City Life, Design/Living, Home, The Apartment

Office before & after

January 15, 2010 Kate 9 Comments

Who doesn’t love a before and after? Mine isn’t the most dramatic, unless you’re a big fan of, say, Hoarders or Clean Sweep or some other program about people who have piles of crap everywhere. But I spent last weekend, while Ben was off gallivanting on a ski slope (ok, fine, he was volunteering–on a ski slope), staining and assembling my new desk. Since then I’ve been gradually completing a total long-overdue office clean-up.

Seriously? Things were bad. I would clean and two days later the piles would return. And after Christmas I seemed to accumulate even more piles of stuff that needed new homes–everything on the chair in the photo either came out of my suitcase or was moved from my desk, agh.

The shame!

The anguish!

(The gorgeous new laptop standing tall above the mess!)

I picked out a Vika Furusund tabletop with two metal legs and a drawer unit (Vika Alex) on the other side, all from Ikea (obviously). The top is shallower than my old desk, which I’m hoping will force me to keep things tidied away in all my lovely new drawers. It was unfinished pine, so I hit it with some white stain to take away the yellow and make it blend better with the drawers.

The drawers weighed a ton (Ben lugged them upstairs for me before he left) and were made up of 900,000 pieces. I’m good at assembly tasks (and jigsaw puzzles) but it still took me a while to put it all together. As soon as I had the new desk in place I realized that because of the shallower depth, the hideous combo of black metal filing cabinet and giant printer/scanner/fax machine is now even more exposed. I will eventually come up with a better solution than this, but for now I covered the side of the filing cabinet with silver woodgrain wrapping paper. I know the cord situation is less than ideal, but you actually don’t see it when the chair is pushed in. Once I get rid of my old laptop there will be a lot less cord to wrangle.

And now the office is complete! I still should completely clean out the storage closet (not pictured), but that lives behind a curtain, so I’ll survive for now!

Wider view, to prove that I did clean the chair and floor, as well:

And my new work surface:

Nice and fresh, right? We also rearranged the living room after taking the tree down. (*cough* Weeks ago! Yeah! Or last night. *cough*) I like how open it feels but we’re left with an awkward situation involving what used to act as a sofa table and now floats unhappily near the window. We’ll get there, though!

Happy long weekend, people! Be safe and have fun.

(BTW, I’m selling the old desk. It’s sturdy and a good size, I just think I need a smaller surface in my tiny, tiny office. Pictures here without the clutter: http://www.flickr.com/photos/katef/sets/72157623093012193/ $25 OBO.)

Cooking, Cooking techniques, Food

Oven ribs and corn muffins to chase away the chill

January 13, 2010 Kate 6 Comments

Bless grocery store sales. I would choose baby back ribs over nearly any other food, but I’ve never cooked them because I was too intimidated. But when I saw ribs on sale at WF for $4.99 a pound I couldn’t resist. I got the ribs home and did some quick googling, which led me to Alton Brown’s “Who Loves Ya” baby back rib recipe. I laughed at the name until towards the end, when I turned to Ben and said “Who loves you?” as I pulled a rack of ribs out of the oven. So there you go, the cheesy name has a reason.

[Note: I accidentally got my camera stuck on a 1600 ISO for a while earlier this month. As a result, there are some truly terrible photos in the pipelines. Grainy and awful; I’m sorry!]

There are quite a few ingredients in the dry rub, but everything was super easy and quick, actually. My mom asked if I really bought all the things the recipe calls for, and I did since most were in the bulk spice section. I only skipped the jalapeno seasoning, which I didn’t find and didn’t search for particularly hard.

Once the rub (which contains brown sugar salt and a bunch of chili powder, cayenne, onion powder, etc…) was mixed up, I covered the ribs on both sides and bundled them up in tinfoil.

Then they rested in the fridge for a while (I didn’t leave enough time, so I only gave them an hour), and when it was time to cook I mixed the braising liquid (white wine vinegar, white wine, worcestershire sauce, honey, garlic) and heated it in the microwave.

Then Alton says to open one end of the foil packet and pour in the liquid. To my shock, this actually worked. (And this is the worst photo of them all, I’m afraid.)

The ribs went in a 250 degree oven for 2 1/2 hours. Towards the end of cooking, Ben and I made up a batch of corn muffins (recipe at the end of the post). Note the fancy new wiper-mixer-blade thing Ben got for Christmas! It makes HORRIBLE squealing sounds as it rotates until there are wet ingredients added, but then it scrapes down the sides of the bowl perfectly.

