slainte

day's beginning: baking soda bread

(3.5 c. white flour, .5 c. dark rye flour, 1 c. wheat bran, .3 c. brown sugar, 2 Tbl baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 c. warm milk + .5 c. nonfat plain yogurt [whisked togher = 1.5 c. buttermilk substitute], 1 egg, .5 c. currants plumped in cognac, 2 Tbl fennel seeds)

night's end: working by candlelight, enjoying a last bit of wine, and cutting an old shirt of Cass' into 2" squares for the maybe-someday postage stamp quilt.

in between: a Czech final, and a dinner feast: soda bread with irish butter, radishes and salt; crock-pot corned beef (10 hours and not a bit dry!), turnip and potato mash, candied carrot slices. Raspberry-rhubarb rolypoly with cream for dessert. Joe's homebrewed imperial stout, a pot of tea, wine. Cards.

In other words, a most excellent St. Patrick's Day. Slainte!

and because it's springtime

and we ate out/ate junk a lot during the last few weeks of the quarter while I was struggling under the workload, we are most DEFINITELY lightening things up around here, start undoing some of the damage we've done.

This is the "Fennel, Leek and Mushroom Pasta with Cashew Cream" from The Millennium Cookbook. On the whole, this isn't my favourite cookbook, but there are some real gems in there, like this little dish, which is like the vegan equivalent of stroganoff. yum! We used spinach penne this time, and upped the cashew cream, the nutritional yeast, the green peppercorns, and had to substitute a splash of Chinese five spice for the nutmeg. The extra green peppercorns, in particular, are a must.

The excess cashew cream was a VERY good idea, so was properly blending the cashew cream this time: I added the water very slowly and kept the food processesor going for several minutes at a time. The result? A smooth, thick cream rather than a watery suspension of nutty granules this time. Seriously, yum.

never too late? (handmade holidays: the march edition)

I had this thing about 80% done at the end of my winter holidays - and it's taken me this long to do the last little bit. It's been a beast of a quarter and no mistake, but my parents are coming for spring break (on Sunday!) and I'll finally be able to give my mother her present. Uhm, at least they live in Boise and she's often cold!

yeah, it's a big 'un. Probably about 8 feet long.

bundles up nice, at least!

what on earth will we call it?

I was making apple crisp one night this winter - or at least, I thought I was. I sliced all the apples and lay them in a great big baking dish (I am mad for fruit crisps and fruit desserts, always have been), then went into the pantry to get the brown sugar and spices - but we were almost out of brown sugar! I used a little, saving some for the topping. Went back into the pantry to get the oats for the topping and found we were out of those, too! Gah, what's going on around here?

So, change of plans. I put all of the brown sugar in with the apples and tossed them up a bit (maybe 5 apples, thinly sliced?). I set to work making something I usually avoid - a custard. I have a really sensitive stomach that can't handle a lot of animal products (not that you'd know that from reading this blog - it's all cheese this and butter that, but really I have to eat very little of these things that I make!). Still, it seemed the best way to salvage what I had. So. Into about 2 or 2 1/2 c. of skim milk, I whisked one egg. I added a touch (maybe 1 or 2 Tbl) of white sugar, a splash of Mexican vanilla, and then about 1/4 to 1/2 c. of mochi flour (a fine white rice flour used to make sweet rice desserts). I whisked and whisked, and poured the custard mixture over the apples.

Baked at 350 F. for about 45 min-1 hour. Let cool. Slice/scrape up (it's a little hard to get out and doesn't necessarily look that attractive), and enjoy! It was a hit - and we enjoyed the sweet apple taste of success for a few days before it was all gone.

gifts that keep giving

Months ago, a friend of mine sent me a few books. It took me until the end of winter break to finally get around to reading and learning more about the one. The other is still waiting, sadly - that's the life of a grad student: if it doesn't happen in the summer, it's not happening until next summer. Alas. These books were the perfect pairing, too: a short novel about food and love, and a cookbook about making artisan breads in no time at all. The latter is called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and it really does deliver what it promises. Granted, I need to go out and buy a proper container to keep the dough in in the fridge, and a stone on which to bake it, but it's totally been worth it. I have a recipe that I prefer for black Russian rye in The Bread Bible, but for fluffy custard-like interiors with flaky outer crusts, the five-minutes-a-day recipes are perfect.

Above are my first two loaves. Below is how we served them: just after Imbolc, we hosted a Shabbos dinner one Friday night with Jewish and Muslim friends. None of us are really all that devout; what matters more than doctrine to us is how we live in this world, and coming together to break and share bread is one of the most important things I think we can do.

