Strawberry Rhubarb Tart

For Sherry! Thanks for asking...




the crust is a shortbread recipe from Ina Garten:

1/2c sugar
3/4c butter at room temperature

cream

add some vanilla (fresh beans from the pod best, but extract will do)
1-3/4 flour of your choosing (i mix alot together)
big pinch of salt

You can also add the fresh zest of a lemon here too if you like (particularly good if you fill the crust with some custard or whipped cream something or just fresh glazed fruit)

mix well, chill for half an hour or so

press into tart pan and shape with your hands... i use a fork along the sides to make a nice vertical wall, but i'm a bit obsessive I think i might have mentioned before. Not obsessive enough to bother with a crust that needs to be rolled out, however.

Chill again for 30 mins, preheat oven to 350. Blind bake for 18 - 20 mins with some pie weights. I just use some old rice i've saved in the pantry in a ziploc, over a sheet of tin foil.

Halve some fresh strawberries, and chop the rhubarb. I like a 50/50 mix, but really you can do it however you want. Add some sugar and more vanilla, and a few heaping spoonfuls of cornstarch.

turn into the hot crust after removing the pie weights and bake for 25-30 mins, just until the rhubarb is cooked.

Great warm with some vanilla ice cream!

Bon Appetit!

Awesome.

Don Quixote, Updated

And other pictures from Saturday, courtesy the brand spanking new Nikon D90.

Don Quixote, lookin all fresh with his Elton John circa '74 glasses and OU girl pink hat. Forget that helmet, dude.

Look at what this fabulous camera will do!! If it could only trim nosehairs...

Laiyee gave us some fresh tarragon and thyme we used with this chicken yesterday. with some black sesame seeds and yum yum

teeny, tiny flowers

lunch leftovers of chicken, avec pasta, cream, butter, wine, and parmesan... and champers. for dinner

Wake up! *i could use a shave*

and so could this

Bob and Laiyee had made $700 by noon yesterday when we stopped by to see their yard sale. It was a scream to watch Bob in action driving hard bargains with the OU kids. Bob told us they'd already cleaned out the cash and stashed it several times as i was taking this photo.

Tin Tin wondering why all these strangers are showing up today?? What's all this fuss?

Washington Street, home of beloved Donkey Coffee

Brunch Menu #44

1. Excellent use for leftover Shrimp & Grits: Shrimp and Grits pancakes topped with poached eggs. Yuuuuummmmmmmmmm.

2. Shape cold blobs into pancakes, dust both sides in flour to help bind, and fry in a tiny bit of olive oil till golden on each side.

3. top with 2 poached eggs, dollop of butter, a little fresh ground salt and pepper.

Now i'm ready to go do pine bark, manure, the wheelbarrow, and see if i can sketch design #67 for the deck, fence, gate... whatever (to ennable an addition of a dog to the household).

Happy to say i'm pretty much over the horrible sore throat and congestion that hit me last Monday night. It was awful and had me waking up in the middle of the night thinking i was going crazy... but by thursday i was feeling better and now seem to be over it, thankfully.

Roast Chicken & cetera

First to report on is the lovely roast chicken Steven made earlier, with scallions and szechuan peppercorns and other delights.. we braised some green beans, made a 3 minute gravy, and yum yum yum. Ate it right off the platter and threw the bones on the floor!



In other news, the volleyball stud puppy that lives with me received his sexy up-to-the-knee sox and volleyball sneakers the other day, courtesy the Brown. He's getting ready for the Friday night ritual VB games at Athens Middle School in town... not sure yet if we'll walk down there and i'll go see a movie or not yet... hmmm. Decisions decisions. But seriously, isn't it great how he'll cheese for the camera?

My New Favorite 15 Minute Comfort Food Supper

So, who doesn't need a supper that really only takes 15 minutes or so, yet totally nurtures the comfort yin we all sometimes need at the end of a having to be inside an office on a lovely spring day?? What's not to like about brevity at time like this? (I'm talking to you Ina!)

We are having lovely, creamy, supple Shrimp and Grits tonight. With a little added green, it's a balanced meal in a bowl. (Be sure to notice the groovy late 70s homemade kitty cat potholder in the background. MEOW! Thanks Mom & BC!)



First, make 4 servings of some good quality grits (otherwise known as Polenta in civilized circles).



This brand'll do you proud every time (does anyone get the Loretta Lynn reference?? probably not.). Bob's Red Mill is my favorite. It seems to not be overprocessed and infused with petrochemicals, like everything else at Kroger.



Next, french one small onion. Sautee in some olive oil for 2 or 3 minutes.



Add some peeled, clean, fresh shrimp.



Sautee...just for 45 seconds or so.



Deglaze with a healthy dose of the white wine of your choosing.



Now, the grits should have cooked for 5 minutes or so. Turn them off and add them to the pot.



Add a cup or so of milk.



add some chopped fresh Kale. I love the slight bitterness of Kale, but i'm sure other hearty greens of your choosing would work as well... such as collards or turnips. I turn the heat OFF at this point. The dish is hot enough to wilt the kale, but not fully cook it, which is nice.