Those baked once the ribs were out, since I needed a much hotter oven.

Meanwhile, the cooked ribs were out and I poured the liquid out into a pan to reduce into a glaze.

The reduced glaze went on the ribs, which then went back in the oven for a quick broil to caramelize.

Cut them up and it’s time to eat!

I mean, seriously. Who loves you?

The ribs were very tender, flavorful and delicious. They weren’t smoky, obviously, but for an oven recipe? Excellent. Also A+ leftover, cold.
—

Corn muffins
(From Ina Garten; my mom is going to let me know which book)
Over Christmas Mom made a batch of these with raspberry jam on the tops–not as much as the recipe recommends, just a dab. They were sensational; not dry and with a terrific crunchy toastiness after being heated up in the toaster over. I made them for this dinner without the jam and then froze half the batch (it made 16 muffins; I used those foil liners that stand up on their own for the extra).

“3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup medium cornmeal
2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 pound unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 extra-large eggs
3/4 cup good raspberry preserves (if you want)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Line 12 large muffin cups with paper liners. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix the flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, melted butter and eggs. With the mixer on the lowest setting, pour the wet ingredients into the dry ones and stir until they are just blended. Spoon the batter into the paper liners, filling each one to the top. Bake for 30 minutes, until the tops are crisp and a toothpick comes out clean. Cool slightly and remove from the pan.

(If you want the jam:) After the muffins cool, spoon the jam into a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip. push the tip of the bag through the top of the muffin and squeeze 1 to 2 tablespoons into the middle. Repeat for each muffin.”

Cooking, Cooking techniques, Food

I forgot the dates!

January 6, 2010 Kate 1 Comment

I completely forgot to post the making-of pictures for the dates I mentioned in the last post. These are adapted from Suzanne Goin’s restaurant AOC, but they are so seriously simple that you don’t really need a recipe.

(I made 90. That was WAY too many; I cooked about half the following Sunday and took them to a neighbor’s tree-trimming party.)

Ingredients:
Dates (Three packets of Medjool dates from Trader Joe’s = 90ish dates)
Bacon (I ended up needing more than three of those packages)
Parmesan cheese (I only needed one of the two hunks I bought)

Pit dates if they aren’t already by slitting one side and pulling out the pit. It should release easily.
Cut parm into little logs and put in the date where the pit was.
Push the date back together around the cheese.

For the bacon I was using, it worked to cut the slab into thirds and wrap one third-slice around each date, securing it with a toothpick. For some reason I can’t find any pictures of the raw wrapped dates, probably because my hands were covered in bacon.

Refrigerate until ready to use.

Cook in a 450 degree oven until the bacon is done, flipping midway through; it took 10-15 minutes for mine but do a test run since your oven may vary. Drain on a paper towel or paper bag. Serve hot, but not immediately or your guests will choke on molten date.

I am not actually the biggest fan of these. I just don’t love dates, which I find too sweet and sticky. I prefer the prosciutto-wrapped figs we make on the grill in the summer. But guys, especially, made short work of them!

City Life, Cooking, Cooking techniques, Food

Fun with Puff Pastry: Last-minute party snacks

December 31, 2009 Kate 4 Comments

Happy New Year! I sincerely doubt that anyone who is hosting a party tonight still needs menu ideas, but just in case I thought I’d share some of the puff pastry tidbits I made for our holiday cocktail party a couple weeks ago. I am of the opinion that pretty much anything involving puff pastry is automatically tasty, so at our first cocktail party back in Hanover, I made piles of savory “palmier”-style nibbles. What I hadn’t taken into account was the fact that children were attending that party. Small children. Children who took palmiers in each hand, squeezed, and then released the torrent of crumbs onto the floor by the table. Rinse and repeat. By night’s end, the carpet was white with crumbs.

This year no kids were coming! I gave the puff pastry another shot, making three different options using good store-bought all-butter frozen sheets from Whole Foods. Missing from all photographic evidence except the table-views are the leek and sausage squares, which were dead simple. I made the topping the night before and then put bits of it on square of puff pastry and baked them. Savory, easy, and people loved them.

Item two: A vegetarian option, using olivada (black olive spread) and roasted tomatoes. I bought both toppings from the antipasto bar at Whole Foods, because I didn’t want to make myself crazy. Here’s how I assembled them: (Please excuse the grainy photos; something went weird with my camera that day.)

