Happy Birthday to me….

So my birthday was actually Friday, but I’ve been at the OAKE (Organization of American Kodaly Educators’) conference which while conveniently located in Denver this year left me little time to do much else this weekend.  Thankfully it was very inspiring and I got a lot of useful material for my classroom, so spending my birthday at a conference turned out to be a rather relaxing sort of experience.  So this being Spring Break until tomorrow, I made a pan of lasagna on Thursday and popped it in the oven when I got home on Friday.  Friends brought some parts of the meal and we all had a really nice time.  Nathan bought me an Astor Piazzolla album which was super fabbo background music.  For a quick side dish I made this chickpea salad:

Marinated Chickpeas (adapted from Michael Chiarello’s Casual Cooking)

2 cans chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/2 small purple onion, diced

1 wee clove garlic minced or pressed

4 of the small stalks of celery from the most inner parts (they will be more yellow–and chop up the leaves–they are super fragrant and will change your view of celery FOREVER), chopped

1/2 small bunch flat leaf parsley, chopped

pinch red pepper flakes or paprika, or hot smoked paprika, or cayenne if you really like it spicy

6 T extra virgin olive oil

1 T sherry, white wine, or red wine vinegar (sherry is my fave)

juice of half a lemon

salt and pepper to taste

Mix everything together.  Seriously–that’s it.  Super easy.  And tasty.  I take this for lunch when I think about it or I make a bunch and leave them in the fridge and have them for a snack.

I also made this cake.  I took a bite and then decided that it might be nice to have a picture of it (whoops!).  It was really good–you make it like a chiffon cake, but it has a texture that is more like a pound cake.  It doesn’t taste olive oily at all which has not always been the case with olive oil desserts that I’ve had. 

So it was a good birthday.  Good friends, good food, and the best part is I came home and my sweet husband had cleaned EVERYTHING–the bathrooms, took out the trash, put things away, tidied the kitchen, and I had a lovely bunch of roses and this book which I’ve been reading on our outings to the bookstore.

Are your groceries this cute?

Mine certainly weren’t.  So when I bought my sewing machine, I decided I needed to have my own fleet of cloth grocery bags.  I LOVE them.  They’re strong, they hold a LOT of stuff and they add color to what can be a stressful part of my week.  I also use them every day for hauling stuff to school, the gym, the library…wherever.  I will put these and other bags up for sale on Etsy when the setup details are taken care of in a couple of days.  I will keep you posted.  In the mean time, I need to sew!

Etsy

I guess I’ve been lurking for some time on Etsy and knowing that my days as a teacher are not going to continue once Nathan and I have kids, I think it would be nice to make a little extra money for our family on the side.  I haven’t felt worthy of making anything that people would want to possibly buy.  I know I can cook.  But my sewing is very new.  I have a good eye for color, but the truth is that I’m learning.  So what can I offer now as a beginner?

I was at Vitamin Cottage this week doing a little grocery shopping and I pulled out my grocery bags that I had sewn (I hate plastic in general and I swear the plastic bags are getting thinner and thinner–they’re always busting on me–so when I got my machine, this was I think my first real project to sew bags).  The clerk was so impressed with them and thought that they were beautiful.  It was really quite encouraging.

So coming soon–grocery bags and other goods on Etsy by me, Elizabeth.  Someone already has my blog name as their store name, so I think my store will be Elizabeth Made This or just ~E–thoughts anyone?  I’m just finishing my first in a series of grocery bags.  I think I’ll host a giveaway in a week or so to kick off my voyage into Etsy land.

“Miscellaneous” meat education…part 2 (or wow–this post is longer than I expected!)

Here’s what I did with the lamb.

I have an 8 lb bone-in lamb shoulder roast.  It’s a whopper.  I minced and subsequently smashed an entire head of garlic with my meat pounder (they say to use your knife–that scares me) and a can of sardines.  I chopped up some fresh rosemary and snipped some bay leaves into small pieces (my cooking teacher in Italy turned me on to fresh bay–it tastes completely different–you can find them in the produce section at the supermarket–they freeze really well too although they do lose a lot of their green color, but little of the flavor unlike the dried ones) and some parsley, mixed it with olive oil to hold it all together and spread it all over the meat and let it sit for an hour in the roasting pan before I put it in the oven at 325.

