Off To a Good Start!

The nice thing about not being a New Year's Eve partier is that New Year's Day is a nice, long, quiet day. I had one of my few nights that I couldn't sleep well, and ended up getting up at four o'clock. I worked on my latest cowl and read some blogs, and then after a little nap, I went for a seven-mile run. I'm so enjoying this vacation and having my main responsibilities be to exercise and knit, and occasionally cook.

I made kale pesto tonight. Russ loved it. Kai, not so much. I looked up a couple of recipes, but I basically just substituted kale for pesto in a basic pesto recipe. I sauteed some red onion and red bell pepper with some langoustine,  and added that to my pesto, and we had a pretty nice supper.

Book Club

 

I've just been aching for an excuse to show off this M.A. Hadley platter on my bog, which is ostensibly about knitting, but sometimes about cooking and eating. I found my excuse today. First, let me brag about how I found it. I went to the Bakersfield Peddler's Fair a couple of weeks ago with a friend and saw this platter for $50. I haven't seen one just like it anywhere, so it's probably not even being manufactured anymore, but I'm sure I'd have to pay at least $100, maybe even $200 for it online if I could find it. I had to borrow $20 from my friend because I didn't even have $50 on me, and I didn't try to dither the sellers down at all because it was such a good deal.

Well, today was our monthly book club meeting, and we had read Yes, Chef by Marcus Samuelsson, who was raised in Sweden. I made smørrebrød, which are Danish open-faced sandwiches, which I thought  close enough to be appropriate, and I used my...platter. Everyone loved the sandwiches, which was only a tiny bit surprising because my friends are adventurous. I've made quite a few smørrebrød before, but I found two different recipe on NPR to try this time. I made roast beef with arugula  and horseradish with creme fraiche and blue cheese and apple with bacon. I pretty much ignored the fact that I've been trying to be really healthy and ate a ton of them. I've had a cold all week and haven't exercised much, so, of course, it makes sense that I would also ruin my diet this week too, sigh!

 The roast beef smorrebrod were topped with a radish and a little grated carrot.

The blue cheese and apple ones were supposed to applewood smoked bacon, but I just used prosciutto, and it tasted wonderful. Food can be so much fun. I enjoy eating healthy, so I'm not dreading going back to being a little more disciplined, but it was fun to fall off the wagon for a day or two.

School's Out!

    For most of the years that my kids were young, I would leave school on the last day with an entire two and a half months of freedom before me. Summer vacation is now more like two months long, and for the last four or five years, I've somehow found myself teaching summer school, which usually puts a bit of a damper on my celebratory attitude. If I'd be more fiscally responsible during the school year, I wouldn't be complaining about this fact. Although I'm not complaining much this summer since I will still have a lot of free time. I'm subbing eight days of summer school for a friend in July; plus, I'm splitting a contract to teach a night class at the college, which means two nights a week for four weeks. That's certainly not "nothing," but it's much less than I'm used to, so I'm excited. It will be nice not to be rushed about pretty much anything, including knitting projects. I felt a little rushed with finishing my little project for my friend this week. I didn't get the Mary Janes finished for my friend's grandbaby, but I did knit her a cute little hat from Susan B Anderson's "rosebud hat" pattern in Itty Bitty Hats. I'll just have to knit the Mary Janes later.

I didn't really have enough time to knit the rosebuds, so I knit a little flower from 100 Flowers to Knit and Crochet,  I don't know how to crochet much, but this book makes me want to learn. It has some really fun patterns. I was inspired to buyit from Knot Garden, who creates gorgeous flowers creations. I'm sad that she hasn't posted since December because her stuff is wonderful.

One of my summer goals is to be more faithful about my food posts on Fridays, but since I've been so infrequent with the food posts lately, I thought I'd post a recent success while it's fresh on my mind. We had some friends over on Sunday night and had an indoor picnic since it was too cold and windy outside. (Yes, cold and windy in Central California...in late May!)  We had pulled pork sandwiches, thanks to Trader Joe's, but I'm proud to say the potato salad was homemade. I'm still on the "Southwest" kick and found a great new recipe on a blog that I unfortunately forgot to bookmark!

