Operation Homestyle: Sneak Peak

I've been away for too long. This week my excuse is that the internet's been spotty. Last week it was because I was busy with "operation homestyle," which involved multiple trips to ikea and a lot of making lists of future improvements while the resident handyman assembled the ikea furniture.


So there's a sneak peak, for now, at the kitchen. The microwave and toaster have been relegated to the living room (so New York City-cramped-apartment-style of us!) and now, look at that pretty shiny new dish drying rack, and glorious counter space with a wondeful big wooden cutting board that allows me to chop and knead bread right there in the actual kitchen next to the stove, instead of ferrying ingredients back and forth from the living room (I never use that darn microwave anyway).


Also in this little nook of a kitchen is this red sweetheart chair, which doubles as a stool for hard-to-reach cabinets, and is one of a set that have "sweetened" with age as layers of multicolored paint have chipped away.


I'm really happy with this cute red tray I picked up at a garage sale in Brooklyn. It's a nice decorative item that enhances the red accents in the room, but it's also handy for serving up one of my greatest loves that is also my greatest downfall - aka whiskey, along with other drinks. Yes, that measuring cup is what suffices for measuring out shots until I find a new shot glass. Like I said, more improvements to come.

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No-Sew Napkins

Here's a great idea I came across yesterday on a backyard wedding. She made napkins for her wedding by finding sheets from thrift stores and cutting them into size with pinking shears. I love the use of pinking shears, which hide the lack of stitched seams with fun angles. Not only does this DIY method save money, but it's also eco-friendly to repurpose old cloth instead of buying new, and it adds a nice personal touch to an event, whether it's a wedding or a dinner party. Or in my case, I keep meaning to make cloth napkins for my slobby boyfriend so he'll stop destroying the planet with his bazillion crumpled paper napkins.


from a backyard wedding

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Staycation's All I Ever Wanted

With my parents away on a real vacation in Europe, I thought it would be a nice time to take a staycation at their place, to get out of the city, kind of like going to a B&B except it's free. And unlike a B&B, I had to feed the ornery goat that resides in our backyard barn. Interestingly, I'm so used to living in 550 square feet in the city, that my former home in the country felt too large, with its dark, empty, creaky, dusty open spaces.

I had envisioned a gorgeous fall weekend of colorful foliage, hiking, apple picking, and so on. Instead it was dreary gray and miserably drizzly all weekend. We still managed to fit in a visit to Applewood Orchards & Winery - I think it was the only winery left in the Hudson Valley that we hadn't yet visited.
I couldn't tell the difference, but Jesse thought Applewood's wines bested them all, so we actually bought a whole case, when normally we'd politely buy just one or two bottles.

Applewood also features orchards for picking, but we weren't in the mood, so we just walked around, saw their pretty gardens, and headed back home.

The chilly gray day called for a warm, hearty dinner. I made chili, using the wealth of banana peppers and tomatoes from my mom's vegetable garden, along with some local onions, half a bottle of beer, and ground turkey (nonlocal and nonorganic because there wasn't much selection at the Warwick Shoprite). The chili wasn't very spicy because of the dearth of spices available in my mom's kitchen, but it was simple, fresh, colorful, and yummy. I put Jesse in charge of making cornbread, using the recipe on the back of the Bob's Red Mill course-ground cornmeal package, and it actually turned out great. He's a good sous chef. We paired it with Applewood's hard cider, a perfect accompaniment.

Now I'm back at the grind, back in the city. I finally managed to get a shot of the view from the deck of the apartment I don't really live in. The huge monolith of a building on the right is some kind of Verizon station, and the tall buildings straight ahead are the Bushwick projects.

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As promised

Thanks to Luke for this fab picture of me pretending I'm drinking with the bigwigs at a work gala, while really we were just having a blast imbibing wine and taking photos of each other behind the scenes. Another great night with my lovely coworkers :-)

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Cheap Wine Glasses

Why are wine glasses so easy to break? I just broke another one tonight to add to many broken past glasses - while mildly washing a champagne flute with with an angry drunken disposition - leaving me with a bloody finger, and just one red wine glass, one white wine glass, and one champagne flute in my kitchen cabinet. Can someone in design please do something about that?

I'm really into design and decor and hairpieces lately. Like oh my deer's gorgeous hairpieces below. She has more for sale on her etsy. Can I just say I finally get etsy? It's filled with tons of pretty handmade one-of-a-kind things - jewelry, clothes, aprons, crafty things galore - the kind of things that I think, oh I could make something like that myself - or I could let these talented people do a better job for me, and they don't tend to charge that much either.


Appropriately enough, a picture of me with a flower in my hair at the event that caused aforesaid drunkenness is forthcoming.

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Heart Attack Day

I hadn't had red meat in a while, and I'd been craving it for weeks. Finally, last Friday I picked up a package of bacon from Flying Pigs and a cut of Grazin' Angus Acres steak, and then unintentially cooked both meats last Sunday, on what you might call "Heart Attack Day." Except since I eat pork and steak so infrequently, I think it's okay to treat myself once in a while.

