Life is in the Details

Arugula Risotto

This arugula risotto, from La Tartine Gourmande made for such a delicious lunch over the weekend.

Here's the review I wrote of the recipe at the 101Cookbooks Library:

I made this arugula risotto this morning for lunch and it was perfect! Adding greens to risotto makes me feel way less guilty indulging in such sumptuousness. Arugula, basil, and parsley gets blanched for 30-60 seconds and then gets set aside to cool. Then you proceed with adding the oil, butter, and aromatics for a bit as in usual risotto recipes. (I used an onion instead of the leeks that the recipe called for. There's a shallot in there too. Oh it smells so good already.) Then the rice, stir, then the wine, stir, stir, then the broth, more stirring, then you can chop the greens/herb mixture when you're waiting for the arborio to absorb the veggie broth and grate the cheese needed. This recipe uses marscapone and pecorino romano, which I have never used in risottos before (usually its Parm Reggiano all the way). This was *very tasty* - I am very much looking forward to leftovers tomorrow - and I added some quartered black cherry tomatoes on top which added a nice, sweet acidic counterpoint to the rich, creaminess of the risotto. I think I might even add some more greens next time. I do love my greens, after all!!

 

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Unconventional breakfast and granola bars

Sometimes you have to give in to the "I want a savory crepe with ratatouille and goat cheese for breakfast" craving. Yeah, I was as surprised by this as you! But I had all the ingredients so was able to put it together in under 5 minutes (I defrosted the ratatouille the night before and the crepe took less than a minute to heat up from the freezer from that time when I made a batch of Crepes and made some sweet and some savory) and it did not disappoint! I'm back on the "normal" breakfast track with a waffle this morning, ,but who knows for how long. What's "normal" anyway? Sounds rather boring if you ask me.

After chowing down on this, we went for a family bike ride. The weather was perfect too! I had to dismount when I saw all the amazing flowers in this garden. So apparently I need a bumper sticker that says "I brake for cutting gardens." I could have sat and gazed at this patch of flowers for at least an hour.

 

Today I made some of my favorite granola bars because this weekend I'll be attending a 3-day fitness conference and participating in lots of classes (yoga, indoor cycling, personal training, Zumba, etc.) so I'll need plenty of on-the-go snacks in between my sessions.

 

In the mix are: rolled oats, golden flax meal, slivered almonds, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, quinoa flakes, kamut puffs, dried currants, dried cranberries, golden raisins, almond butter, honey, brown sugar, and vanilla extract.

I also finished up a much-needed organization project. More on that to come.

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The Restaurant at Patowmack Farm

We had the pleasure of having a date night at Patowmack Farm last week. I started with a watermelon gazpacho as an appetizer. In addition to the watermelon there were heirloom tomatoes, sorrel, and oberegood feta cheese.

Pictured above was my entree of garden vegetables grown on-site served with anson mills pencil cob corn grits. The grits were delicious. The garden vegetables were perfectly cooked, though a bit un(der)seasoned.

 

Mike ordered the Chesapeake Jumbo Lump Crab Beignets with smoked paprika remoulade atop butter lettuce. His was amazing!

His entree was the Hedgeapple Farm beef rib-eye with caramelized onions, arugula, shiitake mushrooms (which he got on the side for me!), and red wine marmalade. Again, he said his was amazing! Best-in-class kind of stuff.

The view from our table was so serene as we could see the tops of the trees and the bridge connecting Maryland and Virginia over the Potomac River.

I love that the menus are printed with our name and the date. We've already booked a table here for our anniversary at the end of the month.

 

Today's Harvest

There's something magical about sun-warmed tomatoes from the garden. I'm going to enjoy every bit of these beauties.

Today's Harvest

There's something magical about sun-warmed tomatoes from the garden. I'm going to enjoy every bit of these beauties.

Baseball, Wallflowers, and the morning after

Mike and I had a date night last night at the Nationals game and the best part? The Wallflowers were playing the post-game concert! The concert was the whole reason we were going to the game. I finally had the opportunity to see one of my favorite performers live (that would be Jakob Dylan)!

 

Here's Mike and I at the game. I had to buy a Nationals hat to support our home team. I cheer for them when they aren't playing the Yankees

 

Here was our view of the Wallflowers.

We made it on the jumbotron 4 times. That's certainly a record for me as previously I was on a big fat zero times!

 

When I got home I couldn't sleep at all I was so full of energy from dancing and singing at the top of my lungs.

 

This morning called for a green smoothie to wake me up... And a small waffle plate with fruit. Did I mention that I got a new waffle maker? I'll have to do a separate post about it but today we used up our last of the new batch of waffles from the new one and now no one wants to touch the ones in the freezer from the old waffle maker (that we had for 15 years). They are awful compared to the new ones.

 

The blender view this morning...

 

Ingredient round-up:

I went for subbing oats for the frozen banana I usually put in the chocolate cherry almond butter smoothie because we wanted Mike to be able to try it but it was not a good substitution. The banana adds a creaminess but also a sweetness and when I added the oats instead I temporarily forgot about replacing the sweetness. After we all tasted ours we knew it needed some sweetness so we added the rest of the mangoes we had. It tasted better but not what we wanted. :( Next time I'll know better and not even try to make a non-OJ-based smoothie if I'm going to offer it to Mike. He just likes his OJ-based smoothies and that is that.

