Projectland

December 2011 part 2

When Sophia and I returned from NYC, we got back to our routines with a few special events thrown in for excitement. On December 13, we went to see one of our favorite bands: WILCO at the Riviera in Chicago. Here's a late night picture of Chief Rail and I up WAY past our bedtimes!

 

We were treated to some acting in the neighborhood Christmas pageant at the Church. Our two were so proud of being part of the show.

 

 

Lots of excitement on Christmas morning!

chocolate, tea, oranges, books, a green dinosaur, soap, sunlight, the smell of pine needles...

on the day after Christmas, we took a lovely wintry walk in the woods with friends at the North Park Village Nature Center.

We flew to Maine shortly after Christmas for a family visit, and while there, took a two day side trip to Sunday River  for some downhill skiing. The girls both took to it right away and by the end of the day were skiing down the longer runs.

 

 

 

Then it was time to have the last coffee of 2011 in the Christmas tree mugs and head back to Chicago and start January 2012.

Just from the oven goodness.

I remember when Mark Bittman from the NYT wrote about a no knead bread method and I thought, "I have to give that a try..." but I think I had a one year old and a four year old when the article came out, so my time was otherwise spoken for.  A year or two later, we got this book as a gift, where it sat on the shelf up until a few days ago. Since it's winter and I love baking when its cold out, I pulled the book down, checked to see if I had all the ingredients, and mixed up some dough. What a revelation! This bread recipe turns out one of the best breads ever. It's beyond good and beyond easy. Mix up a few ingredients, let it sit on the counter for 12-24 hours and then bake. It is incredible. I can not believe that this bread came out of my home kitchen oven! And what is even better is that it fits the bill for the "busy family meals" category perfectly. A slice of this bread still warm from the oven with a cucumber-tomato salad and a bowl of chicken noodle soup and the kids were in heaven.

And so, here is Jim Lahey's  no knead bread recipe :

(I like that someone in our house decided to color in the little white circle on the book's cover. It does kind of ask for it!)

December 2011 (part I)

Hello again!

I'm going to back track a little and post some pics from December. The highlight being a trip to NYC. Again with the NYC, I know, its like a love affair I am having with that city. Every chance I can, I try to find an excuse to go. This most recent excuse was to chaperone my oldest on her turn to have a weekend with her grandparents to see the "Radio City Music Hall Christmas Spectacular" show. What?! She couldn't fly alone! Check out that leopard hat, they were all the rage. All the street vendors had piles of them alongside the knock-off LV bags and Chinese cashmere scarves. Just for the record, I happen to love the street vendor carts in NYC. I find it incredible that they exist and stay in business.

So to encapsulate our trip:

We had the bestest, mostest, bestest time ever!

The holiday windows there were amazing, and the

 Bergdorf Goodman windows were especially inspiring and so magical. There was taxidermy, and lots of it. Be still my heart and imagination.

 

We took a visit to the New York Historical Society and Museum where S learned about 911. She was understandably shocked about what had happened and fearful for our plane trip home. My friend Bonnie says, "no disasters before 3rd grade" because kids can't process a disaster and feel powerless to help. But what about the kids who lived through it? And what about kids who live through traumas before they turn 9? In this case, it was unavoidable that we would see the photos of the twin towers since they were in the front lobby along with a with a badly scraped fire engine door. I felt that the important thing to do was discuss it with her honestly. Her curiosity is so innocent. She was so moved by the photos of the "missing" papers posted around the site. Especially the one about a child missing his father. It is a painful thing to read about no matter what age you are.

To get us out of our sadness, we walked one block north to the Museum of Natural History. And got to see some spectacular dinosaur skeletons.

We also went to the kids museum in the basement of the MNH which is compact, well done and does not look tired the way you would expect a museum with millions of visitors should look.

Before we left my beloved city, we went to see Wicked as promised to a certain someone (and my Mom). They both loved it as much as I do. We belt the songs out in the car on our way to and from school. Little sister doesn't get it, but she will. When its her turn to go to NYC for a weekend with her grandparents, I've got four words for her; "you need a chaperone".

