sweet potato and chilli soup

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bread recipe with chillies and pancetta

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summer in Tuscany

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hot sauce recipe from Spain, romesco sauce

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hot salsa verde recipe

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Grilled Muffuletta Pizza + Pickled Mustard Seeds

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Blueberry Cream Snow Cones

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Rosemary-Lemon Cookies

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Caramelized Fennel + Corn Gnocchi

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Dried Peach + Tarragon Biscuit Cookies

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peppered pulled pork

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Pulled pork is just stringy pork, slow cooked, this one cooked for around 3 hours at 150 C followed by a slow crisp up on the BBQ. The insides of the pork should be soaked in a marinade of Basque cider, garlic, wild thyme and loads of cracked black pepper and left in fridge for 48 hours.  The skin is painted with a salt water solution prior to cooking.
ingredients
1 suckling pig 10-12kg (serves 10-15)
marinade
1 litre of hard Basque ciderbunch of wild thyme200g cracked black peppersea salt and water
We are serving this with creamy mash potatoes, with some grated raw apple and Parmesan cheese mixed in.

Don't Have Bloody Mary Mix? Make a Card!

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I'm SO excited to have our Virtual Stamp Weekend kickoff tonight and even MORE excited that the first challenge is to be inspired by the band Journey. I LOVE Journey and my entire junior high - er, I mean elementary school - experience is recalled whenever I hear their songs.

So the hostess for this first challenge used Any Way You Want It for her inspiration and I had to use this too because you're not going to BELIEVE how I made my card. You are going to welcome this idea with Open Arms - Don't Stop Believing that! See how I did that? :)

Okay but seriously. So last night I made this AWESOME recipe for crockpot Buffalo chicken lettuce wraps and it called for celery. So after I was all done and cleaning up I noticed that the bottom of the celery bundle that I had whacked off looked JUST like a rose! This is the point where the other NORMALLY gives me the crazy eye, but he had to agree that it did indeed look like a rose. I didn't get the crazy eye until I said I was going to stamp with it.

So I hung on to the little end, which did just fine overnight, by the way, and when I saw this challenge I knew it was meant for my celery butt!!

I just took a Real Red Stampin' Spot and inked it up - it took the ink really well. And you can even see the little dots around the edges!

The greeting is from Sweet Essentials.

Now that, my friends, is a happy accident. Here's the picture of the inked up celery hiney. I apologize for putting your butt on the internet, little celery!


Cool, eh? It looks so beautiful inked up.

Oh, and if you want that bomb-diggety recipe, it is here. I had to add nearly a teaspoon of salt to the dressing. Maybe half a teaspoon to the chicken as well. People leave salt out of recipes a lot these days. Not sure what that's about. But this is crazy delicious and easy and healthy, regardless of what Bloomberg says!

So come play along with us this weekend - who knows what will inspire you!

Loveyameanitbye

Don't Strip Down at Kindergarten Graduation and Other Birthday Advice...

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My blog has turned 5 years old this month.

It's a kindergartner!

I should put a little hat on it and do a graduation for it.

Instead, I'll tell you a story about my own kindergarten graduation, which was a complete disaster, and taught me that you should not put yourself in positions where you are in public in your underwear and little else.

Apparently, prior to graduation, we were given instructions to wear a dress on graduation day. Now who in their right mind gives instructions to five year olds? Especially important, you-might-end-up-in-your-undies-in-front-of-strangers type instructions? Well, apparently my school did. And they did not also relay these instructions to my parents, who were slightly older than five and have never, to my knowledge, appeared in their underwear in public.

I, on the other hand...

I wore pants. Because I liked pants. I still like pants. I would not have made it on Little House on the Prairie because I have two lower body attire modes - miniskirts and pants.

So I showed up on graduation day in pants.

However, it was at that time and place CRITICAL that a picture of graduating five year olds include NO GIRLS WEARING PANTS.

Upon discovering that I was about to wreck civilization with my attire, my teacher decides that rather than risk the reputation of the entire state of Texas with my clothed legs, that I should be forced to take my pants OFF and be photographed barelegged in a ridiculously short and ill fitting kindergarten graduation robe. Thank God she averted a crisis by parading me in front of a bunch of strangers wearing basically nothing - a half naked child being SO much less scandalous than a tiny, forgetful girl in pants.

