Dinner

Nov. 28th, 2020 12:12 am
owlmoose: (towel dog)

Early this month, I mentioned that I was thinking about our Thanksgiving menu. We made our holiday-dinner-for-two tonight, and it came out really well! After I posted the above, I talked with T a little more about favorite holiday dishes, and he put in a request for stuffing. Since most stuffing recipes make a lot of food, I went looking for smaller-scale options, and I found a recipe promising chicken breasts and stuffing for two. We decided to try it out, but I still really wanted mashed potatoes and gravy, so it was a starch-fest. Fortunately, I enjoy a good starch-fest. For a vegetable, we made green beans with browned butter, sage, and hazelnuts.

The final plate.

And then dessert was leftovers from yesterday, pecan pie for T, pumpkin cheesecake for me.

Now we are happily stuffed and watching the recording of AOC's nwe Among Us livestream with special guest Jagmeet Singh, Canadian politician, all around a fine way to spend an evening.

Baking

Nov. 26th, 2020 11:25 am
owlmoose: (cats - tori sun)

I made pumpkin cheesecake bars last night, and now I have some cheese bread in the oven, so my tasks for today are mostly accomplished.

I hope everyone who celebrates US Thanksgiving is having a safe and comfortable holiday, in whatever way that means for you in this turbulent, upside-down year of 2020. And I wish a safe and comfortable Thursday to us all.

owlmoose: (cookies)

Is not terribly satisfying, I have to admit. But I've already skipped two days this month and don't want to make a habit of it.

Oh, here's a thing: we made chocolate crackle cookies today. I love this kind of cookie and have never made them before. I think they're a tad under baked, but better that than the other way around. It was a fair bit of work and a little messy, and I think I'll use less espresso powder next time, but definitely a good addition to the rotation.

owlmoose: (cookies)

..that even though Thanksgiving is three weeks away, and we have no gatherings of any sort planned (although I need to ping my family about virtual possibilities), I've already started creating a holiday menu for just T and myself?

I've never done a big Thanksgiving on my own -- I gather with extended family for potluck, and since I've never hosted, I've not been responsible for the turkey and usually not the traditional sides (although we've done potatoes a couple of times). T and I would never eat a whole turkey on our own, not even a small one, so I don't think we'll go that route. As I think about this, it occurs to me that turkey isn't the definitive Thanksgiving food for me, anyway. That honor goes to mashed potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin pie. So I think we will most likely roast a chicken instead of turkey and use that to make the gravy. And homemade mashed potatoes. (For the pie, I'm okay going store-bought.) Since, again, there are only two of us, I don't know how big I can go in terms of other dishes, but I want at least a couple of vegetables, maybe a baked good, another side? And then we can eat the leftovers for a week.

Have any of you ever done traditional holiday meals for two? Recommendations and/or advice very welcome!

owlmoose: (coffee)

I continue to think about how to make time and space for writing while being a work-from-home employee. I've done a fair number of things improve my space for dayjob work -- two full-size monitors, a laptop dock, an adjustable keyboard tray that I talked my employer into buying (and that took some doing) -- but ways to alter the area to make it more conducive to writing when appropriate have been slower in coming. I have made one discovery, though, which pleases me: the application of coffee.

Ever since I got my first laptop, I've had a mental association between writing and coffee. Taking my computer to a cafe is one of my greatest pleasures, and one of the things I most miss from the before times. Sometimes these trips were productive, and sometimes I ended up spending most of my time socializing online, but it was always a mental recharge. And while I haven't quite figured out a way to replicate the entire experience, I can at least make coffee for myself. I need to avoid caffeine after lunch now (stupid aging), so I've taken to keeping homemade decaf cold brew on hand. It's an excellent afternoon treat, and I make a point of saving it until after I'm done with paid work for the day. As with going to the cafe, I don't always manage to write while I'm drinking it, but it still gives me a signal that it's time to switch gears, whether to fiction writing or journal writing (I have a glass right now!) or [community profile] ladybusiness work or just chatting with folks. A little thing, but it makes me happy. And hey, I have yet to find a cafe that even sells decaf cold brew, so there's even an advantage to making my own.

So that's my new trick for carving out my own space. Any other ideas? What have you tried?

Today...

