48 macarons

a little bit of what i've been up to lately. . .

                                                

from the top: rose, caramel banana, lemon elderflower, nutella, honey lavender, praline, raspberry vanilla, lavender black pepper, strawberry basil, rhubarb, chai tea, coconut blueberry, root beer float, pistachio, fresh raspberry, blackberry, peanut butter banana, strawberry tarragon, mint chip, blood orange, more raspberry, robin's egg, strawberry, peach rosemary, vanilla elderflower, lemon dark chocolate, lavender cream, cookies & cream, kiwi, tangerine honey, black & white, neopolitan, lemon coconut, lemon poppyseed, watermelon, blood orange, cheesecake, mango cayenne, lemon lavender, blueberry white chocolate, lemon rosemary, guinness, ginger pomegranate, vanilla pomegranate, fennel elderflower, shirley temple, vanilla vanilla, chocolate salted caramel.

oopsfish

hello! i'm still getting my bearings after a quick vacation this past weekend - me and a few friends booked a b&b in nashville, tennessee; i'd been looking forward to it for weeks, and i packed my suitcase carefully the night before - i'm a notorious over-packer, and wanted to travel light this time - and was headed out the door for work when i realized that i didn't have my passport. (i've lived in new york for nearly four years, and chicago for five years before that, so when i lost my driver's license a couple years ago i got real lazy and just didn't replace it.) sam had taken off for a fishing trip a morning earlier, and my passport had gone right along with him and was now residing in his jacket pocket somewhere on a river in connecticut. so. vacation was off to a rough start.

as it turns out, getting on an airplane without a photo ID is not as difficult as you may think. i brought along every piece of paper i could find with my name on it - birth certificate, marriage certificate, social security card, mail - even my wedding invitation! - and got a little extra TSA action, but got to nashville and back without a hitch. it was a perfect vacation - a few days with some of my very best friends, eating, drinking, dancing and vintage shopping our way through the city. we found a shop called savant vintage that was absolutely miraculous - jam packed with some of the most incredible vintage pieces i've ever seen, including these trousers.




blouse - vintage, from brooklyn flea
earrings - handmade by the owner of savant vintage
pants - vintage, savant vintage
shoes - madewell

so, while i was galavanting about tennessee, my sam was camping out with a bunch of his friends, and he brought home a bag full of trout of different varieties. i decided to pair one - simply prepared - with a dish inspired by one i had at city house in nashville.

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swiss chard, raisin and almond salad

1 bunch of swiss chard
2 thin carrots, cleaned and chopped
1/4 cup golden raisins
1/4 cup toasted almonds
1/2 small red onion, cut into thin slices
a splash of olive oil, honey, and white wine vinegar
kosher salt

turn the oven to 350 and place the carrots in a foil-lined sheet pan with a splash of olive oil and drizzling of honey. roast until soft, about 20 minutes.

from here it's easy - sauté the chard in the smallest bit of olive oil until dark green and limp; take off the heat and add a tiny bit of white wine vinegar, then stir in the raisins, almonds, and carrots. season with salt to taste.








the fish should be even easier - but i've been trying this new health-ish kick lately, and i didn't put enough olive oil in the pan, and i kind of mangled the poor thing. trout has such good flavor on its own that i like to prepare it simply, with a little lemon, salt and pepper; just be sure you put enough butter or oil in the pan that you don't ugly it up like i did.






ugly or not, it was utterly delicious and a nice pairing of mild and earthy and sweet.

hope everyone had a lovely weekend, and i promise more soon -

xo audrey

to be adored

happy friday! i had a very busy week - right smack in the middle, i was fortunate to get to sneak a peak at warby parker's upcoming line. i first started wearing glasses in high school, but my prescription was so weak that i never really wore them; finally, just recently, i came to terms with the fact that not being able to identify friends and regulars that come into the bakery and say hello, a mere 10 or so feet away, is totally unacceptable. i've been wearing contact lenses, but i'm excited to get a new pair of frames when the new ones come out! anyhoo, i have a new favorite blouse, and wore that to wednesday's jaunt:

 

top: tba
pants: zara (similar here)
necklace: vintage, thrifted
shoes: vintage, ebay

my hair is in the awkward phase of growing out where the only time it looks semi-okay is when i either sloppily throw it out or muss it so far out from my head that you can't tell how awful the haircut (or lack thereof) is. the last time stylist scissors touched it was back in august. i chopped my own bangs a couple months ago.

anyway, i've got a busy weekend ahead and more outfits and recipes to post, so more from me soon!

