cook: smoky fish chowder

On my third visit to the county fair, I couldn't bring myself to pay another expensive albeit refreshing $7 for lemonade, and so when I came home I squeezed what lemons were left of a $4 bag and added pulp and juice (note to self, do like Hotdog on a Stick and muddle the lemon peels too!) to simple syrup (1 cup sugar to 1 cup hot water until dissolved). I also visited Goodwill and bought a brand new Bodum French press pot ($6.99) as well as 2 wineglasses ($3.99 each). But I did buy at my favorite kitchen emporium, Crate & Barrel, a pie server.

  

I had hamachi in the freezer and decided to cook a smoky fish chowder. I cut 4 to 6 slices of bacon into smaller pieces and reserved.

  

Took out the hot smoked paprika and vermouth (didn't have dry and decided to try the sweet in the chowder) and then sautéed the onions and garlic in the bacon fat. 

  

Next added peeled and diced potatoes and fennel bulb. Remembered the Aleppo pepper in the spice drawer.

  

Added a bit of the Albariño to the soup pot as well as a bit of heavy whipping cream.

 

Hamachi is more tender as poke than in a chowder, but oh well. 

  

That evening I continued reading a novel after admiring the floral arrangement of hubs. Summer is good.

clay: red clay body with blue green glaze vase

Clay Body: Red Velvet

Underglazes/Glaze: Amaco Blue Midnight; Amaco Seaweed

Method/Firing: Hand build/slab/Cone 5-6

I had red clay scraps, which I think were Laguna's Red Velvet and wanted to use it up. My neighbor, Helen had seen this vase and suggested I give it to her. 

 

And so yes, I gifted it to her on her birthday.

cloth: county fair entries or from book to quilt

In the span of 6 months, I stitched 3 quilts that were all entered into this year's county fair. I thought I was going to stitch a painting from this book. 

But I ended up finding an image of Albers' Homage to a Square: Ascending. I do love the color palette, and this panel is going up on my wall.

 

The quilt that originally was to be a duvet cover as conceived In Stitches by Amy Butler. 

Instead I used her design and fabrics to make a large quilt, which took over a decade to finish earned me some praise from the judges.

  

I did copy some of the color palette of not terra cotta, but of cantaloupe in the quilt design from this book, Zen Chic Inspired: A Guide to Modern Quilt Design by Brigitte Heitland.

The judges deemed the quilt as "a graphically striking composition in contemporary colors." I am less in love with it and will likely give it away.

Let the quilting resume. Working on the Bay Area Modern Quilting BOM today.

cook: more vegetables in the mezze repertoire

While on a return trip home, I stopped for dinner in Santa Cruz. I wanted Mediterranean and therefore dined at Ibiza. I ordered the lamb plate with a dollop of Muhummara and decided that I had to learn to make that spicy dip. The bright yellow pickled cauliflower was my favorite, and of course, anytime I can eat a cabbage salad, I will. I loved the balance of all the flavors and eating rice instead of pita bread. The charred broccolini and microgreens were a boon to my required vegetable intake.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law went with me to the county fair though I also went to the fair the day before with two other clay friends. I soaked garbanzo beans, boiled them to make hummus. The cauliflower only needed to be washed and cut into small florets for pickling while the eggplant, bell peppers and jalapeno were to be roasted for the spicy dip.

 

I also mixed 2 cups of self-rising flour with 8 ounces of Greek full fat yogurt to make pita bread. Took one of the dough balls to cook on a hot cast iron pan. 

The peppers and eggplant were roasting nicely under a high broil in order to let the skins blister and blacken. I felt no need to cover the roasted peppers with plastic wrap, and they were easy enough to peel. 

 

For the cabbage salad, I sliced half a small head of red cabbage on the mandolin and plucked herbs like parsley, dill and marjoram from the garden. I tossed the shredded cabbage in a dressing of mashed garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.

 

Love a colorful and...

sturdy salad. Crunchy salad done, I then peeled the roasted vegetables.

 

I had already blitzed the chickpeas and eggplant into hummus and baba ghanous, respetively. Time to pulse the red bell peppers with walnuts, Aleppo pepper, cumin, and pomegranate molasses for the spicy dip.

I read online that the pita dough could be refrigerated and "baked" later, and into the icebox went the dough balls

Lunch for one ready!

  

But prior to eating, food storage of hummus, baba ghanoush, muhummara, and feta cheese.  

Fast forward to the next day, I cooked saffron rice and off to the fair with family. On our return home, I griddled the pita bread and heated the lamb before setting out all the dips and salads.

I had leftovers for quite a few days and added leftover zucchini fritters to lunch the next day. 

I've upped my Mediterranean skill set with a few more recipes and couldn't be more pleased.

cook: key lime coconut boxed cake mix

At the grocery store on clearance was this box of key lime (one of my favorite flavors) coconut cake mix plus the branding was so pretty (because I'm a sucker for beautiful marketing), which I bought. Like a box of Lego blocks, which I once opened at Toys R'Us to show a nephew how packaging can mislead the consumer on its contents, there were 3 packets--glaze, cake mix, coconut. I find key lime pie to sometimes be too cloying, and so cake sounded like a lighter and more appealing alternative. You merely beat 2 eggs and a 1/2 cup of oil before adding to the dry cake mix. Curiously, the batter was green.

 

I also didn't know when I bought the cake mix that it was one of Chrissy Teigen's production line of baking mixes called Cravings. At the box's suggestions, I toasted the packet of coconut flakes before adding some of the toasted coconut to the batter. The batter tasted pretty good, promising a good cake.

 

And because I've had this bundt cake pan for years and don't use it nearly enough, instead of baking as cupcakes or a sheet cake, I went for a 1950s-60s style dessert. I made the glaze a bit too runny, and because I like pretty, I grated lime zest and added lime wheels for decoration.

 

And oh my gosh, I forgot about the reserved toasted coconut to further embellish the cake.

 

Kind of messy, but t'was delicious. I liked the green color too, and a slice was perfect with hot tea. However, I want to bake my next cake from scratch, and since I just bought a bag of lemons, I'm thinking the lemon cake from Preppy Kitchen and then frosting it with his recipe in the piping style of Nothing Bundt cakes.

cook: bodega breakfast sandwich

While in a hotel in Monterey, I made a breakfast slider with a biscuit, pepper jack cheese, and chipotle sausage. Loved the spicy sausage and was inspired by the sauces at the breakfast bar--jalapeno ranch and red chile aioli. At home, I mixed ground pork (leftover from cooking Imperial rolls), pork chorizo, and chipotle sauce to make sausage patties. On a split Kaiser roll, I laid cheddar cheese and pickled jalapeno on both halves of the bread and then baked in a 350 degree oven to melt cheese until bubbly. In the meantime, I fried a sunny side up egg. Laid the chipotle chorizo sausage on one half with drizzles of sriracha mayo and the egg on the other half.

Did it again the next day and added pickled red onions.

 

Oh my gosh! Even better.

What I love about the kaiser roll is its circumference—big and plushy enough to contain the runny egg and not let too much yolk to ooze out. If ever called upon to cook breakfast at an Airbnb with friends, this is the meal I'm making.