Cuilionn Deilg

Oh, knitting, you fickle mistress...

2009-06-04T22:04:00.002-05:00

I think the universe mocks me for neglecting my blog. I knit a Nutkin that I can't put on my foot, and today, I cast off on the Adamas shawl, only to find it is woefully small, even blocked. So I've frogged the cast off, the 12-row edging, and rehung the umpteen million stitches back on the needles and replaced all the markers.

Let's just say that that was not a satisfactory experience.

On one hand, I need to do this. The shawl is a gift, and it would be both lame and useless as small as it turned out to be. And I do enjoy the knitting--I like this pattern a lot. On the other--ooooooh, I dislike frogging.

Maybe someday I'll have a FO to post.

I did score major yarn goodness on vacation, though. Pictures to come when there's natural light.

This is not helping.

2009-05-22T06:22:00.003-05:00

I've been hideously remiss in taking care of this blog.

I have some backlogged bentos from April or so that I'd like to get up here soon, and I'm starting my summer work schedule, so I might actually have bentos to show sometime in the future. I was supposed to have one today, but...then I fainted and knocked my rice off the stove.

I'm fine, but it'll be peanut butter & jelly for lunch now. *sigh*

Next week will find me in Portland, Oregon, so hopefully I can find something awesome and bento-blog-worthy out there.

2009-03-08T17:05:00.002-05:00

These were from Thursday and Friday.

Top tier contains jicama, snow peas, carrots, strawberries, almonds, gjetost, miniature gummi bears. Bottom: Rice with black sesame seed & shiso furikake decorations, broccoli, leftover steak pieces.

And then Friday's bento holds:
In the top tier, roasted yam bits, snow peas, jicama, strawberries, & blackberries. Bottom tier holds onigiri with nori decorations, oven-roasted broccoli, and chicken with Thai chili sauce.

Yam oven-fries are my new favorite thing, food-wise. These took about 20 minutes in my toaster oven (just a couple of French-fry-sized pieces of yam cut into 3/4 inch chunks, tossed in olive oil, and roasted at 425 degrees).

Two bentos!

2009-03-07T14:14:00.002-05:00

Two bentos from last week. First one is just a bit of a snack bento: strawberries, blackberries, almond pieces, and honey-wheat bread with honey butter in the container.
And then a full lunch featuring more of the same: berries, carrots, bread, homemade gyoza rolls (I'm not sure what to call them, but they're just chicken gyoza in larger egg roll wrappers).

Nothing terribly exciting, but it's hard to be terribly exciting early in the week. I'll have more interesting lunches when I post up the end of the week.

Otro Bento

2009-02-25T10:25:00.002-05:00

From Tuesday:I do so love my bone cookie cutter. Today it has cut out some wheat and sunflower seed bread to be accompanied by a little container of butter and honey. There are some dried cranberries tucked around it, and there are (as always) carrots on the side. Both sides, actually, top and bottom. The bottom tier also holds edamame and some sweet-chili-glazed chicken. (I'm out of broccoli...and everything vegetable-like except carrots.)

Nothing exciting, but the bread is really tasty and is emblematic of my intention to start eating more whole grains/less super-refined flours. ...except for baking. Sometimes, good ol' AP Flour is what is necessary.

Three Bentos

2009-02-22T09:24:00.003-05:00

Wee skotch of a backlog from this past week, so I've got three bentos to share today.Wednesday's was onigiri with nori stripes, carrots & sugar snap peas, and the silicon cup is filled with a mix of almonds, pistachio kernels, gjetost cubes, and two delicious little gingerbread bits that were baked by my friend Virginia.

Thursday's bento was especially delicious because I had homemade gyoza/"egg rolls" to dip in Thai chili sauce (which are both in the bottom/right side tier). What happened is that I was making gyoza and ran out of gyoza wrappers, so I put more filling into eggroll skins to make longer versions. I'll have to do that more often, as they are ideally shaped for bento, and two of them would be perfecto for lunch. They're accompanied by my (toaster)oven-roasted broccoli, and I'll give the recipe for that at the end of this post. Top (left side tier) holds sugar snap peas, carrots, a moro/blood orange, and a homemade "trail mix"--bits of dried apricot, dried fig, dried mango, and almonds.

