Cooking notes: biscuits and quiche

Made a couple of recipe innovations(?) that I'd like to remember.

1) Quiche with a mashed potato crust.
     I used left over mashed potato, added salt and pepper and a little green onion. Oh, and an egg. The egg made them too soft. I don't know if that's because the potatoes were too wet or if I might permanently omit it in the future. The potato crust was delicious though, so definitely worth more work to get this one right.

2) Biscuits with mix ins. This time I used 1/2 C sharp cheddar cubed small, 4 green onions, and 2 small jalapenos minced. These might be the tastiest biscuits that I've ever made.

Cari's new nightlight

This weekend is turning out to be 'Sara finishes three projects'.  It's good to have those weekends.  The ones where instead of adding half finished projects to the heaps, you take those things down a notch!

This is one that I've had going for...oh, probably nearly 6 months.  It's story actually begins several years ago.  One frosty cold fall(?) day, a friend and I decided to drive to the other side of DFW to go to a hot air balloon festival.  We got up at some unholy hour (That hour wouldn't be as odd for either of us any more...but I digress.) and drove all of the way over there to discover that the weather was too windy and there weren't going to be any hot air balloons.  Bummer.  Ever since then, however, I've had hot air balloons in my head.  I want to to see them!  I don't know why, maybe I saw something on Pinterest?  But I hatched the idea to make Cari a night light in the form of a hot air balloon.  The light cord/outlet I got at Ikea and the balloon is built over a paper lantern frame.  I wasn't feeling super mathy ( I have enough of that in my real life.) so I ballparked some wedges for panels and put together a cloth balloon covering. The white and teal fabric are stylistically tied together with silver print patterns.    The wicker basket is attached with silver/white cords.

All in all, it wasn't super hard.  I probably should have been a little more mathy- as you can see some wrinkles in the fabric.  I'm just going to ignore them and move on with my life for now...you see my reward for finishing these projects is that I get to start a new one!  I hereby declare this one done!

Frost in Texas

Baby clothes shoot

My mom gave me a bunch of my old baby clothes.  Instead of just mentally saying 'what am I supposed to do with these???', I actually asked.  She thought I should take some pictures of Cari in them.  So here are a few of my favorites.  She is such a patient baby!

These two pictures are very special.  On her right thumb is my grandma's baby ring.  She is sitting on my mom's baby blanket and wearing my baby dress.  

Chicken Chili

I make this recipe fairly regularly, but not enough so that I have it memorized.  I'm afraid that some day its author might decide to take it down, so I'm going to transcribe it here.  It is originally from Budget Savy Diva though I've made a few edits.  The original recipe was less "I have 30 seconds to prep dinner for tonight 'cause I'm already going to be late for work" appropriate.

1 can beans (black, kidney, white - sky's the limit)
1 can corn - undrained , sometimes I add a second can
1 can Rotel or other salsa
1-2 chicken breasts
1 pkg ranch dressing mix
1 tsp cumin
1-2 Tbls chili powder - when in Texas add more chili powder ;)
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp minced garlic
4 oz cream cheese - Add ~10 min before serving or it makes the sauce have a curdy texture.

Directions: dump in crock pot, give a half-hearted stir, set crock pot for 6-8 hrs, go do something else.

Christmas Lights

I don't care what my husband says.  It is NOT creepy to photograph the neighbor's Christmas lights from the street.  (while wearing a hoodie and glancing about a lot)

Moon

Ever since we moved (a year ago!) I've been in a photo-slump. I can't seem to find anything that inspires me artisticly.  So this evening, I was appreciating the moon and really wanted to take a picture of it.  This is the best one - don't zoom in too much ;)

I'm a little surprised I made this...

Not being a huge raw tomato fan, I'm surprised that I made this salad.  However, having purchased cherry tomatoes for pasta salad and then realized that pasta salad wasn't going to work for this week...they needed a home.

This lovely salad accompanied some very savory buttermilk biscuits.  I have wonderful luck with the Smitten Kitchen biscuit recipe.  Not being the sort of person who can leave well enough alone, and having a mild addiction to caramelized onions...I included about half of a caramelized onion.  Very large chunks. I added a little cheese and some rosemary as well.   I really should have photographed the biscuits before I ate them, but that would have required not having a biscuit in both hands.

