We're back on!

So, we rescheduled for this Saturday. I spent the last week re-doing a lot of stuff that I had already done (except for the puff pastry).  The pasta turned out much better this time -and I have over a dozen so if a few of them flop, I have extra! I almost had a fleeting thought, that given the pasta roller, and now that I've done it a few times, recently, that it wasn't so bad.  I almost had that fleeting thought.  If I wasn't already so scarred the thought might have actually formed in my mind.  Anyway, I soaked anchovies, re-made the bread that I ended up giving to my neighbor, and did a few other random things, but this is what was most interesting from today.  This.  Quail Eggs.  

Aren't they pretty?  I almost couldn't even stand to do anything to them other than takes lots of pictures because I was just struck by how beautiful they were.  But then I remembered that I've been wanting to make this appetizer almost every year that I've done this and I've just never been able to find - or known where to look for -quail eggs to do it with.  I wanted to make it so bad, that I experimented with chicken eggs one year just to see if it would work.  And it didn't. So, needless to say, I was thrilled to find a wonderful woman locally that would supply me with some quail eggs.  AND she had sheep, AND cows, AND puppies, and that's just another story, just know that it was wonderful. Back to my eggs. 

I am actually using the quail eggs in 2 dishes - an appetizer and the cheese course.  Today was the appetizer. I had to saw the tops of the eggs off, so that I could dump them all at one time into my pot of simmering water to poach them.  There was a little bit of a learning curve on this one, but again, I only need 6 of these. This particular lovely woman that I mentioned before was so generous with her eggs, that I poached 2 dozen of them, just in case.  Never hurts to have a little extra.  I have only poached eggs once before in my life, and that was the time that I tried to do this with chicken eggs, and it was less than successful.  I can't even remember if I ate the poached chicken egg it just didn't look appetizing.  These are supposed to look just like an egg after they are poached - which required minimal trimming of a "tail" if done properly.  If not done properly, you have one that sort of resembles Halley's comet.

I have enough of the properly poached eggs for everyone to have 3, which means 3 bites, because that's how big they are.  We ate the comet looking ones today.  They were tasty.

Postponed

Well, most of the free world that cares knows we had an ice storm followed by mass power outages which sort of forced cancellation of our dinner party.  I was in denial on Wednesday, and so even though we didn't have power, I kept making preparations, like this one:

That's anchovies soaking in milk that I was supposed to put in a tapenade. I was certain the power would come back on and I would be able to use my food processor.  But, it stayed in this state, until I tossed it due to staying in the refridge without electricity for 3 days.

Some of us found other ways to entertain ourselves during the power outage.  Still not sure who won this arm-wrestling match pictured below. 

I had the use of my cooktop, so I made cream of wheat, or creme de farine if you're being fancy.  It was for the dessert.

This is the apple ice cream that I made while the temperature in our house was dropping to seeming sub zero temperatures.

And I made some bread that I got to rise by sticking it next to my gas burner that I had on for about 36 straight hours trying to heat my house.

In the end, we postponed the dinner.  My neighbor ate the bread, because she had an oven in the RV they were sleeping in.

I froze the ice cream in my mother-in-law's ice cream maker in Atlanta, where we decided to take a spontaneous trip.

Once we got to her house, I poached apples that were to have been in the dessert. (Never mind that one with a weird looking middle, I missed the first time with the apple corer)

The puff pastry held up just fine in the cooler and made beautiful cinnamon twists.

And we had fancy Valentine's day dessert in Atlanta.

Stay tuned.  We intend to reschedule.  And Nichole, I need to borrow your pasta roller again, unfortunately. 

Reflections on making pasta

This title is somewhat misleading.  There is really nothing to reflect on. I deplore it.

I am forever indebted to my friend Nichole who lent me her pasta roller. 