xo audrey

breakfast for dinner

hello! last night i scurried all the way to the upper east side, to an event thrown by decades to benefit sloan-kettering hospital's cancer center. basically, i got to sip champagne and feast my eyes on some of the most beautiful designer vintage clothing i've ever seen in person - none of which i could afford, of course. still, it was fun, and i got to catch up with a long-lost friend, which is always a good thing.
 

top: thrifted vintage
scarf: thrifted
boots & skirt: madewell
earrings: c/o charming charlie

 i got home and set straight to work on dinner - i'd scored some duck eggs and house-made corned beef hash from work, so i had a vague plan for breakfast for dinner. i heated up the oven, got some pizza dough rising, and set about chopping.

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breakfast pizza 

one batch pizza dough - i use this recipe
white or red sauce - i made a bechamel sauce (basic recipe here) with onions, mushrooms, ramps and fresh ricotta
toppings of your choice - i used baby heirloom tomatoes, duck prosciutto, avocado and an egg

heat your oven as high as it will go without broiling - mine was up to about 550. put your pizza stone or a sheet pan inside to heat up with the oven. make your sauce, then roll out your pizza dough on a piece of parchment so you can easily slide it onto your sheet pan/pizza stone. bake it for 2-3 minutes, then pull it out and spread your sauce over the dough, and add the toppings that need more time - for me, it was the tomatoes and prosciutto. bake these for 5-6 minutes, then pull out and add the egg and avocado; bake for five more minutes or so, until the white of the egg is fully cooked.
 

while everything was baking, i quickly threw together some corned beef hash.

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corned beef hash

 3 large idaho potatoes, scrubbed and diced
1 small yellow onion, diced
a spring of rosemary, finely chopped
1 cup of prepared corned beef hash (mine was dressed with some mustard and mustard seeds, salt, and pepper)
butter
3 eggs (i used duck eggs, just because.)

once everything is chopped, it's quite simple; use a cast-iron pan and add a couple tablespoons of butter. add the onion, and sautee until soft and transparent; add the potatoes, turn the heat down to medium-low, and just let those potatoes cook through. don't worry too much about them sticking to the pan; add a bit of butter if this happens (my favorite solution to any problem) and you'll just have some nice crispy bits. add the rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste, and the corned beef (chopped into bite sized pieces) once the potatoes have cooked through, and stir occasionally; i put mine in the super hot oven with the pizza, still baking, so they'd be ready at the same time. while the hash crisped up in the oven, i fried the duck eggs to place on top.
 

i didn't get home to start cooking until nearly ten o'clock, so by the time we sat down to dinner it was a rather unhealthy 11:20; it felt sort of right, though, eating breakfast in the pitch black, all sleepy-like. but instead of just waking up, i got to go to bed right after. bonus. have a wonderful week, and more from me soon -

xo audrey

cooking your nemesis

don't worry, faithful readers; this is not the post where i lose my mind and post a cannibalistic recipe. no, tonight i conquered one of my great cooking rivals - scallops. these (and potato gnocchi, which is for some reason absolutely impossible for me to properly make from scratch and cook without turning it into a slimy mush) have been my great culinary failing every time i've tried to make them at home, and it's hard to express the frustration this causes me - i'm trying to think of it's other-job equivalent, and while an athlete blowing the game winning shot, or a doctor missing a diagnosis seem too serious, i imagine it's a similar feeling on a smaller scale. every time i've tried to make scallops they've ended up more steamed than seared, and inedibly raw in the middle. utterly depressing.

sam's been out of town all week, so i've been working long hours and trying to catch up on sleep. tonight, after a particularly long day, i decided to treat myself to a decadent meal - and figure out scallops once and for all. they're one of my favorite foods when cooked properly, and they sell fantastic dry scallops across the street from my bakery - so i bought a few and headed home, determined to get it right.

success! i can't tell you how great it feels to win battle scallop after so many failed attempts. it turns out my mistake was the same one i have when it comes to trying to grow rosemary - paying too much attention, and fussing too much with it.


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pan-seared scallops with cannellini bean puree, shredded asparagus, duck prosciutto and fried egg

3-4 bay scallops (mine were "dry" scallops, meaning they hadn't been stored in liquid at the store, so they didn't need rinsing - if yours aren't, make sure to rinse and drain them thoroughly before cooking.)

