eat make read

It’s a cold and wintry day (and actually snowy) here in new york. I was digging through some old community cookbooks my grandma-in-law gave me and found a recipe for carrot nut bread. It sounded delicious and warm, perfect for a blistery day where all you want to do is stay inside and keep warm. Aside from having to grate the carrots it’s pretty easy.

I decided to make two mini loaves because I don’t have a big loaf pan. The result is a nice crispy crust with a moist inside. It’s just the perfect amount of sweet and spice to have as an after dinner snack or for your breakfast in the morning.

Carrot Nut Bread

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup cooking oil (I ran out so I used, 1/4 cup oil + 1/3 cup melted butter)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cup sifted flour
1 cup grated raw carrots

1. Combine eggs, sugar and oil in a large mixing bowl and beat well
2. Sift flour with soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add to sugar mixture.
3. Add carrots and nuts and mix well.
4. Pour into 9×5x3 inch loaf pan, or two 5.75×3.25 mini loaf pans.
5. Bake at 350º for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

I must have taken that article about dairy to heart, because I’m pretty sure I dreamed about honey butter last night. Kind of weird. When I woke up this morning I decided to make it anyways. It’s so easy and adds a nice touch of sweetness to an english muffin or toast.

Honey Butter

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 Tablespoon honey

1. Put the honey and butter in a small dish and mix together with a fork.
2. Spread on your bread of choice.

Have a good day!

 photo from New York Times

Yum. I love dairy. The New York Times had this article in the paper this morning about small dairy farms that are making it. I’m so happy there are people that are passionate about things like milking cows and making delicious dairy products.

On a side note, there’s a woman quoted in this article with the name Nancy Nipples! Yowza, that kind of freaks me out, but I can’t read it without laughing.

This year for Valentine’s Day Aaron hand delivered this lovely bouquet of flowers to my office. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture last week, but I think they still look great after nearly a week. Apparently he had been talking with Sarah from Saipua about the perfect arrangement, which included one of my favorite things, an old canning jar. It made me so happy sitting there on my desk that I decided to draw a few sketches.

I took my sketches and photocopied them so I could make some gocco prints. I got glitzy and used gold ink to print on craft paper postcards and cream and white notecards. I really love the way the gold looks on craft paper.

Last year I did a similar thing, but got super motivated and turned my sketches into plates for our letterpress. I ended up making little gift bags for my bridesmaids that included stationery, coasters, soap with imprints of the flowers and little bags to carry it all in. Whew, that tires me out just talking about it.

One great stores and two great meals. On our walk around Park Slope this weekend, we visited Russo’s for the first time. Oh boy, that place is amazing! When you first walk in you’re immediately taken by the most delicious smells. There are refrigerators full of fresh homemade pasta, sauces, cheese, desserts and more. There’s also any Italian ingredient you could ever dream of. At the back they have a delicatessen that has prepared food that was very tempting.

We were very good and only walked out with gnocchi stuffed with pesto, sweet dry soppresatta, and a container of fresh matriciana sauce. Inspired by such goodness, I made two different and delicious meals.

I had never even seen stuffed gnocchi before so I decided to use that first. Because the gnocchi already used pesto, I decided to just use a simple oil sauce with a few items to jazz it up.

Gnocchi with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Soppresatta:

2 Tablespoons sun-dried tomatoes, chopped
1/4 cup soppresatta, roughly chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 package fresh stuffed gnocchi with pesto (or just regular)
olive oil
freshly grated parmesan

1. Boil water and cook gnocchi as directed on package.
2. When you only have a few minutes left, heat enough olive oil to cover pan over low-medium heat.
3. Toss tomatoes, soppresatta and garlic in pan, cook about 3-4 minutes. Basically enough time to heat it, but not burn the garlic.
4. Place gnocchi on plate and cover with oil mixture.

I was also really excited to try the matriciana sauce, but I wanted something meaty to go with it. I usually default to sausage, but I decided to be a little daring and try to make meatballs. Oh boy, let me tell you the results were phenomenal! I found this recipe for meatballs on epicurious, but decided to tweak it a bit.

Meatballs (makes 9 big meatballs):

2 large eggs
1/4 cup plain breadcrumbs
4 Tablespoons parmesan cheese, grated
1 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil
2 garlic cloves, minced
1/4 cup chopped white onion
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 lb ground beef

extra olive oil for cooking

1. In a big bowl, mix all the ingredients together.
2. Form meatballs with your hands. I made big mama ones, but you can make whatever size you want.
3. In a large skillet, heat enough olive oil to cover bottom of pan over medium heat.
4. Drop the meatballs in the pan and cook for about 12-15 minutes.
-If you’re making spaghetti, the pasta and the meatballs should take around the same amount of time, so it works pretty well.

Once the meatballs were cooked, I added my sauce and let them simmer together for about 5 minutes. Can I tell you how awesomely delicious these were? They were so tender they almost melted in your mouth. I think the whole process took about 30 minutes. So, so worth it.

