19 posts tagged “my cooking”

Okay, I take back most of the nasty things I've said about summer, because figs have arrived at my local farmer's market this past weekend. I did a happy little boogie and dragged my poor mother over to the booth so I could examine them closely, and I ended up leaving with a basket of black and green figs in hand  and considerably happier than I'd been walking in.

(And that's already pretty happy, since I love our local Saturday morning farmer's market.)

Of course, the poor figs have been languishing in my mini-fridge since then while I indecisively thumbed through my file of fig recipes. Due to problems with the big fridge, the college mini-fridge has once again become my main refrigerator-- Which means I don't have crème fraîche, and I lost the Salem blue cheese that I ordinarily love to broil figs with in the toaster oven, and so on, and so on...

And then, thanks to my recent obsession with Serious Eats, I found just what I was looking for on the site's new source for food porn feature, Photograzing.

Oh, yes. That's JUST what I needed for inspiration.

.. These herbed frommage blanc fritters are definitely next on the list to make, once I have a fridge with enough room for all my beloved types of cheese.

Fig & Prosciutto Pizza

1 12-14" pizza stone or tin
cornmeal for scattering

1 TJ's garlic and herb fresh pizza dough

White sauce:

1/4 cup olive oil, divided
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2-3 tbsp fresh shredded Parmesan
1 tsp balsamic vinegar, preferably white

Toppings:

1 pint black figs, de-stemmed and sliced thin
2-3 oz. prosciutto
4 handfuls quattro formaggio cheese mix
1 handful fresh shredded Parmesan

Preheat oven to 500 deg F with your pizza stone / metal pizza tin inside. Let the dough rest and rise for about 20 minutes while the oven's getting warm.

While things are heating, make the sauce: Put the four cloves garlic and one tbsp of the oil into a small blender, mortar and pestle, or other hand-chopper and go to town 'til it forms a small, thick amount of paste. Drizzle in more oil and add in your desired amount of Parmesan: Repeat. Drizzle in the last tablespoon and the balsamic vinegar and stir until combined -- This will make enough to thinly paint your pizza dough. Scale up as you feel necessary, but the cheese will more than make up for any perceived dryness.

Carefully remove the pan / stone from the hot oven with heat-protectors of choice: Scatter lightly with cornmeal to keep the dough from sticking too much. Stretch the dough out roughly 12" with your fingertips and do your best to center it on the hot round: It WILL stick the moment you put it down, with the dough starting to cook. This is good, it'll prevent the dough from slipping away while you put the toppings on. Roll or pat the dough out further, taking care not to burn yourself.

Paint with the white sauce, and sprinkle with about a handful of the quattro formaggio. Lie down strips of prosciutto, cut to your desired size. (I went for long, thin strips, draped around in a spiral.) Sprinkle with another handful and a half of cheese. Top evenly with the thin-sliced figs, and sprinkle evenly with the desired amount of the remaining quattro formaggio and Parmesan.

Pop it in the oven and reduce to 450 F. Check it after ten minutes, and every 2-3 minutes thereafter: My thin-crust pie was perfect after 15 minutes. Enjoy!

I loved how the sweet of the figs paired with the salty of the prosciutto, and the savory of the cheese and garlic 'sauce.' I have to remember to make this one again the next time I get my hands on a pint of figs -- though how can you go wrong with figs + thin slices of cured ham + cheese?

And in case you don't want or happen to have access to pre-made quattro formaggio, here's the proportions:

1 cup (4 oz) shaved provolone cheese
1 cup (4 oz)  mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup (2 oz) shaved Asiago cheese
1/4 cup (1 oz) freshly grated Parmesan or Romano cheese

One really, really good thing about taking part in a weekly food challenge?
...Well, aside from guaranteeing that I'm going to eat at least one home-cooked meal a week, or getting motivated to cook more frequently...

I love that I'm near always looking for new things to do, and taking inspiration from existing recipes. After all, I took one look at the Epicurious recipe for a fresh fig tart with rosemary cornmeal crust, and then wondered how it would taste with something less sweet.

The answer? Pretty darned good.
Now, if only I could improve my "photography skills."

