A food-blogging friend is giving away whey-protein samples over at The Healthy Everythingtarian. Ch-ch-ch-check it out!
Last night I was in a Mood. Braden and I had plans, but he got called into work, so all of the sudden I found myself with nothing to do for the evening. Ordinarily I relish nights like these and spend my time curled up with a good book, making delicious food, taking a long bath, etc., etc. However, for some reason last night the prospect of a solitary evening made me want to stick my head in an oven.
“Go get yourself some chocolate,” Braden said, looking at me with concern as I dropped him off at work.
“Meh.”
“Really. Or call Earl to watch a movie.”
“Mphmph.”
I drove away and turned left out of the parking lot, instead of taking a right to go back to my house. I needed something to break my funk. I ended up at Greenlife–a fancy all-natural grocery store–and wandered into the cheese section. There I saw it: cheese plates. Each cheese plate came with your choice of three cheeses, three “side items”, condiments, bread, crackers and fruit. I left the store with a plate stacked with fancy cheeses with names like Fleur Vert and Shropshire Blue as well as dried figs, almonds, pine nuts, peppery crackers, Meyer lemon preserves, fruity olive oil and prosciutto. I snagged a bar of dark chocolate with hazelnuts on the way out and called it good. Instead of heading home, I went to Braden’s house to take advantage of his internet. On Hulu I watched three episodes of Glee, and think it’s safe to say I found a Fall TV addiction.
I went to bed last night feeling SO much better. I wish I had known in my teens that prime-time TV and fancy cheese could cure depression.
The following are deals I scored out shopping with Natalie last weekend. (Forgive the unattractive photos–I realized that the light was perfect for taking photos about five seconds before it went.) I’m just a little bit excited.
1. 2 sets of queen-size, 350 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets: $4 total.
2. Pair of black, faux-leather flats: $1.
3. 10 terra Cotta flower pots: $4 for all
4. Citrus-cilantro scented candles: $3/each.
5. Glass vase: $1.
And the flowers in the vase were free–my boss and I have a deal: I noticed one day that flowers leftover from weekend events in my building get left to die. I asked if I could rescue them, and she said that I was free to take any and all abandoned flowers. Never hurts to ask! Aren’t they pretty?
Sometimes I also get free flowers from the florist down the street, because they occasionally offer free bouquets in exchange for items they need to do arrangements for events–such as old vases, mason jars, etc., etc. They keep their costs down, I get free flowers and old materials get recycled. Win-win! (Oh, and they also gave me the flowers below for my birthday!)
Speaking of free, some coworkers also brought in stacks of magazines this week to share. They aren’t magazines I normally subscribe to (Real Simple and Southern Living) but they were 100% free and fun to flip through last night. Something I love about my office is that we always bring in items that we don’t want for one another, rather than just dumping them. I’ve gotten a lot of free things this way!
Having mentioned my search for a new couch and then soon after finding said couch, I’m wondering if blogging is good luck. So, I will let you in on the short list of things that are on my wish list for the near future.
1. Boots. I’m looking for brown leather ones that are tall-ish. I’m thinking I want flats or at least low heels (no wedges, please!), however I don’t want cowboy boots, overly chunky riding boots or boots with a super-fitted shaft. Anthropologie, of course, has plenty of styles that I love, but I can’t drop $300+ for them, so I’ll have to look elsewhere. But this gives you an idea:
2. I also want to find a great pair of headphones. I do a lot of walking and I like to listen to music as I do so. Frankly I find earbuds way obnoxious, so I’d like to find an awesome pair of headphones that are within my budget. So far all the options have been shot down: I’d buy BOSE headphones, but I’m not rich. I’d buy WESC headphones, but I’m not a hipster. I’d buy Skullcandy headphones, but … wait, no I wouldn’t. I’d buy some plain old Sony ones, but I can’t find a model I like. Maybe I’ll buy a moderately priced pair of Audio-Technica’s. But WHICH PAIR? There are many.
