the best tasting jerk sauce that perhaps isn't

I want to give a shout out to a great jerk sauce that I used the other night. I found it at Whole Foods when I needed jerk sauce for a completely different meal that I can't recall at this moment. Anyways, it's called Nanny's and whoo-baby! It is so good. So freaking good. So good that I start to wonder if maybe I might be the only person who feels this about Nanny's jerk sauce. I mean, m ate the same meal with me and he certainly wasn't going on and on about the jerk sauce. Then again we are sort of opposites in the food palate.

M prefers sweet flavored things. Aside from the obvious stuff like ice cream and chocolate, I always get high compliments when I cook dinners that cater to the sweet tastes. Stuff like orange chicken, sweet and sour and honey roast chicken are his favorite meals. I tend to favor the savory tastes like garlic anything, salty anything, pickled anything. Garlic, pickled salt sounds like it should be my favorite food item (mmm.. I might be on to something here).

Anyways the weird thing is I don't think Nanny's is even the best jerk sauce out there. Maybe I shouldn't say best, that's sort of subjective isn't it? It's not... how do I say this? it's not jerky enough. I don't know. Maybe not enough tamarind or vinegar? And it's got a smokey barbecue-ish flavor that is a little stronger than I'd expect in a jerk sauce. But who knows. Maybe this is how jerk sauce ought to be and I am ignorant. Or I suspect that everyone has their own version of jerk sauce and this one is just a little different than what I've had in the past.

An-y-ways. It's got a little kick so be warned. When I used it for jerk chicken, I added it to a pan friend chicken (whole chicken cut up into its parts, pan fried in olive oil for about 30 minutes on each side until cooked through) and served with steamed purple kale (fun color) and some rice with black beans. I couldn't stop spooning the sauce onto my rice. Ooh. Yummy. For lunch yesterday I had rice and beans with kale and more of the jerk sauce. I'm out of kale so I bought more at the store to steam up and also bought more sauce to add to it. I'll be eating this for lunch every day this week. Maybe next week too. Unless I get my hands on some garlic pickled salt first. Then I'll probably have that for lunch in bliss instead.

tpod

hee hee, this just makes me giggle:
via swissmiss via trendsnow

hearty vegetable soup with sausage

I guess I was on a roll with the food entries and then my enthusiasm ended up petering out. It's a little tough to blog cooking. Setting up the camera, trying to remember to photograph at the most blog-friendliest moments and juggling that with the timing challenges that already exist in cooking. It makes me less motivated to keep at it on a regular basis. So I'll see how it goes.

This morning, m requested a salad for tonight's dinner because he says that he hasn't been getting enough leafy greens in his diet lately. But a salad wasn't really inspiring anything in me so I whined that there was so much cutting and washing and prepping of vegetables involved. He suggested a vegetable soup instead and even though that actually requires the same amount of vegetable cutting, washing and prepping I perked up and agreed. It's more soup weather anyways. M wanted me to cook something that would yield plenty of leftovers for future lunches. He also likes to heat up a side dish of vegetable soup when he doesn't have any vegetables with his lunch and he figures this is a good way to get veggies in his meal.


Hearty Vegetable Soup with Sausage
(Note: this makes a very chunky soup)

• 2 big bunches of leafy green vegetable such as chard or kale or escarole
• (I used chard and I typically trim off the green leafy parts and chop. Then I take the firmer spiny white part and chop that up separately and cook at different times.)
• 2 medium stalks of celery chopped crosswise
• 1/2 a medium onion chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic chopped coarsely
• 2-3 medium carrots chopped crosswise
• 2 medium sized russet potatoes cubed (I cubed them about 1" around. I also don't peel my potatoes since M is convinced that this is where all the nutrients lay. I'm just lazy and don't mind the extra fiber.)
• a little over 1/2 lb of italian sausage cut up into hearty chunk sizes (I used medium spicy Italian turkey sausage)
• 1 15 oz can of tomatoes (I meant to get diced or chopped, but I got crushed w/basil by mistake. This might be serendipitous since it still gives a nice tomato base but without chunks of tomatoes in the broth. Which is good if you are not a huge fan of tomatoes as M is not.)
• 1 15 oz. can of beans drained (I used kidney beans)
• Chicken stock (I like to use Better Than Bouillon)
• I also had an extra leek lying around that I wanted to use up so I chopped that up too (separating the pale parts from the darker greens)

