And on the less exciting side ...
Aug. 5th, 2007 12:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjI've been meaning to do a handful of reviews (Ratatouile, Man and Superman, something else I forget, oh yeah duh! HP7) but I keep ending up tired and draggy at the end of the day. I haven't even gone back and finished up the write-up for the invented languages conference. And I promised a guy in Texas that I'd review a class outline he sent me on medieval Welsh bardic competitions and haven't typed up my notes from that either. But here are a few things I have done.
Friday evening I had![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
goldenstag and aastg over for dinner. Not quite managing my not-less-than-one-dinner-party-per-month, but I'm still working on it. We had an appetizer of:
"Scottish" smoked salmon sushi (the first time I've dared to serve this to guests)
Take 1/2 cup steel-cut oats, soak in water to cover for at least an hour, drain, rinse, drain, then add just barely water to moisten (not even to cover). Bring to a simmer, covered, over a very low heat -- occasionally popping the cover off to stir and check that it isn't sticking. When the liquid is gone, turn the heat off, re-cover, and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Then stir briskly while adding some sushi dressing (i.e., vinegar flavored slightly with salt and sugar) and let cool. Toast a couple of sheets of nori over an open flame. Spread half the oats thinly over each, just as you would for making a sushi roll. Lay thin slices of smoked salmon over the oats, then lay fresh sprigs of dill (to taste) close to the edge (leaving some of the fronds sticking out the ends), roll up and slice. Serve each person at least one of the "end pieces" with the fronds sticking out.
I served this with a small dish of soy sauce and a couple of radish roses.
for the main dish there was :
Lamb riblets braised with carrots and dried figs
Take about 500 g (1 lb) lamb breast and cut into individual ribs. Brown in a skillet with just the barest pinch of chopped garlic, then add a couple of stalks of celery (chopped), and about a pound of baby carrots sliced the long way into sticks, plus about 10 dried figs, sliced thinly. Add 2 cups of broth (I used clear mushroom broth, just because that's what I already had open in the fridge). Mix the ingredients around a little, cover, and after it starts to bubble turn the heat way down so that it's just barely simmering. Cook until the carrots are tender then take the lid off and continue cooking until the liquid is reduced to a thick syrup. Serve.
Zucchini stuffed with sausage
Somehow my inspriation for this dinner ended up being rather meat-heavy, but oh well. Take two medium zucchinis (ca. 8" long) that are as straight as you can find, slice the ends off and ream a tunnel through them using an apple corer. Insert an uncooked sausage (I used a chicken-apple variety) through the hole. I found I could gently ease about 80% of the sausage into the hole and then had to nip off the remainder and insert it from the other end. Steam the stuffed zukes in a vegetable steamer until barely tender and the sausage is cooked. Remove to a chopping board and slice into rounds of about 3/4" thick. Place on a baking pan and top with a few crumbles of goat cheese then place under a broiler until the cheese is slightly melted.
and for dessert:
Cold Cherry Soup
Take a pound of sour cherries. You're supposed to pit them before cooking them, but I was lazy and just washed them, picked them over for stems, and dumped them into a pot with 2 cups water, a dash of cinnamon and a pinch of cloves, and simmered until tender. Then I let it cool enough to handle and picked the pits out and pureed the cherries and liquid. Add 1/3 cup red wine, about one lemon's worth of juice, and 1/3 c. sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook until the alcohol is evaporated. In a bowl, mix 1/3 c. light cream and one egg yolk. Slowly add the cherrry mixture to the egg-and-cream, stirring constantly, until you've added about a third of it, the return the whole thing to the pan and simmer over a very low heat to thicken. Chill (i.e., make this the day before you plan to serve it) and serve with a decorative drizzle of light cream.
All the recipes will serve 4 -- I served 3 and have enough leftovers for Sunday dinner.
Yesterday I decided it was a shopping day. Now that I have a queen-size sofa bed I needed to get some queen-sized sheets, and the newspaper ads indicated that Macy's was having a sale on bed linens, so I went out to the Walnut Creek shopping center, picked up a couple of sheet sets, then dropped by my new source for my china pattern and got a couple new pieces. (I used to get my china at Macy's too, but I've pretty much exhausted the items they usually carry.) Then up to the Concord Fry's Electronics to get some replacement dust filters for my vacuum cleaner, and happening to notice a Payless Shoe Source in the same shopping center, I stopped by and got a couple more pairs of the shoes I bought last month which have turned out to be extremely comfortable. (Great shoes are rare enough that when I find them I stock up for the next couple of years.) Back through the tunnel to stop at Poppy Fabrics for its going out of business sale. Not much really grabbed me except a sort of pale-indigo herringbone wool that I'd missed the first time around becausecallistotoni had it out for cutting. So I promised not to wear it to the same party and took some of that.
