While I prepped the blueberry corn muffins–

Appetizers were served-

Vegan onion dip and a Blue Cheese dip with a Marie Sharpe's "Floater"

Guacamole para aqui

Potatoes were readied for the oven–

Roasted garlic mashed potatoes with parmesan crust

Maple yams with streusel topping

And the dog stole tortilla chips–

Naughty

More sides were prepped–

Wine braised green beans with shitake mushrooms and carmelized onions

and–

Horseradish deviled eggs and gingered cranberry sauce

With anchovy stuffed Spanish olives, and my mom’s pickles in the middle there btw…

Gravy

Can’t forget the wine–

Cab Franc....mmmmmm.....

And of course, Mr. Turkey. We went lowbrow this year and got a Trader Joes pre-brined. It will be the last time. Next year I want to try doing my own brine. Crazy, I know. (Note to self: buy giant tub for such.)

Zero made himself comfortable–

Patiently awaiting his turkey portion

It took about four hours, but finally we were ready for dessert:

Pumpkin Tart with Fennel Crust

Thanksgiving 2010 weekend went out with a bang, Vegas style. Next time you’re in Sin City, check out the newish Aria and feel like you’re in a Michael Mann remake of Blade Runner.

By Monday, it’s was high time to use up the leftovers, so I made this Cranberry Pumpkin bread with the leftover cranberry sauce -sorry that this photo sort of sucks…

PS I adapted this recipe from one I found on Chowhound

1 cup sifted unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
¼ tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 cups sugar
½ tsp. salt
½ tsp. ground cloves
½ tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup canned pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling)
1/3 cup water
1 cup leftover cranberry sauce

Preheat oven to 350°. Butter and flour a loaf pan, 9 by 5 by 3 inches.

Into a bowl, sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, salt, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon.

In another bowl beat together the eggs, oil, pumpkin puree and water. Add to the flour mixture and beat until the batter is combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan, alternating with the cranberry sauce, swirling with a knife as you go.

Using the tip of a sharp knife, draw a line down the length of the surface of the batter. (This helps the appearance of the baked loaf.)

Bake in center of preheated oven for about 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. (Test after 1 hour and 15 minutes.) Let the bread cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Turn it out onto a rack (if desired) and let it cool completely.

I recommend eating a slice with a generous slather of cream cheese.

No way out.

But I didn’t. And I am so glad. Turns out, serving on a jury can be one of the more interesting and rewarding life experiences. It’s eye opening, in fact.

A lot of people I know seem to think jury duty is beneath them – that they have better things to do, better ways to spend their time. But after experiencing it first hand, I proffer this – if you think jury duty is beneath you, then maybe actually you’re beneath jury duty.

No way to call for help.

In order to serve on a jury, you have to be able to set aside your biases, your past experiences, your imagination, and your inclinations. You have to be able to read and understand the law as it is written and you have to make your determination on that alone. It’s an extremely challenging exercise of the mind. Serving on jury is a chance we have to participate in one of the truly democratic aspects of our country. Maybe, you should give your self more credit and rise to the occasion.

My husband has always said it’s an honor to serve on a jury. I didn’t believe him. I was so disappointed I got picked that I wanted out, especially given the subject matter of the case. I wanted no part of any of it.

Even when the trial went on endlessly, jurors falling out for reasons ranging from auditions to death of a family member. Even when one of the replacement jurors turned out to be someone who could not follow the rules of the court, and after all that time, we ended up hung.

Reflections of freedom.

Jury Duty = Life expanding. Do it.

The view from the floor.

PS You’re not allowed to photograph anywhere inside the court house, so these pics were totally some guerilla shit…

In honor of my favorite season, a new cookie recipe! I’ve only tested it once, but it turned out pretty well – I hope you have the same experience.

Toasted Walnut Cinnamon Cookie Sandwiches with Maple Buttercream

Take 1 cup walnut pieces , toast then chill.
Blend in Cuisinart with 2 cups white sugar and 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon.
Add to 3 cups of flour
Then, cut in 1 cup margarine plus 1/8 cups butter

In separate bowl, beat 1 egg plus 1 egg yolk and add to flour mixture. Mix with hands until completely combined.

Chill for at least an hour.

Roll out on floured surface and cut into shapes with your favorite fall cookie cutter. I used a leaf shape. Make sure your cookie cutter is symmetrical – otherwise you might need to flip half the batch before baking, so that your halves will match up when you make them into sandwiches.

Optional: Sprinkle half the cookies with sea salt flakes…just a little to get that sweet/salty thang going on.

Then bake at 350 degrees for about 8 minutes.

When you take them out, cool on a wire rack.

