Poire Helene Crumble

We had some pears that were clearly past their prime, and my DH found a recipe in a cookbook I had lying around for a pear and chocolate crumble. Okay, I was game.

I whipped it up in a few minutes. It was pretty easy, the longest part was the crumble, which this time I actually followed a recipe more or less (although I replaced a third of the white flour with a mix of wheat bran and oatmeal to have more texture). It was too sweet, and I cut out about half the sugar.

I was glad to have made a "flash" dessert - I think a lot of my cooking comfort will come from making things like this on the spur of the moment, but I doubt I'd repeat the recipe - too sweet and rich. A good fresh pear on it's own is better.

Celery root puree

Cecile told me that celery root puree was really easy, it sufficed to grate the celery root and a potato in a food processor, cook the mix in some olive oil, and it became puree on it's own.

I'm sure she didn't lie, but something didn't work. As taking out the food processor is already a big step, as is peeling the celery I felt kind of frustrated. But I added water and milk and the juice from half a lemon and kept the thing bubbling for a long time on the stove, and with the aid of my hand blender eventually it came out ok.

Then my DH tells me he doesn't like celery root.... but I did! It's for dinner tomorrow, to go with a roast beef.

Winter Tomato-Mozzarella

Tonight I made a recipe for winter tomato-mozzarella, from a Cyril Lignac recipe from his magazine.

It was pretty easy and used up the ugly old tomatoes I had lying around. Since it used smoked mozzarella and potatoes I knew Eric would like it.

Night at the Museum

We watched my DSS' DVD of Night at the Museum tonight, since my DH didn't feel well and I'm a big Ben Stiller fan. My DSS has seen the movie so many times that he was ok with us watching in English. I laughed out loud several times, and was impressed with the creativity of the concept. Fun!

Chicken Fajitas

I made chicken fajitas tonight for dinner.

I added sliced onions and canned grilled red peppers and it was really good. We only had a small amount of cheddar in the freezer, and a few tomatoes, plus a few flour tortillas, but it came together fast and everyone - DH, DSS, me - was happy. I'd bought chipolte peppers at a Mexican market in the evening, and added those to mine for more zing.

This one will make it into regular rotation!

The Power of Nice

I finished listening to another audiobook today. This one was not fiction, but rather a mix of self-help and business, "The Power of Nice". Basic good principles saying that nice guys and gals finish first and are happier.

Not earth-shattering, but good reminders and quick.

My Mom's Lasagne

When I was growing up, my mom cooked regularly, but one of the 'special occasion' dishes was lasagne. She makes it with little meatballs instead of a much-easier meat sauce, and it always was a big project.

My DSS loves lasagne, and I still ask my mom to make hers when I visit, so I thought I'd give it a try. It was actually a big project - not all the ingredients are at my local market, so I had hit the specialty grocery store in preparation. I wanted to make it for a dinner party tomorrow night, but it's been cancelled, and since I felt like cooking tonight after work, I just went for it - thinking I'd actually just get a start for tomorrow, but in the end we put it in the oven & ate it tonight.

Polenta with mushrooms forestière

I cooked again tonight.

I wanted to make a nice dinner for my DH but he was on a plane and so it ended up being for me and my DSS. I also wanted to make some of the recipes I've been collecting, and this one from a cooking magazine had looked interesting on a number of levels. It used stuff I already had in the house, looked like something my DH, DSS & I would all like, and something I could see becoming a relatively standard dish, as most of the ingredients are from a pantry or freezer.

I actually improvised, which I rarely do w new recipes. For one thing, we had 2 ground beef patties defrosted - not enough for 3 people for dinner as "steak haché" but also needing to be used up. Remembering my childhood, where my mom made this weird dish with hamburger and cream of mushroom soup, I decided to brown the ground beef and add it to the mushroom mix. I also used 2 kinds of mushrooms - morel and 'champignon de Paris'. I added thyme. I put the cheese on the top of the mushrooms instead of directly on the polenta (not sure that was a great choice). I used the pre-made polenta we buy at the organic store (comes in a tube like a sausage) and I'm not sure I used enough polenta to the mushrooms.

