eat! craft! live!

nectarine, mascarpone and gingersnap tart

I made this last night and it is long, long gone. M and I ate hefty portions of it and then I took the rest to work today where my coworkers seemed to enjoy it mightily. I am in love with the recipe, from Smitten Kitchen, which I'm also in love with.

I'd never bought mascarpone cheese before and had to do a little looking at Central Market on Saturday, then M tried to eat it, the gingersnaps got the teensiest bit stale (because someone, maybe me, just had to try them over the weekend and, um, see if they would make a good crust, yeah, that's it...) and the nectarines weren't ripening... But in the end, I had my tart! And boy was it worth the wait! Go! Check out the recipe!

I can't wait to try some other fruit versions of this, maybe with strawberries, or raspberries, or blueberries, or...the possibilities are endless!

garlic roasted chickpeas

This is one of my favorite simple recipes.  These chickpeas are incredibly easy to make, inexpensive, tasty...what else could you ask for?  I love making them just to have around for snacking - if you cook them long enough, they should get slightly crisp on the outside and, once sprinkled with salt, make the most delectable little morsels to pop in your mouth at a moment's notice!  (Just don't breathe on anyone afterward...)

Garlic Roasted Chickpeas
from the Joy of Cooking

• 2 cups cooked chickpeas - you can use canned or cook your own dried beans ahead of time
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup olive oil - this is what the recipe calls for but I usually use a little less
• salt, to taste

Preheat your oven to 350°.  Combine the olive oil and garlic in a small bowl.  Put the chickpeas in a baking dish that's large enough to hold them without them being piled terribly high.  (They don't need to be in a single layer...but pretty thin.  I use a 9x13 glass baking dish.)  Dump the garlicky oil mixture over the chickpeas and stir well so they're all coated with tastiness.  Bake for 30-40 minutes, stirring every ten minutes or so.  I usually cook them 40 minutes, or even a little longer, to let the outsides get all crisp and browned and delicious.  Once they're done, take them out and place in a paper towel-lined bowl if they seem too oily to you.  (Sometimes I do this, sometimes I don't...)  Salt to taste.  Eat.

wedding nightmares

Literally.  I dreamed last night that it was three days before the wedding and we had totally forgotten about it.  I think I may have had a dress, but we had forgotten to invite anyone and hadn't prepared for food or anything else.  And in my dream, I was standing in my kitchen trying to make wedding cupcakes only the cupcake papers were too big.  They were, like, the size of my cat food bowls, and the cakes inside were tiny and I was trying to pipe frosting in and the cups kept getting bigger and the icing kept changing shape.  And at one point in my dream I thought, "Well, I guess we'll save money on invitations!"  Um, y'know, since we didn't invite anyone.

Sheesh.

Edited to add: I should mention that in my dream I wasn't frustrated at all and I found the whole thing to be hilarious. I guess that just shows how much we care about the actual wedding! Maybe we should elope? ;)

sushi!

We made sushi on Friday night.

And Saturday night.

And ate the leftovers from Saturday for lunch on Sunday.

Yum!  OK, so you may have guessed that we love sushi.  But you may also have guessed, by the photo, that we love...um...well, we call it lovingly white trash sushi.  Specifically, California rolls and the kind with the cream cheese in them.  And no raw fish.  Hey, what can I say...

Anyway, I thought I'd share the recipe for sushi rice that I found.  It's really pretty easy as long as you follow the instructions, but I know that some people are afraid of cooking rice, so rest assured - you can do it!  Use a rice cooker if need be.

