truffled potatoes au gratin

truffled potatoes au gratin, originally uploaded by physics*chick.

Last night we made Truffled Potatoes au gratin, made by (more or less) this recipe from epicuious.com.

We skipped the truffles for truffle oil, made a little less than half of the recipe, and added some parmesan cheese for extra flavour and crispiness. We used the slicer on our food processor for the potatoes cutting down the prep time dramatically. :) I'm loving the "robot culinaire" now that we have it.

Sadly, we were too excited to dig in, so I don't have a photo after baking. Trust me, it looked delicious and tasted even better! Maybe we'll spring for some truffles next time... Yum!

yum!

yum, originally uploaded by saburke.

My contribution to the group Christmas party: Gingerbread cake with chocolate buttercream frosting, decorated with chocolate shavings and candied ginger. Really, it turned out prettier than I could have hoped, and it seems that people enjoyed it, though no one got more than a sliver.

The cake recipe was one I had from the "Anne of Green Gables Treasury" and is really very easy... I'd almost say foolproof, but never underestimate the intellegence of fools. ;) The icing is a pretty basic buttercream with cocoa added. The candied ginger I bought at a store near us that is a puveyor of such goods and I have no idea how one actually goes about doing such things. I had so much fun doing this, despite a bit of stress since I hadn't made this particular combination before and used new cake pans. I was trying to make something similar to the cake I posted raved about some time ago.

One of these days I will stop taking pictures of my food... nah, I probably won't actually.

The party was great as usual, though we stayed too late and were stupidly tired yesterday. That's ok though as yesterday was still quite productive despite my intense desire for sleep. Actually, I'm still a little tired today. Ah well, Christmas comes but once a year!

a delish weekend

creperie breton, originally uploaded by saburke.

So I finally got around to putting the pictures from our (anniversary... 6 years together, my goodness!) trip to Quebec city two weekends ago up on Flickr. Oddly, my favorite pictures are actually of food... come to think of it most of the best moments of the trip are of food, and the consumption of said food in nice warm environments. The photo here is of the window of the creperie where we had breakfast... to be specific I had a chocolate (dark, dark, rich chocolate) and banana crepe... it was amazing. There are some classic pictures of the Chateau, etc in my photostream now too. We tried to take some pictures at night, but well... it's difficult.

Anyway, we had a great trip. It was cool, and I couldn't find my hat before leaving, so once again I had to stop in at "maison Simons" to pick up a new hat... and maybe new matching mittens. Hubby convinced me that the pink was cuter than the black, so I made a departure from my usual dark winter wardrobe and got them. I think he's right, they spruce up my black winter coat.

Our main mission (besides eating lots of great food) was to look at art. My parents had given us money at our wedding to buy real, actual art... not a poster, not a reproduction... real, bonafide artwork! We were pretty excited about this, and since there are quite a few art stores in Quebec city we figured it would be a good chance to check it out. Except... it turns out we have totally different taste in art! Oh, we should have known from our preferences while at the Musee d'Orsay and looking through art books etc in preparation for the museums. Sigh... So, we're thinking we might just get one of our favorite photographs blown up large and framed nicely instead. Perhaps we can agree more on this!

Places to eat in Quebec city:

Creperie Breton
Bistro sous le Fort

We also had coffee/tea at a nice little cafe, but I can't for the life of me remember the name. Sadly, our favourite brunch choice, L'Ardoise (oddly, also the name of the town my parents are from), has changed ownership... and well... sadly, it's off the favourite list. The Creperie was a new discovery and a great one! I've been to Bistro sous le Fort several times now, and each time has been more delicious than the last. This time I went for the classic Steak-frites, and well, I think it was the best Steak-frites I've ever had. :)

Stitch'n'Bitch

So, Sunday a friend of mine had a bunch of us over for a stitch'n'bitch... well stitch'n'bitch'n'paint'n'sew'n'(mold? pottery? potter? can't find an appropriate term for this). It was so great! Everyone there was a science geek at work, but suddenly on this Sunday afternoon everyone was there to create, to craft something with their own hands, turning yarn into fabrics, cloth into garmets, paint and canvas into art, clay into form. I took my camera (my other recent artistic enterprise), but I was so busy enjoying my knitting I didn't really take anything great. I did however take a picture of the delicious cake someone brought (bought, not homemade, but oooh... that was fine with me!).



mmmm... gingerbread cake with chocolate icing. Sooo good. A combination I never would have guessed, yet works so well. And I have a recipe for great gingerbread cake! Yay! Oh, and yes, that is knitting in the background... not mine, that of the hostess. A DNA scarf. Nerdy knitting, I love it.

I started these, and just couldn't stop to pick up my Christmas knitting again:



The pattern is Fetching from Knitty, and the yarn is an alpaca/silk blend (I don't have the ball band with me at the moment) which is a dream to knit with... feels just well, beautiful, and though I was skeptical of the hairyness of the yarn with the cables, it acutally like the way it's coming out. These fingerless gloves are totally impractical for Montreal winter, so I'm considering finishing them into mittens... but they are cute as fingerless gloves. Fashion vs. Common Sense strikes again... dang. Note the pink needles... they were my grandmother's and they are fantastic, the yarn just slides over them without them being too slippery. I wish I knew what they were so I could get more!

So, I was planning on doing some knitting here this evening while I have to sit in front of the AFM checking out my sample... however, I got a puck in the wrist at hockey, and it is pretty sore... just bruised, but pretty sore... in fact this typing thing isn't really working out so well. Somehow I think knitting is going to be a bit painful for a bit.

Anyway, seeing that it's getting quite late quite quickly, I think I'll sign off and prepare to leave at the end of this scan. Need to get more ice on this wrist of mine.