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sta and make a sauce out of whatever leftovers you ve got in this case it was onion tomato eggplant and a bit of red pepper of course garlic was in there but i don t consider it to be a leftover it s like onion or salt a staple i drive to new mexico starting tomorrow i decided to take an extra day and go to white sands outside of alamogordo never been there before and from what i can tell it seems like it would be a photographer s heaven i ll let you know meanwhile enjoy this memorial day weekend drive defensively and have fun posted by toni at 8 17 pm 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels eggplant pasta monday april 25 2011 old world easter eggs in san diego i live in the best neighborhood really i do i ve never lived anywhere else where i ve had such an interesting diverse and friendly group of people surrounding me at least none that i knew i lived in manhattan for many years but when you live in manhattan you don t know your neighbors you might recognize them in the elevator but you don t invite them over for dinner or for coloring easter eggs one of our neighbors has a house here and another one in colorado she goes back and forth between the two places and right now she s here but she ll be leaving in about a week so her neighbor invited a group of us over for a drink and to say so long to patty our migratory bird as she is now being called as far as we all knew it was going to be an evening of wine and nibblies that s it but when we arrived we discovered that our hostess had a more interesting evening planned for us she s originally from switzerland and came to san diego via alexandria egypt where she lived for many years like all people who tear up roots and relocate elsewhere in the world she brought certain traditions with her and one of them was her way of coloring easter eggs we sat around the table in her kitchen and before us was a bowl of water in which were all sorts of leaves from around her yard there were at least 3 dozen fresh eggs for us to use and a pile of cut up old stockings stockings remember those seems there s a reason not to throw them away they re useful for all sorts of things including coloring easter eggs the method is simple you take a wet leaf and lay it on an egg keep any stiff stems on the side away from the egg and let the wet leaves touch the egg use your fingers to spread the leaves out making sure that the individual elements are separate when you are satisfied pick up a piece of stocking which has been cut in a square stretch it out and lay it over your egg pulling the ends together you will now have an egg tightly wrapped in a piece of stocking you may release a corner of the stocking if you wish to re adjust a leaf which might have slipped out of place in this process when you are satisfied pull that corner of the stocking back twist the stocking ends wrap a thread around the twist and knot it to secure the stocking the tighter the stocking is wrapped the less likely it is that the die will get under the leaf cut off any extra stocking and thread ends so that you will have only a very short piece of stocking left and just the tiniest snippet of thread you will now have an egg with a leaf or leaves stuck to it s side wrapped tightly in a piece of stocking which has been twisted tightly and secured with thread when you ve done as many of these as you d care to do it s time to die them the three eggs on the left of the photos up above the ones that are a kind of reddish brownish color are died with onion skins they hate me in henry s our hostess told us i just gathered the skins and didn t buy the onions the other two colors are from natural dies that she brought back from switzerland the bright pink color is from something called cochinille i have no idea of the spelling which is a bug the dark brown is from a kind of wood i m sure you can experiment with local plants eggs were died for at least 30 minutes and possibly more after the second glass of wine no one was counting we each left with our nests and stronger ties to each other as neighbors and then i brought them home does anyone know how to say this is not a toy in cat posted by toni at 8 46 am 4 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels easter eggs tuesday april 19 2011 salad days remember those currants from the last post i fell in love with them addicted you might say which is funny because i have no reason to feel addicted to currants i mean why not just plain raisins but when you add cinnamon and sugar and let them soak well it definitely kicks those puppies up a notch so what if salad seems to be all i m eating these days it s not but it seems to be the only thing i bother to photograph and write about we re still having some gloomy weather here but i m in one of those i must have greens moods so salad works for me endless variety of ingredients wonderful contrasts of flavors all brightened by a zippy vinagrette besides when you re eating by yourself you don t even have to take it out of the bowl how s that for easy clean up so this time i marinated some chicken and cooked it on the grill someone had given me her home made guava syrup to which i added a little soy and some red chili to make a quick marinade if you don t happen to have a friend who hands you this lovely gift you can find it at amazon click here for the link the rest was easy assorted baby greens a small heirloom tomato currants cukes whatever you ve got the currants worked well with the zesty chicken on the one hand and a cool cucumber on the other my dressing was the same as the last post enjoy posted by toni at 8 47 pm 3 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels currants salad sunday april 3 2011 warm enough for salad we finally dried out it was beginning to feel like portland around here with rain rain and more rain don t get me wrong my garden was loving it and i was loving not having to do the work of watering but it was beginning to wear on me especially since southern californians do not know how to drive in bad weather it was scary out there trying to get to work every day when people are roaring down the freeway texting or whatever they re doing other than paying attention and the roads are wet so when the sun came back this past week it felt good even if the temperatures stayed cool until 3 days ago cool was fine with me and it helped everyone s spirits i was able to get outside and yank out a ton of weeds from my garden as well as get in some walks the sunsets have been pretty spectacular with the clouds we had and everyone migrates to the beach to watch the show with the cool temperatures winter squash is still an attractive option but with the sun out and the temperature inching upward so is a salad so i was delighted to find a recipe in food and wine which combined the two needless to say i tinkered ginger roasted winter squash ingredients 1 2 cup water 1 4 cup sugar 1 2 cup red wine vinegar 1 cinnamon stick 1 4 cup dried currants 2 1 2 pounds thick fleshed sugar pumpkin or acorn squash halved and seeded i used butternut 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil coarse sea salt and ground pepper one 1 inch piece of fresh ginger peeled 2 tablespoons crème fraîche and if you leave this off no one will miss it and the fat content will be lowered directions preheat the oven to 325 in a small saucepan combine the water with the sugar vinegar and cinnamon and