long overdue

Cooking though...Things of note I've made since moving:

1. pumpkin ravioli with sage cream sauce
OKAY. So i had never made ravioli from scratch before. It was an interesting and time consuming project - but well worth it. I think. With special help from my new assistant chef we were able to make a great filling, over stuff the wrappers and boil the pasta without too many falling apart. the cream sauce was remarkably easy to make and used dry white wine - that was fun because i don't often cook with wine but would like to. also, the recipe called for WAY too much sage - i should have trusted my judgement.

RAVIOLI-
1 cup canned pure pumpkin puree
Salt and pepper
32 wonton wrappers
6 tablespoons butter
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup finely grated parmesan cheese, plus shaved parmesan for serving
1 large egg

-In a medium bowl, mash together the pumpkin, cream cheese, parmesan, egg and 2 pinches each salt and pepper.
-Line a baking sheet (or your counter top, i had to use the sheet bc i didnt have enough counter space) with parchment paper and set aside. Spoon a tablespoon (make sure not to do too much, otherwise the wonton wrapper wont fold well) of the pumpkin-cream cheese filling into the center of the wonton wrappers, brush two edges with water, then fold the corners together, press to seal, gently squeezing out the air and making a triangle shaped ravioli. Arrange in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.
3. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.
4. Working in batches (about 4 or 5 ravioli at a time), cook the ravioli in the boiling water until they float to the surface, about 3 minutes. Using a slotted spoon,remove. the ravioli will be sticky so you need to set up a wet paper towel to place them on, when the plate is full cover them with another wet paper towel and contiune layering as such until all ravioli is cooked.

this recipe makes quite a bit, we ended up freezing about 20-30 ravioli to use for later

SAUCE RECIPE
3 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup finely chopped shallots
1 teaspoons crumbled dried sage leaves
1 1/2 cup dry white wine - i used a cabernet sauvignon
1 1/3 cup whipping cream
salt and pepper to taste.

Melt butter on medium heat until it browns.
Add sage and shallots to heat for around 30 secs.
Add wine and cream.
Bring mixture to boil and cook for at least 10 minutes or until it reaches desired thickness.
Season with salt and pepper.
then i arranged the raviolis on the plate and poured the desired amount of sauce over the pasta. i sprinkled a little of the left over cheese as a garnish.

2. smoky black bean soup
OH MY GOD. this was SO easy. seriously, the easiest thing I've made in a LONG time. I'll re-post the recipe and in addition I'd add guac or sour cream and tortilla strips. yum.

1 large onion, chopped
3 - 4 cloves garlic, minced
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
1 14-ounce can diced tomatoes (I used fire-roasted)
15 ounces fatfree refried beans
15 ounces black beans, cooked
1 cup frozen corn kernels
1 teaspoon cumin
1 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/8 - 1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder (to taste)
1 teaspoon hot sauce (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon Mexican oregano (optional)
salt and pepper, to taste

Spray a large, non-stick pot with cooking spray, and sauté the onion until it begins to brown. Add the garlic and bell pepper and cook for one more minute. Add all the remaining ingredients and cook until the flavors blend, 20-30 minutes.

3. granola
no, this does not make me a hippie - contrary to popular belief. It was my first time making it and though I wish there would have been bigger clusters i think it turned out okay. Here is the recipe i used, though I altered it a bit. Really just watch for the consistency of the granola when you're mixing everything together. ALSO really make sure to check on it every 5 minutes or so - it will burn EASILY.

Ingredients
4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups sweetened, shredded coconut
2 cups sliced almonds
1 1/2 cups dried cherries, chopped
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup good honey
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Toss the oats, coconut, almonds, and cherries together in a large bowl. Pour the vegetable oil and honey over the oat mixture. Add the cinnamon, and stir with a wooden spoon until all the oats and nuts are coated with the liquids. Pour onto a sheet pan. Bake, stirring occasionally with a spatula, until the mixture turns a nice, even golden brown, about 25 to 30 minutes.

Remove the granola from the oven and allow to cool, stirring occasionally. Store the cooled granola in an airtight container

I've been a very bad blogger the past couple of months. I'm afraid my creative energy has shifted from any sort of printing/book making to cooking and photography. Unfortunately my new California kitchen is really, really undesirable for cooking, and I don't really have a camera right now. I've been using my iPhone though and publishing photos on my flickr.com site (http://flickr.com/photos/29714536@N08/).

Jennie and I have been on a baking kick including: chocolate peanut butter bombs and Chocolate Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. Oh Autumn, how I miss you.

stormy saturday night

as a way to regroup friday night, after the exciting thursday that was borderello prom 2008, i decided to try a new cupcake recipe. the result was better than i expected. the best description of the end product would be: mini brownie cupcakes with andes toffee mints. before i had made a cupcake version of this recipe with plain andes mints, though i quite prefer the brownie mixture to the cake.



although they may not look appetizing in these photos (i'm working on getting a new digital camera, though i can't decide what to buy. suggestions), they really were. in other news i finally started packing/cleaning my room, and yes it was thorougly depressing (as suspected).

prom cleanup

not much of an update since i last posted. i'm moving out of my current house in approximately two weeks and i'm thoroughly depressed about it. all four of my current roommates and i have miraculously gotten along really, really well, and it'll be sad when we all have to move out. anyhow, as one last hurrah we had Borderello Prom 2008, "Dancing Under the Stars of Venice in the Sea of the Millennium" last night. the event was complete with corsages, streamers, spiked punch, and slow dancing. pictures of this to follow.

i did a little baking last week, though nothing too exciting. i made the classic standard - chocolate chip cookies, but for a twist added in butterscotch chips as well. i brought the bulk of them into the office, and i'll assume they turned out good as they were gone within the first hour of work.