May. 6th, 2020 09:42 am
owlmoose: (da - cadash)
I had no morning meetings, and it's shaping up to be a beautiful day, so I took an hour walk, during which I picked up coffee and a bagel sandwich (plus more bagels to freeze for later), and it was lovely. But it also reminded me of the beautiful mornings I've taken my bagel and coffee to a table at a local riverside park. Little things make me happy; it's also the little things I miss.
owlmoose: (da - hawke squares)
  1. T's favorite boba tea place was completely closed until recently, so he bought some tea leaves so we could experiment with making our own. They released a cookbook recently, and today we finally had the ingredients together to attempt a raspberry-pineapple tea fresca, which is maybe my favorite of their drinks (and a seasonal offering which they haven't offered in over a year). It's a little early for fresh raspberries, so we had to add a little extra sugar syrup, but for a first try with the wrong brand of tea, we came pretty close! It's nice to make treats for ourselves when it's harder to go pick something up.

  2. Today brings probably the most gorgeous weather since this whole thing started, so we took a walk down to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Making that trek on a day with nice weather was probably not the best plan from a shopping point of view -- I think that's the most people I've seen in one place since FogCon. But it still felt more comfortable to me than the last time we went to Safeway: being in open air, plenty of space to pass people at a distance, lines well labeled with six-foot gaps. We didn't buy anything, so it ended up being more of an exercise trip than a shopping trip (although we did stop by a fancy market on the walk home to get the raspberries and a couple of other things we couldn't buy at Whole Foods on Friday), but it was good to be out for sun and fresh air.

  3. After finishing Horizon Zero Dawn, I moved on to Persona 5: Royal, which T and I will be playing together. We're only a few days in, and if I recall we're mostly or entirely on rails for awhile, but it was lovely just to step back into that world again. The new content is being introduced slowly so far, just a couple of scenes at this point, but I look forward to both that and to re-meeting all my old friends again.

  4. Working at home continues to be about the same. I'm very glad I'm only expected to put in an average of six hours a day rather than eight. (That's my normal work schedule, not anything special because of the COVID-19 situation. My five-year anniversary with this organization was last week, which blows my mind a little. Remember when this was a short-term gig that was supposed to be over in three months? Actually, you might not, because I talk so little about my dayjob here, but I assure you that was the situation when I started. Now I'm a regular employee, getting raises and higher levels of responsibility, and I was even nominated for a promotion (which I didn't get, but I'm well positioned for the next cycle, so fingers crossed). I've never thought I would prefer working at home, and I can now say with absolute certainty that I'd rather be in an office, but I'm glad it continues to be an option.

  5. I did a Zoom call with some family yesterday -- my parents, my dad's two sisters, and my 14-year-old nephew, who I haven't seen in person since he was... 10? No, nine, five years ago, when my brother (his dad) graduated from college. I've had very little contact with him over the years, so it was really pleasant to have a bit of actual conversation with him. We're hoping he can come to California for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, which is in June 2021. Let's hope that family gatherings, at least, can be happening by then. I've heard multiple people say that lock-down has put them in better touch with their family than ever before, now that we've moved to a norm of online video chat, so maybe that can be true of us, too.

owlmoose: (cats - teacup)
The last time we went shopping (right now it seems that Friday late morning is our best time to get to the store), we weren't able to find panko, which are our breadcrumbs of choice, and all the bread we have in the house is whole wheat. So when we decided to make fried chicken cutlets for dinner tonight, T made some breadcrumbs out of whole wheat sandwich bread.

They definitely looked a bit darker than usual, both before and after frying, but they were good, even if they tasted a bit different than usual in a way I found difficult to define. Not like whole wheat bread, exactly. A little heavier? A little nuttier? I think I would still rather than panko, but it was certainly worth trying.

Any other stories about getting creative with food lately?
owlmoose: (cats - tori sun)
A few years ago, my extended family started having its Thanksgiving gathering on Friday, mostly because for two of my cousins, Thanksgiving Day is the big event on the other side of their family, and everyone wanted them to join us. That frees up Thanksgiving Day proper for T and I to spend with friends, and this year we went down to SE and SF for a delicious chicken dinner. We brought an appetizer spread (including red pepper and walnut dip that I made from scratch), shrimp potstickers, and spice cake with cream cheese frosting, all of which was well received. A pleasant afternoon and evening of cooking, relaxing, and chatting.

Tomorrow we go to Sacramento for our family dinner, and then our third Thanksgiving will our traditional friendsgiving on Sunday, one of the staples of our annual calendar and an event I look forward to all year. Much feasting, many more excellent people to see. Some of the reasons Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays.

