Great Green Gobs

Do you know what this is?

NO, it is not the brain of The Great Gazoo, nor is it a bioweapon.  It is not a golf ball covered in fungi and it is not a meteorite.

I guess you'll just have to read the rest of this post to find out!

????????????????

Do you know what this is?

Or this?

This is a ten year old hooligan hard at work in the kitchen, cutting butter into pastry.  :-)

The kids and I have been watching MasterChef Canada (http://www.ctv.ca/MasterChefCanada.aspx) as of late and the boy is obsessed.  He has been begging to cook a meal for us for the past two weeks, and finally I have relented.  This is the boy who still wipes his mouth on his arm and who has been known to scoop gigantic mounds of Nutella out of the jar with his hand.  All BAD.

BUT, he loves sushi, smoked salmon (he steals it, the piglet!), rare steak and rainbow trout.  He's a mini-gourmand, I suppose.

The boy doesn't want to use a recipe:  "if the Masterchefs can do it, [without a recipe] so can I!"

Ahhh, youthful exuberance.

I tried to explain to Nathanimal that the cooks on Masterchef are professionals.  No dice.  Then I said that they had received culinary training before the show was taped.  No dice.  Then I said, "fine.  You won't cook then."  Why does it always have to turn fugly?

This is what Nath wanted to make for tonight's appetizer:

I wasn't feeling the yolk-stuffed ravioli with sage sauce... and I did not want to make fresh pasta so I convinced him to adapt his menu.  It was hard, but I did it.

And so we are making Jude's Chuck Roast out of The Four-Hour Chef (my new favourite book) by Tim Ferriss; Chinese broccoli from Fanny Farmer; steamed red baby potatoes with fresh dill; sautéed mushrooms in butter; a kale and cabbage salad with dried cranberries, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds and a balsamic vinaigrette; and for dessert, Apple Crisp (out of my other favourite - The New Canadian Basics Cookbook) 

Here is Nathaniel posing with his Apple Crisp before it went in the oven

and after it came out:

We served it warm with Vanilla Bean ice cream from President's Choice.  It was delish.  Nath cut and juiced the lemon, and assembled, measured and combined all of the other ingredients.  The only thing he didn't do was cut up ALL of the apples.  I helped him with that.

Here he is cutting up the shallots for his beef.  He is carrying on about how the onions are making him cry, the big baby.

And here is the roast before it went in the oven.  

I want to say that it's a blade roast (we were supposed to use chuck or rump, but the butcher didn't have it).  

Here's the recipe courtesy of Tim Ferriss, in my own words:  

Dump roast in Dutch oven.  Dump in 4 cups of Beef broth, one can of beef consommé, and some chopped onions and/or shallots.  Cover cooker and place in 350 degree oven for 2.5 - 3 hours.  I think that this was a 3 or 4 pound roast and it was perfect at the three hour mark.  Make sure you serve some of the jus with the roast.  So tender and delectable!

Here we are, enjoying the feast:

Because I am NOT a food stylist, this doesn't look so great, and I had already eaten half, but trust me, it was!  In fact, I couldn't believe how good and easy it was to make this meal.  

don't forget the horseradish!

Because N's first dinner party was such a success, his sister Gwenzilla, who was feeling left out, has announced that she too will be cooking with Mumma (roast chicken, edamame, roast potatoes, green beans and little cakes for dessert).

All this writing about food is making me hungry!  Lunch break (chai tea, eggs and salsa on naan).

******************

In other news, I have been sewing up a storm lately.  Today I finished my clamshell quilt:

Oh you can't see it?  That's because there is a giant poodle on top of it!  

Here, this is better:

It measures 48 by 60 inches, for those of you care about these things.  I cut out all of those clamshells by hand, pinned and sewed them together, then quilted it together with fluorescent pink thread.  I made the binding, then sewed that on by hand.  A true labour of love.

Speaking of labours of love, some of you may remember this quilt - Pop Crazy - that I made for my daughter's birthday:

See this post if you're interested in learning more about it.  The short story is that different blocks of the quilt were made by seven ladies across Canada.  I mailed fabric to them and they sent the fabric back sewn up in an improvisational style of their choice.  I made my own blocks, cut and sewed together theirs, added grey to the background and assembled the quilt to my liking.  I quilted it, made binding and sewed it on.  Here's a closeup:

At the end of last week, this arrived in the mail:

What a nice surprise!  Lysa, who is one of the Unscripted ladies, is a fabulous artist.  She drew one of the patches that she made for me, made a wooden base for it and attached a calendar.  What a thoughtful and creative reminder of our quilt collaboration!  Here's the calendar pictured below her block:

My crazy quilting has made her block look a LOT wonkier than it originally did, but I'm good with that.  Oh and the F is for February and not the first letter in my favourite curse word.  :-)  You can find more of Lysa's work at lysaflower.com .   Thank you, Lysa!

Oh yes, and now back to the green blob:

It is an Osage orange, named for its size and "peel" that emits a citrusy aroma.  I thought it looked very springlike -- I am so tired of snow.  I will be writing more about these "oranges" in my next blog post, which will be a review of Lucy Knisely's graphic non-fiction work Relish.

