Yes, it was tough, but Muse in the Kitchen is finally limping over the Bloggiesta finish line!

Ward and I didn’t get very many of the things on our list done. We both have our excuses, of course. We gave Ward the new iPhone as an early Father’s Day gift on Friday, and since then he has been really, really busy in gadget heaven. We also got new furniture delivered this morning, so he spent most of yesterday cleaning out various rooms in the house to make space for the new stuff (he didn’t even have time to cook! We had take-out, Thai and Japanese.)

As for me? Same old story. Deadlines. My book blog. And my writing. But now I have a very good idea where we’ll be taking Muse in the Kitchen, and the motivation to simply start on our to-do list was one of the best things ever – we’ll be working through our list (and adding more as we go) for the rest of this week (at the very least!).

So here’s the original list, with what we’ve accomplished crossed off:

• brainstorm a new feature that will make full use of our very large cookbook library Our new feature will be called The Cookbook Shelf
• brainstorm a new feature that will highlight all new cookbook additions to our library Not very original, but it does the job: New Cookbook Arrival
• search out fun food-related blog memes and events. I crossed off half, because I found some, but I’d like to find more.
• update out-of-date plugins
• upload and activate new plugins
• add newsletter subscribe code to sidebar
• create new food blogs links page
• create new tags archive page
• tidy up Twitter account and start Twittering more at @museinkitchen
• organize and catalog pictures on hard drive so I can easily find the right picture to match different recipes
• brainstorm new features that will help me to blog here more regularly New feature: Muse Archives. I’ll be blogging posts from our archives, which we didn’t move when we moved to this new account on our server.
• various template tweaks Cleaned up the sidebar and added gravatars and threaded comments to the comments section.
• add more food blogs to feed reader

We only completed one mini-challenge, too, unfortunately: The Book Lady’s Blog: Clean up your feedreader.

But it was fun, and hopefully the next time we’ll be able to clear off time on our calendar to really roll up our sleeves and party with everyone!

In preparation for our trip to the East coast, Ward’s been scouting out various seafood and fish recipes. Yesterday the July 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine arrived; featured on the front cover is a delectable lobster roll. Unlike other lobster rolls we’ve tasted, this one doesn’t use mayonnaise – Ward’s not particularly fond of mayonnaise, and the rest of us love lobster, so tonight he decided to make these lobster rolls with lemon vinaigrette and garlic butter.

And because we’ve all become very fond of Ward’s homemade hamburger buns, he decided to make larger ones, to take the place of the hotdog buns used in the Gourmet recipe.

Fresh Out of the Oven

Yes, they made for very large lobster rolls, but they were sturdy enough for the lobster filling:

Lobster Filling

These were the gigantic lobster rolls we sat down to for dinner tonight:

A Very Large & Delicious Lobster Roll

Partnered with barbequed corn on the cob dripping with cilantro and garlic butter, it was a fine meal indeed. We will definitely be taking this recipe with us to Nova Scotia on our holidays!

There’s a very inspiring list of mini-challenges up on the Bloggiesta post at MawBooks, and I’m feeling very motivated. Here are the challenges that I’m hoping to complete for Muse in the Kitchen over the next two days:

DONE:The Clean up your feedreader challenge at The Book Lady’s Blog. I have a separate Google Reader account for Muse in the Kitchen, and it’s a real mess. I’m going to go with alpha folders and see if that helps things a little. I’ve organized my feed reader! (1) Unsubbed from inactive feeds and (2) sorted all feeds into Alpha sort order.

The Write a post and save it for a rainy day challenge at Beth Fish Reads. This has to be an opinion or a list post, and just reading about the challenge, I came up with an idea – one that will come in handy for our upcoming trip, too!

The Go forth and comment challenge at Fizzy Thoughts. However, I want to stay within the niche of this blog, so I’ll be commenting at ten new food blogs that I find (the list of participants for Bloggiesta is made up mostly of book bloggers).

The Google Alert challenge Emily’s Reading Room. I haven’t done this one yet, and it’s about time, I think!

The Anchor Text challenge at GalleySmith.

The Blogging Tips and Tutorials challenge at Book Blather. This one will be fun, I think – the list of blogging tips and tutorials at Problogger looks very interesting, and I’m sure I’ll find at least one tip to implement here.

So that’s my list. I’m hoping I’ll be able to have the time to meet most of these challenges!

Natasha at MawBooks is hosting a Bloggiesta this weekend, and we thought it would be a great way to help us jumpstart Muse in the Kitchen which has been seriously trailing behind in posts ever since we changed to a different account on our server.

I say “we”, but the truth is that Ward has continued to cook up a storm, find tons of recipes and has been preparing a LOT for our upcoming trip to Nova Scotia and all the wonderful seafood we plan to eat while there. It’s me who needs jumpstarting! I would love to be in a routine of regular posting here before we leave, because we’ll have Internet access during the entire two weeks of our holidays at the beach house we’ve rented.

