Feast, Family & Friends

Two feasts for the very same reason.. to get together with friends and family and eat really good food. We live such busy lives that taking time to sit down and reconnect is very important to me. Especially now, with families growing bigger.

Jeanette gave birth the morning after our Cornucopian Dinner! Talk about good food. The baby – Jackson – just couldn’t wait any longer. He arrived healthy and surrounded by people that fell in love with him instantly. Not long after, our friend Melissa gave birth to Abraham! Babies galore I tell ya.

Our Thanksgiving feast was perfect. We didn’t overdo it like we are infamous for. Sammi made two standout desserts and the turkey was deliciously moist and seasoned. The wine was flowing and the conversations were all over the place. We laughed a lot and RJ entertained us endlessly.

 

food gifts rule

My coworker made fig & balsamic jam and gifted me with a jar. I just now had some and it’s excellent. Sliced baguette, goat cheese and a dollop of jam. Yum!

Perfectly Pickled

More birthday gifts arrived today!

Pickling jars from the Iggys. I already know what’s going in them next. I have plans people!

Also, unrelated, but I’m going to bake another three layer cake For Fun. And! It’ll be from scratch. Holy moly.

We shall see how it goes!

RJ’s birthday cake

RJ’s birthday cake.
Boxed sprinkle cake and homemade agave nectar buttercream frosting. Cake from scratch is not my bag. And though it’s probably just as easy, I know with my baking skills… It’s hard to mess up boxed cake. Successful bakes! Four 8″ rounds – I’m using the leftover cake and frosting to make cake balls.

I can’t wait to cut into this three layer cake and see what it looks like! Then RJ can go nuts with the cake.

homemade fettucine

Julie received a pasta maker for her birthday so we put it to the test this past weekend.

Flour, eggs, water and salt. Roughly forty minutes of prep and five minutes of cooking. Easy! But being our first time, we had some hiccups. We learn fast though. Next time, we won’t work the dough too much and we will probably take it up to Level 4. Serious business!

The noodles reminded us of Chinese knife-cut noodles. Doe serk mein. I still ate it all because handmade noodles deserve respect and well, the carbonara sauce was very good.

I can’t wait to try making other types of pasta!

pickled red onions

PICKLED RED ONIONS

Perfect with the smoked brisket my brother-in-law made. I basically sliced the red onion very thin, boiled a mix of white and rice wine vinegar, tossed in pickling spices and sugar and boiled the onions for 1 minute.

1 red onion – thinly sliced half moons
3/4 cup white vinegar
3 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons pickling spices – I used Penzey’s premium

Bring vinegar, spices and sugar to a boil. Add onions and let boil for another minute. Allow contents to cool completely. Transfer to jar and refrigerate.

One tip I will need to use next time: put spices in a spice bag. Makes it easier to eat the pickled stuff later. No one wants to crunch into an anise or clove. Ick.

Kale & Quinoa

I’ve been eating a lot of quinoa lately. Ever since trying it years ago in Portland, I was hoping to become better at preparing and incorporating quinoa into my diet. My first time, I bought a packaged box of quinoa, cooked the whole box, ended up with an entire potful that I eventually tossed because it wasn’t cooked properly and I was so sick of eating it.

I stayed away from quinoa until it started showing up in all kinds of salads at Whole Foods and I was seeing it used more and more in restaurants. Becoming more familiar with its versatility is what drove me to try cooking it again.

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the bulk section of WF and bought about three cups of royal red quinoa. I came home, found a recipe and set out making my first batch since 2009.

It came out perfect.

Since then I’ve made two more batches which I’ve used in salads and have eaten as a substitute for oatmeal. My love for quinoa has been reinstated.

Today’s salad:
curly kale – cut into small pieces with kitchen shears
half cup of cooked royal red quinoa
halved grape tomatoes
sliced sweet peppers
homemade lemon vinaigrette
– juice from 1 lemon
– 2 tbs olive oil
– 3 tsp smoked sea salt
– dash of chipotle seasoning
– pinch of sugar

I tossed the salad with the dressing, topped it with fresh chèvre and half a bunch of kale made enough salad for two people.

Definitely going to be experimenting a lot this summer. Next, I want to try beets!

lavender simple syrup

I found my bag of lavender buds. They were hidden behind some boxes of House Vermont Curry. I forget why I had wanted them so badly now, but I thought I’d make something with them since I had them out.

Lavender Simple Syrup – great as a lemonade sweetener, and possible good with iced tea!

• 1/2 cup of lavender buds
• 1 cup of boiling water
• 5 tbs of sugar

1. While you’re waiting for your water to boil, put lavender buds and sugar into a tall mug
2. Add boiling water
3. Stir and strain into heat safe jar

I went shopping at Murakai today. Picked up a couple of tea bowls and wooden egg custard spoons. I’ve been wanting wooden spoons for quite some time. And the tea bowls were too pretty to pass up. Maybe I can get a few more sets to serve sorbet or iced cream in… the joys of shopping.

botched brownie cakes

Brownie cakes filled with Nutella.

I normally don’t use cupcake liners, but this time I did since I’m bringing them to work. I think this affected baking. I also forgot about these while I was outside helping to get the Christmas lights in working order again. Overbaked!

This upsets me as I was really hoping to make fluffy delicious brownie cakes. Now they’re a disappointment. I hope my co-workers find some parts still edible…

Two Braeburn apples were sitting in the fruit basket so I decided to bake apple muffins. I have to say, using the iPad as my recipe book is much easier than jotting recipes down haphazardly on a note card and trying to dig them back up when I actually want to put them to good use!

I didn’t have any yogurt in the fridge, so I dumped half a cup of almond milk into the mixture. I’m definitely not an improviser when it comes to baking – I am aware of the subtle changes a complete swap of ingredients can make – so I was hesitant but at the same time, indifferent to what may have happened since this was such a spur of the moment idea.

Popped the muffins into the oven – produced about 6 more than usual – and hoped for the best.

Picked up these bright and lovely cupcake liners from Sweet LuLu. I can’t wait to bake cupcakes tomorrow and use these again. They’re fun and make the muffins/cupcakes look even better.

Muffins came out smelling delicious. Texture is great.. the almond milk was fine! What a great success in improvisation!