Kung Hee Fat Choy!

happy chinese new year and valentines day! i don't usually post about things that i haven't actually made myself, but my aunty wanda made these cookies the other day that were too hard to resist. she was inspired by this article in the honolulu advertiser about the tradition of almond cookies for chinese new year. it turns out it's an americanized cookie - traditional chinese nut cookies were made out of walnuts - but i'm grateful for the switch, since walnuts make my tongue swell. inspired by the morning newspaper, and taking advantage of her newly-retired lifestyle, she called my aunty billie - popsie's sister, for her masterful almond cookie-making tips. included in the expert tips is:

• you HAVE to use crisco. yep. you can't make crispy almond cookies without crisco. so take a deep breath and get over it.
• you should HANDLE them. i always assumed handling the cookie dough too much would make the cookies tough, like pie crust, but it turns out you should roll these cookies between your palms at least ten times each, till you can feel them change texture. 
• to make them all uniformly flat, you ball them onto the cookie sheet and then drape a dish towel over them all and use a rolling pin or drinking glass to flatten them all at once. this also gives them a nice waffle texture. 

these cookies are awesome. here's the recipe aunty wanda used, courtesy of the honolulu advertiser:

Brenda Leong's Almond Cookies

• 1 cup butter-flavored solid shortening (she uses Crisco)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 large egg at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon almond extract
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• Red food coloring blanched almonds.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Using an electric mixer (preferably a hands-free stand mixer), cream shortening and sugar very well. Add egg and almond extract and cream again until built up and smooth. Mix together flour, baking soda and salt and gradually add to batter while mixing. Form and decorate cookies with food coloring or almonds on ungreased cookie sheet. These cookies spread. Be sure to place them 3 inches apart. Bake at 325 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

Makes about 30 cookies.
 

the brilliant innovation that aunty wanda put on these cookies is the heart stamp. chinese almond cookies traditionally have a red dot in the middle, and since it's also valentine's day today she made the red stamp into a heart by carving the end of a carrot and dipping it in food coloring. genius!
happy year of the tiger, everyone!

holiday obsession: cranberries

this year's holiday theme for me has been cranberries. from cooking to crafting to fashion, i'm obsessed with the little buggers and their delightful color.
it started with cranberry relish. well, truth be told it started with a sale on cranberries at the korean market. but then that led to my favorite holiday dish - one that always has people asking for the recipe, so i'll give it to you now. it's the easiest dish to prepare for a big payoff in taste and compliments.

CRANBERRY RELISH
2 cups washed raw cranberries
2 peeled and cored apples (tart kind)
1 large, whole (as in peel and everything) seedless orange, cut into sections
1/3 to 1/2 jalepeno (veined and seeded), chopped fine
1/4 (or more to taste) cup sugar

fill a bowl with cold water and your cranberries - if you're buying a bag you'll have a little left over once you use two cups. wash them around and pick out any soft or wrinkled ones. then you're basically going to add all the fruit chunks above into a food processor - this is way better if you have one of those old school meat grinders and then you can feed everything through that and when you crank it the cranberries make a really satisfying popping sound. if you're using the food processor method you can pulse them until they're chopped into smaller chunks, but you want to be careful not to overblend, otherwise it'll just be mushy - you want the fruits to still maintain their structure. i find it works best for my little cuisinart to do it in batches. when you've chopped up all the fruit you sprinkle the sugar on and mix it around, then let it sit at room temperature for 45 minutes so the sugar melts (this makes a big difference), and then you can keep in in the fridge after that. we started adding jalepeno last year and i love the way it opens up the flavors with a little kick without being noticibly hot.
so there was that.
and then we still had a couple bags of cranberries, so i decided to freeze them. while i was considering what to do with frozen cranberries i made about 5 batches of these viennese crescent (aka russian tea cake, aka mexican wedding) cookies. i use pecans because walnuts make my tongue swell up, but if you can handle walnuts they're a cheaper alternative. this recipe comes from my mom:

CRESCENT COOKIES
½ pound butter
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
1 cup ground nuts (walnuts, pecans, etc)
1 teaspoon vanilla
powdered sugar for rolling

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.  Cream the butter, then add the granulated sugar, flour, nuts and vanilla and mix thoroughly.  Shape with your fingers into delicate crescents, about 2 inches long and ½ inch wide and thick.  Roll them in the confectioners’ sugar and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for about 30 minutes, until just faintly browned.  Cool, then roll in more confectioners’ sugar before serving.