Southwestern Potato Salad

• 4 lbs heirloom, thin skinned potatoes, cut and boiled until tender but not mushy
• 2 red onions, chopped
• 3 cloves of garlic, roasted until soft
• 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 Poblano pepper, seeded and chopped
• 2-3 canned chipotle chiles in adobo sauce, chopped
• 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped
• 1/2 cup cilantro chopped
• 2 cupe  mayo
• 2 tbs Grey Poupon mustard
• Juice of 2 limes
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp cumin 

Mix the mayo, mustard, agave, cumin, and lime juice. Squeeze in the soft insides of the roasted garlic and mix well. Set aside. In a large bowl, toss the potatoes, peppers, onions, cilantro, and chopped garlic until well mixed. Pour the mayo mixture over all and blend gently. Add salt and pepper to taste.

I had good reviews on this recipe although it was really on the spicy side. 

Hot Cross Buns

I always intend to bake hot cross buns on Good Friday, but I don't think I ever have followed through. I not only followed through today; I was even a little adventurous. I baked hot cross buns with my sourdough starter. I often use my starter as a yeast replacement with rolls or pizza dough, which usually results in finished products that are good but not identifiable as sourdough, so I thought why not try using my starter with a hot cross bun recipe. After looking around,  I discovered  a good-sounding recipe at The Fresh Loaf  and set to work improvising. My family didn't go crazy over my "wild yeast" Hot Cross Buns, but everyone agreed that they were very good. I used a full teaspoon of cinnamon, but next time, I think I'll only use a half since they aren't supposed to be cinnamon buns, after all.

Wild Yeast Hot Cross Buns


Makes 1 dozen buns
1 cup recently-fed sourdough
11/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
11/2 bread flour
1/8 cup sugar
1 cup warm (90-100 degrees) milk
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup raisins, currants, or dried fruit
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger

Glaze: 1/2 cup powdered sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice

In a large mixing bowl, mix together sourdough starter, flour, yeast, sugar, salt, and spices. Add the warm milk and butter and mix until all ingredients are combined. I had to add a little more flour to get the flour to the right consistency, where it was soft but not sticky  I used my Kitchen Aid with my dough hook for about ten minutes and then added in 1/2 cup of raisins, kneading by hand. Place dough to a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow to rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until the dough has doubled in size. When it has risen, pour the dough out onto a cutting board and divide into 12 pieces. Roll the pieces into balls and place on a greased baking surface (I used a 9 x 13 pan). Cover the pan and allow to rise until they double in size again, typically 45 minutes to 1 hour.

While the buns are rising, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. When the buns are ready to bake, beat the egg in a bowl and brush some over the top of the buns. Then put the buns in the oven and bake at 425 for 20 minutes. Remove and allow to cool for 5 or 10 minutes.  While the buns are cooling, make the glaze by combining the lemon juice with the powdered sugar (you can also use orange juice, milk, or water if you don't have lemon juice around). I used a pastry bag,  to paint the crosses on top of the buns.

Food On Friday #2

I bragged last week that we like trying ethnic food, but my biggest cooking success this week wasn't that exotic. Still, it was a little different and really good. Russ has bought Trader Joe's Cajun Salmon a couple times, and Kai had raved about it. I thought I'd see if I could measure up. Russ found me a recipe for blackened salmon at All Recipes. I improvised quite a bit, and we all agree that it was even better than Trader Joe's.

"Kinda" Blackened Cajun Salmon

• 2 tablespoons ground paprika (I used smoked Spanish paprika from My Spice Sage)
• 1 tablespoon ground cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
•   1teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme (I actually used fresh because we had some in the garden.)
• 1/4 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano
• 4 salmon fillets, skin and bones removed
• 1/4 cup olive oil with one Tbsp. melted butter added

Directions

• In a small bowl, mix paprika, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, salt, black pepper, thyme, basil and oregano.

• Brush salmon fillets on both sides with olive oil/butter mixture, and sprinkle evenly with the cayenne pepper mixture. Drizzle one side of each fillet with some of the remaining olive oil. 
• In a large, heavy skillet over high heat, cook salmon, until blackened, 2 to 5 minutes. Turn fillets, drizzle with remaining olive oil, and continue cooking until blackened and fish is easily flaked with a fork. 

I didn't blacken the salmon as much as I've seen in some recipes, which was fine with everyone. I was pretty proud of the rest of meal too; salad using lettuce from our garden and broiled potatoes with olive oil, rosemary, garlic from my dad's garden, and fresh thyme.

In other news, I have successfully defeated "Second Sock Syndrome," at least with this pair of socks with my beautiful yarn from Anne. I frogged  the insidious sock that I was nearly finished knitting. I just wasn't happy with the pooling around the ankles, so I went back to one of my favorite patterns, Calendula. I had Paige model them for me. She seems awfully interested in them. Unfortunately, wool sock weather seems to be a thing of the past. I just heard that a warming trend is on the way. I hope that means 80 degree, not 90!

