Another New Cookbook or 3

Of all of my addictions, none of which unfortunately are a physical damage to myself or others - well, other than the risk of being buried under my various stashes if the shelves fall down - my cookbook addiction is the worst and most long enduring.  It started in university when I picked up a few of those cookbooks geared to students ... cooking for one, cooking on campus, cooking stuff that isn't chips and pop, etc ... and has continued to this day.  Fortunately, I regularly use them.

I have been pretty good about going to the library first when a cookbook interests me ... the lady who orders the books is a big cookbook fan too so they generally have the books that catch my eye.  This has really curtailed my acquiring because it gives me a chance to really look at the book to see if it gives me anything I don't already have in another book.  Generally the answer is no and I make something from one I already own.

Lately, 3 books have come to my attention that I find unique or interesting enough to buy.  Combined with the fact that the library doesn't have them yet and they are now on my shelves.

Tender, volume 1 by Nigel Slater.  This book ties into my veggie gardening obsession and has really good chapters on most vegetables.  It includes growing ideas, eating ideas and general thoughts by Slater.  New ideas for cooking veggies was the original draw but the gardening tie-in makes it a big winner.  I almost bought the fruit book (volume 2) the other day but decided to hold off until I've at least finished reading the stories in this one.

Ottolenghi by Yotam Ottolenghi was another must-have due to the pleasure I'm getting cooking from Plenty.  I haven't spent much time with it yet but did use a green bean recipe for Christmas dinner.  Very nice.

Pangea - Why it Tastes so Good from the restaurant Pangea at Bay and Bloor in Toronto.  We went there for lunch the other day - which was fabulous.  I had celery root soup with a nice little apple garnish and a beet salad with goat cheese and ginger crisps (which happens to be on the cover of the book).  I had heard about the book, they had copies, it included a recipe for the beet salad and their very yummy mushroom risotto so I was lost.  Last night for dinner I made the black cod with Jerusalem artichokes, tomatoes, mushrooms and spinach (I think the title is something much shorter but don't feel like getting up to look).  It was excellent.  I had some Jerusalem artichokes in the refrigerator, picked out of my abundance in the garden the other week.  I do have to say that I need to find somewhere to take some Jerusalem artichokes next year because, despite giving some to neighbours and a friend at the office, I have at least 2 plants left in the garden.  I like them but can only eat so many.  Read the link and find out why!

Finished the Christmas gifts

This was my last Christmas gift.  The BeTween Shrug from Spud & Chloe with their Sweater yarn.  Both the pattern and the yarn were nice to work with and the finished product is cute.  And 5 fewer buttons in my button stash.

Meagan and Dennie at Lettuce Knit were telling me that they (and presumably the Wednesday S&B crowd) are having a "knit a sweater a month" challenge.  They include baby sweaters in that challenge and are including sweaters that are already on the needles.  I'm thinking about doing it too.  While I won't get to their Wednesday Knit Night, I can join them in spirit.

I have about 2 sweaters on the needles now which would set me up for completing January and February with relative ease.  Someone I know is bound to have a baby.  And if I include a felted bag that is taking years to make as an acceptable project, I would finally make a dent on the stash and might actually be able to start something new without feeling too bad about those poor, neglected projects tucked in various bins in the craft room.  This would also lead to the need to buy more yarn, supporting yarn stores in general and Lettuce Knit probably most of all.  Everybody wins.  Wonder if I could convince Natalie to join me.

Alternate Christmas Dinner

 Merry Christmas!

I spent the weeks leading up to Christmas trying to figure out what to make for dinner.  There were only 3 of us, turkey is not my favourite, my husband detests cleaning up after a big turkey extravaganza and there are so many left-overs.  I am not a lover of left-overs and after the first turkey pot pie and one sandwich, am glad to see the last of the turkey.

So, I was in the local butcher shop last week and asked Carol for alternate ideas.  I had thought of beef tenderloin, which would have been nice.  Then I saw the picture taped to the counter from last year's Food and Drink magazine from the LCBO - Classic French Beef Ribs - and that was it.