As I have been researching headphones, I have discovered that buying headphones is serious business and that I am, apparently, a SHEEP for surviving with my Apple earbuds all this time. Gosh. Who knew?
3. I’d love to get some fancy-schmancy baking equipment, including a microplane, biscuit cutters, a Madeleine tin, a copper mold and a straight rolling-pin. Why? Probably because I’m reading Julie & Julia and it has made me eager to try my hand at complex dessert recipes. Despite the fact that I love to cook, I don’t often bake, because I get bored with it half-way through and then never know what to do with three dozen cookies other than feed them to my weakly protesting coworkers. Maybe if I was faced with the challenge of whipping up fancy Cannele cakes and Madeleine cookies I’d feel more inspired.
Also, if you can tell me where I can buy a Madeleine tin that isn’t non-stick, I will be eternally grateful. I hate the idea of using a Teflon-coated or silicon pan to cook something so lovely and traditional. I don’t really care for non-stick cookware to begin with, but for some reason, in this case it seems like an abomination.
I suspect that this may become my Christmas wishlist, instead of my “fun things for Catie to get herself when she saves money on her electric bill this month” list. I’m picky about the treats that I buy for myself, but that makes it more fun for me. But here’s hoping that I at least find the kitchen stuff with in a reasonable matter of time. It would make for much more interesting blogging (not to mention delicious Saturday morning brunches).
I always forget to take pictures of my cookery, so you’re getting another boring-looking recipe today. But really, I had to post this because it got the best response of anything I’ve ever made.
I served this at week-night dinner party on Tuesday. I had the dough taken care of ahead of time, which drastically cut back on prep time. For a quick, impressive meal, I recommend making up the dough the night before and refrigerating it. Just pull the dough out of the fridge a little while before you start cooking to bring the temperature up. (Oh, and fyi, most pizza restaurants will sell dough by the pound, in case you don’t want to mess with making dough from scratch.)
I often use Mark Bittman’s pizza dough recipe from How to Cook Everything, but I’ve also had good success with this one. However, feel free to use your favorite dough. Just be sure to stretch it REALLY thin!
Ingredients
- 1 lb. pizza dough
- 3 very soft, red-skinned pears
- 8 oz. Gorgonzola cheese, brought to room temperature
- 4 oz. Parmesan cheese
- 2-4 c. baby arugula
- good quality olive oil (I like to use one that’s on the sweet side for this recipe)
Method
Preheat your oven to 500° and move one oven rack to the center of your oven, and the second oven rack just above it.
Take four pieces of tin foil, roughly the size of a small baking sheet and brush them lightly with olive oil. Divide the pizza dough into four equal portions and stretch or roll them as thinly as possible onto the tin foil. Be careful not to tear the dough as you do this.
Crumble 2 oz. of Gorgonzola on each piece of dough, and spread as evenly as possible. Cover with a generous layer of pears.
Place all four flat breads in the oven, two on each rack, laying the foil directly on the oven rack. Check after ten minutes. Because the pears are very juicy, you need to cook the flat bread as long as possible, short of burning the edges.
Remove from the oven and cool for a couple of minutes before shaving a few curls of Parmesan cheese on top with a vegetable peeler.
To serve, cut into quarters and use a metal spatula to gently remove pieces from the foil. You can top the flat bread with arugula as you serve it, but I prefer to put the arugula in bowls and allow my guests to add as little or as much as the like. I also put out a carafe of olive oil, bowls of red pepper flakes and sea salt, and a grinder with black peppercorns.
On Tuesday I served this with lemon-Parmesan asparagus and a dry red wine. Oh, and this apple tarte tatin, topped with (unsweetened) whipped cream for dessert.
