aptly named

the change in seasons prompted me to pull out the bins storing the winter clothes and begin the closet changeover.  daunting, but also fun because suddenly i get a whole new wardrobe.  i also re-discovered a fair amount of scarves and hats that i made for myself over the past couple years.  this led to two conclusions: 1) it’s time to branch out with my knitting, and 2) my blog is aptly named.  see for yourself:

the last hat at least doesn’t have a flower, though the ribbon helps make up for the lack of girliness.  i’m actually very fond of all these items and plan to wear them throughout the winter.  and i’ll finish my blue “vintage” scarf, slap a flower on that and wear it too.  

rubbing elbows

on rare occasions i get the opportunity to rub elbows with political mucky mucks because i’ll get an extra ticket at work.  last night was one of those occasions.  an eliot spitzer event.  while i enjoy being surrounded by liberal politicians (eliot spitzer was cool and a very easygoing speaker actually, but bill clinton at the last event i went too was by far the best), sometimes even more enjoyable are the venues and the occasional celebrity.  last night’s event was at a great townhouse in the west village.  we were crowded into this great giant library–wood paneled, books and awards everywhere.  and, edie falco was there!  yep.  carmela soprano.  she looked decidedly un-soprano-like–not a speck of gold on her. 

lest i seem too shallow, only two more days to register to vote for the nov. 7th election!

faux puttanesca

i had grand dinner plans for myself tonight.  i was going to stop at the store on the way home, pick up some ingredients for puttanesca sauce, and then come home and, you know, make the puttanesca.  sadly, work got in the way.  when i was interviewing for the job they told me i’d be working long hours.  i think the actual words were, “are you prepared to never see your significant other?”  luckily, that hasn’t been the case until now.  by the time i got out of work and off the subway i had no time to stop at the store, considering i had an anxious puppy at home.  so i improvised (and strengthened my resolve not to order out) and concocted an ersatz puttanesca.  started with bacon, added garlic and onions, then tomato paste, wine, and broth for the sauce, added capers and some of that joe’s dairy mozzarella and served it over spaghetti squash.  ok, so the only thing remotely related to puttanesca here were the capers and the tomato paste, but the flavor was still quite tasty.  i realize the sauce combo sounds pretty disgusto, but it really wasn’t.

fall food and vintage knitting

so, my columbus day weekend was filled with cooking, knitting, the zoo, and a new yorker festival reading (t.c. boyle and andrea lee.  t.c. boyle was an amazing reader and i’m definitely going to be reading more of his work soon.  andrea lee was jetlagged, so i’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and leave it at that). 

aside from the orange cauliflower soup mentioned earlier, i made butternut squash lasagna.  i’d made this recipe back in a’s vegan days (adapting it, of course) and was very excited to make it in it’s full dairy version.  it did not disappoint, mainly for two reasons: homemade pasta, and joe’s dairy fresh mozzarella. 

first, the pasta.  i decided to make a food processor pasta dough because, as it’s been thoroughly discussed in comments on this blog, i’m a slacker.  it was loads easier than hand kneading, and the results were great.  i have an atlas pasta maker and it works great and rolling out the dough through the press is a very satisfying process.  also very exciting (for me) was adding fresh sage leaves to the pasta as i rolled it out so the leaves were actually pressed into the pasta.  i’m not sure if it made any actual difference in the taste of the overall dish, but the concept was very appealing.  i think i’ll do that next time i make ravioli–imagine each ravioli with a sage leaf centered on it!

on to the mozzarella.  i’m a giant cheese fan, and fresh mozzarella is a favorite.  mild, milky, spongy, versatile.  i’ve been using the fresh mozzarella from russo’s or from blue apron, and they’ve both been entirely serviceable.  this weekend i picked up some joe’s dairy mozzarella from union market and i was amazed at the difference.  milky, creamy, dense, and just delicious. 

on the knitting front, the clapotis is on hold until more yarn arrives.  i’ve been working on a scarf for myself with that blue manos yarn i got at purl.  i’m doing the whole thing in a vertical drop stitch which i’ve decided gives it a vintage look.  maybe i don’t really know what vintage is, but i’m still saying it’s vintage.

