The End

It is with moderately heavy heart that I announce the end of “Something Done Right.”  It was fun while it lasted, and looking at my catalogue of projects gave me a wonderful sense of accomplishment.  My backlog of unpublished projects is getting out of control.  Lately, though, the last thing I want to do once I finish a cake or a risotto or a sock is write about it.  There’s too much else to enjoy about this summer–visits from old friends, adventures with new ones, quiet mornings on the deck with my coffee, racous evenings at the Keg with my roommates.  I will leave you with a picture of my BFF Kev and our homemade ice cream, and I’ll let that sum up my summer in a way that endless blog posts cannot.

Southwestern Black Bean Salad

I thought that once I was finished with comps, my life would settle into a steady 8-to-5 routine.  That routine has yet to materialize.  As a result, I am currently over the moon about bean salads.  They go together with a minimum of fuss (if you’re using canned beans) and they actually taste best a few days after you make them.  You can pack them full of veggies.  Then you have a nutritous, filling one-part meal to throw in a rubbermaid and eat before yoga, after errands, in the middle of a long work day, or any other time you can squeeze in a few bites of something delicious.

The “chop some vegetables, add some beans” concept is pretty simple, but I wanted some guidance for the dressing, so I went with this Cooking Light recipe and was quite pleased with the results.  The salad would be prettier if I hadn’t run out of black beans and subbed in a can great northerns.  I had dried black beans, but not a time machine (rats!), so it is what it is.

Whole Wheat Scones

I made these scones with the oh-so-trusty KAF Guaranteed recipe, a dried fruit medley from the discount grocery (bluerries and cherries and cranberries and golden raisins, oh my!), and some of my dearly beloved whole wheat pastry flour.  The result: crumbly, tender, golden scones to brighten a Monday morning.

Pain aux Noix (sans noix)

I made the somewhat artisanal pain aux noix from Whole Grain Baking, but without the calorific two cups of walnuts.  It’s pretty good.  It doesn’t have the skin-tingling awesomeness of an artisanal white bread, but it’s the best whole wheat hearth bread I’ve found so far.  The recipe calls for a little butter, which is nice because it doesn’t go stale within a day.  That’s very useful for a girl who lives alone (or a girl whose roommates have only recently been introduced to scones and still regard homemade hearth bread with distrust).

Penitent Bagels

Perhaps you remember “Apology Scones?”  Now I present “I’m sorry I gave you the impression that your friendship isn’t important to me, when in fact I consider you one of my best friends down here and I feel terrible that my demeanor suggested otherwise” Bagels.

I believe there aren’t many rifts that can’t be smoothed over with whole wheat bagels and improved communication.

Clafoutis

Ever since I first learned of the provençal dessert clafoutis, I’ve been waiting for cherry season to come around so I could try it myself.  The general idea: a layer of unpitted cherries covered in a simple batter and baked until golden.  So delightfully simple, and so very provençal, no?

I finally made it this weekend, and I have to admit that I didn’t like it nearly as much as I thought I would.  It was decent, I suppose; the matrix was a little too custard-y but the baked cherries were sublime.  Now I’m dying to make cherry pie.  (Or at least cherry galette.)

Whole Grain Pancakes

I know I already wrote about these pancakes.  But I’m still so excited about this whole “mix” idea.  I just threw them together after the morning run.  (We did 14 miles today–it would be unhealthy not to carb up.)  I scooped a cup of mix out of the freezer, added a cup of buttermilk and an egg, and had healthy from-scratch pancakes with no more labor than Bisquick would have required!  Amazing!

White Chocolate-Lemon Biscotti

My way of saying thanks to Stacey for doing the heavy lifting (literally) for the TNT hamburger plate lunch the week of the event, when I was busy with my prospectus.  We raised almost $1000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society!

For future reference: this flavor combination is top-notch.  I am in thrall to the power of lemon zest.

Also: apologies for the (especially) poor quality of the photo.  It was taken this morning between bites of oatmeal and gulps of water this morning at 5:30.

Blueberry-Lemon Muffins

One very fuzzy evening in June (this happened to be the same evening I celebrated the end of comps), I instituted a point system for my friends.  Points are awarded for acts or statements I find admirable, awesome, or badass.  (Example: Brandon knew what a doily was.  Point.  Adam used “abhor” in a sentence.  Point.)  Once someone has five points, they are entitled to the baked good of their choosing, or they can save up points for knitted or hand-sewn item.

Several of my friends passed the five-point threshold last week, but I was too busy to hold up my end of the bargain.  Now I have some catching up to do.  Jon requested “whatever you like to make.”  Now, just about anyone around here can tell you I like to make muffins.  It has been weeks (weeks!) since I’ve made any.

I went with the “big, beautiful muffins” recipe in the ATK book, which I’ve never actually tried before.  The recipe supposedly makes 12 muffins, but I got 15 decent-sized ones.  I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I over-mixed the batter a little.  I’m used to making low-fat muffins, which are rubbery no matter what you do to them; I need a lighter hand with the old-fashioned kind.  They didn’t get completely GBD (golden brown and delicious), but otherwise, they were pure muffin-y delight.  The little bit of lemon zest did exactly what lemon zest is supposed to do: perk up a mildly-flavored batter without clamoring for attention.

Butternut Squash and Chickpea Tagine

I wanted to do something special with my last butternut squash.  Specifically, I wanted to do something special that reheats well, which ruled out risotto.  I envisioned a thick, fragrant tagine with an onslaught of spices.

I followed the instructions in this recipe, but I thought the seasoning blend in this one was more appealing.  (Plus, I got to break in my new spice grinder.)  I looked askance at the volume of spices as I dumped them in, teaspoon after tablespoon, cumin, coriander, allspice, ginger, red pepper, cinnamon.  But the smell that filled the kitchen–wow.  Even my steak-and-potatoes roommates were intrigued.  (They lost interest when they realized it had no meat.)

In the end, it was every bit as good as I hoped it would be.  The vegetables were a little too soft–I overcooked it reducing the stew to a less stew-like dish–but it was still amazing.  Scraping the leftovers into tupperware for the fridge, it was a challenge not to lick the spoon.  But no one was watching, so I did it anyway.