I made this for week-night dinner party last night. I had the dough taken care of ahead of time, which drastically cut back on prep time. For a quick, impressive meal, I recommend making up the dough the night before and refrigerating it. Then, when you get home from work, pull the dough out of the fridge and let it sit for 30 minutes or more to bring the temperature up. I often use Mark Bittman’s pizza dough recipe from
Last night I hosted a mid-week dinner party to hail a friend’s return from across the pond. Six guests, three new recipes and two glasses of wine later, I was pooped. Maybe tomorrow I’ll post recipes. Today I’m taking the night off from responsible, adult cooking and eating take out Chinese food and reading Julie and Julia. I’m about a fourth of the way through and really enjoying it.
My cooking night off is also in preparation for my weekend–girl’s night in at my house on Friday will entail homemade pasta, more company for dinner on Saturday and on Sunday my book club meets at my house, meaning I’m currently in debate as to what to bake for it. Contenders so far are apple cider doughnuts, pumpkin and chocolate brownies, and pine nut rosemary shortbread.
In the midst of all this entertaining, I’m also in a crazy-stressful period at work. I think an early bed time is in order, don’t you?
For those who attended my Spanish-themed dinner party a couple of weeks ago and asked for my sangria recipe, here you go! Enjoy.
Ingredients
- 2 bottles of red wine (I used a full-bodied, dry wine, but don’t break the bank on this!)
- 750 ml club soda
- 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract
- 2 cinnamon sticks
- 1 lemon, sliced
- 1 cup orange juice, freshly squeezed
- 3/4 c. superfine sugar
- 1 c. fresh or frozen blackberries (or marionberries, if you want to go crazy)
- 2 apples, sliced
- 1/2 c. raspberry liqueur
Method
Mix together the wine, vanilla, lemon, half of the berries (if using fresh, squash them a little), sugar, cinnamon sticks, orange juice and raspberry liqueur. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Cover and allow to sit in the fridge overnight, up to 24 hours.
Just before serving, add the remaining berries, the apple slices and club soda. Ladle into pretty glasses and serve immediately.
Two frugal scores this week that made my heart happy:
First, I bought a couch! After mentioning that I was searching for one, I happened to stumble on an ad for a vintage couch on Craig’s List. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it has real promise for recovering. After living with it for a few days, I’ve found that I don’t hate the current fabric, either–it’s just not my ideal. However, the kittens are young and into everything right now, so I think I’ll postpone recovering for a few more months.
The couch is from exactly the period that I was hoping for, though I had been envisioning something a little more spare in design. However, I really like the lines. Instead of gray wool, I think I might go for another patterned fabric, and recover my arm chairs in gray wool instead.
Secondly, at my grocery store, I noticed that they had “close out” prices on several of the Kashi-brand frozen meals. I love to have a couple of these in the freezer for days that I forget to/don’t want to make lunch, but they’re pricey. The close out price, however, was great: $2.22 each! I also had some $1 off coupons, making each meal about $1.50 apiece. I grabbed all that they had left–here’s about half of my stash (the other half is in the freezer at work with my name on it in BIG RED LETTERS).
Does it make me a nerd that second-hand furniture and cheap health-food make me so happy? Very well, then.
This recipe comes to me via Theresa–or Saint Thérèse, as I like to call her (the woman feeds me, what can I say?). It’s a lovely, un-fussy way to dress up a vegetable side-dish.
Ingredients
• 1 pound of fresh asparagus spears, ends trimmed
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 2 T. olive oil
• Parmesan cheese, grated
• A few sprigs of fresh sage, chopped
• Salt and pepper to taste
Toss the asparagus spears with the olive oil, sage, half of the lemon juice and salt and pepper (don’t go too heavy on the pepper). Spread onto a baking sheet in a single layer and bake in a 350° for about 8-10 minutes, or as soon as you notice a little browning on the asparagus.
Drizzle with a little more lemon juice, the lemon zest, and grated Parmesan to taste (I use just a bit–a little goes a long way!). Serve immediately.
Serves 4 as a side dish.