The butcher shop sets them up in the fancy presentation and after that, it is pretty much a classic braise. Except that it is one of the best braises I've ever tasted.  The initial flavourings are the big secret here.  Tons of onion, carrot, celery and garlic help.  So do the port and wine simmered down to a gravy before adding the stock and the meat and popping it in the oven.

It was a perfect match for the potato and celery root mash with a side of green beans.  Add to that, it goes naturally with a nice big red wine and it was the perfect Alternate Christmas dinner.

It is also an easy way to make something special any day of the year.

Finally, we used the Christmas plates my sister-in-law bought us about 3 years ago that have never made it out of the box.  Very festive.

Little Monsters

Check out these cute little monsters.  I ran into the pattern at the quilt show at the Royal Botanical Gardens in the summer and instantly thought of Christmas gifts for my little nephews.  Who knows if little kids will be interested in a pillow with monsters but I think their parents will like them.  This was very easy and quite fun to make.  The hardest part was finding rectangular pillows.  Thankfully my favourite fabric shop on Ottawa Street in Hamilton has it all.

Yesterday was Christmas cookie extravaganza day.  I took the day off work and baked.  I made kahlua truffles, chocolate bark, shortbread, jam filled shortbread, smores bars (from the Toronto Star's annual Christmas cookie advent calendar) and chocolate covered coconut macaroons.  The smores bars are a little too sweet for me but I think kids and my husband will like them.

All of the recipes were from magazines or newspapers, finally justifying the work of copying them into my word program.  I used to cut recipes out of magazines and file them somewhere but then I never looked at them.  It is a bit more work to type them or copy them from magazine websites but at least they are in one place and I don't have to hang on to 7000 magazines.  I'm not sure why I can live with clutter in fabric, yarn and books but can't stand having magazines hanging about forever.  At least there is one thing in my life that I like to keep organized.    

Back to the cookies.  The truffles and bark are awesome.  Rich and delicious.  My other favourite are the macaroons.  I picked up this recipe from Bon Appetit magazine but link to Orangette's version here.  She is the author of the Bon Appetit article too but that recipe didn't use almond extract which would probably be great.  The truffles are from Dufflet pastries.  I think it was in an LCBO recipe pamphlet.  The rest, who knows.  Sometimes I take good notes about where the recipes are from.  Sometimes I don't.  But they are all on my computer so I can find them again for next year's cookie baking extravaganza.

Quiet Period

I would like to say that my quiet period away from blogging had something to do with being more productive or doing something fun but it has simply been the result of the huge desire to lounge around when I get home from work.  Books on the Kobo have been a contributing factor to this behaviour.

I have managed to complete two projects, however.  The little sweater is a Spud and Chloe pattern for my nephew for Christmas.  It took a lot longer to pull together than it should have given the nice chunky yarn and easy pattern.  I blame the slow knitting on the aforementioned laziness.  Also, the pressure for Christmas projects was reduced by a decision to draw names for Christmas.  This reduced the level of urgency that usually drives these things to completion at this time of year.  Of assistance was the discovery of  Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix.  Watching 2 or 3 episodes at a time has helped me to ramp up my knitting and ramp down the reading.

Speaking of vampires, the mittens are called Bella's Mittens and I was embarrassed not to know who Bella was when the shop at the Creativ Festival (and no, there is no "e" on creativ - presumably they ran out of ink or something) sold me the yarn and pattern as a bundle.  I would guess that my Buffy phase is directly related to the mittens and feeling like I needed to at least be up-to-date with popular vampire culture from the 90s or whenever the show aired.  Anyway, the mitts are fabulous, the yarn is Malabrigio Twist and very soft.  I've got a second pair virtually done for a Christmas gift.  Actually, the blue pair here were supposed to be the gift and a green pair were going to be mine but I find that I can't part with the blue so am not going to.

I've started some Christmas cookie baking with two very good recipes from my favourite book, Flour.  The first was Rosemary Shortbread and the second a Molasses Spice cookie.  Both delicious but the Molasses Spice cookie was a huge surprise.  I really, really like these and as a chocolate fanatic am not usually passing up a chocolate cookie for a spice one and I did just that at dinner last night.  The rest quickly went into the freezer for upcoming events that require cookies.  I only hope a little mouse doesn't eat them first or I'll have to make some more.