After it sat, I sprinkled it liberally with salt and ground pepper (I’d say about a tablespoon of salt and 1 1/2 tsp. of pepper) and ground fennel because I just bought it for something else and it was sitting on my counter smelling good and I thought it might be good in the mix of everything that had already gone on the lamb.  I then chopped up a few carrots, celery, and onion in big pieces (and a couple mushrooms because I had them).  I poured in one 32 oz. container of stock (I only used the box because I ran out of my stock pile–literally.  I love homemade stock, but in a pinch, Swanson is really not as bad as I used to believe it to be) and half a bottle of Sauvingnon Blanc.  I floated my vegetables around in the stock and covered the whole thing up in foil and tossed it in the oven.  At 8 lbs, it needs about 3 1/2 hours to cook.  The butcher said 25-30 minutes per pound.  If it were boneless it would take less time.

In the mean time, I had a lot of these weird looking ugly vegetables from our vegetable share.  They are Jerusalem artichokes aka sunchokes.  They look like ginger, have the texture of carrots and are about the color of a russet potato inside.  I decided to make them in a really simple way since I’ve never had them.  So per Marcella Hazan’s instructions I boiled them until barely tender in salted water, sliced them, and put them in a casserole with 3 T butter and grated parmesan and let them bake at 400 until crusty and golden.  It actually ended being quite tasty–they taste like a cross between a potato and an artichoke even though they’re not related to either.  I think they should be called the mystery vegetable or gingcarpochoke.  What do you think? 

Ah, and after 3 hours of patiently smelling lovely aromas from my oven, I was left with this very very flavorful tender chunk of meat.  It was delicious.

“Miscellaneous” meat education…part 1

Every time I get up the nerve to enter a butcher shop I am blown away by just how many different cuts of meat there actually are.  Tomorrow, my Bible study is having a Passover dinner of sorts (I say of sorts because none of us is Jewish and I think some exceptions to Kosher thoughts might be allowed).  I volunteered to make strudel and to roast some lamb.  So I can roast a chicken and pork loin with no thought, problem or issue.  And theoretically, roasting lamb is not hard either, but trying to decide precisely what cut to roast is really a hard decision.  Who knew you could skin a lamb so many ways?  So here it is, in all it’s gory glory (it’s hard to see in the plastic I know–I’ll post more pictures tomorrow–it will be more presentable then)–my bone-in lamb shoulder–it was labeled a “miscellaneous” cut by the butcher–I think that’s hilarious. 

 

It should be tasty smothered with garlic and anchovies and rosemary and braised (I’m going to combine a leg recipe from Gourmet April 2005 and from this the archives of Serious Eats.  I’ve never made a shoulder before.  I’ve made a lot of lamb meatballs and a 2 years ago for Passover I braised some shanks which were delicious.  We’ll see how carving the shoulder goes–every website I’ve found says really unhelpful things like–”the bone-in variety of lamb shoulder is difficult to cut”–thanks, that’s encouraging.  Julia Child said in her first episode of The French Chef that some dishes know that you’re scared of them (and I think they respond in kind).  So I will take the next 20 hours to work up my courage to cook such a lovely piece of meat without fear. 

Ooh–pretty quilt

I love pretty quilts.  Enter for your chance to win this one at the Old Red Barn Co.

How fun would this be for a children’s room?  I should say too, I love the gnome in her header.  Gnomes are funny.  I named my sewing machine Gnomey (because it’s a Janome) and I made a cover for it with Heather Ross’ Gnome fabric.

Tasty end to the work week

Sometimes after a long day at school the last thing I want to do is cook.  On those days, I’m glad for recipes like this.  It requires very little active time besides chopping a few vegetables (which I find rather soothing).  After that, you literally can just set it and forget it.  And it kind of blows my mind how flavorful such a homey dish can be.  I learned about this after a trip to San Francisco with my friend, Tamara.  We were able to go to a Basque restaurant of the same name as this dish.  I think this meal was the start of my love for the food of Spain (and the food of the Basques).  Anyhow, here’s the recipe:

Piperade (my adaptation from Gerald Hirigoyen’s The Basque Kitchen)

1/2 cup olive oil (I know it’s a lot, but it’s important for the stewing process)

1 onion, chopped (yellow or white)

3 large bell peppers (any color or a mixture–green funny enough are my favorite), seeded and diced

