This cake has balls!

Since my last post was a long winded rant, I figure it's time for a lighter, happier post about one of my favorite topics:  sweets.  In my adventures throughout the blogosphere I have started seeing cake balls all over the place.  I've seen a million recipes, and even purchased a gift box of them from Etsy.com to send to a friend in FL, but I've never had one and I've never made one, until now.

Today is a friend of mine's birthday so I decided to bake a cake, but then I found out someone else is already baking him a cake, and not one to be outdone, I decided to make sure my cake had balls...cake balls.  On St. Patty's day this year I made Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes to bring to a friends house, and so I had the better part of a bottle of Jameson and some Emmet's Irish Cream Liqueur still hanging around my house (I managed to take care of all of the Guiness without a problem though...) so I decided to continue with that theme and make Irish Car Bomb Cake Balls, but because this friend is an avid beer fan (and home-brewer) I decided to use a local brew instead of Guiness, and went with Rock Art's Stumpjumper Stout, which has a nice bold flavor that would stand up well in the dark chocolate cake.  Here's whats fun about cake balls:  It's like making a whole cake, but then you get to smoosh it!

I took the recipe from here but basically, I cheated and bought a boxed cake mix this time...making the process much easier and cheaper, but using the Stout in place of the water.  Bake that up in any shape or size you see fit, let it cool, and them smoosh the heck out of it!  Beat up a basic buttercream frosting, using the Jameson and Emmet's for flavoring, in place of vanilla (add to taste, about 3 tbsp Emmet's and 1 tbsp Jameson).  Add the cake crumbs to the frosting bowl and mix as you go, until well combined.  Scoop out onto cookie sheets in ~2 tbsp size balls and pop them in the freezer for awhile to harden up a bit (I left them in there over night).  Next melt up some chocolate to dip the frosty cake balls in, the recipe called for white, I did about half and half - one bag of white chocolate and one bag of dark covered the whole lot.  What an interesting treat they turned out to be!  I'm bringing them to the birthday party tonight, hopefully no one else will like them and I can bring them all back home.....just kidding!  :-)

Dancing, Greening, and Baking on Mother's Day Weekend

This was a big weekend for me for many reasons.  It's Mother's Day and I'm a pretty big fan of my mom, so thats always a big deal, but it was also Vermont Green Up Day on Saturday and the JSC Dance Show on Friday.  This means that Friday I attended a dance show with some friends and then went out dancing to various live shows around town after (a band called "The Thang"  embarrassed me into holding still at the Hub so I headed out to Moog's in Mo'ville to watch Chad Hollister play solo-definitely worth the trip-where I danced my butt off).  Then on Saturday I spent my morning picking up garbage along the Rail Trail where I walk my dogs, scaling a steep hillside up towards the road to pick up old skoal cans, McDonald's wrappers, and to try to steer clear of at least this years bags of deer guts (at which I was mostly successful).  Saturday night I first made a triple layer chocolate cheesecake/mousse dessert for both my friend Holly and my mom for mother's day and then in the later hours I made spaghetti dinner and garlic bread for dinner followed my preparing my mom's mother day breakfast after she went to bed.  This consisted of maple walnut cinnamon buns from a recipe I found in a magazine and adapted to my needs.  Then on Sunday I finished up the cinnamon buns and sliced up some fresh fruit for a surprise breakfast for my mom that was ready just as she came downstairs in the morning.  The bun recipe was from a magazine but I'll post the cheesecake concoction recipe below, but first: Pictures.

Sunrise outside my window, I love the silhouettes of trees in the foreground

Instead of pictures of garbage from Green Up Day, you get pictures of things that are already green, because they're really what it's all for anyway....

I am in love with baby leaves.

Sunshine on new leaves...nothings better

Fiddleheads!

Baby fern

Morning Dew

Mother's day Breakfast!

Cheesecake concoction: I made this cheesecake, then covered it with ganache and topped it with this chocolate mousse...wasn't crazy about the cheesecake recipe but all in all I think it turned out alright. 

