LJ-Picturing Food, 3.28.06: moving week
Moving is stressful; I give myself chocolate bars.
Chocolate flavored like koalas and zebras!
Save the animals; collect them all (not my joke, just my kinda joke).
*Violet took the pretty photos.
*Cornish Pasty Co.
Veggie pasty at the pasty shop--quorn, artichokes, mozzarella, mushrooms and marinara sauce.
Veggie pasty open for business.
Chicken vindaloo pasty with tzatziki, which I'm grateful for because this vindaloo was really spicy!
*Cypress Pita Grill
Greek fries featuring fries under feta cheese, parmesan cheese, olive oil, squeeze of lemon, and I swear I tasted cumin and chili powder.
Falafal mediterranean wrap with hummus.
Greek turkey sausage (sheftalia) pita with very drippy tzatziki--it tasted really good, I don't care how drippy it was.
Kateifi. The menu asserted that their kateifi was better than baklava, and to be honest, it was better than most baklava I've had.
You know it's time to get a move-on with unpacking your kitchen when . . .
Nothing against IKEA except for the fact that I feel like I've been dragged through a tunnel lined with barbed wire before I've even left the showroom every time I go in there. And the food is fine even if I do (((delete obvious jokes about hospital and prison food))) every time I see it. So this is the small Swedish meatball meal with red potatoes and lingonberry jam (comes with ten meatballs; the lady in front of me tried to order six which was funny in a "you had to be there" way), lingonberry mousse, and lingonberry juice. What the hell is a lingonberry, anyway?
I love kitchen shopping. I find the coolest gadgets, and the oddest.
Look. A flower pot. Cross-posted to the "picturing pots" community. (I'm really kidding.)(And no, I didn't buy it, though I did get all excited because I thought it was a very elusive milk pan.) Now I'll bet that one of you foodie/gourmand/pedantic types will tell me that this pot looks like this because it has some incredibly specialized purpose like boiling garlic husks.
My first meal alone at the new homestead
Nice and simple: Roasted chicken stuffed with parsley, rosemary, garlic, and lemon; rice pilaf with dill and cheese; roasted potatoes (yes! double starch!), and onions with some paprika.
Oh lemon curd, without you, I am but an empty shell.
This tart was inspired by's tartelettes au citron. Mine are just plain ol' lemon curd tarts with poppy seeds and zest on top. I dusted them with powdered sugar before I ate it.
*My first little dinner party
Dinner setting--you can't see the boxes surrounding the table.
Plain long grain rice.
Chicken marsala for the meat eaters.
Coconut curry veggies for the vegetarian (though she shared with us meat eaters). Curry is so good. It's one of those things that tastes just as good, if not better, the second day. I love food like that. And I use parsley for flavor, not for decoration. The stuff actually tastes pretty good, except for with dishes that many restaurants seem to use parsley to garnish.
Dessert was simple macerated strawberries (sugar and lime) on vanilla ice cream. Because I couldn't find my cobbler recipe, and decided not to just wing it because it was a warm day, anyway. I loved these strawberries. They were beet red, and not too sweet or too tart or too big and flavorless. Seasonal fruit, I love you.
The dessert ingredients made great leftovers, too: strawberry "parfait," a.k.a. layers of strawberries, vanilla ice cream, squeeze of lime, good balsamic vinegar. I also have a thing for parfait glasses. They're like the evening gowns of stemware. Can you call that stemware? Whatever--here's the front and back of this season's collection:
In honor of Dave and the dessert he gave Tiffani (plbtbtbtbt!).
Readying the ramekins.
The gelatin is definitely solidified, as I hold the bowl upside down against the light. I could turn this into stained glass! Or not.
Cream and vanilla bean. I think vanilla seeds are like the caviar of pastry. I always want to chew the vanilla beans as if it were a chonk of sugar cane. Okay, I tried it once--bad mistake.
Don't try this at home (or in culinary school--you might get a detention). I turned my gelatin over the simmering cream.
Poured and covered.
Finished with orange blossom honey and some cardamom--oh so yummy. It's one of my favorite desserts. I want to paint my walls with panna cotta.
I've never baked a cheesecake. My brother requested I make one for a barbecue next weekend, and I figured I oughtta make a tester.
Cheesecake in a springform pan. I will be crawling under the covers with this shortly.
A slice of life. This was supposed to be an apple pie cheesecake, then I decided to just do a plain one. I guess I can make a caramel apple topping for it later.