 

Whew, fall is over but... the holidays approach!

I have been absent on this blog. Sorry! things are busy around here and I am finding it hard to write- although my intention is to keep up with the practice because it has been so rewarding. The latest news is that I am starting a part time job! I will be working in Forest Park at the first Binth design store with Suzanna, the founder and principle designer of Binth. After seven years as a stay at home mom, I am ready for re-integrating into the outside world!

Here's a recap of the goings on in projectland recently;

We celebrated a friend's 50th birthday in Michigan. You can read more about his birthday and see lots of pictures here on his highly honest website and blog: Out Your Backdoor

We trick or treated with the neighborhood gang. Can you spot the mermaid and the cheetah?

I co-coordinated and was in the 3rd annual West Walker Holiday Fair which is a benefit for the Three Brothers Garden, a community food bank garden in the neighborhood. I brought scrappies, a new stuffed doll I have been making (more about that in later post!) and some hand painted porcelain. I shared the table with artist friends Alison and Prisana. The fair raised about $2000 for the garden. I was very happy with the turnout and the amount of money raised!

I made paper mache turkeys with my daughter's Montessori class. This one was my favorite- I love the expression and the rainbow tail.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with friends. The food was incredible, and the sentiments and reflections people made as we went around the table were heartfelt. It has been a good year and we have so much to be thankful for.

And so as we head into the last month of the year, I continue to shop for our groceries at our neighborhood grocery store: Tony's Finer Foods for which I have nothing but praise. Look at that display! It's so beautiful. Tony's always has what I am looking for and they inspire me to try new things, although I am still not sure what to do with a bitter melon or all those starchy tubers from central and south America....

and I continue to enjoy cooking for the family. We saw the documentary Forks over Knives and resolved to try to eat more grains, fruits and vegetables. This is a tart made with the last kale leaves from the garden.

There will be lots more to write about come January and hopefully I will get in a short post here and there in December, but till then, stay warm!

 

 

 

criss cross applesauce

One day this fall, just south of the Wisconsin border we turned into a tidy U-pick apple orchard that was impeccably manicured. The kids tumbled from the car, happy to be free after an hour and a half drive. They ran around on the grass and on wood-chipped pathways that ran in between two big flowerbeds. My friend Amy and I walked over towards a white tent surrounded by absolutely gorgeous apple trees laden with fruit, red wagons lined up in 3 neat rows and an older man with furrowed brows scowling in the direction of the kids. He had a 10 am 6" cigar stuck in his mouth. The kids turned to run towards us, and then came the full frontal attack from cigar guy:

"...Hey, git those kids outta da flowerbeds... Listen, if you want to have kids here, you gotta watch em at all times!!!! dey can't run around screaming and climbing the trees and picking apples dat aren't ripe. see dat sign? It says, no children allowed unless accompanied by an adult at all times..."

Then the Mrs. of the orchard came out from behind the back of the tent and her first word was not "Hello" but "Are you looking for a petting zoo? Or rides?, 'cause you ain't gonna to find that here, you might want to go somewhere else"

Whoa! What kind of U-pick place is this? Amy and I looked at each other and I knew we were both thinking the same thing:  load everyone back up into the car and leave ASAP. But we stayed promising to closely watch the kids. The fruit looked too good. Plus the reason we chose that farm other than the fact that they had a picture of a two year old girl biting into an apple on their web page (which I took to mean "family friendly") was because it DIDN'T have a fee to park, a fee to enter the orchard, rides for a fee, and expensive apples.

The Mr. and Mrs. warmed up to us after a while and by way of an apology cigar man said, "your kids are OK. They're doin' great".  I said, "you must have had some bad experiences with kids here huh?" He told us about a couple of times when parents were not supervising their kids and a boy had done a lot of damage to apples with a jackknife and another boy had climbed up to the top of a tree and broken some branches.

