this is a great rhubarb cake

made this a couple of weeks ago (we've got rhubarb coming out of our ears after acquiring a second plant from our neighbor) and have been meaning to post it for your eating pleasure.

rhubarb cake

1/2 C butter

1-1/2 C sugar (would advise 2C if you're using organic sugar)

2 eggs

1 C buttermilk* 

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2-1/2 C flour

3 C rhubarb, diced

mix together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla. Add baking powder & salt to the flour, mix in, alternating with buttermilk. pour into a cake pan (9x13 is good).

here's where it get really good:

TOPPING: 

1 C brown sugar

1/2 C chopped walnuts or pecans

i left the nuts out of the topping b/c sabin doesn't like them--which mean we put just brown sugar on--it sinks into the dough a little ways and comes out fabulous!

go, make this cake NOW, NOW, NOW!

*i actually used sour buttermilk because that's the kind of thing i find lurking in my refrigerator--it was great!

what's for dinner

far's away and so we're eating things for dinner that far might not like all that much. things like carpaccio and a soft boiled egg with steamed asparagus spears dipped in it. and a little salad on the side, made of zucchini made into thin strips with a peeler and then stirred together with a bit of garlic golden rapeseed oil and a dash of balsamic and some garlic pepper, with just a few shavings of parmesan to match the parmesan on the carpaccio. it was the perfect light early summer meal.

i guess i've only got pictures of the asparagus and egg part. yummy.

green goddess

when i was warming up my leftover omelette today for lunch, i got a hankering for one of those delicious avocado shakes you can get in the philippines and singapore, so i decided to try to create one. and i succeeded beyond belief. this is one yummy way to intake avocado.

avocado shake

1 medium-large, ripe avocado (or 2 small ones) (i used two today because mine seemed small)

1 glug of plain yogurt (maybe a half a cup?)

1 cup of milk

3 tablespoons of sugar (i know it may sound wrong, but it's how they do it in the philippines)

8-10 ice cubes

put it in all in the blender and whiz it up into gorgeous green goodness. fill a tall glass and drink it. the above filled the glass you see in the photo 1 and a half times. it could have actually been lunch all by itself, but i drank it with my omelette, since it was kinda both breakfast and lunch.

highly recommended. and don't be afraid of the sugar, it doesn't really make it sweet, but it must wake up the flavors a bit. i know the one i had in singapore didn't have any yogurt, so you can also just use the milk and maybe add a few more ice cubes. i wanted mine more smoothie-like, so i used yogurt.

homemade remoulade

last week i ordered fresh torskerogn from aarstiderne, the people who deliver our weekly organic veggie box. torskerogn is cod eggs and it's much more delicious than it might sound, tho' i'll admit it looks a little bit ugly..like big giant pairs of lungs or something.  to prepare it, you wrap it in baking paper and give it a boil in a bath of water, bay leaves, peppercorns and thyme for 30 minutes or so.

i made homemade remoulade to serve with it and some fish "meatballs" that i also made from some fiskefars (fish daddies?) that i bought at the local fish store. that was delicious, by the way--a mix of cod, salmon and no doubt other stuff that i don't know about.

here's the recipe for the homemade remoulade, it's WAY better than store-bought and tastes a bit different--healthier and a bit more like a posh cole slaw. i suppose you could compare remoulade to tartar sauce in the US.

root vegetable remoulade

one medium carrot, grated

half a small celery root, grated

half a very small head of cauliflower, picked apart into very small bouquets and given a 10 second dip in boiling water (it really only needs 10 seconds)

1 leek, just the white part, finely chopped

1 handful of capers, finely chopped

2 tablespoons of finely chopped sour pickles (you could use sweet and get a flavor close to "real" remoulade)

1 handful of fresh parsley, finely chopped

1 tub of cream cheese

2 tablespoons of mayo

1 tablespoon of grainy mustard (i actually added a bit more)

a couple glugs of the pickle juice

mix the cream cheese, mayo and mustard together into a smooth mixture, add the leek, capers, pickles and parlsey, then turn the whole mixture into the carrot/celery/cauliflower mixture. 

