spring time absorption pasta

one of my favorite spring foods is asparagus. mmmm mmmm crispy, fresh, crunchy, deliciouso. so when i saw THIS recipe on one of my favorite blogs to visit, i had to try it, and was not disappointed. i'm not going to post the full recipe here, since it's all on that other site, but i'll give my insights and slight changes.
the idea of absorption pasta is like risotto, you cook it by slowly adding and letting the pasta soak up the chicken broth. the result is you get a really smooth yummy light sauce. i used the last frozen quart of chicken stock i had from my great chicken butchering of last year. good thing i have two roosters in the freezer to cook up and make stock from, and one of my neighbors said he had a hen i could butcher if i wanted, homemade stock is the best.
since i live nowhere near any sort of fancy grocery store i substituted the pancetta for thick sliced bacon, and the shallots for finely chopped yellow onion.
this was such an easy, delicious meal, although the remnants didn't make the best left0vers, better to just eat is all in one meal, not hard to do since it's so tasty.p.s. note my super cool new linen table cloth i got an nevin's thrift here in town, it's a babe.

it's a rainy soup kind of day

hello dear sisters! first of all thanks for posting so i'm not the loser nerd sister. :)
we've been enjoying GLORIOUS spring weather with sunny warm days and everything drying out and greening up! i got my garden plot plowed! and i've been buying seeds and bulbs to get going on a veggie/herb/flower garden. can't wait!
however, today is gray and rainy, and while it makes me sad i can't work outside, it's sort of a nice snuggle indoors sort of day. so i wanted to share with you an alternative to the bennion classic spicey tomato soup, the super duper easy kelly brook's cream of tomato. this one take two shakes of a lamb's tail to whip up and is super yum.

• dice one small onion and saute in some butter or olive oil
• add a quart of canned/bottled tomato's, chop them up with a knife in the can before
  
• add one cup water or chickie or veggie broth
• once it's hot, add a half a package of cream cheese (or if you live in france and have easy access to yummy creme freche, knock yourself out)
• here's the tricky part, i have one of those super handy hand held blender doohickies, but if you don't you have to do this in the blender, or cuisinart: blend the cheese and soup till all mixed and one consistency. if you go the blender route remember that hot liquids get rather explosive in the blender, so do small amounts at a time.
  
• i don't really add any spices besides a bit of salt and some cracked pepper. too many spices compete with the simplicity. last time i made this i chopped fresh basil leaves that i garnished each bowl with and the fresh crunch and flavor of the basil was a perfect accent. i've also considered making a pesto slurry to drizzle in a fancy pattern in each bowl . . . but have always been too lazy, this is a quickie comfort food after all. speaking of which, a grilled cheese goes very nicely with it too.
  

alright my dears! i hope you are happy, warm and well. love you lots and lots. xoxo

Mom's Pink Buttermilk Sugar Cookies!

Earlier this week I had plans to make Red Velvet Cupcakes for a movie-night that Luke and I were going to attend, but it all got canceled last minute leaving me with a bunch of buttermilk, eggs, sugar, and butter to use up.. What else would I make, but Mom's Buttermilk Sugar Cookies?!

Buttermilk Sugar Cookies Lee Bennion
1 cup butter ( I often use half lard and half butter)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp Vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 cup buttermilk (if I don’t have buttermilk, I use plain liveculture yogurt w/ a little milk added)
1/4 tsp baking pd.
1 tsp salt
about 3 cups sifted flour

Cream butter, blend in sugar. Add slightly beaten egg and vanilla. Dissolve soda in buttermilk, then add to creamed mixture. Sift together 2 cups flour, salt and baking pd. Add to mixture so dough will roll easily on lightly floured board. I like to use a pastry cloth to roll oue pie crusts and cookies on. Be careful not to overwork dough and this will result in denser not as flakey or cake like cookies. Dough may be chille�� ©d for an hour to make handling easier w/ less flour. Too much flour makes them tough. Roll out some where between a quater and half inch. I like them thick and soft. Place on baking sheets and bake at 400 for 10-12 minutes. Do not over brown.


Butter Cream Frosting
(enough to frost 15 sugar cookies)
4 TBS butter
2 TBS hot milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla
1 1/4 cups sifted powdered sugar
add a couple of drops of red food coloring if you want pink frosting.

Stir butter till very soft. Add small amount of sugar, then milk and vanilla. Beat in remaining sugar till spreading consistency.

I love these cookies! I remember when Mom used to make them and bring them to my elementary school class on my birthday, even after they passed they law saying all treats must be packaged.. No one ever seemed to mind!
Usually when I end up just baking for the fun of it (which is most often the case), I will take cookies or whatever I made that day and pass them out either at work or around the neighborhood. It's fun to do and then me and my roommates don't end up eating them all ourselves!

I did still end up making those Red Velvet Cupcakes and you can find the blog post I did for work on them here. I plan on doing a full double layer red velvet cake soon and I will sure to share how that goes!
xoxo,
Adah

Nothing Fancy for Spring

Hello Sisters!
This is not the first post I was hoping to post; I had visions of a much greater meal- However, Z-dog, I don't want you to feel like you are the "nerdy sister" and that I don't want to participate: I am simply so excited that I have been saving up for a good one...
But my expectations are too high and this delicious, but simple treat will have to do for now:

For this tasty spring treat to go with the refreshingly warm weather, I thinly sliced in two directions carrots, beets, and diakon radishes: so they were the general shape and size toothpicks. Adding a little rice vinegar or whatever I am in the mood for when I come time to eat these babies leaves them utterly satisfying and wonderful to eat in the sun.