And Friday's lunch was more broccoli, carrots, sugar snaps, moro orange, gjetost squares, and two panda cookies. Bottom holds avocado maki (oh, how I love you, avocado maki), carrot accents, and three dried figs.

(Toaster)Oven-Roasted Broccoli

Preheat toaster oven or regular oven to 425F.

Drizzle your preferred amount of broccoli spears (two ounces makes a good portion for a single bento lunch) with a little splash of olive oil (about a teaspoon or so). Season with a pinch of salt, garlic powder, and a pinch of red pepper flakes. Squish it around with your hands so the oil coats the broccoli fairly well and the spices stick. (I find that the more willing you are to get your hands messy the less oil you actually need, in this case.) Put it on a baking sheet (if you're using the oven) or a bit of foil (toaster oven) and roast until the cut stems start to brown and the edges of the florets are getting a bit toasty-looking. This, inexplicably, takes about 12 minutes in my oven or 5 in my toaster oven. I don't understand it, but it's a convenient difference. Cool before packing in bento.

And for someone who dislikes pretty much all other forms of cooked broccoli, I love this stuff. I actively look forward to it, and I find myself cramming extra into whatever spaces I can find in my lunch.

February 17 Bento

2009-02-17T22:33:00.002-05:00

Pretty happy with the way this one turned out! Carrots, sugar snap peas, cranberries, a blood orange, gjetost triangles, and almonds under the cheese bits in the top tier, and onigiri, roasted broccoli, and mini-chicken burgers in the bottom. And, also, it was pretty darn tasty. Blood oranges are amazing.

Miniature eclairs

2009-02-15T19:58:00.002-05:00

Everything is better with tiny eclairs.

Homemade chocolate pastry cream from Dorie. Choux recipe also from Dorie. Honestly. Just go grab a copy of Baking: From My Home to Yours. Delicious stuff.

(this post brought to you by my stunning lack of academic motivation)

Knitting Content! (and the usual bento stuff)

2009-02-14T10:39:00.003-05:00

FINALLY. A finished object with a photo! Well, rather, a pair of objects, as one mitten (regretfully) does little for many of us. Unless you happen to be a pirate with a proper hook, in which case one mitten is likely all you need. I am not married to a pirate (avec hook or otherwise), and so I made him two mittens for Valentine's Day!I started with Laura Kasian's Basic Cabled Mittens pattern and turned left at Albuquerque and kept going. I owe a great debt to the pattern for shaping and proportions, and I switched out the three 4-stitch short cables for one larger six-stitch.They're knit in Berrocco Cuzco, which is fantabulous, held double, so that they will be the warmest mittens ever, because we are having the coldest winter ever here in the land of the lost. I got it at the always-a-pleasure Spin A Yarn on Mitchell Ave. (I think it is Very Important that the yarn store is so close to the hospital. ...if I had been thinking clearly, when I was having my overnight stay last February, I would have sent my husband there, first, instead of home to get me some nice pyjama pants.)

Ravel Them.

And then there are two days of bento action, both featuring that short-grain sweet brown rice I found, which is definitely a success. It takes about an hour to use it for bento (50 minutes of cooking, 10 minutes of resting, plus however long it takes you to fuss it into the shape you like, which could be twenty minutes for me), but if speed is not your intent (and it never is with me), you can do all the other assembly work while it's cooking. ...and also shower, do some dishes, pack up your belongings and necessities for the day... Hence, I didn't find the long cooking time to really be a problem. And, of course, if it is a little problematical for you, just make a bunch at once and freeze (which is what I did with half of the rice, and used it in Friday's lunch).

Onigiri wrapped in nori, carrots, dried apricots, dried figs, almonds, and panda cookies with a bit of soy sauce in le fish. The sweet brown rice was super-tasty--just a wee hint of nuttiness that still played well with the seasoned vinegar (because I make all of my onigiri with sushi rice).

Friday's bento contained brown rice onigiri with nori and shiso furikake. The shiso furikake bleeds a very pretty shade of intense fuschia, and someday I will actually do something with that interesting property, but I only use it in small amounts because it contains MSG and that can sometimes play merry hell with my stomach. It's tasty, though. It's accompanied by more (toaster)oven-roasted broccoli (this time with olive oil, chili flakes, dried orange peel, and garlic--delicious) and sweet chili-sauce glazed chicken.
Bottom tier contains pez de soy sauce, carrots, cheese spears, dried apricots, dried cranberries, and grapefruit sections. I tried to brulee my grapefruit (sprinkle it with a bit of sugar and zap under the broiler), but my toaster oven's broiler isn't beefy enough to do it, and my gas oven's broiler would probably destroy the silicone cup (a chance I don't really want to take). Grapefruit still tasty, though.

