Critique

The artist discusses her work.

Barefoot and in the Kitchen

My latest culinary adventure is again thanks to Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. Last night I made her Chicken Picatta—my first. Quite delicious from the chicken standpoint. The sauce ended up being CRAZY, lemony-tart. Not sure if it was supposed to be that tart, or if not, what I did to make it so much more tart than it was supposed to be. No matter though, despite the mess I made on the counter dipping flattened chicken in flour, egg and then bread crumbs, I will make this again. I think I might come up with my own sauce though. I'm thinking garlic, cilantro, lime... mmmmm.

Mother's Day Feats

Last Saturday, during a break in the rain, we had all the local mother's in our family over for a feast. What fun! It gave me an excuse to cook, which I love, and helped me meet a goal. For the first time in my life I hosted a party where I wasn't running around at the last second, frantic, and not nearly ready for anyone to arrive, let alone be entertained. The house was clean, the food was prepped and either finished or ready to be finished off for serving. Amazing!

As I'm writing this now I'm wishing I took pictures! Not just of the food but of the day. It was most excellent. So, I guess, though we weren't rushed or stressed we did fall down on the job there. (Aside from all the tender family moments, my food staging was superb and it's a shame we didn't capture it. Just kidding!)

We served:

• Crud d'ete
• Olives
• Various cheeses with Simply Enjoy brand Apricot & Jalapeño and Balsamic Onion jams. Simply delicious!
  
• A variation on the Barefoot Contessa's Curried Couscous that is becoming a cookout/party standard (Thanks, Nati!).
• Organic Simply Enjoy hot dogs for the boys and their dad, my brother.
  
• Latin Pork with Lime Marinade from this random medical Web site. No matter it's origin though, it was SCRUMPTIOUS, so we can feel good about it being good for us too. Dima grilled it to perfection, as always.
  
• Spice rubbed chicken (our secret: McCormick's Season All. Basic and tasty, it let's your sides be the star.) with avocado salsa (I actually forgot to put this out. Whoops!).

Now, for the rest of this and the avocado salsa above, I need to give props to The Domestic Goddess and her minions at Everyday Food. I got a subscription for Christmas from my aunt in-law and I love it, love it, love it! Every single recipe was delicious and easy. You can't beat that with a stick!

• Cucumber-Carrot Bites - yummy little bites of hollowed out English cucumber stuffed with grated carrots in a sour cream/vinegar sauce. They were billed as after-school snacks. Whatever! I ate them on the weekend and am still eating the leftover carrots as a side salad.
  
• Mini Corn Cakes with Scallions - these were super cute and tasty. A little cayenne pepper gave them a bite that was balanced nicely with... more sour cream.
  
• Two-pea Pasta with Ricotta and Tarragon - This was delish and easy to prepare. The key is not over cooking the peas so they stay nice and bright green. Next time I think I'll try basil instead of tarragon.
• Honey roasted baby carrots - again, quick, easy and divine.
  

For desert, we offered up a strawberry-orange ice cream (see recipe at the bottom of this post)—a variation on my constantly morphing ice cream recipe: avocado banana and ginger pumpkin—with my sister in-law, Carey's, fabulous fudge brownies. What an excellent way to finish off the meal and an excellent day. Yeah for moms! They rock! A point I especially appreciate now that I am one.

Strawberry-Orange Ice Cream

Makes about 1 quart

1 1/2 cups of fresh strawberries
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cups light cream
1 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons orange extract
a dash of salt

Throw everything in the blender and process until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until ready to freeze. Blend a few more seconds before pouring into the ice cream maker just to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Follow your ice cream maker's instructions for freezing.

Happy Pumpkin Ice Cream Day

Forget the turkey. (Well, I can't really say that this year because Dima's sister made a succulent brined bird for our Thanksgiving feast. Delish!) But in order to focus in on the point of this post I say, "Forget the turkey! Eat pumpkin ice cream instead."

Here's the recipe. It's yet another modification on the strawberry ice cream recipe that came with my ice cream maker. I have yet to actually make strawberry ice cream.

Makes about 1 quart

1 1/2 cups of pumpkin pie filling
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
a dash of salt

Throw everything in the blender and process until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until ready to freeze. Blend a few more seconds before pouring into the ice cream maker just to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Follow your ice cream maker's instructions for freezing.

I did make this today but we didn't get to freeze it as I forgot to put the ice cream maker bowl in the freezer in time. Actually, I thought it was already in there and found out it wasn't too late.

Not to let it go to waste though we ate it as a sauce on Dima's homemade apple pie. Quite nice. I think I could have eaten it as a cold dessert soup. I can't wait to try it as an ice cream eventually. I think next time I'll make with real ginger in it. (FYI, you can use fresh ginger in recipes that call for dried, but use about half the amount called for.)

Avocado Ice Cream

Yes. That's right. It green and oh so delicious!

I got a ice cream maker earlier this year. Not the kind my mother had either. This one is electric and requires no rock salt. It can make a quart in 30 minutes or less.

After some unextraordinary success with the new machine, I was inspired to go off the reservation, as the CIA says. A few years ago Dima and I visited my friends Mike and Maggie in Elkins, West Virginia when his sister, Becca, was on hiatus from school in Costa Rica. milkshakes. And we drank them all weekend. Yum-my!

Looking fondly back on that avocado packed weekend I decided to try an experiment with the ice cream maker. Here are the results. If you can get over your puritanical ideas of what ice cream is "supposed to be" you will love this! If you can't, you're really missing out on a great treat! (Clearly this is not a low fat desert, and you won't find me eating any anytime soon. Dima and I started back on Weight Watchers on Monday.)

Makes about 1 quart

1 medium Hass avocado
1 small banana (or equal portion of)
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
a dash of salt

*Note: You can replace the banana with more avocado. If you do, you should add 2/3 cups of sugar to sweeten it up a bit. Also, sometimes I split the milk and heavy evenly, 1 cup each. The avocado already makes this really rich so you don't need the extra help from that additional 1/2 cup of heavy cream.

Pop the avocado and banana in a blender and puree. Add the remaining ingredients and process until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until ready to freeze. Blend a few more seconds before pouring into the ice cream maker just to make sure everything is evenly distributed. Follow your ice cream maker's instructions for freezing.

It's really nice served with some Madelaines or these awesome little cake and cream rolls we get at the Korean market.

Martha Madness

It's become sort of a ritual. Get up, feed the kid, watch Martha Stewart. Well Tuesday she had a guest chef making Spaghetti with Figs, Basil, Brown Butter, and Hazelnuts. Yummy! I have to try it. Who cares if the sauce base is made from two sticks of butter.

Now, I just need to figure out where to buy figs.

Orange Yogurt Cake

I remade the cake today; this time replacing the lemon ingredients with orange (I also replaced the vanilla with triple sec.) I realized what I did wrong last time. The texture was weird to me (although Dima liked it). I forgot to fold in the vegetable oil! I liked it much better this time. And it's very nice as an orange cake too!

Lemon Yogurt Cake

I finally made the Barefoot Contessa's Lemon Yogurt Cake. We took it with us to the Shore last weekend. I think my baking powder may have been a bit old and it would have been great to serve it with some kind of fruit sauce (maybe her blueberry sauce), but over all it was pretty good. Dima loved it. I'm going to get some fresh baking powder and try it again to see if it makes a difference.