お久しぶり！！

Ohisashiburi means "long time no see" in Japanese.  And oh my goodness gracious, it's been a while.

Summer has long since come and gone, with a string of several days with temperatures in the mid 50's of late.  In between the sweaty-sticky of summer and chilly-brisk of late fall, there were some gorgeous days, enjoyed mostly on my bike ride to and from school, but also during a few hikes I was lucky enough to squeeze in.

Like the change in weather, the change in my daily routine from perhaps one of the nicest summers of my life to a very busy semester has been pretty dramatic.  Only a semester and a little bit to go!  The "little bit" is a mere 2.5 weeks left of classes, chock full of presentations and papers.  I am trying my best to power through, and I am very much looking forward to winter break!

Given the workload of the new few weeks, now doesn't exactly seem like the most opportune time to start blogging again.  However,

1. I've missed it; especially as I struggle to design and populate my own website in Dreamweaver for a class project
2. November is 2BB's anniversary month--2 years!!
3. I can't let this year's 100-Mile Thanksgiving go by with out a post

So without further ado...

Last Saturday, two classmates and I drove out to Heartland Harvest Farm to pick up the turkeys for this Thursday's dinner.  The farmer was extraordinarily friendly, and drove us around a small portion of his 500 acres in his minivan to show us the sights.  He also talked us into buying a half bushel of potatoes for dinner, which is a lot of potatoes (more on them below)!

Our turkeys conveniently came frozen in cardboard boxes.

On Wednesday evening, I cooked up a storm and made two seasonal, mostly local dishes.  My original plan was to make BH&G's Roasted Acorn Squash and Beet Salad, so I painstakingly peeled the squash and let the beets roast with the potatoes in the oven while I whisked together the dressing.

I hadn't planned on making potatoes, but thought I should do my part to make a dent in the half bushel.  I brought home about a dozen, and after doing a quick internet search decided to make vegan, rosemary & garlic twice-baked potatoes.  Almond milk is hardly local, but being sustainable is part of the philosophy behind the 100 Mile Thanksgiving.  I am willing to venture that almonds have a smaller carbon footprint than cows, and by using what I had on hand, I saved a trip to the store.

Thursday evening finally came, and I joined my classmates, faculty, local farmers and friends at a local church for a delicious feast.   Allison, our fearless organizer said a few words and we got in line at the buffet.

I filled up my plate with all sorts of tasty dishes, went back for some dessert and again when the deep fried turkey made its somewhat tardy, but oh-so-yummy appearance.

The meal was a great success, and I am so thankful to have found a graduate program tailored to my interests both in and outside of the classroom.

One year ago: Last year's 100 Mile (which has a much better description of what it's all about!)

Two years ago: Just getting started

Silence is golden

The summer evening soundtrack of crickets and cicadas sounds pretty nice too.

Before school ended, I was looking forward to having more time to cook/experiment/blog this summer.  Now, long evenings seem better spent on the patio (with a glass of wine) after consuming a dinner in which approximately one dish was used.

Things are still being documented, with the intent to share when the time is right.

Happy summering.

Weekend Wrap-up

The weather outside was perfect for doing nothing, and the pretty much the only things that got done inside involved food. 

Saturday's lunch with fresh greens and bread from the City Market.

Saturday's dinner: rigatoni with zucchini, tomato and sausage.

Sunday's breakfast: blueberry pancakes topped with greek yogurt, maple syrup and pecans.

Sunday afternoon's project:  Banana Crumb Muffins.

What a mess.

But worth it.  Breakfast for the week!!

Sunday dinner: Swiss chard from City Market.

Nearly a vegetarian version of last night's dinner, using different veggies and with bread instead of pasta.

And I am nearly ready for it to be Monday again; it must have been a good weekend ;-)

gReeN

Today was quite the Monday.  I didn't sleep particularly well last night, and there were some very noisy birds outside at least an hour before my alarm went off.   Then, just as I was unlocking my bike to go to work, it started raining (yes, better then than en route).  I drove instead, but the gates to parking garage were down and my parking pass expired at the end of May.  