the student newspaper on campus - the daily iowan - ran an editorial today titled, "art museum needs to move downtown." for those not aware the current ui art museum is located quite near the iowa river and with the flooding this past month was forced to be evacuated. discussions had long been in the works, by the former director, to move the art museum to a more central location in downtown iowa city. which contradicts the idea of the 'arts campus' ie where the art buildings, theatre building, hancher auditorium, etc are all located on the ui campus. i'm not sure why i bring this up as i won't be taking classes or living in iowa city within the next month. maybe only to say that the editorial was poorly written and not very convincing at all. especially where they called for the need of museums downtown to compliment the 'art' of iowa city.

chocolate biscuits

Roommate Sophie and I were in the mood to bake last night so I thought I’d give the brownie roll-out cookies a shot. A better description of them would be chocolate biscuits though. They have a consistency similar to that of sugar cookies – and the recipe is quite similar as well. By chance the only cookie cutter I found in my kitchen was a bear shaped one – which worked out well.



These hadn't gone into the oven yet and as I feared i left too much excess flour on top - although it didn't affect the taste much they came out with a light white dust on the exterior.



Roommate Alisa was thankfully there to read out loud the latest celebrity gossip.



and of course, the best part of baking: cleaning off the whisk.

officially july

i regret that i haven't been posting much this summer. i suppose i could blame it on a number of things - ranging from the flooding in iowa city to my overall lack of creativity lately. most spare time is spent thinking about packing, but not actually doing any work. this past weekend was full of fun 4th of july activities including:

kabobs


vodka tonics


sidewalk chalk



henna tattoo


i haven't been printing much and have replaced any art making with baking. over the last month i've experimented with the following recipes:

1. chocolate chip pecan pie (not too exciting, but my first time making a pie completely from scratch. )
2. andes mint chocolate chip cupcakes
3. avocado lime cookies with coconut garnish
4. lemon poppy seed tea cookies
5. chocolate pumpkin cake

unfortunately i've been a poor photographer lately and do not have any pictures to share. baking projects for this week include:

1. cripsy salted oatmeal white chocolate cookies
and
2. brownie roll-out cookies

i'll make sure to post pictures of both of these.

a few more prints

made a carving of a boot. not really any substantial work, but had fun trying the cut out.







i've been on a western theme kick lately. i'm blaming the unbearable weather. hottttttttt.

prints

i worked on a few new prints the other night. i quite like the pistol motif and will probably follow up with more western inspired images in the future. mind the scanning though, it altered the original prints colors. (however not in a bad way).

nearly a month later

the month of may is almost over and i regret that i haven't posted more. with graduations and working nearly full time i haven't kept up. i've done a bit of book binding over the past month, but i've started to focus more on linoleum cuts recently. with help from a printmaker roommate i've acquired several water based inks and a roller. i'll post a few pictures, however i printed them on notebook paper as a test run. nothing too exciting though.




here's the block i printed from. i'll probably carve away more eventually and print again then.



in other news...since summer is finally here we've begun a bit of gardening at my house again. today we potted a basil plant, parsley plant, and cherry tomato plant.

catching up

i just realized i haven't updated in ages. the semester is coming to an end and i have yet to turn in my honors thesis (i know, i know). i did take the time, though, to finish my last printing project for the year. after discussing a few things with classmates i decided to make some sort of sleeve for the piece. this way it functions more as a extended accordion, rather than a book, which is a look i was going for. the picture below features a blue sleeve, but i also made a few covers out of red and green paper.





in other news i was in denver last week for the american association of museums conference. the denver art museum had a great collection of american western art - one of my main areas of focus - so that was exciting to see. the museum of nature and science was also quite impressive. they had a special exhibition up about gold, which obviously included many expensive, sparkley objects. i was particularly taken with this sculpture outside the museum:



we also rummaged around the denver public library. they had a great temp. exhibition up including a great bierstadt. also, the lib owns mountain of the holy cross by thomas moran - one of my favorite western painters.

monkey, ant

i managed to make it out of the studio alive last night and back today. i decided to print the monkey in yellow, followed by the ant in orange. once again, out of convenience, i didn't have to clean the press inbetween runs because i simply added red ink to the yellow already on the press. oh the joys of primary colors.

lion & snake

writing from the letterpress studio. it's about 11:32 p.m. which is terrbile considering i only got over being sick, well, today really. anyhow, after careful planning and color mixing (only not really at all), i managed to print the lion for the L and the snake for the S.



i think they turned out okay. i'll have to wait and see once all the animals are on the sheet really. also note that the colors are out of whack. the lion is a dark purple and the snake a dark, dark green. the lighting in here is quite misleading. i'm not sure what else i'll do for colors, besides using brown or red which already will make an appearance on the project. anyway, i've got 15 minutes to kill until the parking garage closes, i should probably clean the press.

sick day

i got rather sick last weekend with a cold/fever/general misery and recovered quite quickly over the weekend. unfortunately it came back with full force this previous weekend on saturday, when i got back from the chicago trip. with nothing else to do besides lay in bed and watch the philadelphia project, i decided to finish up the linoleum cuts for my final project. anyhow, please ignore their colors, as i had to test them out with magic markers. obviously a really classy way of proofing.










i'm excited to actually print them on the press, however it won't be tonight because i can't seem to stay vertical for more than five minutes.

friday night in

i have to be up in five hours to catch the bus for chicago. we're going to see the Hopper exhibit. obviously, studying american art and all, i'm super excited.



anyhow, Hopper is really important and i could go on for hours about how much i really like his aesthetic, but i won't. ALSO, i saw the Rape of Europa tonight. absolutely amazing and a must-see.

also, more Hopper's because i'm not tired enough to sleep yet.