Unroll the thawed puff pastry (follow package instructions), figure out how big you want your hors d’oeuvres, and cut the sheet into strips that make sense.

Spread the olivada (or any other dryish spread of your choice) down the center of each strip, leaving the edges plain, and top with tomato or roasted red pepper bits spaced according to the size of the finished pieces.

Cut between the tomato pieces and place individual bites on a baking sheet (I covered everything in foil for easy clean-up.)

Top with grated cheese (I used parmesan) if you’re into that sort of thing.

Bake according to package directions until golden brown.

I would guess that it took me about 20 minutes to assemble 60+ of these.

The final puff pastry delight, the simplest, the one you’ve made before, and my favorite: Cheese straws. Who doesn’t love a cheese straw? Come on. They are a perfect food. Here’s how you make them, in case you never read a Martha Stewart Entertaining book when you were in middle school. (Ahem. Not that I know anyone who was obsessed with all those little tiny sandwiches and miniature deviled quail eggs and endive straws stuffed with salad.)

Unroll the thawed puff pastry, blah blah blah. Roll it out a bit thinner. Cut it in half. Brush with melted butter. Sprinkle grated cheese (I used cheddar and parmesan) on one half, top with the other half, roll them together.

Cut the sheet into straws and figure out if you want long or short ones. I went for short to maximize the number from the sheet.

Arrange on baking sheet, twisting each straw as you put it down. Brush with butter and top with black pepper if you want.

Bake until golden and delicious and hoard for yourself.

Oh fine, let your guests have them. You nice, sharing person.

Here’s most of the food before people arrived:

(Missing are the bacon-wrapped, parmesan-stuffed dates that I cooked off during the party so they’d be hot. I hated these; too sticky and sweet, but a lot of people gobbled them up. I’ll post the crazy-simple how-to next week. (Impatient? Put parmesan in a date, wrap it in bacon, and bake/broil it until the bacon it cooked.))

Your happy, blurry hostess in a festive apron:

And the glowy living room:

—

I know the last few months have been a bit sparse here at the Girl Reporter. I’ll try to pull myself together in the new year. I hope you all had a safe, happy and delicious holiday season–here’s to 2010! I’m excited about this one.

Cooking, Cooking techniques, Farm Box, Food

Purple produce and uneven sprouts

December 17, 2009 Kate Leave a comment

I could have sworn I wrote this up, but apparently not. Back at the beginning of the winter share distribution I got a truck load of extra-awesome vegetables, including purple potatoes and cauliflower and a stalk of brussels sprouts. I combined all three in a dinner designed purely for my own amusement, because seriously?

How fun are those?

I took some beauty shots before getting down to the cooking:

As cool as the stalk of sprouts is, it does leave you with a slight problem:

Yes, that is the top (huge) sprout next to the one from the bottom of the stalk. Since the sizes were so wildly uneven, I decided to make Greta’s shaved oven-roasted sprouts. The cuisinart makes this WAY easier; use the blade that looks like this and attaches to that stalk thing to keep it at the top of the bowl:

12 seconds later this:

Became this:

I cut the cauliflower into florets to roast (at 400 or 425) alongside the shaved brussels sprouts, and tossed each with oil, salt and pepper.

Meanwhile I boiled the potatoes and tossed them (while hot) with a butter/vinegar/mustard dressing.

A few slices of grilled steak for protein and voila!

The leftovers were excellent for lunch the next day, and in daylight the colors were even crazier:

[FYI, purple potatoes and cauliflower taste essentially the same as normal potatoes and cauliflower, but they look purple. So: Worth it.]
—

I’m scrambling to pack for a lengthy round of holiday visits. Looking forward to NYC and to the usual cooking orgy back home in Oregon. I hope everyone has a lovely holiday season!

Cooking, Disasters, Food, Travel

How not to make carbonara, in 12 steps

December 9, 2009 Kate 3 Comments

Do you ever have a moment of insanity where you think, “I should make ___, but I think I will change the formula in these 6 ways and also not look at any recipes,” and then when you do exactly that you’re shocked when the results are less than perfect? Yeah, me too. Last night, for instance. Here’s how this went:

1. While reading last month’s Real Simple, notice a 1-line “recipe” suggesting a pasta dish with shredded brussels sprouts sautéed in butter and combined with fettucine and bacon.

2. Remember the stalk of brussels sprouts aging in the fridge; think you can probably make things more interesting than just combining the pasta with the sprouts and bacon.

