thelarderer

So it’s Sunday. I got my own Sabbath I keep. I pretty much drop out of existence on the weekend. I use Sunday as a way to reset, start clean, and do some work from home. Plan for the week to come in the evening. Sunday is a day to find inspiration. Take a few hours to make breakfast and enjoy a entire pot of coffee. Spend 3 hours with the lil dawg at the park. Sip on rose in the evening. 

Some of things that I have enjoyed this past week: 

Music. So. so. so. into just about anything that sounds completely different than the way it used to be. Bobby Womack. Wow. This man. This man has re-created himself. This song. This song is a testament to staying fresh and finding inspiration even when times are rough. It will just get into your soul. 

DIY. I know it’s so 1999.  It’s Portlandia. “Let’s put a bird on it!”

I am still into it. I do it. I always have and always will. I am obsessed with pallets and right now it seems like everyone else is too. I just always see them sitting on the side of the road and all I see is inspiration, infinite possibilities for great furniture on the cheap.

Artichoke to Za’atar one of my favorite cookbooks. The funny thing is I find when I am running low on foodstuffs in fridge and the cabinet I can open up this cookbook to find a way to use all those artichokes from the garden. Love it!

Txakolina. This wine, oh man, it’s good. This brand is the only one Txakolina I’ve had. The white wine is crisp and refreshing. The rose is acidic, light, and seems to evaporate off your tongue. Best part: Less than $20 bottle. 

I have my weekly blog roll. I follow the breadcrumb trail from one blog to another. This week’s inspiration: A Food Lover’s Journey. Beautiful photography. Lovely details: plates, napkins, and the like. The recipes? Well, I haven’t tried those yet. Purely just inspirational eye candy.

It’s Easter.

It’s amazing outside. I imagine it inspires people. It really does. It went from a kind of cool not quite cold Winter into Summer and just for this weekend back to Spring. 

I am working on getting inspired. 

These ladies and this podcast gets me inspired. I have listened to each and every one of them. It’s so awesome I don’t even remember how we met! It’s just that great. 

Whenever I need to get my head screwed back on right, I listen to this lovable and neurotic guy. Yep. That’s right. Marc Maron helps me sort it all out. It’s important to know when you beat yourself up for the important stuff and when to let it all go. 

I can’t even wait to get this in the mail! It is one of the original ad men that inspired one of my, and I sure everyone else’s, favorite shows: Mad Men. 

This book helped to inspire and make my photography so much better now than it has ever been! I so wanted to attend their conference in Charleston SC this November.

Several months ago, I discovered this blog which is inspiring me to think differently about my photos.  I wish I had the time/could curate scenes like this too!

Unfortunately, I have to say goodbye to this free and wonderful editing site. Because of this bittersweet goodbye I will be puttin’ on my big girl britches and purchasing this software in the near future.

Upcycling inspires me most. I especially love pallets. Just today I found two heavy intact pallets just up the street to help make my ever evolving backyard into even more of an oasis: an outdoor coffee table!

The best things in life really are free. It’s so hippy and old school but it’s true: if you put it out there, imagine something clearly in your mind’s eye you what want to accomplish, it will come. 

What inspires y’all?

So sometimes life kicks you in the teeth. Sometimes it lasts for a week. Sometimes that week of teeth gettin’ kick in spilled over into the next and before you know it, its been almost a month. If you ever find yourself in this funk. This. This bar cookie. This bar cookie was renamed gangsta pop tart. 

It’s a lot of work. It’s not a lot to look at. And it is really, ok, impossible to get out slices of the pan if you make the decision like I did not to use parchment paper. Another tip: cut it into squares about 15 mins out of the oven or when the chevre cream filling starts to set. Really, cutting this bar cookie into squares—this will save your mind and a few spatulas that may or may not bend so far back, break, and then cut your finger. 

Strawberry Gangsta Pop Tart

Crust: 4oz unsalted butter, cold. 5oz dark brown sugar. 5oz AP flour, 3oz finely chopped honey toasted pecans, pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg. Crust method: preheat oven 350.  Bring all these ingredients together until crumbly. Ie. mashable into the your 9x13 baking dish lined with parchment paper where it’s a about 1/4” thick. Bake for 15 mins. 

Filling: 2 pints of strawberries, quartered. 2 tbsp honey. 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar. Method: roast these, yes, I said roast under the broiler for just a few minutes. Grab a bowl and fine mesh strainer. Strain the roasted berries. Reserving the juice, next chuck those berries. Now break out that stand mixer. 10 oz chevre. 2oz sugar, 1 egg, a dash of vanilla, 1 shot of Jack Daniels Honey, and the reserved strawberry juice.  Cream them together. Should be nice and thick, almost as thick as cream cheese but easier to spread.

Topping: 1 pint quartered strawberries. 4 oz toasted coconut flakes.  

So you take your prebaked crust, spread that chevre cream filling, sprinkle the 4oz toasted coconut flakes, and bake at 350 for 20 mins. Once you take it out of the oven, allow it to cool, and pre slice this fabulous bar cookie then take the fresh quartered strawberries and nestle em in that delicious chevre cream filling. 

Your won’t be able to stop: Drunk & Baking. Drunkened baked goods at your fingertips. 

It’s still the weekend. Even with the time change. I wouldn’t have known about the time change had I not been listing to the local radio station yesterday morn. 

On Sundays not only do I go all out for brunch by making everything from scratch, but I am also thinking about ways to make Sunday brunch last all week. Muffins, like Scotch eggs, seem like the easiest way to make Sunday brunch last all week. The ultimate fat snack. They are portable. Densely flavored packed carbs, fruit, and nearly an entire stick of butter. Better yet there’s dark brown sugar paired with Jack Daniels Honey Whiskey. 

