To Renew: Happy Spring After Hibernation

At yoga today, the teacher was talking some talk about how astrologers (or at least her friend) believe the dawning of spring to be the real start to the new year. And, since finally it's nice out in DC, I'll take it. I'll believe that this is the time to begin anew, start fresh and to pretend that I was hibernating for a couple weeks from blogging.

So, happy spring! And, as the teacher jokingly said at the end of class: Happy New Year!

Highlights while I've been away (highlights = things I took pictures of)

i like serving fruit when i'm serving a pastry. but those mandarins were lousy.

My parents & cousin came to town to celebrate mother's birthday. So, that morning I had them over to have her open presents while having a small snack of babka. It's chocolatey & buttery and despite its rather intricate looking design, not all the difficult to make. Pretty time consuming. I used Smitten Kitchen's recipe that was adapted from my best friend (unrequited) Ottolenghi.

i forgot to add the yeast at the right time, but i think it was still a-okay!

The next day we had brunch for the family. It included green shakshuka, home cured bacon (by M.) & hasselback potatoes. To me, an egg dish like that (with runny yolk) is superior to a scrambled egg type dish. Plus, with all those greens it's super filling and really healthy. Also, everything was done in like an hour!

For dinner we had my favorite kale salad, Ottolenghi's cauliflower salad with pomegranates & parsley & nuts, octopus salad and fresh salmon. I love having a million flavors, and we did.

During hibernation, it was St. Patrick's Day. We celebrated on Saturday so we could have corned beef hash for brunch the next day. The cabbage was roasted & the brussels sprouts were pan seared with some worcestershire sauce for extra umami. I learned about umami for the first time from Ross Gellar, but now M. is always talking about it.

Hash: potatoes, beets, corned beef, and a poached egg. Duh.

Once upon a time, I made fish in parchment paper. It went pretty well. Then, I saw you can do a sort of similar thing with chicken. I'll want to remember that for some day when I'm wanting to add chicken to my lunch salads. The salad was a take on the wedge but with cabbage AND it was grilled. I LOVE grilled lettucey things, usually, I've had romaine grilled. "It's too fibrous."-M. I liked it.

We took a cooking class! Fried chicken, coleslaw, biscuits, chipotle sweet potato salad & chocolate pie. We're going to try to make this again when we fly to Boston in April. So. More on that later.

Admittedly, this shit was ugly. It also only tasted okay. I'm not super into chocolate. 

avant-garde?

To Eat Dinner @ Home: Tortellini & Spinach in Garlicky Broth

I suck at making soup. It usually ends up flavorless, despite having a lot of ingredients. But this one didn't!

To Not Fear Flour: Hokkaido Milk Bread

When I set out to make bread, there's a 50/50 chance it'll turn out even decent. Like, 50 percent chance it'll be LOUSY, and 50 percent chance it will be "not bad!" But that's usually said by loved ones.

But this, this Hokkaido milk bread turned out amazing. And I'm my toughest critic.

I lived in Hong Kong for a year and always marveled at the bread in bakeries. It had a cartoonish buoyancy to it. By looking at it, I could tell it had a confection to it. And this bread spoke all the same words to me. (I know that this bread is Japanese and that Hong Kong is a SAR of China, okay?)

Anyway, the recipe was super easy to follow and the bread that followed was a sweet, fluffy, buoyant jubilee that was made even more scrumptious with a little butter and would undoubtedly make a perfect base for a bread pudding.

To Eat Dinner @ Home: Chinese Takeout Inspired (sorta)

In a recent (to me) Six Feet Under episode, Jennifer Aniston's current fiance brought one of the ladies some salt and pepper shrimp Chinese take out. I've not had this take out, but it sounded amazing. So I made it for dinner. 

It was easy and scrumptious. Buy peeled shrimp, if you can. But don't worry, peeling isn't too tricky. I added some szechuan peppercorns, cause why not?

I also made spicy Chinese style mustard greens & onions. There were too many onions, but the onions were cooked so well that I ate all the extras anyway. We discovered mustard greens through a CSA a couple years ago. That discovery alone made joining the CSA worthy. They taste like kale with an abundant gorgeous horseradish flavor.

They were easy to cook together and went together real swell. A side of jasmine rice might have been nice, and then we could have stretched the meal over two nights for two people, probz.

To Drink: $5 Wine Vol. 6 Grifone Italian Zinfandel

I think I was biased against zinfandel because of pictures like this:

But, RED zinfandel, is that a different story?

To Reminisce: The (Other) Foods of February

The month in review! (Really, only the last two weeks. I already shared week 1 & I forgot what we ate during week 2. I'll do better in March.)

breakfast can be leftover mac & cheese & collards topped with poached eggs.

WEEK THREE

Saturday February 14th: Hamentine's Day! With mac & cheese + collards
Sunday February 15th: Ham soup + Grilled cheese (made with M's homemade bread)
Monday February 16th: Spanikopita with leftover m&c + collards

on hamentine's day, i made beet puree and threw a ball of burrata on top.

Tuesday February 17th: Mardi Gras drinks @ Mintwood + Escargot Hush puppies. Followed by 1/2 grilled cheese
Wednesday February 18th: Spanikopita with a faux-wedge salad
Thursday February 19th: Spaghetti & Meatblobs
Friday February 20th: Spaghetti & Meatblobs

WEEK FOUR
Saturday February 21st: Hot Chocolate//Chicken Marsala & Mushroom Risotto
Sunday February 22nd: Pretzel Bites + Chocolate Dipped Marshmallows ** //Sandwich Bar Oscar Party
Monday February 23rd: Snapper & Prosciutto Kale

he's cute.

Tuesday February 24th: Kale salad & (failed) popovers
Wednesday February 26th: Pancakes & Bacon (to watch the Parks & Rec finale)
Thursday February 27th: Raw Chicken (oops!) w. Mashed Taters & Pretzel Stuffing (from leftover bites)
Friday February 28th: Mama Ayesha's

** Michael made the marshmallows because I said, "PLEASE MAKE ME SOME MARSHMALLOWS!" But, then, since one of my favorite candies is choco covered marshmallows, I thought, I oughta dip these fluffy sugary pillow fluffers into chocolate! I melted the chocolate but added a little coconut oil, which was genius (non-humble brag) because it made dipping the elegant sugar puffs easier because the chocolate was thinner. Next time, I'll use a cookie cutter to make nicer shapes.

To Use Fancy French Words: Fish en Papillote

 

This is a relatively easy & delicious dinner. Relatively because it didn't come out EXACTLY cooked in the first go-round, but with a little help from Michael, things turned out terrifically. I think the mistake was that I used a very thick slab of red snapper, and didn't rightfully adjust the cooking time. I used a new technique "en papillote" which just means in parchment paper. I sauteed some greens then threw them with some fish into the parchment paper and cooked it up real good. It was so nice. And, I'm eager to try again and not eff it up.