Making Art in the Kitchen and the Studio

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I haven't been making much art lately, but I have  been busy in a fall-frenzy of Suzy Homemaker domesticity.  Actually think there's art in this - making something beautiful is art, right?

Tomato sauce - frozen because I'm not a big fan of canning.  Recipe from A Way to Garden.

And apple butter from here.

The Captain has a grape arbor and this year was our first (small)  harvest.  Jelly recipe straight from the pectin box:

Then there was some play time with the Texas daughter and the grand boys - so much fun! Being a Yaya is the best gig ever.

  

Back to art -  I have been making a planner for next year (more on that later), and then there's this quick stitched card.   I used the tapestry ribbon as a base for sewing on the other scraps, then glued it to the text paper that was glued to the card front so no stitching shows through the back side.

I found the butterfly fabric label in those value bins at Michael's.   I love all the vintage-y goodness so I  bought them out.

Art is where you find it - kitchen goodies or mixed media fun.

Martha Stewart to the Rescue - Again

I've been on a bread-baking kick lately, having discovered how ridiculously easy it is to make Jim Lahey's No Knead Bread.  Honestly, mix it and let the magic of yeast do its work, then bake - it's really that easy.

I've been baking the bread in my old  ( as in purchased when I was in high school , at the end of the Pleistocene era) dutch oven.    The stainless steel pot with a loaner lid and no handles did the trick, but seriously,  I needed an upgrade.   

My first idea was to go all out and get one of  those chi-chi Le You-Know What ovens.  I just could not convince myself to spend  $350.00 for one pan .  The Captain says I'm cheap to keep, but really maybe I'm just cheap.  

Enter the Macy's flyer, with a one-day sale on Martha Stewart enameled cast iron cookware.   With the one-day sale and a coupon, here is my new $45.00 dutch oven.   Even at the full-price tag of $149, it's still orders of magnitude cheaper that the Le You-Know-What one.

This is one serious pan, weighing in at 12.6 pounds.  I love all the colors, but since I'm in a blue phase, this marine blue color is perfect.

Since I saved so much money on my Martha pan,  I replaced a 1980s vintage pan that is the perfect size, but looks exactly like you'd expect a chap 80s pan would look.   

Calphalon sale at the outlet - more money saved!

To celebrate all this saving, I found this summer tuxedo shirt at JJill - also on sale.

Two new pans in one day - I do live an exciting life.

Downton Abby and Cookies Fit for the Queen

Add me to the throngs of people happy to see the return of our virtual friends from across the Pond.   A full two hours of upstairs/downstairs goings-on called for some sort of celebration.

I pinned these tea bag cookies ages ago and they fit the bill for celebrating English TV drama.

The idea came from Le Petrin, a wonderfully creative French blog,   I can muddle my way through much of it, but decided to do a Google translation in case I missed any details.  Translating a language word-by-word means some stuff really does get lost in translation.  Like this funny bit :  "And here is the result: slightly lemony shortbread fluxes enriched with a thin layer of dark chocolate, delicious and aesthetically bluffing.  And this :  "Of course, achieving these cookies reports to the waiting game as if existing cutter must cut the shortbread with a template one by one and then make small holes, thread fasteners cotton stick labels, dip in chocolate … ".  Don't get me wrong, I love Google translate (while I can get the gist of French blogs, I am totally lost on Swedish ones), but the literal translations make for some fun reading.

I stamped crowns for the tea bag tags and, viola, cookies fit for upstairs, made by a clearly downstairs cook who could have used some additional kitchen girl help.  I used a sugar cookie recipe from here that worked well (don't think I've ever added cream cheese to rolled sugar cookies before), but the original on Le Petrin used a shortbread base - either works.

We also made Lady Sybil cocktails from The Kichn (same blog as the sugar cookie recipe, and yes, that how it's spelled!)).  Turns out that while Lady Sybil was championing women's rights and social justice, she also knew her way around champagne drinks.  These are so easy.

Lady Sybil Cocktail

makes 1 cocktail

1 oz gin

3/4 oz St. Germain elderflower liqueur

brut champagne, chilled

Combine the gin and St. Germain over ice. Shake and strain into a flute. Top with champagne.

