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Serendib Kitchen contest

CONTEST! We have actually made enough progress on A Feast of Serendib Kickstarter fulfillment orders that I can see through the stacks to the other side! I might actually be able to use my dining table for board gaming tomorrow. Very exciting.

So in honor of that, I’m holding a little contest. Here are the rules:

1) Between now and Sunday night 11/24/19 at midnight CST, post a photo in the comments to this thread.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10160163311494616&set=a.10150140183694616&type=3&permPage=1

It can be:

– you with your copy of Feast (1 entry)
– a dish you’ve made from the cookbook or the website (1 entry) — comments on the dish are welcome, but not required!

(You can enter twice this way! No purchase necessary to enter!)

2) If you also post either / both on your own wall, with the hashtag #serendibkitchen, make a note of that — we’ll count those as separate entries too!

So you can, in theory, enter 4 separate times (with two different photos)! (I hope that’s clear….)

On Monday morning, I’ll have Stephanie randomly choose one from the pool of entries to get a free hardcover cookbook and a set of recipe postcards shipped to them! Good luck!

(I may use these photos on my Serendib Kitchen website as promotion at some point, just fyi.)

#serendibkitchen
#blog

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Ordering lip balm supplies

Locals, if you have requests for particular scents or designs for body butters ($8), soaps ($5), lip balms ($3) to pick up from me at Colorful Holiday (at L!ve Cafe, Sat the 21st, 10-2) let me know? If I have your orders in advance, I can set those aside for you to pick up then (or do porch pick-up if that’s easier). Also books, curry powder, recipe postcards, etc.

I guess this goes for out-of-town people too, assuming you’re willing to pay shipping? Still figuring out the best way to handle orders for that, but maybe I just take requests for whatever I’ve made so far, or am making, and keep a list, tell you how much PayPal will be? A little chaotic, but perhaps manageable!

#blog
#serendibkitchen
#serendibhome
#colorfulholiday

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Kickstarter copies are going out the door!

Stephanie has been putting in a ton of extra hours this week, helping me get the early Kickstarter copies of Feast out the door. Still quite a few to go, but they’re going, they’re going!

I’m in love with her little garden cart, which is much more multipurpose (and foldable / storable) than my own wheelbarrow. Hm. I may request an upgrade for a Christmas or birthday present.

#serendibkitchen
#serendibhome

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Current favorite sandwich

Current favorite sandwich (‘favorite’ changes regularly, but I’m a little stuck on these right now) — open faced on multigrain toast, with Harry & David sesame honey mustard, beautiful tomatoes on the vine, and aged white cheddar. Mmm….I’m going to go make another one right now.

What’s your current favorite sandwich? (Is a wrap a sandwich? What about a lettuce wrap? Is some form of bread a necessary component? Hmm….)

#serendibkitchen

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Ruby-Passionfruit Bark, with Pistachios

Ruby-Passionfruit Bark, with Pistachios

These are pretty perfect. I love that I’ve found a good use for the off-cuts from the trays of passionfruit marshmallows, and the way they complement the tang of ruby chocolate? Mmm…. I did these with cashews before, which are tasty, but I love the tiny little edges of green contrasting the pink and white on the pistachios. The pink-green-white colors make it very tropical-Christmas appropriate, I think.  I didn’t really measure, so this is only an approximate recipe, but hopefully enough to give you a sense of it.

1. Melt ruby chocolate chips in a microwave at half power, stirring until liquid and smooth.

2. Gently stir in chopped passionfruit marshmallow bits and chopped pistachios. (Recipe for passionfruit marshmallows at the Serendib Kitchen site.)

3. Spread on a sheet of parchment paper and let set (faster in the fridge). Cut into pieces, sprinkle with flake salt, and serve!

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Cinnamon-peppercorn soap

A lot of my soaps so far have been tipping towards the feminine side — rose and jasmine, for example. Which is good, don’t get me wrong, and I encourage people of all genders to enjoy florals. 

But there’s some definite gendering of soaps in stores, and there are clearly some ‘manly’ soaps meant for ‘manly’ men. Thought I’d experiment a little bit, esp. since I’ll have some items at Pem Hessing‘s Colorful Holiday Fair in a few weeks, so this is a cinnamon-peppercorn soap. Spicy! Those flavors go together well in my recipes, so why not in soaps?

