cook: shredded brussels sprouts salad with hazelnut crunch

I started Thanksgiving morning by hauling out salad ingredients for Martha Stewart's Shredded Brussels Sprouts Salad with Hazelnut Crunch. I made this specific recipe a few years ago and wondered again this morning, why? In theory, I like all the separate components of rosemary, lemon and nuts. However, together? Perhaps not. But I plodded through.                             

I've learned that I like hazelnut flavoring in my coffee drinks, but the nuts themselves are not my favorite. I wished I had used pecans or walnuts instead. And I thought I would love this nut crunch, but...no. I kept nibbling and just wasn't in love with the flavors.

Nut crunch made. It was time to shave the brussels sprouts on my mandoline. I was careful to not slice or cut myself accidentally, so very mindful that I actually found cutting the vegetables kind of Zen. I still had lemon vinaigrette in my fridge which I thought would be an improvement on Martha Stewart's recipe which only had lemon juice and olive oil. 

 

And I had Brussels sprouts leftover to roast for dinner another night:)

Okay I won't be making this particular shredded brussels sprouts salad again. I do love these miniature cabbages in their raw form, but I think I'd like them better with crisp pancetta and an apple cider vinegar-based dressing and maybe some golden raisins instead for a fall table.

cook: duchess potatoes

I was NOT going to do Thanksgiving. That is, I had already told my husband that my social anxiety could not handle the 20+ relatives that were going to be at his sister's home for the holiday and that I would then not likely be going. My sister-in-law then sent a message to both of us, saying that many of the college-aged and early adult nieces and nephews and emotionally-overwhelmed siblings (like me) were not gonna come and that there were going to only be 10 guests--still too large for my comfort, but less daunting to "be on" around. Maggie said she was going to roast a turkey breast and a salmon and asked what sides would I like to cook?  Patrick hadn't yet told her that I was not coming, and so I impulsively said I'd cook: oyster casserole; Duchess potatoes; cheesy kale gratin; and shredded Brussels sprouts salad with hazelnut crunch. Yesterday I brought out the 5-pound bag of potatoes and washed my spanking brand new potato ricer to cook the potato dish one day ahead.              

 

Like Claire Saffitz in her New York Times cooking video, I wanted to pipe fancy rosettes. However, I didn't have a pastry bag nor a container to hold the pastry bag to fill with the mashed potatoes although I did have the large star tip. And so I decided to improvise with a large Ziploc bag and a flower vase. 

  

I got my mise en place ready with salt, pepper, nutmeg, cream and butter.

  

And four egg yolks which I set aside while melting the butter and heating the cream.

 

Into the 400 degree oven went my 5 pounds of scrubbed russet potatoes for 1 hour.

Potatoes done! And then I sliced each of those hot potatoes (I've got Teflon hands), scooped out the potato of each half and popped into the ricer and then squeezed out the potato into the pot of hot cream and butter that I set on low on the burner.

 

Wow, it had been a while since I mashed so many potatoes. And I didn't use a potato masher and instead whisked the potatoes to keep them from turning into a paste. I'm used to mashing one boiled potato for two people. And then I folded the 4 egg yolks into the whipped potatoes. Even more arm work.

 

I ate two of the potato skin halves and set the rest on the baking sheet. Gawd, it was not working, piping the potatoes with a Ziplock bag and star tip. I ended up scooping and smoothing with a spoon. And the potatoes felt dry, and so I spooned pats of butter on to the potato halves.

I still had mashed potato left and decided to still be fancy and pipe with the smaller pastry bags I had and a smaller star tip.

