Kettle Style Potato Chips... in your Microwave?!

So late one night a couple weeks ago, I had a serious jones for potato chips. Which we didn't have. Nothing else really does it if all you want to crunch down on is some chips. So after Zips did a little web surfing, she announced that we would make our own. right now. ...in the microwave.

I was seriously skeptical. I thought potatoes would be floppy and perhaps eventually leathery if left in the microwave too long. But eventually, I gave in, and sliced a potato as thinly as humanly possible.

Then coated them with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and arranged them in a single layer on a microwave-safe plate.

We microwaved the plate for 2 minutes, flipped the chips over and gave them 2 more minutes. Then again. After about 6 minutes or so, the slices started to yellow. I gave it another minute and a half, then drained the chips on a paper towel.

When they cooled, they were crunchy. But more importantly, They Were Potato Chips.

We ended up making 3 batches, which isn't terribly energy or time efficient. But we just couldn't believe it! They were delicious. The thicker slices ended up tasting and crunching like kettle chips. The thinnest slices, the translucent ones I was sure would adhere to the plate and burn in the microwave ended up crisp and identical to original Lays. Curse my skepticism. Point: Zips.

Oh yeah...

... we also made graham crackers (though, not technically, since we didn't use graham flour)...

They're actually pretty easy and don't require any special ingredients you don't already have.

...and black and white cookies. I even purchased an old school ice cream scooper for these so they would be perfectly round and uniform in size (although I didn't realize they'd be as big as a cookie at a Starbucks!

Both were huge hits in the household (even though the chocolate half of the b/w cookie isn't as smooth as the white half). Oh, and both are from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar! You may as well just buy the book. Vegan or no vegan, everything in this is freaking delicious! (see also the carrot raisin cookies). I'm going to miss summertime cooking!

Vicarious Trips to Italy and Accidental Lowry's Seasoning

Another major project this past week has been a back-to-school care package of sorts for some of our favorite colleagues-- one of whom went to Italy this summer. Since I'm trying to become proficient with my beloved pasta machine, we decided to go all-out on a Little Italy extravaganza. I made a batch of spinach fettuccine (we bagged some and ate the rest!),

and an amazing raspberry vinegar, some of our home brew limoncello (which Zips has started referring to as moonshine),

some raspberry/strawberry syrups (not italian, but it goes well with the moonshine-- ooh, and you could use to make italian soda!), and some biscotti. (Chocolate and Almond Cranberry. I have the best recipe from a holiday issue of Vegetarian Times. I'll probably come back to this when we make it again in the fall!)

We got some cardboard boxes that looked like suitcases, so I painted and tricked them out to look like well-traveled steamer trunks.

Then packed the goodies in-- (this is before I had decided to make up a batch of the spinach pasta)-- Zips also made a great retro Franco-Italiano music mix that we dubbed "limoncello lounge".

In the process, we tried several other recipes for this and that homemade goodie, one of which was a "spice blend"-- that I realized, after whipping up a batch, tastes almost exactly like Lowry's Seasoned Salt. So much so, that after snapping this photo of it (with the Lowry's in the background), I literally dumped the entire homemade batch into my already opened Lowry's to top it off. (I decided not to gift it-- I didn't want our friends thinking I gave them a little glass jar of store-bought seasonings, pretending it was homemade!)

If you're interested, here's the recipe. It tastes fine. In fact, I will be happy to use this, since it is very flavorful and has no salt. Maybe I'll see if I can't whip up some Mrs. Dash's seasoning next!