Fresh Tomato Tart with Cornmeal-Thyme Crust
Yield: About 3-4 servings

Crust:

¾ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup yellow cornmeal (not stone-ground)
1½ tsp sugar
pinch to 1/8 tsp salt
¼ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
¾ tbsps finely chopped fresh thyme
2 to 3 tablespoons ice water

Filling:

3-4 small to medium tomatoes, washed and sliced 1/6-inch thick
½ tsp fine-grain sea salt
2½ - 3 tbsp crème fraîche
½ cup mascarpone cheese (4 oz)
1 tbsp sugar

Glaze: (opt)

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp honey
fresh thyme leaves, to taste

Pulse together flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt in a food processor. Add butter and thyme and pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal with some small (roughly pea-size) butter lumps. Drizzle evenly with 2 tablespoons ice water and pulse until just incorporated.
Gently squeeze a small handful: If it doesn't hold together, add more water, ½ tablespoon at a time, pulsing after each addition and continuing to test.

Press dough evenly onto bottom and up sides of tart pan(s) with floured fingers. Smooth dough with a small spatula or the back of a spoon (floured if necessary), and roll a rolling pin over top of pan to trim dough flush with the edge (if necessary). Prick the crust bottom with a fork. Chill until it's firm, about 30 minutes or so.

While waiting on the crust to chill, prep your tomatoes: To avoid a soggy mess later on, you'll want to rid the tomatoes of some of their water. Clear a space on your counter and put down a double layer of absorbent paper towels. Slice the tomatoes into eighths or so, making very fine, thin wedges: Place the tomatoes in a single layer on the paper towels and sprinkle them with about 1 tsp (+/- accordingly) fine-grain sea salt. Cover the tomatoes with another layer of paper towels, press gently. Let them sit until you're ready to use them.

Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake crust in middle of oven until center and edges are golden, 20 to 30 minutes.

Whisk together sour cream, mascarpone, sugar, and salt in a bowl until well combined and slightly stiff. (I found that while the mascarpone and the creme fraiche were fairly stand-up on their own, they liquefied slightly when combined -- probably the addition of the salt and sugar.) Refrigerate until ready to use.

Let the crust cool to room temperature before filling: Heat balsamic, honey and thyme (if desired) in a small saucepan over moderately low heat, whisking about 4 minutes, then cool glaze slightly. Take care not to breathe in over the pan, as the scent can be a little overwhelming for the sinuses, but the results are stunning.

Remove tart shell(s) from the pan(s) and spread mascarpone cream in shell. Pat dry the tomato slices and arrange decoratively over cream. Drizzle with honey-balsamic glaze and serve.

The tart is really ridiculously good on its own -- I honestly think mascarpone and creme fraiche are now my favorite mixture of flavors ever, and even better than sweet cream ice cream  -- but a drizzled teaspoon or so of the balsamic glaze makes it to die for. Wow.

I hate to admit it, because I love  cooking -- but lately, I haven't been in the mood.
It's almost like it's too much work, though I like to blame the summer heat and humidity around here. Who wants to stand over a stove when you're already sweltering? (And that's where my poor steamer once came in, but that's neither here nor there.)

Thankfully, dinner tonight was relatively easy since I did most of the chopping work yesterday: Didn't write about what I made last night (and while it wasn't bad, it wasn't anything to write home about), but the leftover chopped vegetables helped spur me into motion.

I made a run to Trader Joe's at lunch today, intent on getting eggs and milk -- I left with two large packages of gnocchi, my beloved quatro fromaggio shredded cheese blend, and cans of white beans on top of those, plus lunch. (Lunch was an endive salad with walnuts and gorgonzola. I cannot resist those two toppings.)

Written down so I remember it in the future:

Dinner for Two: Sauteed Chicken and Asparagus with Golden Gnocchi

Approx. 3-4 oz chicken, cut into bite-sized strips
4-6 cloves roasted garlic
2-3 oz crimini mushrooms, washed and sliced thick
6-8 slender stalks asparagus, washed and sliced bite-size
¼ cup thin-sliced red onions
pinch or two each of dried rosemary, marjoram, thyme, oregano, dill weed
olive oil
black pepper

½ lb. fully cooked gnocchi
¼ cup quatro fromaggio -- asiago, parmesan reggiano, fontina, provolone
black and white pepper
olive oil

Side note: I always have some of my infamous garlic (last seen here) on hand, and I like to store it in the oil... So I cheated and used some of the garlic-infused olive oil in my cooking. Also, the roasted cloves had the additional bonus of having been cooked in balsamic vinegar, so that added some extra sweetness to the whole entree -- Something to keep in mind if you want to try this.