one thing i noticed in my many iterations of this recipe over the course of the week before christmas (we consumed a lot of butter and nuts!) was that i really prefer sweet cream butter in this recipe over unsalted. in fact, i added a sprinkle of salt in with the powdered sugar in that batch to compensate for the lack of saltiness.

these cookies are crazy good. i recommend making them for a party so that you don't just eat them all week and then make more when you run out. ahem.
just to satisfy my cranberry craving, i served the cookies with a little cranberry centerpiece and a few springs of thyme for holiday cheer.
we also discovered that frozen cranberries are a nice compliment to a glass of champagne - and if you muddle them up a bit they turn your toasting glass a nice shade of pink.

and finally, on christmas i had a craving for truffles, and - you guessed it - cranberries. so i followed this basic recipe for bittersweet chocholate ganache truffles, and then added chopped frozen cranberries to the ganache and rolled them around in cocoa powder and nibs with a little salt. they're spectacular. a little on the goey side because i think the cranberries added too much liquid to the mixture, but they hold their shape and the bittersweet chocolate and tartness of the berries goes really nicely together.

to top it off, i've been eyeing this sleaveless turtleneck sweater for a while that i'd gotten from someone and had in the "might be useful for future craft project" bin - and its cranberry color spoke to me recently. i had seen this tutorial on turning old sweaters into a shrug (or "caplet" as they call it), and i'm really into drapey shawls and shrugs these days, so i tried it out with the cranberry sweater.
you basically turn the sweater sideways, pick out the side seams so it opens on the top and bottom, and then cut off the top (and bottom, depending on the sweater) and sew those together. it worked like a charm. i had to pick up the stitches on the top when i cut off from the sleaves and neck portion of the sweater because it's such a chunky knit, but then I stiched it together, and also stitched the bottom of the sweater (where it's ribbed) together and then gathered it for a little flair. i'm really excited about this shrug right now. hannah and i got our nails done the other day and i later realized i'd chosen a sparkle cranberry color, so going out tonight for new years eve is going to continue the theme: cranberry and cocktail dress, here i come!

venturing into the world of business crafting

i'm trying out something new here at cultivating domesticity:
mass production.
we've been busy little bees cooking up a plan to make my crafting endeavors profitable, and working long hours in what marty lovingly refers to as "the sweatshop."

my thing has always kinda been about trying out new ideas, patterns, recipes - i'm excited by experimentation. but i've been realizing i'm lacking the second half of that process, refining and perfecting.
i noticed this around thanksgiving meal planning this year. thanksgiving is one of those times when people love to indulge in the tried and true classics, and it's an opportunity to showcase your best recipes. as much as i love to cook, i don't have any best recipes. i found myself scouring the internet for tasty-looking ideas for new things to make for thanksgiving, and it made me realize that i haven't settled in on any recipes long enough to develop any standard go-to dishes.

so for the new year my intentions are to balance new experimentation with refining and perfecting some good ones.

same with crafting. i'm constantly making one-offs based on new ideas and methods i want to try out. as much fun as that is, it's not a way to make money. and i've been ruminating on how to make my crafting time profitable. a couple of ideas have come up: one is starting an etsy shop. the other is selling at craft fairs. it just so happens that there's a craft fair coming up here in oakland, and it's going to be held at our friends' brand new nightclub, the new parrish. it's the perfect spot for our foray into the business craft world. cultivating domesticity will be there.

and thinking about marketing my crafts has started all kinds of ideas around branding "cultivating domesticity:" developing a logo for business cards, tags, and website - notice we now own the domain www.cultivatingdomesticity.com (thanks early santa!). marty's helping me think through design and the intentions behind the brand, so stay tuned for more on that as it develops.

the one thing i make that i've been working on perfecting for a couple years now is the measuring tape wallet. i made myself a wallet out of measuring tapes a while ago, and the checkout counter interest in that wallet is through the roof. i have been kicking myself on a regular basis that i don't just make extras and carry them in my purse because i could probably sell at least one a week just responding to people's interest.

but i've been working on perfecting the design. my original design involved a snap grommeted right into the measuring tape itself, and the constant pressure of snapping/unsnapping everyday eventually wears out the measuring tape material. i've tried several prototypes over the past few months employing different methods of strengthening the snap area, but with marty's help we finally just solved the problem: velcro. now with confidence in the long-term durability of these wallets we're putting them into full effect.

so back to the sweatshop. 
this is the perfect craft fair to showcase cultivating domesticity, but the timing is a little tight. we just got back last week from hawai'i, and i'm in the process of ending one job and starting another, so it's been long hours in the studio with lots of help from friends and family. mom came down this weekend for thanksgiving, with the understanding that she'd need to put in some hours in the sweatshop if she wanted any turkey. thanks to her speedy and steady work we've got all the measuring tapes cut and prepped for wallets, plus a bunch of dragonfly fabric cut for pufferfish pouches.