Although the fruit was excellent and the owners were actually friendly in the end, I think we need to find an orchard where our "city kids" can run around and cut loose a little. If they can't do that in the countryside then where? (I don't want to give the name of the orchard. I think they just woke up on the wrong side of the bed that day, and I am sure that any small family farm needs all the business they can get to survive.)

Is it just fate that we will get crankier as we get older? I hope not, but it is a noticeable trend.

OK- on to applesauce, because I love any excuse to use my china cap which I bought half my life time ago at a Kiwanis sale in Ann Arbor, MI.

 

Homemade applesauce is hands down the best. Here is a simple recipe:

Cook 10-15 apples whole or core them. Combine with 2 C. of water, 1/4 C. brown sugar, and 1t. cinnamon over medium heat. Cover pot, and stir apples every few minutes. After 20-30 minutes, the apples should be soft and mushy. Let them cool, and then use a China Cap, or any other food mill/strainer to mash apples into apple sauce. If you don't have a china cap, you can use a cuisinart to make sauce, but make sure to core apples before cooking them, otherwise it will be hard to pick the seeds and stems out before processing the cooked apples.

We went to an orchard a couple of weeks later that I can heartily recommend. It is Ela orchard in Rochester, WI. It's not a u-pick, but the apples and pears are beautiful and delicious and most importantly, the owner, Bob is warm and open to people of all ages coming to his farm! You can feed the goats who comically gum the apples, drooling away, until they are the right size for swallowing. Here are a few pictures:

 

The last picture is my very own Honey Crisp.

One short day in the Emerald City

NYC

 

Perfect pocket pies

A very pleasant lunch was spent recently with friends eating royal pie at Pleasant House Bakery . If you are in Chicago, I highly recommend a trip there. It's a very casual place, but sunlight brightens the small dining room and on the day we went, the counter staff were pip pip cheery-o eager to make sure we had a delicious British workingman's meal.

The kids and I had already been experimenting with empenada style pies using  this brand of buttermilk biscuit dough. (I read on-line that a recipe re-viewer's Chilean grandma uses it for her empenada dough, and I had to try it.) We made a filling together and they had fun spooning the filling onto the dough, folding the other half over and pressing the edges with a fork.

Ground turkey empenada filling that passes the kid taste test

Brown 1.5 cups of ground turkey in a frying pan with a little oil. Add 1/2 C. tomato sauce, 1/4 C. golden raisins, and 1/4 C. diced red or orange bell pepper. Season with 1/2 t. chili powder and salt. Let simmer for 10 min to blend the flavors and soften the peppers. Remove from heat and put in a bowl. Let cool for 10 minutes, then add 1/2 C. shredded cheese. Mix well.

Open biscuit dough and roll out each biscuit until it is an oval that is 1/8" thick.

Spoon about 1-2T. of the turkey mixture on one half of rolled out dough before folding over the other half. Seal edges by pressing the tines of a fork around edges. Brush tops with egg wash and sprinkle sea salt or a dry herb mix on top. Bake empenadas on a pan at 375F for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

They didn't eat theirs with sauce, but Chief Rail and I put fresh tomato salsa on top of ours.

After our lunch at Pleasant House, I got inspired to use a muffin tin and the same buttermilk bisuit dough to make chicken pot pies. The kids ate them up and asked for seconds. No joke. It's scary-easy to use that dough. I am starting to think that most everything might taste good "pocket style".

For these, I rolled the raw biscuits out to about 1/8" thick 6" diameter circles and pressed the dough into lightly oiled muffin tin cups. Then the kids and I filled the cups with the pot pie mixture, gathered the overhanging dough and pinched it together at the top so it looked like Vietnamese Bao. We brushed them with egg wash and sprinkled the adult ones with Herbs de Provence then baked them at 350F for about 15 minutes until they looked like the picture. They came undone a little in the baking, but didn't spill their cups. Let them cool for about 5 minutes, and then when you are ready to eat, run a knife around the edge to loosen them from the tin. They were fantastic. I could see serving these at a dinner party. Sprinkle a little flour on the counter top and people will think you made the dough yourself.

