Yes, that’s a band-aid on his ear. He tangled with a thorn bush on an afternoon walk last week and, to hear Gil tell it, the whole thing looked like a horror show with blood everywhere, even on Rufus. At least one tiny bandage took care of everything.

“No, really, I’ll be fine…SIGH.”

If you haven’t heard, April is Adopt a Greyhound month. I’m clearly biased, but I think they’re just incredible animals; I don’t think we’ll ever not have one cockroached at the foot of our bed. If you think you might like to rescue a former racer (and are in NJ), I highly recommend Greyhound Friends of New Jersey — they’ve been a wonderful resource.

Food post coming once this Dayquil fog lifts, but for now here are pictures of Rufus and Otis doing what they do best.

more pictures after the jump

Hi, everyone. For the second year in a row, I’m afraid my schedule won’t allow for an annual Advent Calendar. (For honestly annual Advent Calendars past, see the 2007 & 2008 installments.) Part of the craziness is just my day job, which always astounds me with its busy-ness — you’d think I’d get used to holiday madness after working for a clothing retailer for 10 years, wouldn’t you? — but also

< < < < BIG ANNOUNCEMENT  > > > >

I have a photo assignment! I’ll be shooting photos for a cookbook (not my own) starting next weekend!!!! It’s really just a dream come true, as clichéd and silly as that sounds, especially because I’ve toyed with giving up on this blog so many times. But without it I certainly never would have learned enough about photography to even consider doing this for a living. (Just putting it out there, universe…)

Anyway, instead of the Advent Calendar, I’m hoping to squeeze in a few posts on easy-to-make treats that might be nice for the holiday season. These little chocolate & pomegranate nibbles were inspired by something I saw in a comments section somewhere, but I just can’t remember the site. (If they look familiar, please leave a comment and I’ll give credit where it’s due.) Just melt chocolate in a double boiler, add pomegranate arils to achieve a chunky consistency, spoon onto a waxed paper-lined baking sheet and top with more arils, then chill until ready to serve. The juicy, tart arils really are a delicious foil to the smooth, bittersweet chocolate (or chocolate of your choice). I used only the two ingredients that were suggested, but I’d imagine they’d be delicious with the addition of chopped nuts, warm spices or a little liqueur.

And a little housecleaning:
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I didn’t make latkes this year for my husband because we’d much rather eat McDonald’s fries than any fried potato that comes out of my kitchen, but we did get the dogs to dress up for another portrait session. (One of the really, truly annual things on this blog. 2009 edition. 2008 edition.) Poor guys.

Happy Hanukkah!

Otis, rakish

Rufus, dubious

Stay tuned for Christmas photos next week.

I found myself at home mid-week trying to sleep off a sinus infection, but got bored with all of that lying about after a while. (This development is disturbing to me, since I used to be quite happy lazing the day away, watching trashy TV and napping. When did I turn into my dad, needing a project to keep me happy and productive?!) So I did what I always do; I escaped to the kitchen. Still groggy and hungover-ish from Nyquil, I wasn’t up for a full-blown meal, but a simple soup was something I could handle and Potage Parmentier fit the bill perfectly. It’s the easiest thing in the world to make and any additions to the potato and leek base amount to a “why not?” soup.

Should I add celery root? Why not?
How about some apple? Why not?
Maybe a whole head of roasted garlic? Hell, yeah! I mean…why not?

The soup left me with a small batch of potato and apple peels, which I hated to see go to waste, so I munched on the apple peels while the soup simmered, and turned the potato peels into a nutrient-filled version of fries…simply stir fried in a little bit of olive oil until golden brown, then tossed with salt & pepper.

They’re really amazing drizzled with truffle oil, or better yet, melted truffle butter. But this time I just ate them plain, with a glass of iced tea. Perfection.

The boys were very supportive of my earlier decision to nap extensively, but couldn’t agree to end the day in a productive manner.

Food post coming tomorrow, promise.

We had CRAZYGOOD weather this weekend, which finally gave me the kick in the pants I needed to cook/take pictures again. Those winter doldrums are no joke, and my whole existence turned into a daily grind just to make it through. But here I am on the other side, and no worse for wear!