Next time I think I'd try a bit of wine in the sauce to give more depth, but it was good and reasonably quick.

It was a hit for me and the DSS, my DH came home too late and too tired to eat it but he thought it looked good.

Red lentil and beet soup

I wanted to have a place to note the recipes I've made, and this seems like a good choice. When they're from the web I can link them.

Today was from a magazine, "cuisine by" with Cyril Lignac. I made a few adjustments. I added about 50 g more lentils because what would I do w 50 g of leftover lentils? I accidentally used a soup spoon of curry powder when I was supposed to just use a cafe spoon, but in the end it was good - not too spicy at all. The French are spice wimps. I also added one grated raw beet. Why? Because I had it, and I wanted to use it, and I figured it would be good in a soup. I'd seen another recipe for red lentil soup that used shredded carrots, but we don't have carrots in the house, so I used beet, but with a different recipe. It turned out to be really good - and really thick (I kind of forgot it on the stove).

Weekend in Amsterdam

We left for a weekend in Naples (to visit Pompeii ) only to get stuck on the highway near the airport for over an hour and a half. We missed our flight, and while I was actually looking forward to a relaxing unscheduled weekend at home, my DH was bound and determined to get out of town.

At the airport we debated between Madrid, Venice, Rome and Amsterdam, and settled on the latter. Amsterdam is a city where my DH spent a nice vacation with his ex-wife, and he felt weird planning a weekend for us there, so a last-minute pick was a good solution. It's also a good size city for a weekend.

It was nice because we did a ton of walking around - and even though it was rainy, it wasn't too cold, so it was pleasant.

We visited two museums - the Anne Frank house, and then on Saturday I went to the Van Gogh museum alone while my DH & DSS went wandering about. Both were interesting, but the Van Gogh was really nice in that it showed the artist's evolution over time. Like the Picasso museum, the evolution context was more powerful than any single painting - none of his best works were present. It's always good for my spirit to spend a few hours seeing art, and I need to make sure to do it more often.

We also had some good food (and some bad). We went to a nice "traditional Dutch, updated" restaurant which was more to my DH's tastes than mine (lots of game, pork, etc). I had a split pea soup w a pork and sauerkraut square in it. Followed by scallops with lobster. We didn't take dessert because it was late and my DSS was getting difficult.

On Saturday night we went to an Indonesian restaurant, what had filled my mind as soon as we'd settled on Amsterdam, as I had good memories of this from prior trips to Amsterdam. My DH, however, was skeptical, telling me he hadn't liked the food in Indonesia when he'd traveled there, etc. He was game to try (and I was clearly really wanting it) and the hotel told us they'd booked one of the better ones in town. It was really good and pretty much how I remembered it - lots of little dishes on a warmer w some rice, rather spicy and clearly Asian but different than Chinese, Japanese or Indian.

The Kite Runner

I read The Kite Runner over the weekend. It was really good, and a fast read. Sad, touching, with a tormented imperfect main character.

Hard to imagine they're making it into a movie...

L.627

We watched L.627 last night at home. It's a French police film which is more character study than police film. It was pretty good. The director is Bernard Tavernier, who made another French police movie which was considerably darker which I watched last year at the hospital.

It had an English subtitle option - would have been better w French subtitles, but that wasn't on offer. There was a LOT of slang.

Middlesex

I read the book Middlesex this week while at a business meeting and then over the weekend.

It had won the Pulitzer, and it was indeed an excellent read.

SarahMania lists

I read through Beaux Arts magazine today at the hairdresser and found tons of stuff coming up that I want to see!

Now I need to organize myself to actually see it...

Curious Case of Benjamin Button apt 3W

I finished listening to a book on tape - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button apt 3W.

It was uneven, and I decided short stories might not be the best way to go for walking motivation, maybe a mystery or other story w compelling plot.

DVDs in early 08

We started the Godfather series on New Year's Eve. Over the next few nights we watched an hour or so in the series, we finished the 3rd on Jan 5th.

The first and second were extraordinary, I think the third was weakest, but I was serious bothered by the poor acting of Sophia Coppolla, although Eric didn't mind it as much.