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Leftovers, schmeftovers

That thing I had against leftovers? Not a problem anymore. No sirree, not after last night, at least.

I had quite a bit of filling left after adapting the Plump Pea Dumplings recipe from 101 Cookbooks, so I pondered for a while what exactly to do with it. Then I remembered another recipe I’d bookmarked from Delicious Days (whose photography just kills me) for Egg Yolk Ravioli and dinner was taken care of!

So I mixed together a double recipe of pasta in my food processor (if it’s good enough for Lidia, it’s good enough for me!) and kneaded it until it was pliable, then formed it into a ball before setting it in the fridge to chill for 15 minutes.

Making ravioli from scratch meant digging out the pasta maker we received as a wedding gift and only used once. Not exactly sure why it isn’t in the rotation more often because it turned out nice, thin sheets of ravioli dough.

First, I quartered the dough and ran half of it through the […]

It’s Spring up in here!


Finally found ramps at the farmers’ market. Hot damn.

I’m convinced Spring is here now that I’ve seen the herbs and ramps at the Union Square Greenmarket — let allergy season commence! Despite feeling like a kid in a candy store, I kept my purchases reasonable and only bought some winter baudolino and cave-aged cheddar cheeses from Bobolink Dairy and two bunches of ramps.


Just in case you missed it — ramps! They’re here! (They’re queer! Get used to it!)

Last weekend’s Seder was a success; Miriam did most of the heavy lifting, and the only thing I really screwed up was overcooking some asparagus, which I put into the fridge for later comsuption. Heidi‘s recent post on plump pea dumplings convinced me that we needed to have them in our lives, and I thought the asparagus would be a natural addition to the filling. Alas, it was not meant to be, as I am lazy. After work, the last thing I wanted to do was slave over wonton wrappers and spilling filling, so the asparagus […]

The Rufus Report — April 27, 2008


Wait a minute, this isn’t Rufus!

Greyhound Friends of NJ held a Meet & Greet this weekend at Rusty’s Place, our local pet store. We took Rufus down for a couple of hours and he seemed to have a great time meeting and greeting all of the other greys, though he did get a bit tangled up in the other leashes and lost his shit whenever large trucks drove by. (Mr. Sensitive actually dragged me across the parking lot when an especially loud truck passed, which made for a hilarious visual, I’m sure.) But in general, he was pretty well-behaved … whew! Gil and I had a nice time talking with other greyhound owners, who predicted we’ll have another adoption someday; I don’t think any of them had just one dog.

In typical fashion, I snapped a bunch of pictures and have posted my favorites after the jump. As always, to see the full flickr set, click on any image.

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Always take the weather with you

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When Gil decided to shutter Voyant Publishing, he was left with overstock that he had to destroy. He piled these boxes on the ground under our balcony just before winter and they’ve had a hard time containing their load. Before we bring in someone to cart it all away, I had to snap a few pictures to document their weathered beauty.

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Weekend meals

Sometime last week, one of my friends asked me, “What can I do with barley and mushrooms?” I put on my thinking cap and came up with barley risotto for her, which sounded pretty good once I gave it more thought, so I threw it together for dinner Friday night.

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And being the first risotto of any kind I’ve ever made, I was pretty happy with it. Not ecstatic and not quite thrilled enough to give you a recipe just yet, but definitely pleased.

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Amaryllis by morning, redux

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Our amaryllis blooms are no more, but the desiccated petals are still gorgeous, so I staged a little photo shoot this morning.

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My own cure

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I’ve been following Apartment Therapy’s Kitchn Cure for the past few weeks, thinking what a great idea it would be to do one of their assignments in our house someday. Of course something always seems to come up — travel, dog adoption, and chronic laziness being the three obstacles lately — but I did find inspiration in this week’s assignment to clean out the fridge and pantry, tossing processed foods and things that contain high fructose corn syrup. I’ve been on the anti-HFCS bandwagon from a taste perspective for years, so we don’t have much of that stuff around here, but I did toss an old bottle of ketchup which I’ve replaced with the organic stuff from Trader Joe’s. (Haven’t tried it yet, but I’ll let you know how it compares to the Heinz gold standard.)

While I was in there, I took note of anything that was nearing its expiration date and should be used ASAP, which is a roundabout way of saying that this meal was brought to you by cleaning out the fridge. Appetizing, yes? What lurked in the inky depths were leftover chopped tomatoes in juice, a […]

The Rufus Report — April 6, 2008

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Ack — what is the cutest thing?

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Something on a stick

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I don’t mess around when it comes to national food holidays. Maybe it comes from growing up in a town that hosts an annual Catfish Festival at the height of summer — I figure if a bunch of sweaty coonasses can come together for a weekend to partake of the flesh of a lowly bottom feeder, I can do a lot better for National Something on a Stick Day than serve up corndogs. And so Gil and I feasted on kofta kebabs over the weekend in observance of this celebration of finger food.

After a bit of web research, I decided to adapt two recipes from Food Network into my own. (I know, I know, really keeping it traditional, there.) It had a pretty formidable list of ingredients, but I’m lucky to work near Kalustyan’s, so picking up the few extra spices not already in my cupboard was easy enough. And let me tell you, if you’re going to make these, definitely do what it takes to find sumac. I had a taste before adding it to the lamb and instantly realized that it’s the spice I’ve […]