I’m on VA-CA-TION, at least for one more day
June 15th, 2009Patrick and I have been having a great time hanging out with friends and family the last week, sadly we will be taking a plane back to reality tomorrow evening. I have already been getting emails of things to take care of and trying not to think of the mound of work tasks that have been pushed a side. While we were here we were able to go on a brief trip to Yosemite NP, which was quite beautiful.
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Me pointing to half dome.
Patrick enjoying a waterfall near camp.
Embers from the camp fire.
A trail-side lunch spot.
There was also a somewhat spontaneous reunion of high school friends.
Some yummy burritos (devoured).
Someone we did not know from school, who made a guest appearance on our hiking trip to the coast.
OMG Flavor cake
June 4th, 2009Recently I decided to try this recipe I had been eyeing for a ricotta pie. It’s from a book called “the spice cook book” It’s one of those books that was written in the day when people actually cooked instead of re heating boxes of stuff and opening cans. I’ve tried only a few recipes from the book thus far but it has excellent flavor ideas. Spices make the world go around as far as I’m concerned 
I made this pie Monday night and brought it to school on Tuesday for our group meeting. It was a HUGE hit, my advisor very seriously wanted the recipe and two people independently said it was the best cheesecake they had ever tasted! I thought it was pretty good, I would like to try making it again though with some changes and see if I can make it better
Here is the original recipe for the cheesecake:
Torta Di Rocotta
3C (1.5lbs) Ricotta cheese
1/4 c sifted all purpose flour
2 T. orange zest
2T lemon zest
1T vanilla extract
1tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
1T chopped citron
————————————————————–
1c sugar
Mix first 8 ingredients, In separate bowl beat eggs until foamy, add sugar and continue beating the mixture 2 min.
Fold into cheese mixture.
Ricotta Pie Pastry:
2C sifted all purpose flour
3T sugar
1/2 tsp salt
———————
3/4 C butter
2 large egg yolks
1-2 T water
Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter to crumb consistency. Add yolks and just enough water to form a dough.
Roll half the pastry dough to 1/8″ thick and in a circle 1″ larger than a 9″ layer cake pan. Fit into the pan leaving 1/2 inch of pastry around the rim. Fill with cheese mixture. Use remaining dough to roll and cut 1/2″ wide strips. Criss cross on top of the pie. trim turn under and flute the edges.
Bake at 350F oven for 1.5 hrs or until filling is firm and crust is browned.
MY MODIFICATIONS:
I used 2 C ricotta, it’s all I had.
I use only 1/2 tsp cinnamon, I didn’t want to overpower everything.
Left out the citron, I didn’t have any
I added the yolks directly to the cheese mix, then whipped the whites to soft peaks. Added sugar to the whites and again whipped, then folded it all together.
Because of separating the eggs, volume was definitely more than your average 9″ layer cake pan so I used a spring form pan. I needed about 2/3 of dough to make the crust and omitted the crisscross top.
Definitely make the specific crust recipe above. It’s not your average pie crust and the taste/texture is phenomenal with the filling, they compliemnt eachother really well. When I make it next I might skip the step of separating the eggs to compare the difference in texture. The flavor was just right but cutting it etc it is a little crumbly. I wonder if all the egg separating made it too fluffy for the structure, OR my other idea is to add a small bit of plain cream cheese to give it a bit more glue between the ricotta. (not too much though because the ricotta flavor is mild and its the subtle difference from cream cheese that helps make this recipe stand out)
Yet another fast forward….
April 28th, 2009I will start with January since things can always start anew in January. Nothing really happened in January though as I was too busy preparing for February. In February, I went to Mexico for a week to attend a wedding and catch up with some old friends. It was a fantastic trip, and really enjoyed the food, friends and culture. My first international trip since returning from England! The rest of Feb and March was spent catching up from being gone
April I was out on a research boat doing field work. Again awesome!
Then Mom came to visit for a while and we went to the tulip festival! Quite beautiful.
There were two small hiking trips somewhere along in that mess, and also some new gardeing though no photos of the new garden yet…
That brings us to the present! I would have inserted photos to the post but wordpress/gallery seem to be unhappy tonight. Photos are uploaded and in the Seattle2009 album.
