kitchenmage

Nutella mousse recipe

This barely qualifies as a recipe, but I suppose it has more than one ingredient and some instructions, so it'll pass.

I found myself in the kitchen earlier, staring at yet another possible chocolate cake for the book. It wasn't quite what I was after, but it did leave me with a couple of very handy things leftover:

• A couple of tablespoons of Nutella
• ~1/3 cup of whipped cream

aka: deconstructed Nutella mousse

So I constructed it.

To make the mousse, stir the Nutella frantically for a minute to loosen it up a bit. Don't heat it, it just doesn't seem to help. Fold in about a quarter of the whipped cream to lighten the Nutella a bit. Fold in the rest of the whipped cream. Drool for 10 minutes while trying to get the glam shot of the not-so-photogenic brown glop. Eat.

food porn: pancakes (in very late beta)

This is about half an inch from perfect. And that bite right there, the one with the banana and the chocolate chip and the coconut - that bite rocks.

food porn: testing pancakes

Pancakes under development. Not exactly what I want, but tasty nonetheless.

I, sadly, have to eat my not-quite-it experiments. Tough job, but somebody's gotta do it.

food porn: Breakfast with a side of editing

Over the last few weeks, I have had more than my fair share of extravagant food for one: More pounds of asparagus than I care to admit have passed through my kitchen as I chopped and cooked, mixed and measured, tweaked and twiddled, before finally settling on a recipe, only to discard it the next day. I have a shelf full of goodies that I bought for the sole purpose of cooking an entire recipe to take 3-4 bites (and, when I couldn't freeze it, throw it away before I ate it all), before repeating it the net day - the food waste around here lately is appalling! Tomorrow's agenda includes baking a chocolate cake, not because I have a party this weekend, oh, no, this is going to sit here and taunt me for however long it takes me to eat it...one teensy little slice at a time.

But other days, days like today, I spend the entire day with my head down over a computer, only to look up as the sun drops behind the hill wondering how it got to be dusk. Days when my 'break' from the computer, such as it is, involves a stack of paper covered with red squiggles. Days when, if I am smart, I start with something that will keep me going all day.

Something like this: simple, old-fashioned oatmeal, cooked with 1/4 cup of apple cider and a sprinkle of cinnamon in the cooking water. I put it in a beautiful blue bowl that fits in the curve of my hand (50 cents at Goodwill!), top it with a drizzle of manuka honey and I have food so comfortable it darned near hugs me.

birdhouses

Birdhouses stand sentry over the pond at the Inn at Lucky Mud. (file under: beauty that elicits a wistful sigh, found while sorting through photos at 3am)

food porn: bacon, cheddar and chive souffle

Today's offering in my week long soufflé-fest: Minced Canadian bacon, extra sharp Tillamook cheese and some chives snipped from the garden.

What I ate on my summer nonVacation ~ part 2

  Everywhere you look these days, there are lamentations of summer's demise. I know fall is coming, and darned quickly too - but it is still harvest time out there in the fields and the local farm market is still bursting with goodness. Some seasons are just starting - last week's CSA bag was heavy with the first of the Stockhouse's sweet, tender corn. Not the last, mind you, the first.

Besides, summer is eternal in the photo archives.

Herewith, I offer part two of What I ate while I was notBlogging this summer: the farmer's market edition.

What I ate on my summer nonVacation - part 1

All of this lovely food came from over in the next valley where a couple of my friends have spent the last six months toiling away from dusk to dawn, building an organic farm for a new bed and breakfast. How cool of a job is that?

While it is also really hard work, as Dubya might say, Sarah (yes, our lady of the Cookie Lavender) and Connor always seem to glow with the accomplishment of creating a thriving organic farm. And who can blame them, just look at this stuff!

I just know Alice would love these magical purple beans! What's not to love?

That iridescent purple that cloaks the mundane green bean is absolutely stunning. Yet by the time the bean is served, it has disappeared! It is a special treat just for the cooks, a tiny bit of backstage magic that makes it that much more fun to have a small person, like Alice, helping you in the kitchen and the garden.

Bread porn: improvisational division

There are two schools of thought about schools of thought: one says you can divide the world into two kinds of people...the other doesn't. I belong to the latter group and have never understood the reductionistic thinking that goes into black-and-white, us-or-them, 'with us or with the tourists' kind of thinking.

It only gets worse, however, when the talk turns to all things kitchen. Seems the common wisdom is that cooks can work freeform, pitching all caution and planning to the wind Iron Chef-like and creating dishes ad hoc, while bakers must follow a recipe, doing exactly what they are instructed lest their creation — perhaps sensing fear — fails to rise, gel, puff, cream, melt-at-body-temperature or otherwise perform as desired.

Balderdash!

I stand (okay, sit) here as a proud believer in the other kind of people: bakers without recipes. I do this absolutely all the time and one of the places I do it most often is in baking bread. (oh, stop cringing, it only hurts the first time!)

occasional fog valley photo: sunset

'tis a night not fit for human or beast out there, with great gouts of hail punctuating the unceasing rain and finally driving a mouse-hunting River inside to indignantly shake icy paws at me as if I personally conjured the weather to spoil her game. Clearer skies spring eternal, however, in the ever-growing mess (and I do mean that literally) of photos on my hard drive. Enjoy.