Loving My Book Club

I finished my purple socks and now seem to be in a bit of the knitting doldrums. Our weather has still been a little chilly, at least in the  morning and evening, so I'm not adverse  to using wool as I sometimes am by now. I just need a little break I guess.

So, I've mostly been focusing on two of my other hobbies: reading and eating. Some friends from work and I formed a book club last year, and although we don't meet really regularly, we have thoroughly enjoyed every meeting we've had. I suggested our last book, which was Crescent by Diana Abu Jabar. I've read it several times and although I like the story itself, it's the food imagery that make me love it...and yes, I was drawn to it because of the knitted blue sweater  sleeve on the cover.


The protagonist's is of Iraqi descent and is a cook in a Lebanese restaurant, so Crescent is full of references to humus, tabuleah, dolmas (stuffed grape leaves), and baklava. So, that is what the table in my dining room was full of this afternoon. I wish that I'd taken a picture of it because it was really a wonderful sight, but I do at least have a picture of the baklava that my friend, Janet, and I made yesterday.

Russ paid our baklava a very high compliment after tasting it today. Last summer we bought some baklava from an Iranian woman at a farmer's market in Nebraska. It was wonderful, just about melted in your mouth. I loved it so much that when we saw her at another farmer's market later that week, I had to go tell her how much we enjoyed her baklava even though we weren't buying any that day. When I told her that I had tried baklava numerous times and hers was by far the best that we'd ever tasted, she practically teared up and insisted that I take a free box of it. I tried to refuse, telling her that that wasn't why I'd told her that. She insisted though, and we eventually happily gave in. Writing this just now, made me wonder if she had a website, but all I could find was this blog post from a guy who obviously agrees with our assessment of her skills....back to Russ's comment. He said our baklava was about as good as that nice Iranian woman's!

Lucky for me, there were quite a few leftovers, and I was the recipient of most of them. I also helped make dolmades (pictured on the left side of my pic.) last week with my friend Nancy whose partner is of Greek heritage. If this recipe was any indication, he's an incredible cook. I've have dolmas out of jars from Trader Joe's, but eating freshly prepared dolmades can't even be compared to the cold, briney, slimey grape leaves out of a jar.

Sirine, the chef in Crescent makes the most delicious-sounding dolmas. I think she'd approve of these. This isn't exactly the recipe we used since the recipes we used is top secret, but Nancy assures me that this is very close to what we prepared.

Domades

1 lb. ground beef
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 cup white rice
1 egg
1 tbsp. butter, softened
1 tbsp. dried mint (we used fresh)
1/2 bunch parsley
dill
3-4 tbsp. lemon juice
salt/pepper

20 - 30 grape leaves (We're lucky enough to have a Middle Eastern market nearby where we can buy fresh ones, but we used some leaves from Nancy's concord grapes vines.

Knead all ingredient in a bowl. If the consistency is too hard, add a little water.

Boil grapes leaves until they are soft but not tender. Fresh leaves will only take a minute. Cool leaves. Fill leaves with rice mixture and roll "burrito-style."

In a large pot, melt 1/2 stick butter. Arrange rolled dolmades in pot and pour 3-4 cups of chicken or beef broth over dolmades, cover, and simmer for 2 hours.

Serve domades with avgolemono sauce:

Avgolemono Sauce

Ingredients:

• 2-3 eggs, separated
• 1 tablespoon of water
• juice of 2-3 lemons
• broth from the dish being cooked (or hot beef or chicken broth or stock)

Preparation:

Beat the egg whites until foamy. Beat in egg yolks, water, lemon juice, and 2-3 spoonfuls of broth, beating (or whisking) continuously. Add the avgolemono sauce to the dish being cooked, stir, cover with a towel for 10 minutes, and serve.

King Ranch Casserole

My husband get the news magazine The Week. I like it, but I hardly ever have time to read its articles about international and U.S. news, BUT I never miss its Leisure Section which always has a great "Food and Drink" section. They usually have recipes from famous restaurants. I haven't tried to make any of them since I've pretty much not cooked anything worth mentioning all year. Russ thought we should made it when our pastor came to dinner tonight. He went and bought all of the ingredients, and I did the cooking. Success! It was an easy recipe and was delicious. Everyone had seconds. The artice said that King Ranch Casserole "might be the most famous casserole in Texas." Now something tells me that most Texans don't use Wolgang Puck's chicken broth in their version, but I can see why Texans love it. It is sooooo bad for you but tastes sooooo good!

Not much left!