can you tell i’m still having a hard time with the pictures?  either too small or too big?  i think i’m finally figuring it out…

i’m in love

with jacques torres.  or at least with his chocolates.  i’m eating a square of his chocolate right now, and it’s unbelievable.  i’m not a sweets person (i’d rather have a cheese plate over dessert any day) but i’ve tried my fair share of gourmet chocolate.  scharffen berger, mariebelle, vosges, etc.  but this is better.  and delicious.  and i’d choose it over a cheese plate almost any day. 

fattening fall foods

a link to a slideshow of fall’s most fattening foods was advertised at the top of my gmail account and i clicked with some trepidation.  the first few slides were depressing as they might be dishes i’m likely to consume (not that i was unaware they were fattening, but still…), but as it continued i felt less depressed.  since when are cocktail peanuts “fall food”?

to combat our consumption of fall foods (chicken and dumplings last night.  really good recipe but no pictures because i used red/purple carrots, which turned the dish a dingy purplish color.  unappetizing but tasty.  i made it with skinless chicken thighs, which kept the chicken moist but did cut down on the fattening aspect some), a and i went on a giant walk today.  our plan was to go to the prospect park zoo, the brooklyn botanic garden, and then to ft. greene to check out a possible apartment.  the zoo took longer than expected so we never made it to the garden, and the walk to ft. greene took about 45 minutes.  we mapped it on google earth, because that’s the kind of nerds we are, andwe walked 4.5 miles.  i know, it’s impressive. 

the zoo was surprisingly nice.  i’m usually wary of zoos–they can be awfully depressing and there’s been lots of press about poorly-treated animals, so i was happy to see large and natural seeming habitats.  there weren’t any big cats or elephants which seemed like a good idea to me because those are probably the hardest to take care of (as if i know), but there was a cool walk-through habitat with kangaroos and wallabys, otters with a pool and slightly forested area, porcupines (one climbing a tree), red pandas, and prairie dogs (which were in their holes).  three sea lions put on a great show at feeding time, and there was a pretty cool petting zoo.  i petted a cow, goat, and an alpaca until the rude worker man yelled at everyone to leave the barn area.  why?  no one knew, but we left because he yelled, “yo, get out of the barn!”

leftovers for dinner tonight, and then roasted butternut squash lasagna tomorrow night, which just might qualify as a fattening fall food…

click on the pics for a better view:

orange cauliflower

i am a sucker for vegetables in unusual colors.  when i was little i always insisted my dad buy me purple green beans, and was very disappointed that they turned green once cooked.  purple potatoes get me every time, as does purple broccoli (why are they all purple?).  so i was super excited to see orange cauliflower at the farmer’s market this morning!  seriously, orange cauliflower–look!

  i bought it immediately.  the mix of people at the grand army plaza farmer’s market is very interesting–lots of yuppies of course, lots of families with their kids and dogs, and also lots of people from the caribbean.  that means there is a really great range of products there that appeal to all audiences.  lima beans, okra, organic pork, seafood, jamaican spinach (callaloo?), and now, orange cauliflower.  the yuppies sometimes get to me though (even if i might qualify as one at times) with their weird sense of entitlement.  one woman cut to the front of the orange cauliflower stand line and demanded to know how they made it orange, whether they added anything to it.  the guys selling it told her it was just a different variety of the vegetable and continued serving their customers.  she kept pressing them though, and finally asked if it was genetically modified cauliflower!  everyone started laughing and she walked off.  seriously, what is the likelihood that these small farm farmers are selling GMO veggies?!  i guess some farmer in canada discovered this orange cauliflower growing wild somewhere up there in canuckland and started cultivating the variety.  cool stuff.

so once i got home i decided soup would be the perfect vehicle to showcase the cauliflower color and promptly started my preparations.  sauteed cauliflower with onions for a while, then added chicken broth and some saffron, let that simmer until the cauliflower was softened and then used my immersion blender (which actually doesn’t work as well as I’d like), added some half and half, chives, salt and pepper, red pepper flakes, and a dash of worcestershire sauce.  it’s pretty good, but most importantly, it’s orange!

restaurant report, and brooklyn botanic garden

so i went to kitchenbar last night.  there’s actually a lot of information out there about them–i just didn’t realize their name is all one word which impacted the results of my googling.  the restaurant was better than i thought it was going to be, but like too many other brooklyn restaurants, not fabulous.  i was turned off before i even got there by the website.  interestingly, the website text seems to have changed from yesterday to today.  yesterday, the website stated that the chef was the first one to cook american comfort food with a mediterranean twist.  seriously?  that’s a ridiculous claim and they backed it up using menu items as examples, such as mini-burgers with feta (ooh, revolutionary!).  anyway, the restaurant was cute inside, they had a nice drink list and a pretty good menu.  i got the roasted chicken with lemon basil marmalade and fries.  normally i don’t order chicken in restaurants because it’s so often dry.  but i ordered, and it was dry.  but the flavor was good and the skin was crispy.  and the fries were a good combination of crispy and soggy.

