cook: fall meals

Is it time to wear booties and cute sweaters? a colleague asked. No because of my hot flashes, but I have been cooking meals with root vegetables and gravies. It started with my Saturday British breakfast; only I didn't fry the toast and subbed it out for buttered English muffin. Instead of back bacon and pork sausage, I grilled chicken sausage. Nor was there fried black pudding, mushrooms, and baked beans. But yes fried tomatoes and eggs.              

A chilly afternoon made me want to prepare a shepherd's pie because I had carrots, celery, onion, cabbage, sage and rosemary and thyme, beer, and ground lamb.

I had coated the meat and vegetables in flour and then deglazed the pan with Mexican beer, forgetting about the Guinness stout in my alcohol cupboard. And I should have chopped the herbs, but I was lazy and bundled them to remove later.

 

I turn to my Asian ingredients of chicken broth mix and seasoning sauce to add a salty umami bite to my stews.

 

I remembered why I was cooking shepherd's pie--the potatoes in my pantry were sprouting, but they made for a delicious mashed potatoes

Cecilia took comfort in her shepherd's pie after the death of her sister, and I felt compelled to cook even more comfort food. And so I cooked Julia Child's beef bourguignon but without the mushrooms and yes to tomato paste and Cabernet Sauvignon. And mashed potatoes turned into pomme puree with lots of chives for color. I made myself an old fashion to sip with my beef stew. And Cecilia said she imagines that my beef bourguignon is what she'd get at a French restaurant.

There's one serving of beef bourguignon leftover in the fridge for the coming week. And I've been eating chocolate mousse and tiramisu cups with my tea for dessert after my stew dinners.

Patrick has brought home a lot of eggplant--both Japanese and globe--from the garden. And so I've thawed even more minced meat, both lamb and pork to cook with that vegetable this weekend.

clay: branding a business

I spent the morning designing a business card to pass out at our booth.

 

My ceramics are so minimalist that everyone I asked for feedback mentioned the need for color. And so the surrounding frame for my pottery needed to add that visual movement; hence my friend Nicole chose this preset design. It’s grown on me. I like it very much now that the insecurity over decisions and fatigue of choosing is done.

craft: art booth

I paid $50 to set up a small artist booth at a harvest fair at a winery for Sunday, October 22nd. So much to do. Later this week, I’ll be tracing, appliqueing and sewing handmade canvas banners for our booth, and a couple weekends ago, Meral and I did a mock-up of what our booth will possibly look like.                      

I had texted pictures of our display to my sister-in-law, Maggie, who suggested a runner for color and some greenery. Noted! I'll remember to bring my pots of succulents and bouquets of flowers to put into vases. We decided we would put Meral's mermaid and face vases on the center table to be flanked by our different wares--mine on one side and Meral's on the other.

I remember when Meral said she found these shelves with drawers on the side of the road during the pandemic. Our mugs look terrific in them.

I'll need to remember to bring other props like citrus and wooden spoons for my ceramic display and to highlight their functionality. Below I was loving my speckled buff stoneware in the left photo and to the right of them is a photo of my black clay plates.

Meral's thrown bowls cohere better and add a pop of color alongside my plates better than my hand built bowls, but it'll all be okay. I just want to sell all these plates, so I can learn to throw bowls on the wheel to coordinate with my hand built plates.

And dang is Meral prolific.

I told her she has to submit an application to sell her ceramics at the Palo Alto Clay and Class Festival next year. However, your work to be shown at their festival has to be cohesive and yet varied. But, definitely, you see her hand in her ceramic artistry.

cook: banh mi

I shopped my freezer this weekend, where there was pork belly. My fridge was super full with leftovers, but I made pickled daikon and carrots anyway in order to make Vietnamese sandwiches. I stabbed and scored the pork belly and then dry rubbed the meat with white pepper and garlic powder and then rubbed it all over with coarse salt and let it dry in the clubhouse refrigerator for 24 hours. I then put the salted pork into a 400 degree Fahrenheit oven on the roast setting for 40 minutes to render fat and to crisp.  

Vietnamese sandwich-making time. Requisite ingredients are the pickled vegetables, herbs, pate, and telera rolls as a substitute for baguettes. 

And mustn't forget condiments like Japanese mayonnaise, Chinese hoisin sauce and good old Asian-American Sriracha sauce.

Cecilia said it was my best banh mi ever. I think the pork belly is key because before I would use just roast pork or sautéed lemongrass pork cubes.

And that day, I also re-potted and cleaned up my little succulent pots. These pots will be the greenery to embellish my ceramic tableware for sale at the harvest fair next month.

I also brought the dogs that day with me to Central Park to peruse a library book on sashiko mending. 