I will leave you with her recipe for chai (I've made it and it's awesome!), which I am addicted to and a music selection from the film Big Night - a wonderful film about cooking, eating and love.

Enjoy!

image from http://www.lucyknisley.com

Soundtrack is Tic Ti, Tic Ta by Claudio Villa

Aphpy Wen Eary!

I have been given a 671-page tome as an afterthought Christmas gift (The 4-Hour CHEF:  The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life by Tim Ferriss):

I know better than to judge a book by its cover and so I decided to delve into the table of contents to see what was up.  I was captivated by the chapter names:  Sexy-Time Steak, The Turbacon:  Sin Against Nature or Meat-Glue Masterpiece? and How to Gut and Cook Tree Rat.  I have just realized that I make the book sound like a primer on carne, which it is absolutely not.  In fact, what I like most about this book is its scope:

• How to memorize a deck of cards (I know that this will come in handy during games of Crazy 8's and Go Fish)
• How to chop wine:  hyper decanting in 20 seconds (because I always decant my wine)
• How to make olive oil gummy bears (have I written a blog entry about my hatred of all things gummy?  I might try to make these for G though, because she's a GB enthusiast)
• How to make the perfect MLBJ (meatloaf blow job) "I know how to keep my man happy, and keep him, period: meatloaf and blow jobs. That's it." Ayako N.)
• How to read 300% faster in twenty minutes (useful for readers of this blog).  

While traveling to Welland recently to visit extended family, I had a chance to claw my way through the Lobstercide chapter.  I love lobster but I have issues (click here if you're curious).  There are two approved methods of lobster slaughter:  boil it alive or stab it in the head.  I might leave the lobster murder to others.
The subsequent chapter illustrates the Mexican Towel Snap method of killing chickens:  pick up the chicken by the head and swing it by your side violently for 10-20 seconds "as if winding up a towel to snap someone in the ass".  I can't see myself doing this.  For some reason, the MTS makes me think of cat videos that I've seen on YouTube:  a feline's claws cling to the blades of an oscillating ceiling fan (set on high) and the poor creature spins around and around wildly until it flies off like a missile, hitting a wall.  I shouldn't laugh, but I am.  And No!, I do not look these things up.  I have a ten-year old, remember?

In this same chapter, I read that Mark Zuckerberg (founder of FB for those of you living under a rock) sets yearly personal goals (e.g. learning Chinese, wearing a tie every day of the year).  In 2011, he wrote, "I think that many people forget that a living being has to die for you to eat meat, so my goal revolves around not letting myself forget that... the only meat I'm eating is from animals I've killed myself."
Whoa.
Mr. Zuckerberg began with lobster and worked his way up the food chain, all the way to (shooting) bison.  I think what he did was admirable, but I am not about to start killing my dinner, once again proving that I am a hypocrite. What I can do for myself, à la Mr. Zuckerberg, is to come up with two of my own personal challenges for 2014:

1)  Boring but Necessary Challenge
Write for a minimum of 90 minutes for 5 out of 7 days of the week.  No more excuses; I need to shift my priorities:  housework, kiddie extra-curriculars, social life, medical appointments, and dinner be damned!
Blogging counts, but I am going to limit myself to one or two entries a month.  I hope that writing will become habit rather than hobby.  When I told my husband about my goal, he told me that it wasn't really a goal, that my goal should be to produce something.  I am pretty sure that if I write for a minimum of one hour per day, I will produce something.  It might not be any good, but it will be something.  Like Woody Allen says, "eighty percent of success is showing up".

2)  Fun and Exciting Challenge - Cruciverbalism
Craft a crossword puzzle and get it published in the New York Times. Word.
I have always been a puzzler:  I have made word puzzles (Jumbles when I was a kid) for loved ones and when I discovered Games Magazine and Will Shortz at my orthodontist's office (brace-face!), I never looked back.  I became a crossword junky.

Here's a Jumble that I made for my Grandma 32-33 years ago:

Thank you, Grandma for keeping my Scrapbook; I love that I have a puzzle that I made when I was a kid.

Today, Will Shortz is the crossword puzzle editor of the New York times - what an awesome job he has.  All NYT crossword submissions go directly to Mr. Shortz for a decision and so when I create my crossword (without using crossword software- yikes), he will be the one to solve it!  Geeking out here.  
Also on the subject of Will Shortz, there is an amazing documentary called Wordplay (2006), which is available at the London Public Library.  From the IMDB (not the best write-up; where is the passion?):

A documentary that focuses on the world of crossword puzzles: those that construct them, those that love to solve them, those that compete in the annual Crossword competition in Stamford and also on Will Shortz, the editor of the New York Times crossword since the early 1990s.

In shortz, it is fascinating viewing.  :-)  Get thee to the library. Or find it online.

And so at the end of this rather lengthy and tiresome blog entry, I am so ready for 2014!  Thaw si oruy lagenlech?  Thaw liwl keam ouy cikt ni 2014?



Musical pairing: The Puzzle Song by Shirley Ellis.