Fall is here
October 8th, 2008And I think summer happened somewhere in between…. I should probably be doing my homework now but I happened to have my computer on and I happened to have some photos from my recent pumpkin adventures. In the last few weeks we’ve been feeling a bit fidgety that Seattle doesn’t have all the New England Fall activities like pick your own apples. This fact is also despite being the apple capitol of the US! To be honest though, that is probably the reason, not as many small family farmers, and more industrial sized apple farms. Anyway we found this great “King County produce finder”! It helped us to find a pick your own apple orchard! We had great fun, they had lots of other “pick your own” produce including green beans, tomatoes, chard, and potatoes! They made you work for your vegetables, the potatoes really had a pitch fork next to a field and you dug them up! This particular farm also had fresh cider donuts, very yummy! Still no unpasteurized apple cider though… I wish folks would realize that “cider” is really just apple juice in comparison to the flavor in unpasteurized cider….
We also recently went to a pumpkin farm! We picked up LOTS of pumpkins, one of which has already turned into a pie!
Pumpkin Man! Carrying our pumpkins, I’ve actually got one more in my hand as I take the picture.
Lauren’s found her pumpkin!
Hurray for pumpkins! It was actually kind of cheating. The “pick your own-ness” of the farm was an over statement. All the pumpkins that were ripe had already been cut from the vine, All you needed to do was pick it up out of the mud. It really should be choose your own pumpkin, but isn’t that what you do when they are in a big pile? Anyway, syntax aside, it was great fun!!
There has been some boat progress, the hull is nearing completion. School is otherwise good, and I really should get back to doing my homework!!!
NPR show on Mortgage crisis
May 10th, 2008This morning on NPR I heard a fantastic show discussing how the Mortgage crisis all got started, as told by the investment bankers who started it. Very interesting and very well done! The link to the program is here, though currently the free full download is not available, it should be tomorrow ish.
I’m working on a take home midterm for now so I’m gonna disappear again, unless of course I need a distraction!
Tomatoes in my bananas?
May 8th, 2008So we have a little banana plan in the office and I tend to throw out the washed out remains of my lunch bowl on to the plant. It’s either the remains of some tea, or water with a bit of potato starch etc all vegetable stuff nothing crazy, I noticed this week that we have 4 mysterious sprouts coming up in the banana plant pot! I think they are tomatoes?? It’s the only thing I could think would be in the wash water of my lunch to create a sprout! I’m pretty excited to see them grow! I’ve also read that it’s best to water tomato seeds with warm water, which I’ve in inadvertently been doing because I boil water and pour it into the lunch bowl to help get the sticky bits off! Anyway, I’m hoping the seeds survive and we have some tomato plants in the office
Also, listening to NPR I came across this very interesting blog. It’s written by a woman in Cuba, about life in Cuba. Here is an article discussing what her blog is about, and about a recent journalism award she won. It sounds very insightful and I’m interested to read her posts.
I’m also excited about the upcoming Folk Festival here in Seattle! I’ve been pretty busy with work the last few weeks and hoping things will be a little more calm by then and I can go enjoy a fun weekend! Anyway, that work-crazyness isn’t over yet! Later!
Boat Un-Progress
April 8th, 2008So my boat is far from complete, but still have hopes of getting more done, especially now the weather is starting to get better! Shivering in the cold to work on the boat was not so great! I’ll post more pictures as progress comes, but this was an interesting link passed to me….
Super Fast Forward
April 7th, 2008Christmas - Went to Maine, Cape Cod, Visited Lots of friends and family!
Winter Quarter - Took one class, did research work, did a lot of cooking, snowshoeing etc For example discovered these amazing purple potatoes! They’re both beautiful and tasty
Spring Break - Drove to San Francisco! Stopped at Avenue of the Giants, Patricks Point State Park, wandered around Golden Gate Park, Cruised around on the 6 person surry. (Totally want to customize one for my own cruising purposes!!!) Went to the sea shore, etc!!
NOW- Spring quarter! Taking two classes, and will surly get up to more adventures! House is adopting a cat as of tomorrow! Pictures sure to follow!
Snow Xmas and all that Jazz.
December 11th, 2007Well we finally had a bit of snow here!!! I was pretty excited, took a few pictures. It all melted pretty quick though as we had some pretty incredible rain the next day!!! I don’t know what the numbers were but I wouldn’t be surprised if we had a foot of rain instead of a foot of snow!!!
Other excitement was making gingerbread “houses”. I use the term loosely as I ended up making a diarama of Bree, the town of the Inn of the prancing pony. You know the scene,Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry go to the inn, Frodo gets tipsy, puts on the ring accidently and all of a sudden, doom (ringwraiths) sweep down upon them, knock down door to the city wall and stab the empty beds. Well this is my candy tribute. I am particularly proud of my frosting on chocolate waffer, prancing pony placard!
