wilted down to nothing. It always amazes me! I let it cook about 10 minutes, until the chard was tender, seasoned it, and then we ate it with toast. It would have been even better with panini, but we didn’t get around to hauling the panini press out until last night.
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By the way, I read a good review of a flavored pasta from Trader Joe’s on Apartment Therapy: The Kitchen. It’s a lemon-pepper pappardelle, and I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot. I cooked it and tossed it with the great olive oil that Bridge and Enrico brought us, and Ben grilled a couple sausages we bought from a butcher in the North End. I also chopped up some feta and put that and the sausage on the pasta–not much to look at, but the pasta was really good and this was a nice combo and a SUPER easy meal, since there’s no prep at all.
(Ok, seriously. Must work out the lighting in the kitchen. This is embarrassing.)
The other thing I’ve been up to lately instead of cooking is painting. Our friends Chris and Greta are having a baby boy very soon, and they came to town for a brief visit this weekend. I’d promised to paint something for the nursery for them, so I was working on that last week. Bad photos but I was pleased–Greta wanted a bumble bee and other bugs, in non-pastel colors.
I’m also working on two huge canvases for the living room wall. They are currently in the “wow, that’s hideous” phase; hopefully I can pull them together tonight.
Blog Action Day
Today is Blog Action Day and thousands of bloggers are talking about how to make a positive impact on the environment… I’m sorry to say that we aren’t single-handedly saving the world–our recycling habits, especially, need help. But we both commute on public transportation, our building doesn’t have an elevator (heh), I try to buy local veggies and fruits 99% of the time, and I’ve been getting better and better about skipping the plastic bags. Today at Whole Foods I finally picked up one of their $1 bags, since the ones I’ve been using are a little small for any normal amount of food. I got the grape pattern, which I find charming.
Here’s a photo from an eBay auction where they’re selling the bag at a jacked up price (!?):
It has nice purple sides, very handsome.
The one thing I am pedantic about is staying away from water bottles. It’s easy and it makes sense–just use a reusable bottle, or a cup. I got a nice big cup for my desk at work, a bright and cheerful one from Target, and I fill it many times a day. A nice surprise when we got our new fridge was the clever little filtered water spout inside! I didn’t think we’d get filtered water, since we weren’t getting it in the door. It’s great–no more Brita to re-fill.
Baking with Bridge
Ah….. Just had the most delightful weekend with Bridge and E., who journeyed many, many hours on the Fung-wah bus to visit. We revived them with Redbones ribs on Friday after their nightmare trip up from NYC, then walked all over Boston on Saturday and came home to cook and relax by the fire. Mostly the guys relaxed by the fire while Bridge and I cooked, starting with a pumpkin crumb cake that AT: The Kitchen printed last week. While we cooked the boys munched on some lovely snacks:
That’s bread and amazing olive oil from NYC, brought by B&E. (It’s a Puglian olive oil from Murray’s, incredibly flavorful and bright green!) Prosciutto and marcona olives picked up in the North End, and some pepitas for seasonal flair.
So, the cake. Basically this is a pumpkin pie that has mated with a coffee cake. And it is delicious.
You start with a dry mix that is then turned into the crumb topping and the cake layer. You also make pumpkin pie filling to pour in between. It’s simple but not exactly quick, and I was really glad we had the dishwasher up and running since you end up with lots of dirty bowls! So fun to cook with Bridge, though, and I was glad her cat Joe wasn’t there to sit on the cake once it was done. He seems to resent her baking at home!
Bridge whips up the pumpkin filling:
Layer one (cake batter), spread in place:
I pour in layer two, the pumpkin (Bridge is a better action photog than I am!):
Layer three, the topping lovingly hand mixed by Bridge (isn’t crumb topping always the best part? Mm, butter and sugar…):
Cross-section:
The next morning, ready for breakfast:
I have eaten approximately my body weight in cake in the last two days, since I really can’t refuse things with pumpkin pie in them. I’d like to experiment, though, with a crumb cake that is just pumpkin CAKE and topping, rather than the layer of pie filling. The cake part is great with the filling but would be dry on its own…I wonder if I could sub in pumpkin for sour cream in my mom’s coffee cake recipe and play with that? Good thing I have months of fall left!
Golden Clog awards
I look forward to watching this play out: The 1st Annual Golden Clog Awards, from Ruhlman and Bourdain. Good times.
8 years on
Last week (the 16th) marked eight years since Ben and I first started dating. Yay! Now that we’re married I guess the silly “dating anniversary” doesn’t count much, but I still always notice the date. On our wedding anniversary at the end of August we took a nice drive out to the inn where Ben proposed, and I ended up taking a couple pictures in the same spot that we took the the day after.
May 20, 2005
August 26, 2007 (Same purse, same hairstyle, no makeup and more wrinkles.)
Maybe some time I will dig out some of the really old pics from when we first started dating–for our tenth anniversary, perhaps!
I have a random bunch of food things to post tonight, but I need to upload photos. Back on track soon, I promise.
Quiet
Oh dear, I know I’m being slow with posts lately. I started a new job last week, and it is forcing Night Owl me to get up at 6:30 in the morning. As a result I keep passing out super-early, instead of updating.
I do have lots to write about, though! I’m way behind and will try to start catching up soon.
Oh sad.
This makes me very sad. But what a lovely lady. One of my prized possessions is a copy of A Ring of Endless Light that my Dad got me at an ALA conference ages ago. Madeleine L’Engle was signing books, and she inscribed mine “To Kate, be a Light-Bearer…” While I liked the Wrinkle in Time books, I adored the Austins, and read my copy of Ring of Endless Light until it fell apart. I have to get my brother to fix it for me.
Rest in Peace, Madeleine.
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