domicile

Exciting Things Currently

Cool things on other blogs at the moment:

• Colleen Baran is collecting stories of love for a jewelry series. Collen makes gorgeous jewelry, which you can buy here.
• Felicia's book is now available to be purchased and delivered to your door. Congrats Felicia!
• Heidi Swanson has kicked off a new series of posts with cookbook reviews by style/trendsetters. The first one features the oh-so-talented Grace Bonney of Design*Sponge Online. (Grace is one of the many savvy business ladies profiled in our book; it amazes me just how much she manages to get done in a day).
• This is really a pretty old one, but I came across Cinnamon Cooper's (of Poise Bags) DIY Chalkboard Vase article the other day and think it's awfully swell. I may try to get the time/energy together to make some of these as gifts next holidays. (We also profiled Cinnamon in our upcoming book; such smart ladies).

Food for New Braces

  Lemon Souffles 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Miss P is now the proud owner of a new set of braces. Last weekend was my first chance to see them -- Martin and her mom accompanied her to get them earlier in the week -- though I had heard reports of the all-to-familiar mouth pain she was experiencing all week. I personally had a fair bit of orthodontic work in my day. Everything from multiple tooth extractions to headgear (only worn at night) and many years of braces. Knowing first hand just how nasty those first days feel, I decided to make a meal that would be easy for her to enjoy. We had Martin's mom over as well, so I decided that was enough people to try out the Lemon Souffle recipe I'd been eying in my  Modern Classics Book 2 (Donna Hay) cookbook.

Like savoury souffles, this recipe was deceptively easy to make, but very impressive to serve. The trickiest part was a step that I would actually not bother with next time. The recipe suggests you create little parchment paper collars to tie around your small dishes/ramekins which was a bit tricky to do, and took Martin's mom, Miss P and I a fair bit of fussing. In the end, I ended up filling two extra ramekins with less of the souffle mixture and no collars and they didn't overflow, spill, fall or anything. In fact, they came out much more nicely than the ones that had the collars removed (which you can see in the foreground of the shot there). The recipe claimed to make 4 souffles, I ended up with 6 (4 of which were kind of gigantic) and had to throw some of the mix away. So I'd say you could easily reduce this recipe (though it's hard to divide 5 eggs in half) and end up with a suitable amount for 4 people. Also, it was just a bit too sugary for my and Martin's mom (aka MorMor) taste. Though you use fresh lemon juice (and added zest) which makes it very tart, it could still be a bit less sweet. The recipe suggests lowering the sugar and using raspberry pulp or passionfruit pulp instead of lemon juice. I think this recipe could have had 2/3 the sugar or used a combo of lemon juice and raspberry pulp and less sugar as suggested and you'd still have a very tasty dessert.

Beyond the critique what did I (and perhaps most importantly Miss P) think? It was pretty darn tasty. Kind of like a cup full of the meringue off a lemon pie. It would have also been really great with some shaved or curled dark chocolate pieces. It is also gluten free (assuming your cornstarch is gluten free) though really not vegan. It was an awesome excuse to use my KitchenAid (again) and I can't stress how high the easy/impressive quotient is, if you're looking to impress your dinner guests. You do need to do the egg whipping part just before you pop them in the oven, but the rest can be prepared and chilled ahead of time, making it really easy to put together and bake after dinner. The recipe is after the jump.

Peanut-Free Peanut Sauce!

Ok, so not peanut sauce. But close. For those who don't know Martin and I suffer from a bit of an ironic food pairing. I am an avowed vegetarian (though not a vegan) and, in turn, has a deathly allergy when it comes to peanuts and soy protein (though fortunately not things like tamari/soy sauce which have no protein in them). This means my deep fondness for tofu-y goodness is often only fulfilled at dinners out or when he is not around for dinner (on those nights I will often lovingly cradle a bowl of baked tofu and brown rice in my hands and indulge like a kid in a chocolate factory). I ate a lot of tofu before we moved in together, and much less of it now, though I certainly manage to get my fix when necessary. Peanuts I had quite fortunately abandoned a few years prior in favour of almonds and other nuts. Once you've tried almond butter you're not likely to go back to its lower rent cousin peanut butter, though it does inflate the grocery bill a bit. The one place where I would still indulge in the humble peanut was peanut sauce. I love peanut sauce. In particular a version from the Rebar cookbook that includes cilantro, lime and a bit of sambal oelek for heat. But, given the severity of Martin's peanut allergy, which is more severe than his soy protein allergy and peanuts are more insidious when it comes to cross contamination in the kitchen, we have not had hide nor hair of a peanut in this house since we moved in.