Then I made chocolate chip peanut butter cookies.  What a weekend!  Goodnight all! 

yeast breads, count downs, and heavy rain

I'm not feeling like myself lately, the anticipation of my big move, the rather sudden (and flood induced) end of my previous job, and my tight finances are causing a shortness of temper and bouts of negativity that I am rather uncomfortable with.  I see it happening and so I am looking for ways to control it, deep breathing, long walks, lots of "me" time.  These things help; they're great actually, but inevitably something will trigger a new frustration: my dogs barking over and over again because of the roadwork happening outside (the same beeps and thumps and scrapes happen again and again and every time they go off as though there is an army at the gates); feeling the financial pinch and trying to decide if i can pay my student loans, car insurance, fill my gas tank, attend any of the weddings that are happening this summer, and still be able to eat; making important medical decisions (rushing around to get cavities filled, new contacts, and fill my prescriptions before my departure date); learning my phone won't work at my new home but also that I can only suspend my service for 3 months at a time, meaning sometime in the middle of my stay I will have to re-suspend it, somehow, since I won't have a phone.  These things make my heart pitter-patter, make my brow furrow, and my mood darken in a way that only bread making can cure.

As you may or may not know, I have been dabbling in the art of yeast bread baking as of late.  I am enjoying it immensely, although the results started out inconsistent at best, practice has helped.  I have found a whole wheat bread recipe that I adore and have edited it until I started getting more consistently pleasing results, and have begun baking two to four small loaves a week for my family and to give as gifts.  Yesterday I felt the need to expand my horizons and, adapting a recipe from the January 2009 issue of Vegetarian Times for Whole Wheat Honey-Walnut bread, I created my favorite bread that I have baked to date.  I call it Maple Walnut Swirl Bread and it is of course whole wheat (because thats the only kind of flour I buy).  This recipe results in cute little loaves that make terrific gifts and yummy breakfast toast.  Here it is:

For the bread:
1 c Maple Syrup
1 1/2 tbsp dry active yeast
2 c warm water (~90 degrees F)
1 stick melted butter
2 tbsp salt
5-6 c whole wheat flour
1 c walnuts, chopped

For the swirl:
3 tbsp maple syrup
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp melted butter

1. Dissolve the yeast into the warm water and add the maple syrup.  Let sit for 10 minutes, until yeast foams at the surface.  Stir in melted butter and salt.
2. Begin adding flour one cup at a time until dough forms a ball.  Turn out dough onto well floured surface and knead, adding additional flour until dough no longer sticks to hands.  Knead for a total of about 15 minutes.
3. Knead in walnuts until evenly distributed.  Place dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with oiled plastic wrap or a damp towel and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour.
4. When dough has doubled in size punch it down and let it rise again.  When dough has doubled in size again (about another hour) remove from bowl to a clean lightly floured surface and break up into three chunks.
5. Flatten the chunks into tapered triangular shapes so that one end is about as wide as your loaf pan and the other is about half that width.  In another bowl mix together the swirl ingredients until they for a lump paste and brush it onto the tops of the triangles.
6. Roll the triangles up around the sugar mixture, starting with the narrow portion and ending on the thicker side.  Pinch the ends together and place resulting roll into lightly oiled small loaf pan.
7. Cover and let rise for about another 45 minutes, until slightly less than doubled.  Bake in preheated oven at 400 F for 35 - 40 minutes for three small loaves, or 45 - 50 minutes for 2 medium loaves.
8. Let cool for at least 20 minutes before cutting.  Enjoy!

Yummmmmmy. 

So this is the bread that saved me from my foul mood yesterday, and today this bread is helping me ignore the rain and the barking dogs and the road construction and all of my money woes and all of my doctors appointments and everything.  This bread is reminding me that someday I'll have my own bakery and will have my hands in bread dough all the time.  So thanks to this bread, I'm going to go do some yoga and take a nap, maybe cuddle with my barking dogs, read a book, and drink some tea; this bread just looks like everything is going to be alright.  

Bread and Amazingness!

Today was a great day.  I woke up before my alarm to a swiftly darkening sky followed shortly by an epic thunderstorm and torrential downpour.  The snow is mostly gone, the world smells like the wonderful smell of spring in Vermont, that wonderfully earthy smell of rain and mud and changing seasons.  I had a strawberry banana smoothie for breakfast and then got started on the days baking challenge: whole wheat bread with milled flax seed.