 Considering that I made my pasta dough slightly too thick, I would have been in tears by the end of today if it weren't for that device.  It was almost life changing enough for me to just go out and buy one, but the rest of the pasta making experience was such that I never intend to do it again.  Did I mention I only need 6 ravioli?  Since I made my dough too thick, I was able to get 8 out of my pasta recipe, I had enough dough for more (it was supposed to make 12), but it kept tearing and not sealing properly.  Two extra is simply not enough wiggle room for me.  I always like to have twice as many extra just in case some of them still don't seal properly and bust open when I'm cooking them.  I could have made more dough; but kneading pasta dough can be very time consuming and my hands are always sore after the fact, so I decided to cheat.  Please don't ever tell Thomas Keller if you meet him.  I had half a package of wonton wrappers in my freezer that have been there for a while.  So I decided to use those to make my extras for my "wiggle room."  Can you tell a difference?

Clearly, that was rhetorical.  I don't care if mine explodes if I can just get 5 of those beautiful yellow ones (don't you just love the color of an egg yolk when you use it the day that it was layed?) to work, then we'll be good.  If not, then I will have to pan fry the wonton ones.  Since I had plenty of artichokes, I decided to use up all my wonton wrappers and just have this for dinner tonight.  When I tried to boil them, this happened.  

I am so glad that I tried this little experiment tonight and did NOT make this discovery next Friday.  So I pan fried one (so I now only have 6 of the wonton variety left), and it turned out like this.  Not the look I was going for, but obviously a better option than the above catastrophe, and it tasted wonderful.  

Regardless of how I feel about the pasta, this is now checked off of my list, and I can go on with my life.  I also made this fine little reduction today.  This will be a vinaigrette that will go with the artichoke pasta.  Previously, it was 7 cups of liquid.  When finished reducing, it was 1/3 cup.  

That is all for today.  Hopefully tomorrow, my quail eggs will be ready to pick up!  

Getting Started

For some reason, I have 2 complete mental blocks in the French Laundry cookbook.  They are 1) making puff pastry, and 2) making pasta.  The only thing I can think of, is that these were two of my first attempts at really making something from scratch, back before I really knew how to cook, and they were so arduous at the time that this has been forever etched into my memory.   The last couple of times I've made either of them, once finished, I have this thought of "Oh, that wasn't so hard, why did I have such angst about starting that?"  But then when it comes time to make it again, I put it off and put it off and just put it OFF until I either have to make it or remove it from the menu.  So this year, I tried to be a little more proactive and make both of these very freezable dishes the week before so that I could be less stressed out about the entire event.  I started with puff pastry, because that is #1 in the "I wish I could just buy this from the store" column. 

Ever wonder why puff pastry tastes so good?  You see that glob of yellow stuff in the middle of the dough?  That's a pound of butter.  Not to mention the other 8 tablespoons in the dough itself.    

Here's my conclusion.  Puff pastry is NOT hard.  Why can't this piece of information get re-etched over the old one?  The only time consuming part is waiting for the butter to get hard in fridge so you can do the double-turns. 

 Last time I checked, putting something in the fridge wasn't that complicated.  

 On to the pasta.  This year, I am making an artichoke filled raviola.  I learned on our recent trip to Italy that raviola is singular, ravioli is plural.  So I guess technically I am making ravioli, 6 of them.  Each person will be blessed with a single raviola.  So, I got started with the artichokes.  I love artichokes.  It just happened to be artichoke season a few weeks ago and we ate them at least once a day and prepared in a different way every time.  Never in pasta though.  It seemed fitting.  Aren't they pretty?  

And that's where we stand.  No more pictures, no pasta.  The artichokes can last a whole week in my fridge before I actually have to do something with them. This isn't helping my cause.  I can't get over this hurdle.  Instead of making pasta dough yesterday, I shoveled up my compost pile that was covering about 1/4 of my back yard, seemingly, because my chickens had gotten into it.  So I got the post hole digger out, a random 4X4 scrap, and some chicken wire and shoveled for over an hour cleaning up and containing a compost pile all to AVOID MAKING PASTA. I keep thinking I need to just go DO it.   Laundry has never looked so appealing.  