The point of the Bloggiesta?

The Bloggiesta will focus on blog content, improving/cleaning up your blog or working on your social network profiles.

So without further ado, here’s what’s I plan to work on over the next 48 hours of the Bloggiesta:

• brainstorm a new feature that will make full use of our very large cookbook library
• brainstorm a new feature that will highlight all new cookbook additions to our library
• search out fun food-related blog memes
• update out-of-date plugins
• upload and activate new plugins
• add newsletter subscribe code to sidebar
• create new food blogs links page
• create new tags archive page
• tidy up Twitter account and start Twittering more at @museinkitchen
• organize and catalog pictures on hard drive so I can easily find the right picture to match different recipes
• brainstorm new features that will help me to blog here more regularly
• various template tweaks
• Update: add more food blogs to feed reader

I may also do some of the mini-challenges, as well. Since I am celebrating the Bloggiesta at my writing and book blog, too, I may not have time to do as much as I’d like (not to mention I have two deadlines I’d like to finish up by Monday so I’ll have time to prep for our Maritimes holiday – just getting my excuses ready and up front here).

So off we go!

A beautiful lasagna dish tonight, adapted from a recipe in Olives & Oranges, as well as a dish of North African Shrimp (also from Olives & Oranges).

Sage Leaves on Top

Gorgeous & Saucy Layers

Delectable Shrimp in Spicy Sauce

We had burgers tonight – Julia burgers, made with chunks of flank steak – and Ward decided to make his own hamburger buns. He’d read this recipe in the June 2009 issue of Gourmet, and thought it sounded like it would be fun (which is why he does the cooking and I do the eating).

He decided not to go for the homemade ketchup or mustard, though – which was fine by me, because I don’t add ketchup or mustard to my burger (I pile mine high with lots of onion and tomatoes, and a sprinkle of salt).

How did the hamburger buns turn out?

They were simply amazing! Flavorful and chewy, they could actually be eaten on their own, without anything on them! My older son had seconds – without the meat.

Ready to Pop into the Oven

All Done (Sesame Seed Topping & Salt, Pepper & Sesame Topping)

Ward kept raving about how easy the recipe was. It took about five and a half hours altogether, but much of the time the dough was rising. Then he sprinkled on the toppings and popped them into the oven. Absolutely lovely!

Even our six-year-old, who’s the World’s Pickiest Eater, much to his parents’ sorrow, had one. This cheeseburger was his. Plain, of course; no ketchup, mustard, pickles, relish, onions or tomatoes.

Cheeseburger, Anyone?

I hate when this happens late in the evening when my stomach is growling a little and I go into the kitchen to search for food. Ward’s sitting at the kitchen table making up a grocery list, and he announces his plans for tomorrow. And it sounds so good, I wish it was time for dinner, tomorrow, already!

Here’s what’s on the menu for tomorrow, all from Douglas Rodriguez’s Latin Flavors on the Grill, a cookbook we recently picked up. Tomorrow will be our first foray into its recipes, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the recipes will be as good as they sound.

We’ll be having:

Beef Tenderloin with Shitake Mushroom Mojo as the entrée. Our daughter, who’s vegetarian, won’t be at home tomorrow night, so no worries on that end.

Crispy Yucca Hash Browns, which sound really good.

And for the other sides, Ward couldn’t decide between the following:

Plantains with Balsalmic Basil Glaze

Bacon-Wrapped Cauliflower with Red Chili Oil & Lemon

Rum Barbecued Black Beans

Grilled Asparagus with Crab Mayonaise

Grilled Mushroom Salsa

I voted for the Grilled Mushroom Salsa, which had been Ward’s original choice, only he was worried that there would be too much mushroom.

My reply? You can never have too much mushroom.

Vegetarian Mushroom Stroganoff

Dinner tonight was Vegetarian Mushroom Stroganoff, a recipe that Ward adapted from the Vegetarian Cook’s Bible. He decided to use soy milk rather than milk, which made the dish vegan. The recipe called for seitan, but we didn’t have any on hand, so he used textured soy protein chunks instead.

The mushroom sauce was delicious; I’m not particularly fond of the textured soy protein myself, so the next time, Ward will try it with firm tofu. Still, the dish was very good – I’ll post the recipe tomorrow.

The vegetarian among us, our daughter, was out at a play tonight … funny how things like that happen! But she had a plate of the stroganoff when she got back and enjoyed it.

The mushroom sauce that goes into the stroganoff takes about 45 minutes, so it’s not a fast dish, but it’s very flavorful. And adding seitan or textured soy protein or tofu is probably not even necessary, unless you’re looking to add protein to the dish; the mushroom sauce packs a very powerful taste punch and could definitely carry the dish on its own.

