Monday, January 31, 2011

Some more food...and ebelskivers?

This morning I made some chai-infused oatmeal for my mom - using good stuff like turmeric, cardamom, coriander, cloved, allspice, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, pistachios, and cranberries.

I was at Williams Sonoma and finally gave in and bought this Ebelskiver kit - they look so cute, like mini filled pancakes!


 Then I made a delicious Chicken Divan - a creamy mushroom tarragon sauce on top of some chicken, broccoli and rice, with some toasted almonds and scallions on top!



Sunday, January 30, 2011

A day's worth of cooking and baking

Waking up at 6am I can still see the moon!  I can't wait until spring arrives...

I start the day by inventing a muffin recipe - pear-pineapple-ginger-blueberry!  (My mom gave it two thumbs up)

Some old fashioned candy at my local market - love it!



Oh fruit, how I miss you!!!!


Got my supplies, now off to make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies with all my leftover pumpkin.

I tried making a Blueberry Angel food cake - it was my first time with angel food cake.  It came out very dense and not light like the cake usually is supposed to be - any hints?
Then for dinner I made Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo - okay, I was too tired to take a picture of it - but it looked a lot like this!  Boy, was it spicy - a little cayenne goes a long way!

Friday, January 28, 2011

But snowed in another day???

Okay, so for the second day we were snowed in.  Thankfully I got a huge set of new puff paints!!!

Remember how I completely ruined the painted background I made the other day?  Well, I painted over it  in an effort to save it.
I added in a tree reaching to the moon, and added a cow jumping over it.  Quite whimsical.


I was trying to think of some words to tie it all together, and I noticed that the big tree seemed to be hoisting the little tree up to reach up to the stars.
Hence the title, "together we can reach stars" - I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Now, this other background I created - I really didn't like the acrylics I added onto it.  So it was nothing a little felt and fabric can't fix apparently!

I gave the painting some added texture by adding figures and different fabrics - brings it to life much more than just straight acrylic painting.




Just a little puff-painting to highlight it and then I'm done!

My next project idea: making 9 little canvas paper cards to fit in this lovely frame - I'm thinking of maing collages of the nine symbols that appear most often in my work: a girl dancing, bird, cow, tree, fire, teardrops, breaking hearts, flower, lightning - yup, that's nine!

My mom and I were especially bored on this snow day, so I created a little activity - I gave us each a set of the same materials, and we had to create a piece using all of the materials.  

Interestingly enough, we created similar themes on the same materials!  I themed my painting around PINK, her's was around RED.

Thankfully, I shopped for ingredients two days at a time - there was no getting out with all of that snow! I made delicious stuffed chicken with sundried tomatoes and artichokes.  Click Here For The Recipe!

I made a quiche that was low-fat for my family by using buttermilk instead of cream - who knew?

And some wild rice I sort of improvised on - this was kitchen sink rice - cranberries, almonds, cinnamon, allspice, dil, parsley, paprika, bell peppers, white onion, garlic, celery, red onion, carrots, orange zest...it turned out great!

Let's see a cross-section of that yummy chicken!

Sometimes it's nice being trapped with the family on a snow day...sometimes!

What do you do on a snow day?

This Wednesday, we were totally snowed in! 
So what to do?

Bake, of course!

Pumpkin Blueberry muffins with shredded coconut - yum!

 Since I had opened the can of pumpkin, I made Matt Pumpkin-Cornmeal pancakes and scrambled eggs.  Fresh food and each other's company - who cares if we're snowed in?!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Oh, Fish Sticks!

I love going to the Food Network website for recipes.  I made a great dinner last night using their recipes - they all came out great!  Check out the links for the recipes.
Butternut Squash Risotto:  Click Here For Recipe
Balsamic Broccolini:  Click Here For Link
Fish Sticks with Marinara Sauce:  Click Here For Link
Parmesan Salmon Sticks with Yogurt Dipping Sauce: Click Here for Link

The pancetta in the risotto makes it delicious!
With the roasted butternut squash stirred in, it was amazing.

First you soak the cod in buttermilk for 15 minutes...

...Voila!


The salmon sticks got the best reviews.

Family dinner time...with lots of leftovers!