Breakfast
/
mmm avocado toast
bread + avocado + tomato + salt + pepper
knitting decisions
/I realized this past weekend, when chatting with my awesome cousin who is also obsessed with yarn and fiber, that Rhinebeck is coming up, and I need to get my shit together with knitting already!
Last year was the first year I went to the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival and it was SO MUCH FUN. It's where I learned to spin (taught by said cousin!), and it was a great chance to see a ton of small and large fiber and yarn vendors in one place.
I'm not much into the must-make-showpiece-for-Rhinebeck, which many knitters are, but the deadline does give me a boost to get my shit together when it comes to making a decision about a sweater I've been thinking about for ages.
Over a decade ago, I got the perfect sweater from, of all places, Target. Grey (cotton, but don't so much care about that), 3/4 sleeve, slight swing cardigan with a three button closure near the slightly wide scoop neck. It's perfect. It looks great with dresses, with jeans, it's not black so I can wear it with black and not look like Wednesday Adams. It's also from Target, so it's a magical dream unicorn for surviving as long as it has.
And I want to make a replacement.
Last winter, I decided to do just that, and ordered a few options of yarn--some worsted, some aran weight--knowing that I'd use it. And today, I just wound up a bunch of skeins of Madelinetosh Vintage in Graphite. But I'm still paralyzed by decision making. Internet, opinions please?
I don't really feel like making a ton of modifications to a pattern, other than length, because that's just second nature. So I'd like to defy my nature and pick something that's within the same gauge/yarn weight, and doesn't require too much fiddling for what I want.
Internet, tell me what to pick!
Sans Serif, by Elizabeth Doherty from Quince and Co's Top Down: Reimagining Set In Sleeve Design
I just bought the new book from Quince and Co by Elizabeth Doherty, Top Down: Reimagining Set in Sleeve Design, which is appealing to me on so many levels. 1.) no seaming, which I hate. 2.) clever construction and short rows to shape sleeve caps, which I love. And there's a possibly-perfect-cardigan there, Sans Serif (rav link). Frontrunner?
Vine Yoke Cardigan by Ysolda Teague, from Twist Collective Fall '09 issue
I originally thought I'd make the Vine Yoke Cardigan by Ysolda Teague (rav link), from the Twist Collective Fall '09 issue. I've seen it done in person and it is LOVELY and wearable. But I'm thinking I want to go a bit simpler for this?
Tea Leaves by Melissa LaBarre for Madelinetosh
Tea Leaves by Melissa LaBarre (rav link) was another option. I worry that the neckline might skew a bit wide, and while I could fix it, do I really want to deal with raising the neck a bit as well? Would it be fine?
Ramona Cardigan by Elizabeth Smith / The Brown Stitch
Going for the MadTosh Vintage over the Aran weight meant that the highly appealing Ramona cardigan (rav link) might be shuttled by the wayside for now. I do love that ribbing. I think when I go to the heavier weight, this will be the winner.
Charlotte light cardigan, by Carrie Bostick Hoge / Madder
Charlotte light from Madder (rav link) with the A-line shaping is an option, though I'd need to adjust slightly for a different gauge and I'm thinking that neckline is a bit too high for me.
Charlotte cardigan by Carrie Bostick Hoge / Madder
Perhaps the Charlotte cardi also from Madder (rav link), also A-line shaping, would work better? I do love me some garter stitch and am super crazy fast with that.
Cocoa Cardigan, from Winter 15 Interweave Knits Magazine
Going fancier with yoke, there's the Cocoa Cardigan (rav link), which is from the Winter 15 Interweave Knits magazine . Too fancy? I'd drop the body shaping in the sweater to get a bit more A-line.
Uniform, by Carrie Bostick Hoge / Madder
Or do I scrap the idea of a replacement cardigan totally, and go make Uniform (rav link) with a shawl collar and 3/4 sleeves?
