winner, winner, potato and kale dinner

hello! i know i promised a winner on friday, but i was seriously in the throws of the worst cold/flu monster i've ever had - three and a half days, no work, completely bedridden. did you know you can be in bed so long that your body is actually sore from being in bed too long? fact. finally, saturday night, i dragged myself out of bed (just in time to catch andrew bird at the bell house) and had a semi-normal sunday, if it is semi-normal to fall asleep at 8:45 pm. so i'm not 100% yet. but i'm getting there.


top: j crew
dress: thrifted
tights: urban outfitters (fleece lined! so warm!)
shoes: thrifted
brooch: thrifted
hair: lack of cut, dye or attention in 6 months and counting

so, anyways, i promised on friday that i'd have a winner and i am a solid three days late, so without further ado: dawn of turby and john! shoot me an email (homerunballerina@gmail.com) and we'll work out the details. congratulations, wear it in happiness and health! and thank you to all of you who entered - more giveaways soon.

it's been awhile since i posted any food - which feels so wrong! - so i have a quick, easy, and even pretty healthy dinner for you guys. for what it's worth, i've become a complete instagram addict - you can follow me @oddreigh - and post my daily goings-on at the bakery a few times a day there. so it's really not that i stopped posting about food - just that i switched to a quicker, more immediate medium.

i was in ann arbor last weekend, visiting family and getting to spend some all-too-rare time with my little sister and mom, and spent a lot of time at my aunt susie's place. aunt susie and i have a lot in common - both "creative" types, i guess, who love to draw, bake and create - and she had a library of cookbooks that made me swoon. i got to flip through quite a few of them (sneaking iphone photos of the ones i want to buy for myself) but one recipe caught my eye, and was so simple i was able to sort-of-memorize it, enough to make it for dinner tonight.

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potato and kale galette (adapted from an old gourmet cookbook)

1 bunch of kale, leaves pulled of the stem, torn up and washed
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 T olive oil
3 T butter
2 large baking potatoes, cleaned, peeled and sliced very thin (i used a mandolin)

start off by getting your oil going in a pan, over medium heat; once hot, add the garlic and cook just until it starts to brown; add the kale, still wet from being rinsed, and cook it until it's very wilted, and much brighter green. turn off the heat, and set it aside.

now get a cast iron pan going. i used a 10 inch pan. melt about a tablespoon of butter in the pan, then mosaic about 1/3 of the potato slices over it, working quickly; add 1/2 of the kale, then another 1/3 of the potato slices mosaiced (salt and pepper this, and brush a bit of melted butter atop them,) then the other half of the kale and the last of the potatoes. basically, you've made a double-decker potato and kale pancake. brush the top layer of potatoes generously with butter, then butter a piece of aluminum foil and use a heavy pan to weigh down the stack. let them cook for ten minutes or so, over medium to medium low heat; once the bottom layer of potatoes starts to brown (you'll be able to see the edges start to brown and curl a bit,) grab a sheet pan and some oven mitts. this is the trickiest part. use a metal spatula to carefully slide the pancake out of the pan and onto the sheet pan, then invert the pan over it and flip it back onto the heat, so the browned side is facing up and the previously uncooked side is now being cooked. cook this for another ten minutes or so, and that's it! slide it off and serve. i was trying to keep it healthy and simple, so i ate it plain (i'm a fan of simple flavors, anyway) with lots of sea salt and pepper; it would be great with goat cheese, though, and sam doused his in ketchup, so there's that.







thanks a bunch for reading, and have a fabulous week!

xo audrey

work in progress

hi everyone! i hope you all had a fabulous valentine's day - mine was very low key, which was perfect. sam insisted on staying in and making me dinner, and i acquiesced - i'm so used to cooking for the two of us, and stubbornly set in my way of doing things in the kitchen, that it's really hard for me to sit back and let someone else take the wheel. fortunately we recently re-organized our furniture, so our sofa has a prominent seat in the kitchen (i finally admitted to myself that, while a sofa in the kitchen might be unusual, it is the place where it will get the most use) so i settled myself on it and watched him mix a batch of pasta from scratch, rest it, struggle with the machine and then proceed to make what was honestly the most divine fettucine alfredo i've ever had - topped with wilted spinach, sauteed mushrooms and crispy prosciutto. lesson learned: i should take a seat on the couch more often.

ever since setting eyes on the stella mccartney resort 2012 collection, i've been smitten. i've googled and ebayed obsessively, hoping to find the (seemingly not even for-sale yet) white dress covered in bows at an audrey-friendly price (i know this will never happen) - and it finally occurred to me that, of all the over-priced designer clothing i've fallen for, this was probably the most easily DIY-able. so i bought a spool of ribbon, picked a well-fitting but infrequently-worn dress from my closet, and proceeded to obsessively tie and pin ribbons onto it.



sadly, i'm a pretty good idea person and initial energy runs high; but after sewing on the first half of the ribbons, i lost steam, so i'm wearing this carefully so's not to stick myself with one of the many pins poking out of the skirt and sleeves.

dress: madewell
shoes: thrifted
bows: added by me

i'm pretty excited with the way it's looking so far. a good cocktail dress is so essential - you can tell i think so, as i have a closet full of them and yet 9 nights out of ten you'll find me at home with sam, wearing comfy pants and a t-shirt. still, i love having a cute, well-fitting dress to slip into - an outfit no-brainer for when i DO go out.

. . . which is where you come in! brooklyn industries contacted me not long ago to see if i'd like to do a giveaway for my readers (another no brainer.) i've loved the brand for a long time - my love for red pants started with a pair of theirs a few years ago, and i've admired their simple but flattering silhouettes ever since. i picked this cute dress of theirs to give away - yours, for one lucky reader who leaves a comment.



so. . . enter away, and i'll pick a winner this friday. be sure to take a look at their new collection, too - lots of good stuff to see.

so much to post, and what feels like so little [free] time. i'll be back soon!

xo audrey