this is sidonie.com

I’m pretty burnt out on blogging at the moment, but I do have some exciting projects going on, so I thought I’d give a quick update.

First, if you’re reading on RSS, I’d love if you’d hop over to the site, check out the new design and let me know what you think. Ok–now on to tangible projects.

Last fall I built a big coat rack out of plumbing pipe, which I’m pretty thrilled with. A couple weeks ago I finally got around to adding cedar planks for the base/shoe rack, and I love how it turned out–

I joined a printmakers’ guild this year, which has been wonderful. The guild website was a little out of date, so I made them a new one, which you can find here.

This weekend I did some copper plate etching, the first I’ve done since college. Here’s my copper plate, with my image sketched out:

The most exciting news is that I’ve been weaving a lot. Unbelievably, I have yet to post anything about weaving here, although it has been occupying my time and mind for months. Right now I’m working on a rep weave rug that I’m really loving. Here’s what it looks like right now, on the loom:

Did I say that was the most exciting news? Scratch that–

Last night we made the best-ever nachos. We started with homemade tortillas that I rolled out and baked for five to ten minutes, then topped with cheese, beans, tomatoes, homemade salsa, cilantro, leeks and shallots, and baked again for about 15 minutes. Then I added chopped avocado and lime. So fast, and so good.

(Apologies for the grainy iphone photos.)

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This weekend I returned from a month abroad to a surprise in my living room. My super-talented brother had finished my custom coffee table while we were gone, and I returned to find it sitting beautifully in situ. It’s made from sapele wood, a lovely reddish tropical hardwood, and when the light pours into our living room through our huge bay windows, that wood positively sparkles.

We bought some houseplants yesterday, which I’ve been meaning to do… for a year, and I can’t stop admiring our sweet little jade plant atop our gorgeous new table.

Oh, yeah, and I’ve been especially enjoying lots of tea from this spot–

We also came back from our trip with a suitcase (my suitcase) full of Moroccan textiles, and I would love to show you some of our new rugs around the house. But that would involve showing you how messy our house is right now, so I’m going to hold off. Here’s the stack of coton and wool towels, rugs and blankets, though:

And as a bonus, here are those big, bright bay windows opposite the new table, shot with my newish iphone fisheye lens:

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Guys, I’ve been busy.

Work travel, fun travel, home projects, new friends, new hobbies, getting engaged — all that stuff.

A quick snap from a hike we took to a hot springs in the mountains in October

But I hate it when part-time bloggers apologize for not blogging. Who cares, right? I’m here now. And it’s Thanksgiving, my favorite.

This is the first Thanksgiving where I’ve been in the country, and not done Thanksgiving with my parents. It’s just too far to go home for the weekend, especially since my partner has to work Friday. And it’s exciting to feel like this year we’re starting our own traditions. I am so pumped for Thursday.

Here’s what’s on our menu:

Pork belly — we had a big pork belly in the freezer, just waiting for the right occasion. This feels like the right one, so we’re going with pork instead of turkey. I know, treason.

Green salad

Celeriac & leek soup

Mashed potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes with pork gravy — I had never had a Jerusalem artichoke until this year. If you haven’t had one, the flavor is rich and nutty and they cook pretty much like potatoes, with a similar texture, so they add something really special to mashed potatoes.

Cranberries (obviously)

Garlic-stuffed mushrooms — I’m actually just experimenting here. I’ve been wanting to try just stuffing mushrooms with whole garlic cloves and roasting them. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Sweet potato pie

Pumpkin pie

And the salad veggies, celeriac, leeks, Jerusalem artichokes and garlic are all coming from the farm my partner works on. I love that.

This is the last pork belly we made, under a modest layer of cure mix. This time it's a bigger cut, and we really buried it in the cure mix. It will cure for three days before we braise it.

I’ve been baking a lot of pies, because it’s fall, so… naturally. Pies. This weekend I baked my first butternut squash pie. Apparently, squash pie is the dessert pie of choice in the UK–not pumpkin, or so I’ve heard. It was delicious.

What are your Thanksgiving plans? I want to hear.