Recipe:

1/2 pint tomatos
1 large cucumber
1 large yellow pepper
2-3 mint leaves
2-3 stalks green onion

Dressing:
1/3 c balsamic vinegar
1/3 c molasses

Cut the tomatoes into bite sized pieces.  Dice the cucumbers and pepper.  Very finely chop the mint leaves and green onion.  Mix.  (Note: I added garlic - I would not recommend this!)

You can dress in the bowl or provide at service.  If choosing to dress in the bowl, note that the lovely colors will take on a slightly less pleasing brownish hue.  Fine at home, less good if you have company.

The recipe

I recently remembered that there is a farmer's market less than a mile from our house.  Not only that, but I remembered while out.  Clearly, this was a coincidence that required action.  After impulse buying fresh mint and ginger, I had to google something to do with them.  You saw the result on the previous post, here is the preparation...and the recipe.

In case they ever take down the recipe on me...here are the details.

2 fresh limes - juiced.  should make ~1/4 c juice
2/3 c white rum  - I'm not fond of the flavor of rum so I spent a little more and got some mid grade rum so that the flavor would not come through too much
10 mint sprigs (+ more for garnish)
1/4 c sugar
2 Tbls fresh ginger, minced  - I shaved mine with a fine microplane
2 c club soda

Combine all but the club soda in a dish.  Add in the lime peels and mash together.  My chemistry training made me a little unhappy with the dissolution rate of the sugar in this mix, but the concentrate was tasty so maybe it's not all supposed to dissolve.  Let sit for ~20 minutes.  Because I shaved the ginger, I would recommend paying attention to the time lest the ginger get away from you.

Strain out the solids.  As my ginger was very fine, I ended up needing cheesecloth for this.  If one didn't shave the ginger, this recipe would certainly be easier and more forgiving. That being said, I'm totally shaving the ginger again.  (Apparently, I purchased a year's stock of cheesecloth at some point.)

Pour over ice and add club soda.  Garnish with mint sprigs.

Taking a few days off

Why, pray-tell, this sudden return to blogging?  Well, after the insanity that has been my summer, I took a week off from work.  So, other than fielding a few e-mails, no 'work' here!

Lily Pond 2

I very rarely notice reflection photo opportunities.  I'm glad that I caught one.

Lily Pond 1

Taking a break

Since moving last December, life has been...hectic.  There have been some steps forward, some steps backward, and lots to think about.  A month or so ago, we visited our friends in Ft Worth...and I went to my 'happy place' to take a mental break.

The next few days will be some pictures from that trip.

A couple more pix of the Aggie Ring

At Texas A&M there is a giant Aggie ring by the Alumni center.  I really, REALLY have to have hobbies lest I become a work-a-holic so I got myself up, stopped by Starbucks, and spent some time with my camera.  The combination of golden sun and shadows was a bit of a white balance challenge.  Actually, I'm not really sure how to do better on this (other than some serious time with photoshop), but that's what the internet is for.

Welcome to Aggieland!

Because I promised...

I promised Jen that I would upload one of my pix from the weekend this evening...unless they all stank.  I liked this one.  Will tell more of a tale when I upload it's companion tomorrow.  But for now, off to bed.

Foggy Morning

Some days...

a little chocolate is in order.

New Year's

Some friends came to visit us (Thank you for coming down!!!) just before New Year's.  We went wandering through downtown to enjoy the lights and get a little dessert.

Christmas Dinner

We're finally getting into a groove here at the new house.  I've decided that I need to make an effort to chill on the weekends rather than bring my work home with me (unfortunate side effect of loving my job).  So, hopefully, I'll be back on here more often as my camera makes a reappearance into my life.

My husband and I weren't able to make it to the family Christmas this year.  Since we were on our own, I spent a little time on Smitten Kitchen looking for something 'different' to make our dinner special.

These are beef, pancetta, and vegetable pot pies that are loosely base on this pancetta and white bean recipe.  Not being a huge fan of beans in general, they got the boot.  The broth was altered to a beef base with some rosemary added to round it out.  

This delicious little puff pastry and apple tart was taken more or less directly from Smitten Kitchen's recipe.  A couple of notes: be patient and let the puff pastry fully thaw before proceeding.  When making carmel, there is a very fine line between browned sugar and burned sugar.  Keep in mind that your pan is hot and will keep cooking the sugar after you have removed it from the heat.  

Merry Christmas (a month or so late) !

Artist in the Gardens

I needed to think and de-stress a little on Saturday so I stopped by the Botanic Gardens. This lovely (and clearly talented artist) let me take some pictures of her as she painted.

If only I could paint out the ugly trash can! :-/