I'm okay with graham cracker crust, but it's not my favorite so I made a shortbread crust instead. Favorite! Now that I know I can do a basic cheesecake, I want to start experimenting. I need more friends who love cheesecake. =(
Chocolate flavored like koalas and zebras!
Save the animals; collect them all (not my joke, just my kinda joke).
*Violet took the pretty photos.
*Cornish Pasty Co.
Veggie pasty at the pasty shop--quorn, artichokes, mozzarella, mushrooms and marinara sauce.
Veggie pasty open for business.
Chicken vindaloo pasty with tzatziki, which I'm grateful for because this vindaloo was really spicy!
*Cypress Pita Grill
Greek fries featuring fries under feta cheese, parmesan cheese, olive oil, squeeze of lemon, and I swear I tasted cumin and chili powder.
Falafal mediterranean wrap with hummus.
Greek turkey sausage (sheftalia) pita with very drippy tzatziki--it tasted really good, I don't care how drippy it was.
Kateifi. The menu asserted that their kateifi was better than baklava, and to be honest, it was better than most baklava I've had.
You know it's time to get a move-on with unpacking your kitchen when . . .
Nothing against IKEA except for the fact that I feel like I've been dragged through a tunnel lined with barbed wire before I've even left the showroom every time I go in there. And the food is fine even if I do (((delete obvious jokes about hospital and prison food))) every time I see it. So this is the small Swedish meatball meal with red potatoes and lingonberry jam (comes with ten meatballs; the lady in front of me tried to order six which was funny in a "you had to be there" way), lingonberry mousse, and lingonberry juice. What the hell is a lingonberry, anyway?
I love kitchen shopping. I find the coolest gadgets, and the oddest.
Look. A flower pot. Cross-posted to the "picturing pots" community. (I'm really kidding.)(And no, I didn't buy it, though I did get all excited because I thought it was a very elusive milk pan.) Now I'll bet that one of you foodie/gourmand/pedantic types will tell me that this pot looks like this because it has some incredibly specialized purpose like boiling garlic husks.
My first meal alone at the new homestead
Nice and simple: Roasted chicken stuffed with parsley, rosemary, garlic, and lemon; rice pilaf with dill and cheese; roasted potatoes (yes! double starch!), and onions with some paprika.
Oh lemon curd, without you, I am but an empty shell.
This tart was inspired by
*My first little dinner party
Dinner setting--you can't see the boxes surrounding the table.
Plain long grain rice.
Chicken marsala for the meat eaters.
Coconut curry veggies for the vegetarian (though she shared with us meat eaters). Curry is so good. It's one of those things that tastes just as good, if not better, the second day. I love food like that. And I use parsley for flavor, not for decoration. The stuff actually tastes pretty good, except for with dishes that many restaurants seem to use parsley to garnish.
Dessert was simple macerated strawberries (sugar and lime) on vanilla ice cream. Because I couldn't find my cobbler recipe, and decided not to just wing it because it was a warm day, anyway. I loved these strawberries. They were beet red, and not too sweet or too tart or too big and flavorless. Seasonal fruit, I love you.
The dessert ingredients made great leftovers, too: strawberry "parfait," a.k.a. layers of strawberries, vanilla ice cream, squeeze of lime, good balsamic vinegar. I also have a thing for parfait glasses. They're like the evening gowns of stemware. Can you call that stemware? Whatever--here's the front and back of this season's collection:
In honor of Dave and the dessert he gave Tiffani (plbtbtbtbt!).
Readying the ramekins.
The gelatin is definitely solidified, as I hold the bowl upside down against the light. I could turn this into stained glass! Or not.
Cream and vanilla bean. I think vanilla seeds are like the caviar of pastry. I always want to chew the vanilla beans as if it were a chonk of sugar cane. Okay, I tried it once--bad mistake.
Don't try this at home (or in culinary school--you might get a detention). I turned my gelatin over the simmering cream.
Poured and covered.
Finished with orange blossom honey and some cardamom--oh so yummy. It's one of my favorite desserts. I want to paint my walls with panna cotta.
I've never baked a cheesecake. My brother requested I make one for a barbecue next weekend, and I figured I oughtta make a tester.
Cheesecake in a springform pan. I will be crawling under the covers with this shortly.
A slice of life. This was supposed to be an apple pie cheesecake, then I decided to just do a plain one. I guess I can make a caramel apple topping for it later.
I'm okay with graham cracker crust, but it's not my favorite so I made a shortbread crust instead. Favorite! Now that I know I can do a basic cheesecake, I want to start experimenting. I need more friends who love cheesecake. =(
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