Wildlife Twofer Day

While swimming this morning I spotted my old friend, the Pileated Woodpecker at work on the huge bare oak visible from the pool's arched North window. Pileated Woodpeckers are HUGE, a raven-and-a-half or two robins at least. With no leaves out, the red and while head is easily visible climbing up and down and around the tree.

After a mostly-wasted day in yet another 'management workshop' I walked to the Co-op for fresh leeks and spotted - for sure - a muskrat. I thought muskrats only lived in the Great North Woods but it certainly was a muskrat. Pretty soon they will be frying them up in chruch halls through

Wildlife Twofer

While swimming this morning I spotted the Pileated Woodpecker that

ravioli for dinner

I made a batch of pasta today, one and a half cups each of all-purpose and semolina flours to four and a half eggs. Half of it I rolled out and made up into ravioli, the first time I have done so. It was pretty tasty, but Jim told me that he doesn't care for blue cheese, which it did contain. You'd think I'd have learned that more than two months before our 33RD anniversary.

My ravioli didn't look as nice as those pictured. Some were downright lumpy. I served them in Roasted Garlic broth with slivers of Roast Pork (from Saturday).

I used the dough hook on my mixer to make the pasta dough and it was quick and efficient. While it looks cool to whip this stuff together by hand on a bread board I think I'll use the mixer in the future.

Please excuse me. I need to go roll out the second half of the pasta now - and freeze it.

Chinese New Year

Tomorrow is New Year's Day for Chinese and those who celebrate the Lunar New Year - so if I was Chinese, I'd stay home today and stuff scores of dumplings for soup. Then I'd have lots of relatives over at midnight to eat the soup.

But - being who I am, I had to work at the library until 8PM, which doesn't leave a lot of time for dumpling-stuffing.

I'm also not Chinese, of course, and haven't got a lot of mobile relatives to gather to my bosom but I did flash on a Twenty-First Century maneuver for New Year's Dumpling Soup in a flash.

I microwaved a bag of veggie dumplings (mine were from Trader Joe - in some places they are called Mandoo) and carefully floated/sank them in 3 pints of canned chicken broth, then warmed up the whole shebang to just below boiling.

I flavored it with a little white pepper, but if I had had some sherry or yellow wine on hand I'd have added a ounce of that.

For dipping sauce I use mostly soy sauce with a little flavored rice vinegar (sushi vinegar) and even less toasted sesame oil for the base. I added a few drops of red pepper oil and one small, super-hot dried pepper crumbled into a portion (about and ounce) and a crushed clove of garlic to another portion. Hey, presto, three dip sauces!

Happy New Year, Spring Festival, or etcetera.

The Further Adventures of Onion Soup

This is the all-important rich brown crust that develops after caramelizing the onions.

Tastes SO good!

And the final product; rich and savory french onion soup.

Don't forget to cool the bowls after you remove them from the broiler. You WILL enjoy this!

Onion Soup on a cold Saturday

I encountered this Onion Soup recipe in a DVD by America's Test Kitchen.

Three pounds of sliced onions on the left. Onions cooking down on the right.

French Onion Soup Gratinee

Tie the parsley and thyme sprigs together with kitchen twine so they will be easy to retrieve from the soup pot. Slicing the baguette on the bias will yield slices shaped to fill the mouths of the bowls.

Serves 6 (more at my house)

2 tablespoons unsalted butter
5 medium red onions (about 3 pounds), sliced thin
Table salt
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth (canned)
1 3/4 cups low-sodium beef broth (canned)
1/4 cup dry red wine
2 sprigs fresh parsley leaves
1 sprig fresh thyme leaves
1 bay leaf
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
Ground black pepper
1 baguette , cut on the bias into 3/4-inch slices (2 slices per serving)
4 1/2 ounces Swiss cheese , sliced 1/16-inch thick
1 1/2 ounces grated Asiago cheese (about 3/4 cup)


1. Melt butter in large soup kettle or Dutch oven over medium-high heat; add sliced onions and 1/2 teaspoon salt and stir to coat onions thoroughly with butter. Cook, stirring frequently, until onions are reduced and syrupy and inside of pot is coated with very deep brown crust, 30 to 35 minutes. Stir in the chicken and beef broths, red wine, parsley, thyme, and bay leaf, scraping pot bottom with wooden spoon to loosen browned bits, and bring to simmer. Simmer to blend flavors, about 20 minutes, and discard herbs. Stir in balsamic vinegar and adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. (Can be cooled to room temperature and refrigerated in airtight container up to 2 days; return to simmer before finishing soup with croutons and cheese).

2. For the Crusts: Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Spread the bread out on a rimmed baking sheet and bake, flipping once, until lightly browned, about 15 minutes. Remove the bread from the oven. Turn the oven to broil.

3. Set heat-safe soup bowls or crocks on rimmed baking sheet and fill each with about 1 1/2 cups soup. Top each bowl with two toasted baguette slices and divide Swiss cheese slices, laying them in a single layer, if possible, on bread. Sprinkle each serving with about 2 tablespoons grated Asiago cheese and broil until well browned and bubbly, 7 to 10 minutes. Cool 5 minutes and serve.

Here are the pictures of 3 lbs. of onions, sliced ($1.99 at Trader Joe) then the red onions cooking down, a very important view of the brown crust, which really does take over half an hour to form and a final picture of the rich brown finished soup. I didn't take one of the bowls ready to serve. We ate them up in about 10 minutes.

Look to the next post for more pictures.

The Long Christmas Dinner

was a play by Thorton Wilder. My Christmas Dinner was a filling meal for 6 people,, with nods to several times and places.

Tea Eggs garnished with Caviar

Herb-Crusted Rack of Lamb

Yorkshire Pudding

Roasted Root Vegetables with Rosemary

Mushroom Risotto

Cold Asparagus with Chinese Flavors

Spicy Tomato Aspic with Cottage Cheese

Old-Fashioned Ambrosia

A Bowl of Smoking Bishop

Jim made the punch, of course and Alyson and Jamie helped with the Ambrosia. My Mom assembled the appetizers and helped me plate the Aspic salad.

The tea eggs and the asparagus are a nod to James' former homeplace, China; and the aspic was something we used to have on every Christmas table in my childhood. I made mine spicy with horseradish and black pepper. It tasted a lot like a Bloody Mary, which was just what I wanted.

Recipes tomorrow. The dishwasher is chugging away with the second post-dinner batch (there were two before dinner also) and dirty dishes still in the sink and on the floor.

The lamb bones have been simmered for stock and Mommo took Ambrosia and Roasted Veggies home. To bed, to bed...snowstorm due tomorrow.