marty has become the resident expert on fusing plastic bags. we'll devote a separate blog post to the process of recycling plastic bags into water-resistant pouches, it deserves it's own spotlight. suffice it to say right now that marty has developed several new innovations on the technique that ratchet the quality and aesthetic of the product up several notches.

i've been experimenting with several different shapes and sizes of pouch, some small enough for sunglasses and sewing accessories, others big enough for cosmetics and toiletries. i love the structure and puffiness that the fused plastic provides these bags; adding a fused plastic layer to the pufferfish pouch, along with twill tape tabs to help with the zippers has made a great bag way better.

so here's your sneak peek at what we'll be offering at this year's feria urbana craft fair this thursday, december 3rd from 6-10pm at the new parrish.
if you're in the area: come through to support and enjoy music, drinks, food, crafts, and good company.
if you're not in the area but are thinking about holiday gifts, hit me up at cultivatingdomesticity@gmail.com - i'm taking orders!

the pufferfish pouch - happy birthday to ali

last weekend was my little sister, aliana's 9th birthday. she went zip-lining with my dad. i'm so jealous and bummed i couldn't be there to celebrate with them in person. but i did celebrate her birthday by making a few crafty goodies to send her way (and calling to wake her up on the big day at 6am - not knowing she had the week off of school - oops).

i found this pattern for what marty has aptly named "the pufferfish pouch." it's a super cute boxy zippered pouch for keeping your goodies, and fast to whip up once you have the hang of it.

i included in the pouch one of my coveted measuring tape wallets. i started making these about a year ago and checkout ladies all over the bay have been wanting to purchase them. i'm perfecting the design before i start mass producing them, but i think if i ever get around to starting an etsy page this will be my first item of sale. my problem with making business out of my crafts is that i never want to make a lot of one thing - i just want to try out new ideas all the time. but that's no way to make money. so stay tuned for a possible craft business starting in the near future.
finally, i made ali a button bracelet - hey, why don't we wear buttons as jewelry more often? there are some great buttons out there. it's been a while since i've made any kind of jewelry, so i hope my techniques will hold up to the test of time and gradeschool pressure.

i sure miss being around for family time - i'm looking forward to a visit soon.

bacon and bubbles at the beach... plus a surprise

last weekend was my birthday. and sele's - we're birthday twins. we decided to celebrate our lives with two of our favorite things - bacon and champagne. it was a great party.  good friends with blankets in the sun, eating bacon and drinking champagne - what more could you ask for?

i had to scale back my ambitions for making bacon treats for the party - so i wouldn't spend the whole day fussing in the kitchen and get out to enjoy myself.  i had a few ideas of bacon dishes i wanted to try, and a lot more that didn't get made.
included in the things that didn't get made are:
bacon truffles
peanut butter bacon cookies
bacon rice crispies
bacon jam
bacon (as in, making it yourself...another time)

i found this recipe for bacon pops: basically goat cheese balls rolled in crumbled bacon, pecans and herbs - and i love all those things, so that was definitely on the menu. it didn't exactly turn out the way i expected - the bacon and pecan mixture didn't so much crumble as it did melt into a kind of sticky, chunky butter, and i didn't feel like sticking lollipop sticks in them, so they were a little mushy - but really, with those ingredients it was bound to taste good.  serving with slices of apple was a good move - as there's only so much bacon and cheese one can eat before needing a pallet cleanser.

i had intended to make bacon-wrapped cherries, which seemed like a wonderful combination of sweet and savory, but i guess cherries are out of season now - so i returned to the classic bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with more of the goat cheese-herb filling.  very tasty, though i have to say aryn brought bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with gorgonzola, and i think gorgonzola is much tastier in that dish.

sele made bacon waffles that she filled with dulce de leche ice cream in a kind of choco taco-like effect.  awesome. 

sele also contributed the best bacon-themed gift:

yes, that's bacon lip balm.  it's an experience that really can't be described.  you'll just have to try it.  don't worry, it's vegan and kosher.