But oh how I have missed the peanut sauciness.

Last night I was making dinner for our current house guests -- my darling god-daughter Djuna, her mom (my dear childhood friend), dad and her new baby brother -- as well as a friend who was joining us and I wanted a sauce to tie together some steamed veggies, brown rice and (depending on which side of the veggie vs. protein allergy spectrum you fall on) coconut prawns/baked tofu. Peanut sauce would have done the job very nicely and I've been meaning to spend some time trying out some alternative nuts to make a similar sauce, so last night I gave it a whirl with cashews and, my peanut eschewing friends: we have a winner.

Here's the recipe (again, I don't use much in the way of exact measurements for these things, so pardon the loose directions).

Emira's Recipe for Cashew (NOT Peanut) Sauce:

- 1 cup of toasted unsalted cashews (I toasted these in a 250 oven for 20 min)
- nearly a whole can of coconut milk
- one 1" piece of ginger peeled and grated
- one large clove of garlic chopped
- about 2 or 3 tbps tamari
- generous handful of cilantro chopped
- juice of one lime
- chili peppers/sambal oelek to taste

Start by toasting your cashews if they aren't already. Then place them in a food processor/cuisinart until they start to turn to cashew butter. This took maybe 4 or 5 minutes? I kept commenting to Kate that they weren't turning to butter then PRESTO they did. So have patience.

Open your can of coconut milk and add about half to the food processor. You can keep adding it afterwards depending on the taste and how coconuty you want it in the end. Add the tamari (start with about 2 tbsp and taste for saltiness to suit your preferences), ginger, garlic and the lime juice. Blend it for a few second until mixed. Wash and chop your cilantro (or leave this out if you're one of those cilantro haters) and add it to the food processor with some sambal oelek for heat. To be honest, I left this out last night as Martin's peanut allergy presents itself as a tingling heat on his tongue, so I didn't want him to freak out. Next time, I'll add about 1 tsp now that he knows this sauce doesn't kill him. Turn it on to mix again and then taste. Adjust by adding more coconut and or tamari as you like. Of course you can also add more of the ginger, garlic, spice or cilantro too.

Transfer to a small pot and gently heat. You're not really cooking this, just warming it to go on your food. I suppose you could microwave it, but we don't have one of those.

And ta da. Perfect with baked tofu, coconut prawns (apparently), brown rice and steamed veggie goodness like broccolis, snow peas, etc. etc.

Marimekko for the Home

  Marimekko Mokki Tray 
  Originally uploaded by emira

Marimekko has always made me think of my darling childhood friend Kate. I think it must be that the nostalgia hit those big over sized prints give me takes me right back to the early days of our friendship circa 78 when running around in terry cloth shorts and polyester t-shirts that exposed our little toddler bellies was de rigeuer. Kate and her family are currently visiting the west coast from Montreal and are in fact staying with us for a week right now (after a visit with her folks for Christmas). Somewhere between the rush of Christmas and the mild chaos of a three year old and a three month old (part of her entourage) we didn't manage to exchange Christmas gifts with one another until last night. She and her partner Adrian gave us this awesome Marimekko tray which Martin is trying to claim as his own (he does this will all things red). It's my first official piece of Marimekko, despite much oggling when we were in Denmark, and it has inspired me to try to take Kate to the new concept store they opened last Fall here in Vancouver. I'm giddy at the thought of the store, as another friend -- Ariane -- described it to me just last night (in a weirdly prescient Marimekko moment) and I'm sure I'll be as overwhelmed as she was by all the yummy fabrics and awesome prints... Oh the anticipation!

Miss P's Room

  Miss P's Room 
  Originally uploaded by emira

I don't know how many eleven year olds your in current contact with, but Miss P seems to me to have pretty much everything a girl could want. For her birthday this year she got a Nintendo DS (a joint gift from Martin, me and his mom) and a cel phone (from her mom) which was then added to her electronic/digital gadget collection with already included a pretty skookum digital camera. Add to that a healthy set of grandparents supplemented by my family who spoil her like the lone step-grandchild she is and she's really generally pretty kitted out for stuff. If that in and of itself wasn't enough, one of Martin's clients opened a new clothing store for tweens this Fall and Miss P was treated some hardcore shopping on credit that Martin had built up over the year. This meant that as the holiday season rolled around we were at a bit of a loss for what to get her until she suggested that we redecorate her room for her as her gift.  And so we set to work.