Polished up the silver tray, added a few dainty goodies, and we were ready to watch the drama with cookies that, while not "aesthetically bluffing", were bluffant - slang French-talk for amazing.

Frozen Hearts of Herb Goodness

I have herbs (H-erbs, as Martha would say!) growing in pots by the kitchen all summer.   I saw an idea on Pinterest for preserving herbs suspended in frozen olive oil.  I stopped pinning long enough to actually do it.

This couldn't be simpler - pick herbs, rinse and pat dry with a paper towel.  Rough chop the herbs, and fill ice cube trays with the chopped herbs.  Then drizzle olive oil to fill each compartment. Freeze till firm.

I thrifted this little heart ice cube tray because I thought regular ice cube size might be too big. Since the oil freezes fairly soft, you could even freeze these in a small plastic container, pop out the contents and slice off what you need and send the rest back to the freezer.  Or use regular sized trays and cut frozen cube in half if the whole thing is too much.

 But how sweet are these little hearts of herbs?

These are the sage cubes.  Once the cubes froze solid, I popped them out and put them in freezer bags for storage.

And the parsley ones in small sized regular cubes.

You can do this with left-over herbs from those big bunches you have to buy when you really only need a few sprigs.  I bought some cilantro the other day and had lots left.   Usually left-over herbs turn into The Green Slime of Death in the bottom of the fridge. No more!   I froze these in water instead of oil as a test.

Back in the day, I used to do lots of freezing and canning, but  gave it up when I realized all the other mothers in town spent the summer at the pool!  Now I have some little packages of goodness to add zip to winter cooking and a fleeting feeling that I'm Mother Earth, laying in provisions for the upcoming winter.

Brunch!

We're big fans of brunch; so much so that The Captain jokes that we worship at the Church of Saint Benedict.  What's not to like about brunch - lazy breakfast with multiple options, some alcoholic beverage usually included, then a slow slide right into lunch fare and the desert table finale.  One of our local spots has the Chocolate Fountain of Goodness - sort of a throw-back to the tacky 80s, but not gonna lie, love strawberries that have been under that fountain!

This morning we had The Captain's brother and his wife for brunch.  Since my SIL is a fan of the brunch buffet, I decided to have some fun with it and create a buffet experience for her.  I spread out the food on our bar and made little tents to identify everything.  Sadly,  no Fountain of Goodness!

The egg strata is an easy brunch dish - assemble it  the night before and just bake in the morning.  Recipe from Smitten Kitchen and available here.  It's easy and versatile - I've added mushrooms, peppers and topped with tomato slices.  You can add sausage, bacon, or ham (or all three if you really like the salted pork products!) and switch out the cheeses to what you have on hand or like.





I saw the waffle cookies - Boot Tracks-  on Huffington Post.   Yummy little chocolate bites with a hint of coffee.

And a totally non-brunch-related photo of little spring bouquets from our gardens.  Hsappy  Mimosa-in-your-cup  Sunday!



Cookbook Rediscovered

I bought this book for the first time  just before my first child was born and taught myself how to make bread with  this little book.  It has everything from very basic bread, muffins and quick breads to more elaborate offerings.  I actually made the bagels from this book, and believe me, while they were yummy, making bagels is wayyyy to much work!

I used it so much the pages starting falling out and at one point put it down on a hot burner so it sported the swirly design of an electric stove unit singed onto the back cover.  Sometime over the decades I lost the book.

California Daughter was looking for my soda bread recipe for St. Patrick's Day.  It came from this book, so I went online to see if I could track one down.  The first one I found was pricey - $40.00!  If you look carefully, you can see that it cost all of $1.99 brandie-new back-in-the-day!  More careful searching and I located it for not much more than the original price and bought two - one for CD and a replacement for me.  I plan to make some yummy lemon bread this weekend, but no bagels!

Somewhat related - heard this on the news tonight.  Turns out the US spends the least amount of time cooking of all the countries in a recent study.  We also spend the least amount of time eating - probably because of all the eating in the car or wolfing down take-out in front of the TV.   ( I have done my share of  both).    Bet we could at least win the "who eats the most" category!  Here's to baking and enjoying leisurely meals.