I hope everyone who celebrates had a good holiday, and happy Thursday to all!
owlmoose: (coffee)
Between concert week, social obligations, and lots going on at work, today is the first time in awhile I've had a moment to really sit down and take a breath before rehearsal. So I'm in one of my favorite cafes, and I've ordered one of my favorite beverages -- a cafe borgia; imagine a mocha with an orange wedge dropped in and you've about gotten there -- and I'm going to eat my dinner -- once they bring me the quiche I ordered, rather than the shrimp scampi they tried to deliver -- and then I'm going to write, dammit, because I've barely written a fictional word in weeks and it's about time.
owlmoose: (cookies)
I made a lemon poundcake!



Complete Twitter thread with progress photos here.

I used to bake a lot when I was young, but I fell out of the habit in adulthood even though I really enjoy it. I'm much more of a baker than a cook -- I like following a recipe and feeling confident that the final result will come out like its supposed to. This one came out just a tad undercooked, probably because I was using a new pan that's a little smaller than the recipe calls for. But sometimes baking experiments work -- I added a bit of orange zest and juice, instead of using strictly lemons, and it added some nice depth to the flavor. It's all about learning where playing a little looser with the recipe will have good results, and you can only know if you try.
owlmoose: A bright blue butterfly (butterfly)
This is the last one in my queue, but I'd be happy to do more if anyone has any!

From [personal profile] umadoshi: Citrus, Umbrellas, Masks )

Vanilla

Feb. 19th, 2019 12:06 am
owlmoose: (cookies)
T and I are long-time subscribers to Cook's Illustrated, a magazine put out by the same folks as the PBS cooking show America's Test Kitchen. One of the regular features is taste tests, where the editors taste different types of the same ingredient to determine which one tastes best, and which is the best value. Not too long ago, they published the results of their vanilla testing, which pointed to imitation vanilla as not only the best value (since it's something like 10x cheaper per ounce) but equally good in flavor to their preferred pure vanilla. On some level this isn't too surprising, since the chemical that provides the actual vanilla flavor, vanillin, is chemically identical in both the artificial and natural versions, but it still took us a bit aback. And it took our friends R and S so far aback that they decided we needed a vanilla tasting of our own. So we got together for brunch, and then did a bunch of baking, and had our taste test today.

We tried six different kinds of vanilla -- the imitation brand that won the Cook's taste test, three brands of store-bought pure vanilla, one vanilla that our friend Jen made herself with vanilla beans and vodka, and a vanilla powder -- in four different dishes: pound cake, shortbread cookies, pudding, and whipped cream. And, although the imitation vanilla wasn't anyone's favorite, only one person liked it the least. I put it in about the middle of the pack, ranking it higher in fresh applications than in baked goods. My favorite was actually the homemade, but I didn't like it so much better that I feel the need to start making it for myself. And fortunately, my second or third favorite was the kind we currently have in our house (which happens to be the natural vanilla that the magazine editors also liked the best).

Maybe the most interesting outcome was that, especially in the pudding, people tended to prefer different vanillas mixed together to any one vanilla alone. It's like the slightly different flavors complement each other in unexpected ways. Not necessarily to the point that I would recommend having six different vanillas in your house and making custom blends. :) But it certainly is a thing that one could do.

It was a fascinating experiment, and I'm already considering whether we can do similar trials with other foods in the future.
owlmoose: (cookies)
We watched the first episode of Salt Fat Acid Heat today, and it was as delightful as I'd heard. It's a four-episode Netflix miniseries based on a cookbook by Samin Nosrat, and the premise is basically her going around the world, eating things and delighting in the deliciousness of food. The first episode is all about fat and therefore set in Italy, where Nosrat shares the delights of olive oil, pork, Parmesan cheese, and egg pasta. There are many wonderful things about it, but maybe the best is seeing a non-slender woman of color eating food without apology, obviously taking joy in every bite. I look forward to watching the rest.

The only downside is now I want to go to Italy and eat all the delicious Italian food.

Pie Day

Nov. 22nd, 2018 08:36 pm
owlmoose: (coffee)
Since my family Thanksgiving is tomorrow, I spent most of today kicking back and making pie.

Pumpkin

Apple crumb

Both were new recipes for me, so I'm curious how they will come out. I'll keep you all posted.

