This Thursday, I’m going to be heading down to Mountain View to shred pork with Sara for the Art and Wine Festival being held this weekend. Good times! Also, mmmm.

For Labor Day, we all trekked up to San Francisco for a barbeque being held by Eddie and Bud. Eddie knows his ribs. Those were tasty. Parboiled in beer for an hour, then grilled and basted with a homemeade barbeque sauce. I brought rather half-assed sesame noodles. I didn’t make the sauce myself, I used a bottle. Jon made the sauce once; it was very good. However, the stuff in the bottle was pretty tasty. Certainly made it easier on me.

Butter at Trader Joe’s has gone down in price! $2.59 a pound, salted or unsalted. I know, I’ve said in the past that I don’t want to pay over two dollars for a pound of butter. Now that I know that Ryan has had to spend up to five dollars for unsalted butter, I’ve changed my position a bit. I think my price-I-will-pay has gone up to three dollars.

The Masala Lamb is adapted from a recipe that I received from one of the readers of this blog. Thank you, Paula!

The Lemon Ricotta Cake is a very… subtle cake. Yes, that’s not a bad adjective. Unassuming. Seriously, it’s kind of meh, but it’s better than the Orange Tea Cake. (Although, really, I need to give that one another chance, since I made it wrong.) It is, however, a lovely carrier of the Raspberry Coulis. The lemon and raspberry flavors are very nice together. The recipe itself suggested dusting the top with confectioner’s sugar, but I prefer the coulis.

I think I overbeat the egg whites, though. The cake turned out a little flat. There’s that horrible line, “I’m going to beat you into an inch of your life. Then, I’m going to take that inch.” Yeah, I took that inch. (I think that line’s from an episode of Angel.) Getting egg whites to stiff peaks is very stressful. I should have taken them out at medium peaks, then beat them by hand the rest of the way. That would have been smart.

I’m in training this week to recapture the nerdliness I had five years ago. Lydia and I are going to San Francisco on Sunday for one day of the Japantown Anime Faire. I have to say, it’s hard to regress in geekdom. But it’ll be fun, I’m sure. We’ll catch a few newer series and eat some good food. I haven’t bought any anime since Fruits Basket, which sounds like a dumb concept but is so adorable. I’m curious as to what’s popular these days.

Masala Lamb

1 lb boneless lamb, cut into cubes

1 large red onion, sliced into half-moons

2-3 cloves of garlic, sliced

1 tomato, chopped

1 potato, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 Tbsp curry powder

1 Tbsp tumeric

1 Tbsp chili powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1/2 cup coconut milk

1-2 Tbsp canola oil

Water, as needed

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the canola oil and add the onions, garlic,m and cumin seeds. Fry/saute these until soft and lightly browned. Move to the sides of the pan, leaving the center free.

Add the curry powder, tumeric chili powder, and salt to the center of the pan. Stir constantly for 1-2 minutes, then add the meat and a cup of water. Stir and let simmer for 15 minutes.

Add the potatoes and check the water level. During the cooking, you always want to make sure there’s enough water in the pan so nothing burns. If you add too much water, don’t worry, it’ll boil away eventually. Stir occasionally.

When the potatoes are almost cooked (approximately 20 minutes), add the tomato and cook another 10 minutes. At this point, boil away enough of the water so it looks like a thick broth.

Add the coconut milk, cilantro, and a little more salt. Taste and adjust seasonings (if you find you need acid, sugar, and/or more tomato flavor, add about a tablespoon of ketchup). Cook for 5 minutes more. Serve with rice.

Lemon Ricotta Cake

6 Tbsp butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup ricotta cheese

3 eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

3 Tbsp fresh lemon juice

Zest of 1 lemon, grated

Grease a 9-inch round cake or springform pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease the paper. Dust with flour. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Beat in the ricotta, then the egg yolks, one at a time. Add 2 Tbsp of the flour, the lemon zest, and the lemon juice. Sift the baking powder into the rest of the flour. Beat into the batter until well blended only.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks (be careful not to overbeat). Fold the egg whites carefully into the batter.

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes in the pan before turning it out onto a rack to cool.

Raspberry Coulis

Joy of Cooking

1 pint fresh raspberries or 12 oz. frozen dry-pack raspberries, thawed

3 Tbsp sugar

2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice, strained

Puree ingredients in a blender or food processor. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve, pressing firmly with a rubber spatula. Taste, then stir in a little more sugar or lemon juice if needed. Serve at once, either at room temperature or chilled, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days. Makes about 1 cup.