The Accidental Lowry's

1 1/2 tsp. garlic powder

3/4 tsp. thyme

1/2 tsp. oregano

1 1/2 tsp. onion powder

1 1/4 tsp. paprika

1 tsp. ground celery seed

1 1/2 tsp. white pepper

1 1/2 tsp. ground mustard

1 tsp. black pepper

New Projects

I've been holding onto this window pane ever since I was an undergrad in northern California. My senior year, I lived (along with several other intrepid art majors) in one of the (poorly insulated, abandoned) bungalows at what used to be the Aetna Springs Resort, built in the 1870's and adjacent to a golf course (that I once snuck onto in the middle of the night for a picnic), and formerly occupied by the Moonies. The buildings on the property were all abandoned, filled knee-deep with molding books and rusting furniture. The cottages that were live-able still often contained baffling artifacts like a hatch from Lost-- I remember once crawling underneath the bungalow I lived in, finding a cache of mildewing cardboard boxes filled with slide carousels from what looked like a presentation about alcoholism. If I lived there now, I'd have to become a video artist and re-stage scenes from '80's slasher flicks!

In any case, it was a paradise for photographers and collage and assemblage artists. (Once my entire assemblage sculpture class visited for an impromptu field trip/scavenger hunt for materials for a group sculpture-- we all ended up making 2 nearly life-size elephants.) I've kept a ton of old books from there (literally, they're very heavy), the occasional salvaged antique doorknob and keyplate, and this wonderful old window pane with three original panes of glass-- intending to do something with it, especially after seeing several similar windows used as picture frames in different places over the years.

Zips finally compelled me to finish it. I cleaned it, painted it, collaged the gold from joss papers on the edges, and had some photos printed especially for this. Each of the photos evokes the time we stayed in a log cabin for the weekend in Brown County, Indiana, and most of them were taken that weekend.

There's a birdhouse washtub, and a slate board that says "Nothing Matters More than This Day", a snapshot of the koi pond, and the red metal rocking chair from the front porch of the log cabin.

I'm really happy with it. It reminds me to be serene. Here and on the other side, I've included a "double happiness" from the joss papers.

Farmer's Market Feasting

Nearly a year ago exactly, Zips and I discovered the Albuquerque Downtown Grower's Market. And on a spur of the moment flash of madness, on Saturday we got up at 6 in the morning, to drive three hours to visit it again. We were reminded how much we love farmer's markets with their crazy abundant variety.

We picked up a dozen ears of corn, carrots, peaches, grapes, potatoes, lavender...

A basket of these adorable pear-shaped yellow tomatoes...

And if you go, you must swing by the booth belonging to Black Bird Pies. They often give out sample bites of pie (this time it was their sweet potato pie)...

...and they have the most amazing fruit juices. Again, Zips chose watermelon papaya and I picked the thai basil lemonade and the raspberry sage lemonade. They were all equally awesome (and inspired Zips to concoct Sweet Basil Watermelon Water with our feast).

When we got home (after swinging by Bella Luca on the way home. I'll have to write about their cannellini and greens that I ordered!), we decided to gorge ourselves to celebrate the end of another summer, and rather than just fix the usuals for our Sunday dinner, to make everything with some new recipes.

I already have a great recipe for peach pie, so decided to branch out and make peach galettes. The peaches we got were the size of plums, but they actually yielded more fruit than I expected (I could have more than made a pie!)

Peach Galettes

I used a different dough recipe for the crust-- but now that I've tried it, I think I'd just stick with my usual pie crust recipe, just roll it out a bit thinner. The dough recipe was 1 1/4 c. flour with 8Tb. butter and 1/4 c. ice water. It only gave me 2 crusts, so I had to half it and make a third galette when I had excess filling. If I did it all over again, I'd just use a regular pie crust recipe that would probably give me 4 galettes.

The filling was 6 c. of sliced peaches tossed with

2/3 c. sugar

big dash of cinnamon (1 tsp.)

small dash of ground cloves (1/4 tsp.)

small dash of nutmeg (1/4 tsp.)

1 Tb. flour

juice of 1/2 lemon

Place the peach filling in the center of each crust about an inch from the edges and then curl the crust around the filling. If you get greedy like me, you can stack the peach filling a bit more after you've created the edges of the galette. You can even drizzle in a little of the juice. Just don't over-do it like I did and get the bottom of your crust soggy even before baking it.