More to come soon! So much love!
-adahbee

daube à lapin, en croûte

Leg of lamb is the traditional Easter repast in this part of the world, where lambs and the herbs that best suit them thrive on the rocky hills. But I got the idea to eat rabbit instead when Cleek and I were walking to Castellane, over the old roman road, several days before Paques, and saw an extraordinarily fat brown rabbit in the trail ahead of us. As we approached this rabbit, who couldn’t conceivably be classified as a hare, shuffled off the trail by a few feet and sat there while we passed, like some well-fed corgi, built for comfort, not speed.

It’s a two-hour walk to Castellane, and we were hungry. This rabbit got me thinking.

After consulting Pascal to ascertain that around here it is not the Easter Bunny who brings us our chocolate eggs but rather some kindly churchbells, flying through the sky on their way home from Rome (ok, whatever you’re havin’ yourselves, lads!...) I returned to Castellane on the Saturday to buy a rabbit.

I went to the little out-of-the-way butcher shop on a sidestreet, where the brisk young butcher sells his wares for steeper prices than you’ll find in the big Casino grocery store at the edge of town, but his locally sourced critters come with all their parts attached (if you want them for the soup pot) and he’ll happily hack your purchase into whatever kind of pieces you’d like right in front of you, with a maximum of expert flourishes of his knife for the benefit of the ladies. You get what you pay for with this fellow: everything I’ve bought from him has been an absolute credit to its species.

The interior of a rabbit is a tricky pancake, with about twice as many bones as any fowl; kind of like chicken for people who like puzzles. To ensure that one rabbit would feed six people (I certainly couldn’t afford two, chez the Brisk Young Butcher!) I decided to cook it as a daube, a Provençal classic in which meat, often game, is stewed in red wine and a mixture of herbs and spices that varies according to the meat and the cook’s disposition, but can include thyme, laurel, winter savory, juniper, clove and orange peel.

I simmered my rabbit until it was sloughing off the bone the day before Easter, in red wine, Pascal’s homemade red wine vinegar, with roulade garlic, onion, laurel, thyme and clove.

Cleek was at hand to cut the thyme from the hillside above the house and pick it from the stems, and was rewarded for his labors with a pint of pastis.

Once I’d picked the meat off all those maddening little bones and reduced the sauce, I added a bushel of sautéed crimini mushrooms and some par-boiled potatoes.

Daube is usually served over egg noodles, but having conceived an infatuation for meat pies of all sorts during my stay in London in January, and also being much taken with the economy of encasing a dollop of saucy meat in a crust--always a crowd-pleaser and so cheap to produce--I decided to make individual rabbit pies from the daube.

Sydney, who is visiting Nancy and Pascal for six weeks, danced while she made a gratin of cauliflower to accompany the pies,

and Nicolas, who brought homemade beer from Marseille, made a fire on the terrace in preparation for the meal.

Pascal went rummaging and found some Easter Bunnies after all, just to be perverse.

Nobody could quite finish the pies, but they make good leftovers and we’ve been eating them ever since...

sisters, POST!!!

ladies, c'mon. don't make me feel like the lame-o sister who nobody likes and nobody wants to play her nerdy food blog game :( i've included a photo of the homemade raw food i make for reuben to inspire you. nothing like raw turkey hearts, thigh meat, livers, eggs, kelp powder, bran, vitamen e, fish oil, and salt to get your appetite going!
xoxo

quinoa big bowl and leftovers

happy easter!
last week i made a meal that lasted pretty much the whole week without getting boring (always a possibility when you make too much of one thing). a friend gave me heidi swensons 'super natural cooking' cookbook and i've been enjoying exploring her recipes. i was even happier when i found her blog where you can get lots more recipes. mmmm. i bought asparagus the other day because they are so tender and crisp right now, and found this recipe for a big bowl of quinoa with steamed asparagus, onions, potatoes and nuts (i used pinenuts) with a lemon and good olive oil drizzled over it. i made half the amount in the recipe and still had enough left overs for two more meals. so this is night one with just the big bowl:then the next night i started with a bed of greens with herbs, put on some of the big bowl left overs cold, and topped it with a poached egg, and some bouef secca (illegal meat brought back from france). YUM.then the third night i had enough to do two bowls (had a friend over) with another poached egg, and more steamed asparagus that i tossed in a little cream cheese and lemon juice, more boeuf secca, et voila! three yummy yummy meals.
a word on egg poaching. this winter i bought these adorable little egg poachers (fusionbrand poach pods) that i found on the A+R design website and then bought for much cheaper off amazon. they are the BEST poachers! i already had the williams and senoma poaching pan, but its such a pain to clean and it for 8 eggs (when do i ever poach 8 eggs). these little dandys make PERFECT poached eggs, always soft, never hard in the middle, so nice. my other one would always dry the eggs out too much. so, these are totally worth the 8 bucks.

lets share dinner

my dear sisters (and whoever else stops by)
this blog is for us to share meals together while we are far flung and thousands of miles apart. i miss you both terribly, and i really miss cooking, and eating, and sharing meals with you. so what do we do? we do a cyber version! not as good as the real thing, but better then nothing right? so pretty please humor me, your middle sister, by posting about what you're eating, how you're making it, whom you shared it with (or not), and maybe just a little dinner conversation? eh? you see my brilliant vision? it's not about being fancy, or super gourmet (though that may happen from time to time of course) but more to swap simple ideas and feel a little bit like we are in each others kitchens. xoxo love you