simmer for 5 minutes stirring until the sugar dissolves add the currants and simmer for 3 minutes then remove from the heat meanwhile line a baking sheet with aluminum foil rub the squash with the olive oil and season with salt and pepper using a fine grater grate the ginger over the cut sides of the squash and rub it into the flesh transfer the squash to the prepared baking sheet cut side down and roast for about 15 minutes until the squash starts to soften turn the squash cut side up and roast for about 17 minutes longer until tender transfer to a work surface and let cool slightly increase the oven temperature to 425 cut the squash into 1 1 2 inch thick wedges lightly rub the foil with oil and arrange the squash on the baking sheet roast for about 25 minutes turning once halfway through until golden and crisp along the edges arrange the squash on a platter discard the cinnamon stick from the currants and add the currants to the squash drizzle with the pickling liquid and crème fraîche and serve notes one serving 226 cal 7 gm fat 2 3 gm sat fat 46 gm carb 5 gm fiber i brought this to a dinner at the neighbors they were still talking about it the next week posted by toni at 8 39 pm no comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels butternut squash currants thursday march 17 2011 greetings from cyberspace it s been forever i know don t know how that happens other than birthdays and visitors and presentations and a trip to chicago in the winter of course and then there s the matter of my neighbor he s learned to cook you see and so he s always inviting me to join them for dinner hey i just made some chinese style spare ribs or i m making a chicken stir fry wanna join us when you get back from work and then the next thing i know i look up and it s march truth is i ve been taking lots of walks and sometimes even taking my camera i love to traverse balboa park and check out what s blooming in the canyons there are these wonderful flowers which look like they re in the pea family and of course there are the beautiful grasses as well as the man made structures and yes i ve even been eating nothing fancy these days though i did make some amazing french toast with a dash of orange oil and some grated orange peel mixed in with the eggs and one night i concocted an israeli couscous dish with some sweet potato cranberries onions some cinnamon and slivered almonds very moroccan i thought very tasty and this evening i had friends over for dinner i ve been on a chicken craze recently perhaps because i haven t eaten any in a while so this evening i made some chicken coconut soup or tom kha gai i ve made this before and i ve always loved it i made my own stock using both water as well as organic chicken broth so it was rich after removing the chicken and saving the meat i added coconut milk a chunk of galangal some kaffir lime leaves and fish sauce as well as some lemon grass which i scored from my neighbor who had bought some frozen from our local vietnamese supermarket when the whole thing came to a boil i turned it down simmered it and added some sugar and crushed about 3 of those tiny green chilis you get in asian supermarkets always a crowd pleaser even with one of my friends who doesn t ordinarily like soup also made some chicken curry and because my friends brought their 5 year old son i made some spaghetti with a red sauce but did i have time to photograph our food before we ate it no and that has been part of my problem of late either i m eating at the neighbors house or i don t have time to photograph what i just made which is why i ve dragged my heals on this blog but somehow with the time shift i feel that i can pack more into a day including some photography at the end of the day it s no longer dark when i leave my clinic renewal is in the air posted by toni at 10 26 pm 5 comments email this blogthis share to x share to facebook share to pinterest labels french toast tuesday january 18 2011 focaccia an old fashioned miracle i love everything about the kitchen except for cleaning it of course but i love the way my kitchen looks i love the smells that emerge from it when i m cooking i love the feeling i get when i walk into it to prepare food the beginning of an adventure i love sharing the food i make with others and i love the food other people share with me the sharing of our food is the most basic of all activities it s what makes us companions those who literally break bread together i think of myself as more of a cook than a baker except when it comes to bread i m crazy about bread but when it comes to baking i feel fairly restricted in other words i tend to follow the recipe with cooking i ll throw in whatever strikes my fancy but with baking i don t trust myself i have a neighbor who has taken it upon himself to learn to bake bread he s not someone i would have thought of as a baker he s a real estate entrepreneur he can grill meat and veggies but that s usually about it however recently he s decided that it s time to learn a thing or two about baking not knowing anything about the science of baking he felt no restrictions whatsoever and so he just dove in one day he came up to my house and we decided to bake focaccia together he had made a number of them which he had shared with me and while they tasted great they all came out rather flat i suspected that he wasn t letting the dough rise enough i asked him to bake the bread and i d be his assistant do you have yeast i gave him a packet he heated a cup of water poured it into a large bowl and added the yeast and a tablespoon of sugar we sat down to enjoy a cup of tea together after about 20 minutes he said i usually start out with two cups of flour do you have a regular cup i gave him a measuring cup he looked at it funny and asked don t you have a regular cup you can use that it s ok he put flour into it but didn t fill it he dumped it into the yeast mixture and began mixing it with his hands it was too sticky so he added more flour and a little more i ll need a place to knead this i cleaned off the island put a bunch of flour on there as he began to knead i kept sprinkling more flour on the island so it wouldn t stick when it finally got to the right consistency we cleaned the bowl sprayed it with oil put the dough in then sprayed the top of it and covered it with a towel i like to let it rise in the microwave but my micro wasn t big enough so i put some hot water in a pan turned on the oven light and we put it in there he left to do a few errands saying i ll be back in about 50 minutes or so about an hour later i pulled the dough out it had risen to a light fluffy cloud i took it out and flattened it down adding cheese to the top and folding it over like an envelope i kept doing this until i had what must have been at least a cup and a half of cheese in there maybe even a cup and three quarters all i know is that by the time i had incorporated all the cheese it kept popping out the sides i repeated the spray and cover process and put it back into the oven with some more hot water he came back and asked about it when i told him what i had done he said he d be back in a half an hour about 40 minutes later i took it out spread it onto a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper and dimpled it as i was pouring the oil over the top he came in with a jar of jalapenos i didn t have any parmesan to sprinkle over the top so we had to make do with what we had some sea salt...