tsukemono

A spread entirely of tsukemono. This recipe inspired the daikon pickles (turnips being out of season). I sliced a medium daikon into thin sliced and layered it with salt, strips of kelp soaked in brown rice ad ume vinegars and topped it with Japanese chili powder. I drizled some of the kelp soaking vinegar on top and pressed it in a tsukemono ki for about four hours. I then cut it into squares and held them together with skewers. Really quite wonderful: spicy from the chili as well as the daikon and just a bit salty. There was also the carrot-burdock pickle, a quick cucumber pickle (cucumber tossed with salt and dulse and pressed for four hours) and a lotus root-and-carrot pickle from Quick and Easy Tsukemono. This was my first time working with lotus root. It's like water chestnuts but nuttier and with a smoother texture. Wonderful.

« housewarming »

This weekend my roommate and I had a seven-month belated "housewarming" and quite a spread of food. Highlights included a vegan cucumber dip with a base of cashews ground with cucumber water from the shredded cucumber that were added at the end, a walnut-cremini pâté (also vegan), rillettes, gougères (Tartine's recipe), baked leeks wrapped in bacon (those disappeared in minutes) and a three-mushroom puff-pastry tart (the puff pastry came out wonderfully, much better than last time I made it. Rolling it thicker and baking hot helped).

haricots verts & almonds / leeks & bacon

going a-way

It's been a few weeks, but to commemorate M.'s becoming of a Trojan, we had a party to wish her well as she left for Troy. Starting with this roasted pepper.







I made two sauces for the lasagne: roasted red pepper & garlic and an Italian sausage sauce. I'm not really a sausage person, and just becoming a meat person over the last two years, so I decided to give it a go. The hot Italian sausages at Wholefoods are quite wonderful in sauce (but divine with beluga lentils, as I had the other night).




Then there was pasta, the cheeses (sliced mozz., on top, ricotta-parmasean inside), spinach, the assembly...

The fun part was the hors d'oeuvres. I made limoni di amalfi from the Jamie Oliver book from M. They're lemons, halved and hollowed, filled with anchovies, mozzarella, cherry tomatoes and basil which are then baked until it's gooey and lemony and ready to be spread on toast... or sucked right out of the shell.

There were also other crostini: a bruchetta, sautéed garlic and greens, and a roasted garlic-white bean mash.


D. made lemon bars and brownies for dessert, and my co-hosts (or the hosts, as it wasn't my house), A. and K. did a wonderful spread of cheeses, crackers. And, in his fashion, A. had an 8mm movie for us: Fine Food, Fine Pastry, Open 6 to 9.

Yummm.