Just kidding purists.

You can use any chicken pot pie recipe you like, but my kids do not like onions or cooked celery. Too "slimy". So with that thought: here is the recipe for the filling we made.

Chicken pot pie recipe for kids (no slimy stuff)

Make a white roux by melting 2 T. butter in a sauce pan, adding 2 T. flour and mix with a whisk. Allow to bubble for 30 seconds or so, but don't let it burn. Whisk in 1/2 C. chicken broth and allow mix to thicken. Whisk in 1/2 C. milk, add 1/2 C. green peas. Season with salt, a dash of Maggi sauce, 1/2 t. of dried herb mix and a few sprinkles of smoked paprika if your kids will let you... let pot simmer while you:

Cut 1 C. raw chicken breast into 1/2" cubes.  Brown chicken in a frying pan with a little oil. Add 1/4 C. diced raw carrots, 1/4 C. chopped raw broccoli and let vegetables soften for about 5 minutes. Add this to the roux with peas and mix well. Use this filling in the dough filled muffin tin.

YUM. YUM. YUM.

 

Living room curtains

The reason I started Projectland blog was to chart the progress of all the various creative projects that get started and then remain half done around the house. The intention was I admit selfish: to hold me accountable for finishing what I start. It has turned into more of a food and travel journal since summer.  I became "camp director" for my kids and home projects were put on hold. 

Now that fall is here: I am happy to say that this blog has held me accountable for one of the bigger home decorating projects I have taken on: making living room curtains!

BEFORE

and....

AFTER!

 

These curtains have been in the works for over 6 months. It sure feels good to have them done and I'm sure you'll agree its a huge improvement!

It all started innocently enough: I fell in love with the fabric and decided to make curtains. I measured the windows, bought the fabric, came home and made classic mistake number one: I cut the fabric in the wrong place for the pattern to line up correctly, so I went back to the store to buy more yardage. I got the two main curtains done, then the project went on hold for a while when summer arrived. But they were always on my mind especially after one of the blinds broke and it stayed in one position all summer. The project got a bit bogged down after the initial excitement and momentum slowed, but I forced myself to sit at the sewing machine once in a while and chip away at the sewing of the linings and curtains themselves. One of the harder things was figuring out the spacing for the pleats. High school math came in handy! See kids? It WILL be useful one day!

After they were all sewed with a 4" heavy stabilizer band at the top, I used curtain pins that are sort of in an upside down "N" shape with one sharp point to push into the fold and stabilizer, and the other end a blunt hook. The hook ends went into eyes attached to the wooden curtain rings. After the curtains were on the rings, I strung them onto the curtain rods, and up they went.

Here is my work station with two sewing machines face to face. I use the bigger Singer for heavier fabric since it has a larger motor. I use the smaller one for my extremely part time business:  scrappynation .

This is the 2" fold that when pressed open makes the box pleat at the top of the curtain.

Here are the wood finials and supports which I painted with a min-wax black stain and poly coating.

Lastly: thanks especially to Chief rail for spending the better part of a Saturday putting up the hardware.  Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti Do!! I feel like Maria in The Sound of Music, only I don't want to take down the curtains and make clothes, I want to make more curtains around the house and then sing about them. OK. I made that last part up.

 

The evening cocktail

 
Kentucky Fizz (sidecar over ice with club soda)

For the past few years, we have had a holiday cocktail party for some of Chief Rail's work mates and our neighborhood friends. Over time we had bottles of this and that accumulating in a lower kitchen cabinet. One day recently I got the organizing and cleaning bug. I took out all of the bottles, napkins, swizzle sticks, lime squeezers and toothpicks with frills and moved them to a location in our kitchen that seems to have been taylor-made for a bar. Why did I not see it before?!