Bento and Macarons!

2009-02-10T22:31:00.003-05:00

First: today's bento.

Kiwi, carrots, broccoli, cheese & almonds, and a container of hoisin/chili sauce for chicken karaage. Bottom tier holds said chicken and a brie/honey/dried fig "sandwich." I didn't feel like making rice this morning, and I still have some bread to use up. It's not the most balanced meal I've ever put in my bento, but I figured having raw broccoli gets me some points. (Having the dipping sauce helped!)

And now on to the exciting part: macarons.

After seeing how beautiful they look all over the internet, I decided I had to try making them myself. And I admit to a bit of fear, since I do have difficulty dealing with kitchen failures, and I have seen many tales, far and wide, of the potential pitfalls of macaron-making (fiddly egg whites, humidity, etc.). But. A friend of mine could use some sweetness this week, so today was the day.

I used a recipe from Tartelette, whose method and recipes I've seen hailed far and wide, and I tweaked it for flavorings. Rather than recopy all of her hard work here, I'll send you to the recipe: Gingerbread Macarons. Mine omitted the nutmeg and cloves and added about a tablespoon and a half of sifted cocoa powder, because chocolate and cinnamon together are so lovely.

I used Bob's Red Mill almond flour, and I also blitzed it with the powdered sugar (in my blender) until it was, indeed, far finer than it was in the package. I aged my egg whites over night, and I did let my piped macarons rest on the counter for 30 and 50 minutes.

My oven is a touch hot, so next time, I will check on them at about 18 minutes, because at 20 minutes, they were a bit crunchy when completely cool. But the inside texture is delightful. Look!

For the filling, I used dulce de leche, made in the David Lebovitz fashion. Next time, I think I will put a dish cloth beneath the caramel-holding baking dish, because the center of mine got a bit overdone. It was delicious, but the texture was not smooth--the center got a bit over-caramelized. The little chewy bits were delicious, but not as polished-looking as I would like. But the final product?

Delicious. And they have feet! Proper macaron feet! (You have no idea how excited that makes me.)

Now I just have to not go into a sugar coma.

A Proper Bento

2009-02-09T21:19:00.002-05:00

Finally, I got it together enough to make a real bento for the day! I think it was fueled by my vast new love for Thai sweet chili sauce. The bottom tier holds mini chicken burgers, glazed with Thai sweet chili sauce, sitting on sushi rice rounds. That's accompanied by (toaster)oven-roasted broccoli. In the top tier, there is kiwi, carrot rounds, a little red silicon cup of cheese bits, and the green cup holds a mix of pistachios, almonds, dried cranberries, and dried figs.

On the way home today, I also stopped at the new health-food store (...which may have been the first time I'd ever been in such a thing), and I scored some sweet brown rice, which claims to behave in the same way that sushi rice does, but with more Nutritional Value. It does take 50 minutes to cook, but I'm really not a speed-bento person, so that's not so bad. I snagged some dried apricots, and some almond flour. I have a yen to try my hand at macarons, because they are all over the blogosphere, and they look beautiful and also delicious.

Quick Bentos

2009-02-04T21:57:00.003-05:00

Just two bentos that are mostly snack-based, since I have different on-campus hours this semester. I'm attempting a bit of an experiment for the next few days--seeing if I can keep from the crazy blood-sugar fluctuations that cause nap attacks and general bleeergh.

So, today saw: grapes, carrots, snow peas, a dried fig, almonds, and assorted cheese bits. Well. The golden brown ones are bits of gjetost, but I cannot for the life of me remember the paler cheese's name, and I threw away the wrapper. It came from Wegman's, had a green wax rind, and I swear it was a buttery Norwegian cheese that was not Jarlsberg. So. If anyone can shed some light on my idiocy, that would be grand.

Then there is the pedestrian peanut butter and jelly, made a bit more exciting with almonds and dried cranberries. There's carrots, snow peas, and two homemade chocolate caramels.

Get in the car. It's a BENTO.

