Irish Soda Bread
March 17, 2015 § Leave a comment
February was a time for big projects at work, and also a time of snowstorms and snow days, and a week-long complete office flood. With February good and over, my projects off at the print house, our city all-time snowfall record beaten, the rain coming down, and (sometimes, sometimes) the sun coming out, I have a bit of a lull this week.
I’ve had some time to see people I haven’t seen for awhile. I brought this soda bread to a Sunday brunch gathering this past weekend in Beacon Hill. I placed it out on the table, alongside some whipped maple butter (salted, of course), and fell in love with the light coming in from the bay window. It was such a welcome change from photographing in my apartment, which often involves sweeping the coffee table for stacks of abandoned mail, opening the blinds, and cursing the layer of dust on the window panes preventing the light from shining through.
I’ve been mulling over a lot of life changes recently, and too often this seems to end in a feeling of frustrated dissatisfaction with the present. Sometimes, it doesn’t take much more than a moment admiring a friend’s window curtains to propel me into a state of “Why can’t I have that?” and “Why can’t my life look more like this?”
I keep trying to remember that the prospect of big decisions, and the anxiety that comes with making those choices, is a result of already having a whole lot that is good in my life. Hopefully, that thought will sink in soon. In the meantime, there’s soda bread, and that’s not bad either.
You can find the recipe here. My skillet soda bread didn’t poof up much in the center, and I wasn’t a big fan of it the next day, but hot from the oven with a pat of butter, it was delicious.
Sushi and Sunday brunches
March 9, 2014 § Leave a comment
I’m laying in bed this Sunday morning recovering from an over-the-top brunch of goat cheese and pear stuffed french toast with whipped cream and a side of home fries at the Ball Square Cafe, and thought I would share my sushi-making night. I got together with a couple of girls from work last Thursday to make veggie sushi with an array of ingredients – carrots, cucumber, mango, cream cheese, shallots, avocado, apple, watermelon radish, shiitakes, and even some homegrown pea shoots that Allison brought in from her backyard. I loved the avocado with mango and bit of crunch from the shallots, but the cream cheese with apples was also a popular choice. Making sushi was actually surprisingly simple, led by our in-the-know sushi-maker Beth who grew up rolling sushi with her dad for parties. I can’t wait to buy my own rollers so I can make it at home. I brought over my fourth batch of blondies in about two weeks, this time packed with Canadian smarties because that’s what I had on hand. At the end of the night, after cups of tea and some puzzling (that would be, working on a puzzle of insects, fish, and platypuses on the coffee table), I came home with enough sushi for lunch the next day, a potted plant that Allison had just separated from her mother plant, and a baby succulent. My plants are now sitting next to my windowsill, soaking in the sun of our first spring-like weekend. Whenever I complain about winter here, Boston people always tell me that having brutal winters and “real seasons” makes them appreciate the nice times more. I’m still not sure that I buy the idea that you need almost five months of freezing temperatures, snow, ice, and slush to appreciate spring in the air, but I sure am liking the sun. I headed out for a 12-miler with the team yesterday along the Newton hills of the Boston Marathon course and, even though my left arch continues to cause me problems, was inspired by the camaraderie of all of the runners out training. I won’t be running Boston this year, but I’m more driven to run next year as a result, and, of course, show up at mile 20 to cheer on the team this year while drinking beer 🙂 Now I’m equal parts giddy from all of the sugar from brunch and exhausted from eating so much, so I’ll leave you alone with this pecan sticky bun I had for breakfast the other day at Flour. 
Resolutions and a return
January 6, 2014 § 1 Comment
It’s not the most photogenic start to the new year, but it’s a start nonetheless. I’m deeply in that moment of time when I’ve been away for so long that it just keeps getting harder and harder to come back. I’ve made two batches of ginger molasses cookies with perfect crackly tops and sparkling turbinado sugar dustings, but haven’t been able to raise a camera to take a picture of what I’d call my ultimate cookie. For the past few months, my camera has sat abandoned at my desk while I made winter squash galettes with buttery crusts and dined on fried mussels and spinach falafel at Oleana and sole with romesco sauce and bittersweet chocolate pot de crème at Foreign Cinema.
Finally back from the holidays, I ended this weekend feeling fulfilled in a way that I haven’t for quite awhile. A snowstorm descended on Boston last Thursday and work was closed on Friday as a result. I spent the day working from home, teaching myself html, and was happy to step into the kitchen for lunch to make a simple spaghetti with cherry tomatoes and asparagus. There’s just something about preparing lunch in the moment that feels so much more like a break than turning on the microwave at noon. It was just a start to the weekend’s cooking. Friday night, we nestled into a bottle of wine, a movie, a batch of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and a towering load of pumpkin bread with pecans. We sat on the couch and ate bowls of risotto with the snow piled up outside our windows.
One of my new year’s resolutions is to start cooking out of my rather extensive cookbook collection, and this weekend, we tackled two new recipes — a Indian tomato-based vegetable curry out of Prashad, and Thai stir-fried brussels sprouts from Pok Pok. Both came out fabulously, and I’m feeling recommitted to the goal of tackling cooking projects outside of my comfort zone. The ingredient lists seemed daunting at first — this has always been the main hurdle for me in cooking over baking — but once we got started, I was happy to spend the afternoon in the kitchen and learning.
The recipe today isn’t a curry or stir-fry, but the pumpkin bread I made while we were snowed in. Chock-full of pecans and super moist, even days after baking, it’s become my new favorite pumpkin bread. The recipe makes a lot, so I ended up with half a dozen muffins in addition to a towering loaf.
