pretty baking dishes

i am getting bad at updating this as often as i take pictures. i've been trying not to bring my laptop home if i don't have work to do at night...which in turn means that on the nights that i have the free time to update, i dont have the laptop with which to post it! but i will get better at catching up on the backlog.

so, i recently purchased some pretty new baking dishes. Crate and barrel just released them, and they were so popular that stores sold out almost immediately, and they took them off the website for a bit because they had gotten so popular. when the baking dishes were back on the website, it said shipping was delayed until late march. late march!! The first store i looked in didnt have them there. but! there were 2 sets left in the 2nd store i went to, and i managed to snag one, 2 weeks ago. Sooo pretty! and the perfect size for cooking for smaller amounts of people (aka, just for me sometimes!)


I had some leftover celeriac and potato (and cream, and cheese, and onion) from my week's CSA share, and so i decided to make a gratin (though i was very tempted to just do another celeriac salad because it was so so tasty!). annnnd the gratin was delicious. once again playing with the mandoline. i also had a bunch of carrots leftover. i <3 cooked carrots. they are kind of awesome. but they often take a while to cook. and lets be honest, i am not super patient. but! sliced super thin with a mandoline, they cook faster! with butter and brown sugar and delicious. also, steamed some cabbage for dinner, because saw it at whole foods and yum.

such a tasty dinner! especially with some bread covered in the brie that em and bryan brought last week!

the adventures of joining a CSA!

so a few weeks ago, i was in a very healthy new kick on life type of mood, and decided to join a CSA! figured it would help me cook at home more, eat better with fresh produce each week, etc. i found one that still had winter shares open, and even includes some fun recipes with the weekly newsletters. conveniently they also have a pick-up location right by work! so i now have a small share with Enterprise Farms. I signed on up a few weeks ago...though i had to wait a few weeks for my first share, and by then i missed avocado season. so sad!

Anywho, this past thursday, i picked up my first share. among lovely things included were beets, red potatoes, romaine, spinach, boy choy, carrots, onions (which had unfortunately gone bad), pink grapefruit, apples, and plum tomatoes. so exciting! i started planning out what i need to make...and i am going to need to cook at home most nights so that i eat it all... i guess that was the point!

anywho, tonight i decided to make braised bok choy (another recipe from epicurious). it was...quite simple! 4 ingredients, and maybe 10 minutes, and there is a tasty greeny side dish! its amazing how wilted greens shrink so much!

for dinner, i paired it with some leftover beet risotto, and then made a quick salad with some of the spinach, tomato, carrot, and leftover roasted beets. i may have overdone it a bit with the spinach...i am so bad at judging salad amounts! i always end up making too much! yum yum yum yum at least i love salad! i guess i'll be eating a lot more of it these days, with salad greens coming every week!

Delicious gnocchi dish

So, back in october, the parentals were in town for several days, and i thought it would be nice to cook dinner at my apartment instead of going out every night. so i looked through my magazines and formulated an elaborate dinner menu, and started prep the night before, as i had to braise the short ribs for 3 hours (yes, i went all out). one of the dishes that i made for that night was a sweet potato gnocchi that is served with fresh sage and chestnuts. it was such a hit that we made it for christmas dinner as well.

my first time really making pasta, outside of a class, and i went all out with gnocchi! its half sweet potato, half regular potato. the recipe (from a gourmet magazine, which i am so sad they decided to stop publishing btw) called for a potato ricer...which i of course did not own! i mentioned this to my mother after and she said "oh, i have grandma's! i'll bring it up next time i'm in boston!" ...so now i have a potato ricer for the oh so often occurrence of needing one. anywho, this instead meant that i needed to use a grater on the potatoes, which i started by roasting. yet another burn-the-fingers type experience. this is starting to be a habit apparently. anyway, grated the potatoes, spread them to cool, made the gnocchi, rolled them out, cut and forked, as shown in the picture above. refrigerator for the ones to use the next day, and freezer for the others (recently pulled some out for dinner one night...delicious still)

as for the sauce...sliced roasted chesnuts super thin, and then fried them. i am very excited, i got a mandoline for christmas, so next time i will have to use it! i then fried fresh sage leaves...about 30 seconds or so. they continue crisping up after coming off the heat. crispy = nice and crunchy and has such a delicious flavor! then some butter with the oil and add in the gnocchi once done cooking. It was quite the delicious flavor profile, with the meatiness of the roasted chesnuts, and the crispy crunchiness of the sage with the sweetness of the gnocchi.

when we made it at christmas, mom grabbed sage from the garden, and it was frozen so she had to rehydrate it. because of this, it didnt really crisp up well when it was fried. really disappointing, actually, so i recommend actually using fresh sage leaves. Ditto with the roasted chestnuts - she had some she had roasted weeks before, and she rehydrated them...it was awful! they were soggy and thus very difficult to slice thinly...instead you really need to use roasted chestnuts from a jar.

sprinkled with parmesan cheese...delicious!