Relaxing in the Kitchen

One of my current resolutions (I don't make New Year's resolutions because I'm always finding plenty of faults with myself that cannot wait until the calendar rolls around for me to start working on them), is to relax a little.  Sometimes it seems with school and daily tasks and appointments and sports and lessons that I have no energy left to just relax with the kids.  I find myself in a perpetual hurry.  There are about a thousand ways that we're trying to deal with this, but one that pops into my mind a lot is to take a short cut cooking.  I haven't given in to this temptation yet because 1) I take, probably too seriously, the quality of the food that we eat, and 2) short cuts never, ever, ever, ever, taste as good.  And if I'm going to take the trouble to cook it, I want it to taste good.

So, I've decided to let the kids help a little bit more than I normally do.  They almost always ask, but 4 or 5 chairs and stools lined up take up all of my counter space, so I'm not always jumping at this proposal.  But, I've been trying to find a few recipes that I can use a little more help with, and the following recipe is a perfect intro to helping in the kitchen for just about any age, and it can even be turned into a math lesson if you feel inclined.  One of the perks of this recipe is that i'm pretty sure I made it wrong, and it still tasted great.  It's kind of hard to mess up.  Here is the recipe (it comes from Williams-Sonoma's Italian cookbook),  and it's not really as fancy as it sounds:

Gnocci with Quattro Formaggi

Gnocci:

1 3/4 lb russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (plus extra for dusting)

2 large eggs


Quattro Formaggi Sauce:

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup shredded fontina cheese

1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese

1/4 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese

1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp fresh thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1/4 lb pancetta [my addition]

Ok.  So, what you are supposed to do for the gnocci is boil the potatoes , then put them through a ricer or food mill, mix it with the flour and eggs, and then knead it for a few minutes until it's soft.  Divide into 4 pieces, roll each into a 1/2 in rope and cut them into 1 inch lengths.  Use the tines of a fork to make little indentations on each piece and then set aside until you're ready to cook.

What I did, was first of all:  I didn't measure my potatoes.  I sort of guessed.  And then I didn't rice them or put them through a food mill, I just stuck them in my mixer with the paddle, and then switched to the dough hook for kneading.  Probably because I didn't measure, I needed more flour (which I use whole wheat), and have no idea how much I added.  Just until it looked like dough.  Then, I had the kids roll it all out and cut it and even though Ansley was able to do the imprints with the tines on the fork, no one else did, and what we ended up with was not pretty AT ALL.  But we weren't so concerned with presentation, so who cares. This was very much like playing with play dough, except useful, and you could do everything from counting, to addition, to fractions with your little ropes while you cut them out.  Since this is the most labor-intensive part of the recipe, I was pretty excited about not having to do hardly any of it.   The other thing I had the kids do for this recipe, was grate all the cheese.  Another somewhat arduous task that i'm not at all upset about handing over.

For the sauce, you combine the cream, fontina, and gorgonzola (which i used another milder blue because I'm not really a fan as much as I try to be), and heat gently until the cheeses melt, then add the other two cheeses until they melt, then the thyme, salt and pepper (which I didn't use ANY salt).  And keep warm.

I again, just sort of eye-balled my cheese here, so I had to add more cream to get it creamy.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the gnocci for about 3 or 4 minutes (until it floats) and then drain, and mix in the cheese sauce. And you're done.

If you add the pancetta like I did, then you will need to cook it first in the oven (on a cookie sheet at about 400 for about 5 or 8 minutes, just until it's crispy), and then sprinkle it in when you stir the cheese and gnocci together.

Not only did the kids make half of this, they all ate it, which in my house is just short of a miracle.

Dinner tonight, or last night rather.

Even though I only had one person defriend me on facebook after that last post (that I know of anyway), I thought I'd keep this one light.

We have started eating leftovers once a week, and usually it's Tuesday. But we were running a little low on leftovers because we had eaten most of them for lunch; so when a friend of mine asked what we were having for dinner, I was pondering this very thing, and had decided I would probably make a quiche.  What I did not account for was that my crust was frozen solid and I hadn't thawed it out.  And given that we are in the midst of a polar vortex and my house was not much warmer than my freezer, it wasn't thawing on the counter.  So we had a kitchen sink salad, that ended up being such a hit I had to share it.  Actually, the main thing I was so excited about was the dressing, because it was fabulous.  I am a little obsessed with the avocado-lime dressing at Chick-fil-A, and a different friend had pinned this avocado dressing recipe, so I stole it, and then decided to post my little twist here because if you actually click on the picture in pinterest, a very obscene website pulls up, so I don't want any of you to do this and if I remember I'm going to go delete the pin so I need a record of this concoction somewhere.