Throw the chopped up onion (and the chopped up dark greens from the leek) into a large stock pot with some olive oil and sautee over medium heat. Stir occasionally and let cook until translucent. Throw in the rest of the vegetables except the beans and chard greens. Add more oil if needed and continue to cook stirring occasionally until the vegetables are a little tender. It's okay if the carrots and celery are still a little firm. Throw in the sausage and stir that around too. When the sausage is mostly cooked, add about a gallon of water (just enough to cover everything but not so much that when it comes to a boil you are worried that the soup will boil over). Turn heat up to high.

At this point, I stir in some chicken stock. I prefer to use Better than Bouillon which I think has a nice chicken flavor. I stirred in about 4 teaspoons. If you are using liquid stock, this equals about 4 cups of stock, so add less water if you go the liquid stock route. Stir in the crushed tomatoes.

Let everything come to a boil and turn heat down to medium. Add more Better Than Bouillion or water to adjust taste. When the soup is pretty much ready (boiling, tastes the way you want it to), I throw in the chard greens and cover the pot with the lid. I let it go until the greens are tender too. Then, just before serving, I throw in the beans.

I'm a little worried that I didn't add enough sausage. Maybe I should have gone for the full pound. Since we had some roast chicken from the other night, I shredded up that meat and threw that in too (ooh I have to share my roast chicken recipe too). This soup seems to involve lots of throwing, it was darned action-packed in my kitchen, I tell ya.

I served the soup with some cornbread that I whipped up (I keep a box of cornmeal in the kitchen at all times, fresh cornbread is soooo tasty) since I forgot to buy bread at the market. I wanted to bake it in my pretty pyrex bowl which was a mistake because the middle was gooey when the sides were well past done. That's what I get for trying to mess with a good recipe. I pulled the cornbread out anyways and told M to just eat from the sides.


I also scooped up some cooked pasta left over from the other night and added that to my bowl of soup. I like pasta in my vegetable soup. But M took it straight up and declared the meal a success.

We estimated that this recipe made about 10 generous servings which makes M oh so happy. He loves the hassle freedom of leftovers for his lunch. At about $20 for all the ingredients from the fancy organic chain grocery store, that's not a bad deal. Also, if you want to make this as a vegetarian vegetable soup, you can substitute the chicken stock for veggie stock and omit the sausage. I might throw in the heel of some parmesan cheese if I went that route. Gives the soup a nice nutty flavor.

my first apron

I made my first apron!

This was a really quick and easy sort of endeavor. Mostly. You see, there's a recurring apron challenge that I've wanted to participate in for a while now. It's called Tie One On and every other month or so, the gal who runs the site picks a theme and you can make an apron according to that theme. This month's theme was polka dots. I love polka dots. I've secretly loved them for years, but felt like it just wasn't cool to admit that. Same with Martha Stewart Living magazine. I felt like I wasn't an edgy graphic designer if I liked that mag. I finally gave up and got a subscription and buy myself polka dotted things all the time. Judge me. I don't care anymore.

So this one was fun because it was kind of a multi-media apron. I didn't want to buy new fabric to make it, but didn't have any in my stash with dots quite so large. So I painted the dots on by hand with some acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium. That was so fun and relaxing. I love painting. I should do it more often.

