Booboolina’s Neighborhood

I'm experimenting with moving my blog! Hilarious, I know - what blog??? is a valid question.

My main reason is that I never liked that Vox requires membership to post. I used to have some readers who would email me and mention that they kept up with it, but they didn't want to join vox just to comment. And we all know that a blog without comments gets a little lonely.

I may miss some of the Vox tools, though - uploading photos is a real pain on Blogger, so don't delete this blog from your feed (those one or two of you who are linked to it).

I'm keeping my name the same; I've been bookishbiker for a long time now, and couldn't think of anything equally tidy to use instead. The focus will be more of the same and then some. I'll probably write more about food, and my NEW interest, gardening: I'm putting in a garden with others in my apartment building! (I'm nominally in charge, which surprises no one who knows me. Despite my total lack of knowledge about gardening, I'm good at being bossy in a diplomatic fashion.) (I hope it's diplomatic, anyway.)

In order to jump start my life over there, I'm going to pick a challenge - daily posting for a month, perhaps, or some sort of photo-themed challenge.

Please visit. Fear not: I'm not leaving YOU, my neighborhood buds. I'll add your blogs to my feed so I know when you update, because I care!

http://bookishbiker.blogspot.com/

For lunch last week, I gathered some pasta salad ideas, and then changed them completely.
I bought:

• 1 pound of pasta
• 2 cans of black beans
• 1 can of fire-roasted diced peppers & chiles
• 1 red pepper
• 1 lime
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• 1 ear corn

From my pantry: some shredded cheese (okay, that was in the freezer), some plain yogurt, salt & pepper. Ignore the bottle of vinegar in the picture; I didn't use it in the end.

I dirtied extra dishes for this picture, but I didn't care. If I were not Documenting for Posterity, I would just dump all the bits and pieces into one large bowl.

Wow, am I a good cook.

Cream scones, which were so amazing out of the oven I wanted to marry myself:

Recipe:
Cream Scones from Cook's Illustrated: The Quick Recipe

I doubled the recipe. Makes 8 good-sized scones for each batch, and of course they could be made smaller. Original recipe:

2 c unbleached all purpose flour
1 T baking powder
3 T sugar
1/2 tsp salt
5 T unsalted butter, chilled, cut into cubes
1/2 cup currants
1 cup heavy cream

My mods:

• omitted the currants.
• when I made the double batch, I used 5 T sugar total, so maybe 2 1/2 T for a single batch
• added zest & juice of one lemon
• added some recently-dried rosemary. maybe 1/8 or 1/4 tsp total - made for a very (maybe TOO) subtle effect
• for next time, I will not use heavy cream. maybe whole milk?

To make: sift together the dry ingredients (incl the rosemary & zest)
Cut in the butter - it will still be very dry
Pour on the cream and stir til just mixed
Put onto a floured surface, gather into a cohesive lump, knead for just a few seconds to get it all together, flatten out a bit, and cut into ~8 scones (or even more! they're quite big!)
Bake in a 425 oven for 12-15 minutes

Then I made a strawberry-basil topping to smear on the scones. I knew I wanted some sort of basil topping to go with strawberries, and some Google searching led me to this recipe:
http://chocolateandzucchini.com/archives/2006/06/strawberry_basil_pesto.php

Here are the original instructions:

Pesto Fraise Basilic

35 grams (1/3 cup) freshly grated Parmesan
35 grams (1/3 cup) whole blanched almonds, toasted
A small handful (about 1/3 cup) fresh basil leaves
5 small strawberries (or 3 large), hulled [be sure to use fragrant and full-flavored strawberries: if they're a bit bland, I'm quite sure they'll get lost in the battle]
2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt, freshly ground pepper

Makes about 1/2 cup (the recipe can be doubled).

Blend the Parmesan, almonds, and basil (I have a mini chopper, so I doubled the recipe, but did one batch at a time.)

 

Add strawberries and blend some more. Then add olive oil, salt & pepper to taste. I never got it perfectly smooth, but I liked it kinda chunky-looking. 

My mods:

• I made a double batch. After tasting, I then doubled the strawberries again - I wanted a big strawberry taste
  
• I added a splash of balsamic vinegar (2 tsp total, maybe - definitely to taste)
• I then stirred this into some mascarpone cheese - maybe half of a little 8-oz package

Finally, I made a strawberry topping: I sliced enough strawberries to fill a pint jar. Added 2 T sugar and 1 T balsamic vinegar, and let it stew in its juices.

Here's the yumminess ready to go:

And here's my breakfast this morning:

 Insert self-satisfied belly rub here! 

Hey blog-friends, long time. It's been a busy month since last we spoke. I spent a very fun weekend in New Orleans with my parents, sister, and younger brother, just hanging out before said younger brother ships out to Afghanistan for six months. He's going to miss Christmas, making 2009 the very first one where we're not all together, so that will be really weird. Of course we will get together upon his return, and will probably even press him into service in the kitchen! but it won't be quite the same.

In other news, it really feels like summer at the moment. It's a rare day in the Bay Area that sees me leaving home without a jacket, but I did it twice this week - woo! Also, I biked to work yesterday and finally found a really fully enjoyable, low-traffic commute. It adds a little bit of time to the ride, but round trip was 8.8 miles, so it was really a piddling little lovely ride.

Still knitting: I just did my first felting project! I used bulky, all-wool yarn, big needles, and then purposely shrunk the sucker. It's amazing.

Before:

I'm going to give Tumblr a try for a while. We'll see how long that lasts.

Everyone in the world knows of my fascination with pneumatic tubes. Here's one from the US Postal Museum.

If Ireland was the drinking component of the trip (and, yes, it was!), then Scotland was the eating part! I'm working on my pictures and am remembering some of the foods I got to try:

The hog roast roll at Oink - every day the roast a locally-raised pig, put the recognizable body in the window, and serve hog roast rolls until they run out.

Oatcakes at the Taste of Scotland event (handily across from our hotel in Glasgow.. we had free lunch that day!). Oatcakes are a mild near-biscuit that are served with cheese & pickle, or with jam. I actually made some when I got home (I find I really want to cook SOMETHING when I've been away for a while) but the results from this recipe
are too sweet. I'll try again, though, as I brought home some Branston pickle as this trip's food tourism. (I had it in a couple of cheese & pickle ploughman's sandwiches.)

Cranachan - this is a Scottish dessert that's basically whipped cream and raspberry, with some ground oats (I think) mixed in. It was only okay. It was fun getting the waitress to pronounce Cranachan for me. It's more like Crrrrran-a-hhgghan. I can't figure out how to spell the throaty swallowed gghh sound.

Mince & tatties = minced meat and potatoes. Yummy and basic (and salty!).

Salmon, and some other fish at a fancy restaurant, but I can't remember what type it was. It was red-something.