A new experiment for dinner tonight- made Vietnamese summer rolls and clafouti.

Vietnamese summer rolls:

My clafouti was half peach and half blueberry.  I got all the fruit at the local farmer's market on Sunday morning.  I can't believe that it is peach season already!  Thus far I guess this counts as 2 different types, the previous try was raspberry lemon (which I felt was a bit too tart).  Next I think it will be pear or strawberry.




Closeup:



BLUEBERRY CLAFOUTI RECIPE from here:
"This recipe can also be made in individual ramekins - see the variation below. Half and half or light cream makes this dessert a bit richer and, in my opinion, a bit better"

INGREDIENTS:

1 pint blueberries, about 12 ounces

3 large eggs

1/3 cup sugar

1 cup whole milk, half and half, or light cream

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Pinch salt

1/2 cup all purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and adjust a rack to upper position. Lightly butter a 9-inch pie dish and arrange berries in an even layer.

Whisk the eggs and sugar in a medium bowl until lemon-colored and slightly thickened, about 1 minute. Add the milk, vanilla and salt and whisk to combine. Sprinkle the flour over the mixture and whisk until smooth. Pour the batter over the berries and bake until puffed and nicely browned around the edges, about 45 to 50 minutes. Once removed from the oven, the clafouti will deflate as it cools. Serve warm with a sprinkling of confectioner's sugar.

Serves 6 to 8.

I am thinking of naming it Cafall.

Friday I made the beginnings of this yummy soup.  I am almost always perfectly happy with nothing but soup for dinner.  This one is no exception, and I found a great recipe here on the Cookography blog which is a modification of a Cook's Illustrated recipe.  I was especially happy because it takes a lot of the active prep time out of this recipe- instead of standing at the stovetop stirring until the cows come home, you use a dutch oven and bake it in the stove.  Yay for easy.  the only thing I would have changed is instead of using canned broth I would have preferred to use up those beef soup bones in my freezer and make a nice rich homemade beef broth.  We got them to make demi glace but since fell by the wayside and bought demiglace instead... perhaps I will make an oxtail soup or something or marrows.  I also think I used over the 4 lbs of onions called for but hey whatever.  It is always amazing to me just how much those onions which originally filled the entire pot cook down!!!

Pics from my flickr:

I somehow managed to delete all the pics off the camera when my computer had to be restarted.  Luckily i had some of the pics on a flash drive, but the rest were... just... GONE kaput patooey.  If there's a cheap and non-spyware way to recover those files, please let me know?

thx!!

~k

Look how cute, you think.  Wait til the 2d picture.

 
Kiba, our tuxedo cat, is our special kitty, as in short-bus kitty.  She does stuff like this all the time.  Certainly she does keep us entertained, but wow.  only about 2/3 of her is actually crammed up on the edge of that desk.  We think she was following the sunny warm spots.  She finds weird places all the time to sleep- like this, on top of the nice warm Playstation3:  Actually this is after we found the bad kitty having finished her snooze on top of the gaming device.  The DH was QUITE unhappy about that.  At least she wasn't on top of the really expensive AV stuff.


And here:  on a random bookshelf.

Suki on the other hand is usually a lot more ladylike.

Today it snowed here.  I really didn't believe that we would get it. 
Looks like back home in NH. 
So pretty and as always, it sounds so still during a snow storm.
I'm glad that I filled the feeder the other day, the birds must be having a terrible time in this unaccustomed snowy weather.

pics here:
www.flickr.com/photos/kitkabbit/sets/72157612811431248/

The DH and I did xmas a bit early.  We ripped open our presents and gloated amid the debris, while the cats watched in fascination.  I should have taken pics of the fang marks Kiba left on my present from Matt and on one of his from me.  That cat must sniff out cardboard somehow since she absolutely MUST gnaw on any cardboard box around. 


Among my loot was the Absolute Sandman #3, a wonderful crocheted scarf from a friend, gorgeous and delicate earrings from my mom, and the piece de resistance--- an envelope with printed reservations for Tony Bourdain's lecture/talk in February at the Durham Performing Arts center.  We have orchestra PIT seats, in the 2d row.  Wow!  The special VIP package also includes entry to a special book signing afterwards.  I'm so excited.  Now I have something to look forward in the 2 months til VDay and birthday week.  It's going to be great.  And tonight i'm off for 3 days.  My feet will thank me.  And I won't have to deal with ACs or PITAs (Annoying Customers aka Pain in the Asses) for a couple days, although the holiday hell won't be over until Jan 15th when people have gotten all their xmas reject and return done. I get to escape retail hell, and we are going to spend xmas up in VA.  Matt and I are going to stay with his brother Mark and wife Teresa, and I will get to meet their new kitties, squeee!  I hope they let me pet them (let enough squeeze them and cuddle them.. I can hope...)

Aside from that.  Those of you who have known me for a long time...  Well in no way is this an exception, XMAS from me will be late (as usual) this year.  I'll be doing my xmas cards, baking, and parcel dispatch after XMAS but before the new year.  So, you will get your stuff... but it will take me a couple days.  Let's just hope I don't bring back kiddy plague from Matt's aunt and uncle's, they have 2 kids... I refuse to be sick this year.  last year was QUITE enough, what with being walking wounded for a month between turkey day and xmas.

FYI, folks, things will be sort of normal around here after christmas, I hope.  I'll try to catch up on LJ entries sometime soon, but I'd expect that to happen in the new year. 

I had to post this picture because seriously look at that face, what a happy dog. his name is remus and he belongs to insheepsclothng .
what a glamour shot, and totally unposed.  i think this is from xmas 2007 or 2006.  continuing our tradition of having our jewish friends come down to visit and decorate our xmas tree.  *laugh*  too bad my mom's new dog isn't quite such a happy friendly lovey dog, unlike remus and my other old dog, Boz, who is full of love and hates the new dog Khaki with a passion.

This shot of remus somehow came out like .
http://www.thedog-clubs.com