Okay, so my Duchess Potatoes are not the most elegant-looking. But I do plan on making Duchess Potatoes again, using someone else's recipe next time, and not in the potato skins. I think just rosettes on a greased baking sheet would be an easier make-ahead dish. I sprinkled paprika on the potatoes and they're in the fridge, ready to haul to Morgan Hill for the 4:00 p.m. feast. There were no jars of oysters at the Japanese grocery store yesterday, and so I told Maggie that oyster casserole was off my list. Shredded Brussels sprouts salad with hazelnut crunch and then cheesy creamed kale next.

clay: glazing

I thought Zan and Ellie were going to join me yesterday afternoon at Clay Club, but nope. As usual, it was just me, myself and I. And so I hot waxed the bottoms of the pots and laid them out on newspaper ready for dipping and filling with white glaze. I think I'm most excited for the cover of the butter dish though I'm eager to see how the herb planter will turn out. 

I also made a couple of plaster hump molds, and unfortunately I didn't mix enough plaster to fill the bowl. And that's okay, I'll pour plaster again next week into these two same mold forms. I was looking at the plates made from humping over plaster and the plates made from slumping inside the tin plate. I like much better the more even rim from using my fettling knife to trim clay on the edge level with the rim of the metal platter. Alas I've only the ONE platter. 

I did buy a while ago, four melamine plates from the hobby and craft shop. And so the plan for the next bag of clay is to roll out slabs and use those melamine forms to cut out the circles on a wooden slab, stamp my name on the flat, and then lay the melamine plate over the clay and flip the wooden board so that the top of the clay plate can dry to leather for me to smooth and refine the rim of the coupe plate before removing and smoothing its opposite rim. The process will make sense once I take pics.

And all the Speckled Buff bisqueware is glazed!

What I didn't glaze are plates that I think are either Smooth Red or Hawaiian Red. But I see below that I also made some test tiles. And so I must have intended to see what the J.B. Brown and Toshi glazes would look like on the red clay body.

And so I need to remember to glaze and put those test tiles into the kiln along with the Speckled Buff pots before I even glaze these plates because I almost glazed them white today. I also told Zan that I ought to pay for half of the Colonial White glaze because I'm using so much of it, but unfortunately Clay Planet is closed this Friday and Saturday because of Thanksgiving. 

However, I did a test glaze on a red clay bisque plate. Smooth Red? Hawaiian Red? Surely not Navajo Wheel or what is now Red Velvet.     

I adhered Toshi Brown and also can't wait to see how it looks on a clay darker than Speckled Buff. And so those two tiny test shallow bowls/plates will have test glazes of J.B.'s Brown and Colonial White or white gloss.

clay: herb planter for a male recipient

Cecilia asked me to use a dark clay for her nephew’s herb planter. Clay Planet was out of Obsidian, and so I bought two bags of Electric Brown. I rolled the slabs on a Thursday and managed to make the three pots, but an hour and half of clay club was not enough time to also make the drainage tray, which I constructed on Saturday. On Sunday, I rasped and burnished the pots as much as I could. I kept dinging and scratching the pots accidentally with my nails as I was trying to rub out the ghost marks around the text. Aaargh.    

And today it's Tuesday, and so I'm bringing them to the high school ceramics classroom to sand and then put on the greenware shelf. I'm hoping they get fired by the time we return from the Thanksgiving holiday, and maybe even midfired before Christmas break. However, there's no overglaze going on this planter, which is why I tried to get the clay as smooth as possible though I may do a test glazing of low fire black glaze inside the text and maybe on the rim. And that's a reminder to self to create test plates.

cook: meatless monday means manicotti

Meat is delicious, and this Thursday on Thanksgiving, I look forward to my favorite protein of turkey. Flexitarianism, however, means Meatless Monday, and tonight it was spinach and cheese manicotti for our meal. And broccoli.

 

And green salad. And garlic bread.

At Thanksgiving, everyone loves the sides dishes more than the bird. But not me, I want mostly turkey on my plate because we only eat the roast turkey once or twice a year. At every other meal of the year though I live for the sides. A starch. Two veg, one yellow or orange and one green.

