really fabulous dishware

looking at my favorite food blogs, i'm starting to realize that half (ok, maybe a third) of having a successful food blog is having a really fabulous variety of dishware and silverware. porcelain, stoneware, metal, glass, different colors and shapes, and the like. i have my bowl collection, but it sits in the cabinets, loved only by pasta and ice cream; apparently i need to make better use of all of these things i have acquired. these are the times when i wish i had a couple of people to cook for every night, and then i could plate everything individually and it would be wonderful. i think the most successful dishware use i've had in the past year or so was the chocolate party celina and i had, where i got to break out all of my ramekins for the panna cotta, plus sundry tiny glasses that i own (like those fabulous amber glass ones that i bought for 25 cents at the mit furniture exchange). it reminds me of the times in high school when i would go to yard sales in concord with jessy and nicola, trolling for cheap glass in pretty colors that i could use in my pottery (for your information, crushed glass settled in the bottom of a piece of pottery destined for the glaze kiln melts into a crackled pattern). i've thought about yard sales a few times since i've moved to cutcat, but i don't really want cambridge yard sales - students' yard sales, young people's yard sales, containing random ikea furniture and other bottom-of-the-barrel stuff. i don't want another "lack" style table, i want cool random crap - something more readily available in yard sales in the wealthy suburbs. i dream of a kitchen full of mismatched yet beautiful dishware that holds the possibility of infinite permutations.

tonight v and i made dinner. i was feeling too lazy to go out to the supermarket (also, i had gone out a couple times already so i didn't want to spend more money, and i felt the need to be near my computer to at least feign doing work), so we worked with what i had in the fridge. and in the end, it was quite respectable. there is always a very specific type of satisfaction that comes from using up the leftovers in your fridge. i had some roast turkey that my mother had made and given me last week, along with some snow peas, grape tomatoes, and broccoli. then there were the staple onions, some shallots i found in a cupboard, and v's yen for biscuit (or starch of some kind). we decided on a casserole, so i sauteed the onions, then the shallots with the snow peas and tomatoes, then the broccoli, and tossed it all into a bowl. i thought some eggs might be nice, but instead of adding them raw, i scrambled them and tossed them in as well. we found some cheese in the fridge and grated that in, then baked it covered with the biscuit topping. it was actually rather like a patchwork pot pie, which is entirely wonderful when you're still subconsciously missing american food.

the cookies, before i forget, are actually pretty good the day after the flavors get to meld for a while. accordingly, here's the recipe:

white chocolate lime cookies with dried cherries
2 1/2c flour
2 sticks butter
1c sugar
1 egg
1/4t b. soda
1/4t b. powder
2T lime zest (zest of 3 limes)
2T lime juice (from one to two of the limes - really you could just use the zest and juice of two limes total)
1 1/2c white chocolate chips
1c dried tart cherries

1. cream the butter and beat in the sugar; mix well. add the egg and mix well, then mix in lime zest and juice.

2. add baking powder and soda, and then stir in the flour. stir in the chocolate chips and cherries. chill the dough for about an hour, until it stiffens up.

3. preheat the oven to 350. drop 1-2T sized balls of dough on a cookie sheet and flatten with your fingers. bake the cookies in the top third of the oven for 14-18 minutes, until they start to turn golden brown on top. for best results, rotate the pan halfway through.

[makes about 2 dozen large cookies.]