1/3 cup canned cannellini beans

2 T chicken (or vegetable) stock

2 T butter, divided

1 T olive oil

a couple tablespoons of diced duck (or regular) prosciutto

3 stalks asparagus, shredded with a peeler

kosher salt

1 egg


you'll need two pans; one smaller one, for cooking the sides, and one cast iron pan for the scallops.

first, prepare the bean puree. take 1 tablespoon of the butter, and place it in the smaller pan; on medium high heat, melt the butter, then add the cannellini beans and sautee until they start to brown. remove from heat and blend thoroughly with the chicken stock until you have a nice, thick puree. set aside.

season scallops with a healthy sprinkling of kosher salt, then turn the heat back on under the smaller pan, and add the remaining butter and olive oil to the cast iron pan on medium high heat. add prosciutto to the small pan, then add scallops to the - now very hot - cast iron pan, and DON'T TOUCH. leave the scallops alone for 2-3 minutes, until they develop a nice brown crust all over the bottom. meanwhile, add the shaved asparagus to the now-crispy prosciutto. start plating with a big dollop of the bean puree in the middle of your plate, surrounded by the asparagus and prosciutto (asparagus only needs about 30 seconds in the pan with the prosciutto.)

flip the scallops and cook, again without moving, until you have a nice caramel brown on both sides. meanwhile, using the same small pan as you did for the beans and proscuitto and asparagus, fry an egg. plate the scallops on top of the puree, and then top it all of with the fried egg (i used a circle cutter to make my egg look a little more perfect, but obviously that isn't really important.)






di-vine. the scallops fell apart under my fork, and were perfectly buttery and sweet; they paired well with the creamy cannellini bean puree, slight bitterness of the asparagus and salty fattiness of the prosciutto. the egg on top (an addition i would make to nearly every meal if given the opportunity) just adds a bit more richness to a dish that is certainly rich enough as is. . . but is all the more delicious when bathed in soft-cooked egg yolk.

it was a satisfying end to a long but productive day, and i'll be adding scallops to my regular meal rotation from now on.

xo audrey

back to black

so, i'd been rocking ("rocking" in the loosest sense of the word) the bleach-blonde-with-dark-roots look for a long time - i didn't really have a plan, i guess, i was just trying to get it long enough that i could pay for a cut and dye in one go-round. sam, after politely asking what, exactly, was going on with my hair, said, "you're diy everything else, why can't you dye your own hair?" i've never tried before, but i guess i figured i didn't have much to lose, so i set off to walgreens and matched a box to my roots the best i could. i didn't do it myself, actually - it turns out sam is an amazing colorist, about three hundred times more careful and thorough than i ever would have been. i couldn't believe how great it turned out! right back to my original color. so i kind of got a big head and decided i could cut my own bangs, too, which is never a good idea. but it could have been worse, right?

top: old quail
skirt: forever 21
shoes: nine west
necklace: thrifted

xo audrey

chowdah

hello! it is pretty hard to believe, but it seems that winter is pretty much petering out - it was a pretty quiet and sneaky winter to begin with, and now it's slipping out without ever really making itself known. i barely got to break out any tights at all, all winter long!

regardless, end of winter means that striped bass season is about to start - which means i have a lot of freezer space to clear out. sam's been making fishing trips nearly every week, so i have vacuum sealed bag upon bag of various kinds of fish taking up precious room (room that i would really like to have for, say, ice cream.) so i decided to make a big batch of fish chowder last night to clear it out a bit.



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striped bass chowder


serves, like, 10 or something. this is a lot of chowder.

2 leeks, sliced thin and rinsed well
1 yellow onion, diced
2 T butter
5 small potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 bunch of carrots, scrubbed well and chopped
4 celery stalks, cubed
several sprigs of parsley, some reserved for dressing
lots of black pepper & salt
crushed red pepper
thyme
1 fillet of striped bass - mine was probably a pound and a half or so, cut into bite sized cubes
a couple cups of corn (i used frozen organic sweet corn.)
3 cups of chicken broth
about a half gallon of whole milk
splash of cream

start your leeks and onion sauteing in a big soup pot in the butter on low heat; once they're soft and transparent, add the chicken broth and turn the heat to medium.





add your potatoes and carrots, your celery, most of the parsley, thyme, and peppers; turn the heat to low and add about half the milk, and let it simmer for a good long while, until the carrots and potatoes are soft and the broth has thickened a bit.







add the corn and the fish, and the rest of the milk, and cook until the fish is cooked through. add the cream and season with salt and pepper to your liking; garnish each bowl with fresh parsley. serve with a nice crusty bread, warmed in the oven. i'd advise you make this one quick, while it's there's some semblance of a chill in the air; this will freeze well, too.






have a wonderful week, loves!

xo audrey