Sunday, November 21, 2010

Drunken Mushroom Mashed Potatoes

It's the kind of fall day that makes you want to eat warm and cozy things. We went to the park this afternoon with Gilda and then made drunken mushroom mashed potatoes:

- boiled potatoes
- beech, oyster, shitake fresh mushrooms (handful of each) and 1gm of dried morel mushroom (cooked down with enough butter, black pepper, nutmeg, a dash of soy sauce, New Holland Cabin Fever brown ale, and Buffalo Trace bourbon. More beer and more bourbon added and cooked down again - three total times).
- potatoes mashed with butter, cream, nutmeg & black pepper
- mushroom mixture whirred up with 2 cloves of roasted elephant garlic (brushed with oil and roasted at 300F)
- mushroom mixture mixed into the potatoes.

Delicious :)

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Baked Apple Pie Toddy

Eric and I just made this up today, after fiddling with the Hot Toddy recipe that's in the Dec-Jan 2011 Mary Jane's Farm magazine.

- 1 baked apple (peeled & cored, filled with 1 pat of butter and some cinnamon, then baked at 400F for 1hr - we made 4 at once, baking them in pyrex)
- black tea (we used Tulsi tea b/c we had it and it was caffeine free)
- 1 T brown sugar
- 1 pat of butter
- shake of sea salt
- small splash of vanilla extract
- nutmeg
- 1 oz of bourbon (or however much)

We whirred everything up with a hand blender, adding the butter after first blending everything else a little.
It was so delicious - like a hot apple pie drink. There's a Szarlotka in Poland (apple juice and Zubrowka) that taste like a cold apple pie, but this is amazing for cold nights by the fire!

I think next time we'll use mead instead of the bourbon. On our honeymoon last month, Eric and I stopped at the Shady Grove Meadery in Tennessee. How could we not stop at a place called Shady Grove that made mead?? Their mead is so delicious - I generally prefer dry wines/meads/ciders/etc but their sparkling apricot mead blew me away. We also got some amazing honey and honey-rosemary jam. Later we were kicking ourselves for not buying a whole case of the sparkling mead. I made really simple but delicious drink when we got back to Indiana with their non-sparkling dry mead: mead with San Pellegrino Limonata soda (my absolute favorite soda - along with the aranciata).

Monday, September 20, 2010

baby projects!

Eric and I are having a baby! I'm due February 15th. We don't know yet whether it's a boy or girl ( we find out in two weeks!!), but I'm already getting excited for all the baby projects that I can do. Somehow I never really feel like crafting in the summer - too much gardening, I guess. But now that the weather has turned crisp, I'm itching to get out my sewing machine and knitting needles. And a baby gives me such a good excuse! So here's a list of projects ...

1. Newborn nightie like the one from Natural Nursery Knits
2. Matching blanket
3. Matching cap

I haven't decided on the color scheme or yarn for those yet. I'm not really into the whole pink/blue thing. I'm planning to decorate the nursery with a 'woodland' theme - trees, owls, mushrooms, squirrels, etc. I'll post more on that later. I'd love to get a self-striping yarn in some more saturated colors.

4. Woodland themed quilt. Either with appliques or with woodland print fabrics. I'd like one side to be patchy and the other side to be soft - maybe flannel. I've never made a quilt or really done any applique before though, so this will be a challenge!
5. Booties!
6. Wool soakers. We're definitely doing cloth diapers, so these are going to be essential. I'm actually thinking that we might do the elimination communication thing, but we're still going to need diapers and soakers.

I'll probably start working on most of these after the wedding (October 23rd!), because right now I'm overwhelmed with wedding planning stuff. But I might get the yarn for the blanket, at least, so that I can start going to the Tuesday knit group at the Chocolate Cafe.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

NC style bbq sauce

3/4c. apple cider vinegar
ketchup
juice from the rotisserie chicken
black peppercorns, ground in the grinder - approx. enough to cover the bottom of the grinder
red pepper flakes
smoked salt - 1 tsp.
sugar
molasses - two dollops
1c. water

Oh man, was this delicious. I just shredded a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and poured this sauce over it. I didn't use all the sauce for the chicken - I have about 1/2c. left over. I might pour it on some corn on the cob that we have to make for later. Eric made parsley smashed potatoes to go with the chicken - red potatoes, olive oil, a whole bunch of parsley, salt and pepper. It was the best combination - the bbq sauce mixing in with the parsley potatoes, yum!