Trivialissimo

Sewing!!

2008-11-24T06:17:00.000-08:00

ok, you guys, i have been SO busy with school that i haven't posted in ages (no cooking, no fun being had, no wit or whimsy here - only emerson quotes.) but now i'm DONE and i PASSED and i'm OFFICIALLY ABD!!

so now i'm teaching myself to sew. i got a fab sewing machine and so far have made A a pair of pants from an old hoodie that i never wore (i'm trying to refashion old clothes to keep me away from the fabric whore mindset, but boy is it hard!) and i'm working on a rag doll for him for xmas. i'm also learning to knit at the same time. (i really really don't want to study anything for a while, can you tell??)

anyway, i've been obsessively reading sewing blogs and one of my favorites is having a fabulous giveaway here. go check it out and enter! (and look for pictures of the stuff i've been doing any day now!!)

2008-10-01T11:16:00.001-07:00

Dita von Teese gets on my fucking nerves.

2008-09-26T09:33:00.001-07:00

there was an old woman who swallowed a fly....i guess she'll die.

replace "old woman" with "aging geek" and "fly" with "doctoral exams" and you'll have a picture of my situation.

2008-09-05T06:37:00.001-07:00

The only compensation for societal neglect is domesticity. (Ann Douglas.)

2008-06-25T06:49:00.001-07:00

"Fate would invent, if he but gave it time, some refinement of the horrible" (James, Wings of the Dove, 442)

2008-04-28T18:11:00.001-07:00

Win a free Ergo! Sign up here, and share your favorite web parenting communities!

Win a Free Ergo Baby Carrier from Along for the Ride

2008-04-03T05:54:00.001-07:00

"The same reality pervades all teaching. The man may teach by doing, and not otherwise. If he can communicate himself he can teach, but not by words. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the benefit. But your propositions run out of one ear as they ran in at the other." (201)

"Take Sidney's maxim: -'Look in thy heart, and write.' He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public. That statement only is fit to be made public which you ahve come at in attempting to satisfy your own curiosity." (202)

2008-03-31T07:25:00.001-07:00

"I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation." (149)

2008-03-27T08:37:00.001-07:00

"he so concrete, so living, I a mere table of contents, so abstract, a very snarl of twine. yet in all my life i found scarce any soul that seemed to comprehend, naturally, (not) my concepts, but the mainspring of my life better than he did."

peirce on james

2008-03-27T08:36:00.001-07:00

"Your If is the only peacemaker. Much virtue in If."

Touchstone, As You Like It

2008-03-27T08:30:00.001-07:00

"Prepare yourself in the subject so well that it shall always be on tap; then in the classroom trust your spontaneity and fling away all fartehr care" (WJ, Talks to Teachers)

2008-03-27T07:57:00.001-07:00

"I have got my mind working on the infernal old problem of mind and brain, and how to construct the world out of pure experiences, and feel foiled again, and inwardly sick with the fever. But I verily believe that it is only work that makes one sick in that way that has any chance of breaking old shells and getting a step ahead. It is a sort of madness however when it is on you."

WJ to Dickinson Miller re: writing

2008-03-27T07:40:00.001-07:00

"pay primary attention to what we do and express, and not to care too much for what we feel." "To wrestle with a bad feeling only pins our attention on it, and keeps it still fastened in the mind; whereas if we act as if from some better feeling, the old bad feeling soon folds its tent like an Arab and silently steals away"

ACT AS IF.

WJ, "Is Life Worth Living?"

2008-03-27T06:50:00.001-07:00

"God [is] the native of these bleak rocks. That need makes in morals the capital virtue of self-trust. We must hold hard to this poverty, however scandalous, and by more vigorous self-recovereis, after the sallies of action, possess our axis more firmly."

Emerson, "Experience," qtd in Poirier 12.

2008-03-18T09:17:00.001-07:00

"Purity, we see in the object-lesson, is not the one thing needful; and it is better that a life should contract many a dirt-mark, than forfeit usefulness in its efforts to remain unspotted" (Varieties, 354).

2008-02-29T08:05:00.003-08:00

"As soon as a man is wonted to look beyond surfaces, and to see how this high will prevails without an exception or an interval, he settles himself into serenity. He can already rely on the laws of gravity, that every stone will fall where it is due; the good globe is faithful, and carries us securely through the celestial spaces, anxious or resigned, we need not interfere to help it on: and he will learn one day the mild lesson they teach, that our own orbit is all our task, and we need not assist the administration of the universe" (467).