UGH INTERNET TELL ME WHAT TO DO
fancy pants pastry!
/Yeah, this is right before I ate it without a fork. Who needs forks?
Actually, I should be more accurate: this looks fancy pants but isn't really. And it's no secret that the way to get "fancy" food things that are really dead easy is to just go to Trader Joes. I mean, that's what their frozen aisle is for, right?
In this case, I'm falling back on a favorite trick of mine for summer cooking: their frozen puff pastry (all butter, yo!). It's the quickest, easiest way to make a fancy veg tart, or fruit tart, or food-item-on-top-of-flaky-butter-pastry-for-me-to-eat. Just defrost, unroll, top with something, and bake.
They just come off the mandoline like this! please to note, the safety dohickeys that keep you from slicing off fingers.
Because we were on the dredges of the zucchini and yellow squash from the last few weeks of CSA boxes, and I only had one sad little overripe tomato left, I decided against making my summer standby with puff pastry, a tomato tart. Instead I went fancier! and busted out the mandoline to slice the zucchini and squash into thin little rounds.
A note on mandolines: I freaking love them. Mine is awesome, though a pain in the ass to store (affiliate link to a very similar one as mine from the same brand. Mine is a decade old, and this new one looks easier to store, actually). But I prefer it to the smaller hand-held ones, because I am less likely to slice off my hand since it has not just a stand, but also a slider guard thing and a holder guard thing. Plus it makes satisfying little piles of veg.
I cut the tomato by hand because it was seriously overripe and so so soft. I used the handy dandy serrated paring knife--which for real is the best $10 I've spent in ages (affiliate link. Mine's yellow). Serrated knives are great for slicing things that are firmer on the outside than they are on the inside--like, say, tomatoes and bread. And this knife is a major workhorse in my kitchen because hi, tomatoes and bread.
the unrolled sheet of pastry. mmm . . . pastry.
I defrosted the frozen puff pastry by leaving it out on the counter for a few hours, though if you plan ahead better than I do, you can also just leave it in the fridge overnight. I really like the Trader Joes brand because not only is it all butter and therefore tastes way better, but the rolls of pastry are individually wrapped. This way, you can open the box (which generally contains two rolls), and not have your unused roll dry out on you when you forget about it in the freezer for two weeks. Ahem. Not that that's happened ever.
Cause I like crust, I cut the pastry into a few smaller pieces to make smaller tarts (using scissors, but a sharp knife works well too), and popped them onto a baking sheet. I've also just unrolled the whole thing onto a baking sheet and used that for a larger tart (works well with tomatoes). Using the back of a paring knife, I gently scored a line about 3/4 inch inside the edge--this not only gives you a visual guide of where to put the toppings, but also helps the edges of the tart puff up a bit more evenly.
cream cheese, doctored up.
For an all tomato tart, I generally just lay on the tomatoes, with no base layer. But I wasn't sure how well the zucchini and squash would do with that, so I added a thin layer of cheese. We were all out of goat cheese, so I grabbed some cream cheese (maybe a tablespoon or two?), doctored it up with salt, pepper, a glug of olive oil and grated a clove of garlic into the mix. Had I thought about it for more than a second, I probably could have added some chives and parmesan, too. Alas, next time.
I spread a thin layer of the cream cheese mix onto the dough with the back of a spoon, and then layered the slices all pretty-like. I started in the lower left, and going clockwise, you can see how the pretty-like devolved as I went along. The cheese helps keep the slices in place. Give each tart a giant sprinkle of kosher salt, a ton of ground black pepper, and a little drizzle of olive oil, and you're nearly ready to go.
see the salt and pepper? Don't forget that.
Half the time I do anything with puff pastry, I forget to do the egg wash, which makes the pastry all shiny and pretty. Sometimes if I remember, I do a halfhearted wash with some milk or half and half, which isn't a bad second option. But this time, THIS TIME, I remembered! I beat the shit out of an egg with a splash of water, and used a wee little silicone pastry brush (from sur la table, love this thing), to brush it on the pastry before baking.
The tarts cooked at 400 degrees for about 30-35 minutes, until dark golden brown. Don't skimp on the cooking time. Light brown is bullshit. Go for the dark golden brown like a boss.
mmm pastry.
Eat warm, or room temp. Both are good. But do it quick: the only caveat for these savory zucchini/tomato/squash tarts is that they don't keep well. They're a eat right now and don't wait until tomorrow kind of thing. The pastry gets soggy and chewy after a stay in the fridge. But that's ok, because honestly, if you can not eat all of them in one sitting, you are a far better person than me. (And also crazy, just saying.)
squarsh
/SQUARSH! (which is what my dad always says, and I totally just realized now that it's him doing a bad Philly accent while saying it. Der.)
We have a lot of it right now, mostly because while the CSA keeps on a coming with summer squash and zucchini we are slacking hard at keeping up. Mostly because no one in my house loves squarsh the way some people love squarsh. I mean, it's fine, but it's certainly not my go to summer veg for anything. Which means that the lovely squashes and zucchinis lie waiting in the crisper drawer until they turn gross and go to live with Jesus in the compost pile.
Though because of this, I've got three solid options for ways to use up a ton of zucchini or summer squash! Two are tried and true by yours truly, and one is a Julia Child recipe and never doubt the Julia, my friends. NEVER.
First?
Zucchini Spread
AKA CRACK. This is the shit, yo. It's so so good, and so so simple. Essentially, slow poach zucchini and/or squash in butter and oil with garlic. Then eat it all on crusty bread or crackers. Or on toasted multigrain bread with tomato and salt and pepper with a plop of fresh ricotta. Crap, now I'm hungry.
- 3-5 zucchini or squash, or a mix thereof, washed and cubed
- 4-6 smashed garlic cloves
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- pepper
Place a medium heavy saucepan on medium heat, and melt the olive oil and butter together. Before it starts to sizzle, throw in the garlic and zucchini/squash cubes. Give a stir, cover and cook on medium low for about 15 minutes or until the zucchini has started to soften.
Reduce the heat to very very low, and continue to cook, stirring pretty often. You want to melt the zucchini into a spread by cooking out most of the liquid without creating mush. If it starts to brown, add a bit of water (or white wine). It should take about an hour to essentially make the zucchini butter.
Can eat it warm, room temp or cold. It'll keep for about a week in the fridge, but also freezes really well. Can also use it as a tart filling, by spreading on defrosted puff pastry, and folding over the edges, then baking.
Next up?
Corn and Zucchini Saute
I grabbed this from a Fine Cooking article years ago, and never looked back. They had some other options for sautes in there, but this was by far the tastiest. I've tweaked it a bit as I've gone along to better suit my tastes. While the recipe calls for raw corn cut off the cob, I've also used leftover grilled or steamed corn (cut off the cob), and in a pinch frozen corn. It scales up easily as well, so I've often doubled the amount of zucchini with no problems.
- 1 tbsp butter
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1-1/2 cups small-diced sweet onion, (or half a large onion). Regular onion is also fine
- 1 tsp. kosher salt; more to taste
- 1-1/4 cups small-diced zucchini (or more--anywhere from 1 medium on up)
- 2 slightly heaping cups fresh corn kernels (from 4 medium ears), or from leftover cooked on the cob
- 2 tsp. minced garlic
- Scant 1/2 tsp. ground cumin
- Scant 1/2 tsp. ground coriander
- 2 to 3 Tbs. chopped fresh mint (optional, I never have it)
- One-quarter lemon, or splash of lemon juice
- Freshly ground black pepper
Melt 1 tbsp butter with the olive oil in a large straight sided saute pan or dutch oven over medium low. Add the onions and 1/2 tsp of the salt and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are soft and translucent--abt 5 minutes. Crank the heat a bit and cook a little longer until the onions are light gold and shrunken.
Add the other 1 tbsp butter and the zucchini. Cook over medium, stirring occasionally until the zucchini is also slightly shrunken and nearly tender (abt 3 minutes). Add the corn, the garlic and the rest of the salt. Cook, stirring frequently, and scraping up the bottom of the pan until corn is tender. Add in the cumin and coriander and cook for another 30 seconds or so.
Off heat, add mint, if using, pepper, and a solid squeeze of lemon juice. Give it another stir and let sit for a few minutes for the moisture of the veg to soften the brown stuff on the bottom of the pan. Scrape it up and stir again, taste for salt/pepper/lemon.
And third, via Food52 is
Julia Child's Zucchini Tian.
- 2 to 2 1/2 pounds zucchini
- 1/2 cup plain, raw, untreated white rice
- 1 cup minced onions
- 3 to 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large cloves garlic, mashed or finely minced
- 2 tablespoons flour
- About 2 1/2 cups warm liquid: zucchini juices plus milk, heated gently in a pan so as not to curdle
- About 2/3 cups grated Parmesan cheese (save 2 tablespoons for later)
- Salt and pepper
- A heavily buttered 6- to 8-cup, flameproof baking and serving dish about 1 1/2 inches deep
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
coarsely grate the zucchini or squash, and place in a colander set over a bowl. For each pound/2 cups of grated squash, toss with 1 tsp of salt. Let the squash drain for 3-4 minutes--do not throw out the veg water!
Just before cooking squeeze a handful dry over the bowl and taste. If it's too salty, give it a quick rinse and taste again. Squeeze gently by handfuls, letting the juice run back into the bowl. Dry on paper towels.
Drop the rice into boiling salted water, and boil exactly 5 minutes. Drain and set aside.
In a large frying pan, cook the onions in oil about 8-10 minutes until tender and translucent. Raise the heat slightly and stir until lightly browned. Stir in the grated and dried zucchini and garlic. Toss until almost tender. Sprinkle in the flour and stir over moderate heat about 2 minutes. Take off heat.
Gradually stir in 2 1/2 c. warm liquid (zucchini juice plus milk). Make sure the flour is well blended and smooth.
Return to med high heat and bring to the simmer, stirring. Remove from the heat and stir in the blanched rice and all but 2 tbsp of the cheese. Taste for seasoning and turn into a buttered baking dish. Scatter the rest of the cheese on top, and drizzle the olive oil over the cheese.
Bake at 425 degrees until it bubbles and the top is nicely browned. The rice should absorb all the liquid.
Jazz hands!
/This past spring I took the biggest little to go see a Broadway show--his first! I thought he might be a bit wary, what with Matilda being very Roald Dahl-y and featuring a main character who, you know, tortures kindergartners. But nope, kiddo LOVED IT. In fact, his new favorite song is School Song, the dark song in which the older kids warn the little ones about the Trunchbull.
And afterwards, he decided he really really really wanted to see more musicals. JBB played him parts of Into the Woods, and a few other shows, but kiddo wanted more.
Which basically means that this program, where kids can go see musicals for free in January can't come at a better time! Maybe Aladdin this time? Or Lion King? Both are impressively staged, so I think he'd dig that...
fruit cake
/Not like, the gross, heavy, holiday fruit cake of December-times. But a delicious, light, buttery tea cake dotted with fruit (plums, usually).
mmm cake.
Once again, this comes from attempting to use up the CSA's bounty--in this case the fruit share of the CSA. The problem here, really, is that the man I married doesn't like warm or cooked fruit. Because . . . um . . . Ugh, forget it. I HAVE NO IDEA HOW ANYONE COULD NOT LIKE FRUIT DESSERTS. Specific kinds of fruit? Sure, not a problem. Hate on cherries all you want or whatever. But ALL FRUIT desserts? Ugh.
