Sunday Cookies

Toll House Chocolate Chip!

Triple Coconut Cookies (Good to the Grain)

Feeling decidedly under the weather but Peter leaves for three weeks of your tomorrow and no amount of stuffiness is going to stand between me and sending him off well provided for.

Apple Picking and Jammers

These are a few shots from last weekend...fall is really heading to Portland in all its rainy, cozy glory. The Jammers up top are a new recipe from the Grand Central Bakery cookbook and they were really, really good...light and flaky and salty-sweet. I'll try to post the recipe soon. 

Pumpkin Spice Buns

Made Smitten Kitchen's pumpkin buns last night...didn't rise quite as much as they should, but they taste so good I don't think anyone minded too much. 

Summertime!

So I'm glad that I gave you the heads up back in April (was it April?!?) when I last posted that I'd be on a bit of a hiatus while all these major life changes happened. Since then I've finished my thesis, finished my job, finished my two internships, packed up my stuff in my parents' wee little Mazda, collected my boyfriend from the airport and drove my worldly goods halfway across the United States. So you may be able to understand if I've been a little AWOL. My next posts should be more along the lines of the recipe-per-post sort of thing but this one is going to be a bit more like a pictorial diary of what's happened between April and now.

THE ROADTRIP
 (in no particularly coherent order):

A visit to Taos pueblo. I haven't been back for so long; it's always really strange to sort of half-remember a place and to remember where certain streets or shops are but not the overall layout. It was a beautiful morning stop between Santa Fe and Laramie. 

Almond Date Breakfast Bars

Breakfast bars are a wonderful thing, especially when they hit that perfect spot between sweet, nutty, chewy and wholesome. There's nothing much better when you're in need of a quick snack but the clock's a tickin' and the door is beckoning.

Marie-Hélène's Apple Cake

I went home last week and, as usual, it a typical bacchanalia of food, food and more food. My mother wanted a "culinary journey" through different cuisines. So we had Thai shrimp curry, Chinese stir-fry, Italian night (pasta with prosciutto, clams in white wine), French night (chicken with a tarragon pan sauce), steak with pesto, Indian night (lamb rogan josh, shrimp curry, spicy potatoes and spinach). It was all amazing. But this apple cake was undoubtedly one of the major stars of a really great week of cooking and trying new recipes.

Rice Noodles with Chicken and Fish Sauce

If you want a lovely, lively weeknight pasta dish with great flavor and colorful representation from all the best food groups, check this recipe out. Crunchy radishes, tender poached chicken and a deliciously funky, spicy fish sauce concoction. As you know, if I hear the words "fish sauce," I come running.

Sugar Cookies for the Holidays

Here's a little bit of a Christmas throwback for ya: a glimpse into Piper's and my delightful little Christmas cookie decorating party. There is an undeniable, indescribable pleasure about cutting little adorable shapes out of cookie dough. I say, why limit the fun to Christmas? Maybe for Valentine's Day this year friends could get together for a bit of good-natured platonic-love cookie decorating. Add some red wine, An Affair to Remember...What could be better?

Blueberry Swirl Muffins

I was a woman on a mission.

Partially inspired by the big, beautifully empty Moleskine notebook I got myself for Christmas as a brand new recipe book, I've been systematically hunting down and recording all of my best recipes for posterity and for easy transport. But there was one glaring hole: a solid, delicious recipe for blueberry muffins where the blueberries tasted like blueberries and the muffin was moist and enticing. The search, good friends, is over.

New Year's Dress! The Finished Look

As promised--short, black and sparkly! My friend Meredith (far right) remarked that I looked like "a sexual ice skater." I'll take it.

Detail shots are below.

New Year's Dress

If last year's New Year's dress was Old Hollywood glam this year's is going to be short and gathered and black and sparkly. Stay tuned!

Cranberry-Pistachio Cookies

Guys. These cookies? Are red and green. Whatever insanely brilliant mind discovered that cranberries and pistachios not look lovely and Christmasey together but also taste good deserves some sort of award. If you're looking for a last little recipe to fill out a cookie gift box or to stock up the cookie jar during the holidays, look no further.

Pork Tenderloin with Date and Cilantro Relish

Anyone who follows this blog knows that I'm a sucker for a dish that has three major components: 1)it must be delicious (duh) 2) the cheaper the better and 3)the less work I have to devote to a weeknight meal, the better. This dish neatly falls in to all three categories.

Clover Rolls

As you might remember, I promised everyone that I was going to go a little nuts this Thanksgiving. And I did. I made a ton of food which, for the most part, was gobbled down. There are certainly one or two things that I'm definitely going to turn into a yearly tradition, and this particular recipe was one of them. While I'm not usually the type of person who'll invest a couple hours into making dinner rolls for an everyday meal, these particular rolls are perfect for a special occasion. They're pretty and delicious and surprisingly un-temperamental to make.

Duck Week: Duck Soup with Rice Noodles

Duck week item three: a cure for whatever ails you. Intensely rewarding rice noodles swimming in happy, healthy hot broth of homemade stock and ginger, with cabbage and slices of salty ham. As my mother would say, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this soup. Plus, there is an intensely satisfying feeling of being able to use every part of an animal (in this case, the duck carcass for the broth) to its fullest extent.

Duck Week: Pan-Roasted Duck Breast With Apple and Caraway

Duck week, volume two! Continuing my obsession with any and all things Canal House Cookbook, I used this recipe straight from its hallowed pages for the duck breasts I harvested. I've tried a bunch of different methods cooking duck breast, usually pan-seared with some sort of berry or fruit reduction to offset the meaty flavor of the duck, but I have to say that this one turned out to be one of my favorites.

Duck Week: Duck Confit with Spicy Pickled Raisins

Item one of duck week: duck confit. I know that duck confit has been blown up in our cultural psyche to rather ridiculous proportions--the oh-so-French decadence of eating something that has been packed in fat, but sometimes I feel like you have to just gird your loins and go for it.

And boy, was I glad I did. 

Duck Week!

 Dear reader, I am pleased to announce the first annual Duck Week! In this week, I shall take a duck, take it apart and make stuff with all its bits. I'm hoping that this will become a tradition come November of every year.

Cranberry Orange Pecan Bread

Let's talk about gray, drizzly days, cups of tea and toast. Particularly this toast, from the Grand Central Bakery Cookbook, which is studded with sweet cranberries, crunchy pecans and bright and zippy lemon zest. It's just what you need when you require a little fall morning pick-me-up. 

Pork With Red Wine Shallot Reduction and Three Cheese Polenta

Okay, how on earth haven't I posted a pork recipe yet? I know I've used bacon, but...oh, dear reader, I apologize for neglecting you so. Let's get this situation under control immediately. I love pork because it can either be coaxed into being the star of the show or can take a backseat to be the perfect base for great sauces or sides. Here, courtesy of my beloved Black Dog Cookbook is this stunning recipe, with a pork chop (grilled, or if you're sadly grill-less like me, pan-seared), a red wine shallot reduction that I challenge you to not just eat straight out of the pan, and cheesy, creamy polenta that will blow your sweet mind.