That mint thing… yeah gandalf gone minty, The black blob is a fire chard snowman peep masquerading as a ringwraith!
Ok, geek moment over, I had lots of fun!
Not quite December
November 30th, 2007Things have been quite busy as of late, hence the lack of blogging. I was tagged by Maricello for to write about seven interesting things. I decided to post my 7 favorite foods for thanksgiving. I wasn’t able to go home for thanksgiving so I had several of the other far-from-home graduate students over for dinner. I had sooo much fun cooking!!! I made a few other side things but these are the top 7.
Roasted Turkey - Rosemary (4T), sage(4T), dijon mustard (1/2c), oil (1/2-3/4C), onions (one small onion finely chopped). Turkeys are big birds so they need a lot of dressing! Mix everyting together and rub that into and under the skin of the turkey before roasting. I reserve some to the side to use as a complimenting flavor with rice, etc. Recipe was originally for chicken.
Imam ibayaldi - This is one of my FAVORITE dishes. It’s roasted stuffed eggplants kind of turkish/greek style? 2 eggplants, cut lengthwise. score the inside, and reserve some of the fleshy bits for the stuffing. Put the eggplants into a baking dish, and drizzle the insides with oil, then add some lemon juice. just a dash. For the stuffing, dice one large onion, 8 roma tomatoes, some garlic, the eggplant middles, season to taste. sometimes I add tomato paste if it needs more thickness. sometimes a dash of vinegar, sometimes a LOT of parsley, somtimes oregano. Once this is soft, scoop into the eggplants and roast. While they are roasting prepare a bechemel sauce. Ratios are about 2T butter, 2 T flour, 1ish cup milk, 1/4-1/2C parmesean, nutmeg. Melt the butter and flour, add milk slowly and stirring a lot, as it thickens add parmesean and nutmeg then pull of the heat. Once the eggplants are nearly done, pour this over the top and cook untill browned. MMMMM soo good!
rissotto - Short grain rice or abboriroroooo rice, about 1C, add onions, leeks, add wine, chicken/veg broth, keep adding liquid as it boils off, rice will become creamy. add parmesean and LOTS of parsley. oh so good could also add other veg or herbs as desired.
Guinness cake - This was my new recipe for thanksgiving. I got it from a chocolate cook book given to me by nem while i was in England. it’s a fantastic recipe! it was the first thing to disappear from the thanksgiving table. The cake goes like this:
50g cocoa powder
200ml guinness or other creamy stout
110 g very soft butter
275g dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
175 g plain flour
1/4tsp baking powder
1tsp baking soda
cream butter and sugar together thoroughly. gradually beat in eggs a little at a time. sift flour, b powder and soda together and reserve. measure cocoa into a bowl and gradually add stout. Next, add flour and cocoa stout into the egg mixture alternately a little at a time. Divide batter between two cake tins. (they said 8″ i used 9 and it was fine) Bake cakes 30-35 min till done (springy to touch and just pulling away from sides of the tin) they also recommended putting a circle of baking paper in the bottom of each tin, if you don’t have non stick, it might be recommended, i just put a light coat of butter on a non stick pan and it worked ok.
Guinness chocolate icing
110g icing sugar,
50g soft butter
2T stout
110 g dark chocolate (gently melted)
25g walnuts fine chopped and reserved
Combine sugar and butter, gradually adding stout, then melted chocolate. add nuts to HALF the mixture (the half that goes between layers) use the smoother un nutted frosting to frost the top! I liberally altered this recipe with more butter, and sugar and guinness. Dust 6-8 whole walnuts with coco then place on top of the cake for the final touch. ALSO I cheated and used coco and a bit of oil in place of the dark chocolate, since I didn’t have any
cranberry pie - Tried and true amazingness. 2C chopped cranberries, 1/2c chopped walnuts, 1/2c sugar. mix this together and put in to a pie tin. next make the top, with 2 eggs, 3/4C butter, 1 C sugar, 1 C flour 1T each almond and vanilla extract. mix butter and sugar first, then eggs, flour etc. Pour this on top of the cranberry mix and bake at 350 for about 40 min. it’s ooh so good!
Sweet chilli dip - sweet chilli sauce, and cream cheese, mix em together and serve with tortilla chips sooo easy!!
So there are my seven things! and Hanneke, I guess you’re now tagged since I don’t know any other bloggers! Can’t wait till finals are done, happy holidays!