Pumpkin Bread
Adapted from Laurie Bennett’s Downeast Maine Pumpkin Bread at Allrecipes.com
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water or milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 cup pecans (chopped coarsely)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour desired loaf or muffin pans.
In a large bowl, mix pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water or milk, and vanilla. Add both brown and white sugars and stir until combined. Mix in the nuts. In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture, being careful not to overmix.
Bake loaves for about 50 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean (muffins will have a shorter bake time).
New Hampshire getaway
October 8, 2013 § Leave a comment
Last weekend, we drove north to New Hampshire. Or rather, Dan drove us north, since I still can’t drive. The idea for the weekend originated with my registering for the Applefest Half Marathon in Hollis, a course of rolling hills through the fall foliage with the promise of apple crisp at the finish line, and baskets of apples and pies as prizes if I did well enough. Luckily we were not disappointed — I say we because I got cornered into promising to make several apple pies if I didn’t manage to win one at the race. The course was tough, much hillier than I had pictured (word is, my website reading abilities aren’t the greatest as the rolling hills were clearly indicated when I signed up to run), and I never felt like I settled into a real rhythm. But I came in just two minutes behind my half marathon PR and was pretty pleased that I had finally gotten back into training and racing, even if the actual race had moments that could have gone better. And the prize, a towering basket of apples, for winning my age group, was a pretty nice cherry on top.
From there, the weekend was mostly eating. A first post-race stop at a nearby apple orchard where a wood-fired pizza cart had set up on the lawn for lunch included a pizza topped with spiced pumpkin sauce and bacon, another with peppers, onions, and spinach, blistered black crust and the squeals of children in the rows of pumpkins by the general store. Then, we drove north to Concord, where we stopped at the Gould Hill Farm in Contoocook. A delightful orchard nestled in the rolling hills, now flaming orange and red, specked like evergreen, we ate hot fluffy cider donuts, drank apple cider, and picked a peck full of Empires, Macouns, and Hampshires. We also played catch with an apple and ate a few, but we don’t tell everyone that.
We drove two more hours north, through the lakes region, to North Conway, where we stayed the night at the Isaac Merrill House (Thanks, Mom!), a sweet, white house, dating back to 1773, with creaky floors and fluffy blueberry pancakes and French toast for breakfast. We spent a lot of the trip in the car, expressly to see the fall foliage, which draws so many people north every year. Sunday morning, we drove through the national forest, stopping every so often, emerging into the chill to take in the river winding down next to the road, the mountains streaked with color, vibrant orange hitting the blue backdrop of the sky. As we approached Boston, the rain started to come down, at first a light mist but increasingly heavy, and we stopped again in Concord, this time to discover that most bakeries and restaurants are closed on Sunday, and settled for a veggie pizza, that was actually quite good, as pizza tends to be.
I’ll spend the next week coming up with ways to use all of the apples we brought home; it started with an apple crisp, topped with vanilla ice cream last night, which we’ll continue to eat for breakfast these work-day mornings.
Brief weekend eats
September 2, 2013 § Leave a comment
Just a quick little note that I’m unable to upload pictures from my camera – I don’t often post my Instagram photos, but a couple from this weekend turned out better than expected, so here we are. We did a little bit of lazy food adventuring this weekend, starting with breaking in my new waffle iron on Saturday morning with some multi-grain waffles, then a pick-me-up at Tatte Bakery in Kendall Sunday afternoon (which included this spiraly brioche with halva paste) before heading to a backyard party, then homemade pizza (with homemade tomato sauce, using up all of the tomatoes from the CSA!) topped with you-name-it which we grilled at our own backyard party today.
Anyway, fingers crossed that my photos aren’t lost forever in the black hole of my camera! Happy (end of) Labor Day weekend!
The art of the mini-vaca
February 5, 2013 § Leave a comment
While I’m hashing out the details of how I’m ever going to survive this coming semester and how I’m ever going to have time for anything remotely social, I thought I would share a couple of pictures from some recent mini-vacations.
A recent trip to Seattle brought a Lola brunch of squid kebab with crushed chili and chermoula served with pita triangles, Greek salad, and garlic smashed potatoes; and mini donuts served with spiced pumpkin butter and maple mascarpone. A dinner at Restaurant Zoe featuring fresh ricotta gnudi with truffle oil; mussels and clams with smoked Fresno pepper and Spanish chorizo, sopped up with focaccia; and seared diver scallops with lentils and shredded duck, a heavier winter take on the usually light scallop; among many many other dishes. Another dinner at Poppy featured eggplant fries, a delightedly bright and crisp crab and avocado salad, curried shrimps, and an assortment of vegetarian sides including butternut squash, lentils, and red beet soup.
A few weekends later found me in Boston, fulfilling a love affair with Flour, a bakery in Cambridge. We ate there twice in two days. A chunky cookie with coconut, nuts and chocolate chips, a milk chocolate hazenut cookie, and a ginger cookie for the bus back to New York City. A salad of greens, grilled focaccia, mozzarella, tomatoes, and white beans. A sophisticated BLT with dark crispy bacon strips, aioli, and ripe tomatoes. And finally a vanilla cupcake with chocolate buttercream to share, my favorite combination of cake and frosting.
I’ve been slacking a bit on the pictures recently, and on remembering meals, mostly because my head is tied up recalling food experiences from last summer for my thesis writing and dreaming about this coming summer and all of the lovely places I’d like to vist.
Soufflé Days 