Yesterday was Kenn’s birthday. I came home bearing a fresh bouquet of peonies, since it is that very brief season in which they do not cost 4875988492490 dollars.

I then made gnocchi alla romana and lemon roasted broccoli and coconut panna cotta with a berry coulis. The first and last recipes are from Super Natural Cooking, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Everything from that book is fabulous.

The gnocchi was AMAZING. I’ve never made baked (rather than boiled) gnocchi, nor have I made it without potatoes (these are semolina) but it was so incredible. Might have something to do with the entire stick of butter in there.

We’re continuing to celebrate through the weekend, this morning with whole grain pancakes with berries.

Basil likes to keep me company when I cook.

As an aside, thank you to everyone who gave their opinions on my dress! I’ll be sharing v2.0 soon!

We drove down to LA last weekend for family things, and I think it was one of the best LA visits ever. It almost made me love Los Angeles. I guess visiting all your favorite old haunts within a couple days will do that.

I didn’t particularly like living in LA, mainly because the sprawl is awful and the traffic even worse. Unlike other cities I’ve lived in, you can’t just walk outside, wander down the street, and find something to do. You have to find something, make plans, and drive 40 minutes. Always.

But LA has its magic, it’s true. There are undiscovered places not crowded with hipsters, beaches and sun, quirky neighborhoods, incredible art, and classic cars. I even like the seedy ruptured glamor of hollywood, in a way. There is some truth to the crumbling fairydusted LA sketched in Francesca Lia Block novels, but like a lot of things, you have to step away for a while to see it.

Here’s what I did:

• Baked a giant red velvet cake for my mom’s birthday, which was amazingly delicious. My brother said it looked like a cartoon cake.
  
  
  
  
• Visited Acres of Books, one of my favorite places on this earth
  
• Had cocktails at Yamashiro high up in the Hollywood hills, looking out over all of Hollywood at sunset

  
  

• Ate yummy vegan food and spent a day wandering around Silverlake
  
  
• Walked around Echo Park and saw baby swans in the lake!
  
  
• Saw some incredible homes in Los Feliz
  
  
• Had Chai and soup at The Bourgeois Pig, sitting in the back room which has been made into a crazy dark enchanted forest room (not pictured), while they played Nick Cave
  
  
• Drinks at The Dresden and Boardners
  
• Hanging out at a friend’s loft in downtown LA and eating homemade veggie tacos with pretty skyline views
  

Pretty hard to beat that for a fantastic weekend.

Last night, we had a couple friends over for dinner. I made a big salad with champagne vinaigrette, roasted tomatoes stuffed with fresh mozzarella, and two pizzas. One had roasted peppers and broccoli, the other had thinly sliced potato, gruyere, and homemade pesto.

This pesto recipe from Heidi Swanson is the only one I use, since I first tried it about a year ago. It takes time, but it is most definitely worth it. The flavor really is more complex.

PS: Today I’m going to the Maker Faire! This is the third year we’ve gone. good times.

We go through a hell of a lot of granola in our house. While we normally buy it in bulk from the local co-op (why yes, I do live in san francisco), when I was a poor grad student I started experimenting with making it myself. Sometimes it was really good, sometimes… not so good. Let’s just say granola burns quickly.

Now that I have a job, which means a bit more money and a lot less time, we’ve gone back to store-bought. But I missed homemade granola, so I decided to give the Pepita Granola recipe from Smitten Kitchen a try. By the way, the pumpkin butter recipe also featured there is amazing.

I must say, this is some of the best damn granola I’ve had. Not too sweet, very crunchy and nutty and yum yum yum. I added dried blueberries, dried blackberries, and raisins.

And while I’m praising Smitten Kitchen, can I tell you how fabulous these blondies are? I added bourbon, coconut, white and bittersweet chocolate to mine. They are very whiskey-y. And I like pretty much all things whiskey-y.

Obviously, I’ve been spending a lot of time in the kitchen lately. I promise to return to crafting very soon!

I am a big fan of rice pudding. It’s one of those desserts that I really get strong cravings for. It’s so warm and wintery and comforting. This is sort of a variation on that theme, only way more decadent.

We were out of our usual breakfast yesterday (granola) and I didn’t feel like a plain old bowl of oatmeal, so I decided to riff on the recipe for marbled chocolate risotto in the lovely lovely cookbook Food for Friends. I included the coconut because we have a ton of coconut in the house left over from our wedding desserts.

This was so unbelievably rich and delicious and decadent. Definitely not the sort of thing you could enjoy every day, but it sure was good. It would be interesting to use coconut milk and omit the flavoring for a vegan version.

Chocolate-swirled Coconut Almond Risotto
(serves 2)

1 tsp butter
0.5 cup arborio rice
1 Tbs. dessicated or shredded coconut
2.5 - 3 cups milk
1 Tbs sugar
1/8 tsp. coconut flavoring
2.5 Tbs. grated bittersweet dark chocolate, divided
1-2 Tbs roasted almonds, chopped

Melt the butter in a saucepan. Add the rice and coconut and cook a few minutes, to coat and toast the grains slightly. Place the milk, sugar, and coconut flavor in a small pan and heat until warm. Keep warm on the stove. Add the milk to the rice one ladle at a time, adding more milk whenever the liquid is absorbed. Continue until risotto is cooked, 20-30 minutes or so. Stir in the almonds. Add 2 Tbs chocolate, stirring just to swirl. Place in two bowls and sprinkle with the remaining chocolate.

My posting has been spotty lately not because I have nothing to talk about, but because I have been so busy: sewing, knitting, spending time with friends, and eating well. Above is the mini french toast I made to have with some of my homemade stone fruit preserves.

Also… pumpkin butter! I followed this recipe from Smitten Kitchen, but since I had no apple juice at hand, I used some orange juice instead. I’ve taken her serving suggestion to heart, and we’ve been eating it in the mornings with yogurt with a dab of vanilla and granola sprinkled on top. It’s amazingly delicious and satisfying. I’m excited to try my hand at the more labor intensive apple butter soon.

Ok, I didn’t make my own wedding cake. But we are lucky enough to have a very dear and generous friend who is also a pastry chef. Jojo was just amazing through the whole thing. And we are also lucky enough to have a couple of other friends who live nearby and were willing to let us use their kitchen for most of the cooking (though these photos were taken in my own kitchen, as Jojo was finishing up).

Originally, we proposed cupcakes, but we pretty much wanted Jojo to do whatever she wanted. She decided on individual cakes, and we chose the flavors: lemon-raspberry, chocolate with ganache, and coconut.

When I came back to the trip, I had to work out some hardcore nesting instincts. So we took a trip to the farmer’s market and bought bags of beautiful stone fruit, which I cooked into some tasty preserves that should last us through winter: pluot with vanilla and black pepper, nectarine with port, gingered peach, and peach with coconut.

Poor Kenn has been dealing with a cold since we came back, so I made up some whole grain lemon scones and tea to have with the preserves. It is now finally autumn in my mind.

Sometimes all you need are beautiful cupcakes like these from Kuidore to remind you of how happy life can be. sigh.

More beautiful food at this delightful Singapore-based blog

On our getaway, we stumbled on a place called The Fig Cafe in Glen Ellen. We had a wonderful brunch: “Fig Royales,” made of sparkling wine and fig syrup; spiced french toast with fig maple syrup and seasonal berries; and eggs florentine.

It was as delicious as it looks.