Then as the paint was drying, I doodled up a tea kettle that I wanted on the pocket. I would love to claim to some sort of free-style doodling straight on the fabric, but I am a little too anal for that. So I sketched it out in Illustrator first (I love Illustrator. I do everything in Illustrator.) and also knocked up a sketch of the apron so I could see how big I wanted the tea kettle drawing to be on the apron. I love using illustrator this way to mock up things that I make. It saves me so much time, it's awesome! Then I printed up the doodle from Illustrator and taped it to my lightbox (what you don't have one?) and taped the fabric for the pocket over it. Turn on the lightbox, trace with a sharpie and then you are done.

Once the paint for the polka dots was completely dried, I ironed it and the sharpie drawing too. I was hoping that the heat would set the ink and paint. I haven't washed any of this yet so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that everything set. I've used this fabric medium before on shirts and it worked out fine and I tested the sharpie on a bit of scrap canvas fabric so I think it will be okay. I'm feeling pretty nonchalant about it actually.

I really like creating things in this kind of setting. It reminds me of my favorite graphic design class taught by my favorite graphic design instructor Carl Heinz. Every week, Carl would give us an assignment and we had to come back the following week with our interpretation of the assignment. He would show us slides of some examples of work that illustrated his point, but mostly those were for inspirations. We were given free reign to come up with whatever we wanted. Most of the students were graphic designers or design students so they mostly turned in a website design or a brochure or a bookcover design based on the weekly theme. Sometimes you'd get a fine arts student or a fashion designer and once even a baker who'd take the theme and interpret it in the medium they knew best. The baker brought in a loaf of bread with a logo "stamped" on the top. She'd designed the logo in an art decoratif style. Brilliant.

In fact, I'll try and dig up some of my projects. A fun little blast from the past and post some of the images here.

survey

If you are my friend and you live in this country, I think you might be interested in taking this survey. I couldn't link to the post directly, but if you go to the website now you can read the info on the survey and how to take it (should you so decide).



I don't know how much I need to endorse this to you guys. Would it be like preaching to the converted? I've had the fortune of attending a live event with Ira Glass twice in one year. He is a spectacular speaker and a wonderful storyteller. Any opportunity you have to see him in person is a treat. But since he is terribly busy with his television show and the radio program (last we saw him, he said something like how he has been working for 6 months straight without a single day off. whew! that's tough) and since he can't very well clone himself and polarize, I guess a satellite screening to a live show would be the next best thing.

at the risk of sounding (a lot) dorky

I have to share with you my newest acquisition:

(yes, it's a stapler)
check out what happens when I push this little knob to the right


ka-pow! it's got a built in staple-remover!


(dramatization)


(another dramatization)
and unlike my other spanky but not quite as functional stapler, I can swing it open to staple notes to my desk


possibly the coolest feature of all?


it carries a supply of staples ready to go


(for scale)

All for the low, low price of $1.08 from my local thrift store. What a score!

for my writer friends

Helpful if you have aspirations towards book publishing and amusing because she always is.
Read here.

cake

My post lunch treat.

I had this for breakfast today too.
And tea yesterday.
And dessert last night.

Recipe found here - scroll all the way to the bottom (I forgot the lemons so I made a simple cake without the syrup or zest. It's great drizzled with chocolate too.).

suggestive

While trolling through my blog reading today, I was overcome with really really wanting a white dress with red polka dots:


This is from Emily's site. She's such a cute and talented artist. I love her paintings.


And this photo of her studio from Tanya Whelan's site.

I suppose this canvas with orange-y red polka dots will have to do for now. It's going to be an apron, hopefully by this weekend.


It's a cold and rainy day out there! (100% humidity and a chance of rain -> hail in my neck of the woods). Stay safe if you have to be out and about.

Capitol Press

I'm researching printers and sort of re-stumbled across Capitol Press's business card in my address book. I was lucky enough to be able to take a tour of their facility years ago while in graphic design school. Very cool. I remember particularly enjoying their letterpress section. One of my designer friends used their services speaking well of them and more recently another colleague mentioned that they use Capitol Press with happy results.

