Edible or Inedible?

Henry isn't sure. Look at the eyes! I have created a war zone in my own house. Soon it will be a love fest, I am sure

fruits

Sorry for the lack of posts - I have been busy, but more than that my house is such chaos, I do not even really want to cook in it (explanation in next post!). This week I have had the same breakfast every day: grapes and cherries to go for the T or the car ride. For dinner I've been alternating between graham crackers with peanut butter or cereal.

Simply Breakfast

Carla told me about this blog. I just love it, don't you?

NYT comments

I really enjoyed these posts. I love to read what people love to eat, or, in this case, the really indulgent food people love to eat.

Mushrooms and broccoli

Connie came over for dinner and we had mushrooms and broccoli. The mushroom were sauteed in a bit of oil with herbs thrown in at the end. I parsed out our halves into two separate little bowls. Connie feared these mushrooms would be so edible as to necessitate an extra level of security (see the walls?), but we were able to eat as civilized folk and not stab each other with our fork tines over the fungus.

The broccoli did not require such precautions... I said something to Connie along the lines of "we should have done what we knew was right" and blanched the broccoli in small batches, or just skipped the blanching in lieu of steaming. It ended up being slightly water-logged, but tasty never the less.

more dot-luck

Here is more of the spread from this last dot-luck (the feeding frenzy). Have I explained the dot-luck? I live in Dorchester, nicknamed "The Dot" or even "Dirty Dot." So Sunday night pot lucks in The Dot = Dot-luck! Which is the same thing as dot-pot.

Anyhow, the food was awesome. As always, I encourage the people who made these dishes to leave comments with more details.

Jesse, Rachel, and Liz - awesome sangria and a spinach salad with avacado and grapefruit

Connie constructed a delightful and festivley-garnished fruit salad

Jess made a vegetable medly of sauteed mushrooms, peas, and corn (insert: "Corn!! I didn;t eat any corn!!")

Sarah brought a rice dish with nuts, cranberries, and mint.

Edible all around!

Regarding the Pancakes of Deliciousness

I received the following in an email, but it was a weird email, and I can't tell I was just emailed Chris' comment, or if Chris sent me the email. Anyhow regarding the three part post on scallion pancakes (here, here, and here) this is what Chris has to say:

"Scallion pancake...a very easy way to make your friends like you. it's fried. its pancake. it's delicious. I got the recipe here... i was not sure what it meant "roll dough like a sponge cake" but I did my best.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_8,00.html?rsrc=search "

feeding frenzy: chicken

This week's dot-luck was a total feeding frenzy! And it was really fun. I made chicken, other people made other stuff (more posts to come).

As many of you know, I love roasting chickens. usually I just stuff the cavity with carrots, celery and onion, and rub the skin with s&p, but here I stuffed the cavity full of chives, thyme, pepper, salt, and one whole lemon cut in chunks. Then I rubbed the skin with crushed peppercorns, chopped lemon zest, and salt. It was really moist and tasty, but the lemon was much more subtle than I had envisioned.

new email

Hi readers! I value your readership, and hate to think I can only publish "guest chef" entries from people who know my full name, my dog's full name, my mom's name, my address, and my real email.

So there is a new email over there on the right. You (yes, YOU!) can send in guest chef entries. They may or may not be published - there are no rational guidelines. Plese send in with your pictures a blurb about what you made, why, how it turned out.

If this is a total bomb, I will take it away, because let's be honest : most likely all my readers know me personally.

Homemade butter!

My mom and grandma visited recently and stayed with me at my house. Remember the daizy churn? Well, my grandma brought this in her carry on as a housewarming gift. The churn is much bigger than it seems in the picture.

So I bought 32 oz. of heavy cream and grandma taught me to make butter! I forgot to grab the camera for the first couple of steps, but we poured the cream in the curn, and steadily turned the handle, but not so fast so as to make whipped cream. Just when we were about to give up, thinking the cream had weird additives causing it not to form butter, the butter separated from the milk. It was amazing! Then we had a churn full of buttermilk and a mass of butter.

Grandma pulled the butter out of the curn into a wooden bowl and added ice water. This is to clean the butter. She sort of kneeded the butter with a paddle.

We went through several changes of ice water until the water stayed clear.

Then grandma kept "kneeding" the butter to get out all of the water.

and there you have it! This is the final product - butter on the right, and the buttermilk on the left. The ice water baths we just poured out.

We added a little kosher salt to the butter, and tried it out on hot biscuits we made with the buttermilk.

I can't wait to make fresh butter with the cream from Terri's cows.

Maggie and Scott's Homemade Sushi!

Remember Maggie? She sent in some pictures of amazing sushi that she and her friend Scott (hi Scott!) made. Thanks, Maggie! Here is what she has to say:

"Last night I went up to the lovely hamlet of Fort Collins Colorado to
make homemeade sushi with my pal Scott.
We used a lot of thai inspired ingredients (peanut sauce, cilantro)
and it turned out WAY better than either of us could have imagined.
Scott got sashimi grade tuna and salmon at WholeFoods which was very
tasty. Be warned, this project can get somewhat competitive and
you'll end up making entirely too much food. And of course it's fun
to name your sushi rolls.
Certianly Edible..."

So Maggie, what did you name your rolls?