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I used to think I made hummus from scratch. When I started thinking about it, though: I always bought jars of pre-made tahini from the store and used canned chickpeas, and I had never really questioned the impact that might have on the flavor of my homemade hummus.

So last month I decided to try my hand at tanini, and while I was at it, start with dry chickpeas as well.

First, the tahini. This was so easy, I don’t know why I’d never done it before. I roasted 5 C. sesame seeds (hulled) at 350F for about 10 minutes, until they had just started turning golden brown — no darker. After they had cooled, I poured them into the food processor and processed them while adding 1-1/2 C. oil — I used about 50/50 olive and sesame oils. That was it! The consistency was nice and smooth and the flavor was better than any jar of tahini I’ve tasted.

A sea of sesame...

...becomes a quart of creamy tahini

Next up, chickpeas. Maybe this is old hat for a lot of you, but I’d always seen the advice: don’t bother with cooking chickpeas, canned chickpeas are just as good. I stumbled across The Paupered Chef, where they have done a great job of testing various methods, and I decided to trust their conclusion: cooked chickpeas make a better hummus than canned if you cook them with a little baking soda to help soften them up (for a smooth, not-gritty consistency).

Here are their instructions, in my own words:

Soak 1 lb. of chickpeas in water overnight (well over enough water to cover them — they will soak it up!)

Drain the chickpeas, place them in a large pot and add 2 cloves of garlic, a sprig of thyme, 1 tsp. baking soda, and some salt. Cover with water, and bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer for 2-3 hours, until the chickpeas are tender. Then drain.

The hulls will start to come off the chickpeas. You can remove them all, and maybe you will have an even creamier hummus — I removed most of them, but it’s possible I didn’t need to. I kinda enjoyed popping them out of their little skins.

Unfortunately, I didn’t take any photos of this, but it wouldn’t really have mattered: the chickpeas didn’t look like much–but the smell as they cooked was unbelievably good. And the flavor! These were, without a doubt, the BEST chickpeas I have ever tasted. They were savory and tender and perfect. I probably ate twenty of them before I could even get them into the food processor.

So after making the most delicious chickpeas ever, I was really hoping to have the best hummus ever. I stuck with The Paupered Chef’s recipe:

Hummus

1 lb. chickpeas, cooked (reserve 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid, and drain)
1/2 cup lemon juice (from about 2 lemons)
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup tahini
olive oil
paprika

Process the chickpeas, lemon juice, garlic, salt and tahini in a food processor. Amazingly, this recipe gets super creamy without even adding any oil. When you’re ready to serve, drizzle a little olive oil and sprinkle some paprika on top.

It was definitely delicious hummus. Would I call it the most delicious hummus ever? I guess not. But it was super satisfying to make it from scratch. I don’t think I’ll go back to store-bought tahini — though I might be tempted to use a can of chickpeas when I’m in a rush.

We ate the majority of this hummus while relaxing on the Pacific coast a few weeks ago. We hiked from Lake Ozette, near Washington’s coast, through some beautiful temperate rainforest and set up camp on the beach. It was a beautiful day, and the hummus was a welcome treat after a nice hike. Here’s what that looked like:

This photo does not even begin to do our campfire justice.

We’re headed out to camp on the coast again soon, because, well–look at it. Right?

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Lake summer skies in the Pacific Northwest <3

Hi everybody. It’s been a busy, busy summer around here! Now that summer is winding down, I’m super excited to share some of the projects that have been keeping me busy over the past few months.

In August I got a new food processor. Back in Madison, we had two — one was older, a totally decent hand-me-down that worked well but was just a little small for our needs; the other was newer and bigger but it just never worked that well with large quantities, so we ended up using it for small batches anyway. We sold one and donated the other when we moved, which had left me making falafel with a mortar+pestle for several months after we moved in here. Actually, that is a pretty good way to make falafel (here’s my recipe). But it certainly left a food-processor-shaped hole in my heart.