Thanks a lot Mrs. Whoeveryouwere. I'm still scarred by your brilliant decision making skills.

Instead of making my blog strip down to its skivvies, I thought I'd celebrate by hosting a Virtual Stamp Weekend Challenge! My challenge was to be inspired by "Parts Unknown" (after being inspired by a photo in this post - I'm Thankful For) and try a technique you've never tried before.

I chose a technique I saw on Dawn Olchefske's blog where you cut and heat ribbon to make a curly, fluffy flower.

Check out the challenge and the video here - and come play along!

Stamps: Loving Thoughts

Paper: Natural Composition Specialty Paper, Fan Fair DSP,

Ink: Early Espresso

Accessories: Rhinestones, Circles #2 die, Finishing Touches Edgelits, Chocolate Chip Satin Ribbon

Techniques: Heated Ribbon Flower

All I ask is that you please wear pants!

Thank you for being here for the last five years. It's really been a joy to exchange digital fluff with all of you and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Loveyameanitbye.

God's Special Work of Art

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As I told a friend, this week has dragged me through the streets of time as an example to others who think they have mastered their to-do lists. It has been so busy I can't think straight.

But I did find the COOLEST feather on my walk on Tuesday. I find all sorts of feathers every day. I wish I could keep them all, but I always worry that I'll get some kind of crazy bird flu. I swear the one I found was from a hummingbird - it was iridescent green and so beautiful.  Also, it was very teeny.

They are such little works of art, feathers. Our neighbors when I was little had peacocks. They lived in a giant house down the road from our not giant house and their property was huge. And despite the fact that we were just all normal working class people in a regular neighborhood, they had peacocks wandering around.

To me, growing up in a world with horny toads, butterflies the size of your head, tarantulas the size of your head, giant colored and stripey beetles and crawdads wandering the streets, it didn't seem extraordinary that my neighbors had peacocks.

But it does now. I wish one of my current neighbors did. I'd probably sneak over and feed and pat them a LOT.

I played around with my new Fine Feathers set for a VSN challenge as a result of my inspiration. We had to go back in time through our gallery and recreate one of our older cards - shudder - so I picked this "I think I'll stamp every feather in the whole set on this card and then highlight it badly" number. Not sure what I was really thinking about back then.

Anyway, it was a really fun exercise, because you could see over time how your style came out of its shell and made itself known.

I always tell people not to take down their early cards. I think each one of them is part of where you are today, so they should be celebrated as part of your artistic development. Just don't look too long... :)

Stamps: Fine Feathers, Trust God

Paper: Whisper White

Ink: Versamark, Orchid Opulence, Tempting Turquoise, Lucky Limeade, Pacific Point Blue

Accessories: Clear Embossing Powder, Aqua Painter, Heat Gun, Glitter, Spray adhesive

Techniques: Emboss Resist

I hope you have a crafty, peaceful weekend ahead. I feel a fit of organizing coming on.

Loveyameanitbye.

Look - a BOY(d)!

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I had my stampy class today and it was SO much fun. Some new faces, including my team member Melody's husband Boyd!

I told my girls that my stamping classes are the only ones where you get to see a boy. :)

He didn't stamp with us, but he supervised from across the restaurant. Probably embarrassed the entire time at all the giggling and squealing.

I actually had time to have an amazing latte before everyone got there because I employed the hiney distribution method for my setup, which I really liked and will use again. PS - Blogger's spell check is trying to tell me "hiney" isn't a word. Pfffft.

I always have three projects, and my tables seat about six each, so if I have more than 20 people there, then I have more hineys than I have seats. As I am not independently wealthy or a politician, I do not have the resources to have multiples of all of my supplies for class, so I have to get creative with both hineys and stamps.

So today, I split one of the projects - part of the project was done at one table, and a slower, more tedious fussy cutting and embellishing part was done at another table. So I had seats for everyone the whole time and all the hineys were happy. And I had time to have a coffee.

Gotta love a stampy Caturday.

