Fast Food Done Right...

Our favorite fast food - sushi on the conveyor belt. This Tiger Roll is one of my faves:  spicy white tuna crunch with avocado inside, tuna and fresh mango outside, on sweet chili sauce. Delish! 

Sweet, Beautiful Gnocchi - My Nonna would be proud...

So, I'm on a mission to make homemade gnocchi sometime before the end of this month. I've even talked to a girlfriend about doing it together one weekend afternoon... and, I've found the perfect sauce to go with it. Ragu. No, not the kind in a jar, but the real ragu. I recently watched a late-night Channel 9 "Create" cooking show hosted by Nick Stellino, featuring Seattle's Jason Wilson, of Crush fame. They did his Pork Ragu with gremolata, and it looked amazing.

I was recalling the ingredients at the grocery the next day, and missed a few, so made the recipe my own, and it was fantastic. Especially with the packaged gnocchi from Trader Joe's.

I did a lot of things differently, including using a fantastic white wine in place of the red... and carrots instead of fennel and leeks, spicy peppers and green olives. I went with what I had — sweet onion, diced; celery and carrot, diced (all from Yakima Fruit Market); pork shoulder, sliced fresh garlic, white wine, chopped canned tomatoes... and the gremolata was Italian parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic and Spanish olive oil. Fantastic.

You'll have to trust me that it was phenomenal - the photo is terrible, but I plan to try it again this week!

Ragu

4 pounds fresh pork shoulder large-chopped

1/2 c Spanish olive oil

sea salt and Johnny's seasoning (bad, I know)

1/2 large sweet onion, small dice

3 medium stalks celery, small dice

2 medium carrots, small dice

2 stalks celery, cut into small dice

6 cloves garlic, sliced

1 c Portugese white wine

1 quart canned chopped tomatoes

Gremolata

Italian parsley, chopped fine (about 1/2 cup)

Garlic cloves, chopped fine (about 6 cloves)

juice and zest of one large lemon

Spanish Olive Oil (until it looks right)

Gnocchi package from Trader Joes (with red label)

And, we did some ginger cut-outs with Elsa when she came for a sleepover on Thursday last week. Love the fun decorations!!

First Bentos...

Fairly uninspired for me, but I'm short on time, and it's what they like at the moment, so...

Angry Birds for lunch...

My children adore Angry Birds; Joel got them hooked on the game. And, recently, while looking for back-to-school lunch ideas, I came across the following recipe for Angry Birds bagels (on Babble), that made the kids chuckle with delight.

My salami and bagels weren't close enough to the same size, so I had to alter the design. I also made some yellow birds with slices of cheddar and my round cookie cutter (carrots for noses on the yellow Angry Birds. The eyes on all the birds was Laughing Cow spreadable Swiss cheese (which I also used to stick things on, and to spread the mini-bagels with first).

This lunch-with-friends was a hit, and I think those grouchy birdies had a lot to do with it!

Wordless Wednesday: Sunny Autumn Morning

Wordless Wednesday: Summer Picnic

Wordless Wednesday: Kid Food

Frozen Buttercream Transfer

Aura and Rowan were having a combined birthday party this year, and they both love Transformers. So, ever the pesky friend, I told Miki about this fabulous new thing I'd learned about... the frozen buttercream transfer (FBCT). And, then I found a handy little graphic to use for tracing that included everyone's favorite Autobot, Optimus Prime, and a female Autobot, Elita One. But, since I'm just crazy enough to think that this sort of thing is fun, I went to Miki's last Friday to help her try this new technique.So, armed with a print-out of the image, we prepared buttercream, tinted it the appropriate colors, taped the image to a sturdy plastic cutting board, covered it with plastic wrap, then started tracing.
First, you do the black outline of all the detail, and then you fill in with the colored frosting, filling the image in from front to back. Then, you push the frosting down with a off-set spatula, and even it out, and pop it into the freezer.

When you are ready to use it, you just lay it on top of your frosted cake, and peel the plastic wrap off. Miki did Happy Birthday Aura & Rowan too, and you have to remember to reverse images and text since the image is flipped. There are some great videos on You Tube that demonstrate how to do the FBCT.

Miki did chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, grouped them into a "cake" and frosted with vanilla buttercream, then popped the transfers on (we added colored frosting as background to the letters so they'd be easier to manage). It's a technique I'll be using in the future for sure. I can just see a cake covered in Madeline and Erik's transferred artwork... now that would be cool!