AND YET I NOT ONLY MARRIED HIM, BUT STAYED MARRIED TO HIM FOR A FREAKING DECADE.
And of course, the biggest little is ALSO not a fan of the fruit desserts. I am holding out hope for the little one, still.
SO ANYWAY.
We had a ton of plums coming our way from the CSA, as per usual. The biggest little won't eat them straight, and the littlest little only wanted whole plums (which, since these were the tiny sugar plums are like large cherries, with stones. All kinds of choking hazards), and then would only take one bite. Sigh.
I ate a bunch, I gave a ton to our sitter, and then I did what I always do when faced with a cooking dilemma: searched Smitten Kitchen for "plums". Let me tell you, Deb knows her cooked fruit desserts (BECAUSE SHE IS A SANE MEMBER OF SOCIETY, AHEM, FAMILY MEMBERS WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS. Also one day I will post about the apple cake recipe from smitten kitchen, which SHOCKINGLY, JBB will eat). Because what I wound up making was this, purple plum torte.
Originally published in the New York Times by Marion Burros, and then republished by popular demand in the fantastic and highly recommended New York Times Essential Cookbook (affiliate link), edited by the talented Amanda Hesser of Food52 amazingness, it's essentially a very simple butter tea cake (lighter than a pound cake), with halved plums popped on top and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. The plums sink, the cake rises, and you wind up with a delicious fruit-studded cake that is addictive, moist, and keeps REALLY well.
Plus, to better to suit my needs? The amount of fruit is adaptable and the recipe is easily memorized. I am nothing if not lazy. Too lazy to even look up a recipe more than once.
Don't they look so pretty? This isn't all of them.
And then. AND THEN. Apricots showed up. A lot of them. And I was flummoxed. Because while I love dried apricots, they are not my most favorite fruit to eat out of hand. The littlest little out and out rejected it with a big fat "NO," and a stomping off. I'm not a big jam maker, and while we did have a lot of apricots, we didn't quite have enough to warrant that sort of project. And so they sat for a few days, slowing growing riper and riper, edging toward overripe. And if no one would eat them, they'd be wasted.
And so, with little left to lose, I figured I'd mess with perfection, and tweak the plum cake recipe. Cause really, cake plus stone fruit, right? I mean, I could imagine the cake with berries or peaches super easily. Why not apricots?
But it called for a few more tweaks. First, I was almost out of sugar, having made the cake a few times. I did, however, have some leftover maple sugar that just wasn't getting used up. Maple sugar to me often feels a bit sweeter than the equivalent amount of granulated sugar, so I eased off of the amount slightly.
Lazy. And handy!
Second, my previous plum cake was still cooling, and occupying my springform pan, so another pan needed to be found. 9" cake pan, lined with foil. Did I mention the cake freezes beautifully after baking, when wrapped in tin foil and popped into a ziploc? I was going to wrap the sucker up in the foil ANYWAY, so why not line the pan with it first, to make it easier to yank that sucker out of a regular cake pan and have the wrapping all ready to go right there?
(Yes, I did make two of these cakes one right after the other. I had to finish up the rest of the plums, the mixer was out, and the butter was already softened and room temp and I'm not about let THAT go to waste you monsters. Plus the littlest little yelled at me because there was no cake and damnit, he wanted CAKE. And trains. And shiny things. And OOOH! A car! A car! I digress...)
The process for the cake is quite simple, and though I used a kitchenaid, you don't need to use a mixer for it if you don't have one. Just be sure your butter is room temp, to make things easier on your mixin' arm while creaming the sugar and butter.
First, the butter and sugar(s) are creamed together until light and fluffy. Because the maple sugar is a bit grainer and slower to dissolve than regular granulated sugar, I followed a tip I picked up from the Momofuku Milk Bar cookbook, and let the mixer go for a bit longer than normal to really allow the sugar to fully incorporate and dissolve into the butter.
action shot!