I just checked out their website and was pleased to see that they offer a really nice guideline for graphic designers who work in print. It's called their Printing Essentials and includes useful things like paper grade classifications, a chart of folds and scoring,

Folds


Scoring

a conversion table for points, picas, inches and millimeters and much, much more!

I have a feeling that they may be out of my price range for the kinds of printing services I need at this time and place. But it's good to remember that they are out there and I'll definitely be checking back in the future.


5306 Beethoven Street
Los Angeles, CA 90066

A Very Important Game Lunch

Right now, as I type this a Very Important Game is going on in the world of the National Football League. So much so that our whole day and part of last night was sculpted around this event.

The plan started last night where m and I agreed to go to bed at a reasonable hour (no staying up late to watch movies or play video games or knit sweaters). Then this morning, we wouldn't sleep in, but get up early (for a Sunday at least) and go for a walk to get in a little exercise first thing. There was talk about going to the area we call the 2.5 neighborhood (there was an open house that we cruised through and the place was going for 2.5 million. dollars. that's right. and we loved that house and the location and everything, but come on now. 2.5??) maybe stop by Amandine to pick up croissants and coffee on the way. Perhaps a stop at a sort of ad hoc outdoor gym that is dubbed by locals as The Stairs. Then we cruise back home by 12 noon exactly to watch The Game.

Okay so we more or less did that (though somehow I still managed to sleep in) and then we had this great lunch that I wish I had had enough foresight to photograph, but darnitall I was really tired from all the walking and didn't have the presence of mind to bust out the camera. But you know, posterity. So important. So here's the really good lunch to accompany a Very Important Game without photos :(

Oven Baked Sweet Potato Fries
Buffalo Burgers with sauteed mushrooms and carmelized onions
Strawberry Lemonade

Sweet Potato Fries
One large sweet potato, scrubbed clean with the pointy ends trimmed off
Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Four cloves of garlic left unpeeled (optional)
Freshly crushed sea salt and black pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cut up the sweet potato into thick juliennes. I like to cut them into thick slabs diagonally and then stack the slabs two or three high to cut them again. This is the easiest and quickest way for me to cut up vegetables since I don't have a mandoline. It's important to try and cut the pieces to be as close in thickness as possible so that they cook evenly. Scatter the fries onto a rimmed baking sheet. Add garlic cloves. Drizzle olive oil and toss to coat evenly. Bake fries in oven for about 20 minutes or until tender. Use a spatula to turn them so that they cook evenly. When they are fork tender, put them under the broiler for about 10 minutes to further crisp them. Pull out garlic cloves and set aside. Season with salt and pepper and serve.

Strawberry lemonade
While the potatoes are baking, squeeze about 1 lb of lemons reserving the juice in a pitcher. Add about 1/2 a gallon of water and maybe about a cup of sugar to taste (I like my lemonade really sweet and really tart). Hull and slice about 5 medium strawberries and add to pitcher, chill and serve. (Sorry about the vague measurements, I usually make lemonade on the fly tasting and mixing as I go along so I didn't keep track of exactly how much of each ingredient I used.)

Buffalo Burgers with sauteed mushrooms and carmelized onions
1 package of ground buffalo meat
1/2 medium white onion sliced
1 package of sliced white mushrooms
Small loaf of ciabbata bread
Sprinkle of dried oregano
Salt/Pepper as needed

This is less a recipe per se and mostly a bunch of my notes. I picked up a package of ground buffalo meat and formed large meatballs shapes (they get flattened into patties in the pan) to sizes of my liking (manly-man sized super patty for M and dainty little girl patty for me). I heated up a drizzle of olive oil in a pan and added the larger meatball first, flattening with my hand to form a thick patty. I sprinkled the top with some dried oregano and some crushed salt and pepper. I let the patty cook for about 5 minutes on a medium flame and then flipped it with a spatula. I added the smaller patty at this time, sprinkling with oregano, salt and pepper like the first.