We ventured down the street to Alchemy for dinner this weekend. We’d been there for drinks before, but we’d never tried to food. One of the reasons we’d never gone for dinner is that the restaurant feels like a bar with seating, but the prices feel like a nice restaurant, if that makes sense. But we decided what the heck and tried it out.

The restaurant was very busy when we walked in. We were hoping to meet up with some friends who’d come a little earlier. When we told the hostess she was really nice and helped us finagle a seat next to our friends.

Once we were settled in, I decided to go for the Alchemy Burger with havarti cheese ($13). The burger is served on an onion brioche with shallot confit and french fries. Aaron chose the Grilled Smoked Pork Loin ($18) with sweet potato gratin, brussel sprouts and apple cider reduction. We both ordered beer to go with our entrees. They have a pretty good beer list, with about 5 on tap and a larger selection of bottled beer. While you’re waiting for your food, they serve a nice little bowl of fried chickpeas for you to nibble on.

Our food arrived in a timely manner. My burger was hearty and the fries were nice and crispy and delicious. As far as I could tell, the shallot confit was missing, oh well, everything was still tasty without it. Aaron’s pork was very smoky, a little too smoky for my taste, but he liked it. The potatoes were the real star of his plate. Not only was the gratin made with sweet potatoes (yum!) but they used bleu cheese too. On a side note, our friend ordered the special, Tilapia with mashed potatoes and when it came out the potatoes were green! When she tasted them she figured out they were pesto mashed potatoes. Genius! I tried a bite and they were heavenly.

So dinner was tasty and the service was really friendly, but I’m still not totally sold on the place because I think a $13 burger should be magical. Everything was good, I just think there are other places that I’d rather go to.

I was inspired by the diy oven mitt on Design Sponge last week, so I decided to dig into my fabric stash and whip a few up. I ended up making my own pattern by just taking a piece of paper and tracing around an oven mitt I already had in the kitchen. Next I folded the fabric together so the right sides were facing each other and cut out 2 pieces. I also used natural quilt liner as the insulation for my mitts. First I tried just using one layer, but it didn’t really insulate, so I redid it with two layers for each piece of fabric. I simply pinned all the pieces together, right sides facing each other, and sewed around the edges. Then you just flip the fabric inside out and tadaaa, you have an oven mitt.

Now you may have noticed, but I forgot the little hook so you can hang your mitts when you’re not wearing them. To fix this little mistake, I just found a button and some ric rack and improvised a little loop. I think it adds a little character.

I think each mitt only took about a half hour from start to finish. Super easy!

It’s a cinnamony weekend. Cinnamon rolls are one of the best ways to start the day, especially when their made from scratch. I read about this recipe on orangette and was immediately intrigued by the cream cheese icing…yummm! So I went to Bon Appetit/epicurious and looked it up.

This is certainly not a quick recipe, but I think the results were worth it. Making the rolls is pretty easy, it just requires lots of rising time, so it’s nice to make them when you have a good book or a different recipe that will fill the time. I ended up making the dough and rolling it up last night and then popped the rolls in the oven this morning, which worked out splendidly. I whipped up the cream cheese icing while the rolls were in the oven.

The final result looks a bit messy, but they were super delicious. It’s a good thing they take so long to make, because they could be dangerous if eaten more often.

Yesterday we took a stroll around Park Slope and found some great new stores. We worked up an appetite on the way and decided to stop by Willie’s Dawgs, a hot dog joint.

They have 6 basic dogs you can choose from including 2 vegetarian options. You can just choose what kind of hot dog you want and add your own toppings, or you can choose from their toppings combos. I decided on Carlos ($3.75), which is cheddar, salsa, and jalapeños on a challah roll. Aaron chose the Willie ($4.00), which has bacon and cheddar on challah roll. We decided to share some Real Live Fries ($2.50). In addition to all the toppings, there was a crazy amount of mustards to choose from, I’m talking something like 20.

We waited in the tiny dining room and our dogs were delivered to us by the friendly man who took our order. The hot dogs were very hearty. The dog itself was delicious with lots of flavor and a nice snap, the roll was pretty big and golden on the outside. The cheddar, salsa and jalapeños were piled on high. My big problem was trying to get everything in my mouth at one time… it was kind of too big. Aaron’s bacon and cheddar hot dog was a bit easier to manage and very tasty. The fries seemed to be the hand cut type and were pretty top notch.

Overall, Willie’s Dawgs was a nice place for lunch. If you ever have a craving for a delicious hot dog, this is your place.

I was looking for recipes on chow the other day and came upon this one for Spicy Cinnamon-Sugar Popcorn. I just whipped it up this afternoon and it’s so tasty! I might be a little bias because popcorn rates right up there alongside margaritas in my book, but I’m pretty sure you’ll love it. The cinnamon sugar is so nice and friendly, but then you get a little kick at the end due to the chile oil. Yum!

This recipe is super easy. You should totally try it.