Then, buttercream!!! Yum! Maple Buttercream, that is. A little bit of heaven in your mouth…

For maple buttercream:
Mix 4 TBS butter with 1 cup powdered sugar and 2 TBS maple syrup until smooth.

Assemble cookie sandwiches.

I found these really cute fall themed treat bags at Cost Plus, and used them to package each cookie individually.

But something’s changed.

For the past two months, I’ve been hitting the Sunday farmers market in Santa Monica religiously. I get up early, blearily stumble to my bike, and wake up on the ride over. I love that they have a bike valet. I love that my friend Lara meets me there so we can battle the yippies together. I love that they don’t ever have a pan flute band (at least not so far.) I love the Ground Works coffee tent. Basically, I am whom I dare passed judgment upon.

I too am a yippie. I too want the best Southern California has to offer. I’ve been to Pittsburgh people, we’ve got it good here. Might as well take advantage of it.

Case in point:

Zuni Cafe Chicken - adapted - with Roasted Baby Potatoes (some of them are purple!)

Or what about Roasted Habanero and Tomatillo Salsa?

Espicccyyyy

Or maybe some end of summer Berry Biscuits?

And now Fall is here. My favorite of all seasons – mostly because of all the opportunities to reduce meat into succelent-ness in my crockpot. I’m excited to see what sorts of cold weather bounty my yippie peers and I will passive aggressively fight over in the coming months…100 different types of squash, anyone?

I didn’t hit the grocery store during our final weeks in Hollywood,  instead relying upon a serious pantry excavation – discoveries in the depths of forgotten cupboards and, god forbid, the depths of the freezer.

This is an account of some of the things we found, and how we decided to use them.

Although the majority of our meals during this period consisted of various versions of peanut butter and bread, we managed a few reasonable dinners, two of which I remembered to photograph for this here blog.

(…of course, then I forgot to post for um, like weeks, but whatever. When a girl’s got the beach mere minutes from her new home, you can’t expect her to stay inside and blog day in and day out.)

I found two orange roughy filets, half a bag of peas and  homemade chicken stock in the freezer. An uncovering of some arborio rice in the cupboard indicated risotto to be a distinct possibility.

Liquid gold.

My parents had brought me back a payload of saffron from Spain a few months ago, so now it seemed inevitable – risotto would happen. And it would probably include peas.

A lot of stirring required.

There were some aging broccolini in the fridge, perfect for roasting.

Is this artistic or ugly?

I like to cook fish simply as possible, and lately for me that usually means a French technique called “en papillote.” Basically you take a fish filet and make a little packet for it out of some parchment paper. You add whatever seasonings you like, and then seal it, so the fish steams in the oven.  I used rosemary and smoked paprika, along with some white wine.

And finally, a pantry meal success!

Pantry Meal #1

My Trader Joe’s frozen scallop bounty got used up in a pretty simple pasta dish.  Just linguine, garlic, olive oil, tomato and basil, then add the pan seared scallops on top. Simple!

Pantry Meal #2

Smoked salmon and creme fraiche with chives:

Herbed hazelnuts:

Mulled wine:

Spiced meatballs with mango chutney:

Charcuterie:

Dessert:

Dessert:

And more dessert, to go:

Peppermint Bark Party Favors

Then, dessert for breakfast:

Monkey Bread

And that’s how we do.

Happy new year!

Spring in a Jar?

Today is Easter, or was, since at this point we’ve only got a few hours left and the day has devolved into back to back movie viewings of HSM:3 and BRIGHT LIGHTS, BIG CITY – which is basically like committing to acquiring a drug addiction in the near future.

My whole is brain is consumed by “why can’t the rest of my life be like my high school mus-i-cal” being sung by the coma baby.

Anyway, before that, I preserved some meyer lemons.  I’ve never had preserved lemons before, but they sound really yummy and seem like they’d be a wonderful addition to lots of dishes. I will let you know. If I die of botulism (I’ve never canned anything before), someone else will have to let you know.

I also cooked us up a right feast for Easter. We traditionally go for a long hike on Easter, and so I wanted to make something that could cook while we were trekking the mountains (“mountains.”) I ended up tossing some lamb shanks in the slow cooker, along with some fresh rosemary, garlic, onions, carrots, tomato paste and red wine.

Braised "Sacrificial Lamb" Shanks for Easter Dinner

Ate them with a light salad of white beans, basil, shallots, tomatoes and spinach – dressed in lemon juice and olive oil – and roasted brussel sprouts.

We also had these baby baguettes that Trader Joes sells that remind me of the bread they served at Blue Hill (albeit a lesser version) last time we ate there.

For dessert, we had a strawberry galette:

Zero was like this all dinner. Apparently dogs like to participate in Easter too.