Olives & Oranges: Recipes & Flavor Secrets from Italy, Spain, Cyprus & Beyond, by Sara Jenkins and Mindy Fox, has glossy pages with several full color photos. Not every recipe is accompanied by a photograph, but this doesn’t detract from the recipes themselves.

Organization of Contents

The book starts with an Introduction, and then the chapter, “My Flavor Pantry” which covers some basic ingredients. The recipes are organized into the following chapters: Small Plates; Salad; Soup; Pasta, Risotto and Polenta; Fish; Chicken and Other Backyard Livestock; Beef, Veal, Pork, Lamb, and Venison; and Sweets and Cordials. There is also a chapter on sources, followed by an index.

Each recipe is preceded by at least a paragraph of description; as a cookbook reader, this is something that’s important to me. These paragraphs usually serve several purposes: they give the reader a hint of the tastes that are embodied in the recipe, they often sketch in words the culinary environment from which the recipe came, and they often include the authors’ tips on preparation or serving. In the case of Olives & Oranges, the descriptive paragraphs usually had my mouth watering, and often included special flavor tips.

Cooking the Recipes

As is usual with a new cookbook, I sat down with our special cookbook notebook and went through every recipe, writing down all the ones that I’d like to try. When we’re brainstorming a new menu, it’s this special notebook that gets the brunt of our attention, so this preliminary readthrough is pretty important around here.

We can vaguely begin to gauge the success of a particular cookbook in our household by the number of recipes I end up writing down in the notebook (I note the name of the recipe, the cookbook title and the page number). In the case of Olives & Oranges there were definitely signs that this would become a well-used cookbook around here. I seemed to be jotting down recipe titles at nearly every page.

The tastes covered by the recipes ranged from mild and creamy to highly, sometimes even exotically spiced. So far, though, we haven’t had much trouble getting the right ingredients, and where an ingredient may not be easily available, the recipe usually suggests a substitute.

The true test, of course, is in the cooking of the recipes themselves. Sometimes a cookbook looks good, and contains lots of recipes that make your mouth water, but when it comes down to properly instructing you in the making of the recipe, it can fail, hands-down.

I’m pleased to report that this was not the case with Olives & Oranges, which lived up to its original promise. The first recipe we tried out was Seared Cod with Green Olive, Lemon and Parsley Relish. This turned out excellently: it was delicious and flavorful.

Since then we’ve also made the following dishes: Moroccan Salad, Warm Escarole Salad with Hot Anchovy Dressing, Potato, Celery & Leek Soup, Short Pasta with Mushrooms and Mint, Spaghetti with Lemon Sole and North African Spiced Shrimp.  Perhaps even more suggestive are the recipes we’ve already made more than once. Moroccan Salad, Spaghetti with Lemon Sole and North African Spiced Shrimp all fall within this category.

  North African Shrimp

The North African Shrimp was nicely spiced, and made a nice change from the way we normally do shrimp (typically in an Asian stir-fry or on a kebab on the grill). Spices included coriander, Aleppo pepper (we used dried red chili pepper), cumin, ginger and turmeric.

Moroccan Salad

The Moroccan Salad was a big hit – it was a refreshing salad and worked well with the more highly spiced dishes (like the North African Shrimp), and as a bonus, leftovers were eagerly scooped up with tortilla chips as a late night snack.

We’re happy with Olives & Oranges; there are still a a lot of recipes we’ve marked down but haven’t tried yet. The mostly Mediterranean flavors are lovely – it’s the perfect cookbook for when you’re tired of the same old thing.

Where to buy:

U.S. (Amazon.com)

Canada (Chapters)

UK (Amazon.co.uk)

Review copy details: published by Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008, Hardcover, 372 pages

Twice-Baked Stuffed Potatoes

On the menu tonight:

Rib Eye Marchand de Vins: lovely rare rib-eye steaks with a sauce made from a pan reduction of shallots, stock, thyme and a good red wine.

Corn Griddle Cakes: a simple corn pancake.

Rum-Glazed Plantains: Rum and brown sugar, grilled until the sugar caramelizes a little.

These three recipes were from The New Steak, by Cree LeFavour. The cooking times for the rib-eye seemed a bit off to us, especially since we like steak rare, so Ward adapted things somewhat.

We also had:

Arabian spinach: a quick stir-fry of spinach, onions, spices and chick peas. Perfect for our daughter who’s a vegetarian, and a great side dish for us. From The Ultimate Vegetarian Cookbook, by Roz Denny.

Twice-baked potatoes: the perfect baked potato, excellently seasoned with exactly the right amount of butter. From The Best Vegetable Recipes, from the editors of Cook’s Illustrated.

All in all, quite a nice meal. Maybe a little too much food on the plate, but we’re a very good household for leftovers, since we’ve got two teenagers!

Corn Griddle Cakes