Since Last Year: A Summary

This morning I am going to WOW you with my breakfast.

Boom.

Your jaw dropped, right? Almond butter and homemade blackberry jam AND peaches on a RICE CAKE?! STOP IT! KATE, YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR.

Ok, let's get real for a second. I've been away for awhile.  Babies have been conceived and born in the time I’ve been away from this blog.

Just to be clear: Exactly NONE of these babies were mine.

Everybody got that?

It’s not that I haven’t been making things. I have been. I just haven’t been writing about them. For some reason life just felt too busy.

And then, just like that, it didn’t.

Now here I am with three posts on three consecutive days like I've never even been gone. I don’t know what happened. Maybe it’s summer daylight lasting until 9pm.
Maybe it’s something else.

Whatever it is, herewith, some things I did when I wasn’t here.*

*Not in chronological order.

I gold leafed a bunny.

Isn't he cute? Also, I learned that gold leaf is messy. It is definitely a cousin of glitter, "the herpes of craft supplies."

I had an Oscars party.

We had a red carpet, too. Natch. The tape adhering the red carpet stuck to my floor. Still can't really get it off. Yes, I've tried Goo-Gone and scraping. Good thing this is a rental.

I made some necklaces.

And some bacon candy.

I bought some art and hung it up.

I made brownie sundaes.

Make your own hot fudge sauce and brownies; buy the ice cream.

And stuffed escarole.

This looks like a mess, but it's incredibly delicious. Lidia Bastianach is a genius.

And gluten-free, grain-free meyer lemon mug cakes.

Just replaced the weird sweetener with 1T +1t of granulated sugar. These make an amazing breakfast treat, too.

 
Ok, I made those a couple of times.

I made some ridiculously tasty Banana Bread with Coconut and Rum. Oh, and browned butter. Thank you, Joy the Baker, for that one.

And thank you, Blake, for your hunting skills.

This went into a "Goose Bourguignon" recipe. Which turned out gamy, but edible. I count it as a win.

Turns out making a wild goose edible requires a LOT of ingredients.

Britta was an amazing co-chef on this one. Turns out butchering a goose is a fairly nasty process.

On the lighter side, I made some appetizers.

These are purple rice crackers with avocado, a little greek yogurt mixed with a little lime juice, and garnished with my new favorite seasoning, shichimi togarashi. Virtuous, yet delicious.

And roasted some rhubarb.

Delicious over vanilla ice cream although also pretty good on its own or with yogurt.

And then there was this ham. This eight pound, big ass country Easter ham.

Three pounds of which is hacked up into large chunks in my freezer.
Where it will probably stay for a year until I no longer feel guilty about composting it because what am I going to do with huge chunks of frozen ham?

Any suggestions?

The Glass is Half Full

I tried two new recipes today, with a 50% success rate. 

I'm being glass-half-full about this.

First of all, this was the kitchen I was working in. How can you not want to cook in a kitchen like this?

Recipe #1 was for Spelt Crackers from this cookbook. I was so excited about it because I actually had just picked up some spelt flour (admittedly not "white" spelt flour which may have made a difference in the final product). 

Why spelt? The thing is, my doctor has me on this new diet in an attempt to solve my continuing digestive problems. I don't want to get into details - and I assure you that you don't want me to - but the short version of the story is that this new diet eliminates a LOT of foods - mostly a broad selection of fruits, vegetables, and grains. It is hugely inconvenient and has, overnight, turned me into an extremely high maintenance eater. Eating out is virtually impossible and so frustrating. 

There is light at the end of the tunnel and I think that at some point I won't have to be quite this high maintenance and we'll have this all a bit more under control and I'll be able to eat a wider variety of things but for now I'm just trying to avoid being sick. 

Being sick is no fun.

That said, I basically ate zucchini, potatoes, and cheese for Christmas Eve dinner. At least the wine was delicious. Thank God I can still drink wine. 

The good news - the really, really great news -  is this: gluten isn't my problem! This is awesome. I kind of always knew all along that wheat might be a problem but not gluten and, indeed, my intuition was right. I still can't eat wheat. But gluten is ok. Which means that a world of ancient grains have opened up to me, my favorite of which is spelt. I love spelt, because it's like wheat, but magically doesn't make me sick.  

Spelt tortillas taste just like regular flour tortillas. It's amazing. I'm so happy. This discovery feels like a really wonderful Christmas gift.

Alright, so I've digressed a bit but now you have the backstory required to understand why I was absurdly excited to run across a recipe for Spelt Crackers this morning while I was eating breakfast. I can eat spelt crackers! I just had to make them. And so I did. The recipe (printed here) was pretty easy. 