i made it a few hours ahead and put it in the fridge. despite not having cabbage in it, it was quite coleslaw-like. i thought i'd made way too big a batch, but the guests and us ate it all up. we'll definitely be making it again. note that it's a lot less yellow than the store-bought kind of remoulade.

could be served with any fish, even a fish filet, so no need to track down any torskerogn or fiskefars.

a good use for carrots

as you know, there are always carrots in this house because there are always carrots in our organic veggie box. for lunch today, i had no more leftover spaghetti, so i decided to put some carrots to good use and make a tasty soup.

carrot ginger apple soup

1 medium onion, sautéed
8 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 large parsnip, peeled and diced
2 oranges, freshly squeezed
1 apple, diced
1 hunk of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
1 liter veggie boullion

sauté onions until translucent in a good, fragrant olive oil, add carrots, parsnip and apple, sauté a few more minutes. add orange juice and boullion. cook until carrots and parsnip are soft (20 minutes or so). blitz with a hand blender. top with a dollop of creme fraiche and a sprinkling of finely-chopped curly kale (that's what i had around, basil or even sage would do just as well).

although i'm trying to make more vegetarian food, there were a couple of pieces of bacon on the counter from the other day, so i crumbled them on top. it was wonderful.

i would normally lean towards putting a bit of cream in, but it was so velvety even without it that i left it out. and didn't miss it at all.

buche de nöel

and here is the finished masterpiece. i might not have the heart to let anyone eat it...

it's christmas!

my fever has abated today and although i'm still sneezing and coughing and hacking, i was inspired to make a julelog christmas cake! buche de nöel, they're also called. i have to say that i'm so proud i feel i've very nearly outdone myself!  we're going out for pinecones to finish decorating it now, but check it out in the meantime:

and some opening of prezzies pictures from last evening...

and with silly far...

and one shot of the tree. i couldn't find our real christmas lights and we probably didn't have enough for this huge tree anyway, so i ran two strings of purple star lights up the trunk of the tree. we'll put real candles on it this evening. but see how tall it is!

after we ate a creamy pumpkin soup with chorizo and ate some sandwiches, we read twas the night before christmas and then sabin was allowed to open some of her prezzies.

merry christmas!

mexican shrimp cocktail

is this what it was supposed to look like? we added yellow and orange peppers and mango. it was heavenly and went over very well served with the delicious stuffed bread at maria & marianna's big annual julefrokost yesterday.

weekend painting production and a dinner dish

this weekend, we were all crafty all the time. we started on friday painting canvases for decorating the writing house. i bought a whole bunch in different sizes and we all painted at least one. sabin, thinking it was a competition, painted seven and was done first.  the premise was that i limited the color palette, but everyone could paint what they wanted. the light was too bad to get good pix of the ones done by K & M and far today. i will just say that far's was surprisingly and uncharacteristically realistic and calm and did not involve any bludgeoning of small children by aquatic animals. K's was abstract and M's was a failure the first time around and she has repainted a base and isn't really done.

but, after all that, here's how they turned out:

my two

all seven of sabin's

sabin went with robots and cameras

and more cameras

and another robot

and another camera

and this was part of tonight's dinner.

it's that root vegetable time of year.

dice carrots, beets, parsnip, turnip, onion and garlic

tossed in olive oil & soused in a bit of white wine.

roasted garlic pepper and in the oven 45 minutes.

as for the other creativity, that was mostly sewing.

a christmasy french press cozy

M wanted to bead around this matrioshka

but that's all the farther she got.

once it's beaded, it'll go in with these.

and check out the wild colors K put together in her pillow!

it's so much fun to have all kinds of supplies around the house so we can go to town on the craftiness when the inspiration strikes.  you gotta check this out...we might have to find us some of this wallpaper that's for coloring in! :-) and i'm getting inspired to make some irreverent embroidery like this or this.

cooking and sewing

because one often feels like nesting with the approach of winter, we've been making some yummy things with the last of the tomatoes from sabin's tomato plant and we've been sewing some throw pillows for the chairs in the living room.

