Because 2 days is never enough.

You may have noticed that Mindy and I have not be frequently contributors to our blog over the past few months. Mindy has an iron-clad excuse (infant) and I don’t have anything nearly convincing.  This summer, I just wasn’t feeling the urge to make stuff that I generally feel. But, as soon as the weather turned just mildly more crisp, I got the inspiration back.  All I could think all last week was how much I wanted to bake a pie that weekend.

Well, I’m here to tell you that it pays to dream big. My childhood fantasies have all come true and I did, indeed bake a pie. But not just any pie.

The Tartine Cookbook is unparalleled. Pretty pictures, good design, but most of all phenomenal recipes that let me recreate the out of this world sweets at the Tartine Bakery in San Francisco. The secret for the apple nougatine tart is to carmelize the apples in butter and sugar before you put them in the pie.  Not surprisingly, butter and sugar did quite the trick on this pie.

Delicious. And I think I turned a new leaf on craft procrastination. I’m ready to take on the big guns, like the baby quilt that’s basically ready to file neglect charges against me.

Neighbors Project is about mobilizing new generation of people living in cities who are bridging the gap between newer and older residents in our neighborhoods. The Neighbors Project disseminates tools, technical support, and inspiration to help this happen. My friend Kit is the CEO and my friend Jeffery is the President of the Board.

One neighborly project of the Neighbors Project is the Food and Liquors project, which is based in Chicago and is working to encourage neighborhood bodegas to sell more fresh produce and neighbors to shop there more. As a fundraiser, the organization put together the Bodega Party in a Box kit, which includes, among other nifty treats, a cookbook with recipes from food bloggers around the country.

As I mentioned, I’ve got friends in high places at the Neighbors Project. Hence, I’m a “food blogger from around the country” now. And, if it weren’t exciting enough to be published in this great looking 44-page book, I’m also in Conde Nast Traveler online.

Check out the Neighbors Project and order your Bodega Party in a Box now!

And… as seen in Conde Nast Traveler online:

Banana Bread Pudding
by Jessica Arnold of 3DayWeekend
Clinton Hill, Brooklyn

In order to make this banana bread pudding, you’ll first need to bake banana bread. You’ll only need one loaf for the bread pudding, but it’s nice to have another loaf. If you’re anything like us, you’ll find a way to enjoy the remaining loaf (like hot out of the oven, with some butter).

Serves 8 to 10
Drink with coffee or tea

Ingredients:
2 loaves banana bread
Custard
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups whole milk
5 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Garnish: 1 banana (optional)
Bourbon Sauce (optional, recipe below):
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tablespoons bourbon, or more to taste

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. In a large bowl, beat eggs.
3. Cut banana bread into one-inch cubes (it’s okay if it crumbles).
4. Add milk, cream, sugar and vanilla.
5. Add bread cubes and allow them to soak for half an hour, gently pressing the cubes into the custard occasionally.
6. Pour mixture into a baking pan or casserole dish.
7. Optional: Slice a banana into coins, and layer coins on the top of the bread pudding. If garnishing with bananas, bake the bread pudding covered with a sheet of tin foil until the final ten minutes.
8. Bake until set and golden on top, about 45 to 50 minutes.

Bourbon Sauce Directions:
1. Melt butter in small sauce pan.
2. Whisk together sugar and egg and add to sauce pan.
3. Whisk constantly over low heat until thickened (about 10 minutes).
4. Allow to cool and add bourbon.

Serve Banana Bread Pudding warm with sauce drizzled on top

Our dear Mindy is about to have a baby.

In order to celebrate this joyous occasion, we had a small shower for her friends and family at my house. We naturally emphasized the handmade for the festivities.

The lovely and talented Kate helped me with the invitations, providing inspirational genius and supplies, including an introduction to Speedball Speedy Stamp Blocks. I’m used to the old linolium block, which I love/hate. I have made some great prints with lino, but have also dug my carver deep into my hand on pretty much every project. The speedy stamp is, well, speedy. And injury free!

For the party favors, I hunted some thrift shops in Manhattan for old (cheap) teacups and made some “tea-lights.”

Mindy and her mom, Joan, made some delicious finger sandwiches, chocolate chip cookies, and the Tartine shortbread cookies that could break your heart. Add some ginger scones and strawberry rhubarb compote and ricotta, honey, fig crostini and I think my stomach was as big as Mindy’s by the end of the party.

Being the official 3dayweekend baby is a pretty big job, and there’s a scary possibility that this kid will be wearing a tragic, knit wardrobe and playing with odd, homemade toys. But we’ll have to wait until August 2 to find out (or will we???)

Well, I’d like to say that we’ve been too busy making stuff to actually blog about making stuff, but in reality we’ve been a bit sidelined lately by a combination of technical difficulties and life. But, we’ve still been hard at work on the handmade and I have a whole backlog of things to chronicle.

But, in the meantime, I will report on a fantastic salad I made for lunch today.

I’ve been slightly obsessed with cabbage lately. We’ve been getting loads of farm fresh cabbage at my great new CSA. And a couple weeks ago, Tara Parker-Pope’s health and wellness blog on the New York Times, Well, featured a list of 11 super healthy foods that we should all eat and often aren’t. Cabbage was #2 on the list, along with 10 other foods I love to eat.