What follows is NOT one of my class cards from today - PSYCH!!! :D

I have some cards from VSN that I haven't posted yet and I wanted to catch up before my SUPER FUN amazing live coverage starts for convention. Are you going to tune in?

Stamps: The Open Sea, Loving ThoughtsPaper: Fan Fair DSP, Crumb Cake, First Edition DSPInk: Basic BlackAccessories: White Gel Pen, Faceted buttons, linen thread, corner rounder

You know I always have adventures, prizes and general craziness for you, so get ready! Just one week and two wakeups now!

Loveyameanitbye.

pasta with scotch bonnet pepper and sea urchin roe sauce.

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Pasta with scotch bonnet pepper and sea urchin sauce.This sauce works wellwith spaghetti and grated Parmesan, the sea urchin roe is deliciouswith a shellfish flavour similar to crab or lobster, it is common inSpain, though a little pricey, it`s flavour is unique. Care should betaken not to overcook this dish. The creme fraiche softens the impact of the peppers. If you dont have fish stock, then you need to make some.I wont spell out how to cook spaghetti.

25g unsalted butter4 shallots, chopped200ml white wine200ml fish stock 1 tbsp Sea Urchin Roe2 scotch bonnet peppers200ml crème fraichebunch of chives choppedbunch of chervil torn

Method

• Melt the butter, add the shallots and cook for 2 minutes until golden, then stir in the wine. Allow to reduce for 5 minutes . Stir in the fish stock, then lower the heat and stir in the chopped scotch bonnets and cream. Simmer gently for 1-2 minutes until slightly thickened, then stir in the sea urchin roes, chives and chervil.
• This particular brand does not require cooking, the roe can be eaten raw when fresh.
• Sprinkle with Parmesan and squeeze of lemon

tapenade recipe

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This is afavourite from Provence, this particular recipe was inspired by ameal in Grimaud in the south of France. A beautiful walled village inthe hills above Saint Tropez, or Sans Trop as it's knownlocally. I spent a very pleasant summer here working ocassionaljaunts on a Sunseeker motor yacht. To be honest the yacht rarely madeit past the bay. The best thing here was the bread, baguettes bakedin the morning and then again around five. So you were never very farfrom a croissant or baguette.Of coursethe scotch bonnets were not part of the original recipe but in combination with the anchovies are delicious, when youchop the chillies leave them to sit in the lemon juice for extrazing. There is nosalt as none is required. Salted anchovies are best for this recipe,be sure to rinse well.You could serve this on toasted croutons or it is works well with spaghetti.(spaghetti is a recurring theme throughout this blog)

100ml extravirgin olive oil10 anchovyfillets1 clovegarlic100g goodquality black olives30g rinsedcapers 2 scotchbonnet peppersjuice of onelemonbunch offlat parsleytwist ofblack pepper

1. Finely chop the olives, anchovy fillets, capers, parsley, garlic and scotch bonnets.
2. At this point you could mix the items with the olive and lemon and have a rough olive salsa..
3. For a more authentic smoother paste add the chopped ingredients to a mortar with the lemon juice and olive oil and grind until smooth.
4. Avoid the temptation to electrically blend together, this will affect the final taste.

fish soup recipe #2

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1 kg fresh mussels (cleaned)1 hen crab 300 g fresh hake (with bones)100 ml Noilly Prat100 ml white wine or dry cider for cooking themussels500 ml fish stock, made with crab shells, fishbones and smoked pork rib (available form Portuguese deli)1 kg fresh tomatoes, slow baked and sieved1 bunch flat parsley5 cloves garlic5 shallotsbay leafsaffron strands1 star anise1 celery stick peeled and diced1 bulb of fennel peeled and cubed





This fish soup is based on many variations I havecome across throughout Europe. Primarily it could be compared to aBouillabaisse. It could also be compared to fish soup in Vigo and San Sebastian. In Vigo chopped boiled egg is added to the final soup.
Chopped cuttlefish are also a good addition or even squid.The stock is based on fish stock used to makepaella in Valencia.Youcould add prawns to this dish, the shells make good stock.It will take a day to make but is worth theeffort.

•  The crab should be cooked for 20 mins, allowed to cool, themeat picked and refrigerate, the crab shells are roasted slightlywith the fennel skins and pork rib.

