Talked Jefe into letting me make him some latkes for brekkie a few weeks back – forgot I’d taken a snap of it.  Smoked salmon, sour cream, green onions, capers (only on mine), some applesauce and fresh sliced nectarines.  Heck of a way to start a beautiful Sunday.

Grabbed lunch with Mindy the other day at the tiny Mexi joint on the SE of 27th and O – back where that small used car lot used to be?  Really tasty, food priced cheap – especially for the servings sizes! – huge bottled sodas a little spendy, though.  Chips before meal were good, and served with a basic salsa, a salsa verde and some refrieds – first time I’ve seen that at a restaurant.

Does absence really make the heart grow fonder?  Oh, good.

Here for Post 100 I’m going to share my new love, the light of my life, the reason I wake in the morning…my new cutting board.  Ahhhh, it’s so gorgeous I could almost cry when I look at it.  It was hard to actually cut on it instead of just hang it on the wall and ogle it daily, but I did it.  I done broked it in.

It’s made of a combo of woods by woodsman extraordinaire, Chad Johnson (see him here hard at work making beautiful organs:  http://www.bedientorgan.com/meet_us.html)  According to him this board includes: Quartered White Oak, Quartered Red Oak, White Oak, Red Oak, Cherry, Maple, Mahogany, Walnut and Mordillo.  His standard cutting boards are around 9″ x 12″ x 3/4″, which he sells for $18.00.  Yep, that’s all.  I paid a little more for this one since I wanted it larger and thicker, but such fantastic craftsmanship for that price!

He also made this lovely serving board from 100 year old Sugar Maple, with Cherry dados.  Hommina hommina hommina – can’t wait to have a dinner or party and put something special on it.

He would love to make one for you too, and has given me permission to give out his contact information.

email Big Tree Woodworking at:  chadrak123@aol.com

or call: 402.540.2995

I had to run to Open Harvest for some nanners today, and by the checkout they had some new chocolates.  I saw that they were stone-ground and one even had Counter Culture coffee beans ground in with it, soooo…yeah.  I had to get one.

No kidding, this might be the best chocolate to ever melt on my tongue.  It’s rich in a way that doesn’t end up making you feel gross for it, the fruity, cherry notes make my tongue water – literally, water – and the slight grit in the texture is not offputting.  It’s really quite pleasant.

Sounds like I’m stating the obvious, but this tastes like food.   It’s just so utterly delicious that I’m either going to hide it and nibble tiny bits like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or I’m just going to have to buy a whole case online.

BONUS: (from the company website)

Taza Chocolate is completely vegan friendly. It contains no dairy, lactose, soy, soy lecithin, wheat, or gluten. Taza chocolate poses no risk to sufferers of lactose intolerance, soy allergy, or Celiac disease. Our chocolate contains many of the vitamins and minerals that are essential to good health, including iron, calcium, phosphorus, potassium, and the vitamins A, B1, C, D, and E. And chocolate has more magnesium than any other food.

Not to mention, you can warm and drink this, or just eat it as-is.  If you’ve never been privy to the joys of a nice drinking chocolate (NOT instant hot chocolate, that insipid, watery, marginally-related imposter) this would be the perfect product to make your first foray with.  The website has some wonderful sounding recipes, including one with masa, which I’m going to try first.

Thanks to Lexi’s encouragement, I ventured into the realm of homemade liqueurs for Valentine’s Day.  I followed her suggested recipe from Instructables, with only a few changes.  I did not add the cinnamon, and I used a pretty inexpensive Skol vodka.  Otherwise, I followed closely, not wanting to waste either the material cost nor my time.  I ended up with enough to make some little Valentine gifts for friends and still have some left for Jefe and I to have a delicious drink ourselves.  Good with just some club soda, but I think it would also probably be delicious with, say, a cranberry/lime sparkling water or something of the sort.  Even a cola maybe, and some vanilla – along the lines of a vanilla cherry coke.

I came up with this design while I was still working at ACE Hardware, and lived in an apartment with 12 foot ceilings.  Oh, and I also didn’t want to spend a hundred plus bucks for a rack I didn’t even like the style of.  I gave that one away to a friend who was moving into a new place.  Now I live in place with normal human-sized rooms and 8 foot ceilings.