(This just in: as I write this, the Very Important Game ended in a victory for the good guys. There is a lot of clapping and grunting going on in my living room and both t.v.'s are on.)

Cook burgers to your preferred done-ness and let rest in pan for a moment.
In the still warm oven, slide in the ciabbata bread to crisp.

Meanwhile in another pan, sautee some sliced white onions in olive oil until they are translucent, add sliced mushrooms and let cook until the mushrooms have browned and the onions are carmelized.

Slit ciabbata in half and lay hamburger patty across one half. Add mushrooms and onions. I also sliced up half an avocado as a garnish on the side and also squeezed out the roasted garlic from the sweet potato fries and smeared onto my burger patty before adding the mushroom/onion mixture.

Delish.

The timing on this was a little tricky. (Or perhaps I was too tired from all that freaking walking.) So many things that felt like they needed to happen at exactly the same time. And the fries weren't the crispiest which was a shame. Perhaps less oil? Higher heat? I'll have to research some remedies. Still a satisfying lunch worthy of the victory of the Very Important Game.

musubi!

No sooner had I typed those words about spam musubi (see previous post), then I'd kick-started a craving that I had to feed. I trotted over to the nearest japanese market (which luckily is quite close by) and picked up a can of spam, more short grain rice (it's the sticky kind which you need for sushi-type rolls) and nori which is roasted seaweed.

Friday's lunch.

A very satisfying lunch.

I've also been nurturing a mean little craving for avocado rolls.

crude stroganoff or fancy hamburger helper

This has somehow turned into a cooking blog. How'd that happen? Well, every day I do a bunch of things, some interesting, mostly not. I think cooking is the most consistently interesting thing I'm doing these days. And I have to cook. Every day.

Actually, I love to cook. I go through spells where I cook all the time and get really ambitious and fancy and then there are the low times where I don't have the energy to stir or sautee or wash a pot so we eat out instead. The last six months or so was more of the latter for us. I not only lacked the energy but also the inspiration to cook anything. That was a little weird.

But now I have to cook (for the sake of our budget) and I think it will be helpful for me to document the different things I make so I can reference it on those nights when I am stumped for something to cook. Like this dish which I used to make on a regular basis. I completely forgot about it. I think the last time I made it must have been like a year ago.

Sometimes I'm in the mood for something in particular but don't know how to make it (jerk chicken with plantains and moro?) so I look it up on recipe sites and browse a few different recipes to get a basic idea of how it's done. Other times I'm in the store and a vegetable will look particularly fetching so I get inspired by that to create something on the fly (like the sole I made the other night). This dish is one of the ones I created on the fly. I must have been inspired by mushrooms. I can't imagine it was sour cream or ground meat. Hm. Who knows?

(Unrelated: Wow. There's an awesome Tom Waits song playing on the radio right now. It's called Jersey Girl and he is just wailing from his gut. Whoo. Gets me right there.)

Anyways, tonight's dinner is Fancy Hamburger Helper. Didn't you just love hamburger helper when you were a kid? Was that just us? My mom cooked a lot too. So much so that ordering from McDonald's was considered eating out. Don't even get me started on Pizza Hut. Nowadays, I don't think I could eat real hamburger helper. Actually, I know I can't. My 10 year old nephew made it for us for dinner one night and I nearly gagged on the sodium. So weird cause if someone told me that there was freshly whipped up spam musubi waiting in the kitchen, I'd be the first in line to stuff my face. I'm complex like that. Anyways, every once in a blue moon mom would take a break from the biscuits and gravy and country fried steaks and serve up a plate of hamburger helper and we kids would do a little dance around the table with anticipation. Usually to the tune of "I Wanna Be Like You" from the Jungle Book. I kid you not.