This is the first component of the stock.

• Cook the mussels using white wine and garlic,remove from shells, add the cooking juices to the stock. Place pickedmussels in fridge.
• Gently fry shallots, celery, garlic and parsleystalks, add Noilly prat, star anise and bay leaf then add remainingstock items, water and simmer gently for 45 mins.
• When the stock has cooked pass through very finesieve to remove all shells and bones.

• At this point the hake can be added with thesieved tomato sauce and gently simmered, sprinkle in 6 strands ofsaffron, then add the cubed roasted fennel, as the hake begins to cookadd the remaining mussels and crab meat.
• Sprinkle in chopped parsley. Remove from heat.

Serve with corn bread or sour dough and a reallycheap, cold vinho verde or even an albarino from across the border.

chilli chicken recipe

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spicy teriyaki chickenEveryone loves teriyaki chicken, this version combines with hot sauce to make a hot glazed chicken. The marinade is very simple and only needs 30 minutes to flavour the chicken.  

4 chicken breasts100 ml Japanese* soy sauce100 ml mirin or dry sherry50 ml Papa Djabs Black Label1 garlic clove1 small chunk fresh ginger1 tsp of dark sesame oil2 spring onions

• Cut the chicken breasts into roughly equal 1 cm cubes.
• Grate the ginger and garlic on a fine grater (micro plane)
• Mix together the soy sauce, mirin, hot sauce, sesame oil, garlic and ginger
• Add the chicken to the mix and marinade for around 30 minutes.
• To cook, simply place the chicken and marinade into a thick bottomed pan and slowly bring to a simmer, as the chicken begins to cook the marinade will thicken and form a sticky glaze on the chicken. There is no need to sear the chicken in oil before cooking as browning occurs anyway.

Serve with finely sliced spring onions.

*we prefer aged Japanese soy sauce as the flavour is smooth and less salty than Chinese soy sauce.

sambal, the fresh and lovely but unknown chilli condiment

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Writing chilli related blogsand articles I have been asked to write a guest post about an Indonesiancondiment that is used a lot in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Malay, Suriname andsome more countries.Sambal or theidea to it has been born in Indonesia, Java and Malay and is originally used asa condiment so people can make their food as hot as they wanted. This use wasdiscovered by the Dutch, imported to Holland and spread through other coloniesas Suriname. I think that making sambal is one of the purest of uses forchillies, as the sambal contains over 75% chillies normally. My own sambals aremore like 90-95% chillies, using some ingredients to enhance the flavour or thesmell of the chilli used. So other ingredients used in sambal, are there tocomplement the chilli not to overrule or even co exist no, they are there tocomplement the chilli., celebrating the chilli as a fruit, making it a reallystrong and potent condiment. Sambal also isused to marinade meats, about half a day before roasting or frying.



Fresh Cayenne

There are two main groupsof Sambal (Javanese) Sambel (Indonesian), raw called “mentah” and cooked called“matang”, the raw one is hotter most of the time.

The base of Sambal is ground chilli or chilli paste, made with a stone mortar from the complete chilli, If you want to make it slightly milder, take out some seed lists and some seeds.
I have one to but more often use it to make herb pastes called boemboes. I moreoften make it in a kitchen machine, and that is fast and easy. This paste I useeither as a base if I want to make either raw or cooked Sambal. Depending howhot you want to have it, you use a chilli that you prefer. But keep in mind thatSambal is not diluted with a lot of ingredients, so you will get one or morechillies in just one teaspoon of sambal. Traditionally used chillies for Sambalare: Lombok, Rawit or Bird chilli and Rocoto. There is even a sambal made of a chilli thatclosely resembles the Naga chilli, packing almost the same heat.


Bird pepper or chilli Let’s do some recipes!


Sambal Oelek, the basic raw“mentah” sambal:
1 teaspoon of salt
10 chillies.
Grind the chillies with the salt, and you areready!Now that is a fast recipe.