To be totally honest, Martin set to work. I helped with the prep, the planning, the picking up of paint (Benjamin Moore's Lavender Lipstick in their Eco-Paint), the ordering and pick up of the wall graphics from Surface Collective, but then Martin put in the bulk of the elbow grease. The logistics broke down like this: on Monday, December 17th Miss P went back to her mom's place meaning we could begin the work (the final product was a surprise, she only knew she was getting her room done). The work then needed to be done for the following Sunday, December 23rd. Meanwhile there was the usual working to do all week and of course additional Christmas prep, sewing and baking to be done. It was, to say the least not going to be a slow and considered project. Martin had the Monday off work and managed to get 80% of the painting done that day after breaking down her old room, which then resided in our livingroom (with the Christmas tree) for the rest of the week. Tuesday evening we painted trim. Wednesday evening Martin modified her bed to add two drawers below it to replace the dresser that was in her room (she doesn't keep much in the way of clothes in the room and we were trying to maximize space). Thursday and Friday, we rested. Saturday night the walls were dry enough to apply the decals. As you can see in the photo Martin painted big white circles around the room which continues his circle theme, and has the effect of making the room seem much bigger. We decided to put the decals in the circles and to cut them on the edges to make it look like they were being windblown "through" the circles around the room. The end product is -- I must say -- pretty awesome. And Miss P has declared it a roaring success, in the squealing, jumping, happy way of eleven year olds.

The whole project felt a bit like living a home reno show. With a limited budget and very limited time we were able to pretty much transform the room from a hodge podge of discarded furniture stuffed into a room into a very cool, modern pre-teen girl's room that feels more spacious than our wee house's actual square footage generally affords. You can see more photos here all of which were taken by Miss P herself.

New Year, New Look

I spent much of last year wishing I had time to rejig the design of this here blog, and sadly that time never materialized. Today, on the last day of the holidays I found myself with not enough time to start any of the big new projects on my list, and a desire to spend a fair bit of time in my pjs. Mucking around with Photoshop and Typepad therefore seemed like a swell thing to do. I'm hoping this design is a bit simpler overall (I've removed a number of content elements including most of the ads), and that the banner becomes something I can switch out from time to time. At the moment the photo doesn't include Martin, so that will need to change at some point. Sadly we have almost no photos of the two of us together.

The other thing you'll notice with this redesign/retooling is that I'm featuring my book that is coming out later this year in the sidebar there. The process of self promotion seems a bit strange to be honest, particularly since I've yet to hold the physical book in my hot little hands. This year is going to be a lot about that book. Preparing for promotions over the early Spring, heading out of the office and away from the domicile in May/June for a mini-book tour, and hopefully a decent amount of publicity and public profile to help get the word out. I'll surely be cross promoting it here and ask you to forgive the interruption of domestic goings-on once in a while.

What else does 08 hold? On the home front we have many ideas but little in the way of reserves. We redid Miss P's room as her Christmas gift (photos to follow soon); we have to do a bit of a rush polishing job on our downstairs bedroom in time for house guests later this week; there will liklely be a fair bit of painting (and hopefully not too much drywalling) to redo our livingroom colour, our bedroom and the big looming project of repainting the outside of the house. I'm also hoping this spring and summer will bring me more spare time for gardening and some creative outdoor projects. Last year I spent so much of the spring and summer working on the book in my spare time that not much remained for puttering in the dirt. I'm feeling very inspired by some successes (and some useful failures) in my holiday gift sewing and hope to keep a bit of momentum going with sewing this year (I do still have that awesome Amy Butler fabric to find a home for). I lost a bit of steam with the bread making last year, but have spent today (between photoshop fiddling) on a new bread recipe for a french boule, and hope that the addition of the KitchenAid for auto-kneading might be a bit of a kick in the pants in that direction. And, while it frustrates the hell out of me that this is not something I can control, I'll admit that it is my sincerest wish that by this year's end we'll also have a proverbial bun in the oven over here. And, if I may be so bold I'm hoping the process is a smooth one and not full of the drama and sadness of past years.

At the very least I do hope that this year brings enough spare time for reflection and creative musings in this space. And of course, there will be lots of snuggling, purring and mischief coming from our beloved Pluto the Wonderkitty.