We served our slices with St. Andre triple-cream brie topped with Mt. Vikos glazed and roasted figs, which I chopped into small pieces and then poured over the cheese with their beautiful sauce. There are Boat Street Cafe pickled plums on the side, also chopped for easy spreading, and a bit of Rogue Creamery Smokey Blue cheese that you can't see.

We did a big meal that night - we tried out this salad of sauteed leeks and pear slices over frisee from Epicurious, made the Field of Greens meyer lemon beurre blanc and served it over oven-roasted fennel, mushrooms and green onions, then served one of Gordon Hammersley's killer lemon-herb roast chickens over roasted red onions with garlicky mashed potatoes on the side, and finished it off with this pine nut cake with the orange salad and big dollops of strained nonfat yogurt (which, I have to say, really, REALLY made the dish).

In short: we stuffed ourselves with citrus to welcome an early spring (which really has been an early spring, thanks to El Nino this year). It was delicious, and delightful - I only wish my book-gifting lass could have joined us. L., I'll have to make it up to you!

frugal wedding - thrift store china

The quarter is winding down. I have plenty of things I've been meaning to post here - food, mostly, but a few crafts and a bit of sewing, but I've had so little time. What I have to show today is a little less original, but since we're planning to celebrate our marriage this summer in the form of a backyard dinner that we want to be both stylish AND frugal, I thought I might document the process here. Who knows? Maybe someone will be inspired. So. You've already seen my ring. (Full disclosure: it cost $400.)

Today I want to post a few pieces of the table service we're putting together.

When I first moved to Seattle and started my life with my long-time best friend and new boyfriend, my parents packed the china my maternal grandparents had given them a long time ago along with me. So now, nine years later, when we tie the knot (yep, same guy! I knew he was the one from the start - honestly! I even told him so!), I'm happy that my parents' china is the foundation of our own collection. As we build this collection, we're also donating our old "daily use" plates in order to conserve space in our kitchen.

The plan for this celebration is to have a dinner and salad plate and saucer for everyone, in a mix of styles. We're limiting ourselves to a colour scheme: white/off-white china with gold/silver/platinum details - mostly tipped rims, that sort of thing. However, because I love plant motifs, I'm really happy to have found the Mikasa Salisbury pieces at Value Village today. I didn't take them all, though I felt awful for breaking up the set like that, but I worry that if we are going to "mix it up," as they say, we need to be committed to really mixing it up.

I think they key to making this look "anthro" rather than "thrift store" is attaining a critical mass of coordinating pieces. I think it's already starting to come together quite prettily - and wait until I show you what we want to use as tablecloths! We have months until the dinner and are already about a third of the way there after two weeks of looking, so I think we will be fine. In fact, I think pretty soon I'd like to start scouring antiques stores for one-offs that might bring some more unusual patterning into the mix. Though I'm trying to stick largely to china, I really love 1880s Ironstone, especially brown transferware - so if I can find any good pieces that I can afford between now and the dinner, they will go into the mix!

Now, even at the thrift store, china isn't always the cheapest thing. I spent $30 today on 10 salad plates, 5 saucers, and 4 teacups (now that I write that out, I'm thinking "huh, okay, maybe that's not so bad?"). Last week I spent $26 on 7 dinner plates and maybe 5 or 6 saucers. So I imagine we will be well over $100 just for plates. But as we're not having a wedding and don't plan to rent a hall, are doing our own cooking and hoping to have some of our guests provide some of the music live, I think we can afford a little splurge for a slightly eccentric set of servingware that we'll be able to use (and easily add to/replace broken pieces) for years to come! Plus, c'mon - 3-pc. service for 25 or 26? That's a LOT of dishes for $100.

it'll be nine years in june ...

and in july/august, we're getting married. =) I decided over the holidays that I was finally ready.

No wedding. Don't want one. Instead, we plan to travel in Europe together for 2 1/2 weeks. Our first overseas trip together. We're planning to go to the American Embassy in Stockholm to sign the paperwork. =)

I can't remember now where I first saw the work of the lovely and oh-so-talented jeweler Kate Szabone but I'm so glad I did. This is my ring! It's a grey diamond with gold glints, set in rose gold. Not only do I adore Kate's aesthetic, I like the ethics of her business as well: she only uses natural, conflict-free diamonds - and her stones are so stunning, it's really hard to choose among them! Finally, I think she's quite reasonable for a one-of-a-kind piece: we paid $720, all told, for my ring and his (a flat 3/16" band in white gold), including shipping. They're in transit now - can't wait for them to get here!