With one of my green cabbage heads, I made this great recipe from 101cookbooks, substituting Kirby cukes and avocados for the tomatoes. This got me thinking about the millions of varities of coleslaw one could invent. Here’s what I came up with today:

Half a head of red cabbage,sliced into very thin ribbons

A large handful of cherry tomatoes, halved

2-3 peaches, cut into thin slices or chunks

1/2 cup fresh basil, chopped

1 cup raw almonds

Balsamic and olive oil vinaigrette (I used some dijon mustard as well)

Combine ingredients in a large salad bowl, drizzle with vinaigrette, toss, eat.Yum.

Okay, the birthday related posts are making me feel a bit self-absorbed, but the birthday season in our house involved a lot of making of yummy treats. So, I have on last birthday related post (until next year, I guess).

For Karl’s birthday, I bought him the Tartine cookbook. Sort of. Like last year’s pastamaker, it was really for myself. I love the Tartine bakery in the Mission in San Francisco. And I’ve had my eye on this cookbook for ages, it’s a beautiful Chronicle Books production full of devastatingly beautiful looking treats. So, in honor of Karl, I told him to pick out any dessert he wanted and I’d make it for him. Then I crossed my fingers that he wouldn’t choose anything too far above my baking skills set.

The choice? Shaker Lemon Pie.

The result? Divine. The Flaky Pie Crust recipe is probably the best pie crust recipe I’ve come across. And the sugary tartness of the pie, with some fresh unsweetened whipping cream? Oh.my.god.

The other result? Man will I be working that off at the gym for the rest of the year? And man will it be worth it.

Not only did I have a birthday this month, but so did Karl.

So, we decided to have a party. I stayed home yet another Friday night, this time hunched over my food processor, basically pureeing my brains out. Deborah Madison was my constant companion. The result, bowls and bowls of tasty dips and crostini spreads.
On the menu:

Spreads:

• White bean, sage and roasted garlic
• Artichoke pesto
• Roasted red pepper

Dips:

• Spicy chick pea
• Guacamole
• Yogurt dip, with cucumber, cumin and mint
• Artichoke and olive tapenade (from the Moosewood New Classics)

I felt like eating them all with a spoon on Friday night and skipping the party (which was fun, so I’m glad I didn’t actually do that).

I became another year older earlier this month. Karl asked me where I wanted to go for dinner and I realized that our urban lifestyle includes meals out so frequently that it doesn’t feel that special. But what sounded really special was for Karl to cook me dinner.

He’s a good cook (secret ingredient = butter), but his specialty is breakfast. He’s not use to preparing a full meal, but he threw himself into the challenge in earnest. He shopped, prepped and cooked the whole thing on his own. I had the sense he was staving off a stress meltdown, mostly because of timing and the crunch of getting things all out together. But, it came out great and was a lovely birthday treat.

The menu:

Fresh foccacia (from the farmer’s market)

Fennel, beet and orange salad with olives

Winter vegetable soup

Sautéed spinach and mushrooms

Dessert: My favorite yogurt

Well done Karl.

Monsanto, as a large producer of “recombined” milk (the “r” in rBGH), wants to suppress the “rBGH-free” label at the state level so consumers don’t know the milk is recombined.

“Consumption of dairy products from cows treated with rbGH raise a number of health issues,” explained Michael Hansen, a senior scientist for Consumers Union. “That includes increased antibiotic resistance, due to use of antibiotics to treat mastitis and other health problems, as well as increased levels of IGF-1, which has been linked to a range of cancers.”

Canada, Australia, and parts of the EU have already banned Monsanto’s recombined milk outright. In order to stop the same thing from happening in the US, Monstanto aims to change the labels on milk to hide the issue.

“Absolutely nothing good could come from a ban on rBGH-free labeling,” concludes Hansen. “More information is a good thing, and all these state actions are anti-consumer, restrict free speech and interfere with the smooth functioning of free markets.”

Consumers have a right to know what’s in their milk, and dairies have a right to tell them.

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I baked two loaves of herb bread yesterday - one for Jess and one for me. We ate half of Jess’ loaf with the celeriac soup she made for dinner last night - it was the perfect way to sop it up.

I knew I wanted to have eggs with the bread this morning for breakfast, and for some reason I felt inspired to make croque madame open face sandwiches even though I’ve never made them before. They were not 100% authentic, however, since I didn’t have any ham or gruyere on hand. I substituted sausage and cheddar, which American-ized it a bit. The best part is the dijon-based sauce that I used from the Food Network.

Dijon Sauce

• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 rounded tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 1 cup milk
• Salt and pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
• 2 teaspoons Dijon style mustard

Place a small sauce pot over medium low heat and melt butter in it. Whisk in a rounded tablespoon of flour and cook 1 minute or so. Whisk in milk and bring to a bubble then drop heat to low. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, nutmeg and Dijon. When sauce coats back of a spoon, turn off heat.

The New Oxford American Dictionary selected “locavore”, which means someone who eats locally grown food, as the word of the year.

“The word ‘locavore’ shows how food-lovers can enjoy what they eat while still appreciating the impact they have on the environment,” said Ben Zimmer, editor for American dictionaries at Oxford University Press. “It’s significant in that it brings together eating and ecology in a new way.”

The word “locavore” was created two years ago by four women in San Francisco who proposed that people should try to only eat food grown or produced within a 100-mile radius.  It spawned an entire movement that encourages consumers to buy from farmers’ markets or to grow their own food, noting that fresh and local products are more nutritious and taste better.  We couldn’t agree more!
Jess will be pleased to know that the phrase “colony collapse disorder” was one of the runners-up.  (I’m surprised “carbon neutral” wasn’t on the list.)