Sunny September Sunday

This morning I suddenly had a hankerin' for some sea food. Maybe it's because my bff is right at this minute on her way to here in France and that conjures up for me images of when I worked in a bistro, but I said to my hubby while we were eating breakfast that I wanted moules et frites(mussels and french fries) for dinner. We often do this, discuss the next meal while enjoying the meal in front of this. If you know my man, you know he would not say no to seafood. The deal was sealed as we spent the afternoon tromping around Discovery Park, right on Elliott Bay.

The frites by the way, were baked in the oven, and tasted every bit like the real thing. Maybe even better since that little voice in my head was not admonishing me for eating something fried. And I cooked some clams with the mussels. I'm new to liking mussels and the clams made it a whole meal for me.

Below are some photos and if you'd like to see more from our day, click on a photo in the Flickr icon on the right. It will take you to the page of that particular photo and from there you can click on my "photostream" to find the set of photos titled "Sunny September Sunday"
All photos in this post by Kristin







ps. my camera can go underwater!

Playing with my food

For this week's cooking antics, I made brunch for two of my close friends yesterday. I played around with a few ideas I've had in my head. These ideas were mostly about presentation and juxtaposing textures. So, what I made wasn't anything that I hadn't tasted before, just maybe not seen. Then I played around with the photos a little--adding text and a few effects--just for fun!

For the first course, we basically had oatmeal w/ bananas and walnuts. the night before, I cooked some steel cut oats with chopped walnuts and spices and spread it out in a jelly roll pan to set in the fridge overnight. In the morning, I cooked sliced bananas in the same spices and a little orange juice and brandy. As my guest arrived, I sliced the oatmeal into squares and pan fried them in a little clarified butter. The outsides got mostly golden and crispy which was a nice contrast between the soft oats inside and bananas on top. Not too bad.

Butter crisped oats with banana sauce...photo by Kristin

The second course came about from a mish mash of ideas and I don't even know if I can trace the origins. Earlier in the morning, I cut some potatoes in half and hollowed them out into cups. Then I roasted the cups and the insides(which I had chopped into a small dice) until they were golden and crispy. Mean while I slow cooked a diced onion and mushroom hash in butter and brandy with a little rosemary and bacon. When the potatoes finished roasting, I mixed the diced potatoes into the hash. All of these things I held to keep warm until we were done with the first course.

To finish the dish, I cracked one egg into each of the cups and baked them in the oven until the eggs were just set. Then I served them on top of the hash. Yum, yum, yum.

Baked egg potato cups over onion, mushroom, bacon hash...photo by L.

Soft focus effect Frankie at brunch...photo by L.

Update...

Collage of some of this week's eats...photos by Kristin

Earlier this week I picked up a few slow cooker cook books at the library. I really had to sort through them to come up with some ideas of my own on how to use one(I will not use condensed cream of mushroom soup). The chicken from the last post turned out well. It fell right off the bone and shredded nicely for some chicken tacos--the "oops" photo. I forgot to take photos before we finished them off. We got three more meals out of some of the leftover chicken. I used it to make a tamale loaf if you will. Basically one giant tamale and no corn husks to wrap--you just slice and serve. That was really delicious.

I'm trying to decide what should be next up for the slow cooker...it's almost soup weather so maybe something along those lines.

The last two photos are from today's breakfast, but this dish is great anytime, even cold and uses up leftover bits in the fridge. It's a fried rice inspired frittata. I basically dump in a bowl: veggies, leftover rice or pasta, sesame oil and soy sauce and a few eggs to hold it together. Then I spread it out in a pan, cook, flip, cook and eat.

That's it for tonight!

Let's see how it goes

I'm posting a head of time to make sure that I do in fact mention the inaugural slow cooker meal. I prepped everything tonight and it's marinading in the fridge overnight--ready to be plugged in in the morning to cook all day. What's in the pot? A chicken(skinned and separated) with Mexican/Southwest flavorings. There is: garlic, pepper, lime juice, oregano, smoked paprika, cumin, tomato paste, two different kinds of dried chilies, a bottle of beer and some chicken stock. I'll let you know how it goes!

Informal countdown...

Plums from a friends tree...photo by Kristin

Hi everyone! Just dropping by to say that I think Chefetta is almost ready to end summer vacation and get back to some posts. I think to start, I can commit to one post a week until I get back in the swing of things again. We bought a slow cooker today!!! I was enticed by the idea of throwing some things in a pot in the morning and have it turn into dinner by the time I get home from the studio.

I hope everyone had a great summer and I'll see you back here soon!