Harlem Omnivore

Hey everyone! I’ve moved my blog! Check me out over here:

http://justlikemommade.wordpress.com/

Oh Lion Brand. How I love your cotton bamboo, but your center pull ball is a joke.

I’m having a few technical difficulties over here.  Sorry some of the pics have disappeared.  I’m trying to figure it out. 

I should be posting about my vacation and the recent guac off in the next couple of days! Stay tuned!

I’m on vacation on Shelter Island, that’s why you haven’t heard from me! I left Monday and will be back tomorrow. I’ll tell you allll about it!

Last night I tried my hand at making gnocchi.  (I tried my hand at it about 5 years ago and it ended badly, remember I don’t handle rejection well)

I decided to try Mark Bittmans’ recipe because it was literally only potatoes and flour, I added a little lemon zest for some zing!  I figure that couldn’t be too hard, right?  Well, they turned out pretty lovely!  They were light and fluffy, only a little mushy.  Not sure if the mushy-ness was due to over cooking, or if they needed the egg that was present in every other recipe I looked at.  Either way they ended up being easy, and tasty and I will definitely be experimenting with them again and soon!

It's like a choo-choo train of starchy goodness!

This used to be The Point knitting cafe where Jane and I would hang, drink coffee, knit and chat with some great knitters. *sigh*

I love it when great design meets great food.

A tart, that’s what.

Don’t ask me why, but I’ve decided to conquer “the tart shell”.  In the past I’ve just bought your average frozen pie shell.  Always a success, but not too exciting.  I’ve tried making my own shell a couple times, but they have always fallen short.  Then I saw a recipe in the Times for a delicious sounding tomato tart that needed a savory tart shell.  I got all kinds of excited and immediately headed down to the Union Square farmers market to get some tomatoes (in my head I said that as too-mott-toessss)

Fast forward two days later to me giving a lound grunt of defeat followed by me throwing my tart dough to the ground.  Lets just say I don’t take rejection well.    My fabulous, loving, and above all, patient boyfriend went down to the bodega and got me another stick of butter and I tried again.  This time went mildly better (think Frankenstein with tart dough) and we finally ate dinner around 10pm.

So dear readers you and I may ask, what happened?  Where did things go horribly, horribly wrong!!??  I wish I knew.  Everything is fine until I chill the dough and then attempt to roll it out, the dough starts to crack like the San Andres fault. 

I plan on doing some research with Mr. Bittman, Mrs. Child and the internet to get it right (DAMN IT).  It will be my new obsession (that and the list of 60 berry desserts that Martha has on her site)

(ok, the time on this post is after midnight, but I started it around 11pm so I say it counts =P )