Love and Cooking

Has it been over two weeks since I updated my blog? I guess it has.

I haven't been high-energy in the kitchen lately; was working hard, and coming down with a cold, so wasn't cooking much (if at all). As a note on how hard I've been working and how tired I was, I haven't even been reading food (or other) blogs much. (And I got hit by a wave of comment spam. Verification is now on.)

I got all the materials - lovely peppers, eggplant, and zucchini from the market and some chickpea flour from my friendly neighborhood Pakistani grocery - to make the ratatouille with socca crepes that Brett made for IMBB #19. I couldn't do more than one thing at a time though. Finally put all the pieces together last Saturday, and made the socca pancakes last Sunday to eat with it. Once I figured out how to swirl the pancakes, life was good!

I did, however, clear massive amounts of no-longer-good food out of both the refrigerator and the freezer, so I have ROOM FOR STUFF. *happy dance*

In dining news, I was treated to a lovely dinner of tapas at Thirsty Bear in SF and it was all good. Not quite sure of all we had, as we did the "please bring us a suitable number of dishes that you think are extra good tonight" thing. But it was all mighty tasty. (calamari with romesco sauce ... Outstanding). I have also been thinking of foccacia sandwiches after snagging one off the buffet table at the technical seminar I went to at the St. Francis (unfortunately it was all I got, as I had to leave and that was the only thing I could carry out, but it was outstanding - roasted vegi filling).

Last weekend I was starting to move along normal lines due to a convergence of three events: one, my best friend's birthday celebration, two, the regular Evensong reception at the church, and three, being tapped for Snack at my adult Bible study class. I also seem to be thinking ahead for the holidays (which for me will start with the Bishop's visit the day before Halloween) because I made my first batch of truffles in quite some time (will photodocument it and blog it ... promise).

Here is what I made:

Quadruple batch of hummus (double batch to the church, single for the other events)
Large batch of tapenade
Normal recipe of Susan Hattie's Goat Cheese Torta, divided in two smaller bowls
Peanut butter cup cookies
Kahlua truffles
One batch of Barb's Brownies for the church
Served with raw veg dippers, pita (I kept having to go to the store for more), and sourdough bread

So: brain functioning along normal lines.

The only flaw in this was that I didn't make myself anything for lunch on Monday/Tuesday (the ratatouille is not going to be sustaining enough for my lunch), so I was scrambling for lunches.

The cupcakes that E made are inspiring me to think about experimenting with cuppycakes of my own (when this cold goes away and I can eat sugar again). I still haven't used the whip attachment on my kitchenaid ... And there were all sorts of wacky decorations available at Spun Sugar when I poked my nose in to look for boxes for my truffle fundraising venture.

Truffle recipe to be forthcoming shortly. I will document the process, honest.

This past weekend was the monthly feeding of the multitudes exercise at the church. Interestingly enough I haven't spent much time at all in the kitchen since May, as I have been learning to run the front of the house. I am so used to being a worker bee that it is tough for me to switch gears and Tell People To Do Things. I was annoyed when someone threw out my lunch, but it was made up for by the fact that someone had obtained boxes of the Scharffenberger individual milk chocolate wafers and there was enough chocolate for the volunteers.