Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Butternut Squash Lasagna:

Based on a recipe from Giada De La Laurentis

As part of our New Year resolution, I've been making more and more of our dinner. Jeff ordered a box of veggies to be delivered weekly and thus, I have no excuse! Unless, I want to waste food...

One of the challenges I'm attempting is to try new recipes or ingredients in new ways. This week was lasagna (I've never made one!) AND a butternut squash one to boot.

Ingredients prepped
Ingredients ready to assemble!

Basic bechamel
Take a basic bechamel sauce...

Basil bechamel
...add basil and POOF! Lasagna sauce!

Ready for the oven
All assembled and ready for the oven. In about one hour (and some change), you've got a decadent dinner!

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Borscht -two ways

Homemade Borscht

Fresh out of the pot!

Pureed borscht

Pureed nice and smooth.

I had a bundle of veggies I needed to use up and I thought I'd attempt to make borscht. Here's the recipe I used:

3 small beets, peeled and chopped
2 small yukon gold potatoes, peeled and chopped
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 small head cabbage, cleaned and chopped.
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
salt
pepper
cumin
1 cup white wine
sugar (optional)
1 tbsp Olive Oil
2 cups water
2 cups stock
1 tsp vinegar (cider or balsamic)
Garnish: Sour cream, Mascarpone cheese, dill, cream

-----
In a large pot or dutch oven, heat up the oil. Add onions and carrots and sweat. Add dash or so of salt. Once onions are slightly translucent, add garlic, cumin (tsp or so), pepper. Cook until fragrant. Add wine and reduce. Add water and stock, and the remaining veggies. Cover and cook 30 minutes or until tender (30 minutes). About halfway thru, add the sugar if using. Stir in vinegar just before serving.

For straight out of the pot, pour into bowls. Top with sour cream or mascarpone cheese. Garnish with dill if desired.

For puree - let soup cool a bit and puree with either a immersion blender or in a blender (small batches) until smooth. You can add mascarpone directly to soup. Or lighten with cream if desired. Garnish the same as above.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Exhibit Logo

The "Cartier and America" exhibit opened in December. I had not learned about it until I ventured out to the 'Tut' exhibit at the De Young Museum and saw advertisements for the 'Cartier' show. Luckily, I have not missed it! I'll be popping into the Legion of Honor very soon.
Read the Press Release
Exhibit details are here.

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Me-a-patra

photo

Jeff and I went to see "King Tut and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" at the De Young Museum. I loved the exhibit! Of course, we had to goof off in the gift shop. I cannot resist the lure of silly hat pictures!

Spinach Salad & Butternut Squash Polpettone

photo

The recipes for this were from Food Network stars Mario Batali (the Polpettone) and Giada De Laurentiis (the salad). Easy to make and yummy!

Bourbon Glazed carrots

photo

I've been cooking a lot lately, and here's one of the highlights: Bourbon-glazed carrots! This one is a slapdash recipe - it's not really organized. A pound or so of carrots (cleaned, peeled, sliced), some water, a tablespoon or so of sugar (brown or granulated), some orange zest, and freshly squeezed OJ (from the same orange you zested), and about two tablespoons of butter. Dump into a skillet over med heat. Cover and cook until carrots are tender-ish (remove cover).

photo

Add one ounce bourbon and black pepper. Let sauce reduce and thicken. Serve & enjoy!

Ducks!

photo

Wandered through downtown Sonoma with a friend of mine. There's a little "pond" in the square there full of spoiled ducks. The second you stopped at the water, the ducks paddle right over looking for bits of bread. We snapped a few pics but, had nothing to feed them.

photo

The ducks don't take "no" for an answer! They hopped right out of the water and hollered at us as we walked away. Next time I visit my friend, I'm bringing food!

Monday, January 04, 2010

The Dip Dye

DSC_0001

For Christmas my husband was sweet enough to pic me up one of the new Dip-Dye scarves from Hermes (to be fair, I had included it on my Christmas Wish List).

Dip-Dye Brides de Gala
Brides de Gala Dip Dye. It was a rusty red color. Not the one I had been eyeing (it was, however, the color in the link I sent him. Oops). So, after the Holiday rush, I decided to bring it in and swap it out.

Dip Dye Tag

This one was a brighter RED and very nice on my super-ghostly skin. It was also a completely different pattern:

Astrologie Dip Dye
"Astrologie" Dip Dye

I really liked this one better than the BdG. BdG IS a classic "H" pattern and very popular but, it never really bowled me over. In fact, the only reason it was on my 'wishlist' was because I liked the dip-dye! Thankfully, the NEW dip-dyes were trickling into the stores when I went it for my swap (it DOES pay to wait, who knew?!).

Model Shot