fabulous tomato pasta sauce

8-10 ripe tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1 medium onion, diced
3 fat cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
1 small chili (can be left out of kids are being fed, or just use a mild one)
salt & garlic pepper to taste
T of fresh thyme leaves (or other herbs you have access to)
drizzle of cream

sauté the onions and garlic and chili, add the tomatoes, salt & pepper and thyme. simmer 'til the tomatoes are cooked down.  put in a drizzle of cream just before you serve it--it takes out some of the intense, acidy tomatoiness in a good way.

i served it over fresh pasta with garlic-butter portobellos as the "meat."  it was fabulous.

i made a similar version of the tomato sauce (sans cream) and with quite a lot more chili to use like the patatas bravas sauce we get at the tapas place in greenbelt over a potato omelet.  yum.  what was left over, i threw into a batch of The Soup, so you might say that it's a very versatile thing to have around the house.  and it's good for those last tomatoes that aren't quite ripe or tasty enough to eat in BLTs or salads.

* * *

and now, for the pillows. sabin wanted to sew and since i've been stashing fun fabrics for awhile now, we decided to see what we had that could be turned into some pillows for the chairs in the living room. sabin chose these fabrics and with a little bit of help from me, even sewed herself on the sewing machine. we ended up with this cheerful and autumny pillow:

side 1

side 2

and last night, i got a 10 p.m. creative rush and started making this one:

fun!

what i did with my weekend

today, i made these apple "hand pies," which i was inspired to make after visiting tiny happy:

i used the crust recipe from here. and apples from our own tree, which i cut up, soaked in lemon water to keep them from browning (very effective and totally natural), sprinkled them with sugar, cinnamon and a small amount of flour.

they looked like this when they were baked:

they were very popular and disappeared VERY quickly.

i also made some in little bitty tart tins:

i planned on making cloth dust covers for all of my kitchen aid appliances, but didn't get that far.

we had some old bananas, so we also made banana bread, which i didn't photograph.

on friday, i bought this fabulous TLR camera:

i loaded it with 120 film (expired in 1991) and took a few pictures. we'll have to see how they turn out. quite cool once i figured it out!

then, i spied some sweet little mushrooms poking their heads up through the bricks out in the circle, so i got out my macro lens and took some pix of them up close and personal.

this lemon is on the "old" lemon tree.

i hope it holds on!!

and last, but not least, the "boys" (husband and rafy) finished the ceiling in the writing house:

now we can paint! one of those shades of blue you see on the far wall.

what did you do with your weekend?

fabulous fajita salad

i made a fantastic steak fajita salad for lunch this afternoon and we were so hungry i neglected to photograph it. how totally unlike me! it's one of those dishes that are my favorite of late in that i make it in a large bowl and stick in 3 forks and we all eat out of the serving dish. it therefore saves on dishes.

here's what you do:

2 onions, halved and sliced (you could leave them as rings if you feel like it)

2 medium portabellos, sliced

1 medium zucchini, sliced

good sprinkle of fiesta fajita seasoning

sauté together, just like you were doing fajitas. you could also use peppers like you do for fajitas, i just happened not to have any, so i used what was in my box.

in a grill pan, sear one flank steak that you've seasoned with the fiesta fajita seasoning. i bought a veal one, which was totally tender and fabulous--they can sometimes be a bit tough. you could also use chicken if you'd rather or shrimp or just leave it vegetarian.

head of lettuce (whatever you have will do, or one of those bags of yummy leaves, i used the head of lettuce that was in my box), washed and chopped into bite-size pieces.