Today I'll take the bicycle off to the shop for a tune-up -- it's been having problems with the gear-shift sticking and jumping, which probably just means a lube job. And maybe some relaxing ... nah. Need to find a house project to work on.
Friday evening I had
goldenstag and aastg over for dinner. Not quite managing my not-less-than-one-dinner-party-per-month, but I'm still working on it. We had an appetizer of:"Scottish" smoked salmon sushi (the first time I've dared to serve this to guests)
Take 1/2 cup steel-cut oats, soak in water to cover for at least an hour, drain, rinse, drain, then add just barely water to moisten (not even to cover). Bring to a simmer, covered, over a very low heat -- occasionally popping the cover off to stir and check that it isn't sticking. When the liquid is gone, turn the heat off, re-cover, and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Then stir briskly while adding some sushi dressing (i.e., vinegar flavored slightly with salt and sugar) and let cool. Toast a couple of sheets of nori over an open flame. Spread half the oats thinly over each, just as you would for making a sushi roll. Lay thin slices of smoked salmon over the oats, then lay fresh sprigs of dill (to taste) close to the edge (leaving some of the fronds sticking out the ends), roll up and slice. Serve each person at least one of the "end pieces" with the fronds sticking out.
I served this with a small dish of soy sauce and a couple of radish roses.
for the main dish there was :
Lamb riblets braised with carrots and dried figs
Take about 500 g (1 lb) lamb breast and cut into individual ribs. Brown in a skillet with just the barest pinch of chopped garlic, then add a couple of stalks of celery (chopped), and about a pound of baby carrots sliced the long way into sticks, plus about 10 dried figs, sliced thinly. Add 2 cups of broth (I used clear mushroom broth, just because that's what I already had open in the fridge). Mix the ingredients around a little, cover, and after it starts to bubble turn the heat way down so that it's just barely simmering. Cook until the carrots are tender then take the lid off and continue cooking until the liquid is reduced to a thick syrup. Serve.
Zucchini stuffed with sausage
Somehow my inspriation for this dinner ended up being rather meat-heavy, but oh well. Take two medium zucchinis (ca. 8" long) that are as straight as you can find, slice the ends off and ream a tunnel through them using an apple corer. Insert an uncooked sausage (I used a chicken-apple variety) through the hole. I found I could gently ease about 80% of the sausage into the hole and then had to nip off the remainder and insert it from the other end. Steam the stuffed zukes in a vegetable steamer until barely tender and the sausage is cooked. Remove to a chopping board and slice into rounds of about 3/4" thick. Place on a baking pan and top with a few crumbles of goat cheese then place under a broiler until the cheese is slightly melted.
and for dessert:
Cold Cherry Soup
Take a pound of sour cherries. You're supposed to pit them before cooking them, but I was lazy and just washed them, picked them over for stems, and dumped them into a pot with 2 cups water, a dash of cinnamon and a pinch of cloves, and simmered until tender. Then I let it cool enough to handle and picked the pits out and pureed the cherries and liquid. Add 1/3 cup red wine, about one lemon's worth of juice, and 1/3 c. sugar. Bring to a simmer and cook until the alcohol is evaporated. In a bowl, mix 1/3 c. light cream and one egg yolk. Slowly add the cherrry mixture to the egg-and-cream, stirring constantly, until you've added about a third of it, the return the whole thing to the pan and simmer over a very low heat to thicken. Chill (i.e., make this the day before you plan to serve it) and serve with a decorative drizzle of light cream.
All the recipes will serve 4 -- I served 3 and have enough leftovers for Sunday dinner.
Yesterday I decided it was a shopping day. Now that I have a queen-size sofa bed I needed to get some queen-sized sheets, and the newspaper ads indicated that Macy's was having a sale on bed linens, so I went out to the Walnut Creek shopping center, picked up a couple of sheet sets, then dropped by my new source for my china pattern and got a couple new pieces. (I used to get my china at Macy's too, but I've pretty much exhausted the items they usually carry.) Then up to the Concord Fry's Electronics to get some replacement dust filters for my vacuum cleaner, and happening to notice a Payless Shoe Source in the same shopping center, I stopped by and got a couple more pairs of the shoes I bought last month which have turned out to be extremely comfortable. (Great shoes are rare enough that when I find them I stock up for the next couple of years.) Back through the tunnel to stop at Poppy Fabrics for its going out of business sale. Not much really grabbed me except a sort of pale-indigo herringbone wool that I'd missed the first time around because
callistotoni had it out for cutting. So I promised not to wear it to the same party and took some of that.Today I'll take the bicycle off to the shop for a tune-up -- it's been having problems with the gear-shift sticking and jumping, which probably just means a lube job. And maybe some relaxing ... nah. Need to find a house project to work on.