King Ranch Casserole

12 (6 -inch) corn tortillas
1 tbsp. unsalted butter
2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 jalapeno chilies, minced
2 tsp cumin
2 (10 -oz) cans Ro-Tel tomatoes
5 tbsp flour
1 cup heavy cream
3 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, halved lenthwise and
cut crosswise into 1/2 inch slices
2 tbsp minced fresh cilantro
4 cups Cojack cheese
salt/pepper
21/4 cups Fritos, crushed

Pre-heat oven to 450 degrees. Lay tortillas on two baking sheets, lightly coat both side with cooking spray, and bake slightly crisp and browned, about 12 minutes. Cool slighly, then break into bite-size peices.

Heat butter in Dutch oven over medium heat. Cook onions, chilies, and cumin until lightly browned, about 8 minutes. Add tomatoes and cook until most of liquid has evaporated, about 10 minutes. Stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Add cream and broth, bring to summer, and cook until thickened, 2 to 3 minutes. Stir in chicken a cook until no longer pink, about 4 minutes. Off heat, add cilantro and cheese, and sitr until chees is melted. Season with salt and pepter.

Scatter half of tortilla pieces in 13 by 9 inch baking dish set over rimmed baking sheet. Spoon half of filling evenly over tortillas. Scatter remaining toritlla over filling , then top with remaining filling.

Bake until filling is bubbling, about 15 minutes. Sprinkle Fritos evenly over top and bake until Fritos are lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Cool casserole 10 minutes. Serves 6 to 8.

Notorious Pasta Salad

It was 90 degrees today, which isn't so bad. I'm just worried about what's coming around the corner. My daughter had a swim meet today and we had a barbeque afterwards with all of the "swim" families. It was just a nice, casual evening. I enjoyed it all the more because our school's superintendent had a "party" at his house which I definitely did not want to go to, and the barbeque gave me the perfect out.

In my last entry, I mentioned how food can be so evocative. I brought a pasta salad to the barbeque that is very evocative to Russ and me. I brought what we call Bud and Bev Pasta Salad. I've had this recipe for over fifteen years and got it from...you guessed it...Bud and Bev. They were my cousin's in-laws, and they served this pasta at a barbeque at their beautiful house out in the country. We had a great time swimming and socializing with my favorite cousins. Russ and I thought Bud and Bev seemed really nice, and so did all of my extended family...for a while. Unfortunately, their son ended up being a jerk... er...a psychopath.. or maybe a sociopath. Anyway, to make a long story short, He really was a terrible person, and my poor cousin went through hell for several years because of him. He really was a head-case. Now Bud and Bev seemed to think that their son, who had nearly died from head injuries received in a drunk driving accident when he was in high school, could do no wrong. I'm all for parental devotion, but there weren't two sides to this story. My cousin worked all day as a teacher, took care of their two young children, and tried to be supportive of him as he tried to go to school (seizures and other results of the earlier injuries hindered this); while he had a trail of women "visiting" their house while she was gone all day, among other things. I don't like Bud and Bev anymore, even though I didn't really know them to begin with. My cousin is happily married to a nice guy and her ex and Bud and Bev don't even live in the state, BUT we still call this pasta salad "Bud and Bev Pasta." Kind of a silly story to tell. I just think it's kind of funny. I gave the recipe to a friend tonight and told her the story. She says she's going to call it "Bud and Bev Pasta" too.

Bud and Bev Pasta

Toss together while pasta is warm:
1 pkg. cooked corkscrew pasta
1/4 cup Italian dressing (I use Berenstein's Cheesey Fantastico)
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp dill weed
1/4 garlic powder
dash of oregano and pepper

Toss with pasta just before serving:
1 cup Feta cheese
4 tomatoes
1 green bell pepper (I often add red bell pepper too)
4 radishes
2 green onions

I don't have a picture of my finished salad, but here's what my bowl looked like at the end of the evening.

Wool Socks and 90 Degree Heat

Blogger won't upload my images, so here's a boring post. Actually, I'm not sure that it is 90 degrees outside, but it feels like it, plus I've been miserably hot at school much of the day. Our head of mintenance won't turn on the air conditioning yet because it "might get cold again." Are you crazy??? It won't be cold until next November!! It may get tolerable again, but it WILL NOT GET COLD! So I must find a project that doesn't "clash" with warm weather. Of course, I have every intention of finishing my second sock, but after that, I'm thinking cotton yarn.