The ingredients in our salad aside from the dressing were:  spinach, a few slices of deli ham sliced up, shredded monterey jack cheese, boiled eggs, tomatoes, carrots, sliced beef and mushrooms (the only leftovers we had left), the crumbs from an almost empty bag of tortilla chips, bacon, and I think that's it. There are so many other things that would have been awesome if we had had them, like corn, black beans, cucumbers, really a dozen or so things, but like I said, provisions were momentarily low and I didn't have time (read: energy) to go to the store.

Here's the dressing though:

Avocado-Lime Dressing:

1 avocado
2 Tbsp lime juice
1/2 cup plain kefir (you could use greek yogurt, which was what the original recipe called for and I was out)
1 tsp hot sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
3/4 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup cilantro

Blend all that stuff together.  Presto.

My kids hate avocado and every single one of them at this dressing and thought it tasted like a ranch.  I was happy that it was a homemade dressing without sugar and vegetable oil.  The kefir in it was just bonus.  Next time I might add just a smidge of cumin or cayenne to give a little more flare, but it was great just like this!

Our Last Halloween

Before I get into this, let me preface this post by saying that I believe each person's walk with the Lord is different.  By that I mean, I don't expect everyone to come to the exact same conclusions that I have in the exact same order that I have, just like I have not always been convicted by the same things that some of my Christian friends have been convicted of.  I'm not saying truth is relative, but I am saying that I believe the Lord draws us to Himself in personal ways as we seek Him.  Why do I say all this?  Because I have been convicted this year regarding the celebration of Halloween, so much so that I feel led to share it, but want to make it very, very clear that  I don't expect you to have this same conviction, and if you don't ever have it, I'm not going to judge you.

I have celebrated Halloween for as long as I can remember.  There are so many fond memories and nostalgia surrounding this holiday, as with many others.  I can remember several of my costumes, lot of parties, pumpkin carving, haunted houses, etc.  I don't regret any of this.  In fact, when I first considered not celebrating Halloween anymore, I'll be honest, I was upset for my kids.  I felt like I was stealing a part of their childhood, and preventing all these fantastic memories from ever taking place.

BUT, either our society is more disturbed now than it was when I was a kid, or I am just more aware of how disturbed our society is. When we were out last night I saw babies dressed up as Satan.  Young people dressed up as murderers.  Adults dressed as living dead.  Horrifying creatures that may or may not torment the dreams of my children.  Is this supposed to be entertaining?  Because I don't think it's funny.  I think it's sad.  What sort of message is it sending my kids when all week long we talk about Jesus and what He's done for us, and how bear His name, and talk about resisting the enemy..... and then spend one day out of the year celebrating everything that the enemy represents?  And even if we do it innocently (as a baseball player, cowboy, little red riding hood, tin man, and luke skywalker) what sort of message does our participation send to unbelievers?  Do I really want my children (or myself for that matter) to be desensitized to evil and the horrors of hell?  There were a couple of crowds last night who looked like they could have walked straight out of hell.  A place where evil is the norm and Satan reigns and there is nothing good or happy or pleasant because all of those things only exist because of the existence of God and He is not in Hell so none of His blessings will be there either...... and one day out of the year, we just pretend like it's actually not that bad of a place and we can find some entertainment in it, actually.  Really?

So, I explained this to the kids yesterday afternoon.  This is the last time we are participating in this.  And I told them why.  And they got it.  And they were fine with it.  Praise God!  While we were walking around last night, they would whisper to me "Mom, there's one of the evil things."  I didn't have to tell them - they knew, which confirmed even more that they are not oblivious to it.  So, we may have a costume party in November next year.  We may even carve some fall pumpkins.  We can take the fun and innocent fall ways to celebrate our Lord instead of His enemy.  And maybe I'll even let them eat some candy. :)  We'll probably still have some left over anyway!