My job today was culling old files, removing all of the metal clips to get them ready for shredding.  Unlike last week, when I got to laugh at people's senior portraits from the 80's and 90's, today I was going through application files with portfolios from very talented people who either did not get in, or decided not to attend UVA's School of Architecture.  And while it took a long time to remove spiral bindings and the like, I spent no where near the time the applicants did putting them all together.

I came home a bit after 5, hungry and a little discouraged after destroying other people's creative work.  I ate a banana with peanut butter and decided to make a recipe I found over the weekend, to use up some leftover ricotta and make myself something a little fancy to counteract my afternoon.

Zucchini and Ricotta Galette from Smitten Kitchen was my starting point.  I found pre-made pie crust on sale at the store for $0.75 yesterday, so I wasn't even going to pretend to make my own crust.  I picked out some nice looking zukes at the Farmer's Market and dusted off the mandolin slicer.

While rooting around in the fridge for the other ingredients, I came across some old green beans on their way out, and thought they matched the color scheme nicely.  I washed them thoroughly and picked out the slimy ones (ugh!), drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with salt and pepper and set aside to roast while the galette was cooking.

Fitting with the theme of the day, the ricotta I specifically found this recipe to use up had already turned a disturbing pink color and acquired a funky smell.  Ooops.  I substituted Greek yogurt, used feta instead of mozzarella and added a splash of lemon juice to the cheese filling.

I unrolled the pie crust, spread out the cheese filling and began to "shingle the zucchini attractively on top" as called for in the recipe.

I folded up the edges and drizzled with the remaining garlic/olive oil mixture.  I skipped the egg wash because I don't like having 1/2 of an egg sitting in the fridge.  I eat plenty of eggs, but can never remember to use up forgotten halves.

Green beans roasted and galette baked while I sweat it out with Shawn T and the Insanity crew, which was much needed.   Endorphins released, I sat down to my fancy green dinner.  The green beans, being both old and left in the oven for too long were pretty desiccated, but the yummy galette pretty much stole the show.

The pre-made crust turned out to be a great shortcut that allowed me to redeem an otherwise blah day.  The crust came in a two pack--when/how will the remaining one transform my life?!?  Stay tuned....

Kuro Goma Cookies

Kuro goma is Japanese for black sesame.  Here in the US the plain white variety is more familiar, made famous in part by the Big Mac jingle...."blah blah, special sauce on a sesame seed bun!"  This wikipedia article will tell you more than you could ever imagine about sesame seeds.  Betcha you had no idea what the actual plant looked like or that Myanmar was the world's largest exporter.  Japan is the largest importer.

Wait, what am I doing learning all this?  It's summer, and all you and I really need to know is that they taste amazing.  Even (or is it especially?) in cookies.

Not so sure?  Make this recipe--NOW!

It starts out with all the usual suspects.

But then these interlopers are added...

...creating a ridiculously addicting dough, which if you don't eat it all straight from the bowl will produce golden and delicious cookies.

The original recipe from Joy the Baker says to chill the dough for 45 minutes and then roll it into balls by hand and coat with additional black sesame seeds.  This was a messy and time consuming process, and I was afraid the cookies were going to have way too much sesame on the outside.

My fears were unfounded.  Maybe there is no such thing as too much sesame.  But the second (yes, second) time I made this recipe skipped the chilling and sprinkled extra seeds on top of the cookies I scooped using a cookie dropper, which resulted in the beauties below.

I took these to a potluck, where they were deemed an ideal combination between a cookie and a bagel.  But apparently everyone was on Atkins, since there were a bunch left at the end of the night.  Too bad for them, and too bad for my waistline as I have no problem consuming several at one time and repeating throughout the day.