I used:

• 4 – Ceiling hooks @ 3/$1.09
• 4 – Spring Clips/caribiners @ $.89/ea
• 2 – 4′ lengths of EMT conduit @ $1.98/10′
• 2 – 1.5′ lengths of chain @ $.65/foot
• 2 – 1′ lengths of chain @ $.65/foot
• 10 – S-hooks at $.99/ea

*Note: these parts can be painted, or colored versions substituted relatively easily – think copper or black.   You can also use shorter lengths of pipe or chain depending on your space available.

Simple to hang – put the ceiling hooks into stable place in the ceiling, placed between 2.5 and 3 feet apart.  Hang the chains from these hooks, with the shorter chains in the back – farthest away from you.  Put spring clips through other end of the chain.  Slide EMT through larger opening on spring clips.  Put on S-hooks, and hang those pots and pans – long -handled on the back, shorter pots/pans closer to you.

I’ve had a hankering for pasta for weeks now and finally caved.  Decided to make some baked manicotti and break in the new casserole dish.  Russ’s had no manicotti, no giant shells, nothing stuffable.  So I ended up going to SunMart and was actually very pleasantly surprised by both the selection of items I needed and the prices.  I know I complain about them, but really – I was impressed.  Used this recipe but omitted the butter.  Made enough for all of the shells, but I had 3 that didn’t fit into the pan, so I think I’ll just freeze the filling for something else when I need some grub in a hurry.

Stuffed and ready for the saucing.

Tomatoey goodness

Combination of Mozz and Parm.

Oven Ready!

Finished with some fresh flat-leaf parsley, and served with some garlicky cheese bread.

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Oh man, who let me type that?  I’m going to dedicate this post to my brother, the King Of Puns, and a fellow horseradish lover.

Jefe and I ran to TJ Maxx last weekend to pick up a ceramic casserole dish and discovered the European Market just a couple of doors to the North (in the same strip mall on 48th).  The very, very nice woman working informed me that they’d been there a couple of months and offered to help interpret anything that I couldn’t read on the labels.  Luckily, most of it also has ingredients in English, and the photos were pretty self-explanatory as a rule.

I honestly got hung up in the aisle of jarred, pickled goods, so I’ll have to go back and explore some more before I can give a  full accounting of what they stock, but that aisle alone had a lot of goodness to offer, provided you like pickled-type things, which I adore.

I picked up a freshly baked loaf of rye (she said they bake daily), a jar of horseradish with beets, a bag of egg noodles (for the Hungarian Beef Stew that was on the menu for the next day), and a jar of pickled pattypan squash.  Oh heavens, do I love these squash – I promptly made a snack of the bread with some butter, slathered in the horseradish, and few of the squash, all room temp.  Delicious and tangy!

There were bottles of curried catsup, jars of eggplant spreads, loads of things with cabbage, squash, peppers, and mushrooms, toiletries, staples, frozen goods,…for such a small space there was a nice variety of items without being overwhelming.

And as a side bonus, the owner told me that she was from Astonia, which reminded me of Veronica – a lovely Astonian woman I worked with in Chicago, who knit me the most gorgeous yellow wool socks for my birthday one year.  I went home and put them right on my chilly toes and smiled.

Staring at two lonely eggs in the fridge this morning, I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull breakfast for el Jefe and I out of that.  Started scavenging around the kitchen and lo and behold…the Spam with Bacon I bought a few months ago when I was making musubi.

So, scrambled the eggs with the two tablespoons or so of sour cream left in a tub, plus a little water and s/p.  Sliced the Spam really thin and fried it up crispy golden brown in a pan.  Found a bag in the freezer with about 20 tater tots at the bottom.  Nuked them for a minute to thaw, chopped them into rough quarters, and fried them up in some butter.  Grated some cojack over them when they were done.  Last few slices of rye bread toasted up…ta da!  Peeled up a Cutie fruit that I was given at work yesterday in lieu of juice and it was time to break our fast.

Eggs, ham/bacon, cheesy hashbrowns, toast and fruit.  Not too shabby for scrounging up a meal on a holiday!

Sampler box from new grown-up treat store, Chocolatier Blue.  Above shows things like Chile, Espresso, and Smores, as well as Cherry Limeade, Strawberry Rhubarb and Honey Sage.  The first two we tried were fantastic, so I can’t wait to try the rest.  Made with organic butter and a premium Italian chocolate, even a small bite is a big indulgence and they’re priced reasonably, so you don’t have to wait for a big occasion to give in to your sweet tooth.