1 leftover corn on the cob, cut off the cob

3 plump summer tomatoes

a good cup of diced watermelon

settled all of this salad stuff into the bottom of my big square fish dish (the one we usually kept the old bananas in while you were here), leaving a well in the middle for the warm stuff.

i whipped up a ranch dressing w/creme fraiche and the fajita salt, but you could just buy some and use it.

when the veggies are sautéed, but not too done, fill them into the well you've left in the middle of the salad, then slice your flank steak into bite-size pieces and sprinkle it over the top of the whole thing. drizzle with ranch and serve with warmed tortillas.

it was a fantastic salad for a summer afternoon. i really wish i'd taken a picture before we devoured it.

cooking without a kitchen

determined not to eat another kebap or pizza, and inspired by the fact that the weather has been glorious, i've been cooking outside. if i'm going to cook, i have to, because, as we know, i have no kitchen. this evening, we're having this:

foil-wrapped potatoes (diced)

shredded carrots (2, fresh ones that came with their tops on)

shredded zucchini

dollops of organic garlic butter (i bought it like that)

salt & pepper

once the foil was put together on the ends, a glug of white wine for moisture

these little lovelies

lamb marinated in olive oil, garlic and a squeeze of lemon

salt & pepper

all that's left is to bung it on the grill and serve it up with tzaziki

organic boxes delivered to the door

written in word on march 20--while i was without internet...

why is it that my weekly delivery from årstiderne (translated as “the times of the year” or perhaps “the seasons,” if i wanted to be poetic and not so literal) makes me so happy? anyway, it doesn’t really matter what it’s called, it’s those people who deliver us a box of organic produce every week. lately, i’ve been ordering additional things...organic olive oil, bulgur, risotto rice, organic coconut milk. this week, i ordered the fish box...which is full of absolutely lovely fresh mackerel filets. deboned. you don’t see those in the grocery store and my saturday fish guy never has them. and they brought them straight to my door in a handy little styrofoam box filled with ice to keep them fresh. they also brought a box with a freshly-slaughtered lamb and a delicately-spicy hard lamb sausage—from their own lambs. for easter. and for my birthday. i’m making the leg of lamb (which is beautiful and has never been frozen) for my birthday dinner. there was fresh rosemary in the box this week too, so it’ll be absolutely perfect with it. and ab is coming. ab loves lamb.

easy friday dinner

this sadly now empty bottle of delheim's chardonnay sur lie, i post here to remind us of how fantastic it was. we drank it on friday evening (for the second to last supper) with the smoked shrimp and smoked "butterfish" from the little smokehouse on møn. it was crisp and yes, dare i say, gorgeous, with the smoky goodness of the shrimp and the fragrant garlic of the homemade aïoli i made to accompany it. it was one of those easy friday dinners--3 different kinds of cheese (prima donna with those yummy salt crystals in the hard body of the cheese, a soft, creamy danish blue and a real french brie), 2 kinds of sausage, the smoked butterfish, the smoked shrimp with aïoli and two kinds of fresh, delicious loaves of bread from the bakery. it was a worthy use of the last bottle of the delheim from my november visit to the delheim winery in the western cape. ahhh....these are the times to remember.

pretty papers

most of my pretty papers have come. and still my favorite one, the one that aligns all of my molecules and makes them hum in perfect pitch, is the one that's behind our new banner. basic grey's biology. i love that one.

it was a lovely day today. valentine's day, perhaps that's why it just generally feels good. went to the national museum with sabin. although all of the other people there were either aggressively perfect families (2.5 children, bright blue eyes, long lashes, the right clothes) or single moms out with their kids and their new boyfriends (who were trying valiantly to pretend it was ok with the snot-nosed brats who were crawling in among the mummies) or the grandparents who were near the end of their ropes, entertaining 5-year-old oliver for the 5th day in row...we had a great day. sabin fell madly for the sun chariot, an artifact from 1500 BC (or something like that), found in a field in Denmark here at the beginning of the last century. she asked questions and then didn't want to see any more of the museum, but wanted to go sit in the cafe and try to draw it in her new art notepad (who could argue with that?)

eventually, we came home and made gorgeous filet mignons for dinner, along with some of those yummy green beans i make with bacon, onion and almonds. we had a salad of spinach and mango (that makes us talk SILLY) to go with. and then the gorgeous (i can't make that look spelled right) chocolates husband brought home for valentine's day (along with flowers). with a bottle of south african pinotage (spiers, of course, we've been there!). it was a great evening.

anyway, back to the pretty papers...i'm sure the second to last one will come tomorrow. it just has to!! :-)