I did not have the gnocchi pre-cooked, so that's where I started, bringing a pot of lightly salted water to a boil and keeping an eye on it while I got everything else together.

While my gnocchi cooked, I put out two frying pans: One smaller saute pan, and one to cook the main dish. A healthy splash of oil went into both pans so there'd be enough to slightly more than coat the bottom, and then I set the larger over medium-low heat and cooked the garlic and chicken pieces.

With the chicken about 80% done, I turned the heat to medium-high under the smaller pan and added all the vegetables and spices to the chicken's pan, stirring: Gave the gnocchi's pan a chance to heat while I kept chicken and vegetables slowly moving. The heat under that pan went up to medium and I left them alone while I poured out the now-cooked gnocchi, draining well.

No sooner drained, the gnocchi went into the now-heating oil with a sizzle: I let them sit there and brown while killing the heat under the chicken. I flipped them in the pan and peppered them lightly, let the other sides brown a little, and then added the cheese. Once the cheese was added, I needed to stir quickly -- I've learned from experience that the cheese can burn before all the gnocchi are covered, so it requires fast attention.

Heat off on all burners now, it was a matter of divvying up dinner and serving it.

The future father in law gave me mad props, apparently. ;)

I've begun to suspect I'm insane.
Reasoning: I've got plenty to do this evening, between making up some homemade pizza (and I've decided to use a long pan instead of the usual hole-bottomed pizza pan, as I haven't been happy with its results lately) and getting the house ready for an imminent termite inspection, so what do I do?

Pick up my size 2 double-point needles and start two socks at once.
Barking mad, probably.
But, the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I had to cast on: I'm currently working in complimentary shades of TLC Essentials -- which I don't particularly like the feel of, but it's part of my early stash and needs using -- in a burnt orange and their Falling Leaves ombre.
Never knit a sock in my life (though crocheting is a different story -- and I've several pairs, thank you!), and then I get the wild hair to do two at once.
I'm also planning on trading off the colors at cuff, heel, and toe, as if I weren't already confusing myself as it is.
Should be some pretty sweet socks if I can do it right, though, and I won't be afraid to wreck them through wear.

Note to self: I want this in Wild Wild West. Just one skein, but I've got a sock pattern in mind that I'd love to try.
... Well, maybe Blue Bayou, too.

Anyhow. Tonight, pizza.
The fiance and I picked up another of Trader Joe's pre-made pizza doughs in the garlic and herbed crust variety, and I'm currently contemplating whether I want to use a tomato sauce as the base or just go with garlic and olive oil as a pseudo-white sauce... I mean, olive oil and garlic. Good stuff, especially when you consider I've got mozzarella and roughly shredded parmesan to put on top, and then cover with prosciutto, salami, and capocollo. I'm also debating whether or not to add sun-dried tomatoes to the list or not: Alas, though I can see the tomatoes getting bigger by the day, there are still none ready for eating on my tomato plants.

... Don't think that I'm not looking up how to make sun-dried tomatoes for when that crop finally comes.

It does sound like a good, if meat-heavy pizza... And since it's going to be a pan pizza, that means it's going to be a bit more square than usual. (Alas, I can't guarantee thicker... Though I have rolled the dough out and I'm leaving it to rise some more, so. If I'm lucky.)
I suppose I do have some bell pepper strips in the freezer, and can also go that route. The fiance's kinda meh on the topic of olives, though, and tempting as it is to go viciously harvest the sneaky mushrooms in my yard... Probably not advisably edible, and since I haven't any criminis in the fridge, that means no mushrooms for the pizza.
That's life: Ought to get to making that pizza, or at least gathering the ingredients.