 

Quick lunch... Again I had the chapatti with hummus and cukes. I couldnt resist. This time I added some sautéed garlic mushrooms that I had leftover in the refrigerator and a pinch of truffle salt. Mmmm. It was the perfect light lunch to tide me over while we attended a community theater performance of "Hello, Dolly!" that some of our friends and neighbors were in. The show was great and it's so neat when you know some of the actors! I was so happy for them as I know they worked very hard for the past few months and it showed... they did an amazing job!

This week J goes off to sleep away camp. I hope I'm ready. Oh she's ready for sure. It's the rest of us that I'm concerned about. I know Ryan will be a sobbing mess tomorrow morning but I'm hoping his fun basketball camp will be enough of a distraction. AND we have dinner plans in DC to catch up with an old college friend (Hi Steve!) so I'm hoping that will distract all of us!

 

Off to study some French. Au revoir!

 

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Artichoke love

Just a short post showing something I absolutely love: ARTICHOKES!

this was the first time I made stuffed artichokes at home (using the recipe from Mediterranean Harvest). They were very good and, since it was just me eating these, I had one for each of the three subsequent days (they got better the day after) but my favorite way to eat them is still leaf by leaf sans stuffing dipped into a garlicky yogurt dip (with a spoonful of mayo added in) and a squeeze of lemon in it. I'm going to try some artichokes dipped in a lemony vinaigrette this week too.

 

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Finished chapatis

These chapatis, 100% whole-wheat Indian flatbreads, were so easy to make! There's no yeast in the mix, just wheat flour, water, and salt, and so no need to wait for the dough to rise. You just mix the ingredients and you can get rolling and cooking right away. I let the dough rest about 30-45 minutes because I needed to shower, deal with some pre-teen drama from one of J's friends (whose since been blocked from her phone - thank you Mike!), and then there was laundry to round up and start.

When you're ready to bake it you grab a piece of dough and form a small ball, sprinkle some flour on the dough and your work surface, roll it out until it's quite thin, and then you cook it in a cast-iron skillet for 30 seconds on each side. The best part was finishing these off over an open flame and watching it puff and char.

I had one of these with hummus and cucumbers with a pinch of coarse salt as I was craving and it was the perfect lunch! The kids enjoyed it to. There was a pepperoni sandwich and also a sunflower seed butter/banana sandwich. Not quite the traditional way this flatbread was intended to be eaten but we all enjoyed it and I think that's all that matters!

I made four chapatis today and put the rest of the dough covered with plastic wrap in the refrigerator so I can make fresh ones for tomorrow.

Chapatti

This morning I am mixing up a batch of chapati dough (using Pizza and Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day) to use as sandwich bread later - craving this with hummus and cucumbers - and Jessi just helped me press yesterday's dough into tart molds so there's pâté sucrée blind-baking in the oven. Yep, its definitely going to be a delicious day. Hope yours is too!

William, thank you for writing about my sunken cake. I'll get an extra can of baking powder when I go grocery shopping today just in case.

The sunken #chocolate #almond #cake

I had high hopes for this cake. After all I love all the main ingredients. Nectarines are my FAVORITE summer fruit. Hands-down. No question.

 

I adore almonds.

 

I love chocolate.

 

I get excited about cooking with alternative flours and not using wheat flour. I know. I'm a bit strange.

 

I am really digging the gorgeous photos in La Tartine Gourmande and almost every page within makes me want to run into the kitchen and cook. Like absolutely right then and there. And there are not many cookbooks that do this to me.

 

Note in the ingredients photo below, the upper left corner where the cookbook is open and you can see how lovely Ms. Peltre's cake turned out.

Warning: You will be disappointed when you see my version. But I'm all for full disclosure. Things aren't perfect over here and I think it's helpful to share the real stuff that goes on. Triumphs as well as sunken chocolate cakes.

 

Cinnamon sugar nectarines. OMG! I could have stopped righ there and eaten the entire pan myself. But I told myself I must resist. Resist for the sake of the children who want an almond chocolate cake. Oh, but I am weak and who wil notice if a few slices are missing?

 

Oh they were GOOD!

 

But then this is how my cake turned out. Bleh. Sunken in

the middle....

 

with nectarines slices all the way on the bottom. Double bleh.

I ended up throwing this in the garbage after it sat on the counter for a few days with no one really wanting to eat at it. The kids didn't think it was chocolatey enough to have "chocolate" in the title or do eat that as their one allotted dessert item of the day. I nibbled on it here and there but wasn't wowed by it so eventually stopped too. Was it because I used a 13"x4" pan instead of a 13.75" x 4.5" pan? Maybe. My pan doesn't seem THAT far off from the original to have made everything sink but how can I know for sure until I try it again with the correct size pan? So I'm now seeking the larger tart pan if anyone out there has one that they'd like to lend me for the cause.

It's so sad when good ingredients don't turn out as hoped. But I won't be down for long as I have some almond frangipane in the refrigerator and a batch of the pâté sucree (also from La Tartine Gourmande) in there too that I made this afternoon with which I will make a different nectarine dessert. Tomorrow is another day and it's going to be a delicious one!

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