2009-01-27T17:32:00.002-05:00

I finally have a packed lunch, one that includes actual food, somewhat "arranged" in a bento box. It's nothing to write home about (...but apparently it's enough to blog about?): an end from a white roll with brie and almonds (in the pink silicone heart) and honey (packet there with the bluish spreader), accompanied by snow peas, carrots, dried plums, and panda cookies.This was enough for lunch, but a meeting I was having ran long (...by about 2 hours), so I did cheat and get a Snickers bar to avoid having to murder anyone on the drive home. Here's hoping I can get back on the bento bus, now that school's started and I might have a stable schedule again.

Mm, foods.

2009-01-26T21:59:00.003-05:00

But first, knitting content! (I KNOW, RIGHT?)
After a great deal of fighting with camera and the photo itself, I have this picture that almost captures the gorgeous saturation of the yarn, Claudia's Hand-Painted merino sock yarn, in Ocean Depths, which is amazing. These socks are all for me. The pattern is Nutkin, and as the inimitable YarnHarlot has said, it really is a fast pattern. It's taking me forever and a day because I'm knitting a shawl, a pair of gloves, and trying to resist casting on for a tote bag project all at the same time.

I've also done a wee bit of cooking:

Delmonico steaks (new cast-iron grill pan proves its worth--and fills my house with smoke, but that's okay because these were damn tasty) with Boursin and feta twice-baked potato and roasted broccoli, which is my new "this is real food" food love.

The broccoli (when I get more broccoli) may appear in bentos, as it tastes quite nice at room temperature and cooks in the same amount of time that rice does.

Cause for Celebration

2009-01-12T18:16:00.005-05:00

UPS smiled upon me today. So there's a camera again! And also a delightful wealth of baking books that are just making me to squee a bit.

My wonderful brother-in-law and his wife gifted me with Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking and I am wicked thrilled. Domestic goddessness isn't exactly tres moi, but I adore Nigella Lawson and everything in this book looks amazing. But you'll hear me say that a lot, I'm thinking.

Then, using the gift card gifted me by my husband's delightful (and perceptive) co-workers who occasionally enjoy the fruits of my culinary labor (bribes will, in fact, get you everywhere), I purchased Dorrie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours and Debby Maugans Nakos's Small-Batch Baking.

To celebrate the whole camera thing, I'm also trying out two new recipes tonight--one new to me because someone else created it, one new to me because I made it up.

First was Use Real Butter's Boursin Chicken, made the way the recipe instructed (egad!) with the exception of halving it, as I only wanted to make two chicken breasts. You can see it below paired with tonight's experiment: Oven-Roasted Butternut Squash with Bacon.

The recipe (modestly portioned side dish for two).

1/2 small butternut squash, peeled and cubed (inch-ish)
2 slices bacon, cut into one-inch bits
1/3 sweet onion (Spanish or Vidalia) cut into 1/2 inch pieces
one clove of garlic, minced
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
generous grind of black pepper
pinch of salt
1 Tbsp. olive oil

Preheat oven to 375F. Put olive oil in an 8x8 baking dish and toss squash, onion, garlic, and seasonings together. Tuck the bacon pieces between the squash cubes at roughly even intervals. Roast for about an hour, stirring gently at the halfway point. Enjoy with anything.

Really, I might make this tomorrow just for lunch for myself (as an experiment, I didn't do the whole squash at once, and so there were no leftovers). I adored this--the sweetness of the squash, prepared this way, astounded me, and the edges of the squash caramelized a bit, giving almost a hint of crispness over the soft interior, and the smoky flavor of the bacon was amazing.

It's not a pretty dish, but it's delicious.

Where was butternut squash when I was ten and refusing to eat my vegetables?

*nota bene: When taking pictures of food, do not do it while ravenous. You just end up stealing bites of the subject and mucking up the plate.

Rice and other disasters

2009-01-09T11:53:00.002-05:00

I am apparently personally incapable of cooking more than 1/2 cup of rice at a time. Frequently, it's not a problem, as most of the time, I am making rice for the current day's bento and that's it. However, that is largely due to the fact that on the occasion that I might like to make more rice (to create bento freezer stash or with dinner), my rice goes utterly wonky. Usually to the tune of hard in the center and mushy/chalky on the outside. I'm not sure how. I follow the same procedure of rinsing, I add the appropriate amount of water as instructed, and, on the advice of a friend after several failures just letting it cook, fluff the larger quantities of rice (like, a cup or two--not trying to make five cups of rice on the stovetop or anything crazy) to prevent the water from being trapped on the bottom. I have tried different sizes of pots (in case depth is an issue)--all to very little avail.