Okay, I'm really chatty tonight. On with the recipe:

Fancy Hamburger Helper

1 medium onion chopped
1 stalk of celery (optional - I just had it around in the fridge and wanted to use it up)
5-6 medium sized portobello mushrooms (or two of those squarish buckets of white mushrooms) chopped up as well
tub of sour cream
1 lb of ground meat (I used buffalo cause M told me that he heard that it's even leaner and healthier than turkey. Who knew? But in the past I have used ground beef or ground turkey)
1/2 lb of pasta cooked al dente (I really wanted to use parpadelle noodles but didn't have the motivation to make them from scratch and couldn't find them at the store. So I just used dried pasta instead. Usually one bag is a lb, so I cooked up all of it and just used about half.)
1 clove of minced garlic
1 teaspoon of oregano
sprinkles of freshly ground sea salt, black pepper and white pepper (okay, I don't actually have white peppercorns to freshly grind just the salt and black pepper) to taste

Start pasta water and throw in pasta when water comes to a rolling boil.

Chop all them vegetables up.

We are the onions.

We are mushrooms.

We are the optional opportune celery.

Sautee onions and celery first in a drizzle of olive oil. Add garlic too and cook until onions are translucent.


Add mushrooms to pan and sautee until they are tender (about 5 minutes? maybe longer. I should have been more attentive to the times).


By now the pasta should be done. Whoops, a little past al dente. Perhaps after the chopping phase, you should check in on the little buggers.

Drain and set aside. Don't put them back in the pot you used to cook 'em in, or put them in a bowl on top of the stove, the heat will keep 'em cooking and you don't want that.

Back to the sautee pan. Add the meat and break down with the back of a wooden spoon to brown evenly.


Cook stirring occasionally until meat is completely browned. There should still be some juices in the pan from the meat though.


Add seasonings and oregano. Stir to incorporate and add sour cream.

Stir to completely incorporate.

Whoops. I seem to have stopped taking photos at this point. Well, once the sour cream is completely incorporated, add the pasta. I added a little more than half the package which I think was a little too much. I like the ratios to be a little heavier on the meat sauce. Rats. Oh well, it was still a tasty dinner.

I served it with a simple salad of red leaf lettuce tossed with chopped apples, pear, some candied chopped walnuts and the mustard vinaigrette from last night's dinner.

bastardized nicoise salad

or: way too many photos of food...

I went to the farmers' market yesterday. I wanted golden beets, but they didn't have any. They had these instead and I can't stop photographing them. I should have busted out the tripod, sorry for the blurriness. I think they were called peppermint beets? Too lazy to look it up.





And the dinner they participated in:
Not-so-nicoise salade*

Soooo glad I used the tripod for these babies.

To a bed of baby lettuce, layer the following:
Wegdes of tomatoes
Blanched asparagus spears
Blanched beets
Wedges of avocado
Boiled fingering potatoes quartered lengthwise or however you want to cut em up
2 hardboiled eggs


Top with pan-seared sushi-grade, wild-caught, dolphin-friendly tuna.


Scoop out a portion for each plate and drizzle with mustard vinaigrette.


Holy cow, I think I need to have some more of that.

Mustard Vinaigrette
2 tablespoons of dijon mustard
1/2 cup of white wine vinegar
1/2 cup of extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons of dried basil
2 teaspoons of dried oregano
freshly crushed sea salt and black pepper
1 tablespoon of fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon of vietnamese fish sauce (or anchovy juice, I didn't have anchovy juice so I subbed in the fish sauce)
1 tablespoon of honey
1 clove of minced garlic
1 teaspoon of finely minced shallot

Add all ingredients to an empty tomato sauce jar, screw on the lid and shake it till the oil and vinegar have emulsified. Let sit while preparing rest of the dinner so that the herbs have time to mix and mingle. Shake briskly again before serving.

