fancy dinner

so last weekend (before Thanksgiving weekend), we thought our friend L. was going to be coming to dinner and bringing a friend, but we were wrong. Instead, we finally figured out what everyone had been saying at about 7pm, when suddenly we realized we had a feast for four and no dinner guests.

E to the rescue! Thank heavens she had been shirking plans, on account of being sick and not wanting to go out; a quiet evening in, doing that thing we always seem to do (dinner + TV or movie) was really nice. It's been a while.

So we had a salad with warm walnut-encrusted goat cheese balls, venison marinated in akvavit and crushed juniper berries, served with a cranberry-fruit chutney and venison gravy (above), and chantrelle and hazelnut risotto (also above; extra tasty as I did not have white cooking wine on hand and substituted leftover locally-made hard cider). We popped open a Negrette from Kenneth Volk, and finished off with dessert:

Steamed persimmon pudding, with persimmon slices and lightly whipped cream (sweetened with golden syrup). As this was my first steamed pudding, I let it boil extra long, but it still was a little underdone, but still tasty. Clearly, I have not yet mastered the English art of boiling food. I'll get there. ("please, don't," joked my fella.)

Nothing like familiar friends, a couple episodes of House and a feast on a wintry night. E said she was particularly excited to finally partake of one of the photographed blog-meals.

finally!

I can show you some of what I was working on at the end of summer. With the economy tanking, I've been trying to reassure myself that family and friends might actually enjoy (even, want?) a more personal gift from me this year, particularly as they mostly seem to have everything they NEED, per se, and so what do you end up getting people, other than just more STUFF? So here we go:

This little kitsune (Japanese fox spirit) is the newest addition to the menagerie I've been making for E. I only gave it five tails, so that it would be easier to keep in line. Designed/drafted/made by me, from recycled fulled wool double knit fabric (the salmon), leftover corduroy (ivory) from former projects, and scrap leather and buttons taken from a sweater before it was recycled into cleaning rags (eyes and nose).

The black paws, white tail tips, and fluffy ears and chest are needle-felted wool fiber over the body of the kitsune. Oh, and so's this feature, which I had to add for cuteness:

After taking these photos, I made a little greek fisherman's sweater out of a navy sweater of mine that Boyfriend washed (!!!) and completely shrank/fulled. Don't have pics of that, though.

the holidays are off to a bright start at chez pacific rain! How about you? What are you doing, making this year? Anyone else sick of stores and hunting and only ever turning up something mass-produced for the most important people in our lives?

hidden

been pretty quiet around here lately; school has got me hopping and I hardly have time to do laundry, much less cook, craft, do anything exciting. Gave one of my handmade gifts away last week, so I'll post those pics in a few days when I can grab a moment.

In the meantime, it seems the nantes carrots might not need to overwinter after all. Delicious, sweet, and a little musky soil-flavour. This seems like some kind of metaphor for life right now: there's a lot going on just under the surface of this silence. Hopefully, the product at the end of the quarter will be as sweet as these fresh little things.

no, really. They ARE good.

of course, slathering anything in a bunch of butter and maple syrup AND chestnuts helps.

We had salmon last night, paired with a mess o' brussel sprouts. We freely adapted from a recipe in Field of Greens, the Greens Restaurant's second cookbook, that was recommended for holiday meals. (holiday food? In September? Well ... let's just say that sunny SB wasn't exactly conducive to a holiday mood for me, and I'm getting a bit of my own back by starting EARLY this year. Plus, brr! It's cold here and reacclimation is hard!)

We chopped a small yellow onion and sauteed it in 1 Tbl of olive oil over medium heat for about 7 minutes, or until it was softened. Meanwhile, I cut the ends off of the brussel sprouts (I'm not sure how many - maybe about a pound? They came in those little net bags, premeasured - on sale for 99 cents at Whole Foods last Saturday!) and sliced them, about 3-4 slices per brussel sprout. I added these to the pan with the onions, breaking them up and sauteeing them for another 10-15 min, stirring occasionally, until parts of them were starting to brown.

While that cooked, I took 3-4 Tbl of butter and softened it a bit in the microwave, then added 2-3 Tbl of grade A maple syrup and whisked it together into a maple butter.

Once the brussel sprouts had begun to brown, I added about 3 Tbl. of chestnut puree to the pan along with the butter, turning off the burner. (My chestnut puree had vanilla and sugars added, as it it's a little early for jarred chestnuts, and this was all I could find.) With a wooden spoon, I broke up the puree and mixed it evenly throughout, and voila!

