Feeding Friendship Round 2

This time around the "secret ingredient" was my call. I chose it after adding this to my regular couscous recipe really livened things up. Also, it didn't hurt that I have it available in my back yard. This week's ingredient is:

Fresh Rosemary 

Since I was a little stingy with my cauliflower coverage, I wanted to do a double dose of rosemary goodness. I love rosemary with pork, and it's still grilling season so that was the first dish I conceived: grilled pork tenderloin with a garlic-rosemary rub. First I chopped up a generous teaspoon of rosemary and combined it in a small bowl with around 3 cloves worth of minced garlic (I use the pre-minced kind in a jar because it saves me so much time), maybe a quarter teaspoon of fresh black pepper and around a half teaspoon of hickory smoked sea salt from the Spice & Tea Exchange (that stuff adds so much flavor!). I have a confession to make, dear readers. I am a geographic seasoner. I sprinkle until things are generally covered and it looks about right to me and don't always worry too much about the measurements. (not so for baking, that's a different ballgame) So that's why my measures are approximate here. I took my bowl and stirred the ingredients briefly and then rubbed them all over the tenderloin, thus: 

Per the instructions for a different rub in my Webster's Grilling recipe book, I let the tenderloin hang out on my counter for 20-30 minutes while I started the grill fire and made my other rosemary dish. To save money and get flavor, we went old school and got the prototypical black Webster charcoal grill- the best $60 I've spent in a long time. The "chimney starter" is a great time-saving device to own, if you don't have one, as it's just a metal scoop shaped like an oversize beer stein that you put charcoal in the top of and some newspaper in the bottom. Light the newspaper, and 15 minutes later you have hot coals with no lighter fluid to mishandle. (It also is a great outlet for those junky mailers you get with the latest local grocery deals- just not the glossy coated ones) Anyway, I rushed my coals a bit because I was hungry so I cooked my tenderloin about 8 minutes before flipping it over for another 8 since the heat was a bit low.

 I also soaked some hickory chips in water while the chimney starter was going and sprinkled those on the coals for an additional smoky flavor. When my handy Taylor mini-thermometer said 160F (aka medium) I took it off. 

Then I let it rest a few minutes to let the juices redistribute themselves. Mmmm, smoky! 

My next component was a bit of a stretch and I hadn't made anything remotely like it before. Since it was included in a new "Best of the Best" cookbook I bought, I made Rosemary Corn Scones originally from Brunch by Marc Meyer and Peter Meehan. First I chopped yet more rosemary- 2 tablespoons in all- and then chopped up 3 sticks of salted butter into little pieces and let it sit in the freezer while I combined the dry ingredients in my trusty food processor, per the directions. 

Here's proof. When do you get to take a butter in the freezer shot, really? 

And here's where it all went sideways. When I added the butter to the dry ingredients as follows: 

3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 c cake flour

1 3/4 c corn meal 

 1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

 3/4 c light brown sugar

 and pulsed it, the butter stuck at the bottom. Adding the wet ingredients:

1 egg + 1 yolk 

2 1/2 tablespoons honey (I used orange blossom) 

1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons heavy cream

did nothing to help the situation. I suspect that the bowl of my food processor was a little too small for the job since it got really full and didn't allow everything to circulate well. I ended up scooping out a portion and mixing it in batches. Next I put all the dough on a cutting board and smooshed it til it was about 3/4 inch thick (there was no "rolling" this stuff). Like so:

Then I cut it into roughly 3-inch squares, which I placed on a parchment-covered baking sheet. Next I melted 1 T of butter and spread it over all the scones with a brush. Finally, I sprinkled 1 T (or more!) turbinado sugar on top and garnished each with a little rosemary sprig. They bake at 400 for 25-30 minutes (or 375 for about 20 in a convection oven). Voila!