chicken was a bad choice because (unbeknownst to me) it was what was served at the YWCA Women of Distinction luncheon today at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.  interestingly, the chicken was moister at the luncheon than at dinner last night.  we had to hike quite a ways through the garden to get to the conservatory where the lunch was held (and i totally wore the wrong shoes), but it was a beautiful day and the garden was beautiful and a and i will hopefully go back this weekend to check it out at a more liesurely pace (in more comfortable shoes)!

no cooking tonight again.  but maybe i’ll fit in some knitting…

retro food, and finished knitting!

funny article about the park slope coop–reflects some of the reasons a and i dropped out so soon…

so far this week has been full of retro style dinners.  last night was beef stroganoff, which actually i love.  i remember my parents making it when i was little (before all the warnings about eating red meat) and there’s something about the silky sauce combined with egg noodles that tastes very comforting.  we had haricots verts from the greenmarket and they were very very tasty.  you’d think they’d just taste like skinny green beans, but there’s something else there, i think…  i realize that in the picture the beef looks a bit gross, but it wasn’t gross in person.  it was quite lovely in person, in fact…

tonight we had something i’ve never made before, but was designed to use up the leftover egg noodles.  swedish meatballs!  while i was reviewing the ingredient list as i was stuck on the r train coming home (why was it moving so slowly?) i kept thinking about the swedish chef on the muppets.  remember him?  he was my favorite.  well, maybe it was a tie with beeker.  i loved how he never said anything intelligible, just “borka borka borka” as he tossed ingredients around.  the character always freaked me out too.  i could never figure out why until i was older and realized that the hands were human hands.  those hands, tossing around ingredients and gesticulating wildly were human hands, but the rest of him was all puppet.  and it was freaky.  swedish meatballs are pretty good, but the sauce tasted a lot like the sauce for beef stroganoff (just more broth and less creme fraiche).

i’m ready for some progressive food soon.  maybe italian or asian.  tomorrow night there will be no cooking though.  meeting a friend at kitchenbar.  there’s very little information about the place so hopefully it will be good.  the chef pedigree makes me think it should be.

in knitting news i finally finished the half dome.  it’s the half dome for the chrome dome!  really, it’s the half dome for the fuzzy dome, but that doesn’t carry the same cache…  i didn’t swatch or anything (i’m too much of a slacker for that sort of thing), and since i used different yarn than the pattern called for it’s a bit big.  but i think it looks cool on.  very rawker, right?  the clapotis is progressing nicely.  i’ve finally reached the interesting part where i begin to drop stitches.  i anxiously knit each pattern repeat just to get to the drop stitches row.  i think i need to order more yarn…

weekend update

so, lots of cooking and lots of knitting this past weekend.  but i have pictures only of the cooking.

friday night dinner with my brother was fun and good.  we went to bianca which was as good as i hoped it’d be, and we did indeed order the gnocco fritto.  it was mighty tasty.  not like italy italian food tasty, but tasty for america italian food.

saturday was spent at the farmer’s market, and what felt like the rest of the day was spent searching fruitlessly for organic/free range/humanely raised pork in brooklyn.  they didn’t have the cut i needed at the farmer’s market.  sadly, none was to be found in brooklyn (though the word at d’agostino’s is they’ll start carrying it next week) and a and i ended up making a mad trek into manhattan and then madly trekking back to brooklyn so he could grab his stuff and then madly (yet again) trek BACK to manhattan to try out drummers.  the rest of the day was spent cooking and fighting off the headache that resulted from all the mad trekking.  dinner turned out pretty good but not unbelievably good as i’d hoped it would be.  pork hominy stew and scallion corn muffins.

the muffins look pretty good, right?  though we’ve disposed of six (six!) mice using a variety of different mouse-dispatching methods, another one showed up in the middle of the night and thought the muffins looked good too and started chewing through the corn muffin storage bag.  we haven’t caught him yet but i saw his cute little face peeking out from behind the tv stand last night.  why do they have to be so cute AND diseased?