*If I'm not mistaken a traditional nicoise salad includes green beans, tomato wedges, potatoes, hard boiled eggs, anchovy fillets and of course the nicoise olives on a bed of lettuce with a mustard vinaigrette that uses the juices from the anchovies. I couldn't find green beans at the farmers' market so I substituted with asparagus and then went a little crazy with the other vegetables. M's not a huge fan of olives so I didn't go to the trouble of adding them either. In our home nicoise salad has become anything with a minimum of potatoes, tomatos, eggs and some sort of fresh fish atop it.

not bad for a Tuesday night

Tuesday night's supper was as follows (a few photos after all the blah, blah, blah):

Butternut and Delicata squash ravioli with browned butter, leek and sage sauce
Sauteed chard in balsamic reduction

Ravioli
Cut up squash in halves and spoon out seeds. Brush with olive oil and roast in the oven at 400 degrees until the flesh of the squash is fork tender (about 45 minutes). Scoop out the flesh with a spoon and discard the skin. Mash up the squash to get an even consistency. Sprinkle squash with ground white pepper and nutmeg.

In a sautee pan, sautee chopped up leeks in olive oil. When the leeks are tender, add a splash of marsala wine and cook till the wine has burned off. Add half the leeks to the squash. Stir to incorporate the leeks and spices. Add half a tub of ricotta cheese to the squash and fold gently.

Set up ravioli making station with fresh lasagne noodles (I think this is an upgrade from the wonton wrappers, but still not quite there. Might have to break out the pasta maker after all), a bowl of water, squash mixture and a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

Spoon about 1/2 tablespoon of squash onto a rectangle of lasagne noodle (may need to cut to size) leaving generous margins of exposed noodle around the filling. Fold over the noodle so that it contains the filling like a pouch. Dip one finger into the bowl of water and slide finger in between the noodle and press gently to close. The water helps the noodle stay stuck together. Lay completed ravioli onto parchment lined baking sheet. Continue with the rest of the filling and noodles until all or one are used up. Soak a tea towel and wring it out. Place it damp over the raviolis to keep them from drying out.

In the sauce pan with the remaining leeks, add 3 tablespoons of butter and melt completely. When the butter begins to foam, add the fresh sage and sautee that until it becomes nice and crispy. Actually, the leeks will crisp before the sage, probably. That's okay too.

Fill almost to the top a large deep skillet with water and a drizzle of olive oil. Bring water to a boil and add raviolis one by one being careful not to crowd the pan. Use a slotted spoon to turn each one afer about 5 minutes. After another 3-4 minutes (when they look done) scoop out and place on a plate. Keep plate in the oven while you cook the rest of the ravioli in batches. Try to avoid stacking them on top of each other in case they stick.

Dip the first batch of raviolis into the hot water to heat briefly before serving. Serve raviolis with a drizzle of the browned butter mixture. Best when served immediately.

For the sauteed greens.
In another pan, throw in some chopped up garlic, olive oil and the stems of the chard and sautee until the stems are a little tender. Throw in the chopped up leafy bits and stir around a bit to coat everything in the olive oil and garlic goodness. Cover for a few minutes. Go use the bathroom or use this time to clear the dining table so you can actually sit there to enjoy this meal. Throw some balsamic vinegar over the greens (about 3 tablespoons?) and give it a good stir. Put the cover back on it and let it sit on a med-low flame. Cook it until the balsamic vinegar is mostly evaporated and the greens are tender. Turn off the heat and keep covered until ready to serve.

note to self: sole

You made a pretty darned tasty sole the other night my friend. Let's not forget what went into the making of it. For posterity:

1 package of sole from the store (probably about 1/2 lb or so?)
1 large leek just the white part (and a little of the green) quartered lengthwise and chopped up
loose handful of shitake mushrooms chopped up
1 clove of chopped up garlic
Mirin
Soy sauce
Chopped cilantro
Chopped cashews

Preheat the oven to 375.

