apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

made some creamy potato soup last night, using the recipe provided by your entry on cooking with pale ale!

Going to a slow-roast pork dinner tonight (outdoors, it's gorgeous!) and bringing along a few bulbs of roasted garlic, white bean dip w/ lemon and rosemary, and a baguette. Tomorrow night - beef stew and no knead bread, perfect after a day of GOTV canvassing here in this "battleground state"! :)

Making a traditional sunday roast, yorkshire puddings and all! Im not too much on the roasts, but I thought it was something I needed in my arsenal, so I invited the fam for dinner. I am also making meyer lemon cake (with curd and italian buttercream) using my lefover lemons (18!) from my limoncello batch!

I tried my hand at Quicker No-Knead Bread last night for dinner with the in-laws -- not perfect, but definitely yummy!

Can you post the recipe for your peanut butter caramel cookie bars? Those sound fabulous!

Ann, they didn't turn out just right, but I'll test them again. When they are right I'll share 'em!

Fresh homemade cranberry bread - it is fantastic!

Beer Cheese soup from Epicurious tomorrow for Craft Night with the girls. Minnesotans love Beer and Cheese.

Tonight is stir-fry and I might prepare to cook something in my crock-pot on Tuesday. Maybe I'll try to make Obama's chili!

Made fresh veggie stock and froze it.

Roasted some Butternut squash and garlic. Mashed it smooth and used like pizza sauce on a store bought wheat crust, topped it and caramelized onions, gorgonzola and walnuts.

Roasted veggies with goat cheese on Olive bread.

Rainbow chard with white beans.

Thanks for all the inspiration.

I just made a batch of banana-chocolate chip cookies from 101 Cookbooks, and tonight I plan to tackle a baked pasta with homemade tomato sauce and fresh mozzarella. (Although it has been gorgeous and spring-like all weekend - not really baking weather but perfect for canvassing yesterday!)

I just made these pumpkin muffins and they are nice, But I am trying to figure out how I could make the flavor a little richer - http://muffintop.wordpress.com/2006/11/03/pumpkin-muffins/

Last weekend I made these zucchini muffins and the flavor had much more depth - http://southernfood.about.com/od/zucchinibread/r/r70819f.htm I was out of carrots so I used just zucchini, and I was out of brown sugar so I subbed honey, they came out very flat-topped but delicious! So moist and rich! I was hoping this weekend's would be as successful, now I am wondering if I should just use this recipe and sub pumpkin for the zucchini.

Anyone have a good pumpkin muffin recipe they could share?

We made two lasagnas, one to keep and one to give! :)

Last night was homemade pizza w/prosciutto, mushrooms and red onions; this morning was blueberry crumb coffee cake, my rosemary no-knead bread is on its second rise and tonight will be a butternut squash and sage lasagna.

I discovered this website by serendipity while searching for a recipe for "Fresh Beans" (heretofore beans came dried in bags) and enjoy the relatively straightforward recipes on this site, and the respect shown for the simple art of cooking.

This weekend I am making a batch of chicken stock because I don't like commercial canned broth, and really want some chicken soup. So now the stock, later the chicken soup, with some orzo pasta for body, and roasted poblano peppers bought at the West Seattle farmer's market and late season corn, along with carrots and celery.

we made a fruit crumble, approximating faith's recipe. to be honest, i never measure--i just peel and cut about four or five apples or pears, toss with a few tablespoons of lemon juice, a quarter cup of brown sugar or honey, a loose quarter cup of flour, then see what pan i have they will fit in, and then make enough topping to cover. sometimes i make too much. if i don't make enough, i fill it out with nuts. i usually mix raisins in with apples, although one of these days i will try dried cranberries instead.

i discovered (by accident) that using salted butter gives the crumble topping a wonderful shortbread flavor. i actually prefer it that way.

We made beer cheese soup, the Wisconsin Natives recipe (http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Wisconsin-Natives-Beer-Cheese-Soup/Detail.aspx)
and whole-wheat beer bread (http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2005/11/beer-bread-update-whole-wheat-version.html). To stick with the boozy-theme, we also made chicken with pancetta, wine and balsamic (http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/23/recipe-of-the-day-chicken-with-pancetta-and-balsamic-vinegar/). Last night, we made curry, after an afternoon field trip to a wonderful spice store in New York called Kalustyans. (http://www.kalustyans.com/default.asp).

The curry recipe we used: http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Traditional-Chicken-Curry/Detail.aspx?strb=4

Oh - and in response to Anne (in Reno)'s question... I do have a good pumpkin recipe that I have made five times in the past two months:

1 cup sugar
5/8 cup brown sugar (packed down)
I can pumpkin (14.5 ounces)
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 1/3 flour (whole wheat or white)
1/2 T baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cloves
3/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp coriander
1/4 cup OJ

Combine sugars, pumpkin, eggs, and oil in a bowl. Mix dry ingredients separately and then add to liquid. Stir in OJ or other liquid, avoid over mixing. Fill greased muffin tins about halfway (I have taken to making them in mini form - great finger food without people having to commit to a whole muffin) and bake at 35o degrees for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

When I serve them as a dessert, I have added this last step - culled from a Sweet Potato muffin recipe I found the link to here on thekitchn. It is on the Noble Pig blog (which has amazing pictures of their muffins covered in the topping).

While muffins are baking, combine 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon (you can also add 1/4 teaspoon of ground nutmeg). In another bowl, melt 1 stick of unsalted butter. When the muffins are cool enough to handle, yet still warm, remove them from the pan and brush the top with butter and then roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture. You could also cover the whole muffin with butter and sugar...

we made a triple layer red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting (four sticks of butter!!) and a big pot of spicy black bean soup