Mix some salt and water together. 

Add the spelt flour and stir...

Until combined.

Knead the dough a little bit until it forms a lump. (Not shown.)
Overturn a sheet pan and flour it with more spelt flour.

Roll out the dough. (Put a damp kitchen towel under the pan as otherwise it will slide all over the counter when you try to roll the dough.)

Get it as thin as you can. Mine wasn't thin enough. Go off the edges, and do some trimming.

Dock the dough (i.e. poke holes in it with a fork). Spray it with water. Sprinkle on sea salt, a little coarse pepper, other seeds to your liking. (I did mine 1/3 plain sea salt, 1/3 sea salt and pepper and 1/3 sea salt, fennel, and caraway because that was what we had on hand.)

Bake it.

Break it up into pieces.

 Eat. 

These crackers came out ok. If you are desperate for bread-like products, as I am, you might even eat them. But in truth, I didn't roll out the dough thin enough and the thicker pieces were quite a workout for the jaw. I personally feel this recipe could use some optimizing. 

Good thing recipe #2 worked out a bit better. Not least because it comprised a significant portion of my dinner. 

It helped that I had a snack of Leslee's Chicken Liver mousse, one of my favorite foods on the planet. To my knowledge, Leslee's can only be acquired at Schaefer's, locally. It doesn't look like much but it is divine. 

With a little food in my tummy, I was ready to tackle this recipe.

Tiny potatoes with creme fraiche, caviar and chives are a catering staple. They are classic hors d'oeuvres and perfect partners to champagne. I've always wanted to make them as they seem ever so sophisticated. Luckily, all the ingredients - potatoes, creme fraiche, caviar, and chives - are approved on this insane restricted eating plan. Despite the fancy finished product, these were superbly easy and if you're up for springing for a little caviar, they are a real treat. 

You barely even need a recipe.

Steam some small new potatoes, or in our case, fingerlings. About 15 minutes in the steamer basket.

 Cool the potatoes quickly in ice water, which, in Chicago this time of year means "tap water".

Then cut them into pieces and scoop out one end with a tiny measuring spoon - like the 1/4 teaspoon size.

You can see in the background that I attempted to use a melon baller at first but that failed - it was taking chunks that were too big. Racking my brain for a smaller tool, I ran across the measuring spoons. Perfect.

Fill the holes in the potatoes with creme fraiche. This couldn't be easier as you just scoop creme fraiche into a zip-top bag, cut off a tiny corner with kitchen shears, and squirt the stuff into the potato craters.

Put a tiny dollop - about 1/8 teaspoon - of caviar on top of the creme fraiche. Snip up some chives and stick a pair into each of the sour cream craters. 

And there you have it. They'd be perfect for a New Year's Eve party or even New Year's Brunch. I might have to make them again. Soon.

So fancy! So easy! My favorite kind of bite.  

I ate at least a dozen of these. 

And then we sat down for a friendly round of family Texas Hold 'Em. 

I am pretty sure champagne, caviar, and poker is precisely how the baby Jesus would have wanted us to celebrate his birthday.

Merry Christmas Eve!

Joy to the World, but Mostly to Me

Because I love Christmas

and Joy 

and Fun 

and Bite-Sized Foods, 

every year, I throw a holiday party. 

I ask guests to bring unwrapped toys, which get delivered to the San Francisco Fire Department's Annual Toy Drive post-party.

The thought of kids getting these toys simultaneously breaks and warms my heart. It feels like the least, the very least, that I can do in a season when I’m so continually reminded of how incredibly lucky I am, and how grateful I am (and should be) for everything in my life. 

Sigh. I've really got to start volunteering again. It's time. Well past, actually.

Anyway, that’s how the holiday party works. I invite friends over. I feed them and ply them with drinks. And in exchange, they bring toys. Lots and lots of toys.

I think it’s a pretty good deal.

Especially for me. It's possible that nothing makes me happier than feeding a big bunch of my favorite people. I'd be lying if I said this was a purely altruistic endeavor. 

Kate's "2011 Ploy to Meet a Firefighter" Holiday Party Menu

Nuts, Olives, Spiced Chickpeas (The chickpeas were an experiment and a fail. Oh well.)