And the rest of this month is Dryvember for me. That's not a cocktail or even a mocktail with my manicotti dinner, but lemon lime soda in a coupe glass. Only 9 days left in the month anyway.

clay & cook: plate testing and the rachel sandwich deconstructed

The midfire white glaze was too thick in the bucket at the classroom and got applied too thickly to my Obsidian and Speckled Buff plates…aaargh! And so I brought home the three plates of each clay body with their glaze defects in order to test how they do with regular use. Patrick looked dubious and said, “I don’t know. We’re awfully hard on plates here.” But despite the pinholes, I do love how the plates look. I’m hoping the plate will withstand the acetic acid in this pickle…                     

…and the lactic acid in this coleslaw.

And all six plates have gone through a pass in the dishwasher. Yep this was supposed to be a Rachel sandwich (corned beef, Gruyère, Emmenthaler, and coleslaw grilled in between dill rye bread), but then my sandwich would’ve been too messy with slaw inside it. I ate the Rachel deconstructed or the coleslaw on the side—lots of it, and that’s just fine. This dinner a couple nights this week will be my lunch to finally use up the last of the corned beef and Gruyère Saturday noon before ceramics at Central Park to construct that last planter set from Electric Brown clay. Last night I sent Charlie home to his parents with half an apple tart on one of the speckled buff plates. Charlie's dad, Steve said the tart was delicious (gulp, it was Trader Joe's) and that the plate was so beautiful that he didn't want to return it. Excellent! I've been so judgmental of these plates, thinking that the irregular edges are too rough and not refined enough to sell, but I'm going to give my other two Speckled Buff "seconds" plates to Charlie's family and Patrick says he wants to buy from me a few more plates to give to them. I'm still unsure though how to price these plates. And now I'm remembering some dessert plates I made from Black Mountain clay that I sold at a Christmas ceramics show and sale to a couple that loved them. People including myself love the earthy dark clays and the rusticity of my plates, so I guess I should feel confident about the simple and rough appearance of my dinnerware.

clay: text on speckled buff

My neighbor, Cecilia wanted me to make white pots for her niece's planter set, but all I had in my ceramics locker were Speckled Buff and Dixon Red clays. I figured I could still make white pots for the planter she ordered if I just covered with gloss white glaze.  And I don’t need to put wax resist in the text, which I'd been doing and then been frustrated by the inconsistent glazing. Just let the glaze crawl and break on and in the recesses of the inscribed letters like on the little pot below.                  

I had started this commission in the Central Park studio last Saturday. The glaze room had been busy, and so from 1:30 to 4:00, I hustled and rolled 4 slabs of the Speckled Buff and hoped it would get leather enough to work with while I jumped back into the glaze room to dip two salt crocks in buckets of clear gloss. And then back to my slabs which were still so soft, but in 2 and half hours I made the fastest 3 pots ever while also glazing that bisqueware. There went my intentions to be a slow hand builder! I inscribed the pots below with the words, “scallions,” “oregano,” and “thyme” and was able to rub out (when the clay dried to leather) or sand away most of the ghost marks when the pots were bone dry.

It got dark too early after Saturday clay class to build the drainage tray, and I was too lazy Sunday to even touch the clay. I did however, load the 3 pots and the 4th slab into my car to bring to the classroom studio on Tuesday. By then, the clay was leather hard enough to refine the pots and construct a tray for them to fit in.

I am not unhappy with this build although the rectangular tray is not at 90 degree angles. But Zan commented that the planter set looked so good.

And there were scraps enough to construct two more cylinder pots.

 

And this time, I used larger letter stamps. I put a note that I needed to sand the bone dry pots before the kids load the set into the kiln.

The pots above are still on the greenware shelf, and they probably won't get fired for a few weeks. And that's okay. 

I managed to go to the Clay Club yesterday to roll out 4 slabs of Electric Brown and make another 3 pots for another commission, also for Cecilia, but for her nephew. An hour and half after school didn't give me time to build the drainage dish, but I'm hoping for the same outcome on this Electric Brown clay as with the Speckled Buff. The 4th slab for the rectangle dish as well as the 3 dark brown pots are all under plastic atop a giant ware board in the back set of my car for Saturday clay studio, of which I'll post pics later.