So here you go — a little spring cleaning from the past month or so, and a wrap-up of recent goings-on in our neck of the woods.

Pasta e ceci from Rachael Eats. We had this weekly for a spell and while I love it beyond any other soup I made over the winter, I’m looking forward to something less filling.

Shirley Corriher’s Touch of Grace biscuits with butter & fig jam. Made a damned fine breakfast, but not as good as scrambled eggs and morels will be in a few weeks.

French “peasant” beets from Food52.

He really wanted my attention.

More pictures after the jump.

Inspired by the gorgeous weather, I tried my hand at a few new things:

Shaped bokeh

Origami

Terrariums (terraria?), because two things Ringwood has in abundance are moss and stones. And because our new dining room table was screaming out for some decoration, for it is large:

Phase 1 is complete! Now onto Operation: Drapes and Light Fixture (that don’t make my eyes bleed). Also, wallpaper.

My breakfast for nearly every morning of the past week: Goat’s milk yogurt, fresh papaya and honey.

When I tired of the papaya/yogurt combo, I made breakfast fried rice. The brown sugar-glazed ham was perfect with the soy and sesame flavors.

Did someone say “ham?” We distinctly heard “ham.” (And this is why they aren’t allowed in the kitchen.)

Apologies to my neighbors for the noise pollution, but I’ve waited 40 years for this.

I think we’ll all be sleeping in tomorrow.

Bless you, Boys!!!

It’s been a pretty low-key weekend around here. I treated Gil to a birthday dinner at Marea Saturday night, but apart from that wonderful (fantastic! amazing! delightful!) experience, we’ve done a lot of lounging. (Which has been wonderful, etc. in itself, only in sweats, and with football.)

Ordinarily, we don’t let the guys on the furniture, but Otis adopted the fainting couch early on and really…how could we say no?

Ru, on the other hand, wouldn’t dream of setting paw to furniture (while we’re home), but prefers to use Otis as a pillow.

So…food. After such an exceptional dinner, I could barely consider cooking today and didn’t have the heart to attempt anything challenging. What would be the point? But still in need of sustenance as lunchtime rolled around, I made a vegetarian chili loosely based on Heidi’s Pierce Street Chili, adapting it to use ingredients already in my pantry. This turned out to be the perfect dish for our loungey weekend. I highly recommend the original recipe; it was probably the best vegetarian chili I’ve ever made.

Hope you all had a great weekend and managed to stay warm!

Hi all, and happy Hanukkah! We had slightly non-traditional latkes (fried in duck fat) for breakfast this morning as a late start to the festivities, but there’s been a distinct lack of cooking going on around here otherwise. I’ll try to do better by you, but can’t promise anything until next weekend.

Instead, you get cute holiday pictures of the dogs after the jump!

Melty

Handsome, and very treat-motivated.

With Christmas coming up soon (far too soon, actually, considering I haven’t really started shopping yet), we took the boys out to Rusty’s Place for pictures with Santa! The whole greyhound gang posed for one and all managed to face the camera at the same time, however briefly:

Not wanting to go empty-handed, I pulled out the bag of almost-overripe persimmons I’d been storing for a couple of weeks and got to work on an upside-down cake that sounded like a perfect ending to a Thanksgiving meal — with two sticks of butter, it was possibly the most indulgent cake I’ve ever made.

I did a quick google search when the idea for the cake hit me (my standard approach, since very few ideas are truly new), and found only a couple of recipes. Joanne Weir’s parmesan flan has been one of the highlights of my summer for the past two years, so I opted for her version of the cake and came away very, very happy indeed.

Her secret for keeping things light and airy in such a rich cake? Whipping the egg whites, then folding them into the rest of the batter. Even so, the cake was much more soufflé-like in the pan than I expected:

Anyway, we had a wonderful time with the Edwards family and I feel like I finally have friends in the neighborhood, which is no small thing. They’re a creative family, into drawing, painting, photography, music, fashion…so you can imagine how much I enjoyed myself. Oh, AND I finally got a house tour with details of the major renovation they did last year! So we have lots of inspiration for our own house project, whenever we start.