I did these in nice neutral tones, but I admit, there’s some subtle sparkly mica throughout. Even a manly man (or a manly woman, or a manly nonbinary person) can enjoy a little sparkle, say I.

I also gave these soaps a name, “Spiced Nights.” Fun, eh? Seems suitable for a holiday stocking gift to your sweetheart. I’d like to come up with more interesting, poetic names, if I end up doing more blends. We’ll see. 

#serendibhome

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Spiced chocolates

Spiced chocolates. Nothing fancy here — melt some dark chocolate chips at half power in the microwave, stir in cinnamon, cloves, and fresh-grated nutmeg (would’ve added ground cardamom if I had any on hand), pour into molds and leave in fridge to set.

Definitely faster and much less labor-intensive than making them into individual truffles, though I’m not sure I love the shiny finish on these — it mars really easily, for one thing. But the little paisley shapes are v. cute, and sprinkling with flake salt is both delicious and camouflages any little imperfections.

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Grilled shrimp spread

This was ALMOST very frustrating. I grilled these beautiful jumbo shrimp with chili-salt-lime, thinking I’d make a sort of mango-shrimp salad with them. The shrimp themselves were fabulous; I ate three of them straight off the grill pan because I just couldn’t resist. But when I chopped them up and combined them with chopped mango, the result was v. disappointing. The mango was quite green, and somehow the end version was just meh. I hate eating meh food. It was late by then, so I went crabbily to bed, complaining to Kevin that I’d ruined the shrimp.

But in the morning, I took another stab at it; I pulled the chopped shrimp and mango out and put them in the food processor, figuring I’d aim for more of a spread, rather than a seafood salad. I added some mayo and processed a bit — better. But the seasonings seemed off — it needed more lime, more salt, and something sweet. Mango jam to the rescue — mango chutney would’ve been even better, I suspect, but I was out of that, and I had a bit of the jam left.

I don’t have a picture of it, but the end result was respectable enough that people at brunch were complimentary and asked me what was in it. Whew. Rescued! This is the result of 20+ years cooking, you know — ten years in, I don’t think I would’ve had a hope of knowing how to fix this dish, which would have been very sad!

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Ginger-Garlic Chicken Salad

This ginger-garlic chicken salad was the biggest success of the bagel experiments — I would totally serve this either on a bagel (it was great on sesame) or wrapped in lettuce. Or honestly, just straight up on its own, or in a sandwich with a hearty French bread, etc….

Ginger-Garlic Chicken Salad, with Cashews and Cranberries

1. Make my regular ginger-garlic chicken (see Serendib Kitchen website for recipe).

2. When it’s cool, run through food processor with some mayo (maybe 1/2 – 1 c.?), careful to pulse and leave some shreds, rather than turning it into puree. Transfer to big bowl and clean out food processor bowl and blade.

3. Chop cashews in food processor, and then combine with chicken.

4. Add dried cranberries and stir to combine. (Sultanas would be more traditional, but I love both the color and the tang of the cranberries. V. autumnal!)

SO GOOD.

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Daly Bagel Collaboration Brunch

Amanda Daly took some great photos at our Collaboration Brunch today.  So good to get some of her bagels; it’s been too long!

(I, um, may have eaten three so far today, and am eyeing a fourth….)

I was too busy talking to folks to take many photos — a great group for today’s Daly Bagel brunch, and a particular shout-out to my high school friend, Carmela Diosana, all the way down from Madison.  Great to see you again and delighted to pass your Feast of Serendib orders to you!

Lovely brunch all around. Much fun foodie conversation!

For today’s brunch, Karina had suggested a kithul treacle & strawberry shmear, which we’d seen at a fancy hotel in Sri Lanka that had a bagel bar in their Western section. That gave me an idea — I had some sugar pumpkins that had come in our imperfect produce order, that I hadn’t figured out what to do with yet. So I split one in half and roasted it, then scooped that out and combined it with whipped cream cheese and kithul (palm) treacle. Makes a great bagel shmear, as it turns out — I had mine on an Amanda Daly chai bagel. Mmm….

My standard Sri Lankan curried salmon + cream cheese = yummy curried salmon shmear with a little bite to it. The shmear bites back.