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Chalk hair, Spring, lunch

Biscuit saw this technique on tv and wow does it work like a charm. Wet sidewalk chalk=awesome temporary hair color.

 

This took about 2 seconds, lasted all day and washed out with no trouble at bathtime. Just get the chalk wet and rub it over damp hair. Done.

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Today the yard was filled, FILLED with robins. It was almost weird they were so loud and in every tree. I went out 5 minutes later to take a photo and they were all gone. I guess Spring must be here. Another hint: the neighbor just got two baby bunnies and brought them over in a basket.

awwwww....

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I made this salad for lunch.It was pretty tasty. I used arugula rather than whatever green she suggested. I'd make it again.

Making myself a fancy lunch felt like just about all I accomplished today. Oscar wouldn't nap so there went the day. Oh well, he's awfully cute and fun and together we did some gardening.

Food, lately

I did make the tagine. Used this recipe.  Did not use an actual tagine. The preserved lemons were yummy but the tagine was only okay. The chicken was very tender and Biscuit liked it but I found it a little bit blah. Oh well, we're having it again, it only used one lemon.

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Feeling frugal, bought a whole chicken for the tagine and chopped it into parts. I used the backbone and other bits to make a batch of chicken stock which I froze. I usually freeze in mason jars without incident but I guess I usually refridgerate before freezing. Needless to say two out of three jars broke. Luckily they broke after it was mostly frozen so I didn't have a huge mess and I actually still used the broth for risotto.

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Twice now I've made the Pioneer Woman's "Best Lasagna Ever" for company. Last time I found it a little salty but as lasagna goes it's pretty easy and yummy and does use ingredients you probably have on hand. I used only 1 lb of ground beef and 1 lb of sausage (one time, Jimmy Dean, one time Italian sausage in casing--I think the Jimmy Dean was better).

 

As mentioned previously Biscuit and I made Smitten Kitchen's Whole Lemon Tart. I loved it. I think it was even better as leftovers the next day. Mr. H does not like lemon desserts so I got to eat it all. I didn't have a tart pan so made it in an 8 inch cake pan and it worked just fine (but baked an extra 10 minutes).

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For Valentine's Day I bought Mr. H a dry aged, bone in rib eye steak at the Meat Lab. It was rather expensive but, apparently, worth every bite. Sorry, vegetarian readers :)

 

Kid in the kitchen

Tonight Biscuit made the salad dressing. I'm listening to an audiobook* in which the author is teaching a group of women how to cook. I find myself annoyed and inspired by the book in about equal parts. But I will say it's really made me think more about making simple items (like dressings) from scratch.

So tonight I got home and laid out 3 vinegars and a lemon, a bottle of olive oil and the salt for Biscuit. I told her the author's 3:1 "recipe" for dressing (3 parts oil and 1 part acid) and let her choose her acid (red wine vinegar) and her add ins (chopped green onion and some garlic dijon mustard along with S&P). She measured, chopped, poured then put the lid on the jam jar and shook.

She tasted on a leaf and it wasn't quite right. I asked what she thought it needed and the thought more vinegar. Gosh darn it if she wasn't right--another splash and it was much improved and tasty.

That was cool.

The photos are of the smaller of the two artichoke obsessed boys in the house.

I'm thinking of trying homemade mayonnaise next--Mr. H and Biscuit like to dip their leaves. After weeks of dutifully scraping each leaf and then enjoying the heart Oscar said ta' heck with it and started refusing the leaves and begging hearts off everyone. Or just trying to get to them directly by starting on the stem side.

Oh look, the chef popped in to be part of a photo. Ha.

Smitten

Want to know what 8 million page views per month looks like in the form of a San Francisco based gathering? This: (where "this" is but a very small portion of a very long line plus a very large crowd in a very small bookstore).

Yes, Biscuit, my sister and I attended Deb (Smitten Kitchen's) book signing yesterday. It was a zoo. But Deb was actually as warm and kind as she seems on her blog. But a little too warm and kind if you were to ask person number 300 in line as she personally greeted each guest and made small talk while signing. I wonder if she made it to Santa Cruz on time.

Here she is signing someone else's book. Here's what she wrote in my book (I was about 30 people back--we arrived 1 hour early--and she signed 40 minutes into a 60 minute event. It wasn't really working out quite right)

So far Biscuit has cooked exactly zero recipes and I have made 3. The caramels mentioned yesterday (yum!) and the Vinegar and Cucumber Slaw (p 54) and the Emmentaler on Rye with Sweet and Sour Onions which should really be called the French Onion Soup Sandwich because that's exactly what it in--French Onion Soup in sandwich form. Yum!

I doubled the onion recipe and put the sandwiches on wheat rather than rye and Biscuit asked if we could have it every night for dinner. Oscar tried one bite and proceeded to wipe of his tongue with his hand. One out of two ain't bad. Mr. H also loved the sandwiches (and the slaw, actually). So, two recipes in, the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook is a hit!

In other food news we ate delicious Vegetarian Super Burritos at a restaurant my sister tells me is called El Faralito--I didn't pay attention--but the burritos were yummy!

Kitchen frenzy

Today I finally got productive on preparations for next weekend's "Crafty Slumberland" (a craft sleepover I'm hosting with a friend--we have 7 guests! and 4 crafts! and 5 food crafts! in 24 hours!).

I wanted to double check recipes and patterns so I made these apple cider caramels (they're good!), some truffles, some jalapeno jam and then several quarts of applesauce because I have a lot of apples and the hot water bath was going.