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The next day, I roasted the Zuni chicken (with bittersweet pimenton added to the salt & pepper rub) originally intended for Thanksgiving and made a bread-based dressing with roasted acorn squash on the side. Nothing terribly exciting, but repurposed as breakfast this morning, I fell in love:

I pan-fried some of the leftover dressing, served it atop a thin drizzle of gravy and topped it with a fried egg. “X + egg = heaven” is undefined for Gil, so I waited till he was running an errand to work it up. (How anyone can snub a runny egg yolk over just about anything is beyond me, but hey, in sickness & in [mental] health, etc…)

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For Saturday’s dinner, there wasn’t a hint of Thanksgiving left over in the leftovers, though I forced myself to use the contents of my fridge and pantry in a stab at eating down the house. We ended up with a North African-inspired couscous dish that took maybe 30 minutes to make, but had a great depth of flavor mainly because it relied so heavily on leftovers.

To start, I made a quick harissa paste and set it aside for the flavors to develop while I worked on the rest of the meal. I hit the freezer for a package of caramelized onions, which I browned in some olive oil, then added two thinly sliced cloves of garlic, and reinforced the warm spices from the harissa — ground cumin, caraway seeds and ground coriander — in the sizzling oil. When the spices were fragrant, I added a package of Israeli couscous, bite-sized pieces of dark chicken, chopped roasted acorn squash, leftover chicken stock and two tablespoons of harissa paste. Only 15 minutes later, we were sitting down to a meal I wouldn’t even mind making from scratch someday.

I hope you add had a filling and fun-filled Thanksgiving. Now I need to figure out a way to work from home, because the last four days spent with all of my boys has been too good to miss again for 13 hours a day or more.

recipes and sweet doggy pictures after the jump

Persimmon Upside-Down Cake by Joanne Weir

16 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 pound fresh Fuju persimmons, peeled, halved and pitted
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar
3 eggs
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup whole milk
Pinch of cream of tartar
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

Butter a 9-inch cake pan. Place the pan over medium heat and melt 4 tablespoons of the butter and brown sugar in the bottom of the pan. Overlap the persimmon slices on top of the melted butter and brown sugar.

Preheat the oven to 350F. For the cake, sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Cream the remaining 12 tablespoons butter and granulated white sugar together in a bowl until light. Separate the eggs and add the yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add 1 teaspoon of the vanilla and mix well. Add the milk and the dry ingredients alternately to the batter, folding well after each addition.

Beat the egg whites to form soft peaks. Add the cream of tartar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form. Fold the whites into the cake batter. Spread the batter over the persimmons and bake until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, 60 to 75 minutes.

Cool the cake for 10 to 15 minutes and run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen it. Turn the cake over onto a serving platter and let it sit another 5 minutes. Remove the pan.

To serve, whip the heavy cream until soft peaks are formed. Sift the confectioners’ sugar on top of the cream, add the remaining 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, and fold together. Serve with the cake.

Serves 8 to 10

Harissa adapted from Global Gourmet

3 1/2 tablespoons dried chili flakes, soaked in the same amount of hot water
1 1/2 tablespoons crushed garlic
1 1/2 tablespoons sweet paprika
2 teaspoons caraway seed
2 teaspoons coriander
1 teaspoon cumin seeds, dry roasted then ground
1 teaspoon salt

Place ingredients in small food processor and blend or grind in mortar until a paste is formed.

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When we were leaving the adoption fair with Otis last weekend, the representatives from Greyhound Friends of NJ told us to be sure to keep the boys muzzled on the drive home because they might get aggressive. Clearly, we have our work cut out for us, because they’ll never get along:

Honestly, we didn’t pose them.

They both love to sleep and don’t seem to mind if another creature is nearby, though sometimes they’ll change position and nap apart.

Turns out, it’s a lot easier to get a picture of awake-Otis than of awake-Rufus. His prey instinct is so strong that he’ll stand at the window staring at something in the yard (or in the tree, or across the street, or down the street just out of sight) for minutes at a time.

Bless his heart — he’s a pain in the ass to walk, but so much fun to photograph.