Now theres something excellent about making your own bread, and if you've never done it I suggest you try at least once or twice.  Baking bread is so relaxing, its a fabulous contrast to say, cooking dinner for 3.  Dinner usually involves multiple skillets and 3 to 10 things happening at once - add the butter, sprinkle with salt, turn the heat down on that one, thats too think now, thin it out, the meats not cooked through, etc. - whereas baking bread is downright leisurely.  This particular wheat bread involved scalding milk and then stirring in butter, honey, and salt in a saucepan, then waiting for it to cool.  Mix the yeast with warm water and then wait a few minutes for it to activate.  Add the yeast to the cooled milk mixture and then add milled flax and flour until the dough reaches the correct consistency and then knead for 10 minutes or so.  Kneading in itself is very therapeutic, watching and feeling the dough become elastic and waiting until it just feels right.  Then place in a buttered bowl, flip it over so its buttered on all sides, cover with a towel and let rise for an hour in a warm place.  See what I mean by relaxing?  Bread baking comes with a built in nap, this particular recipe even called for two - after it was risen punch it down and let it rise again.

I used my built in recipe break to take the doggies for a walk in the freshly washed world.  Rushing water provided the soundtrack to our trek through the woods and the sun even graced us with its presence for a few glorious minutes.  Too soon though our walk was over and it was time to punch down the bread dough.  This has to be one of the all-time greatest bread-making moments - go ahead, bury your fist in a bowl of warm bread dough and watch it deflate and try not to smile.  I wager that it cannot be done.  Anyway next comes more rising, another hour; another built in break.  I read The Mountain Ear, a local arts and culture magazine, and then attempted some sudoku during this one.  Next you knead the dough some more and then separate it into loaves, and set it on an oiled pan for more rising, this time only about 30 to 45 minutes.  When the loaves have almost doubled pop them in the oven at 375 for 45 minutes and thats it.  You have bread.  There is nothing frantic about that recipe, in fact you almost have to be utterly chill to get through it, because if you are in any hurry at all bread-making is the wrong activity choice.  Just bake a batch of cookies, they are far more instant gratification, but way less gratifying.  Here is my pride and joy, my wonderful, tasty, fabulous bread:

This is by far the best loaf I've made to date; I think it was all the happy thoughts I kneaded into it!  Anyway after I finished the bread my Momma came home early and we had lunch and then did some shopping.  When we got home that evening I started right in on dinner.  Tonight was calzones.  I made some whole wheat pizza crust from this recipe (subbing whole wheat flour for white) and  while it rested a bit I chopped up a wide array of fixin's and then set up the dough into 3 little calzone shaped rounds on the pizza stone.  Everyone made their own then we closed the dough around them, wrapped them loosely in tinfoil, and baked at 375 for 30 minutes, removing the tinfoil for the last 5.  While they baked I warmed some dipping sauce and set the table.  They were done just in time and heres the result:

Calzone fixin's: fresh mozz, basil, orange bell pepper, chicken, mushrooms, sharp cheddar, olives, shredded Italian 4 cheese mixture, and sundried tomatoes

Super easy, super delicious, and way wayyy healthier than take-out calzones.  

After dinner I felt like I had maybe over indulged just a bit and the lump of calzone was sitting heavily in my belly so my Pops and I decided to take a walk down to the falls to check out the roaring Lamoille River after this mornings rain and warm temperatures.  The walk was just what I needed at the end of a lovely and relaxing day.  I love to feel just pleasantly tuckered out at the end of the day, especially when it is the result of baking bread and dog walking and not work.  On that note I shall leave you with one final shot of the engorged Lamoille.  Good night!

cook-bookin

I am in the process of reading the book Julie and Julia by Julie Powell - you know the one, girl starts blog chronicling her adventures cooking her way through Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child and it eventually is made into a book and then a movie.  I got the book for Christmas from my mom a few years back in the gift pack (meaning the novel came shrink wrapped to the cookbook that inspired it) just a few days after I saw the movie.  Now I have to say, I found the movie to be...well disappointing; that is why I sort of subconsciously put off reading the book for so long.  I have always found books to be better than movies but that movie just didn't strike me as something I would want to put the time it takes to read 359 pages into.   I've been meaning to, because I mean to read every book that I receive as a gift, but I hadn't gotten around to it until now.  The cookbook, sadly, has scarcely seen any action either.  It inspired my French-themed potluck very early in the Tahoe-Potluck days (which failed miserably by the way, not that it wasn't a blast, but the theme was butchered with no one except for me all that interested in French cooking we ended up with about 5 loaves of French bread, 3 cheese platters, some Pilsbury crescent rolls, and even some French Fries - arguably the least French thing there, even with their very "Frenchy" name - on the menu) and since that fateful potluck I have done little more that cart it back across the country and stick it back in the pile with all of my other cookbooks to be forgotten when I arrived home and had all of my mothers vast (compared to mine at least...) collection of cookbooks to play with.  