Sautee the leeks and garlic in sesame seed oil (I prefer Kadoya in case anyone out there other than future me is reading this) on medium high heat till garlic is translucent. Add mushroom and continue to sautee until leeks are tender. Add splash of mirin and soy sauce (maybe about 2 tablespoons of each) and cook till it burns off. Turn off heat and leave saucepan on stove.

Brush bottom of baking dish with oil. Lay sole in baking dish so that each piece is staggered drapes over the lip of the dish. Spoon leek and mushroom mixture across sole. Gently take the part of the sole that is draping over the dish and cover the leek/mushroom mixture sort of like a taco. The fish should more or less cover the filling so that it makes sort of a log. Brush the top with some oil and put into the oven.

Check back in on the fish about 15 minutes later and baste with any of the juices that have formed. Continue to cook till fish is firm and opaque (about 35 minutes all told?). Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and cashews. Leave in the oven for a few more minutes while setting the table, etc. Serve with steamed rice.

great idea

I saw this at the thrift store yesterday:

A simple way to make plain towels a little prettier. I keep forgetting to do this at home with our plain towels, maybe posting it will remind me to get it done.

we eat (probably a little too much)

Lots of cooking this weekend.

A quiche that's quickly become a favorite. I got the recipe from here.

A few changes: I used leeks instead of shallots and yellow chard instead of arugula. And I think it could stand to bake for 45 minutes instead of the recommended 35. It's never quite done after 35 minutes and I find myself having to run it through the microwave to fully cook the eggy middle. This quiche uses only 3 eggs (!) and you don't miss it in the taste. If you don't eat the crust, this could possibly pass for health food, but alas I have a weakness for crust. This would be tasty served with a simple green salad, but I wasn't organized enough to pull that off so we just ate the quiche alone. It's got enough leafy green vegetables in it to make me feel like I wasn't missing anything nutritionally. I'm still working on my pie crust skills. This last batch was fair but the thinner bits were a bit crispy. More flour and even rolling of the the dough is probably what was needed.

I finally made marshmallows!

This photo isn't nearly as tempting as the one that got me on board with this project. Once I saw that photo I knew that I wanted to make and eat homemade marshmallows. Just like the one Amy describes. I even wanted that slightly gaggy feeling of popping a whole, slightly warm and chocolately marshmallow that hasn't completely set. I know it's weird. I'm okay with that. Others seem to have been simultaneously inspired. I used the recipe that Amy used. She references it in her blog, but for the purposes of ease, you can get to it here.

And of course I had to dip it in chocolate and sprinkle nuts over it. I think that chopped almonds and chocolate is like the best combination ever. Mmm. No photos of that cause I was too busy stuffing my face. Also, m enjoyed nuking a few in the microwave and then drizzling it over ice cream with some of the chocolate sauce (his favorite kind of sundaes). And it's mighty tasty toasted over the open flames of our gas stove.

Bonus points: it's as easy to make as those other gals have said it was (a little too easy in that dangerous "I'll just whip up another batch of marshmallows..." kind of way) and the clean up was quick too!

Then I made chili con carne. I've been craving this for about a month now and I finally got around to making it. The recipe is from Martha Stewart Living November 2005 issue, but you can also find it here. I added the beans to the chili instead of serving it on the side. The prep was a little time consuming, but once you get everything in the pot, you just let it sit and become wonderful.

NB: This is a MEATY chili. Mostly meat (and some beans if you choose to throw them in like I did). All that other stuff was just for the flavor. I served it over hot corn bread with some grated cheddar cheese and avocado wedges.

And I have not stopped making and drinking pots of homemade chai. I experienced a moment of genius when I added some of the chai to a glass of ice cream and took the immersion blender to it. Chai milk shakes? It's totally rocking my world these days.

cute dress

Saw this cute retro dress at the goodwill the other day.

I wanted to buy it but it felt like it was made of 100% polyester (no label) which I am having an adverse reaction (for no good reason) to these days. So I took a photo of it to remind me of its cuteness and maybe one day (sigh) I'll remember to make it for myself or something.

yet another