Madhu Knits and Cooks

Madhu's Sewing Adventures Continue - Alabama Chanin's Cut Flowers

One of my favorite magazines is Selvedge, a UK-based textiles publication that I was first exposed to when I volunteered in the library of the Textiles Museum in Washington, D.C.  I used to subscribe to Selvedge, but after a series of shipping mishaps / lost issues / unanswered emails to their customer service account, I now mostly follow Selvedge through their website and email list.  

While I have primarily relied on Selvedge for pattern / color inspiration and knowledge about global textile traditions, I recently tackled my first Selvedge "project" - only 13 years after first being exposed to the magazine.

This project was Alabama Chanin's Cut Flowers from the Alabama Stitch Book, which features a range of American South-inspired projects.

When I first saw the beautiful image of these cotton chrysanthemums, I knew I had to make them.  They just seemed so cheery, light and homey - the perfect antidote to our otherwise staid New York City apartment.  

It took me some time to organize myself to start making these flowers, and I can't wait to make more.  This despite the fact that they are time-consuming, require close attention to detail, and can be quite difficult to sew through.  But the simple beauty of even my less-than-ideal home versions (pictured above) are just so delightful to me.  

I admittedly took some short-cuts when I initially made these flowers at home.  First, I used random leftover fabric I had at home - an old bed sheet, old t-shirt, and one of my husband's old t-shirts for good measure as well.  Some of the cut fabric made quite a mess, but it was a great was to use up some odds-and-ends I have been holding on to.

Second, because some of the fabric was thicker than the cotton jersey called for in the pattern, I varied the size of my flower bulbs.  I made one 5-bulb flower and two 3-bulb flowers, one of which was made from other single strip fabric bulbs instead of the pattern's double strip bulbs.  Even by making those bulbs with less fabric, it was still a bit difficult to sew through the bottom of the bulbs to hold them together because of the thickness of the fabric and my relatively skinny needles.

Enough of the negatives - I love these flowers!  I'll be making more and more of them, my time and hands be darned!

Ottolenghi Barley Risotto with Marinated Feta - A Tangy Rich Meal

Oh Ottolenghi, how I can't quit you even though you ask for SO many ingredients in your dishes, and the construction of said dishes can often be more complicated than the effort I want put in.

 

The latest siren's call from Ottolenghi island was the Barley Risotto with Marinated Feta in the cookbook Jerusalem.  The recipe called for a number of items that I didn't have at home, but provided me with the intriguing opportunity of cooking with pearl barley for the first time.

 

The pearl barley ended up being quite easy to source (at every nearby grocery store), but the passata tomatoes proved impossible to find (with my admittedly limited effort at three stores, but one of those was a Whole Foods, so I'll go ahead and call this impossible).  

 

My laziness / confusion about what I had in my cupboards also led me to substitute in fresh lemon feel, oregano for caraway seeds (why not) in the marinated feta, and one can of tomato sauce for the passata.

 

 

The result was really good - my husband in particular loved it.  While I was paranoid that I had way too much liquid in for the amount of pearl barley the recipe called for it, but the pearl barley absorbed the full amount of liquid really well.  

 

My main hesitation about making this dish again was how tangy and slightly sour the risotto was.  That strong flavor was nicely cut by the marinated feta, making them truly a great combination, but I still found the risotto to be too tangy to consume the leftovers over the coming days.  I eventually froze the risotto, thinking I would later want to eat it, but I recently threw it away knowing that it just doesn't suit my palate.

Roasted Carrots - A Perfect Potluck Side Dish

For a recent potluck celebration, I was asked to bring an appetizer or side dish.  Sick of my usual party appetizers, I decided to bring some sort of vegetable side dish.

But what to bring?  What to bring for a group of 30+ people?  

To Cook's Illustrated I turned, where I found a recipe for simple roasted carrots with lemon and thyme.  I modified the recipe by buying nearly 5 pounds of carrots, omitting the lemon, and significantly reducing the amount of butter to 5 tbsp. instead of the 10 tbsp. called for that amount of carrots.

The recipe was incredibly easy to put together with those modifications - melt the butter, peel the carrots, toss with the melted butter and thyme, and then roast. 

While you may be tempted to end the roasting early when the carrots seem "cooked", I recommend keeping them in the oven for the CI prescribed time or until nicely browned.  The caramelization that takes place during that extra roasting adds an amazing depth of flavor - so follow your timer!  

