S'mores

More snow today, a wet, heavy snow that hung off the branches.

Dinner was lemon chicken breaded in panko; sweet potatoes with oranges and cinnamon; spinach, and polenta cut into flowers and browned in a cast iron skillet.

We had a fire and made s'mores.

This is what it looked like under the streetlight at 7:30 p.m.

Roasted Beets with Lemon Ricotta

Dinner tonight was salmon on spring greens with a honey dijon marinade; beets and carrots wrapped in foil and roasted with a head of garlic; the greens and red stems from the beets chopped and sauteed with olive oil and garlic; plain brown basmati rice; and another whole grain quickbread. My new favorite thing with roasted vegetables is mixing a little lemon zest into ricotta cheese and letting dollops of it melt onto the vegetables. Tonight I mixed in some of the roasted garlic, and some chopped chives from the windowsill.


This bread is my favorite quick bread yet, from the New York Times. I made the lighter version without molasses, and with part white flour. I used agave instead of honey, and added some flax meal. It's quick to mix up, and then there's warm fresh bread on the table in an hour. It has a beautiful crust. The cornmeal gives it some crunch. It's fantastic with butter and honey on it, or plain like D likes it.

I'm getting discouraged at how long it's taking me to figure out how to take good pictures with the new camera. I'm still happy that I can get usable shots in such low light. I finally broke down and ordered the full version of Photoshop to replace my old, unusable one. And it seems to be lost in transit. Now there's a delay to confirm that it hasn't been delivered, and to send a replacement copy . . . after waiting for it for so long, this last part is frustrating.

Snow Day Three

We are on Day Three of this strange sick day/snow day week. R has been sick, then they canceled school for weather. It's been three days since R or I stepped outside. This morning it was fourteen below when we woke up.

Charlie is loving the attention.







Ice crystals are still on the upstairs windows at 3 p.m. Yesterday it never got above zero. Right now the sun is out, but it's five degrees. No burst pipes, and so far the cars are starting up.

Fear of Frying

My R loves eggrolls, and I make them for her with a filling of carrots, cabbage, ginger, garbanzo beans, scallions and ground turkey. I lay spinach leaves on top of the filling and sprinkle ground flax seeds on top before I roll them up. I brush them with olive oil, sprinkle with sesame seeds, and bake them in the oven.

I don't really like them this way--they don't cook evenly, and much of the skin stays tough and chewy or worse, bakes to sharp edges that can cut your mouth. I have a fear of deep-frying, but I can't seem to replicate the bubbly, shatteringly crisp skin of a fried eggroll in the oven.

So today I emptied a quart of canola oil into my favorite All-Clad dutch oven, waited for it to get up to 350 on my jam thermometer, and put the eggrolls in.

R said, "That's what I'm talkin' about. This is just like Chinese Dinner." Which is what she has called take-out since she was two.

I made a batch the old way, to compare. This time I steamed the unbaked rolls for a few minutes, like you do with gyoza dumplings. That seemed to make the skin more tender once it baked, but half of them fell apart while they were steaming, and it's an extra step.

Here they are, baked on the left, fried on the right. I wonder how much oil they really absorb in frying, versus being slathered before baking. If they have so much good stuff inside and we don't have them very often, I think it's ok that they're fried. The bubbles and the crispy skin really are beautiful.

I also broke down and bought a new camera, with some help from my generous parents. I'm embarrassed to mention it because I have such a steep learning curve and it will be awhile before I can take competent pictures. But I'll keep practicing, and I'm excited to have a 35mm f/1.8 lens that works so well in close-up and low light.

More Christmas 2010

Stomach flu on Christmas eve! It was so sad.

We let her stay downstairs with us. This is my nephew feeding tinsel to Charlie before we stopped him.

Santa is coming!! (My Dad, who actually owns his own Santa suit and does this every Christmas.)

He's here!

Trying to stand up without getting sick. She said, "If Santa touches my head, I know I will get all better." It worked--she got sick for the last time right before we took this picture.

R and her Granddad are on the same wavelength sometimes. This is in front of the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. My Dad is so knowledgeable and widely curious. His historian's mind is constantly observing and sifting through and comparing. It must be a lot of fun to be him and live inside that mind. It's certainly fun to be around him. Going through a museum with him is quite an experience.

This is part of "La Jornada," a bronze installation in front of the museum that celebrates the early colonists.

Catching up on Christmas

My Mom telling her grandkids the story of the family crèche.
When she was a little girl in South Dakota, a wounded soldier recuperating from World War II gave her parents this crèche. He had carved it himself, in loving detail, for the Cathedral downtown. The church told him it was too small, so he gave it to my grandparents. It was always in our house growing up.

This is a good time to catch up on Christmas photos because techno-tragedy has struck at our house. Within one month, we lost a) our computer; b) my expensive Photoshop software; and now, as of Sunday, c) my expensive, ten year old camera. a) The motherboard fried in a power surge (I guess surge protector strips are not enough protection?); b) My ancient Photoshop is not compatible with Windows 7 on the new computer and it's too old to upgrade; And c) my camera has a lens retraction error, not usable and not fixable.

It was all very old and kind of strung up like a house of cards, but it took a long time to pay off in the first place, it worked really well and I was used to it. Pretty much the most valuable and most-used things we own next to the house and the car, maybe the stove, and then we lost them all within a month. We replaced the computer. A new camera will have to wait until we pay off the computer, and $700- $800 for Photoshop . . . who knows when or if ever I'll get that again.

So, no new blog photos for awhile. I know I'll figure out a way around this and it will be good to get out of my rut with my comfortable setup. I miss my camera like my right arm, though.

My dad reading with R.

R's cousin, my awesome little nephew and godson. They are both second graders. I wish they lived closer.

Granddad playing basketball with R, my godson and his equally awesome big brother.

Granddad helping R out of a tree. He calls her by my name sometimes and then quickly corrects himself, which I love. It's usually when he's doing something like this, that he probably hasn't done since he did it with me when I was a little girl.

Saltimbocca

Tonight we had chicken saltimbocca. Organic chicken breasts pounded thin, coated in flour, paprika, and lemon zest and browned in olive oil and butter. The sauce is shallots, vermouth, lemon juice, herbs and capers. I served it over whole grain spaghetti.

We also had grapes, lacinato kale and a salad with spinach, blueberries and pears in balsamic vinaigrette. Dessert was a whole wheat and flax banana muffin sweetened with agave and honey. I love the sparkle and crunch of turbinado sugar on top.