Some mothers want flowers: Others still want cards, or gifts of housework or chocolates or just your time.
This year, the thing Mom asked me to do for Mother's Day was make the Stinking Rose's garlic relish.
She also made me do all the mincing by hand because she forgot she had a chopper, so I teasingly twitted her when I found it (looking for a vase or jar to stick a rogue rose from the garden in, actually) -- but it wasn't that big of a deal.
Really, hardest part was peeling all the two and a half cups of damned garlic cloves since the cats succeeded in irritating me out of my head right before I left and in my fit of pique, I forgot the peeled cloves I'd measured out and bagged last night. Argh. But, there's now garlic relish in the fridge, chilling for later dinners.

I'll share the recipe here, since even if you buy the Stinking Rose Cookbook, it's not in there -- Printing error, since it says it's on page 113-115, and oh, it LIES. And it's really tasty on foccaccia rolls, let me tell you.

The Stinking Rose's Garlic Relish

1 bunch flat leaf parsley
2 ¼ cups garlic cloves
2 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp salt
Olive oil (to cover)

Mince the parsley and garlic cloves. Combine.
Pour vinegar and salt over the garlic mixture and stir. Spoon into jars and fill with enough olive oil to cover. Refrigerate.
Really difficult recipe, as you can see: The most time-consuming part is all the mincing that needs to be done, and so long as you don't let yourself hunch over the board as you work, it's not that big of a deal.
(The hunching over my cutting board is a bad, bad habit that I'm striving to break.)

Also noteworthy, I put Mom's garlic roaster to work: Five whole heads of garlic with the loose outside paper removed, trim the tops, drizzle liberally with olive oil. Put the top on the garlic roaster (or, wrap in foil if you don't have one) and put in a 350° F oven for 45 minutes or so. They're done when you can easily squish the clove and it comes out spreadably smooth.

The Mother's Day batch of garlic relish was good, but the parsley was really rough: What I wouldn't give for a mezzaluna the next time I decide to do this. Although the knife Mom and I both prefer is curved, the leaves and garlic run away across the flat board while I work, and I never seem to get enough contact to mince the parsley fine enough. Aggravating.
Today, I've discovered that while the garlic really does need to be minced by hand to give the relish a proper consistency -- and how do I love thee, o curved and weighted knife of mine? -- it's honestly easier on the hands and less crazy-making to throw the flat leaf parsley in the Magic Bullet blender-thing my Mom gave me last Christmas. The chopper blade works really well for mincing the leaves, though it seems to not know what to do with the parsley stems -- much finer cut of parsley than I've been able to get by hand, which means it distributes better.

This batch consisted of 2½ cups of garlic cloves (prior to mincing), a half bunch of parsley mown down in the food processor, two-ish tablespoons of rice vinegar, and a teaspoon-ish of sea salt. I stirred until the parsley was well dispersed in the whole mess and the garlic looked faintly green. At that point, I spooned about 2 to 2½ tbsp. of the mix into 4 oz. jars and covered with oil. It filled 10 of the dozen jars I picked up. At that point, the relish needs to be refrigerated for at least a couple hours prior to serving.
Bear in mind, its flavor is verging on hot, since it's made with raw garlic: I burned the hell out of my mouth spooning it a tablespoon at a time over my twice-baked potato, but I went back for more and mopped up the garlicky olive oil with bread when I was done. Om nom nom, tasty -- and it'd wake up my sadly dry-tasting half-wheat, half-white foccacia nicely, I think.

Note to self: Stop at Trader Joe's on Wednesday and pick up milk, eggs, quatro fromaggio, and some more King Arthur's all-purpose flour. Their wheat flour is indeed tasty, but I've yet to figure out how to make it not so dense and dry when substituting. Argh.
... And it's not really foccacia without the quatro fromaggio, in my opinion. I'd have used more on the dry batch if I weren't nearly out, but wanting to hold out on using it entirely as my barley needs something else tasty to keep my lunch from being bland once reheated.

I have things cooking in my head again: I'm in a making mood, probably partly at fault from my recent (compulsive knitting / dye experiments / interest in spinning / gardening).