The carrots reduced by approx. 20% in size from raw to nicely browned.

The result won rave reviews from nearly everyone at the get-together.  I imagine this recipe will become a regular part of my cooking rotation!

No Knead Rye Bread - Nearing in a Winner

Every novice bread baker is familiar - and dare I say - in love with Jim Lahey's excellent No Knead Bread recipe.  In fact, I believe that the No Knead Bread recipe may be the most visited NY Times Cooking page to date?

I have also been a fan of this recipe, and received great results, though I haven't made it for a few years in favor of pizza dough or other bread recipes.  I decided to restart my Jim Lahey affair though after trying a great rye bread at a party a few months ago.  I wondered how the host achieved such a delicious bread, and the response was not what I expected - she used the Jim Lahey recipe!

A few months later, after having this delicious party rye bread flavor and texture settle into my mind, I decided to order some King Arthur Flour Rye flour and restart my bread baking efforts.

My first two attempts at incorporating rye flour into this recipe per Cathy Barrow were a bit stumbling, all due to user error - though the resulting bread still tasted great.

On my first bread attempt, I used active dry yeast instead of instant / rapid rise yeast.  Not realizing that deviation from the recipe, I didn't proof the active dry yeast before adding the dry ingredients.  After several hours of rising, the bread dough was certainly bubbly, but it hadn't doubled in size.  Realizing my error, I then decided to mix in some rapid rise yeast and let the dough continue to rise (thank you Leaf TV for that tip!).  

While this step certainly helped a lot, it still resulted in a somewhat flatter loaf, but lesson learned.  The second time I made this bread, I used rapid rise yeast from the outset which resulted in a fluffier loaf.

The other flaw I made the first time making this bread was to follow the recipe directions to do a second rise of the loaf on a well-floured towel.  That resulted in both a lot of sticking and messiness with both the second rise and then trying to get it into the pot, and I still haven't been able to get my kitchen towel fully clean since then.  

The second time , I followed the Cook's Illustrated approach of placing the bread on parchment for the second rise and just putting the parchment in with the bread to bake, which worked out much easier.

The resulting bread from my two attempts looked like:

(Rye Bread attempt #1)

A few additional lessons learned that I need to correct for: 

1) The first time I baked the bread, my oven heated well past my desired temp (even though I have an internal oven thermometer, the oven gets less reliable at 400 degree+ temperatures).  So we had to scrape off some of the burnt bread bits at the bottom of the loaf before eating.  The second time, I put the oven at a lower temperature but didn't pre-heat the pot enough (I think) at only 35 minutes.  I think an hour is definitely needed in the pre-heating oven, otherwise our second loaf seemed a bit undercooked at the bottom. 

2) I think our dutch oven (largest Le Creuset size) may also be too large to bake the bread, resulting in a longer, flatter loaf than if we used a smaller dutch oven (I read that 5-quart is best for this recipe).  I have been thinking about buying a smaller dutch oven anyways, so will try to do this next in a smaller pot.  Will report back if that makes a difference to make a taller loaf!

The Joy of Cooking Chocolate Chip Drop Cookies - An Oldie but a Goodie!

A few weeks ago, I had some eggs in the fridge that were just hanging on to life and a growing desire to bake something.  While cookies immediately came to mind, knowing what type of cookies to make was more elusive.  Oatmeal?  Sugar?  Chocolate Chip?  

I finally narrowed down my options to chocolate chip, but then figuring out what recipe to use became a struggle as well.  I didn't want to go through the hassle of browning butter for the CI perfect chocolate chip cookies, and none of my other past recipe attempts were really captivating me.  

And so I turned to my cookbooks.  I went from the Moosewood hand-me-downs I've received, to Alice Waters, then the free magazine compilations people have given me, and finally to the Joy of Cooking.  While flipping through that last book, I finally found something that seemed like a go - their simple chocolate-chip drop cookies.

As the recipe picture indicates, the recipe is incredibly simple to construct and follows the standard mix-wet-then-dry ingredients approach.

This dough can definitely be made in the time that your oven warms up.  And with an approx. 10 minute baking time, these cookies are a great weeknight sweet to add to your dinner prep.

They are also a great cookie to make for a kids party or office potluck because they are thin, on the sweeter side, and perfect for easy snacking.  I'll definitely be making them again!