At any rate that brings us to now, I am only 93 pages into the novel and already I am dying to share two things - one, that I now want to cook my way through Julia Child's cookbook and two, that this book is miles better than the movie with more likeable characters, sillier narration, and a whole lot of humor that was completely lacking in the movie.  Julie explains where her obsession with Julia started (something to do with the resemblance of Mastering the Art of French Cooking to the copy of The Joy of Sex she discovered hidden in her home as an adolescent) and how finishing her cooking project had more to do with her stubborn-ness than a real commitment to the cause, giving background stories that make me like her a whole lot more than I like the Julie character in the movie.  I understand her a little better now I guess, her silly crass jokes and self-deprecating humor make her a little more relate-able to me than the whiny little woman of the movie who couldn't seem to get through a single recipe without an emotional breakdown and had none of the wit and smart-ass-y-ness that I am finding to be characteristic of the woman in the book.  

Ok, I'm making up words so I think its time for me to change subject; I'll share pictures and recipes from the book when I try them but this week I have been cooking recipes that I had saved before I started reading it.  The first was recommended by my grandmother who saw it on PBS, made it once and lost the recipe.  Through the glories of the internet I found a recipe, potentially even the same one, for artichoke chicken from a PBS cooking show and printed it out to give to my grams (who was very suprised - I guess she had assumed I would forget - oh ye of little faith!).  I had to sample it of course so I made it for the family tonight and I quite enjoyed it.  The recipe is posted here but I took a few liberties with it, as usual.  First I used a boxed couscous that came pre-seasoned and took only 5 minutes to make.  Easy, delicious, and made up for the fact that I had already thrown out the wilted shallot greens that were supposed to be tossed into the couscous had I made it plain.  Next, I used bagged, dry sundried tomatoes (about $2.99) instead of the kind bottled in oil as the recipe calls for (about $6.99) and let them soak in olive oil that I already had for 2 days before I used them.  Finally I didn't measure anything and made the recipe to serve 4 instead of 1.  I was starving when it was done and it smelled so good I just wanted to dig in so the photos might have been a little rushed, with not much attention to detail, but here's what it looked like:

Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to my book about some crazy girl with a blog about cooking.  seriously who does that?

April Fools.

As a cruel April fools joke on us all the powers that be have caused a small spring snow storm to white out all of the wonderful dirty-ness of spring on April first here in Northern Vermont and I'm not what you might call thrilled.  April is about warm rains, mud puddles, and my doggies finally being able to play in the river again without fear of being swept away under ice.  Snow is not included, nor is it welcome, in that description.  In an effort to cheer myself up in the few remaining hours before I have to go to work and sort sale tags for 5 hours I have decided to visit my favorite website and make a list of some new recipes to try for spring.  Recently I have been in a chocolate chip cookie rut, baking a batch every week or so with a few different recipes but always fairly consistent results.  Now, there is absolutely nothing wrong with chocolate chip cookies, but I feel that it's time for a bit of a change.  Last week I went for oatmeal cookies using an old fashioned cranberry oatmeal cookie recipe from one of my mothers cranberry cookbooks and I was VERY disappointed.   My cookies came out way too cakey for my liking, not nearly chewy enough, annnddd the first batch cooked faster than anticipated and set off our mind-blowingly annoying smoke detector system when the bottoms got only ever so slightly burned.

No pictures of those because they were a great disappointment for me.

The day before yesterday I set about making cookies to bring to lunch with my Grandma and again, in an effort to stray from my chocolate chip cookie rut, I attempted a new recipe.  This time butter cookies with a thumb-print full of blackberry jam or chocolate in the center.  These came from an old Betty Crocker cookbook and turned out much better, but still not as satisfying as I might have hoped.  Pictures below, but no recipe because to be honest, they just weren't that special.