 Who wouldn’t love to grab one of those outta the fridge on Monday morn? 

It makes getting up early on Monday morn a little easier. 

(Recipe slightly adapted from Epicurious)

Beat the Monday Bluesberry Muffins

6 TBSP unsalted butter—melted and cool, 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar, 1/2 granulated sugar, 1/2 cup Ryals Whole Milk, 2 TBSP Jack Daniels Honey Whiskey, 1 large egg, 1 1/2 cups AP flour, 1 1/2 TBSP baking powder, 2 oz crystalized ginger-chopped, 1 TSP cinnamon, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 TSP salt, 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries thawed and drained. 2 oz honey toasted pecans, chopped. (y’all can find these at Whole Foods. Seriously, folks I love brunch but I am not up to toasting pecans on a Sunday. Just saying.)

Preheat oven to 350.

You’re gonna need 2 bowls for this one. One for all the dry ingredients and one for all the wet ingredients.

Melt your butter in an oven safe dish while it is preheating.

In one bowl, combine butter, sugars, Ryals milk, JD Honey Whiskey, and egg. If it’s lumpy because you didn’t let the butter melt completely, no worries, put the mixture back in the oven till thoroughly melted. 

In another bowl combine your AP flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Give it a toss a few times just to ensure it mixed well. 

Now. Now y’all combine the wet and dry ingredients. Once the wet and dry ingredients are combine well, gently fold in blueberries and crystalized ginger. 

Scoop the batter into muffin tin. Bake for 8 mins, remove from oven sprinkle with chopped honey toasted pecans and return to oven for 12 more minutes. Allow to cool for 10 mins before scooping these bad boys outta there. 

There you have it! Drunk and Baking: boozy baked goods at your fingertips. 

If y’all had a chance to check out the latest WINO episode then you know we had some pretty tasty eats. Mostly it was the moussaka. oh. and the zombie cheese. If y’all want to get into what we had I have adapted the recipe from Saveur. 

I am not gonna lie. This. This recipe took days. I re-read and re-read the recipe about 3 times. Trying to find a way to make it simpler. Simple, simple was to make it in pieces and parts over a couple of days. 

I made a traditional bechamel sauce and then the day of bringing it all together I slowly reheated the sauce and added in the yogurt. I also didn’t fry the potatoes or eggplant in oil like the original recipe. I dry roasted em under the broiler. 

This will feed a family of four. twice. Or one skinny veggie bitch for a day. What can I say? Once I tasted the final result I was hooked. It’s worth the effort. Phone it in, dial up a friend, share this deliciousness if you can will yourself to.

Moussaka

Bechamel sauce: 6TBSP unsalted butter, 1/2 cup flour, 2 1/4 cup milk, freshly grated nutmeg (just a pinch), 1/2 cup plain greek yogurt, 1 cup grated parmesan (I am fairly certain I used more than that. Oh, and try to use the real deal people. no Kraft. seriously)

• METHOD: melt the butter in a large skillet until it foams and subsides. Gradually add flour creating a roux. Do NOT allow the mixture to brown or take on any color. In another saucepan slowly heat milk and yogurt till it just starts to simmer. Slowly whisk just warmed mixture in saucepan with your roux. Continue whisking until smooth. Season with salt and white pepper. Set sauce aside.

Roast the Vegetables: 1.5 lbs eggplant (one medium large eggplant) and 1 large Russet potato, about a pound. 

• METHOD: slice both the eggplant and potato crosswise, 1/4” thick. Toss the eggplant and potato in olive oil until evenly coated. On a 9x13 baking sheet roast dry roast eggplant under the broiler about 3 minutes, each side. Dry roast the potatoes the same way, takes a little bit longer, 4 to 5 minutes. Set roasted veg aside. 

Meat Sauce: 1-28oz can whole peeled tomatoes undrained, 1/4 cup dried currants. 4 tbsp sherry. 1 lb ground goat. 1 tsp cayenne. 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon. 1/4 tsp allspice. 6 cloves garlic, minced. 2 yellow onion, chopped. 1 bell pepper, finely chopped. 1 poblano pepper, finely chopped. 1 cup red wine. And at this point, go ahead and preheat your oven to 400.

• METHOD: melt a tbsp of bacon grease in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add cayenne, allspice, garlic, cinnamon to the ground goat. Soak currants in sherry for at least 20 mins. Add seasoned meat to skillet and stir constantly until just browned. Remove meat from pan and drain. Wipe pan of any excess oil. Over medium high heat add onion and peppers, stirring occasionally until just soft. Add wine, reduce by half. Add tomatoes, sherry soaked currants, and seasoned meat to the pan. Simmer meat sauce until it is thickened, about 20 mins. Remove from heat and set aside.

Now it’s time to pull it all together. Pull it together! We are so close to heavenly deliciousness!

In a 9x13 baking dish or a 3 quart casserole dish layer potatoes first, followed by eggplant. Seasoning each layer with a little salt and pepper. Slowly pour meat sauce over the layers. Spread meat sauce out evenly. Next, slowly pour bechamel sauce over the meat sauce and you’ll definitely need to spread this out evenly with a rubber spatula. Grate parmesan over the top. Bake until brown and bubbly, about an hour.

That’s it folks. That’s the entire process. I broke this recipe down into chunks without listing ingredients first because well… I didn’t want to scare y’all. It’s a long ingredient list.

The good news is that you probably have 95% of these ingredients in your kitchen already. A random can of tomatoes. Those spices are probably hanging out in the cabinet somewheres. I know y’all got butter and flour. The real effort comes in finding ground goat. If you can’t find goat then use lamb and if you can’t find lamb then use beef, most folks do. Anyway you slice it, there won’t be any of this here, moussaka, left.