I also made an apron (the other day) and modeled it while cooking soup for dinner.

Biscuit took these pictures for me. I think they're incredibly unflattering but that might not be Biscuit's fault ;)

Apron and tea towel are two of the sewing projects at Crafty Slumberland. We'll be printing on the fabric but for these samples I dip dyed them. The results are imperfect at best but I like it!

Yummy!

Are you in a late summer cooking rut? May I offer some recommendations based on my cooking for the past week? This is basically a list of links to Smitten Kitchen. What can I say? She's good!

Corn Tomato Pie--after a summer obsession with this last year I managed to forget about it till last week. It sounds gross, I know, but it is so. good.

Brownies--nuf said

Bacon Corn Hash--This doesn't sound great either but was delicious. I never harvested the potato crop (I burned out on the garden about the time the potatos died back. In July?) Anyway, Oscar and I weeded and harvested the other day and found a few potatoes the bugs had missed. So hash was made.

The hash was our dinner entree so I wanted to top it with a fried egg as suggested by Deb. But we were out of eggs. So I sent Biscuit out to the chicken coop with fingers crossed.

"No eggs," she told me upon returning empty handed.

"Bummer!" I said.

The hash was delish without fried eggs but when I mentioned the concept to Mr. H he was bummed about the lack of eggs. At some point, many hours later Biscuit piped up, "well, actually there were three eggs. But I hid them."

"Hid them?" I asked. "Where?"

"Well, I didn't hide them, I threw them at the fence. I really didn't want to eat fried eggs on my dinner."

My gosh I'm still laughing days later. She threw them. At the fence. To avoid eating them. I'm sure the chickens saw that and hate her a little bit right now.

Back to the recipes.

Potato salad with green beans and arugula--This fits the theme--used what I happened to have in the fridge, sounds pretty gross, tasted amazing.

Zucchini saute--not exactly earth shattering but if you have a lot of zucchini it's quick, easy and tasty as a side dish.

That's all I got.

Mini s'mores

Cutest thing ever, am I right?

Tomorrow these are going to decorate the s'mores cake for the camping party. I'm picturing s'mores on sticks sticking out of the cake.

I just sliced a regular size marshmallow into four thin slices, sandwiched a slice between two 1/8 squares of a graham cracker and dipped in melted chocolate (or smeared graham cracker with melted chocolate before sandwiching). The latter looks better, the former tastes better.

Yum! The test batch is already eaten. Off to bake cake and make more mini s'mores!

Jam job

My sister's friend paid me to make 30 tiny jars of strawberry jam and package them up cute for engagement party favors. As I suspected making the jam was tons of fun. Packaging was sort of annoying.

There must be a better way but the best I came up with was to use a rubberband to temporarily hold the fabric "hats" on the jar while tying with string. Worked well enough.

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I'm pretty sure all internet posts today are supposed to be about Mother's Day. So here's a cute photo of my mom, the girl who made me a mom, and my sister getting ready to go to a bike race.

Nothing says Mother's Day like the Tour of California bike race. Am I right?

 

 

Lunchbox napkin (and tapioca)

I just finished my second bowl of tapioca pudding in a row. I was going to type this while eating tapioca pudding but Firefox froze. Then iPhoto. That gave me time to finish my pudding and decide on a topic for this post. Right after I finish discussing pudding. I've been making rice pudding for a while now thinking it is as good as tapioca but I was wrong. Rice pudding is a sad, bland excuse for warm, rich, vanilla-y tapioca. I use the recipe on the side of the Minute Tapioca box (it's a red box). Exactly as written but it's even better if it sits for more than 5 minutes in the beginning. Mr. H hates tapioca. Weird, huh?

In related news, I had the tapioca out in the first place to make a strawberry rhubarb pie in celebration of pi (pie) day which is tomorrow (3.14) but we celebrated on Sunday. The pie looked impressive but was not as good as the tapioca pudding.

And 156 words later, the topic of the post--napkins.

This was a totally fun 10 minute project.

I didn't put anything in the paint (like you would to paint a wood chalkboard). The texture of the napkins (both cotton and linen blend) was sufficient for the chalk to write. I used freezer paper for the stencils.

I tried to rub off/erase the chalk and it just smudged (see above) but that was fine with me since cloth napkins get washed a lot and the chalk came right off in the wash while the paint held up just fine.

Biscuit is a big fan of notes in her lunchbox so here's one more way I can do that for her. Fun!

And now I'm considering bowl #3 of tapioca......

 

Roll ups for the lunch box

I wasn't sure which Instagram filter was best for sliced ham. I chose Hefe. Still not sure.

Anyway, Biscuit asked for "roll ups" for her lunch this week. Here's the recipe I came up with that has satisfied all three roll up eaters in the family:

• Lavosh bread (from Trader Joe's)
• Sliced ham (from Trader Joe's)
• Cream Cheese Spread

Cream Cheese Spread recipe (adapted from the UC Davis Coffee House Cookbook)

The measurements are (obviously) approximate. Use what you've got!

• 1 green onion, finely chopped (2-3T)
• 2 small carrots, grated (1/3-1/2 cup)
• 1-2T parsley, finely minced
• part of a green pepper, finely chopped (1/4-1/3 cup)
• pinch of salt
• few grinds of pepper

Stir into 8 oz of whipped cream cheese.

Cover Lavosh with thin layer of spread. Lay a single line of ham slices across it and roll and slice. (Each lavosh made 8 little roll up slices).

Yum.