New food processor & a bag of farm-fresh basil

The new food processor is a beauty. We sprung for a 14-cup Cusinart that we had heard great things about. We knew it would be a step up, but we didn’t know how big that step would be. I’ve been super impressed with this food processor. It’s relatively quiet, it’s fast, and it can actually handle large batches with ease. Maybe someday I’ll have the kind of blog where people pay me to make statements like that, but for this food processor, I’m happy to say it for free. It’s good.

Because it’s so good, I’ve been using it like crazy. Here’s the first thing we did when we got it:

Basil/Walnut Pesto (my dad’s recipe)

4 C. basil
1-1/2 C. parmesan
1/2 C. walnuts
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 C. olive oil

We had tons of basil from the farm where Ben works, so we made about four batches of this (two at a time, in our big new machine) and experimented with the order of the ingredients. I was happiest with walnuts->basil->garlic->salt->oil->cheese, but there’s really no way to mess this up.

Some people prefer to leave the cheese out until you’re ready to eat it. We decided just to put everything together, which filled six or seven half-pint jars. We ate some with rice crackers, and froze the rest.

Our basil overfloweth

Summer, preserved.

I love having frozen pesto on hand. It’s the easiest instant meal around, and maybe the best way to preserve the fresh summery taste of basil.

Next week: Hummus and tahini from scratch + my first jams!

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On Monday I divulged my big news: that I made puff pastry from scratch and it was (a) not impossible and (b) amazing.

So I already told you about the onion tart I made last Thursday, which was a pretty good hit at the farmer potluck. But that came from a recipe. So now I’m back with a little experiment I tried last Friday: miniature fruit turnovers.

Friday was my brother’s thirtieth birthday, and we had some people over for mojitos and cake to celebrate. I had a little leftover pastry dough from the day before, and my partner and I had picked a big bag of perfectly ripe raspberries from the farm where he works. How could I resist the though of little puffy, crispy fruit-filled bite-sized pastries?

I walked through the dough recipe in all its glory on Monday, so I won’t go through that again here.

Mini Fruit Turnovers
1 sheet of puff pastry dough
1 C. fruit (raspberries are the right size and consistency as is — apples would probably need to be chopped and cooked first, etc.)
1/2 C. jam (I used cherry jam since we had it on hand)

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Roll out the pastry dough and slice into ~ 4″ squares. Top each square with about 1/2 tsp. jam and two raspberries or so. As with any kind of dumpling, ravioli, etc., use less filling than you think you need. I mean it.

Fold the dough over so it forms a triangle, and crimp the edges with your fingers.

Place the mini turnovers on a baking sheet (I put them on parchment paper for ease of cleanup, since they get a little messy). Brush lightly with egg wash (1 egg white mixed with a little water).

Bake about 15-20 minutes or until puffed and golden brown.

Fresh!

If you wanted to, you could certainly top them with a little powdered sugar or icing, but I liked the simple light sweetness of the fruit and jam alone.

These were gone within an hour of coming out of the oven. Yum.

Seriously beautiful raspberries at Red Dog Farm in Chimacum, Washington

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Well. July was a busy month! Good weather finally struck the Olympic Peninsula. I started a new business with all the learning curves and paperwork that goes along with it (totally unrelated to crafts/kitchens/blogs, so I’ll spare you the details here) and I was out of town about half the month (working in California, then visiting family and friends in the midwest). Now I’m trying to get back into the swing of things, and that includes catching you up on what I’ve been doing around here.

One perfectly puffed corner of a delicious, salty tart

The most exciting news I have is that last week I learned how to make puff pastry. I had been so intimidated by the beautiful layers of perfectly flaky, crispy pastry I’m used to at bakeries, and I’m glad I finally pushed past the intimidation. Puff pastry is a little challenging, but mostly it just takes time and patience and a little upper body strength. I’m thrilled with the result — once with a savory topping, the second time with a sweet filling.

Last week I put on the menu an onion, olive and anchovy tart from one of my favorite cookbooks, Off The Shelf. It calls for 12oz of frozen puff pastry, but our food co-op was sold out, so I decided to make my own. I’m so glad I did. I was planning to make it for dinner Thursday, and we ended up going to a potluck that night, so I made it for the potluck instead — it was devoured in no time, which was a big ego-boost, but also says a lot about the quality of the recipes in this cookbook.