So I put the two together in a rosemary extravaganza, though, admittedly not a riot of color ;) 

The pork came out tender with a great smoky flavor, and the rosemary and garlic really worked well together to make the rub really explode with flavor. The scones were a nice surprise. They were lightly sweet and infused with a really unique rosemary flavor that made my whole house smell great. My coworkers seemed to enjoy them, and one described it as the perfect marriage of rosemary and cornbread. I highly recommend enjoying them with a drizzle of honey. My only caveat is that you may want to mix them by hand in a very large bowl or halve the recipe. See you next time for Feeding Friendship and be sure to find our Tumblr feed here and check out our next secret ingredient! 

May I Suggest...

I'm not a hipster. I'm not a true fashionista. I'm not the earliest early adopter out there. However, once in a while I make a few finds that I think not everyone has heard of yet and are worth sharing, so I came up with the "May I Suggest" blog category. I'll pop these up from time to time when I've achieved a critical mass in a category of items worth sharing.

Today, it's music. Keeping up on the newest bands in even one field is relatively time-consuming, even with the Internet. That is one of the reasons why I love my XM radio. They pay people full time to go find me new music, play it, and see if their national audience likes it enough to keep it around. So I know about cool bands waaay before George does (which really irritates him), not because I'm just that cool, but because I pay minions to do it for me. For instance, I had memorized all the words to "Little Lion Man" by Mumford and Sons a solid 8 months before I heard the local rock station, DC 101, play it for the first time as a "new" artist.

So here, in case you are getting bored with some of your current summer tunes, are a few of my new favorites and recent discoveries.

"My Body" by Young The Giant
The chorus to this song is so infectious that I don't even really care what the verses are about. The tempo varies, and it just really makes me happy. I just purchased their whole self-titled debut album, and am liking it a lot so far. Check out most of the album on Pandora for free. Here's the video.

"Rumor Has It" by Adele
This British pop maven has a truly unique voice and puts out some very mature lyrics and vocals for her age (21!). If you haven't heard "Rolling in the Deep" you must live under a rock, because they play it on every one of my preset stations, from rock to hip hop, and it's awesome. This song is much more fun, in a stick-it-to-your-ex kind of way, and so, so catchy. P.S. You need to own this whole album. I don't care who you are.

"Crystal Vase" by Last Royals
This is a great upbeat song about sadness and self-destructive tendencies after a divorce, in the tradition of Elton John's "Sad Songs." The lyrics are witty, and I'm a fan of anyone who can sing about their personal pain to a catchy and original tempo. The "lyrics video" manages to be amusing too.

"White Blank Page" by Mumford and Son
This may be a single by now, but if you haven't heard it, check it out. I think it's an even stronger song than "Little Lion Man" and it asks the eternal question, "why was loving you such a bad thing?" They're another band with the genius for writing sad songs that don't make you feel down. They were nominated for a very prestigious British music award, and I think you can see why.

"Light of the Morning" by Band of Skulls
Don't be intimidated, it's just a name. This group puts out a really gritty vintage sound that you won't confuse with anything else on the radio now. It's like the musical love child of rock and blues bands woke up in the '60s in London and listened to the Beatles and stuck around for the Sex Pistols and Stones, then made this album. They also have cool duet songs with their female base player/vocalist.  Try it, you might like it!

"Wait Up (Boots of Danger)" by Tokyo Police Club
While we're on the topic of vintage-y sounding bands with a British feel who make upbeat and brazen alt rock, I'll mention these guys. Apparently they picked their name with 3 semi-random words, but musically, they know what they're doing. Also, please enjoy their music video, which features dogs having a pool party. So cute!

"Uprising" by Muse
Okay, you've likely heard of these guys, but I wanted to put my plug in anyway. Not too many bands can open up for U2 on the biggest tour in Earth's history and convert a crowd to fans in about 60 seconds. Their sound is big enough to feel stadiums, their beats are great, and you can put this one on your running mix and sing along about sticking to The Man. The whole album is a win, really.

"Internet Killed the Video Star" by the Limousines
People of my generation will appreciate this witty update of the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star" (the first video ever shown on MTV). It cheekily expresses the wish that rock and roll will triumph over the current "drum machine" music. Check out the song & video here, but be warned that the zombies are a bit icky looking.

