combustication

For those of you who wish to experience the rest of the world, but simply don’t have the time or money, I suggest checking out some of Simonica’s travel photos. I think they’re in the thousands now and they are beautiful and fun and make you want to go to Italy NOW.

There are so many September birthdays!

Today is D’s. Come out tomorrow night to celebrate with her and the rest of the BYP crew for an amazing show.

This photo is for Daniella and Jeremy - both September babes.

Pizza pies. I made a four mini pies last night that I did not photograph, but I probably should have. Imagine:

Olive tapenade topped with mozzerella and mango slices
Purple pesto topped with pecorino and red onions.
Homemade red sauce topped with mozzerella and braised kale…and
The “Cheeseburger Pizza.”

The Cheeseburger Pizza was by far the funnest (yes, funnest) of the bunch. Red sauce topped with a little bit of chedder, boca burger crumbles and red onions, it was a lot of fun to eat. I haven’t had pizza in a long time and it was a blast to make. Plus, cold pizza for lunch today!

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the fantastic Jeremy, 1/2 of the shredding part of Man in Gray and excellent plane companion.

And a big, belated HAPPY BIRTHDAY to the lovely Monica, still travelin’ ’round.

And to cover my ass, another “Happy Birthday” to my very cool brother and best roadie ever, Rui.

I am a huge baking dork with no friends.

Bakespace is actually pretty cool and a great concept. I suggest signing up if you like baking/cooking at all.

I am also getting to test out the new Chow.com and it is awesome.

Peanut Butter Cookies can be a slight pain in the butt to make properly. First off, if you want them chewy, I suggest following the tip from Cooking for Engineers (scroll all the way down), which advises you to roll, press em down with a fork and then let sit in the fridge for 15 minutes before baking. I did that with the first couple of batches and it really made a difference. As time went on, and I realized I needed the oven for the brownies, I just shoved the PB cookies into the oven without refrigeration. The cookies came out like normal, slighly crisp, PB cookies. Moral of the story: use the fridge for soft cookies! Hopefully, I’ll be able to take a pic of them tonight and post the recipe tomorrow (left my camera in the band van)

Come out and taste them and tell me what you think tonight. You can also listen to bands, djs (me included, DJ name is “TinaTurns”) and eat brownies (if you’re allergic to nuts) and drink free beer.

Last night, my favorite I.T. guy came over to fix my butt-slow computer and, in return, I fed him a Mid-East inspired feast. The menu included homemade baba ganouj and hummus, falafel, pita, lemon-lentil salad, Israeli salad, garlic stuffed and herbed olives, thick Greek yogurt, grape leaves and Persian Rice, which I thought was the star of the show. I found some recipes online, but in the end just winged it and the end result was fantastic (as is my now-fixed computer). Recipe below.

Persian Rice Recipe

Ingredients
2 cups brown basmati rice
2 tsp cardamom
1 tbsp turmeric
1 tsp salt
pinch of saffron threads
1 cup golden raisins
8 dried dates, chopped
1 cup parsley, finely chopped
3 scallions, white parts chopped
1/2 shelled pistachios, chopped and toasted
1 tablespoon olive oil

To Do
Soak the basmati rice overnight, or for an hour, if you can and then rinse the rice twice in a colander. If you don’t have that much time, soak the rice for 10 minutes and then rinse it out 5 times. This helps for fluffier rice.

Place the first five ingredients in a rice cooker, give it a stir, and add water to the line indicated and wait till its done. If you don’t have a rice cooker place rice in a heavy pot, add four cups of water, bring to a boil and then place a lid on it and bring down the heat to let it simmer for 25 minutes (keep checking on it to make sure the rice doesn’t burn, if it looks too dry, add more water).

Meanwhile, do all the chopping for the rest of the ingredients and toast the pistachios in a dry skillet over low heat or in a toaster oven.

When rice is done, place half of the raisins and the dates in a shallow serving dish or bowl, put the rice on top and cover with a dishtowel or saran wrap. This helps plump up the raisins and dates. After about 15 minutes, remove the covering and add the rest of the raisins and dates and add parsely, scallions and olive oil. Mix everything together well and taste. Add more salt, if necessary. Smooth it all out and garnish with toasted pistachios and if you have extra dates, use them up as well.

Can be eaten warm or cold and is a good dish to make ahead for a party. Serves 6-8.

Canoe camping is seriously the way to go folks. Sometimes it means a daunting paddle ride against the wind with some crazy choppy lake conditions to your campsite, but the important thing to remember that it’s YOUR campsite on a private island or peninsula. One word: awesome.

While the weather wasn’t entirely agreeable, we made the best of it. After the crazy paddle to get to the site before the rain really started coming down on Saturday, it was smooth sailing…I mean canoeing, all the way. At least the drizzle kept the bugs away and maybe bears too.

Everything also tastes better when you cook it on a campfire and eat outside. The aforementioned Hazlenut Cornmeal pancakes and bannock were made and were really tasty.

The cornmeal pancakes didn’t come out like pancakes (I think I added too much water to the mix), but this was super delicious. I call it Hazlenut Cornmeal Hash instead.

We ate the hash with a luscious baked apple drizzled with whiskey honey….mmmmmm

Likewise, we tried making the bannock on a stick, but ended up making a tinfoil tray for our grill and creating a more biscuit-like substance.

They were still really good with our eggs on Monday morning.

Oh, and of course the actual lake itself - I got so excited by that patch of blue sky.

The site in all of its glory.