Can you help me, internets? (My favorite solution involves a sweet fuzzy-logic cooker, but that's a wee bit pricetastic right now.)

...camera is in Ohio. *impatient!*

Still camera-less

2009-01-08T09:00:00.002-05:00

Apparently, just because you check the UPS tracking information for your package every eleven seconds doesn't mean it changes. But come on! Camera, according to data, has been sitting on its duff in Nevada since the fifth! And I actually made a passably cute lunch today, but couldn't play the photog for it.

Because I'm a little desperate to have something useful to say, let me tell you about it, and you can visualize something far prettier than what I actually ended up with. Well. Have the highlights, anyway, one of which was the fact that I had a jicama giraffe. With carrot spots. My mother-in-law got me a boatload of adorable wee cookie/aspic cutters for Christmas, and so I had to try them out. I also had some gjetost triangles. This stuff is like heaven to me, and I would dearly love to try making it some day.

As a by-product of making gyoza for New Year's Eve (because I always have more filling than wrappers), I also had some wee chicken mini-burgers (a la Just Bento) to make, so they got sauced with some teriyaki and plunked in beside my rice, too.

But the thing that makes me super-excited, and the thing that will probably lead to my financial downfall, are Meiji Panda Cookies. My mother-in-law got me a box (before I had been blissfully ignorant of them) while she was visiting with her other son in Portland, and they're delicious. Small and crispy and full of rich chocolate creme that is so simply good it's probably made of pandas and bits of rainforest and unicorn horn (even though the ingredients list isn't too traumatizing, actually). I ate one this morning to make sure I wanted to put it in my lunch as my "dessert," and then I packed two, and then I shoved the box in the cupboard while threatening my hands with the rolling pin if they touched the cupboard again today.

...it's not really that I have any real problems with eating a whole (admittedly very small) box of cookies. It's more the fact that they are kind of a precious commodity--in the grocery stores around here (the Asian specialty stores and Wegmania), they clock in at about $4-5 a package. That's a wee bit too bloody much, really. ...however, a quick Googling just found me AsianFoodGrocer.com which promises them at slightly less than a dollar. I might be doomed.

Right, then. None of this is very much fun without anything to look at, is it? That will change soon, I hope. Unless someone eats my camera en route. I would be terribly cross. (Especially since it's bringing me a Dorrie Greenspan cookbook, too!)

Where'd it go, the time that I had?

2009-01-03T14:37:00.003-05:00

School, that's where.

Also, blogging isn't much fun without a functioning camera, and that's also where I've been. The old Canon A80 gave up the ghost (or displayed the ghost, depending--there were a lot of mysterious lines and blurs and inexplicable Dark Spots on all pictures for the last few months), so I'm waiting for a Canon Powershot A590IS to arrive from the good folks at Amazon.

The holidays brought with them a great deal of cooking and knitting, of which there are no photos. Thrilling, no?

But the short list of important milestones, blogwise-speaking:

Knitting:
Finished Cookie A.'s Monkey Socks for my mother and knit Easy Drop-Stitch Scarf for my sister-in-law from the most delicious yarn I've ever worked with, a 50/50 merino/silk from Steam Valley Fibers (purchased at Rhinebeck). It was a variegated red and black (which I'd never really seen in a yarn), and so soft and silky...well. Let's just say I liked it a lot. And would sell my firstborn for a chance to work with it again.

Also, as y'do when you get a little bit of leisure, I started the Pacific Waves shawl that I am knitting for a friend, and the Nutkin socks, because I finally got my paws on some Claudia's handpainted sock yarn, and it is glorious.

Cooking:
Made a vast array of things. Did a whole turkey for Thanksgiving, as I had my parents to feed that day, and I made my butternut squash soup (which I love to bits and pieces) for them. I also made Cranberry Dinner Rolls from Baking Bites (one of my absolute favorites, food-blogwise-speaking), and a molassess and ginger pumpkin tart from Epicurious.

For Christmas gifting, I made chocolate truffles and the best fleur-de-sel caramels I've ever had. There were also three batches of marshmallows (two vanilla, one mint), four kinds of spiced nuts, cookies, and a tiramisu-inspired birthday cake for a friend.