Puff Pastry
5 C. flour
2 1/2 tsp. salt
2 C. water
2 C. butter

Place the butter between two sheets of plastic wrap and press it down into a thin cylinder — about 1/2″ thick. Place in fridge and chill for at least 20 minutes.

Mix the flour and salt, and add water until it forms a ball of dough that can clean the bowl. Shape into a ball and let rest 10 minutes.

Next, the only tricky part: the “turns,” the rolling out + folding up part. The most important part of this is to keep the butter chilled. Delicate layers of pastry form when pieces of butter melt and release gasses during baking, so if the butter is warm and completely blended into the flour, it won’t rise as well. On the other hand, if the butter is too cold, the dough will be super hard to roll out. It helps to chill the surface you’ll roll out onto (I placed ice packs on my marble countertop) and I also placed my marble rolling pin in the freezer, which seemed to work well.

A slab of chilled butter and a slab of dough, about to become one

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a large rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Place the disc of chilled butter in the center and fold the dough over it so that the single layer of butter is completely encased in dough. Roll out the dough again, taking care not to let the butter break through the dough, to about 1/2 inch thickness. Fold into thirds. This is the first ”turn”.

Rotate the dough 90 degrees and roll out into a rectangle again. Fold into thirds. That’s your second “turn,” and you’ll want five or six turns altogether. To keep the butter chilled, refrigerate the dough between every turn or two for 20-30 minutes.

After five or six turns, you can either use the dough immediately or refrigerate it for use within the next couple of days.

Onion, Black Olive & Anchovy Tart (from Donna Hay’s book, Off The Shelf)

1 batch puff pastry dough (or one 12 oz package of store-bought frozen dough, if you don’t have the time)
5 onions
2-3 Tbs. olive oil
1/4 C. parmesan, grated
2 tins of anchovies
Oregano (the recipe calls for fresh, which sounds great — I only had dried, so I used that)
1/4 C. black olives

More than enough anchovies, olives and parmesan

Preheat the oven to 400F.

Chop five onions and sautee them in olive oil over medium-high heat about 10 minutes. Add 2 Tbs. balsamic vinegar and 1 Tbs. brown sugar, and cook another two minutes. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

Roll out the pastry dough into a large rectangle. Place on a sheet of parchment paper on a baking pan. (I used and 11″x17″ pan.)

Leaving a 1″ margin around the edge, top the pastry with the parmesan, then the onions, then anchovies & olives & oregano.

Bake the tart for 20-25 minutes until the pastry is puffed and golden brown along the edges.

Ready to be devoured!

So that was Thursday. Stay tuned later this week for what happened Friday. OK, I’ll just give it away: mini raspberry turnovers. YES.

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I’d been considering buying an ice cream maker for a long time. I’ve mentioned here before that I’m a big fan of Lottie+Doof, and the amazing ice cream recipes — like burnt orange custard, sweet corn ice cream, and stracciatella – that Tim has posted over there have had me excited about homemade ice cream for awhile.

But I really don’t love big kitchen implements that are only used for one thing. So that’s held me back for awhile. Until last week, when I was chatting with my friend Tom. Out of the blue, he asks, “Hey, do you want an ice cream maker?” I accepted, and two minutes later I was holding my very own Waring brand Ice Cream Parlor, circa 1979. Yep, that machine is 33 years young.

The very next day I gave it a good deep cleaning (it had been in storage for… years, probably), and mixed up some raspberry buttermilk ice cream.

The ice cream maker instructions said to use four trays of ice and regular table salt to freeze the ice cream, and I gave it my best shot.I chilled the mixture for a few hours before processing in the ice cream maker, but even after about 40 minutes of processing, it just was not coming together. The consistency was exactly the same after “freezing” as it had been before. I was disappointed, but poured the creamy mixture into a glass container and put it in the freezer for a few hours.

I brought the freezer ice cream to a little dinner party with my family that night, and everyone really liked it (or claimed to, anyway). It was definitely not creamy — there were lots of little ice crystals throughout — and I didn’t love the texture, but the flavor was great.