3. Carbonara!

4. Don’t look up a recipe from carbonara, except to see that one online says “beaten eggs” and one in a cookbook says “egg yolks.” Do not read any of the rest of either recipe. Just start cooking, even though the one other time you made carbonara (following a recipe to the letter) you got it wrong and the eggs scrambled.

5. Proceed smugly, shredding the sprouts, cutting bacon into lardons and frying them, cooking the sprouts, separating eggs, cooking spaghetti.

6. Frantically call husband into kitchen to grate parmesan as the pasta finishes cooking; combine sprouts/bacon with pasta; assume the pasta is cooling down too much, dump eggs into pasta in a panic.

7. Pasta and pan are still too hot. Eggs sort of scramble.

8. Fling pot holder on the floor, while cursing.

9. Rip off apron and fling it against a cupboard, while cursing.

10. Storm out of the kitchen in a cursing, flinging fit.

11. Return to kitchen and mumble profanities while seasoning the pasta, meanwhile breaking it into smaller and smaller strands while husband silently pours large glasses of wine.

12. Eat giant mounded bowl of pasta (plus seconds), which looks horrible but tastes pretty damn good. Say a silent thanks for candlelight. Drink wine.

Lessons learned:

— For the LOVE, make sure the pasta is hot enough but not too hot when mixing in the egg.

— Keep in mind that things can only go so badly when the ingredients involved are: Bacon, brussels sprouts, parmesan, garlic, pasta.

—-

I’m in a panic about cocktail party for 40 tomorrow night. It is sleeting and I need to grocery shop but I feel like I don’t have a very solid menu. Wish me luck, please! And if you’re feeling upset by that sad pasta up, let me offer you the following condolence prize:

I visited Bridge in NYC this weekend, and we celebrated her boyfriend Matt’s birthday at the unbelievably awesome Fette Sau (“fat pig”) in Williamsburg. Witness the glory of the Tray Of Meat:

9:29 p.m.

9:55 p.m.

We also drank cider and beer out of half-gallon jugs:

It was a good weekend for food. We ate at Perbacco and had mince-meat-stuffed deep-fried cerignola olives (!!) (Bridge saw them on the menu and just looked at me, all “wow, they know your soft underbelly…”), and we visited my favorite bodega tacqueria on 10th Avenue. We spent an afternoon in my beloved old neighborhood, saw great apartments, and spent a lovely time with friends. Good times and at least a five-pound weight gain, I’m guessing.

Cooking, Cooking techniques, Family, Food, Recipes

Make this now: Bistro Salad, modernized

November 27, 2009 Kate 7 Comments

….Hi.

Yes, it’s been more than two weeks since I checked in. There’s no real reason for it, just a lack of motivation and a general feeling of “blah.” I have about 10 different things I should get posted, which is of course a little overwhelming (I’m trying to get to the photos for this post and I’m already on page 8 of my Flickr without getting close. Agh).

Happy belated Thanksgiving! Ben and I were on our own this year, so we took a drive up to York Beach, ME and ate at Lydia Shire’s Blue Sky, which was fantastic. Between the dinner I ate and my mom’s continued proselytizing, I am convinced of the wisdom of cooking the turkey legs and breast separately: I had lovely slices of the white meat, accompanied by a ridiculously delicious “ragout” of shredded dark meat warmed up in gravy. Yup, that is the way to go.

I never actually posted any of the cooking experiments from my visit home in late October, and I think one of them might come in handy if you’re looking for a satisfying but light dinner for these post-Turkey days. We ate at The Butcher Shop in the South End with new friends before my trip, and I shamelessly hogged a shared salad appetizer, a frisee salad with bacon dressing, shaved egg and fingerling potatoes. A few days later in Oregon, I decided to recreate it for the family, and we got it mostly right, though not quite perfect. It’s a nice riff on the traditional french bistro salad (frisee and lardons with a poached egg). This is easier to share, since there aren’t whole eggs, and would also be great without the potatoes, or as a simple lunch.

First things first, we baked a few strips of good, thick bacon, then cut it up into small little bits and saved a bit of the fat to make the dressing (like a warm spinach salad).

(I cut the bacon fat with a bit of grapeseed oil, which is nice and neutral. I never did get the dressing quite right; I forgot to add mustard and it never came together the way I wanted.)

Next up: Potatoes. Mom got gorgeous fingerlings, which I halved, boiled until nearly cooked, then tossed with olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted until they colored but didn’t crisp up.