And if only there were photos of any of it. Alas.

I shouldn't be anywhere near food right now, either, as I rather have the plague at the moment. But I do so want to make some ice cream in my new ice cream maker attachment for ye olde Kitchenaid mixer. I'm working on deciding what kind. ...and if I eat it all myself, I won't get anyone else sick, right?

OMG. Bento!

2008-10-29T12:04:00.003-05:00

Sorry it seems I dropped off the face of the earth there. I'd like to say I haven't, but in grad school, you're already so close to the edge...

So, bento back-log. These are from about 2 weeks ago. And then there was a whole week where I pretty much forgot to eat. Let's avoid that in the future, hm?
Noriben with carrot star, and in the top tier, sunsugar tomatoes, marinated mozzarella, broccoli, sugar snaps, dried dates/plums, raspberries, kiwi, mango.

Strawberry yogurt, dried plums, orange segments, and carrot stars. Bottom tier holds a nori-wrapped onigiri, inarizushi, and some shredded leftover chicken.
And a snack bento for one of my shorter days: almonds, dried plums, marinated cheese cubes, carrots, and a little container of butter for the not-shown crispbread.

And I am blogging to you from my wee lunchbreak right now (with a bento and everything!). I tried some jicama. Look for the report on that soonish.

Another Detour (but tasty!)

2008-10-11T11:40:00.003-05:00

Because this is knitting blog, though, first: RHINEBECK IN A WEEK. I have spinning and knitting to show you, too (I really do!), and I'll hopefully get to that post this weekend. Along with the bento backlog. But for now, I had a pretty excellent dinner success on Tuesday night, and I wanted to share:

Apple-Cobbled-Together Roasted Butternut Squash Soup
I have always wanted to make butternut squash soup. I've had it twice, and it remains one of three soups I will eat. (I'm really not much into soup.) But there are so many options, and so many recipes, and I couldn't decide on just one. So, I used a little bit of everything.

Makes 4 Servings(ish)

Ingredients:
1 butternut squash
Olive oil
salt and pepper
cumin

1/2 Vidalia onion, chopped
1 Cortland apple, peeled and chopped
1 cup (ish) chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
dash of cayenne
dash of curry powder
1-2 Tbsp. honey

Preheat oven to 400F.

Slice the squash in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds. If you are feeling ambitious, save them, clean them, and toast in the oven for delicious snacking. But that's another recipe. Brush squash with olive oil, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and a smidge of cumin. Place squash face-down on a cookie sheet and roast for roughly 30 minutes, or until the flesh is soft when stabbed with a fork. Remove from oven and let cool enough to handle.

While squash is cooling is a good time to prep your other ingredients: chop your onion and apple and saute gently in a bit of olive oil (looking for softness, not caramelization) in a heavy pot. A little salt and pepper at this stage is also good and helpful, but remember that you did salt the squash, and the chicken stock will add a bit more salt (even if you use the low-sodium kind, which I recommend). When your apple and onion are softening (10-15 minutes, depending on heat and size of dice), pour in enough chicken stock to cover. Bring to a simmer. While it simmers, scoop the cooled squash out of its skin, chop it a bit, and add it back to the simmering goodness. Stir it a bit, and pop a lid on the pot. Simmer until the squash starts to break down and the onion and apple is good and soft. Remove from heat and carefully puree in a blender. (This may take a few batches. Better to do it in small portions than to have your blender throw hot soup all over.)

Put the puree back into the pot, add the cream, honey, and pepper and curry powder to taste. Stir well and bring back up to heat. If you need to thin the soup at all, add a bit of chicken stock at this point.

Enjoy with a lovely bit of crusty bread of some kind. This pairs beautifully with a roast chicken (which is what I made it with).

Comfort Lunch

2008-09-30T12:19:00.004-05:00

This isn't exactly an original recipe, just another variation on an old favorite, but it's getting firmly into fall weather here in the northeast, and I wanted something warm and sweet. So: Cinnamon-Toasted Peanut Butter & Banana Sandwich!

It's a recipe that you can happily customize--I made it using two different kinds of chocolate on different days.