Sushi Rice

• 2 cups sushi rice (Not regular long grain rice - it won't work.  You can find it at any Asian market if your regular grocery store doesn't carry it.)
• 2 cups water
• 2 T rice vinegar
• 2 T sugar
• 1 t salt

First off, you need to rinse the rice to rid it of excess starch.  You don't want it to be any stickier than it already is going to be!  I put my rice in the pot, poured some cool water in, swished it around and dumped it out quickly, using the lid to keep the rice from falling out.  A mesh sieve would work wonders here, I'd imagine, but I didn't have one handy.  Do this several times until the water is clear(er).  Now at this point several recipes said to soak the rice and several didn't.  I tried both ways - on Friday we were starving so I bypassed the soaking and the rice was a wee bit crunchy.  Just the teensiest bit.  On Saturday I soaked it for about 30 minutes and the rice ended up a bit soggy.  So do what you will, I preferred Friday's rice to Saturday's but to each his own!  So add the 2 cups water to the rice and either soak it or not.  Then turn your burner on, fairly high, and keep watching until the water just starts to boil.  At this point I usually give it a good stir, put the lid on, turn the burner down as far as it will go, and start the timer for 15 minutes.  Now ignore the rice.  Do. Not. Peek.  It will be just fine without you.  When the timer goes off, turn the heat off and let the rice sit, covered, for 10 more minutes to complete the steaming process.  While I'm waiting for the rice to be done, I put the rice vinegar, salt and sugar in a small saucepan and heat it up until the salt and sugar are fully dissolved in the rice vinegar.  Once the rice is done, put it in a big bowl and drizzle the vinegar mixture evenly over it.  Then, using a spatula or something similar, mix the rice so that each grain is coated with the vinegar mixture.  Stir gently and don't squish the rice, you don't want a soggy mess on your hands.  I used more of a folding motion and "cut" the rice with the side of the spatula.  (Did that make any sense?)  Let the rice cool under a damp towel, then make as much sushi as you can!

I should add that this is only one recipe out of numerous that I stumbled upon on the internet.  Of all the recipes I saw, no two were alike.  They had different proportions of rice, vinegar, sugar and salt, sometime with mirin, mostly without.  Some called for soaking the rice, some didn't.  There are also videos galore out there!  Just search "how to make sushi rice" and you will have more answers than you ever needed.  And for the actual sushi-rolling part - check out Sushi Day for more recipes than you could ever make!  For our part, we made California rolls (fake crab "legs," cucumber and avocado) and those rolls with the cream cheese.  (Anyone know what those are?  Philadelphia rolls or something?  I forget.)  We're about as white as you can get with our sushi.  But yum.  Seriously.  Yum.

sometimes you just need a break

what to do with a blank book

I don't really talk about it much, but I make books. Maybe you've noticed, maybe you haven't. I sell them in my Etsy shop (or at least, I try to...it's been slow the past month or so...) and I really enjoy working with some of the gorgeous paper I've hoarded over time. But I think people often wonder what they would do with a blank journal, thinking that they are either for serious writers, diary-scribbling pre-teens, or tortured artists madly sketching away. Even I fall victim to that mindset. I tend not to use the ones that I make, since they all get listed in my shop, leaving me scrounging for scraps of paper whenever I want to write something down. I've got notes hastily jotted down on old envelopes, junk mail, receipts, you name it. But what I really need is a little notepad that I can carry around with me. Conveniently, I make them - like these or this one, for example. (Um, now I just have to make one for myself...) Anyway, the most recent post on our Bookbinding Etsy Street Team blog (BEST for short) had a lot of really great ideas so I thought I'd share with you! One of my favorites is the "guest book" idea - have friends and/or family write/draw/doodle/whatever in it over time. I've actually implemented this and it's endlessly entertaining to go back and read things that friends wrote 10+ years ago. So check it out! Then hop on over to Etsy and search for "bookbinding team" to find some great books made by me and my fellow BEST members.

easy-peasy chocolate mousse

We have literally nothing to eat in the house, but I somehow managed to scrounge up the ingredients to make chocolate mousse.  (Lord only knows how old the chocolate chips were...but they tasted fine and we're not dead.)  It's so easy you'll want to make it every day.  Until you taste it and realize that it's so rich you couldn't possibly eat it every day.