I was going to start writing down some of my favorite recipes periodically, but I haven't followed through with that idea. Lat weekend, Paige made Mexican Shrimp Cocktail for us. It's one of my favorite items at a local Mexican restaurant, but it also costs over $10 for a bowl. We decided that we could make it ourselves far cheaper. Paige has further refined the recipe since our first attempt, and I think that she's pretty much perfected it.

Mexican Shrimp Cocktail

Ingredients:

2 pounds cooked shrimp, peeled and deveined
3 large cloves grlic, crushed
1/2 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
1/2 cup cucumber, chopped
1 tsp. jalapeno, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups Clamato juice
1/4 cup ketchup
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
several drops hot pepper sauce
1/4 cup prepared horseradish
1 ripe avocado - peeled, pitted and chopped

In a large bowl, stir together garlic, red onion, cilantro, jalapeno, and cucumber. Mix in tomato and Clamato juice, ketchup, lime juice, hot pepper sauce, and horseradish. Season with salt. Gently stir in avocado and shrimp. Cover, and refrigerate several hours. Serve in one large bowl or ladle into individual bowls.

What's Wrong with This Picture?

There are several things wrong with this picture: number one, there is a cat lounging on our dining room table; number two, the table still has a Christmas table cloth on it; and number three, the cat (otherwise known as Josie Kitty) is reclining on a stocking cap that I just finished knitting!

There is a story behind this hat. I saw it over on Wool Windings, and I knew I had to knit it. I've already mentioned this incident before, but I'll repeat it with some detail. A few months ago I was using my laptop to give a presenttion to my students using an expensive projector. In my concern that I not let anything happen to the precious projector, I managed to knock my laptop on the floor, and ended up with the dreaded "question mark" on the screen. Jake, one of my friends in IT painstakingly took the laptop apart so he could retrieve all of my information on the hard drive before the laptop was sent off to the "hopital." This meant a lot to me, especially considering I had my college evening class grades on it, and I hadn't backed them up in over two weeks. So here's my rendition of the Mac hat for Jake, my savior in IT. I hope he likes it. I hadn't tried duplicate stich before and had several false starts, but Kristen Nicholas's tutorial really helped me.My duplicate stitch could still use a little work, but I'm proud of my first try.

Tale of a Gourmet Weekend!



You can always tell that I have a lot to do around the house when I decide to be longwinded. I do have a non-knitting related experience to share though. I took a cooking school class at the The New School of Cooking in Culver City this weekend. Now that I think about it, it is kind of knitting related because I knit the cap on the drive down there. I went with three co-workers, and we had a great time. Our session was on "souffles." After we listened to the teacher's lecture and watched her demonstration, we paired off and drew straws to prepare different souffles. My partner and I prepared a gingerbread souffle, and it was pretty good, but my favoite souffle was the cauliflower souffle over baby greens. I made it tonight, and it turned out very satisfactory, even Kai ate one.I'm not saying he raved about it, but he ate it.I couldn't bare to tell him that it had cauliflower in it!

Individual Cauliflower Souffles Over Baby Greens
Serves 6

Souffle:
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
t tbsp. grated parmesan (We used the really good stuff!)
1 head cauliflower, quartered and cored
3 tbsp. flour
1 cup hot milk (our teacher said it could be cold too)
4 egg yolks
3/4 cup Guryere cheese, grated
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. paprika
1/4 tsp. ground pepper
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. minced parsley
5 egg whites

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter six 5 ounce ramekins and sprinkle the inside with parmesan. Arrange in a baking pan.

Mince cauliflower, enough to yield about 1 cup. Set aside.

In a medium saucepn over medium heat, melt 2 tablespoon butter, whisk in the flour to make a blonde roux. Whisk in the hot milk to make a bechamel. Whisk in the yolks, one at a time, until flully incorporated. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the minced cauliflower and parsley. Cook 2 minutes more. Stir in the guryere cheese and seasoning. Transfer mixture to a large mixing bowl and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites on low speed until frothy, about 2 minutes. Increase speed to medium, and beat 1 minute more. when the egg white are foamy, increase speed to high, and beat just until they hold soft peaks. Do not overbeat. Lightly fold a third of the whites into the cheese mixture to lighten it. Fold in the remaining whites, until just combined.

Fill each ramekin with 1/2 cup of the souffle mixture. Smooth the tops. Bake until the tops are golden brown and the mixture is set, about 20 to 25 minutes.

While souffles are cooking toss baby greens with a god quality vinegar and oil dressing and divide on salad plates. Remove the souffles from the oven. Use a kitchen towel to hold the ramekins, and invert the souffles onto your hand, then bottom side down onto the plates with the salads.