Spicy Spinach Dip & Crudites & Crackers

Christmas Torta & Crackers (Torta = layered goat cheese, pesto, pureed sun-dried tomato)

  

Bacon Wrapped Dates

Steak & Horseradish Crostini 

Spicy Chicken Tortilla Cups (This empanada filling, in Tostitos Scoops, with melted pepperjack on top)

Peppermint Bark

Peanut Butter & Ganache Cookies (except instead of the "fudge", I did a basic ganache)

Ginger Sugar Cookies

Meyer Lemon Bars (Recipe forthcoming in another post, I promise)

Spiced Cider + Rum

Wine, Beer, Pellegrino

 

Of course, I didn't take pictures of any of the food. I totally forgot. Britta, thankfully, remembered and snapped a few shots of the party. 

It's a sign of a good party when I have to refresh the tray of clean wineglasses. Twice.

Desserts!

This party is always a great excuse to wear my grandmother's Christmas apron. Also, the pockets are super handy. 

Cocktail napkins that say funny things are sort of a family tradition. This started when my mom found some that said "I can't be overdrawn, I still have checks left." (It was the early 1980s.) Oh man, the old people laughed and laughed and laughed about those. I love these cocktail napkins but my favorite ones are actually from last year. They say "Merry Christmas to all my friends...except two." 

I need to drop the toys off at the fire station tomorrow. It will look a little sad to not have them all piled up under the tree. The big joke here is that the toy collection is merely a ploy on my part to meet a firefighter. 

Miracle on California Street?

 

Sharing is Caring

I’m a terrible sharer. Know thyself, right? Well, I really am terrible at sharing.

And honestly, I always have been. I remember this moment in kindergarten, when some kid in my class (who will go unnamed because we’re no doubt Facebook friends now) borrowed my beloved box of Cray-Pas – those awesome waxy pastel crayons, and by far my favorite art supply, ever – and broke half of them and gummed up the other half, by, for example, running the light yellow one over a dark purple. I mean, what kind of uncouth barbarian does that to the colors? Ugh.

  

Sharing is something I’ve really had to work on as an adult…for me, it takes active mindfulness to not be fazed when a friend borrows something and accidentally breaks it…or never returns it. My own personal version of therapy for this problem is part of the reason I got a white sofa. If you’re going to be upset about people spilling on your white sofa, you shouldn’t have one. For me, throwing parties and having a white sofa is a lesson in personal development.

I’m not kidding.

I don’t really know what my problem is. Maybe this is all because I was an only child half the time, and a fussily particular one at that. Maybe it’s because the rest of the time I was an eldest child in a house where my personal items – clothing, jewelry, books etc. – were always under threat of disappearance at the hands of an admiring younger sibling.

But as an adult I have come to understand that there are times for being selfish and times for sharing and when four pounds of cured pork shows up at your doorstep, that is definitely a time for sharing. A Tasty Salted Pig Parts Party was obviously in order.

A while ago, Gilt Taste had a steal of a deal on a bunch of delicious cured pork from La Quercia, an artisanal producer in Iowa. You might not necessarily think of Iowa first when you’re thinking of fine prosciutto or coppa, but then again, you also probably wouldn’t think of Iowa as having any ski hills, and yet, I have downhill skied in Iowa. It’s a very surprising state.

Obviously, given the lardo-lonza-coppa-prosciutto bounty delivered unto me by FedEx (and unpacked by dear Meredith while I was on a business trip to no doubt somewhere in the Midwest), I felt compelled to do a vaguely Tuscan theme for the rest of the food. Here was the final menu lineup for the cocktail party:

 

Piggy Parts // Coppa Piccante, Coppa Americano, Lonza, Prosciutto Piccante

Italian Cheeses // Brigante / Asiago / Aged Provolone

Accompaniments:

Assorted Breads / Crackers / Grissini

Melon / Figs / Grapes

Homemade Tomato Jam / Homemade Cherry Jam / Pumpkin Jam from Eataly

Lardo Spread (Which is literally seasoned lard. And it’s awesome.)

Pickled Items // Spicy Okra / String Beans / Olives (All from Whole Foods. I suck at pickling.)

Stuffed Peppadew Peppers // Boursin

Baby BLTs // butter lettuce / heirloom tomatoes / basil mayo / brioche

Crostini Bar

Sauteed Mushrooms / Fontina

Broccoli Rabe Pesto / Fresh Mozzarella

Honey-Roasted Tomatoes / Ricotta

All, served with Grilled Bread

Tirami su

Mini Peach Pies with Amaretti Topping (adapted from here, with this crust)

Baci

Amarettini

Wine / Italian Beer / Campari & Soda

I loved doing the shopping for this particular party because it gave me an excuse to go to North Beach – the "Italian Neighborhood" in San Francisco – to pick up some authentic grissini, Perugina Baci candies, and of course, the Amaretti di Saronno in a new tin from A. Molinari, an Italian deli that's been around for ages. 

