18 January 2011

a plummy day.



i wrote the below, in italics, back in september. and delayed uploading the photos and then forever passed. lets try to get better about that...

i was once asked what i do to relax / de-stress. you know, after a long week at work, or if something less-than-happy happened in my personal life, or whatever. and i had to think for a minute or two, but it eventually came to me: spending time in my kitchen. which is probably one of the reasons that i sacrificed location for an amazing kitchen with my current apartment. what does this mean, exactly? it means i like to spend time in my kitchen, chopping, cleaning, preparing foods. it relaxes me and gives me the opportunity to structure and organize things, which is nice for someone slightly obsessive-compulsive like me.

today i had a lovely day like that. i peeled and chopped up all the carrots i got in my farmshare this week. i shucked, de-cobbed, and made soup out of the corn on the cob from my farmshare this week (and i roasted some to go with some avocado as a soup garnish. yum). i peeled and cut up potatoes and onions for roasting. i cut up a watermelon into chunks for this week. i roasted and peeled some beets for this week. i washed and cut up and made into a cake some lovely plums i got at a farmers market on friday.

it. was. lovely. and exactly what i want in a weekend.

so about that plum cake. my good friend kaitlin, who i went to high school with, posted a picture of a gigantic tub of plums on twitter, way back when. and they sounded delicious. so when i found them at the farmers market not a week later, i had to buy a little container. but what was i to do with them? especially since i had never consumed ones that looked like them before! make a cake! thats what!



i went with a recipe from food52. a friend of mine turned me on to the site quite some time ago, but i have to admit i don't use their recipes that often. i love the fact that they are well-illustrated, and tested to be sure that they work well (at least the contest winners!) but i find that my cooking style isnt neccessarily the same and so i dont try all of the recipes on there.



this plum cake recipe, however, looked great, and so i of course had to try it, since i had the plums. i liked the way that the plums were layered into the cake too. it was quite delicious. but of course i don't ever have a reason to make dessert, because who is going to help me eat it! one of the difficulties of my single life -- no one to help eat leftovers! i once made apple crisp for a party thinking it would be all gone and of course people barely ate half of it! i cant eat that much leftover!! and then when AJ&UB came for dinner in december, AJ brought a small cheesecake, but then left half of it for me! how am i supposed to get through it! so coming back to the plum cake. i ended up bringing it to dinner with bryan and emily, and left a bunch with them, which is how i solved the plum cake issue!

17 January 2011

such a tasty hiatus

okay. i know i have had QUITE the hiatus. someone at work mentioned to one of the new hires (my awesome buddy who also likes to cook!) that i have a cooking blog and i was like "well, technically i havent updated it in months! months!" it is depressing. i even stopped taking pictures of things that i cooked. well that, and i stopped cooking quite so much because i was insanely busy at work. but still! i made the duck again in december when my aunt and uncle visited, along with a bunch of delicious sides, and no pictures! and the plum cake post that is going to go up shortly after this (but might get backdated) -- i wrote that entry ages ago, when i actually made the cake, but i delayed posting because i needed to upload the photos, and it has taken MONTHS to bother to do that.



but tonight...tonight i decided that i needed to post about my most delicious dinner. because tonight, i made shrimp curry. this recipe came from emily, who makes it with bryan fairly often i guess, and made it once when i came over for dinner. and i was like "omg omg this is delicious" and i was craving it the other week, and emily was kind enough to send me the recipe so that i could make it myself! to much success. it really just is happily delicious. possibly one of the reasons for this is that there are 5 tbsp of butter in it. you can see from the picture below that there is a LOT of butter in there with the onions. and it is DELICIOUS. when em did it, she had cashews and avocado and something else as toppings. but when i went to whole foods, there were no ripe avocados! they were all a few days off! so, i did cashews and green olives which actually worked out really well.



the side to go with is carrots and parsnips. sauteed a bit then through some chicken stock in, then when they were all warm and crispy and falling apart, i threw some butter in. it looks terrible, because the veggies are falling apart, but it was DELICIOUS!!! DELICIOUS!!!!!

and the recipe for the shrimp curry, since it is not found online:

3 pounds lg. shrimp (frozen shelled, deveined lg shrimp, thawed and drained) (I only used 1 pound, because i was making just for me -- i have about 4 servings and lots of delicious sauce)
5 tbsp. butter
1 sm onion minced
2 1/2 tsp. curry powder (i threw a little extra in)
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. sugar
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground ginger (em uses fresh ginger, and you can throw a little extra in)
2 cups milk
1 cup chicken broth
1 tsp. lemon juice (i omitted this! because i didnt have any!)
6 cups hot cooked rice (i used white sushi rice! and it was delicious. and i didnt make enough because i only cooked 1 cup!)

1. If using fresh shrimp, shell and devein them; rinse with running cold water.

2. In 4 qt saucepan over high heat, heat 3 in. water to boiling. Add shrimp; heat to boil, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to low; cook 1 minute or until shrimp turn pink and are tender. Drain.

3. In 3 qt saucepan over medium heat, stir in hot butter, cook onion till tender. Stir in curry powder; cook one minute. Stir in flour, sugar, salt, and ginger until blended. Gradually stir in milk and chicken broth, and cook, stirring constantly until mixture thickens. Add shrimp and lemon juice; heat through. Serve shrimp with rice and accompaniments.

Accompaniments: In separate small bowls, place two or more of these accompaniments to be sprinkled over servings: chutney, golden raisins, salted almonds or peanuts, pineapple chunks, crisp bacon, flaked coconut, sliced avocado, green olives.