I said I’d make something on Thursday. Clearly, I meant Friday. I made a lamb curry and an Italian lemon cake that involved ricotta cheese. I’ll post at least one of the recipes later. Right now, I’m tired. Zzzz and whatnot.

I almost died!

So, in D&D, you lose consciousness at zero hit points, and then you’re dying, losing a hit point per round until you hit negative ten, in which case you die. I got down to negative seven. I have a feeling that the DM was being kind to Mynnyd. Why? We’re still in the astral plane, and getting him resurrected would have been an enormous pain. Mynnyd was rescued at the last moment by the appearance of a gold dragon we’d been travelling with, who scared off the attackers.

It was stupid. I had 54 hit points (out of my original 88). We were going to camp for the night when we decided to look inside this cavern to see if there was some shelter, so we wouldn’t just be sleeping outside. We were just going to go in a short distance, find a place to sleep, and in the morning, once our cleric had regained her healing spells and such, I’d be back up to snuff. We had a wand of healing, but we decided to save that for when it was really necessary.

Anyway, we go in, find a bunch of really unpleasant spider-like creatures, who proceed to beat the crap out of me and bull rush me off a causeway that’s 100 feet over the ground. OW.

But I’m still alive.

And we levelled, so I’ve got a new feat and skills to pick. Unfortunately, the armor I’m wearing (chain shirt [formerly +2]) doesn’t allow me to exercise my new dexterity bonus, so the bonuses to my armor class, ranged weapon attack, initiative, and reflex save won’t be going up. As soon as we get back to Manifest, I’m investing in some +2 or +3 mithril armor. Good times.

I… am terribly lazy.

I haven’t cooked anything in a few days. I was at Jon and Ryan’s for dinner Saturday and tonight, and I was out with Rob and friends Sunday and Monday. I swear- Thursday I’ll make something. (I can’t make anything Wednesday night- it’s D&D!)

“What has happened to the days, Sarah?” Well, one of my temp agencies pulled through and got me a little mind-numbing gig. So I’m doing that this week. Whee, money. Boo, brain dribbling out of my ears.

The new Greek place in Mountain View is good, and the guys who work there are extremely nice. It’s called Gyro’s House; we ate there last night. I recommend it. Lord knows why it’s taken so long for a Greek restaurant to show up on Castro.

The cheese bread, while tasty, was a bitch-and-a-half to get out of the pan. It adhered to the sides, and no amount of sliding a knife around it was able to dislodge it. In the end, we got about two-thirds of it out of the pan, and then Jon and I got a fork and ate the stuck bits out of the loaf pan.

Ryan and I were talking about a better way to do this. She suggests a parchment paper sling. I think this is a capital idea. I am also keen on trying the variation Cook’s has for Cheese Bread with Bacon, Onion, and Gruyere. I think that sounds really quite good. I won’t be trying it for a while, though. This recipe annoyed me too much.

It was so very hot today. Ryan’s working on decorating a cake, and she was very worried about the icing melting. She’s making something that looks very complicated. It’s a “Yay, Engagement!” cake.

I had the carbonara last night. I used a fun pasta- spaghetti rigate. The grooves on the pasta increased surface area and allowed more sauce to be caught and held. I included a clove of garlic in mine, but I wouldn’t do that in the future (hence, I did not include it in the recipe). The garlic taste was too strong. I realize that for an Italian purist, the use of cream is heresy. However, I have eggs and cream in my fridge that really need to be used. So I used them both. Nyeah.

Cheese Bread

Cook’s Illustrated

1 cup Parmesan cheese

3 cups AP flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp salt

1/8 tsp freshly ground black pepper

4 oz. cheddar cheese, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1 1/4 cup whole milk

3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1 large egg, beaten lightly

3/4 cup sour cream

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 350. Spray a 5×9-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray and sprinkle 1/2 cup of Parmesan evenly in the bottom of the pan.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, cayenne, salt, and pepper. Mix in the cheddar cubes, coating the pieces completely with flour.

In a separate bowl, combine milk, butter, egg, and sour cream. Pour the wet ingredients on top of the dry, and fold together with a rubber spatula to combine. The batter will be heavy and thick.

Scrape the batter into the loaf pan, smoothing the surface with the spatula. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of Parmesan evenly over the top.

Bake for approximately 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool in pan 10-20 minutes, then de-pan and cool for another 30-45 minutes. Cut into slices and serve warm.