Now onward, to new and exciting things.  I have realized that I am going to need to work a little harder to get out of my plain old chocolate chip cookie rut and so I will be branching out much further than simply other varieties of cookies.  The possibilities are endless, but here are some of my favorites thus far:

Peabody's Really Bad Day Fix-It-All Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake - A new and cheesier way to enjoy chocolate chip cookies!
Homemade Samoas - Yep, thats right, make your own Girl Scout Cookies.  I'm there.  Samoa's are my favorite so naturally making my own is the next logical step...unless I decide to make these instead:
Samoa Truffles - So everyone knows I love truffles.  Love to make them, love to share them, love to eat them myself, play with new flavors, coatings, fillings.  Samoa truffles?  Yep, this is definitely going to have to happen.
Cinnamon Raisin Brown Rice Pudding - This just looked all warm and delicious and it is snowing out so naturally warm cinnamony-raisin things would have to make the list.
Bri's Sweet Pretzel Cookies - A super twist on traditional chocolate chip cookies, these pretzel and berry and chocolate chip cookies look to be anything but boring.  Still in the cookie comfort zone, but with all kinds of new flavors.  I'm intrigued...

So there you have it, my "I spent 5 minutes on tastespotting and already have more recipes than I could possibly need so I have to stop now before this gets out of hand" baking wish list.  Now if only I could find people to share with...

Eventually I will most likely try them all but if anyone has a preference for which one I should try first, like if you're planning on stopping by my house and would like to find some Samoa Truffles all ready for you, just let me know.  I would be happy to take requests.

There, that brightened up my April Fool's Day!

updates and pictures of food...

I feel like I need to update this because I have been terrible at it lately but I have little to report.  I guess I'll give you a few cursory updates and then some pictures of food.

Final plane tickets have been purchased, I head to Florida on May 14th and then onward to St. Thomas by way of Puerto Rico on the 17th.  I am so absolutely excited that its not even funny.  I'm moving to a tropical paradise and I'm going to enjoy every minute of it to the fullest!  Many pictures will be posted when I get there.  Its going to be amazinggggg.  Just you wait.  Other than that I have mostly just been working (I got "promoted" to sale tag person) at the grocery store and cooking (at least one meal a week for my parents, I'm missing my potlucks, so I'm happy to have some fabulous people to cook for here!).  I work 5 days a week, but only get between 20 and 30 hours, which is probably all I could handle there anyway.  I'm thinking about picking up with my old trail riding gig in Stowe when they re-open in April too.  That would mean working 7 days/week but I think it would be good to put away some cash before I move, plus at least one of the jobs I truly do enjoy.

There is one other thing that I'm really excited about, of course it doesn't really apply to anyone but me but I'm still excited so I'll share.  On Thursday I am meeting with a quilter to talk about making some of my clothes and left over fabric from Africa into a quilt - a magical quilt of memories!  I am really excited, I'm pretty sure I'm going to cherish it forever and ever and ever.  Sooo surely some photos will follow if the project comes together, only time will tell.  Anyway enough about me, here are some pictures of food:

My mini dinner plate sized three layer chocolate devils food birthday cake.

Three cheese bacon mushroom quiche; I would give you the recipe but I completely made it up based on what was in the fridge.  Couldn't make it again if I wanted to...

homemade chunky broccoli cheddar soup with fresh (but sadly store-bought) sourdough

The soup - all up close and personal.  Made of course with Cabot Seriously Sharp White Cheddar.  Made with this recipe, except that I skipped the puree part and left it chunky and I used about 2 extra cups of shredded cheese, because I love it.  

Just a beautiful view from an evening walk with Papa and the pooches

Homemade Mediterranean olive bread, served with greek salad and this pasta dish that are not pictured

Emeril's Chicken Marsala (sort of, I may have done some editing - mostly I just made extra sauce and instead of finishing the chicken in the pan with the sauce I transferred it to a crock pot and simmered the whole thing with extra broth for about 3 hours so that the chicken was falling apart moist and delicious and the sauce was this and creamy) served with salad and whole grain bread.

And naturally no post would be complete without a pic of my beautiful doggy.  My favorite snuggle-bug; I'm going to miss her terribly when I leave her AGAIN to head for Saint Thomas.  I hope she can find it in her heart to forgive me, but of course she will because thats what dogs are all about.  