Add another splash of wine if the consistency is too thick! Or if you are worried all the alcohol evaporated...



Now for the yummy parts. Add a big ol' blob of real butter, and a glob of cream cheese if you have some.



Some fresh-grated Parm too.



Isn't that lovely? Stick to your ribs goodness... with time for communing with the birds later.



Not those kinda birds! I'll be communing with this bird.

Food and Work. The Usual.

We've been eating lots and lots of good food lately... and taking lots of pictures, but i'm too lazy to get them off the camera. One thing i love about my notebook is that i can take pictures with it, and voila, there's the pic. No wires, no camera, no hassle. Someday soon i suppose some next generation bluetooth thingy will just beam photos from the camera to the computer. That will be nice.

Tonight I cooked; Steven spent a bunch of time in the garden getting all his sprouting babies some tlc. Still a few more weeks until all the plants in the house and greenhouse can emerge back into the front and back gardens. We had a nice Porterhouse steak, some simple broiled asparagus, and totally sinful potatoes: boiled and then tossed with scallion, butter, SNOWVILLE CREAMERY cream cheese, and some wonderful chicken stock paste we've been buying at Trader Joes.



In other news, I went to Sioux City for my project there (the eighth trip now?) and got to survey an old, trashed Eisenhower-Interstate-System-era concrete road paver. This baby is going to be restored (by the gentleman standing next to me, who owns it, and is donating it to the museum that is my client) and placed in the visitor experience. All told, with it's 1957 Mack Diamond T dump truck in the front, dumping raw material into the skip, the drum and mixer, and the boom with the traveling bucket, it is nearly 90 feet long. So, as the designer, actually placing it is going to be a really fun challenge.



Along with a couple of airplanes, a 1902 Oldsmobile (think mahogany Chris Craft: mostly made out of wood!), numerous buckboards, broughams, carriages and buggies, several other 20s and 30s era vehicles, many industrial and stockyard and meatpacking fragments, hundreds of pieces of terra cotta and other architectural fragments, gobs of furniture and household material culture, and thousands of other smaller artifacts, the road paver above is being arranged into a coherent story of Sioux City history. Coherent sentences be damned.

The giant artifacts are really fascinating and have many stories to tell; but the most exciting parts i'm working on involve audio-visual environments that work in conjunction with the collection. A burned out building recreation will house giant projections of Sioux City disasters (fires, floods, explosions, the crash of United 232, etc.). Another environment is Sioux City's Attic, and will celebrate the bizarre, cryptic, and often surreal connections between what a museum collects, the stories of the people involved, and the networks out into the rest of the world that result. Many of the artifacts demonstrate an essential irony: here, in the city history museum, one finds pieces that really have nothing to do with Sioux City... well, except for the fact that a Sioux City native collected them. The gallery will have lots of a/v tricks: mirrors that dissolve into ghost stories, televisions and music boxes that mysteriously come to life, furniture that flies and rugs that pull out from under one's feet. Another theatrical space will recreate a portion of a Corn Palace from SC history; a show-controlled theatrical presentation with object reveals and dramatic overviews of this place that--with all the exuberance and hucksterism of the 1880s--once tried to market itself as Chicago's rival.

I think i'm going to walk (waddle?) across the street now for a little tub of ice cream.

Remember That Tart

From the other day? I think it's the best tart i've ever made. I think what made it the best was the cognac with the apples and sugar. And the pastry cream. Well, and the shortbread crust didn't hurt either. And the whipped cream on top was great too. The whole thing was very subtle and nice and chilled.

I wish i could make it for Ina Garten. I'm sure she'd have some advice for me about how to make it better. We just had the last of it.

Fried Food Saturday!

Yum. Breaded and fried pork tenderloin slices, onion rings, and sweet potato knishes!
Followed by an artery-hardening tart of shortbread crust, caramelized apples, custard cream, topped with whipped cream. I know. Shut up!

mmmmm.. Lazy Sunday today

came complete with a backrub in this instance! and chinese butternut soup and LO MIEN. oh la la, we likee LO MIEN. Earlier we had the other half of a pomelo... which sat ripening on the sideboard for WEEKS. To understand the significance of this, please proceed to STEVEN'S BLOG.

A Quick Supper

Every time i make spaghetti, it is a little bit different. Tonight, i'll start with a kinda cajunesque trinity: onions, carrots, celery. Add some oregano, bay, salt, pepper, then deglaze with some leftover red wine. Next some lovely tomatoes we canned ourselves. Next, some defrosted Chinese meatballs from Steven's last batch of spaghetti, for which he made a few too many meatballs (what a great thing to freeze!). And at the end, a very liberal dose of chopped parsley, basil, and garlic, and some parmesan and pepper before serving.

My Stepmom, Norma, makes spaghetti with a little bit of cinnamon. Wierd as it sounds, it is actually really good.

How do you make spaghetti?