Wordless Wednesday: "Miso Block" Noodles

Baking With Grammy

Making pulla with Grammy is always a good time...

from the kid-sized rolling pin,

to cutting out "Pulla Men" shapes,

to adding golden raisin buttons, eyes, noses and mouths.

Farewell, LOST

In honor of the series finale tonight, we had coconut shrimp, lemon sole, rocket salad with lemon, and mango-pineapple smoothies. And, earlier in the day, I made these:
Yep. I'm a dork. But I'm OK with that. Plus, I was making a gift bag for our buddies who adore LOST and would get a kick out of these. If you want to be a dork too, check out the easy labels and boarding passes right here.

Farmer's Market Magic

I love the Farmer's Market. The variety, color, freshness, beauty, and I get to talk to farmers. That's always fun.
And, then I get to make a salad like this. This is magic salad. 17 different varieties of greens. A simple homemade orange vinaigrette, which means that I can tell the self-proclaimed "salad-hater" in our household that I've found a bunch of awesome new lettuces for him to try to see if he likes any of 'em. Guess what?
He tried. This is huge. Huge, I tell you!
But, did he like?
Yeah!! "These are Awesome!! Look at me, trying new foods. I'm getting to be a big boy. Hey, Mama, I love these new lettuces."
He cleaned his plate, and had seconds on the salad. Like I said, Magic Salad! He devoured the wild mushroom bucatelli, and the melon too.
What does the sister think? "Finally! I told you that salad is awesome, and you finally know!! Thank Goodness!"

Move Over Martha!

Move over Martha, Madeline's in town! I told Miss M to arrange the starfruit (her fave) and strawberries however she wanted on this platter, and here's what she did...

... makes a Mama proud! She's got the eye. And, E's busy sampling the fruit as well...

And, at Grammy's the day prior, M was thrilled to practice her knife skills ala Jamie Oliver!

Erik is always the first to volunteer for sous chef duty, and hopped up to the sink to wash scallions.

A Very Merry Year: March

So, instead of going crazy with holiday baking last year, I decided that it would be much more fun to spread the joy out over the year and gift someone each month (or so) with something lovely from my kitchen.

The third recipient is...

Our friend Jessica, whose birthday was early this month, and who is as sunny and fun as these cookies! We used our Playdough Cookie recipe, and I shaped her name into cookies and a few other cute shapes too, then we "pasted" them onto a card with powdered sugar and water (edible glue) for her birthday card! I used rum extract and vanilla in the dough rather than just vanilla. They were fab (oh, and Madeline also fashioned the planets in dough, which the kids ate themselves. Happy Birthday Jessie Bear!! We love you!

Kitchen In Hand!

A few months ago, I spotted this fabulous tutorial for a roll-up kitchen play mat on the Balancing Everything blog, and immediately thought of my niece Sophia. She has a great play kitchen in her bedroom (that was her mom's when she was little), but a roll-up kitchen would be perfect to take to her dad's house on the weekend. Or leave there on a shelf. Really, she could take it anywhere she wanted... in her bean teepee in the summer even.

So, with her 5th birthday looming in the very near future, I got my trusty helper to assist with construction. He loved it!

To round out the gift, I commissioned my friend Jen to crochet a soup pot and some bowls to go with the kitchen. She did all of the pieces free hand, and they are beautiful. I love the soup kettle. It's perfect! And, being the fabulous gal she is, Jen made some bonus produce as well!

I used wool felt, backed with cotton and hand stitched the kitchen elements to the "counter" with charcoal gray embroidery floss. Oh, I also increased the dimensions of the kitchen to 28" x 13" (before sewing) since I think my printed-out template must have been larger than the original tutorial. My burners are a little more than 5.5" in diameter.

I added a bag of a dozen felt mezzaluna ravioli (or empanadas, wee pastries, or cookies), and re-purposed a Gelatiamo salted caramel gelato pint to hold four brown circular felt bean bags (filled with lentils) that can be scoops of gelato for Sophia's bowls (or cookies, brownies, pies, burgers...) — I was going for general shapes that could easily be something else. If only managing a real kitchen were so easy!

I'll be making more of these for other wee ones for sure!! My kids need one for their playhouse too. Again, the "recipe" for this one is right here. And, if you need a fabulous soup pot, bowls or produce, just contact this gal by leaving a comment on Twist & Loop.

It was just so fun that I had to make one for Gramma too! E helped with this kitchen mat as well, and he preferred the dark blue to the gold of Sophia's. Personally, I love the cotton backing fabric, and the style of the burners which I copied directly from M & E's wooden play kitchen.

Madeline's Choice Bento

Dill tuna salad, cheese Sun Chips, a "really big" carrot, and banana.