"Natural Forces" by Lyle Lovett
Ok, I'm going to say this on the Internet so I can never deny it. Lyle Lovett makes great music. I had literally never heard one of his songs before hearing it on XM, so I was very pleasantly surprised to like his brand of folk/rock/country/genius. This is an excellent song about having a rambling spirit, which I can appreciate after feeling at times that "home is where my horse is," metaphorically speaking. I also really enjoy his cover of "Bears" which I'm sure is a metaphor, but I'm not sure for what.  

"Baptized by Fire" by Spinnerette
This is another catchy one that's great for a running mix. I love the self-righteous lyrics and female vocals  in this electronica/rock song. It seems to me like a very metaphor-heavy song about finding yourself and doing what you're meant to do. The video features fire, of course.

Feeding Friendship Kicks Off!

I'm pleased to announce that this will be the first of many "Feeding Friendship" posts. Ellie, Veronica, and I decided to start a joint food blog to share our love of cooking and to keep in touch more. So, we decided to choose an ingredient or dish every two weeks, each put our own spin on it, and blog about the results. We shared our own Tumblr feed (http://feedingfriendship.tumblr.com/) to put it all in one place and to accept submissions if anyone wants to cook along with us sometimes or all the time and submit their own post. Feel free to join in!

For our inaugural post, Veronica selected our secret ingredient:

 cauliflower!

I'm not going to lie, this one was a challenge for me due to my aversion to (almost) all things vegetable and trying to consider George's expressed distaste for cauliflower. Though I usually intend to highlight our featured ingredient, this time I decided that stealth was the key. My first instinct was to go with a gratin, but the recipes I saw left intact florets of varying sizes in the gratin, and that was flying too far above the radar for my purposes. I eventually decided on cauliflower "mashed potatoes." There's an excellent recipe on FoodNetwork.com from chef George Stella (no, I don't really know of him, but he deserves props anyway) that fit the bill nicely. See here for the recipe.

I began by chopping my cauliflower into small pieces, and realized as I did this what a strange plant I was dealing with. It's crumbly, white instead of green, has bizarre pockets of space in it, and just generally doesn't look like much else on the planet, with the possible exception of broccoli. I honestly think that if you asked a kid from some cauliflower-less society to draw what he thought plants might look like in outer space, you'd have a decent chance of ending up with a picture that looks like cauliflower. I digress. Once chopped, I boiled the pieces for 6-8 minutes.

While it was boiling, I put the cream cheese, parmesan, garlic, butter and spices in a bowl. After draining the cauliflower, I immediately patted the pieces down using paper towels and a pot holder (they're hot!) I dumped the pieces in the bowl with the other ingredients and whipped out my new favorite kitchen device: the immersion blender, aka the motor boat (not that kind of motor boat- shush!). Mom gave me this Breville beauty for Christmas after my last motor boat ended badly in a battle with some slightly undercooked mashed potatoes. Not pretty. This one, however, is both cordless and kick-ass with a rather powerful motor. It turned the hot florets and other ingredients into a smooth, potato-like texture in a flash. It even smelled like mashed potatoes! Behold: 

 

I think the key ingredient here (other than the cream cheese and butter, which I figured could save anything) was the small amount of chicken bullion. I think it gave it just a little extra flavor, and I wouldn't have thought of it on my own. Other than the texture, which is a little grainier in your mouth than potatoes, I think this is a very good substitute and one that children (or husbands) won't see coming. I intended to serve mine with a nice grilled pork chop, but it rained today and George is under the weather, so it didn't seem worth it to fire up our old school bbq grill just for 1 lonely pork chop. Thus, my dinner of (lazy) champions:

If I can trick George into trying some next time he's in an eating mood, I'll add a little update on how it went over with him. Until then, consider enjoying some "mashed potatoes" of your own and consider cooking along with Feeding Friendship sometime. Our posts will always be every second Thursday and the Secret Ingredient will be revealed on Tumblr the Friday after that to allow for maximum shopping and schem- er, planning for the next time. I'm picking this time- look out!

Bathroom Reno Update

It's been a while and I owe you all an update on the state on my bathroom. Quite a lot of drama and progress transpired since last I wrote, and at the time I couldn't face writing it all down. First, I finished the floor by grouting the tiles with white grout and then sealing the whole floor with a spray-on sealant that you wipe off. I was so pleased to have it done and looking good.