Every once in a while, I forget that I honestly love to cook.
Starting a vegetable garden has reminded me, though. I don't have anything save ten (count 'em, ten!!) tomato blossoms at the moment (one of which has clearly pollinated and is in process of changing from flower to fruit), but I'm already gleefully bouncing on my toes and waiting for the moments the first round, green fruits begin to show: My Cherokee Purple heirloom plant is new and still getting used to its pot, so its main purpose at the moment is to just get up and grow.

I honestly cannot wait for that heirloom to blossom and produce tomatoes. Cannot wait. I want to try them and come up with even more weird-color food, since if I'm honest, I enjoy cooking more when the colors don't match the expected. I am utterly in love with blue potatoes, and since I've found that my local Whole Foods does indeed carry them at cheaper per pound than the variety mix at Trader Joe's, I'm revving up to hit the produce bins for scalloped purple-blue potatoes. (And yes, it's going to look weird, royal blue potatoes peeking up from inside orange cheddary sauce, but I love doing that sort of thing. Weird colored food rules!) So. Rose-purple tomatoes to go with my purple-tinged blue potatoes? I cackle with glee.
And contemplate all sorts of summery tomato-based meals. I stopped at 101Cookbooks.com to check out the 1000 Layer Lasagne that went up Thursday morning, and while looking at her homemade ricotta recipe, I hovered the mouse over the image at top and found the next recipe was an heirloom tomato tart. And then I went hunting for anything involving specifically heirloom tomatoes, and found her cheesy heirloom paninis.

Wow. If I wasn't hungry before...
I anticipate a lot of homemade foccacia, caprese, and tomato-based recipes this summer. I think I may even delve into things like making tomato sauce and stewing tomatoes from scratch if the plants produce enough... After all, we know the hazards of gardens: You end up with more than you know what to do with, and your friends and family will only take so many. ;)
Seriously. Found the best foccacia I've had in ages at the Whole Foods of Doom, and it was not only crisp and garlic-parmesan-y, but had quarter inch tomato rounds pressed into its top and sprinkled with basil and oregano...
Which means I can do that, easy.
Also, the idea of making my bagels, slicing them in half, and making it into a cheese and tomato sandwich and then sticking it in the toaster oven for a little bit.... Sounds like heaven to me!

So, yes. I've been poking thoughtfully around the comments in the 101Cookbooks.com recipes and it's led to some interesting sites: The one holding my interest at the moment is a page on making cheese -- and while I'm honestly contemplating dragging my little college fridge out of storage to set up as a cheese making fridge for the blue cheese recipe, the one that really has me grinning like a fool is the recipe for fresh mozzarella from a gallon of milk.

Home grown tomatoes. Fresh mozzarella. My friends are right, I do need to start growing my own basil: I'll have myself a caprese garden at this rate. And there's just something satisfying about knowing where the things came from, as opposed to buying things from the store.
I'm still gleefully hunting up tomato recipes online: I really ought to hunt through my vegetarian and four-ingredient cookbooks for more ideas -- after all, the four-ingredient cookbook is where I picked up a favorite puff pastry tomato 'pizza' recipe, and that's pretty delish.
At that, I have a cookbook called Tomato. I think that just might be a good resource for tomato recipes. Who knew?

Also: It's Saturday, which means to bagel, or not to bagel, that is the question...
So I went to make some bagels. I made my last batch of bagels with King Arthur's white whole wheat flour, and it wasn't bad, but they were a little more dense in flavor than I'd have liked. No problem, but I decided to go half and half with the all purpose and wheat if you're going that route again, see if that resolved the issue.
I think I used too much water or something this time around -- the problem with attempting to do recipes from memory, honestly -- because the dough was sticky like mad. I ended up pulling it out of the bread machine and adding more flour by hand: It still doesn't feel right for bagels, though, and the proportions were probably close enough to pull off a foccacia instead... So I went crazy, kneaded in about half a tablespoon of dried 'italian herbs' (as the bottle proclaimed -- probably a mix of basil, oregano, parsley, possibly more). It's currently rising on a silpat, and I'll be sure to pat it out into my baking pan and start doing the olive oil / garlic topping.
Fresh bread. Nothing really like it, even if it wasn't the first thing I'd intended.

