page 213

 

Hello, haven't written here in some time. Hope you all had a nice Christmas. As for me I've been at home for the past few weeks on winter holiday. I haven't been cooking quite so much, but my family has been baking a lot - scones, quick bread, biscotti... I'll post pictures of the spoils sometime this week.

My dad gave me Jamie Oliver's Meals in Minutes book for Christmas, and it's filled with all sorts of delicious treats. I did a variation on page 213 for dinner tonight - super fast beef hash, lovely butter beans and bacon, and Jamie's goddess salad with a dressing made with sour cream, avocado, and lemon.

 

The butter bean dish was my favorite - very creamy and hearty and lots of yummy cooked tomatoes. Really good with crusty bread, an alternative beans on toast, if you will. This is the kind of food I imagine hobbits to eat ("oh that's nice... ash on my toe-mah-toes!").

The dressing for the salad (see below) was tangy and creamy and fruity and kind of nutty all at once. It was a delicious mix of avocado, sour cream, the juice of a lemon, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

Yum yum yum. A feast!

 

the 4 c's

Smashed sweet potatoes and chickpeas with the 4 C's (curry, coriander, cumin, and cinnamon) on sourdough.

Going home tomorrow!

roasted applesauce

Jo and I made a chunky roasted applesauce for a giant potluck dinner Friday night, and it only required 5 ingredients: half a peck of apples (or 13 small apples - a mix of Empire and Honeycrisp... it's nice living in upstate New York), cinnamon (we used ground cinnamon because uhhh who do you think we are?! - but cinnamon sticks would be a treat), nutmeg (same deal), salt, and water (assuming water even counts as an ingredient?).

We used a recipe from Improv Kitchen as reference (by the way, I am crazy about the whole premise behind this blog: "recipes made to be broken" - my kinda girl).

I don't even like applesauce, but I thought this was sooo delicious. It had a nice texture, soft and mushy (talk about unappetizing words...) without feeling like baby food. The flavor was really deep and intense - we didn't add any sugar, so all the sweetness came directly from the roasted apples themselves - and the dish itself was really pretty too! Kind of a blushing pink color thanks to the skin. Ah, lovely... and something to make the apartment smell divine.

Roasted Applesauce
Adapted from Improv Kitchen

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Chop apples into bite size pieces, removing seeds and stems and other sketchy bits. Toss with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and pour in a little bit of water to help break down the apples some more. Bake for another 30 minutes - or until soft and smashable. Remove from oven and mash everything up with a fork. (Careful, don't burn yourself.) Serve warm or at room temperature. Accept compliments with grace and a curtsy.

Also, speaking of apples... a few weeks ago I read John Seabrook's article about apples in The New Yorker. You'll have to pay for access to read it online, but if you manage to find the Nov. 21 issue, I strongly recommend purchasing it because it's all about food and there are some really fascinating reads. If you're interested in learning more about the different types of apples, this blog, Adam's Apples, is great fun as well.

diy gift wrap

Just one final exam stands between me and the last month long Christmas holiday I'll ever have. Naturally, I've been procraftinating and watching A Charlie Brown Christmas and drinking coffee to avoid studying.

It's working pretty well.

On Tuesday, I made wrapping paper and gift tags with some of the fly femmes at the Cornell Women's Resource Center. I'm convinced that this is the best DIY project I would never have done on my own.

With just a handful of supplies, such as...

• a big roll of butcher paper (okay, granted, I have no idea where one purchases butcher paper unless you're a teacher but I suppose you could always improvise with brown grocery bags),
• stamps (or make your own with potatoes and vegetables - the possibilities are endless),
• ink pads (I'm really in love with the metallic gold ink I used... it didn't go on very smooth but you know, as Jamie Oliver always says, I like it a bit more rustic anyway),
• glitter glue, stickers, maybe even some scrapbooking paper if you're feeling fancy

...you too can say goodbye to commercial gift wrap! Perfect for the wrapping paper savers in your life.

 

miscellaneous meals

 
 

1. Cashews, pepitas, and smashed avocado on couscous.

2. Soba noodle soup with purple baby bok choy (which anticlimactically turned green upon being cooked) and bacon.

3. Thanksgiving buttermilk biscuits - not as good as the drop biscuits I normally make but definitely healthier. We had roast duck instead of turkey, so the little guy in the center was our stand-in.

4. Most satisfying meal ever: creamy avocado sprinkled with salt and pepper, a bit of crusty sourdough bread lightly drizzled with extra virgin olive oil, and mozzarella cheese.

Did you know that... the human body is roughly 70% water, 20% avocado, 10% cheese?