cooking class collage for rachel

the artist...Michael Stearns, who opened his studio in Long Beach, for our cooking class.  He LOVES color!  Some of his paintings and a hanging sculpture can be seen in this pic (he was working on a painting during our class)...

Elizabeth Whitt (Le Cordon Bleu trained chef)...love her relaxed, educational style...filled with awesome dishes and complementary wines and champagnes...

mushrooms and asparagus for the roasted mushroom and asparagus tart...

the tart in process...

loved the colors of dinnerware...they matched his artwork...

crostini for the goat cheese crostini with strawberries, basil and balsamic reduction...

yum....strawberries for the crostini...

flank steak grilling for the grilled flank steak with sun dried tomato pesto with goat cheese crumbles on crostini...oh yeah...i guess there was crostini for this too

okay...this might have been my favorite...marinated shrimp with thai dipping sauce...wonderful!

me and diana...knowing you would have loved being surrounded by art while cooking, Rachel.  :)

sunshine.

i let the puddins out the back gate to snack on this tall grass.  i always love how the sun shines through the tall blades of grass and the wind gently blows the whispy stalks before the seeds are ready to fly.  

everything is illuminated..

finally watched the movie "everything is illuminated" (with elijah wood)...  loved it.  thank you, rachel...it is now among my favorites.   :)


http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi3936682265/

Summer in April...

even though I prefer overcast, drizzly days to typical sunny California days...I have to admit, it was a beautiful California day...clear, sunny, warm.  Lovely.

rhubarb strawberry crumble

Finally made some rhubarb strawberry crumbles with the rhubarb from Mom's garden.   I made individual crumbles with my precious new creme brulee dishes, instead of one jumbo crumble.  I used a modified version of a recipe from the Food Network Magazine.   They were tasty hot out of the oven.  The crumble part was 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup quick cooking oats, 3/4 cup sugar, pinch of salt.  Mix that together and add 6 tablespoons melted butter and 1/2 cup chopped walnuts.  Mix it to form crumbles.  For the fruit, the recipe called for 2 pounds of rhubarb, but I used 1 pound of rhubarb and about 12 oz. of fresh strawberries (because that's all the rhubarb and strawberries I had).  You add 1/2 sugar to that, 2 tablespoons of corn starch (the recipe called for 1/4 cup flour), 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 1/2 teaspoon orange zest and 1/4 teaspoon salt.  

Put the fruit slightly mounded in the little creme Brulee dishes and pile the crumble on top (if you do this over the bowl of crumble topping, you don't have to worry about spilling it all over the place--like I did with the first one).  Anyway, the recipe said to cook for 45 minutes, but it didn't give a temperature, so I cooked it at 350 degrees as other recipes suggested.  The finished product was a nice blend of tart rhubarb and sweet strawberries.  Delish!  I think I'd monkey with the crumble next time...maybe use a mix of brown and white sugar and just a bit more butter...and I might cook it a bit shorter.

spring flowers...

I think these babies are gonna find a place on the Easter dessert table.   Evil Lofthouse cookies!  Why do you taunt me so?!