A friend of mine made the mistake of mentioning she'd been looking for a bagel recipe that didn't involve malt syrup.
Personally, I've never heard of bagels needing malt syrup, so either I search for recipes in a completely different place (which isn't true, since I know we both cruise Epicurious.com and Epicurean.com) or I'm looking for the wrong thing.

Still... I found a couple likely recipes, and through experimentation (and poking at the recipes that seemed way off in their proportions of stuff -- not to mention the occasionally weird ingredient) I found my bagel recipe.

Sun Dried Tomato Bagels
Yield: 10-12 bagels

1¼ cup hot water (~110 F)
2 tbsp olive oil
¼ cup sun dried tomatoes, coarsely chopped
3½ cups bread flour
2 tbsp sugar
1¼ tbsp salt
1 package / ¾ tsp active dry yeast

Using a Bread Machine:
Put the ingredients in the bread pan in the order listed, and then put the bread pan into the bread machine. Select the dough setting, as you won't be baking this in the machine. When the dough sequence completes, stop the machine and remove the dough.

Mixing By Hand:
In a mixing bowl, combine 1½ cups of the flour and the yeast. Combine water, sugar, and salt; pour over flour mixture. Add  the tomatoes and beat at low speed of electric mixer for 30 seconds to a minute, scraping bowl a few times. Stir in as much flour as you can mix with a spoon. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead in enough flour to make a moderately stiff dough that is smooth and elastic (about 8 minutes). Cover with a clean towel and let rest 10 minutes.

For Both:
Cut into 10-12 equal portions; shape each portion into a smooth ball. Punch a hole in the center of each ball and pull gently to make a 1½ inch hole in the center. Arrange the rounds on a greased cookie sheet (or better yet, a Silpat) and cover with a clean towel. Put the cookie sheet into a warm place and allow it to rise undisturbed, 45-60 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 400 F at this time. In a large saucepan, bring 2 quarts of water to boil over medium heat. Carefully drop the dough rounds into the water one at a time and boil each bagel about 5 minutes, or until visibly enlarged. Remove the bagels from the water and transfer to a greased cookie sheet again. (SILPAT = BETTER.) Bake at 400 F until lightly browned, about 20 min.

Note: I figure you can do almost anything with the base recipe just by changing the type of oil/shortening and the flavor ingredient. Berry bagel? ¼+ cup (blue/rasp/straw)berries in place of the tomatoes and 2 tbsp butter (instead of olive oil). Garlic? Keep the olive oil or substitute garlic infused and drop a head's worth of peeled cloves into the mix. Want the garlic more whole in the end result? Drop them in during the last stir sequence (or, if by hand, when you've almost completed kneading). Egg bagel, toss in yolks. Herb bagel? Rosemary, thyme, perhaps cheddar into the mix. The possibilities are endless.

Got to meet up with the fiance for lunch yesterday and ran some errands.
I know what we're having for dinner (since it's honey-glazed chicken, currently sitting in the fridge and marinading), and I get to bully him into starting up our charcoal grill for it. I'm still debating whether the side is going to be steamed rice or soba noodles.

I'm eyeing lots (as in, actual bagged lots) of bamboo yarn, though I've already been swearing up and down that I've done my last with bamboo, thank you... Clearly, I'm out to drive myself nuts.

Right now, I'm thinking I've 50% figured out how to make this sweater. Really: The sleeves look like they've been knit from cuff to cuff, and I've been playing with knitting longways recently -- and the neck itself is easy enough, since I've already messed with that making my poncho. The biggest issue, I think, would be how to do the body of it -- but even that might not be too tough, so it's a question of working in panels or in the round. Think, think, think.
I may have to play with this for fun, see what I come up with.

I've recently found a new knitting blog to follow -- Eunny has some beautiful work out there, though it seems she and I disagree on the topic of ombres and what makes good colors, but she's inspiring. I don't know how long she's
been knitting, spinning, or designing her own patterns -- Where do you learn how to make patterns for more complex garments, anyway? Ponchos and the like, not so difficult -- but sweaters seem more so. I have yet to grasp the concept of short rows. Gussets, I have yet to grasp. Steeking sets me running off to quiver in the closet... But I'm getting over my fear of lace (though lace patterns slow me down like mad) and I certainly came to grasp the concept of double-point needles. (Seriously, circular needles still elude me. I suspect I'll need to watch them in action or get a detailed write-up to truly get it.)
I had a lot of fun with my introduction to amigurumi (thanks to Amy Gaines' Jellybean Bunny), though the first attempt wasn't something I'd consider giving anyone outside my immediate family. -- It wasn't ugly, but, well. It was a first attempt, and had all those little flaws that first time projects tend toward.