My own basic Sambal Mentah


1 teaspoon of salt
1.5 teaspoon of olive oil
1 clove of garlic
15 red chillies ( Rawitt or Cayenne )
4-5 drops of lime juice


Grind the garlic with saltand chillies, when it is a smooth paste add the olive oil stirring it then stir4-5 drops of lime juice through it until you just about smell the lime. This afantastic vibrant and fresh Sambal that will keep for more than a week in thefridge. 




Original Indonesian mortar  






Sambal Badjak  cookedcalled “matang” Sambal
 
10 chilies (rawitt)
2 red onions, or 5 shallots
5 cloves of garlic
A teaspoon small piece oftrassi (firm paste of fermented shrimp)
5 candlenuts*
1-2 teaspoons tamarindconcentrate or
2-3 tablespoons of tamarindwater
Half a teaspoon of groundgalangal
3 tablespoons of oil
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of soft brownsugar
2 kaffir lime leaves
125 g (4 oz) creamedcoconut dissolved in 250 ml hot water


Grind the chilies in aprocessor with the trassi, garlic, tamarind, galangal and candlenuts to a
smooth paste,
Then add the onions orshallots keeping them in bigger pieces, not to get a puree of it all.
Heat the oil and fry thepaste for a few minutes, then add the remaining ingredients and cook gently for15-20 minutes, until the mixture thickens.
Cool, and store in a jar inthe refrigerator, it’ll keep good for several weeks.


Now even though the tasteis amazing, this also is one simple and fast recipe. Sambal Oelek


I hope you enjoyed theread, and start making Sambal!


yours truly,

Bart J. Meijer

http://twitter.com/BartJMeijer



*candlenut = candle nut = kemiri = country walnut = buah keras    Notes:   Candlenuts must be cooked before eating, since they're highly toxic when raw.  Ground candlenuts are often used to thicken Malaysian and Indonesian curries. They're so oily that natives string them together and use them as candles. Look for them in Southeast Asian markets.  Substitutes: macadamia nuts 

So, I Bought These Socks....

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You know how the road to hell is paved with good intentions and all that?
Well, I bought these socks. 
Let me back up. I'm angry at all my socks. 
I walk about 100 miles per week. 
And for about 90 of those miles, my terrible ankle socks are slipping off my ankle and down underneath my heel in a big knot that makes me stabby. No matter what brand I've bought over the last few years, after a few washings, they all turn into the amazing disappearing sock. It's maddening.
The ones that don't slide go too high up on my ankle so that my weird tan lines are even weirder. What happened to good elastic/lycra/whatever that kept your sock on your foot? Probably the same thing that happened to cotton shoelaces that stayed tied and leaded gasoline. 
I ordered some new socks on Amazon last week - Nike socks - and I received them and they looked great. They were all bound together with that little plastic stick thingy, so I just broke that sucker and threw them all in the washer without looking at them. 
Then I tossed them in the dryer.
Then I realized my horrific mistake.
When I opened the dryer, I happily picked out Nike sock #1 with a pink swoosh. Then I reached for Nike sock #2.
OMG.
It had a blue swoosh.
I HAD PURCHASED SIX PAIRS OF SOCKS DESIGNED TO GO THEIR MISMATCHED SOCK WAYS BY DESIGN.
WHYYYYYY? Why not just make them all the same color so that if I had two socks on I was good to go? Why must you complicate my already complicated laundry/sock mismatched life with this wrinkle? Why do you hate me, sock people?
Socks should be two by two, no matter what.
Like on the ark. Designer: Lydia FiedlerStamps: Two by Two, Itty Bitty BannersPaper: Whisper White, Fan Fair DSPInk: MementoTouch Markers: bg3 bg5 y36 br101 B182 bg178 R4 f124 b63 yr23 y34Accessories: Bitty Banners Framelits, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter, Two Way Glue, Poppy Parade Ribbon
I made this card for both a VSN challenge and for the Touch Twin Color Challenge - I focused on the aqua, of course. 
I love this sweet new stamp and the banners and matching framelit. I had SO much fun coloring this and adding a teeny bit of glitter. 
So nice to play with things that match. That have a natural pair. Unlike my new socks. 
Oh. PS - I really like the socks. But if you see someone with a pink swoosh and a blue swoosh, please just politely look away. 
Loveyameanitbye.