Finally, the egg. In retrospect, I’m an ass. I could have passed it through a food mill or pushed it through a sieve. But I was jetlagged, sick and stupid, and didn’t get there. Mom thought her egg slicer could produce a very fine dice, so we gave it a try:

Um, fail. Even if I rotated it 90 degrees for a second slice….no. My solution? The box grater!

(Tom was entertained by taking action shots while I struggled)

It was hard to get through more than half of the egg before it fell apart in my hand, but the results were perfect:

Nice and fluffy.

Assembly time. I dressed the frisee, tossed it with the bacon, and then topped it with the egg.

Tossed the potatoes with the rest of the dressing, and layered those on top:

We also had steak, beets, beans, and peppers:

And wine and candles.

Still to come: A four-hour pasta recipe from the lovely Suzanne Goin, lots of non-food pictures, thrifting adventures with Tom, fun with purple vegetables, etc.

Cooking, Cooking techniques, Farm Box, Food

CSA wrap-up and the onset of winter veg

November 11, 2009 Kate 1 Comment

Yesterday I picked up my first winter share from Stone Soup–two bags full of treats:

Let’s zoom in a bit, since that is a LOT of stuff.

Let’s see, I’m pretty sure it is:
-1 enormous white cabbage
-8 oz. salad greens
-2 rutabagas
-2 heads garlic
-1 head *purple* cauliflower (there were white, cheddar, and romanesco varieties, too!)
-1 stalk of brussels sprouts, OMG I am in love
-2 delicata squashes
-1.5 lbs. daikon radish
-2 bulbs celeriac, yippee!
-2 lbs. onions
-1 bunch of gorgeous little white turnips, with greens
-2 lbs. sweet potatoes
-1 bunch cavolo nero

So exciting. Let’s zoom in even closer on some of my favorites.

I know I’ve said it before, but vegetables just amaze me.

I am alone for a couple nights, so I indulged in a super-simple dinner, even though I knew I should be eating up those perishable greens and saving the sturdy root vegetables for later in the winter.

Dinner for One: Mashed rutabaga and toast

Peel and cut up the rutabaga (preferably not an enormous one):

Boil in salted water until nice and tender.

Mash with butter, salt and pepper. (I have recommended it in the past, but it’s worth repeating: I love my Oxo potato masher, with the handle on top. It’s easy to get enough pressure behind it, and the way it’s designed lets you mash things right in the pot and get to the corners, etc.) Devour with buttery sourdough toast.

I considered frying an egg, but decided to skip it and make popcorn for dessert, instead. I ate the whole bowl while watching CSI reruns and feeling less sorry for myself than I usually do when I am on my own for a few days!

BTW, just in case you’re interested, here’s a slide show of the vegetables from the summer share, from June through October, plus the winter share. If you’re in the Boston area and you’re interested in a great CSA, get on Stone Soup’s mailing list now so you can try to get in on the 2010 action!

Design/Living, General, Home

The pictures from Monday…

October 28, 2009 Kate 5 Comments

Re. the Flickr problem on Monday, from my mom’s computer in Oregon when I’m not logged in I can choose “copy image address” but it copies a blank fake address. Awesome. Using Gretchen’s workaround (which requires going into the “all sizes” view once logged in), here are some things:

Bittersweet branches for fall:

A convention on the kitchen counter, prompted by the invasion of the gravy strainer:

This garlic clove looked like a bum:

Heeee!

Seriously though, Flickr can’t….this isn’t sustainable. It takes forever to click through three pages to grab each link!

Dinner last night: Steak, pepperonata, beets, beans, and a salad I copied from dinner Friday at The Butcher Shop: Frisee, bacon vinaigrette, shaved egg, roasted fingerling potatoes.

Dinner tonight: Goin’s toasted pasta with cauliflower and cavolo nero.

Don’t you wish you were in Oregon with me?

General

Quick update

October 26, 2009 Kate 2 Comments

You guys, Ben gave me the plague. Not cool. I’ve been deathly ill since late last week, and first thing tomorrow morning I’m headed to Oregon to celebrate my mom’s birthday. We have some good cooking planned for while I’m home, and hopefully once I’m back we’ll get back into a more normal eating-at-home schedule. It’s been sparse around here lately.

I wanted to post a few pictures of life Chez Flaim over the past week or two, but Flickr is suddenly not allowing me to “copy image location.” FAbulous. Hopefully I can figure that out soon…

Kate Flaim