The basic elements are (for one sandwich):
--2 slices bread (this would be amazing on cinnamon bread, I'll bet)
--1 ripe banana
--peanut butter
--1 tbsp chocolate chips or small chocolate chunks
--1/2 tbsp sugar
--1/4 tsp cinnamon
--butter

Steps (accept that your hands will be messy):
1. Heat a skillet to medium/medium-low heat.
2. Butter one side of each slice of bread.
3. Sprinkle buttered sides of bread with mixed sugar and cinnamon.
4. Spread peanut butter on the bare side of each slice of bread. Put one slice butter/cinnamon-sugar-side down in skillet.
5. Slice banana in half, then slice each half into 2-3 pieces (lengthwise). Arrange on peanut butter side of the bread in the skillet.
6. Sprinkle the chocolate bits over the banana. Top with the other slice of bread, peanut-butter side down.
7. When bottom of sandwich is caramelized (but not burnt!), flip, and caramelize the other side.
8. Enjoy!

If you like things sweet, try milk chocolate, and if you like a really robust chocolate experience, try bittersweet chips. I used Ghirardelli milk and bittersweet, and both turned out deliciously.

While it's certainly nothing like health food, this is a really robust snack/lunch/breakfast that will sustain you. The peanut butter provides great protein, bananas are full of goodness, and the cinnamon-sugar adds a nice sweetness and crunch without being overkill.

I'm certain I'll play with this one again, possibly with almond butter (something I've always wanted to try but haven't yet) and different additions. Like cinnamon chips, or raisins, maybe.

DIY One-Serving Microwave Popcorn

2008-09-22T20:37:00.002-05:00

I'm as susceptible as the next person to the lure of popcorn, but the pre-packaged microwaved stuff just chafes at me in terms of price/quantity/the fact that the "100 Calorie" packs of Kettle Corn have bleeding fake sugar in them. (I am absolutely in favor of requiring all things with artificial sweeteners--and no, Splenda, you are not exempt because you're "made from" sugar--to be labeled across the front in big, bright labels, that such is the case.) (I can live and let live with a lot of things, but...man. Me and fake sugar = pistols at dawn all the way.)

So. I found me an internet tutorial (as y'do), the necessary supplies, and I did science to my popcorns. I followed the tutorial under the following conditions:

--I used a cappuchino-style mug, so as to have more room for tasty goodness
--I used peanut oil (just FYI)
--I lived dangerously and put both salt and sugar on the unpopped kernels (this worked okay, though maybe if I were feeling more ambitious, next time I would cook the sugar with a little butter/oil first, so it dissolves, because the sugar grains really mostly stuck to the sides of the mug, but then I could just rub the kernels over it as I ate, so it worked, sort of)
--Do make sure all four corners of your paper towel are battened down so that you don't have escapees

But: success! Tasty, smart-quantity snack. Give it a try! I'll be experimenting with seasonings and oils as life allows--I'm thinking I have to try a smidge of sesame oil in there, maybe with five-spice.

Captain America Cookies

2008-09-20T11:41:00.003-05:00

Okay, so I really think Captain America (you know, Marvel superhero) is kind of a tool, but today is a birthday party for the delightful proprietor of Charging Star Comics, and I said I'd make some cookies.
The dough base is Alton Brown's Sugar Cookie dough. I added 2 tablespoons of peanut butter and 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder to 1/3 of the dough for the Bat-Cookies. Cap's shields are decorated with royal icing that was thinned with skim milk (I dipped the cookie stars in white and the rounds in red) and very slightly thinned icing in blue and white was then piped on to finish them. The Bat-Cookies are drizzled with semi-sweet chocolate.

There was a bit of bento this week, though this is the only one that was worth taking a photo of:
Tuesday's lunch, test-driving some lotus root. You can see the rounds on the bottom tier (cut in half and stood on end) with the onigiri, carrots, snow peas, and stir-fried chicken bits. Top tier holds more of the veg, plus tomatoes, some broccoli, dried mango, dried plums, a mocha cupcake, and a little container of butter (atop a similar one of jelly) for my Kavli crispbreads that are not pictured.

The lotus root was a decent addition to the lunch, though I think next time I will cook it at a higher heat for a shorter time. I do like the way it looks a lot, though I'm still working on finding a good way to showcase that while still making optimum use of the space available.

Catch-All

2008-09-15T17:28:00.005-05:00

Lots of bits and bobs here, as it's been a while since I updated. Silly graduate school.