Two days later, I tried again. This time, we bought a 10lb. bag of ice and a 4lb. box of rock salt, specifically designed for chilling/freezing — not for food use (keep in mind that the ice+salt never touch the ice cream itself, just the outside of the cream can). I used almost half the ice and about 1/4 of the salt, and tried making some sherbet. It came together beautifully after just 15 minutes. I was so happy.

Mango-Lemonade Sherbet

Sherbet

3 cups milk
2 cups juice
1 cup sugar
1/8 tsp. salt

Mix everything together and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions. Couldn’t be simpler!

The ice cream was still a little too soft and melty, even after a few hours in the freezer, and the texture wasn’t very creamy, so next time I might try using even more ice and less salt (salt makes it freeze faster, which also contributes to a grittier texture). That said, the flavor was incredible. Seriously. So good.

But since we had all the ice and salt already in the machine, I made two batches of sherbet — one with mango lemonade, and one with cherry lemonade + a cup buttermilk in place of one cup of milk + vanilla. Both were so delicious.

Cherry-Vanilla Sherbet

We ate them together in a little bowl of pastel goodness.

Melty sherbet deliciousness

Anyone have ice cream making tips? Good recipes to try? Let me know!

I’m so excited for all the summery possibilities.

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I’m really excited to tell you about a little meatloaf experiment we conducted last week. But first!

It’s been one year since my first post here on sidonie.com! Happy blog-iversary to me, and to any of you who’ve been reading since then. Thank you!

Ok, now on to the good stuff. Meatloaf muffins.

Recently I started making meatloaf on Fridays. It’s maybe the easiest dinner in the world, its basic ingredients are almost always on hand, and we can toss in anything else we have at the end of the week — extra carrots, mushrooms, greens, onions, really whatever’s around will make the meatloaf that much better.

It’s great, too, that my partner gets a farmer discount on some really delightful local grass-fed beef. But that farm sells their beef in 2lb. packages, and last Friday we wound up with a whole lot more meatloaf than usual. About twice as much, in fact. I was about to get out a second loaf pan, and made a little joke about the cupcake pan sitting next to it.

My brother and my partner were both in the kitchen at the time, and both said, “go for it!” Meatloaf cupcakes. I was … skeptical, mostly because it sounds so ridiculous. But my favorite part of the meatloaf is the slightly crispy outside, and a cupcake pan would mean SO much more surface area to get crispy and delicious, right? So I went with it.

And the result was delightful. Highly recommended. I’m serious — we’re going to do this again, no doubt.

My partner wants to try little meatloaf pies next time around. If we do, I know you’ll hear about it here.

Meatloaf Muffins

For the loaf:
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 egg
1 onion, chopped
1 cup milk
1 cup dried bread crumbs
3-4 carrots, grated
4 garlic cloves, chopped
salt and pepper to taste

For the topping:
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1/3 cup ketchup

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix together the loaf ingredients, adding anything else you like in your meatloaf. Spoon the mixture into cupcake tins. Combine the topping ingredients, and spread over the top of the “muffins.” Bake for 25-30 minutes. (If using loaf pans, bake 1 hour.)

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We make pizza a lot around here. But last night I think we made our best pizza yet.

We used the same dough as always (details here), and many of the same toppings — usually I made a garlicky tomato sauce with sage, and we top it with whole milk mozzarella, salami and mushrooms. This time I made a really simple tomato sauce with oregano and lots of black pepper, and we loaded it up with mozzarella and mushrooms, as usual. We left off the meat, but added green peppers, sauteed onions and arugula.

We’ve done arugula on pizzas before, especially now that my partner is bringing home lots of tender baby arugula from the farm. He got a tip from his boss, though, and it was a game changer — add the arugula just as the pizza is coming out of the oven. Let it sit a few minutes and wilt. Previously, our arugula has been baked almost crispy on the pizza, but this time it was just perfect — tender and so flavorful.

The only thing better than awesome homemade pizza for dinner is awesome leftover pizza for lunch.

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