And Eunny makes me want to get back into learning to spin again. Just reading about how passionate she is, and seeing the results of her labors -- Dude. I wish my attempts with the drop spindle hadn't been so very juvenile, comparably. Also, the idea of making my own yarns always fills me with inspiration and a fierce kind of glee.
I want to make my own yarn. I want to dye roving and then see what comes off the spindle.
I really need to try spinning again in the near future.

Seemed I was in a cooking mood today: After a fabulous day of hanging out with a friend, dim sum, and driving around with the top down on my convertible, I summoned up the desire to actively make something for dinner.

A lot of what I ended up doing was improvisation: After all, rosemary roasties aren't a big deal to make, and I have plenty of potatoes in the pantry.
I've been having this craving for a dish I was fortunate enough to try as a child -- Steak in cognac-peppercorn sauce.
Since I only had tuna steaks and my cognac (which I do remember unpacking from the move many months ago) has mysteriously vanished, an improvisation was as close as I was going to get.
I had some red sweet vermouth in the cupboard, though, and that seemed to fit the bill when I smelled it.

¼ cup butter
¼ cup sweet vermouth
¹/₃ cup milk (or better, cream)
1 small shallot, sliced thin or minced
1 tbsp whole black peppercorns (or 1½ tsp ground black pepper, to taste)
2 tsp Dijon mustard

I melted the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Next in was the mustard, stirred briskly to combine and then the vermouth. Milk. Shallots. The pepper was last, all still over medium-low, and I stirred constantly until I could see the liquid start to boil along the saucepan's wall. Reduced heat to low, and simmered a minute before removing from the heat.

I poured a little of the sauce into a fry pan I had set up for the tuna steaks when they were flipped for the second side's (two minutes each) cooking, sending the sauce bubbling and lightly glazing the faintly browned upside of the tuna. Flipped again, and let that cook while I took the roasties out of the 300 F oven they'd spent the last 40 minutes in. Set the roasties aside to cool, served up the cooked through but still tender tuna, and drizzled with the sauce.

Mmmm.
It's a little less savory in flavor than I remember mustard sauces being, but I think that's the vermouth.

Started adding more recipes to my little corner of Recipezaar again: I figured the bagels I figured out and the aforementioned chicken were worth sharing, and they should be published by now.

I'm also contemplating upgrading my account on Recipezaar, just so I can dodge the ads and have private recipes... I mean, there are things I like to have for myself, but don't necessarily want to share with the world at large. ;)
Anyway.

Last night ended up being a call-in-for-pizza night, and I tried Papa John's sausage sensation pizza -- or whatever it is they're calling the latest limited time recipe. It was tasty, no question. I'm kind of hoping they keep the smoked sausage on as a potential ingredient, because I can see myself using that one a lot.
I miss their Fiesta Pizza -- grilled chicken, roma tomatoes, and bell peppers with a garlic sauce. That was the first time I'd ever eaten tomatoes and liked them, and then realized I'd developed a taste for them after years of despising the red, squishy-seeded fruit. Thankfully, though, I can always add the ingredients onto a large pizza and have an approximation.

No idea what I'm doing for dinner tonight yet: I know I'm planning on stopping at Target today during lunch to pick up some more work pants and perhaps some new shoes, which would also give me the chance to run through the food aisle (as this is a SuperTarget!) and grab one of the ready-made pasta or risotto dinners they had there. I'm sorry, I'm uninspired on what to cook today.
... I do want to find another place that carried blue potatoes aside from Trader Joe's, though. They only ever seem to carry them as part of a medley, which isn't bad, but if I want more than three or four of them at a time? Not so good. Whole Foods or the local farmer's market are probably my best bets, though if anyone has other suggestions, I'm glad to hear them.