6 cloves of garlic, sliced thinly

6 ripe roma tomatoes or equivalent of beefsteak tomatoes, seeded and diced

a good pinch of sugar

1/2 tsp. of Spanish smoky paprika (we’re really lucky in Denver to have this spice store, and Penzey’s also sells this)

1 large bay leaf

salt and pepper to taste  (I start out with 1/2 tsp. each, it usually takes a little more salt)

 

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add the onions, garlic, and peppers to the oil and cook for 5 minutes.  Add everything else and stir to combine.  Let it simmer over low heat for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally (I wouldn’t be surprised if you could cook this in the crockpot on a really low temperature). 

When it’s close to finishing, I make a few indentations in the top of the stew and crack an egg in each indentation.  Then I cover the pan and cook the eggs for 10 minutes (rotate the pan after 5) until the yolk is just set.  If you like your eggs runny, you could cook them less.  I serve the whole thing with toast and bacon or serrano ham or prosciutto or some other cured meat (today it was sopressata).  You can use leftovers to fill omelets or as a sauce for fish or chicken.  You can even poach another round of eggs on top of the extras.  It’s very forgiving.

Polka Therapy…well some day.

So my aunt Gina (who I made the purse for in January) used to play the accordion.  I always thought that was cool growing up, but I have ALWAYS been a violinist.  I HAD to take class piano in college for my music ed degree and I passed my finals due to the grace of God and TA’s that were very generous.  During my sophomore year, I had a really difficult living situation.  That was the year that I really discovered polka.  You can’t listen to polka and be upset for too long.  Seriously.  Ever.  It’s impossible.  And if you can, you have a black black heart.  So sometime maybe a year ago I decided–hey, I have some reasonable piano skills and I have an extra violin that I’ve needed to sell, so why not sell that and buy an accordion?  Well, Sunday, I finally found one through the beauty of Craigslist.  It’s awesome.  It’s good for me to have a different musical outlet besides my violin.  I think sometimes I get bogged down with perfection when it comes to playing my violin and I forget about the sheer joy of playing.  So someday when I figure out all these crazy buttons, I’ll play polkas myself when I’m feeling blue and I’ll brighten people’s days.

Daylight savings…how do I NOT love thee

Just when the lovely morning light starts to be pleasant, daylight savings smacks me down.  It’s the saddest day of the year for me.  My grogginess was overcome with watching my cousin play some fantastic volleyball and whipping up one of these rice pillows (you can find the tutorial here). 

 

I filled mine with buckwheat hulls and lavender (I’ve always thought those travel pillows that they fill with buckwheat hulls and sell for a fortune would be brainless to make, so I bought some buckwheat hulls when I ordered my powdered chamomile from here for my face wash to give my theory a try).  We don’t have a microwave due to lack of kitchen space, so I threw it on a sheet tray in the oven for 10 minutes or so.  It’s like a big warm hug on your shoulders.  It seemed to lose heat fairly quickly–I wonder if the rice would maintain warmth a little longer….I’ll have to make another and find out.

Ah Necco’s how do I love thee

I’m not a candy fiend.  I like cookies and cakes much more, but Necco’s are special.  My Grandpa always used to have a stash of candy in the closet in his reading room and he would always let us raid it.  He’d always have old-fashioned violet gum and lots of penny candy, but hands down Necco’s were my favorite.  They’re so crunchy and tasty–except for the licorice ones (my brother and I might have pawned those off on our younger cousins–not the nicest thing perhaps).  I mentioned my affinity for said candy one night casually, and last night a friend from my Bible study showed up with two packages for me.  It was the best part of my day.  Martha Stewart once made a children’s birthday cake–it wash a fish covered with Necco’s.  My only thought when I saw that was–that’s a lucky lucky kid.

Nathan and I also stopped at the bookstore, and I picked up these books.  I’m always on the lookout for good children’s books mostly because there’s so many bad ones (stories that aren’t really stories, ones that have bad grammar, and many that are pushing political agendas).  I also started reading very early so there are a lot of picture books that I never read because I was reading chapter books by 1st grade.  I appreciate pictures now–many of them are really beautiful.  Both these authors are great.  Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad books have to be my favorite young reader series.  “Cookies” from Frog and Toad Together is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read.  So go read one of your childhood favorites and eat some Necco’s!