Brunch was a spiffed up breakfast sandwich featuring sunnyside eggs, bacon, and sliced tomato on toasted rye bread.



I wanted to experiment by cooking one batch in the oven and one batch on the stovetop. Google led me to many rave reviews about how awesome oven-baked bacon is - crisp meat and simple cleanup. But I cannot agree. As directed, I preheated my oven to 400 degrees, lined a baking pan with aluminum foil, laid my bacon down, and put it in the oven. And kept checking. And checking. Recipes indicated that it would only need about 15 minutes in the oven, but after more than 30 minutes it still wasn't crispy, even after turning the heat up to 400. So I took it out and ate it as it was - which was fine, it just wasn't that awesome crunch I was craving.

My stovetop bacon was undoubtedly superior - crispy to the point of crunchy - which was the way I like it. It was done in under ten minutes, and I didn't think cleaning out my pan was all that hard. So I definitely fall in the stovetop bacon camp.

Once brunch was devoured, I set to work at marinating my steak. I bought a flat iron steak, because it was the only cheap cut he had left. I read that this is a relatively new cut in the world of meat, taken from the shoulder, and it tastes best after marinating, much like flank steak. After trimming off a ton of fat from the steak, I laid it in my usual marinade mixture of balsamic vinegar, mustard, lemon juice, water, diced garlic, salt, and pepper - and this time I added some chopped fresh sage from my deck.

I let the steak marinate for about eight hours while I enjoyed a very relaxing Sunday....dreamily reading through pretty magazines on my sundappled bed, and then a scrabble game and pumpkin ale in Black Rabbit's pretty green backyard.



In the evening, the resident griller achieved a beautiful charred crust on the steak, though I have no idea how, because he wouldn't tell me - he's keeping it a "chef's secret"!



For a side, I whipped up colorful smashed potatoes and rainbow swiss chard (the purple tint comes from a mixture of Adriondack blue potato and yukon gold potato). I was going for a cross between potato salad, with its crunch and mayo-mustardy flavor, and colcannon mashed potatoes, dotted with creamy greens. I ingeniously chopped the swiss chard stems into little pieces to stand in for the traditional celery of potato salad, while swiss chard stood in for the cabbage that's traditionally mashed into colcannon. It turned out as deliciously as I had dreamed. I meant to save some for lunch the next day, but it was so good I ate it all at dinner - oops! Together with the hearty iron-rich steak, this dinner was exactly what my body needed!

Smashed Potatoes and Swiss Chard
2 medium-large sized potatoes
1 bunch swiss chard
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1 1/2 tsp mustard
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt
pepper

Rinse and chop potatoes into 2 inch pieces. Add potatoes to a pot of salted boiling water and simmer for about 20 minutes, until tender. Drain in colander, reserving a tablespoon of cooking water.

Rinse swiss chard. Chop stems into small pieces and set aside. Chop swiss chard leaves into chiffonade. Sautee swiss chard leaves in olive oil over medium low heat until wilted.

Combine potatoes, wilted swiss chard, and swiss chard stems in a bowl. Add reserved cooking water, mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine and then mash with a fork or wooden spoon to desired smashed consistency. Serves 2 as a side dish.

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Roasted Garlic Herb White Bean Dip

I haven't felt very inspired when it comes to cooking lately. My life is still all out of sorts, and I've moved but not really, so half of my cooking supplies are in one apartment, and half of them are in another. I made a couple of meals this week, but neither is worth dishing out to the blogosphere (pasta with roasted tomatoes and chicken; attempted indian spiced crock pot vegetables).

There's just one thing I've made recently that was a huge hit, unexpectedly. I had a "housewarming" party (for an apartment I haven't really been living in) last weekend, so I whipped up a white bean dip on the fly, not sure what to expect having never tried making a spread with white beans before, but everyone loved it. White bean dip is so flexible. I thought it would taste great with sundried tomatoes or roasted red peppers, but I didn't have time to procure those, while fresh herbs beckoned from my deck.

This week, as cool fall air begins to set in, I've really been itching to bake up a storm of sweet treats to satisfy my daily afternoon chocolate cravings, so hopefully you'll see some delectable baked goodies on here soon.

Roasted Garlic and Herb White Bean Dip

1 can white beans or 2 cups of home cooked beans 

2 heads of garlic, whole, unpeeled

1/4 cup olive oil

a few handfuls of fresh herbs such as parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, or marjoram

zest and juice of 1/4 lemon

salt

pepper

Through the garlic onto the baking sheet while making crackers. After about ten minutes, when the crackers are done, squeeze the garlic out of its peels. Throw all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth and creamy. Add additional seasoning as needed. Spoon into a serving dish. Reserve a few of the fresh herbs to sprinkle over top. Serve alongside crackers.

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