I find an evening cocktail fortifying and calming. In my grandparent's era they called it a "stimulant" which is an apt name.  At the Aviary in Chicago, they have elevated the cocktail to an art form. I haven't been there yet, and I'm sure I will be wowed and even a little stunned at the creativity. Being somewhat of a traditionalist, I like the classics like a vodka martini with olives, a gin and tonic, or a cooling mojito on a hot night, however after our summer trip to Kentucky, we got into mixing bourbon cocktails. A recent favorite by far was introduced to us by our friend Rick. Because I do not know its true name, we named it the "Kentuckarita" and served it at Chief Rail's 50th birthday party. For me, the key to having an evening cocktail and still being able to make dinner and get the kids squared away for bedtime is to only have one, and not make it too big. The calming effect is nice, but what I really appreciate is the mix of flavors.

Here is the recipe we keep on going back to when we want something smokey, citrusy, fresh and balanced. Enjoy!

Kentuckarita

3 parts bourbon

1 part Aperol

1 part Cointrerau

1 part fresh lime juice

Vigorously shake in a martini shaker with ice, strain and pour into a martini glass.

 

 

 

Takoyaki in an Ebleskiver Pan

I bought an ebleskiver pan this summer, made these scrumptious Danish filled pancakes and was hooked. We all were!

We tried chocolate sauce, strawberry jam, and apricot jam fillings.  Adults thought apricot was the best, kids said, "chocolate!".  While researching batters and the ebleskiver pan itself, I discovered that there is a Japanese dish, Takoyaki (AKA Octopus balls) that it seemed could be made using an ebleskiver pan. Loving Japanese food, I filed that away for a future date.

Fast forward a few months. I went to Mitsuwa with a friend and saw a sauce for takoyaki. There was a recipe on the package, so I bought the ingredients I didn't already have at home- namely octopus and hondashi bonito soup base and went home all excited to make Octopus balls.

It was one of those times that the finished dish WAY EXCEEDED my expectations.

In the following picture, you can see the octopus leg on the right that the kids poked at for a while, simultaniously giggling and saying "ewww, weird".

Here is the batter recipe from the sauce package. I tried it their way, then made a few additions that made it better.

Takoyaki recipe

1 C. all purpose flour for batter, plus one T. for filling

1 1/2 C. fish stock (I used Hondashi Bonito instant soup stock)

2 eggs

4 oz. boiled octopus, cut into bite size pieces

1 oz. finely chopped green onion

1 oz. Tempura crisp flakes

1 T. dulce flakes or Aonori

1/2 t. salt

3 t cooking oil

Takoyaki Sauce

more dulce flakes for sprinkling on top

Thoroughly mix fish stock, flour, tempura crisp flakes, dulce, salt and eggs together in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix the octopus, green onions, and 1 T. flour.

Heat ebleskiver pan over med. flame. Brush oil inside indentations on pan. Spoon batter a little more than halfway up each indentation. Put in a small amount of octopus/green onion/flour filling in center of each batter filled cup, then add more batter covering the filling.

Let batter cook until the edges of each circle start bubbling and turning brown, about 4-5 minutes. Carefully turn each ball over completely using two chopsticks or the pointed ends of wooden knitting needles (in traditional Danish fashion). Let cook further, about 2 minutes.

 

Flip pan over onto plate to dislodge takoyaki. Put 3-4 in a shallow bowl, drizzle sauce on top and sprinkle dulce flakes and green onions on top. Let cool a few minutes before eating.

SOMEDAY, I hope to actually make it to Japan and eat takoyaki at one of the street food stalls in Osaka where they originated, but until then, I am pretty happy with my Midwest meets Japanese meets Danish version.

I'm inspired to make a Midwest version with some smoked Great Lakes fish and Wisconsin cheese, or local goat cheese with spring asparagus.

 

ps you can buy an ebleskiver pan from Amazon. Mine is from Nordic Ware