Then we joined friends at a churrascaria, a.k.a. Brazilian steakhouse, for an endless parade of meat on skewers. Maybe not traditional American Thanksgiving fare, but the tradition of being completely stuffed with food continues. And good company too.

I hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
owlmoose: (quote - i can fix this)
Today in unexpected intersections of my interests, have an article on a copyright case involving cheese:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/11/13/667461481/theres-no-copyrighting-taste-rules-eu-court-in-dutch-cheese-case

Best line: “This reporter, regrettably, lacks a reliable purveyor of Dutch cheeses.”

It's a fascinating story and amusingly written; recommended.
owlmoose: (teamoose)
This Sandwich Alignment Chart went around Twitter awhile ago, and I realized that it had been far too long since I ran a poll about what constitutes a sandwich. So, here you go. Vote, argue about your vote in the comments, send your friends.

https://goo.gl/forms/7oZkz9MuIRGVdGJn1
owlmoose: (cookies)
Today, I'll be tackling the second of [personal profile] lassarina's topics: food! She had two questions which I am taking together.

What's your favorite recipe to cook?

I do cook, and enjoy it fairly well, although it's not something I do for pure enjoyment. I cook because I like to eat delicious food, and the food you cook yourself is often quite delicious. This is especially true when cooking becomes a communal activity, which it my house it almost always is. T and I try to make dinner two or three times a week, always together. We have a number of standby recipes, but we like to try new things, too. We've subscribed to Cook's Illustrated for almost as long as we've lived together, and most of our regular meals come from there. I don't know that I can pick a single favorite, but some of the items we make most often are carnitas-style roast pork (we had leftover of that just tonight) and pasta with tomato cream sauce.

So I like cooking pretty well. But what I really love is baking. Cooking, when done right, is more of an art than a science. As they say, "season to taste, cook until done." That's all well and good, but I need more parameters than that. What I like about baking is the precision of it. If you follow the recipe, then it works. (Well, usually.) I haven't done much with bread baking -- maybe I'll experiment with that someday -- and I'm useless with pastry crust, but almost anything else I am happy to try. My go-to these days is blondies. Easy, tasty, versatile, and a crowd-pleaser.

Unfortunately I can't link to the recipes because they're all behind the Cook's Illustrated pay wall. But I expect similar ones should be easy enough to find. And if you have questions about ingredients or technique, let me know.

What's your favorite food to eat in a restaurant?

This depends an awful lot on my mood, and what kind of restaurant. One dish I will almost always order if it's on the menu is lasagna. I am capable of making a quite tasty lasagna on my own, but I can't cook it at home because T is lactose intolerant, and although he can manage some things with cheese, mozzarella is particularly deadly for him. And lasagna (and similar baked pasta dishes such as ziti, chicken parmesan, and macaroni and cheese) are among my favorite foods ever. So I content myself with getting my fix when I go out, or will occasionally make a pan for a party.

I'd be interested in seeing you all answer this question, too, if you're so inclined! What do you like to make at home? What's your go-to when you eat out?
owlmoose: photo of little owl in a stocking cap (owlhat)
I made two desserts in one day, with only one unscheduled trip to the grocery store (I misjudged the amount of cream cheese I would need). Apple crisp and pumpkin cheesecake bars, both of which have been popular with my family in the past. So it should be good.

Tomorrow, I prepare the salad, to preemptively make up for all of the sugar that I'll be feeding them.

Good day

Nov. 15th, 2015 12:39 am
owlmoose: (library - sign)
Today was a good day. SE and I went with a local librarian group on a tour of the Sonoma County Wine Library, which is part of their public library system. It was interesting -- not so much for the space, but to see what can be done with such a specialized collection. Lots of books, of course, including this 16th century book on agriculture from Spain, as well as more modern texts, but also magazines, clipping files, wine labels, a really hilarious drinking game from the 1960s, and a selection of cool old bottles. Also I was happy to be hanging out with librarians and talking shop again, something I don't get to do much these days. Afterwards we went to a wine bar and just chatted, and I really appreciated it.

Of course I can't go up to the wine country without having some fabulous food. We dragged our husbands along (although they absented themselves for the librarian portion of the festivities), and had delicious lunch, tea, dinner, and dessert. Then I came home just in time to lend a hand to a last-minute Wind dominance victory on Flight Rising! Literally at the last minute; it was glorious. And now it is late and I must sleep, if I can come down from the victory high.

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