Then bake at 400 for about 30 minutes.

Zips sliced up the yellow tomatoes, sprinkled some of our sweet basil over it and drizzled it with olive oil. Then scooped out some of our locally grown watermelon before juicing the rest of it and adding some chopped sweet basil to the juice (it was delicious!). I cubed the potatoes and carrots and roasted them with some olive oil and rosemary from our garden.
But another high point and new discovery was corn pudding. Corn Pudding. Two words I never imagined together. I couldn't wrap my brain around it. I had no concept of what it would taste like. But nothing about it looked bad, so I gave it a whack and am so glad I did!

Zipper's Corn Pudding

2 or 3 ears of fresh corn-- de-kerneled

2/3 c. milk (most recipes call for whole milk. I used soy milk. It was delightfully light and fluffy. Perhaps when I try this again with the southwestern variation, I'll use whole milk to get the full effect before experimenting more)

1 egg

1 Tb. flour

1 tsp. sugar

salt + pepper

Handful of basil or cilantro (I used basil-- about 8 or 9 leaves chopped)

Pulse half of the corn kernels in a food processor. I did this until I had a kind of sweet corn mush. Then add the processed corn to the rest of the kernels, the dry ingredients, and the basil or cilantro.

In another bowl, mix together egg and milk, and add this to the corn mixture. Then pour into a baking dish and bake at 350 for about 30 minutes. I finally got to use these little individual pans for like the second time in ten years!

It was an amazing feast-- that has left us both plagued with food ennui. I'll have to think up something quick to make life worth living after having eaten this sumptuously! Isn't that what summer's for?

Just Like Berry Pie a la Mode (without the hassle of making a pie!)

Summer is ending too quickly. In just two weeks, we'll be back in school and then it's just full tilt until Christmas. Of course one of the best things about summer is fresh berries (even though we don't have access to a u-pick farm anymore), and Zips had a memory about vanilla ice cream with berries in a swirl of Chambord (black raspberry liqueur) syrup. There's literally no way to mess this one up!

Chambord Berries and Ice Cream

2 c. fresh strawberries

1 c. blueberries

1 c. raspberries

1/3 c. sugar

combine berries and sugar and simmer over low heat until sugar dissolves.

Add 1/2 c. Chambord

simmer for 3 minutes (don't stir too much...those raspberries are delicate!)

Spoon berries and syrup over vanilla ice cream. It tastes like the best berry pie a la mode!

New Art: Pop Culture Ikons

One of the charming features of the new house we're renting is built-in nichos. We've got one on the front porch, one in the entryway, and one in the back hallway. But we haven't had anything to put into them until now. I've finally completed a project I've had in progress since we lived in our downtown 3rd floor apartment in Indiana. We've kept a running list of our favorite musicians and actors (mostly musicians) past and present, and created our own set of ikons.

The original set were images I had photoshopped to remove the backgrounds and heighten the images. But since I'm finishing this project several years later on a newer computer without photoshop, I did it old school and copied pictures into microsoft word, made them black and white, tweaked the contrast, printed them out, cut each image out, then photocopied them onto watercolor paper.

The rest is just some clever gold and copper paint, acrylics, and a red ballpoint pen.

We had many mutual loves (Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley in Ab Fab, Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Shabana Azmi, George Michael, Margaret Cho), but believe me we also did some serious bargaining (I got Andrew Bird and Bjork; Zips demanded Catherine Deneuve, Marlene Dietrich, Yoko Ono, David Bowie, Marianne Faithfull, Nina Simone, and at one point, Freddie Mercury). We've decided our overflow favorites (younger vintage pop culture loves) will be cherubs instead of icons. We're starting a new list; Zips gets Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lady Gaga, and Daft Punk. So far all I'm getting are the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (and they'll only count as one), and maybe I'll get the use the Lauryn Hill image I made. Yeah, guess which one of us usually buys all the music and movies...?