That's about all I've got, I've also made chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal raisin cookies, onion and cheese bread, coffee cake, banana trail mix muffins, homemade hearty new england clam chowder, guiness beef stew and leak and cheese casserole (for St. Patty's Day), and probably a few other things that I was too hungry to take a picture of before I ate them.  I'll try to be a better updater and a better photographer with my culinary exploits in the future.  

sunrises and triple chocolate tiramisu

Life moves fast, and i'll be out of here before i know if, so I'm trying to get out of the house a little more and enjoy myself while i'm still in Tahoe.  In that spirit, Matt and I got up and watched the sunrise again today, this time from emerald bay (the same place i went to this summer when i watched the sunrise with Reyna).  Below are some pictures from this morning and it is followed by the photos of the tiramisu that I made for italian night potluck last night with the recipe.  Enjoy!

taken with old reliable - my canon point and shoot

taken with new and exciting - my pentax dslr

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Triple Chocolate Tiramisu

made from the recipe here, except garnished with shave white and dark chocolate instead of unsweetened cocoa powder, I also used chocolate covered coffee beans when I served it, but theres no picture of that.

Start by lining the bottom of an 8x8x2 in pan with lady fingers and then drizzle with coffee or espresso:

Next combine heavy cream, mascarpone, sugar, vanilla, and chocolate liqueur and beat until it forms stiff peaks:

 

then spread half of it over the lady fingers in the dish:

next sprinkle it with white and dark chocolate shavings:

another layer of lady fingers:

more coffee:

Then the rest of the cream mixture followed by some more chocolate, cover and refrigerate for at least 6 hrs:

Then enjoy!  it came out pretty delicious, and was much simpler than i had anticipated to make.  Some tips:  I bought the lady fingers, piping and baking them was too much work for me.  To find lady fingers at the grocery store ask at the bakery counter, they had them in the freezer and had to go back and get them for me.  Also, mascarpone cheese is much harder to find than i had anticipated.  Call around and figure out who has it before you start shopping so you don't have to do what I did and go on a three grocery store long epic grocery voyage to find it.  I eventually found it at a Raley's, not with the other cheeses in the cheese case or near the ricotta, cream cheese, or cottage cheese but by all the fresh salsa's and dips in one of the other refrigerator cases...of course that could just be Raley's because pretty much that whole store makes no sense to anyone who grew up with east coast grocery stores that have logical order.  Also, if you can't find mascarpone then there are a few substitutions that i've heard work.  I stopped at home to look one up on my way to the third grocery store on my epic voyage so that if I could not find it then i could at least buy a viable substitute, this is the one I picked: 8 oz of softened cream cheese, plus 3 tablespoons of sour cream, plus 2 tablespoons of heavy cream (liquid, not whipped)

give it a try, let me know how it goes.

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Sunday Brunch!

Today I made brunch with a friend of mine, we had stuffed french toast, fresh strawberries, orange juice, and coffee.  Here is our spread:

The stuffed french toast was delicious and extremely easy, from a recipe given to me by a friend a few months ago.  You simply cube some bread, put half in a pan and save half out, then mix up some eggs, milk, and spices (I used cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla - my favorites for the fall!) and pout half on the bread on bottom  Then warm some cream cheese and combine it with a bit of milk and some maple syrup until  its smooth and spreadable.  Spread the cream cheese on top of the bottom half of the bread, top with the remainder, and then pour the remaining milk and egg mixture over that.  Let sit for at least an hour (the recipe said over night but I didn't have that kind of time) and then bake for 45 minutes at 350.  Enjoy with or without syrup,,,it'll be pretty sweet either way!

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i've done it again, missed a bunch of days....but I did take a picture for every day and so i will post them all now.  

First...the cheesecake!  It came out great (in my opinion....) and it didn't look half bad either...

(this ones for wednesday)

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Next is for thursday, which was the CTC 25th anniversary party on commons beach, where I snapped this shot:

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next is today, sunsets and sand.

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Happy Birthday Mom!

Gotta start with a Happy Birthday to my Momma!  I wish I was home so I could bake her a big fancy-schmancy cake!  Another Happy Birthday goes out to my former co-worker, Miss Sara!  Hope it was wonderful!