Here are some images of the food. I’ve linked the recipes above and included my very favorite Tirami su recipe even though “Tirami su is so passé” (per Mom). Whatever Mom, it’s delicious.

Setting a Tuscan mood with sunflowers. Ok, ok, not really. In truth, I just wanted an excuse to buy flowers.

Peaches, scored and getting ready for their dip in boiling water before peeling.

Peach filling for the mini pies. Are peaches not the most beautiful fruit, all sunny and blushing at the same time? They remind me of the hybrid tea rose Peace, which we always had in the rose garden at home.

I love these amarettini cookies. The best is after the tin has been open for a couple of weeks and they get a little bit chewy. Yum. For the mini peach pies, I crushed them and added them to both the topping and the filling. I had never done that before, and it was a little risky, but I will definitely do it again.

Campari and soda. My favorite aperitif!

Fruits of the season.

MEAT.

I love the ingredients on the lardo. It's disturbing how delicious it is. Delicious enough to consider eschewing butter forever. And I really love butter.

A bad picture of the remaining BLTs.

More meat!

The mini peach pies.

Part of the crostini bar: (clockwise from upper left) honey roasted cherry tomatoes, broccoli rabe pesto, lardo.  The grilled bread (unforutnately unphotographed) was a major hit and so easy. Brush slices of ciabatta with olive oil and throw on the grill pan until they smoke. Done!

Rosemary crostini, ricotta, sauteed mushrooms with fontina.

What was left of the tirami su.

Yum.

I know! You just have to make this, right? 

Ok, here's the recipe:

Vitullo Tirami Su (adapted from The Italian Baker by Carole Field)
 

1 pound 2 ounces (500 grams) fresh mascarpone (get the latest expiration date you can)
3 cups heavy or whipping cream
1 ½ cups plus 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar
Grand Marnier, approx. ½ cup
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Ladyfingers – the soft kind, not the crunchy kind. Either get two packages (you can usually get them in the bakery at any big supermarket) or make them from scratch. I recommend the former.
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
½ ounce bar semi-sweet chocolate (optional)

With a handheld mixer or stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment, beat the mascarpone on medium speed until smooth. (DO NOT OVERBEAT OR IT WILL GET CHUNKY AND GROSS.)
Add the cream, 1 ½ cups confectioners sugar, 3-4 tablespoons of Grand Marnier and the vanilla. Beat on high speed until thickened, smooth and creamy. (It should have the consistency of thick pudding). In a small bowl, combine cocoa powder and 2 tablespoons confectioners sugar with a spoon and set aside.

Put one layer of ladyfingers in a 9x13 pan. Brush the ladyfingers with Grand Marnier. (Don’t soak them in booze. The tops of the ladyfingers should be just dampened.)
Spread half the mascarpone mixture on this layer. Sift half of the cocoa-sugar mixture on the mascarpone layer. Add another layer of ladyfingers, brush with liqueur, and spread the rest of the mascarpone on top. Sift the remaining cocoa-sugar mixture on top. If you want to be fancy, grate the semi-sweet chocolate over the cocoa using a vegetable peeler.

NOTE: This is MUCH better if made at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in advance.
Another note: You can make this in any size pan you want, but I recommend not doing more than 3 layers of ladyfingers or it gets a little overwhelming.

Truffles and Baci in a little piggy bowl.

Seriously, how cute is this?

The best part of the party was actually that I sliced my right index finger pretty aggressively with a huge serrated knife while slicing some of the coppa, just minutes before guests were due to arrive.  I managed to clean up the trail of blood leading from kitchen through breakfast room to bathroom and grab some gauze for my finger before anyone arrived, but I knew the finger situation was a bit dire…it wouldn’t stop bleeding…

Despite personal injury, here's why it was the best part: part of the reason I absolutely love and adore my friends is that when they showed up, I was able to easily hand over the entire party to them (while I made a quick trip to the ER for wound irrigation and assessment of whether stitches were necessary) without batting an eyelash. When I got back from the ER an hour or so later, the party was in full effect and everyone was having a good time. It was kind of awesome.

Big thanks to Jeff for letting people in the door, and Rayleen, Britta, and Blake for ensuring everyone was welcomed, well fed and wine-d in my absence.  And of course, even more thanks to Meredith for accompanying me to the ER and not making fun of me for flirting shamelessly with Dr. McDreamy…er…McDermott.

It was a good party.