I'm sure this is not the healthy way to eat your veggies, but it sure did taste good.

playing around

more fun in the kitchen, and success! - a tart. This thing is so good, we could sell it on the street. It was really rewarding to make this this morning; I've had so much reading lately that I feel like my creative urges are just screaming for satisfaction. Even a little bit of culinary experimentation seemed to satisfy them for today.

crust is 1 1/4 c. flour, 3/4 c. cornmeal, and 3 Tbl. sugar, with 10 Tbl butter cut into it, a little salt, and ice-cold water to hold together. I put it in the shell, pricked it, weighted it, and baked at 400 for 15 min with the weights, then 8 min without.

fruit: about 12 figs (stems cut off) and a half-pint of blueberries. I sauteed 1 Tbl butter in a saute pan, threw in the fruit and about 1 Tbl. sugar and stirred it up, reduced heat to low. I added about 1/2 c. brandy and simmered it for another minute before increasing the heat to high (to keep the fruit from releasing their juices and cooking down too far). Once it had thickened and most of teh juices had congealed, I turned the heat off.

I placed the figs in the crust, then poured over a sweet potato custard. Custard was made of 1 medium sweet potato (skin removed and flesh crushed with a fork), about 1/2- 3/4 c. half n half, 1 egg, 1/4 c. sugar, and 1 Tbl Mexican vanilla (all blended together on high for a minute or two).

I used two spoons to lightly scatter the blueberries and congealed fruit juices over the top of the custard. Then back into the oven (at 350 this time) for 35 min.

Chill, eat. yum.

too late!

thank you so much, you two who commented and shared your opinions on the "to colour or not to colour" question. Unfortunately, before I heard from you, I heard from the fella, who said "colour it!" ... he later admitted that he wanted me to colour it because I hadn't employed proper and consistent line weights (!!), so he didn't like the black and white version.

This is why I got out of stage design, things like this drove me insane (that and I think lefties really ought not to draft by hand, it's such a horrible exercise in heartbreaking smudges). Darned snobby architects, holding everyone to their style and standards.

So I don't know. He likes the nubbly blending of greens. What do you think? Have I utterly ruined it, or is it alright this way?

but this one he likes. I did it while I was waiting for him to get ready to go somewhere. I think to get the celery root, actually. =) I always make little pledges to get back into drawing, and then fall by the wayside. Maybe I'll have another go at it this fall, see if I can't try and get a few quick sketches in every week. I'm thinking maybe of plants in the garden.

ps. there's another piece accompanying the anemone platter, but since I decided to gift the two pieces, I'll have to show you later. All I will say for now is that it is really difficult to draw on a concave surface - both control of the paint pen, and the necessary warping of an image so it looks right to the eye. I had no idea! I did four drafts before I finally managed something I liked and have gone through about 50 Q-tips rubbing off my mistakes. I think I'll stick to flat surfaces from now on.

experimenting with scraps

We didn't plan to do a lot of cooking this week, owing to my being sick, so we've been living mostly on boxed Trader Joe's soup, salad, juice, tea, and a few vegetables that I picked up so that there'd be some nutrients in all this.

By Wed I was getting creative, and by Thurs, I was running on scraps. Still, sometimes experimenting with the leftovers has positive results. The remoulade (foreground) was planned - no way I just keep ripe pears and celery root on hand. It's a pretty easy side dish, particularly if you're lazy about the julienning, like I am, and you get someone else to make the sauce, which is basically a flavourful, homemade mayonnaise/aioli (an egg yolk, some mustard, a splash of vinegar and a half cup of olive oil and whisk whisk whisk!).

The scraps come in with the gnocchi (and while, yes, I do sometimes make my own gnocchi, this is the pre-packaged stuff that Trader Joe's sells for $1.49). A firm believer that some slow-sauteed caramellized onions is the basis of many tasty things, I cut an onion in thin crescents, and caramellized them over low heat in olive oil. I chopped some fresh sage leaves from the garden and threw them in as the onions finished. Then I added a leftover baked garnet yam, skin removed, and flesh cut into chunks, three figs (sliced thin to spread them further) and a handful of baby spinach leaves (the last of a pre-packaged bag). I sauteed to wilt the spinach and warm the figs and yam through. Meanwhile, we cooked the gnocchi, drained it, and tossed it with a little olive oil, then added the veggies and tossed all together. I topped mine with some crumbled Mt. Vikos Manouri Manaki, a light and salty sheep-and-goat's-milk cheese. Cass went for parmesan - I'm sure either would be grand.

We paired it with the remoulade, some leftover salad greens tossed with leftover homemade vinagrette, and a glass of syrah. Not too shabby for scraps - even Cass, who was very dubious about all this, especially when he saw me putting the figs in, said it was tasty. We might even make it again, on purpose this time.