Same, but different

I can't remember the last time I actually used a recipe to make dinner.  On Wednesday, I had good intentions of changing that, using this recipe for stuffed poblano peppers from Better Homes & Gardens.

The picture looks straight forward enough:  pepper vessels for a yummy medley of recognizable things I probably have on hand.  Right?

Wrong.  I made so many substitutions that by the end, my dinner was only very loosely based on the recipe. Pepper vessel, check.  Filling, check.  Actual use of listed ingredients?  Close to zero.

It was still nice to try something new and use up some things at the same time.  One of those things was frozen sausage Keizo brought back from his adventure to Polyface Farm back in March.  

I scrambled up the sausage in the fry pan, adding onions, chopped green peppers and some frozen veggies to the mix while a big pot of brown rice cooked up on the other side of the stove.

When the rice was done, I mixed it and a can of drained black beans with the sausage mixture.  I scooped some into pepper halves and put them in the oven for about 15 minutes, adding some shredded cheese to the top during the last few minutes.

Looking lovely, but the peppers still needed something.  Gourmand that I am, I smothered both halves in ketchup!

Perfect.  Who needs recipes?

Cuckoo for Couscous

I have another baking post in the works, but felt like maybe I should throw in some real food too.  Despite what it may look like on this blog, I do make and eat things that don't come from recipes where the first step is creaming the butter and sugar.

This meal was made up using various things I had on hand; I even made up the dressing, with great success if I may say so myself.  I started a pot of Israeli Couscous on the stove, carefully following the package instructions for light and fluffy results.

                           

I gathered the rest of the ingredients I wanted to use;

sliced the tomatoes, chopped up the spinach and crumbled the feta (see white block above) into a large bowl.

I mixed olive oil, apple cider vinegar, some brown sugar, lemon juice and thyme in a measuring cup and set it aside.  When the couscous was finished, I added it to the veggies and tossed everything with my homemade dressing.  The final result:

a delicious dinner and packed well for lunch the next day.  I like the larger size and chew of Israeli couscous compared to the tiny grains of regular couscous.  Heartier, easier to eat and quick to prepare, I am sure I will be using it in salads all summer long!

Biscotti

Finals, which seemed to last most of April and into May, can be all consuming.  Long gone are the days of elementary and middle school where homework was a couple of worksheets that once completed, were just that--complete.  In college, but particularly grad school, nothing is done until it's physically (or electronically) handed in.  There are always edits and improvements that can be made; thinking about them and then actually implementing them take up a lot of hours.  I find it important to step away from all that once in a while, and do something different.  In this case, it was baking for various family members I would be seeing for my dad's birthday/surprise reunion/long weekend in NoVA.

Following this recipe from Joy the Baker, I made biscotti for the first time.  It was a two step, spread out over three day process for me, which worked well given all of the school work on my plate.

First step was to candy the pecans.  Appetizing, no?

Even Keizo thought they looked a bit gross; odd coming from someone who likes and eats a lot of natto.  I think it looks pretty much the same, and the pecans smothered with cinnamon and nutmeg smelled a whole lot better.

For the biscotti part, I experimented with gluten-free flour for my cousin's sake.  It worked out pretty well, considering I didn't read all of the fine print about adding xanthan something or other until the dough was already in the oven.

Simple, straightforward ingredients.

Creaming the butter and sugar, then adding the egg and vanilla.

Folding in the pecans from two days before.  Some of the chunks had to be trimmed down with my handy dandy scissors.

The dough was then shaped into logs on parchment paper, baked, slightly cooled, sliced and "baked" again. For their second round in the oven, I turned off the oven and left the biscotti in there until it cooled down.  Seemed to do the trick, I got nice crunchy biscotti without running the oven for multiple hours.

I got out my best wrapping paper (ha ha) and some dollar ribbon to do up bundles to give away.

A few crumbs were all that was left over at the end.  I am happy to report, the biscotti was well received, and I look forward to experimenting with other (more chocolate-y) varieties!