While the mixer is creaming things, measure out your dry ingredients--flour, baking powder and a giant pinch of salt. I always like to measure my flour with a kitchen scale because a) it's more accurate, b) it's a ton easier to just scoop into a container that's easy to pour from until you hit a number on the scale, c) if you are measuring more than one thing, all you need to do is tare/zero out the scale, and continue measuring ALL IN THE SAME BOWL. Once again, it all comes down to laziness. I weighed my dry ingredients into a glass measuring cup (which DO NOT measure dry ingredients with a measuring cup for liquids, you will be WAY off the amounts. Unless you're using a scale), gave it a stir with a fork instead of sifting or whisking.
Add your eggs to the butter and sugar, mix until incorporated, dump in the dry ingredients and stir just til mixed. Dump batter into the pan, and arrange the fruit on top. Sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar--I used vanilla sugar cause why not?-- and a bit of lemon juice and into the oven it goes for 45 minutes or so. Less than 15 minutes prep from the start of cutting the fruit. My kind of cake.
so pretty! pre-sprinkling with cinnamon sugar.
The actual recipe with amounts and the like is here:
Maple Apricot Tea Cake
a variation on the famous plum cake. Adapted from Smitten Kitchen, The New York Times Essential Cookbook, and others.
- 1 cup (125 g.) all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 BIG pinch salt
- 1/2 cup (8 tablespoons, or 1 stick) butter, softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 1-2 teaspoons for sprinkling
- 1/4 cup maple sugar (brown sugar would also be great here--if using brown or white sugar, increase amount to 1/2 cup)
- 2 eggs
- 8-12 small apricots, halved and pitted. Or a little less than 1 pound fruit, halved.
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1 tsp lemon juice
preheat oven to 350 degrees. Fetch a 9" springform pan, or if desired line a 9" pan (springform, per recipe, or regular cake pan) with foil. If using a regular cake pan, LINE THE PAN or you won't be able to get the cake out nicely. I sprayed with baking spray, just in case, but it's not necessary.
In a small bowl (or large measuring cup--see above) stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside. In a mixer, cream the softened butter and granulated and maple sugars until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Lower the speed, and add in the eggs, mixing to incorporate.
Stir in the dry ingredients, just until incorporated. Give the batter a stir by hand, and scrape into prepared pan, smoothing the top. Set the halved fruit, skin side up, on top of the batter. Sprinkle the fruit with the cinnamon, then the reserved 1-2 tsp of sugar (if your fruit is tart or not fully ripe, use the larger amount), and then sprinkle the lemon juice on top.
Bake for 40-50 minutes, until golden and a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Aim for batter, not fruit when testing. Let cool completely in the pan, then remove.
Better the second day, keeps well covered at room temp. To freeze, wrap with foil and place in a gallon ziploc bag.
distraction
/I ran again! Nearly 3 miles, even. And I did not want to die (much) or throw up (at all)! Shocking! And Progress.
I also realized one of the key things for me in keeping this thing going is music. I need something to distract me from the fact that I am running and it's hot and now I'm sweaty and my ponytail is swinging against the back of my sweaty neck and my legs are getting tired and there's a weird itch on my face because I'm sweating and UGH I HATE THIS.
It's not just distraction, but it's also keeping a beat going a bit. I realized, almost by a fluke, that some of the best songs I have on my playlist are random indies that have a relatively driving beat. Songs like Float On (Modest Mouse), Mr. Tough (Yo La Tengo) and Hey Julie (Fountains of Wayne). Not really your typical running songs, but there's something about the relatively slow but driving beat that's emphazised by either the singing or the music (no big breaks or pauses), and the fact that I can sing along with them.
Trying to figure out more of these kinds so I don't OD on one playlist alone, or get sick of the songs, led me to jog.fm. Searchable by bpm and pace! And big enough that it actually may include some of the weird shit I like! Thank you internets!
Meanwhile, anyone got any suggestions for songs to add?
