28 Jun

Bread Pudding Chez Nora

Posted by Lynn in Baking, Comfort Food, Narrative, Nostalgia, Recipes.

Recipe: Bread Pudding with Salted Butterscotch Sauce

I ate bread pudding for dinner last night.

My mother didn’t serve Yorkshire pudding [with roast beef]…My mother served potato pancakes instead. I serve Yorkshire pudding and potato pancakes. Why not, you only live once.”
–          From ‘Serial Monogamy’

One of my favorite writers died this week. Nora Ephron may be better known as the queen of  romantic comedy, but she was much more. She was a real writer, concerned with craft, timing and the art of storytelling.

Continue reading

Advertisement

26 Jun

Crustacean Crush

Posted by Lynn in Local Food, Nostalgia, Recipes, Seafood. Tagged: , .

Recipe: Vintage Crab Cocktail

I lived on the East Coast for seven years, but I never really fell for lobster or lobster rolls. They’re good, particularly in Maine, along the coast, but they just never made me swoon. It’s not just a West Coast bias – I still dream of the fried clams on Cape Cod, for instance.

But when it comes to crustaceans, I am a Dungeness crab-girl. It’s a treat I will forever associate with trips to the beach as a kid, and the taste of the summer. The Washington coast Dungeness season typically runs from December through September.

Continue reading

19 Jun

Strawberries and Cream…and Cake

Posted by Lynn in Baking, Tuesdays with Dorie. Tagged: , .

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge was a close call.  Who wouldn’t want to make a French strawberry cake: strawberries, cream and a chance to make a génoise? But what about the berries?  French rhubarb cake doesn’t have the same glamor. At least not in June.

Strawberries are delicate –the best ones really can’t travel very far, or wait very long.  And I’m stubborn. I’d rather wait for a local berry – one that is red all the way through, tender and truly sweet –  than make do with an imitation – something that exhibits all the mechanical characteristics of a strawberry without actually being one.*

Continue reading

12 Jun

Carrots are Divine

Posted by Lynn in Nostalgia, Recipes, Vegetarian. Tagged: , .

Recipe: Spicy Carrot Pudding

I’m a child of the ’70s. If Bugs Bunny says it, believe it.*

Carrots are the first thing I ever grew from seed. My parents were big landscape gardeners, but not much into food gardening.  My mother planted cucumbers on the south side of our house one year, and the vines actually climbed up the house and under the siding – anything goes for heat-loving plants in the Pacific Northwest. Some years she grew corn, and almost always pumpkins and tomatoes – but it was too haphazard to be called a garden.

Continue reading

5 Jun

Eating With My Fingers

Posted by Lynn in Baking, Books, Indian Food, Recipes, Tuesdays with Dorie. Tagged: , , , .

I love flatbread.  I adore the taste, the crispness with just the right amount of give – but really, flatbreads; naan, parathas, pooris, even pita bread – are a means to an end. They give me the freedom to eat with my fingers. The smallest bit of bread makes any dish manageable with just a thumb and two fingers.

For some Westerners it’s a skill that has to be acquired. Not for me. I jumped right in on my first trip to India  – to the astonishment of my Indian family.  Eating with your hands gives you a new way to appreciate the texture of food and for me, turns every bite into a conscious act.  If I could get away with it, I’d ditch the silverware at every meal.

Continue reading

22 May

Wild About Nettles

Posted by Lynn in Food Politics, Local Food, Narrative, Recipes, Wild Food. Tagged: , , .

Recipe: Pasta with Caramelized Onions and Stinging Nettles

Wild food has a primal call. Catching a fish, digging clams, hunting (I suspect), and even picking a stinging nettle. Okay, there’s no danger involved with nettle gathering – being stung by a nettle is a weird, tingly sensation, but really not painful at all – but it’s still empowering.

So when a friend offered me one last chance to gather nettles this year, I didn’t hesitate, in spite of the persistent rain. (Once the nettles are more than a foot or so high, it’s too late to harvest. Older plants don’t taste great and contain calcium crystals that are hard to digest) Mid-May is really late for gathering nettles, even here in the Northwest. We were lucky to find any.

Continue reading

15 May

Sticky Buns: Brioche, Butter And Another Tuesday With Dorie

Posted by Lynn in Baking, Books, Tuesdays with Dorie. Tagged: , , , , , .

Recipes: Brioche and Pecan Sticky Buns

Sticky buns epitomize all that’s wonderful about weekend breakfast; indulgence, leisure, hanging out with people who are happy to see you in your pajamas, and of course, an excess of butter.  They go perfectly with strong coffee too. And because I was lucky enough to be chosen as one of the hosts for this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie, I get to share the sticky bun recipe from Baking with Julia with you.

I’ve eaten and baked many a sticky bun.  I’ve even written about them before. But this sticky bun recipe – made from brioche dough, is a keeper. Watch (part 1 and part 2) Nancy Silverton – the contributing baker and driving force behind the La Brea Bakery – make these sticky buns for Julia Child.  See if you don’t end up wanting to run into the kitchen and bake.

Continue reading

11 May

Of Granola and Grey Hair

Posted by Lynn in Baking, Breakfast, Narrative, Recipes. Tagged: , .

Recipe: Cacao Nib Granola

Granola is a loaded word. Even today, it’s not just about the cereal – it’s about a lifestyle. Especially if you make your own – something I’ve been doing for years.  For a long time I thought it wasn’t really worth blogging about, till I gave some to a friend and she started raving about it.

Eventually every food blogger posts a recipe for granola, anyway, right? Just as it was in the ’60s it’s certainly one of the gateway foods for a do-it-yourself lifestyle.  Ironically, the word granola was once a trademark; a cereal created by Kellogg’s, in the 1880’s, consisting of baked and ground  oats, wheat and cornmeal.

Continue reading

17 Apr

Mango Lemon Cake

Posted by Lynn in Baking, Tuesdays with Dorie. Tagged: , , .

It’s Tuesday – and that means a new challenge from the Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. I almost skipped this one.  The last two weeks have gotten away from me – mostly in a good way: dog classes, a photography workshop, social events, and even some gainful employment.

But really, my reluctance was mostly about the 1 ¾ cups of cake flour called for in this week’s recipe for Lemon Loaf cake. As I move more and more towards whole grains (if I can make bread without white flour, surely I can make anything without it!) I’m more and more reluctant to let more processed flours creep back into my diet.  But cakes without white flour are a big challenge. And I signed up for Tuesday’s with Dorie to become a better baker, so I don’t think it’s a great idea to pick and choose the challenges. If I’m in, I’m all in.

Continue reading

3 Apr

Easter Pizza

Posted by Lynn in Baking, Tuesdays with Dorie. Tagged: , , , , , .

I’m always excited when I come across a dish I’ve never heard of – like the Pizza Rustica I made for today’s Tuesdays with Dorie challenge.  This dish is a savory pie – closer to a quiche than to what most of us think of as pizza.  Rustic Pizza is a traditional Easter dish in parts of Italy and well known to many Italian Americans as cold cut pie.  In Naples, they call it Pizza Chiena, or full pie.

Whatever you call it, the fillings often contain ricotta and pork, and the crust is always made with sugar.

This posed a couple problems for me. First the pork – I went a whole year of Charcutepalooza only eating pork a few times and I didn’t want to make an Easter pastry K.M. wouldn’t eat. But luckily, Charcutepalooza solved that problem – I already had home-cured duck prosciutto and duck salami on hand.

Continue reading

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
%d bloggers like this: