by Krista | Apr 16, 2010 | Fabulous Friday
“History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.”
Maya Angelou
This quote cheered me so much today. 🙂 The past month has been a doozy, one gutting situation after another. It’s been rough but liberating, a healing letting go of toxic people, memories, experiences, and an embracing of true friendship, love, and a beautiful life.
Mums brought me these. 🙂 Aren’t they lovely?!My friend
Marie has been an inspiration. She wrote me the other day: “If I’m gonna feel lousy, I might as well enjoy it as much as I can!” I love her for that. 🙂 I love watching how others practice making a beautiful life right in the midst of pain, rejection and other sufferings. It takes such courage to peer through the gloom and find something shiny and bright to hold onto until the fog lifts and sunshine streams in. My friend T listens to Michael Buble and Louis Armstrong to brighten her day, M gardens and goes for long walks, C and T write, write, write, then dance like mad, R takes glorious pictures of everyday things, and S sings at the tops of her lungs. 🙂
Today I’m delighting in very little things. My “treasure” from my trip to Slovenia, a hand-crafted necklace the color of
Lake Bled that I got in a lovely little market we stumbled across. I promised
Passage Paradis that I would post it. 🙂
Flowering lavender and hibiscus tea.
And an Artichoke Sun-Dried Tomato Tart I got to share with dear friends last night. 🙂 I used my gluten-free tart crust but halved the sugar and added garlic, onion and rosemary. The filling was artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, and roasted green chilies in a creamy, garlicky coconut milk base. It paired beautifully with a chilled
Nell chardonnay from Australia.
This weekend I get to visit my dear friends,
Trish and
Todd for three days of yakking, old movie watching, and utter relaxation. I can’t wait!
What beautiful “little thing” do you have to cheer you, dear ones! 🙂
Gluten-Free Artichoke Sun-Dried Tomato TartTart Shell Ingredients:
1 cup gluten-free all-purpose flour mix
1 stick butter, melted
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1 Tbsp chopped rosemary
Directions for Tart Shell:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Mix everything together and press into 9″ tart pan with removable bottom.
- Par-bake for ten minutes while you prepare filling.
Ingredients for Filling:
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 eggs, beaten
1 can quartered artichoke hearts, drained
1 small jar roasted, marinated bell peppers
1 small jar sun-dried tomatoes, cut into 1/4 slices
1 small can roasted mild green chilies
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
Directions for Tart:
- Combine all ingredients and stir until coated with coconut/egg mixture.
- Pour into par-baked crust and bake for 30-40 minutes until browned.
- Serve hot or cold.
by Krista | Apr 15, 2010 | Plucky Thursday
We’ve had the most scrumptiously warm weather this week! No jackets needed, scarves removed by noon, short sleeves and breeze-catching dresses the order of the day for my afternoon walk.
On the last few minutes of my walk today I rounded a corner and came face to face with a pert little miss riding her bicycle, blond hair mussed in the wind, training wheels clattering as she braked to a halt. “Hello!” she called cheerily. “Do you want to come get some purple flowers from my mom?” Grinning I said “I’d love to but I have to get back to work right now.” Without a seconds hesitation, she thrust out a drooping cluster of white flowers she had clenched in her fist, and bestowed them on me. I thanked her profusely for her gift and she bid me farewell. As I turned to walk back to work she shouted in delight, “That’s MY path! I’ll go with you!” So she pedaled like mad to stay a bit ahead of me, stopping now and then to smile back at me until we parted ways at the corner. She totally made my day. 🙂
With this gorgeous spring weather, I knew I wanted food that was nourishing, tasty and cold. I found just such a thing in this marvy Cauliflower Curry with Green Peas. Originally intended to be served piping hot over rice, I chilled mine and found it just as yummy, cool and delicious on a warm afternoon.
Very easy to make, this curry does call for some unique spices like ground mango powder and asafetida. I didn’t have the mango powder, so I used ground pomegranate powder instead and it worked just dandy. 🙂
Served hot or cold over Bhutanese red rice or some other whole grain rice, this dish is made even better with a sprinkling of zesty goat cheese.
Cold Cauliflower Curry with Green Peas
(Adapted from Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone)
Ingredients:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp toasted ground cumin
1/4 tsp asafetida
1/4 cup peeled and grated ginger
4 tsp toasted ground coriander
1/2 tsp cayenne
1 tsp turmeric
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 large cauliflower cut into bite sized pieces, including the stems
Salt
1/2 pound sugar snap peas, strings removed (I didn’t have these so I used frozen peas, thawed)
2 tsp green mango powder (I didn’t have this so I used ground pomegranate powder)
1 tsp garam masala
Directions:
- In a white pot heat the oil over medium high heat. Add cumin and asafetida and cook for 30 seconds, stirring constantly.
- Add the ginger, coriander, cayenne and turmeric and cook for 30 seconds more.
- Add the onion, lower the heat and cook until limp, stirring occasionally, about 4 minutes.
- Add cauliflower and 1 1/2 tsp salt. Mix everything together.
- Pour in 1/2 cup water, cover pot and simmer until vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.
- Add peas and cook for a few minutes more, until they’re bright green.
- Add mango/pomegranate powder and garam masala, stir together, taste for salt, and serve.
by Krista | Apr 14, 2010 | Compatriot Wednesday
It was breakfast for dinner at CEC this week as we dug into gluten-free crepes filled with all manner of loveliness!!
We started with glasses of sweet Spanish wine with red-pepper hummus, chips and a platter of wafer-thin, salty capicola.
Cameron fried up a whole mess of bacon and more capicola, and oooeee, that platter was picked clean in no time flat! 🙂
Then it was time for the crepes, piping hot off the griddle where Michael and Selwyn were busy pouring batter and flipping crepes as fast as they could.
We had all sorts of delicious fillings, from Cameron’s Icy Peanut Butter Banana Mascarpone…
…to Kat’s food grade lavender buds and…
…orange blossom honey.
We slathered some with Deb’s Nutella and Toby’s bananas…
…and others with Toby’s strawberries and my fresh goat cheese.
I loved every configuration but I think my favorite was Nutella with lavender. Like chocolate perfume! 🙂
Darren ended our feast with frosty glasses of the limoncello we made last week…but I’ll tell you all about that another day. 🙂
Gluten-Free Crepes
Darren had Pamela’s Gluten Free Pancake and Baking Mix, so Michael used it, adding vanilla and sugar.
Cameron’s Icy Peanut Butter Banana Mascarpone
Ingredients:
1 cup Smooth Peanut Butter
2-4 frozen bananas
Small tub mascarpone
Directions:
- Blend everything together in a food processor until smooth.
- Spread on crepes or eat right out of the bowl.
by Krista | Apr 13, 2010 | Gulliver Tuesday
After our glorious gallivanting around Lake Bled, we piled in our 9 passenger van and drove to Ljubljana, Slovenia. As we got closer to town we realized that in all our excitement over the Julian Alps and Lake Bled, we had clean forgotten to eat lunch. We were RAVENOUS!!
We pulled into our uber-cheap hostel ($12 a night!!) and hailed a taxi to take us to Old Town Ljubljana. The concierge at our hostel had recommended a place with traditional Slovenian food and we tracked it down. It was a bustling, well-lit place that welcomed customers from the darkened streets.
Everything inside seemed old in that comfy, well-worn way. Creaky wooden stairs slick from thousands of feet ascending and descending, old wooden benches worn smooth from many a scooting bottom, and this lovely vine mural pocked and darkened from hands pressed against it as patrons climbed up to the loft for dinner.
Truth be told we were so exhausted we could hardly stay awake. 🙂 So we ordered a round of water and good Slovenian beer and soon we were relaxed and merry, laughing hard at each other’s crazy stories.
At last dinner arrived! Stace, Nat and I ordered tender roast pork with arugula salad and herbed dumplings.
Ben went very traditional with roasted horse meat in some sort of sauce and a stuffed jelly-roll type pasta. He obligingly gave us a taste of the meat so we could say we’d eaten horse. 🙂
Ryan went all out with a meat platter laden with blood sausage, roast pork and who knows what. 🙂
We ended our meal with traditional Slovenian cakes studded with fruit and poppy seeds, layered with cream and sweet sauces.
Thoroughly stuffed and oh so sleepy, we bid farewell to our jolly waiter, posed for pictures with this jaunty chap, and wended our way home where we fell fast asleep.
All too soon it was time to wake up for our pre-sunrise stroll of the Old Town, taking in the sights from empty streets before hitting the road for our long drive through Bosnia.
by Krista | Apr 12, 2010 | Bootstrap Monday
I was minding my own business, stirring a rather yummy pot of curry when suddenly I realized my prosciutto was on fire. I stared in amazement at my oven, two pillars of fire burning away merrily from the two slices of prosciutto I had been toasting. Thankfully the sink was nearby and teacups of water hastily thrown doused the flames and sent clouds of smoky steam wafting through my apartment.
Happily the rest of my weekend was not so dramatic. 🙂
I got to have lunch with Mums and dear friends, and Johanna made us this scrumptious strawberry shortcake.
My boss’s adorable Dutch grandmother popped into the office and surprised me with a bouquet of daffodils from her garden, wrapped in paper towel and tucked in a yogurt container. 🙂
I did a lot of resting this weekend – how glorious that was!! – reading good books, taking naps. But I also wanted to be outside so I made myself a cozy little nest on a rickety wood and cast iron bench on my patio. I draped it with blankets and a shiny gold pillow and lay back to journal and watch the sun set through the trees. Bliss. 🙂
I also cooked. 🙂 I haven’t made dessert in a while and simply had to have something sweet on hand this week. 🙂 One of my favorite tarts is Mocha with a buttery cinnamon crust. This weekend I decided to try a gluten-free version and it turned out beautifully! Perhaps because the crust is more akin to shortbread than pastry, the gluten-free flour easily replaces more traditional flours.
The recipe comes from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet, one of my all-time favorite cookbooks. I love this tart crust recipe because there is no tedious cutting in of shortening required, no rolling out or chilling of dough. It literally takes less than five minutes from measuring ingredients to pressing the dough into the pan. The secret is melted butter. It makes a wonderfully crisp tart shell with loads of buttery flavor. The best part is its versatility. Simply add garlic and parsley or onion and rosemary to make a savory crust, or add almond or maple flavoring to make unique bases for sweet fillings.
Tart cooling in my little herb garden.
How was your weekend? 🙂
Mocha Tart with Gluten Free Cinnamon Crust
(Adapted from Bittersweet)
Ingredients for Crust:
8 Tbsp (1 stick) melted butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
3/4 cup flour (I used gluten-free)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Ingredients for Filling:
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 cup heavy cream (I used coconut milk)
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 tsp instant espresso powder
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Directions for Crust:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
- Mix butter, sugar, salt and vanilla in medium bowl. Add flour and cinnamon and mix until just blended. Don’t worry if dough seems too soft.
- Press all of the dough evenly into bottom and sides of 9-inch tart pan with removable bottom.
- Bake 20-25 minutes, or until crust is deep golden brown.
Directions for Filling:
- While crust is baking, place butter, sugar, cocoa powder and cream in a medium saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring, until mixture is blended, smooth and begins to simmer around edges.
- Remove from heat and stir in espresso powder and vanilla.
- Just before crust is ready, whisk egg thoroughly into hot chocolate mixture.
Directions for Tart:
- Pour filling into hot crust and return to oven. Turn off heat.
- Leave tart in oven until it quivers like tender Jell-O in the center when the pan is nudged, about 10-12 minutes. Cool on a rack.
- Serve the tart warm or at room temperature.
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