Easy Chocolate Mousse
adapted ever-so-slightly from GroupRecipes.com

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup chocolate chips*
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 egg

Place the chocolate chips in a blender with the egg and vanilla and blend slightly.  Heat the cream in a small saucepan until very hot but not quite boiling yet.  When small bubbles form along the side of the pan, it's ready.  Slowly drizzle the hot cream into the blender while blending.  (Careful!  Don't coat the kitchen in creamy chocolate morsels!)  Blend until the chocolate chips are fully melted and the mixture is smooth.  Chill until set.  (Note - the chilling took a *lot* longer than I thought it would, so don't be in a hurry or you'll be eating something resembling melted ice cream.  Unless that's your thing.  Then go ahead!)  Serve with extra chocolate chips, strawberries, whipped cream or whatever your little heart desires! I made whipped cream for it using my shake-in-a-jar method.

*I used milk chocolate chips because they happened to be in the cabinet but, in my opinion, this made it way too sweet.  Still tasty, but I would recommend using semi-sweet chips.  Or white chocolate?  Mmm!  Things to try!)

shawl relay

Seascape Stole, originally uploaded by knitlab.

So. I'm participating in the 2008 Ravelympics. Ahem. The idea is to start and finish a project of your choosing during the 2008 Olympic Summer Games. I'm going to be using my lovely lace yarn to knit up a Seascape Stole for a very special someone for Christmas. (That's the pattern up there. Isn't it lovely?) It's supposed to be challenging but I'm not sure why I decided to challenge myself quite this much. I mean, I have a really simple feather-and-fan lace scarf that's been languishing in my knitting basket since early this year, why do I think I can get a whole lace wrap done in, what, 17 days? Especially one I probably won't be able to knit on the bus. I really don't think I want to even attempt trying to follow a lace chart while we careen around corners in central Austin. Thanks, but no. I suspect that in order to get this done, I will literally have to do nothing else, except work, sleep and eat. Maybe shower occasionally and pet the kittens. I have until August 8th to contemplate, and then it'll be time to begin! Wish me luck!

Anyone else out there doing this too? Leave me a comment!

chicken

Chick, originally uploaded by sheriffmitchell.

I'm now on day 23 of blogging every. single. day. And let me tell you! It's getting old. But I will persevere! Onward to the end!

So remember a few days ago when I said I was going to cook a whole chicken for the first time? Well. Are you ready? It was fantastic! I was a wee bit put off by it at first - that's a whole lotta bird to screw up if I get it wrong! But really, it was fine. As usual, I underestimated my abilities and overestimated how complicated it would be. *sigh* I pulled out my trusty Joy of Cooking and consulted with the Rombauer/Becker family and decided to do the turn-the-chicken-over method, thereby theoretically ensuring a nice moist breast and fully cooked thighs. (Mmm...chicken porn.) So it goes like this - wash and dry the chicken, rub it with salt and brush it with melted butter. Stick it in a shallow roasting dish on its side, roast for 15 minutes or so, turn onto its other side, roast for another 15 minutes or so, and then finally lay the little gal on her back and roast for another 15-30 minutes, depending on how busty she is. We had a moist, fully cooked chicken that tasted like heaven. M said it was the best breast meat he'd ever had. Of course, the fact that it was a local, pasture-fed chicken sure didn't hurt. So to all you potential chicken eaters out there who are afraid of roasting a whole chicken - never fear, I tell you! You can do it!

more love

It just didn't quite make it..., originally uploaded by aravis121.

Time for some new love... Perhaps unsurprisingly, given my last post, I'm including Sundara Yarn this time. She is a color genius and her yarn is so soft and luscious and beautiful, I just can't help myself. Also, Round Robin Press, a local Austin gal who makes these whimsical little letterpressed plantable cards. (Plantable! Letterpress! I swoon.) Photography-wise, I'd like to give a shout out to aravis121, one of my favorite contacts. Her photos amaze me and her processing is impeccable. SouleMama is wonderful, and not just because she still lives where I want to return to... Last but not least, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and the book of the same name. An excellently written and inspiring story about a year of food choices.

Love.