Pissaladier, aka: Onion Tart

For my brother's 30th birthday/new year's celebration, we decided to make an onion cake. Well, that's what we told the birthday boy.

Danielle had an awesome recipe for this superFrench onion tart with a borderline offensive name (see title) from Rebecca Riley, who taught a gluten-free cooking class in Cambridge a few years ago.

I made the onions, which took over an hour to slice on the mandoline (6 lbs = 2 bags) and cook slowly so they didn't brown.  I wish I had taken other photos of the during part of the recipe, but the after photos seem to tell a fine story.

Let your mouths water.

• MAKING TIME:    2.5 hours
• COST:   $3.49 (for the onions, had the other stuff around the house)
  

The Bun is Out of the Oven

We made our own baby announcements to introduce Oliver to the world. He was so so so tiny and looked like a pork bun. A delicious, succulent, Momofuku-caliber pork bun.

But he's not really as small as the photo shows. First we tried to shoot it in-camera, that is, without any retouching. This is how it looked.

more after the jump

Unquestionsably the Finest Thing We've Ever Made

Oliver. Born 12/17/08. He took about 9 months to make. Not a bad time investment for infinite return.

• MAKING TIME: 9.5 months
  
• COST: $0
  

Backsplash Backlash

Finally. After 5 months of living in an nearly-complete renovated kitchen, we've tackled the backsplash. Took us only about half of the weekend, which means the other half was spent both planning it an marveling at it. The stone-vs.-tile-vs.-glass-vs.-leave-it-the-way-it-is debate is finally over. And we won. So far so good. Stone tiles are neat, grouting them will be messy. Stay tuned...

(more moody photos after the jump)

Throwing pots. Throwing pans.

Big day. Lotsa making. First, we revisited an old family pastime: making pottery. We headed over to Laconia Pottery (where Mike is a huge help) and proceeded to get muddy. Coupla good photos. I made one vase and D made 2 cute little pots. Frustratingly fun.

BIG night. This was our family's take on "Iron Chef". Hm. Interesting.

Cloud-Flavored Sorbet

The other night, we dutiful servants brought the most incredible food from the honorable Sabatino's to my brother's place for dinner. Meanwhile, back in Gotham, we had about a cup of coconut milk left over in the fridge (from our chicken satay that we made for our neighbor's party from this awesome cookbook). Perfect for coconut sorbet. Since it was already cold, all I had to do was add 4 tablespoons of sugar and 1/4 tsp. of vanilla extract and put it in the ice cream maker. Perfect texture. Perfect flavor. Perfect dessert for garlicky pizza and Greek salad.

First thing's first: Do(ugh)nuts

Among the things we (humbly) fancy ourselves: cooks. We like to eat, thus we like to cook. And we also like going to Wilson farm to buy things to cook, then eat. So we bought a few pumpkins because we (Marc) thought it'd be a neat thing to play with, cuisinewise. After roasting, ignoring, then freezing the pumpkin, we ignored it some more. Then She came up with a great idea: Pumpkin Doughnuts with Spiced Sugar. This recipe from Bon Appetit led the way. Really nice, just really really nice. Fed them to the fam on Christmas morning.

* What's up with the donut/doughnut alternate spellings?