Reading didn't happen that day as the dogs couldn't lay still, and so I let them run in the baseball field. Sundays are the best.

cloth: my lumbar pillow is done

Not only did I finish grandniece, Isla's pillow, I also finished mine.  My college roommate, Geraldine said she loved my pattern, and the librarian in me, cited my source. 

I installed the zipper into Isla's pillow after I reviewed how on Ashley Nickel's how-to video on Creativebug. And despite the thickness of the pillow panels from the quilting, Isla's pillow came together nicely.

  

Piecing of my larger lumbar pillow happened next. This time I knew that the diagonal on the squares would be the bottom stitched line, and the 1/4" line above the diagonal would be where I cut. I also stitched a 1/4" line above the cut line on the book's suggestion that the square could then be incorporated into coasters.

 

I didn't have to trim 1/2" sides like I did with Isla's pillow to square the strips, and so this pillow came out much larger. I formed the sandwich with the quilt top, batting, and muslin.

And because the panel was much bigger than the first one I made, I pin basted the sandwich before straight line quilting with my walking foot. 

And wow is Isla's pillow much smaller than mine!

I echoed stitched the triangles and just 1/4" straight lines on the rectangles. 

I also straight line stitched a backing (pink fabric, batting, and muslin). And then after one botched attempt, I installed a zipper between the two panels.

 

The installation of the zipper on this bigger pillow was more problematic--I had to hand sew parts of the zipper to the pillow panels. Luckily, the sloppy hand sewing is on the inside of the pillow. I also started on a few of the coasters...

After many episodes of 90 Day Fiance: Before the 90 Days while quilting and sewing, my pillow is done!

And it looks great on my bed along with my other quilted pillows.

However, I consider this color palette my spring and summer linens. I've a blue and teal and tan felted wool pillow top that I want to sew to a linen back. And I might quilt the linen back before attaching to the wool stripes. I also want to then sew a blue colorways square pillow cover and just keep my Ohio Star and lumbar pillow year-round on my bed.

cook: mapo maybe

Husband brought home a bumper crop of eggplant, both a globe and lots of little Japanese fingerlings, which I cut up into bite-size pieces. I said, oh I should have cooked the globe eggplant into baba ghanoush. Lots more eggplant coming, replied husband. Still this was a lot of eggplant in one of my largest colanders.          

I knew I was going to cook the eggplant in an Asian sauce and wondered what is the difference between Mapo and Dan Dan Mian? Both incorporate Szechuan peppercorns, and I think that’s the only common ingredient. The Dan Dan Mian sauce I make includes peanut and tahini butters as well as Sichuan chili flakes, but like the Mapo I cooked last night also has lots of garlic, ginger and green onion. And instead of noodles, I cooked a combo of brown and long grain rice. I had ground pork and tofu in addition to eggplant as well as a jar of my homemade stir fry sauce (soy sauce, oyster sauce, dry sherry, cornstarch, sugar, sesame oil, ground white pepper), veggie bone broth, said garlic and ginger crushed into the mortar with additional sweet vermouth, chicken powder, Golden Mountain seasoning sauce and Momofuku soy sauce. I browned the pork and tofu with Chinese fermented black and broad beans from a jar with the only English I could find at an Asian market--the key ingredient in the Mapo--and then added the eggplant and everything else to braise.

 

It was not pretty, all muddy brown, but thank goodness for pops of color from emerald scallions and ruby red chili crisp.

 

My "mapo" needed more heat, but was still salty enough and umami satisfying.

I was also glad that I added a package of firm tofu which was another lovely texture in the dish. However, I'm going to eat the rest of the eggplant over noodles and dribbled with even more chili crisp.

cook: easy chicken and vegetable tikka masala and turmeric rice

I had chicken thighs, basmati rice, produce from the garden and Second Harvest at school as well as ghee and a simmer sauce from Trader Joe's. I chopped zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, a few green and purple beans, onion and a jalapeno pepper. I cut the chicken thighs into bite-sized pieces and dry rubbed with onion powder, garlic powder, Madras curry powder, and Garam Masala. I chopped scallions and cilantro for garnishing later.

While Patrick was feeding the dog, I started on the rice. A cup of basmati rice, a pat of butter, and sprinklings of ground turmeric before boiling all in a cup of chicken broth and a cup of water. 

With the simmer sauce already done, i.e., instant, this meal happens fast. And so we walked the dog after which I told Patrick to tell me when he was ready to eat because dinner would only take 15 minutes. Time to cook! I sautéed the chicken and onions and carrots in the ghee for 10 minutes and then added the rest of the vegetables to simmer for 4 minutes.     

I did have to add a bit of veggie and bone broth. Had I cooked this from scratch, I would have used buttermilk or yogurt and some chopped fresh tomatoes to make the tikka masala sauce.

And lastly the sprinkling of green.

Patrick said the curry needed more spice and heat. Well okay then! Tonight's eggplant, pork and tofu braise will definitely include more serrano and habanero peppers.