I have been working so much lately with my bug sampling finally in full swing I hardly have time to take a photo of the day, so heres a work photo because thats my whole life these days.  This is the river I spent 9 hours playing in today...not so bad when you consider most alternatives (cubicles don't hold a candle to this!):

 Next I have a semi-recipe for you...well its a whole recipe really, but I just used it to jazz up left-overs.  So a few days ago I made that big bowl of pasta (recipe posted here) which I was hoping would last me through the week so I wouldn't have to worry about any more cooking.  Well it has, but I'm getting a little tired of the same thing for one to two meals a day and I had some left over ingredients I needed to use up to this is what I did:  I sliced and sautéed the remainder on the onion in olive oil, when it was translucent I added a splash of wine and some of the left over veggie broth from the pasta.  I tossed in the other bag of sun dried tomatoes I had bought and let it simmer for a few minutes to soften the tomatoes.  After that I added another can of chopped olives and one of sliced mushrooms, and a fresh farmers market eggplant sliced and then quartered. I poured it all into a wok and added the rest of the chicken broth, cooking it down until there was very little left.  This was good on its own, and would probably make a good side dish, but instead I tossed mine into the leftover cold pasta and tadaaa!  Same flavors, so it all fits, but just different enough to be new.  Also, I dusted it with some crumbled goat cheese just like before and yumm...it did not disappoint.

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a photo and a recipe

I started my day off by getting caught up on some things i was supposed to do for work...sounds worse than it is, mostly I just walked around this meadow (below) and wrote down ground water depths at monitoring wells.  It was more like a morning walk than work really...

Anyway after I finished up at work I stopped into the grocery store and picked up what I needed to make this pasta dish I remembered making (and loving) a long long time ago with Miss Merry.  I found this recipe, which was close to what we followed, but not quite so naturally I edited it to my liking.  This is the recipe I used:
Boil water for the pasta and while you're waiting heat a bit of olive oil and butter in a saucepan and add a few cloves of chopped garlic.  Sauté until it smells great but don't let it burn.  Add about half of a medium sweet onion and sauté until translucent.  At this point I also tossed in a few chopped mushrooms too.  When the onion is done add a splash of dry white wine, chopped sundried tomatoes, and some vegetable broth and cook on medium heat until it reduces to about half the amount of liquid.  Then toss in drained artichoke hearts, capers, and a small can of chopped olives.  Cook until all ingredients are heated through and add directly to cooked pasta and toss.  Serve immediately, the recipe calls for fresh grated Parmesan, which I'm sure would be delicious, but I used fresh crumbled goat cheese instead, amazing!  Below is the result: warning, its strong stuff and requires no extra seasoning, but if you are a fan of capers and sundried tomatoes then you will love this dish!

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sushi sunday

Sushi night!  Yay!  Caterpillar roll.  Good stuff.

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Beetroot Hummus

Its been a while since I posted  recipe and today didn't turn out anything like I had hoped it would, so I did what I always do when something doesn't go my way, or I'm unhappy, or stressed, or bored, or happy, or excited, or disappointed, or thrilled, or whatever, and I cooked.  I bought some beets at the farmers market on Tuesday and was going to make my award winning roasted veggies (they really did win an award once, but I have since lost that recipe and made up a new one because its really only about the spices with roasted veggies, all the rest is easy.  Well, the spices are easy too...but I digress.  Anyway I opted out of the roasted vegetables because that feels more like a fall food so I scanned the web for beet recipes and found this little gem for Beetroot Hummus.  I've never made hummus before so I figured I would give it a go.  I did a few things differently from the recipe, first, I didn't measure the beets or the chickpeas, so my ratio could be way off, but it looked good to me.  Second, I used canned chickpeas so as to skip the soaking them overnight step, and also because I already had them.  Oh and one more thing, I don't have a blender or a food processor, so I used a little electric mixer that I picked up at a thrift store, sorta like you would to make mashed potatoes.  Lessons learned: Beets are much tougher than potatoes and don't "mash" quite so easily, and also, hold a plate or towel over the bowl while mixing unless you want your kitchen, clothes, and face to be speckled pink (aprons also highly recommended).  So mine came out slightly chunkier than traditional hummus, and also a rather alarmingly bright magenta color, but it was still pretty tasty none the less.  Some photos:

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