 

marty and i were enamored with these mimosas we had recently at our friends hannah and win's wedding that included a splash of port, so we recreated those for the party.  these were a huge hit - though i can't tell you how many times we had the conversation:

"it's a mimosa - with port,"

"what?! there's PORK in here?"

i guess that's what you can expect when you're having a bacon and champagne party.

and then, toward the end of the party came one of the biggest suprises of my life...

it went something like this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

i said "yeah."

cake for breakfast

i figure the best thing about birthdays is that you get to eat cake for breakfast.
we were celebrating my mom's 58th birthday this weekend. she came down from mt. shasta for a visit which included walking on the beach at point reyes - lovely although it's suddenly winter again here in the bay, a goat roast at our friends' new club downtown (what birthday would be complete without a goat roast?), and we did a storycorps interview together in san francisco.


we started her birthday off right with cake for breakfast. every week for months we have been getting a bag of carrots in our csa box from terra firma farm. they are the best, sweetest carrots in the world. but a person can only eat so many carrots. so we have an entire refrigerator drawer full of carrots. i came across a recipe for carrot cake a few weeks ago that my mom had sent me, and i remembered she really likes carrot cake, so i've been planning to use up some of those carrots in this recipe. then i found this recipe from smitten kitchen for carrot cake - so i sort of blended the two recipes together. i like everything that has ever come out of smitten kitchen, so i used that as a base in this cake and added a few extras: toasted pecans (since walnuts make my tongue swell), dried craisins (because i can't stand raisins - as they say in benny and joon, they're like humiliated grapes), a little shredded coconut, and i meant to add some crushed pineapple, but forgot about it until after i'd put the cakes in the oven so that will have to wait till next time.
as smitten kitchen points out, the best part about carrot cake is the cream cheese frosting. she added some maple syrup to her frosting, which i did as well, but then i thought it could use a little extra kick so i grated some fresh ginger in there too. that was a big hit. it sparks the pallet enough to be raise questions but is subtle enough that it's hard to put your finger on.
and here's one of my best kitchen tips ever, learned from my friend rachel's chef friend: keep your ginger in the freezer. it makes it waaaay easier to grate. you'll be amazed. i love fresh ginger, but i hate all the muscle you have to put into grating it - this makes all the difference, plus ginger snowflakes are pretty delightful.
so we're now eating carrot cake at every meal because, well, it's a vegetable right?

love day cooking

valentines day was a week ago, but if you're like me you're always looking for ideas to store away for next valentines day, so i thought i'd share the menu from our meal. we decided to stay in and cook at home this year - i think the hype around going out to dinner for valentines is crazy and i wanted no part of that. but i did want to celebrate the day by trying out some new recipes.

oven grilled flank steak - recipe from nytimes food blog bitten. this is a great and easy way to get the outsides of your steak nice and singed on the stove and then cooked in the oven. plus i always like a dish in a cast iron pan that doesn't need to dirty extra dishes. i especially like the part of the recipe that says, "when the smoke becomes intolerable, take it off the stove" that didn't happen, but i prepped myself to detach the smoke alarm in case it did.


here are the steaks smothered in carmelized shallots.


and we made a trip over to the fish market in rockridge to buy fresh scallops, which i marinaded for a moment in a passionfruit, lavender, maple, sesame oil sauce and then seared on the stove.


sauteed broccoli & collards with bacon.


smashed potatoes - of all the things on the table that night, these definitely were the most discussed, as in "i only want to eat potatoes like this for the rest of my life." more on that later.


and finally, i attempted a molten chocolate souffle, recipe from bitten again. i was skeptical of the short baking time, so i left them in there a little longer which kind of ruined the molten effect, but they were still tasty. especially with homemade whipped cream. and i'm a fan of anything you can make in a rammekin.

so the "smashed potatoes" recipe comes from pioneer woman, via veganyumyum. they call them "crash potatoes," but i like my name better - i think it's more accurate and it's a reference to a phrase i used to say as a child every time i came to the top of an escalator. not sure what that was about... ah, kids.
they are really everything that's good about potatoes: they have the crispiness of homefries, the tenderness of mashed potatoes, and the nutrious skins still on like baked potatoes. plus they're way healthier than the way i make mashed potatoes because they only have olive oil and spices drizzled on them. fabulous.


so the idea is: you boil the potatoes whole (i used the pressure cooker for the first time with potatoes and it worked great in 10 mins), then you lay them on a baking sheet and cut a little "x" on the top of them to help them smash more gracefully. then you take your potato masher (or a fork) and smash them. then drizzle them with olive oil and spices - in this case i used rosemary, salt, a little lavendar,black pepper, and a little crushed red pepper - just because it was valentines day and i felt like we should have the color. then you bake them in a hot oven (450 degrees) for about 20 mins or as long as they are still getting crispy and not burnt.


here's my little romantic decorative craft project, thanks to mayamade for the inspiration. i cut out heart shapes from brown paper bags and then sewed them into strings using a running basting stitch on the sewing machine, which was really fun.

thanks to sele for the food photo documentation.