New year, new format for cooking challenge

 This year instead of a cookbook challenge, we're going to do an ingredient challenge.   DH picks two ingredients, and I try to make them into a meal.

For January, DH picked mushrooms and basil. Ok, so call me boring, but the only think I could think of to do with this was Thai. Or something with pesto. I was really unhappy about this. So I fished the remains of the Thanksgiving turkey out of the freezer (best ever Mary's heirloom free range happy turkey) and made a turkey, wild rice, and mushroom soup with a little bit of dried basil in it. (I slipped a little marsala in it, it's a glorious soup). DH told me it was a copout.

For February, he picked shrimp and scallops. So last night I made scampi, shallot tarte tatin,
and fiddle head ferns. The whole kitchen still smells like onion... It was glorious!

 

I've never worked with puff pastry... The recipe said to cool the shallots before putting the crust on and baking. As it was approaching 8PM, I figured I'd just get things started. Bad decision. The heat of the shallots melted the butter in the pastry. So it's puff pastry around the edges and dense pastry in the center. Still tastes good but I learned something.

The scampi was easy; I marinated 1/2 pound shrimp in the juice of one lemon, 2 minced cloves of garlic, a little thyme from the garden, and a glug of olive oil while the onions were cooking down. I put it the baking dish and in the oven with the tarte, cooked for 20 minutes; 15 minutes would have been enough but I was paying attention to the tarte. Since I didn't use any butter and very little oil, it ended up being much lighter in character than most scampi dishes but IMHO with as good of a taste. Let's just say I saved all the butter for the onions.

I did manage to compose a meal that stymied me as far as wine selection. Given how DH loves anything onion, I focused on that and picked a 2005 Mondavi Cabernet from the cellar. It didn't overpower the scampi and the ferns, and tasted great with the tarte.  I wish I knew more about wine pairing!

Tonight, I'll add some goat cheese to the top of the leftover tarte and serve it with a big salad.

Fiber? Lots going on in my fiber world. I'll comment on that later.

Cake dyeing

My dear friend is an enabler... We've been bouncing yarn dyeing ideas off each other and recently joined the ravelry gradients group, so...

I dyed a cake of yarn.  50gm sock yarn (it's either bfl or mcn, I'm not sure); dharma's vermillion with some black and brown thrown in. I caked it, and through it in a dye bath with 4 TBL white vinegar and simmered for 30 minutes.

I took a look after I got home from work... it wasn't quite dry but here it was:

I felt a little meh. But I skeined it up:

 And the inside looked this:

Meh. I balled it up and mixed up some green and was about to throw it in the dyebath, reversed, figuring it'd come out brown, when I decided I liked the delicate pinks and mottled vermillion. This may be exactly the yarn I want to linen stitch with. So I balled up the other 50 grams, and through it in the dye pot with the green; it's 1/8 tsp kelly green, 1/8 tsp black, and I used about 1/2 the mixture. Pix of that tomorrow.

More Mexican Everyday, and some weaving

Last night I cooked from Rick Bayless's Mexican Everyday; Pork Adobo with a Guajillo/Tomatillo salsa. Whole Foods had no pork loin, so we butterflied some boneless chops; grilled sweet potatoes with it, painting them with the adobo.  A nice Argentine Malbec made a nasty complement.

I was always curious what adobo was make from;  I won't give away Rick's recipe but it was easy to make and very tasty. I used ground New Mexico chili... Tonight we'll use left left over pork in tacos with some feta from last week; I've got to run out and get some greens to saute to serve with.

On the fiber front, I finally got back to the towels I'm making. I warped up the loom with 8/2 cotton, about 19 inches in the loom (for an 18 inch towel) at 20 EPI,  I'm trying for even weave, but regardless of what I do I can't get down below 13-14.

Due to the dual heddles, I'm getting some stripes; 3 of the threads are closer and the clumps of 3 are divided by single threads. I think this must be normal. It looks like that I wouldn't be able to get any finer on the clumps of three and I think that's what's keeping me at 13 picks per inch.

I suppose I could beat it down with a fork to see if I could get finer.... But I'm going to do one towel at 13-14 picks per inch then cut it off and wash it and see what I think. I might shorten them to napkin length, since I'll lose some warp by tieing back on...

What's on my loom, and what's in the kitchen?

On the loom

I'm taking a rigid heddle weaving class; last week we learned about weft faced weaves and were assigned to do something like coasters.  Well this is like one big coaster except its 10 1/2 inches wide and about 15 inches long so far; I plan on weaving until sometime on Sunday when I'll take it off the loom and rewarp for this weeks assignment. I think it may turn into a bag, in which case I'll like do the rest of it a little plainer.

Mom had a drawer of leftover needlepoint yarn which I could not bring myself to throw away. I've already made a needlepoint cushion cover from leftover and will save the bigger chunks for when I decide that needlepoint in my thing, but I'm feeling good about playing with all the leftover browns and greens in this format.

Warp is some really ugly bright pink crochet cotton, 10 EPI. Weft is a variety of needlepoint yarn from years of projects, which used to take up two grocery bags in the back of my closet. I think I should be able to bring myself down to one by the end of the weaving!  

Color is way off; my phone camera seems to be removing a lot of yellow. It's actually really pretty.

In the Kitchen

RutRoh, the freezer is almost empty and DH is looking at the stack of empty pyrex with deep regret. Instead of letting him take me out tomorrow night, I'll be doing two different bean preparations from Mark Miller's Coyote Pantry and then will do a taste test. Not sure what to throw on the grill to go with the beans. It'll be good.

And finally, June's cookbook will be the Commander's Palace cookbook. 

Memorial Day weekend: Rick Bayless and Mexican Everyday

Yesterday we had friends over and a good time was had by all.

I cooked from Mexican Everyday (Rick Bayless).

• Jicama Salad: could not find watercress so I used pea shoots and added some toasted pine nuts.
• Garlicky rice in the rice cooker; Damn! I'll make that one again. It's effectively rice, garlic, onions stock. Yummy.
• Roasted tomatillo salsa
• Grilled Roadside Chicken and as suggested in the recipe,  I grilled green onions (couldn't find knob onions), eggplant, and zucchini. I did two 2.5 lb chickens; the four of us ate about a chicken and a half.  The chicken had a beautiful brown glaze on it by the end of it's grilling, and great flavor.

Consensus was that Rioja was the best wine of this.  M & G brought a apple beach crisp with caramel ice cream that was wonderful.

Fiery Foods

I made Onion Gingered Chicken from Fiery Foods That I Love; first time for that recipe. Served with white rice, chard and a lovely Chablis, which was perfect for the gingery goodness. DH says I could make that for company. I substituted 6 chicken thighs for the whole chicken; if I did it again, I'd do 8.

Wonderful oniony gingery goodness!

May Cookbook Challenge

Yumm....

Sunday was the May Cookbook challenge dinner. Modena style pork chops, braised in tomato sauce from the dry farmed tomatos I got from Happy Girl last year and froze, and some sage from the garden. Served with home made polenta (nice texture!) and Brussel sprouts.

All of that with a nice Montepulciano.

Sorry, no pictures.

On the fiber front

• Knots of Love Hat #9 is finished
• Started a hat for DH's mom
• Working on Bejeweled Sleeve
• Finger controlled weaves on the loom. I like spanish lace. 

Also no pictures.