My next hurdle was the baseboards. Though not as difficult as crown molding, it was a sufficient pain in my butt. I bought slightly taller than average, 4" pre-primed molding from Home Depot and cut it on my mitre saw. I'll admit that I messed up my corner angles a bit and had to go back for a second piece. The long pieces look good, but I have a bit of an issue with the shortest wall right by the shower. The wall isn't flat and the corner is protected by a metal piece that sticks out further than the rest of the wall so that when I put my molding up against it, there's almost half an inch gap at the other end. Not good. Still working on a solution for that one. But the rest is up and repainted in a shiny white.

After the moldings went up, it became painfully obvious how bad the toilet's water shutoff valve was looking. It was all gross and had green corrosion on it, so I thought it would be a generally simple thing to replace. I thought wrong. I went to the store, but a new shutoff valve and returned determined to swap them out. That's when the trouble started. Apparently the old valve had two nuts, but I didn't see the one farther forward since it was covered in green stuff. I got out my biggest wrench and began to twist it counter-clockwise, but it never really came off. It just seemed to twirl forever, and eventually the whole valve started a slow leak that became a much faster leak Sunday morning when I tried to fix it again. This was bad. I knew I was out of my depth and called a plumber around 9AM. The second plumbing company I called had someone available the same day, but he didn't arrive til after 7PM. I was catching water in a tupperware all this time and had turned off the water to the whole house to try to slow the leak, which it mostly did. The emergency plumber fixed the whole thing in about 5 minutes, charged over $200 dollars, and convinced me that I'm in the wrong line of work. By then the carpet all around the bathroom had started to feel wet and I mopped it with towels for more time than I care to remember. He said it had been leaking behind the wall too, which really concerned us, but so far so good on the mold issue.

At this point, George revoked my amateur plumbing license, and insisted we call a real plumber to install the toilet and vanity. This might not have been necessary if I didn't buy that crazy toilet online that I was initially so pleased with. It is pretty and very modern, but it turns out that EAGO is some Chinese brand and the toilet needed to be attached to the ground via some large bolts that would have done a number on my new floor. The plumber said he had never seen anything like it in 15 years on the job. Great. George made the executive decision to buy a toilet from the plumber (he carries stuff like that around in his truck, apparently) so the installation could proceed. Several hours, several plumbing and carpentry tasks, and a doubled budget later, the vanity and toilet were in and the whole thing was working. At last.
Here they are:

Here's more of a closeup on the vanity. It's a cherry finish with two doors in a furniture style. I wanted an enclosed model to store guest linens and TP where the cats couldn't get to them. I also reused a faucet that was in my bathroom upstairs when we bought the house. It was the basis for using chrome instead of nickel throughout. 

I hadn't posted a shot of the new chrome light fixture yet, and it's putting out a lot more light from the new eco bulbs than the old fixture. I also installed it and wired it myself on my first try, which makes me very happy. The medicine cabinet was the only element that stayed, mostly because it's such a pain to get rid of, and it was in good shape.

After the major elements went in, I put up a double towel bar to make use of a small space, a new hand towel holder, a toilet paper holder, a glass shelf, and a robe hook on the back of the door. I got all of these matching elements in chrome finish at HomeGoods for a very good price, so at least I saved some money somewhere. I also grabbed some new towels at Bed Bath & Beyond in a white and grey scheme and some bath accessories in white and chrome from HomeGoods again.

My last projects will be some art for the walls, making that last little piece of molding work, and replacing 2 shower tiles that I had to cut down to allow for the taller baseboards. I also bought some fabric to make my own shower curtain, but I'm sort of liking the silver one I had in there before. Not sure where I will come down on that decision. So, we're about 97% done at this point, and I'm pretty happy with it overall. I'll do 1 more post when I've got it at 100%, but let's take a quick look at where we came from, shall we?

The tulip tiles. The tiny toilet. The off-purple grey walls. The floating prison sink. The hollywood lighting. The horror. So now it's clean and fresh and hopefully classic.