Actual content from tonight--I found some vacuum-packed boiled lotus root at Kim's last week, and I'd been wanting to try it for a while, and I haven't been able to find fresh lotus root locally, so I picked up a package. First, I drained all of it and put a cookie-sheet's worth to freeze and be portioned up for bento, and what was left over (about 9 rounds), I tried Jugal bandi's baked lotus root chips. The guide doesn't mention oil type, and I'll say this--don't use olive oil. I think the flavor's too heavy for the lotus root, and next time I'll do something a little more adventurous with the spices. I went to my go-to potato favorites: chile powder and cumin. Something lighter all around would likely be better--peanut oil, maybe five-spice. Well...if those flavors aren't exactly lighter, at least they're not what I always do with my oven-fried starchy veg. It's not to say that what I have isn't tasty--it is, and they seem to be better at room temperature than potatoes made in the same way.

Expect to see some lotus root appearing in the bento soon, too.

And with regard to bento: I've been pretty lackluster about them lately. Let's call this the highlights reel, and anything not pictured is really better that way.

Two from last week:
The usual suspects for veg, plus three mini-onigiri with sesame seeds, tiny chicken karaage bites, honey mustard sauce for dipping, a little square of homemade fudge, pomegranate arils, and a little cup of brie topped with almonds and honey for the Kavli crispbread that is not pictured. That stuff makes the best working breakfast, but it really does need a tasty topping of some kind.Again, the veg and brie and pomegranate arils, this time accompanied by dried dates, figs, and plums. Bottom tier is chicken and veggie fried rice. I think, with this one, if I had just had a wee bit of egg to chuck in it, it would have tasted like fried rice ought.
And this was today's: carrots, sunsugar tomatoes, dried plums and dates, a container of mango, and a mini mocha cupcake on the top. Bottom holds onigiri (one mixed-rice with sesame seeds and bonito flakes, the other two topped with shiso furikake and sesame seeds), with broccoli and carrots. I like the flavor of the shiso furikake, and I like that it gives me the option of turning rice a very robust pink if I were to mix it into the rice, but there is MSG in this furikake, and I am sometimes sensitive to it. I'll have to use this one pretty sparingly, I think, but I'm glad to have found it.
And this is a view of the cupcakes, one regular, one mini. They're coffee cupcakes (my favorite cupcake recipe in the world-the cake part is moist and fluffy and delicious) with this chocolate ganache frosting, courtesy of the genius that is the now-retired Cupcake Bakeshop. I made them for a grad student get-together, and, per usual, a few sweet-toothed persons zeroed in on them and loved them, while the cheese-and-crackers crowd sipped their wine and were generally undessert-ish. Pfft. Left more of my good friend's delicious chocolate cream pie (with gingersnap crust!) for moi.

I live!

2008-09-08T07:50:00.007-05:00

Well. Sort of, I guess. Exam is finished. Now just the nail-biting and nausea until I find out the result (and I have no idea how long that will be). But below you can see the kind of carnage that my desk area was at the end of the draft. ...I wish I could say it didn't still look like that, but then I'd be lying.
Couple of bentos to post, though, from last week. Nothing spectacular, but they got me through the end of the week. Friday's was actually quite tasty, and I'm sad I forgot to take a picture of it.

Bento below is today's bento: sunflower seed bagel pieces and tahini to dip them in, carrots, sunsugar tomatoes (honestly, the garden keeps giving them, so I'll keep eating them), snow peas, dried plum/fig/date trio, and two candies.

This was Thursday's. ...Thursday was kind of a failure as a day, all the way around, but the mango and the avocado maki helped. Also some carrot maki, carrots, sunsugar tomatoes, dried plums, a little bite of brownie, and a cup of chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and cashews.And Wednesday's bento was a group of successes and failures. Success: the carrot log-cabin-style corral I was building. Failure: too many edamame , and one side of it collapsed, and it's no longer pretty. Success: sesame seed star designs on the onigiri. Failure: being fairly sick of broccoli, but still having it in my lunch. And the meat is from 3 barbeque chicken wings, so that was good.

My Vigdis is actually paddling along--I just need to put on the collar, the other button band (with button holes...alas), get some buttons, and hope it's not as sack-like as it seems when looking down at oneself. Really. It looks ginormous. But it is supposed to be a cozy snug thing, and I should try it on while I'm wearing real clothing, not pyjamas.