A Lovely Sunday

ONE of my biggest joys is getting to spend the day in the kitchen, just messing around with food and seeing what I come up with. Saturday's trip to the fabulous Hollywood Farmers' Market made possible a smorgasbord of delights on Sunday:


Layers of eggplant, garlic, heirloom tomatoes, gruyere and fresh basil became...


my personal version of imam bayaldi. I haven't made this one in years, but it was delicious. ;-P
The kids liked it, and they (esp. Miss N) are notoriously suspicious of the unusual.
(And it is a wonderful way to use eggplant that doesn't require a ton of oil!)


Grissini. I just used up some of the frozen pizza dough the kids and I had made a while ago. Topped with a mixture of salt, pepper and crushed fennel seeds. Mmm-mmm.
As you can see, they go pretty darn fast! Recipe from Baking Illustrated.



Teaching the little miss to make gnocchi. I used the recipe from the Cook's Illustrated book Restaurant Favorites at Home (blanch the gnocchi, fry some sage leaves in oil, take 'em out, fry up the gnocchi in the sage oil, put the leaves back and make a butter sauce on top).
Delicious, if time-consuming at the end.


No-Knead Bread from the NYT and Lemon Blueberry Bread...


In an amazing and rare display for foresight, I got a head start on the next day's dinner by whipping up some Chili Lime Spatchcock Chicken. So easy, yet so delicious.

And I even managed to squeeze in a dab of knitting:

Admittedly, the ribbing was done all during the week, but there are three and a half new rows of colorwork that weren't there before. (At this rate, I'll be done by the time Bean is two!)