2008-02-29T08:05:00.001-08:00

2008-02-26T08:21:00.001-08:00

"The street is full of humiliations to the proud. As the fop contrived to dress his bailiffs in his livery and make them wait on his guests at table, so the chagrins which the bad heart gives off as bubbles, at once take for as ladies and gentlemen in the street, shopmen or barkeepers in hotels, and threaten or insult whatever is threatenable and insultable in us" (359).

2008-02-26T07:47:00.001-08:00

"So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the pith of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours" (343)

2008-02-25T08:52:00.001-08:00

"It is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our contritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by day; but when these waves of God flow into me I no longer reckon lost time. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievement by what remains to me of the month or the year; for these moments confer a sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duraiton, but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to be done, without time." (288)

2008-02-25T08:22:00.001-08:00

"In my dealing with my child, my Latin and Greek, my accomplishments and my money stead me nothing; but as much soul as I have avails. If I am wilful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength. But if I renounce my will and act for the soul, setting that up as an umpire between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves with me." (268) (Brooks Atkinson, ed. The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. New York: Random House, 1950.)

2008-02-25T08:09:00.001-08:00

"There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find consolation in the thought - this is a part of my constitution, part of my relation and office to my fellow-creature. has nature covenanted with me that I should never appear to disadvantage, never make a ridiculous figure? Let us be generous of our dignity as well as our money. Greatness once and for ever has done with opinion." (258)

Emerson on teaching

2008-02-25T06:55:00.001-08:00

2008-02-24T10:16:00.001-08:00

"At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Firend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say - 'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act." (Ralph Waldo Emerson, p 160)

2007-12-16T08:13:00.001-08:00

Hmm, I'm trying out this blogger widget to see if it will make me less of a sucky blogger!

Squid casserole. (You think I'm kidding.)

2007-08-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

I know it sounds gross, but it was actually really good, so I will post it for your delectation! (In a minute!)

First I want to say that I have actually been studying. Working. ME. And enjoying it, too. Maybe I am cut out for this academia shit after all. And I missed you guys! I've been so busy working (and not internetting) that I just marked all read on bloglines and went on my merry way. So...hi! And sorry! If you cared!

So...squid casserole. We had a bag of frozen calamari that we bought at Trader Joe's forever ago - I had wanted to fry it, but I never seemed to be in the mood to. So, we're trying to eat out of the freezer for a while (so full! Doubles of everything! It's like I'm a depression baby!) and I took the calamari out to thaw with no clear idea of what I actually wanted to DO to it. So I made something up based on like 20 calamari recipes I found online, and it was really, really good. Something like what I imagine Italian peasant food to be.

So:
1 bag frozen squid rings from TJs
2 cans diced tomato
1 can cannellini beans (the original plan; I used garbanzos)
1 onion
1 head garlic
1 bunch parsley
4 anchovy fillets
1 lemon
1 1/2 cups bread crumbs
1 1/2 cups microplaned parmesan or romano
lots of olive oil
some very garlicky crouton type deals (I had made these a while ago as the basis for an appetizer of some sort and tossed the leftovers in the freezer, but they thickened it up really nicely - same idea as french onion soup

Melt the anchovies in the olive oil. Cook the onion and 2/3 of the garlic (you know, peeled and minced) over med to med-high heat until soft and smelling yum. Add the squid and cook for a minute or two, then add the tomatoes and the beans. Simmer for a couple of minutes, then set aside.

Saute the rest of the garlic in MORE oil, then brown the crumbs in it. Add 1/3 of the bunch of parsley (minced); add the rest to the squid mixture. Ditto the parmesan (1/3 to topping, 2/3 to casserole.) Put the crouton-thingies in the bottom of a good casserole dish, add the squid, and top with the crumbs. Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes, till all is tender and yummy.

Even the child liked it. (Although he only has teeth in the front, and he worked on a bite of squid inside his mouth for like TEN MINUTES b/c he had to nibble it up instead of grind it up. Appreciate your molars, people!) Serve with a little lemon.

Fancy, spicy minnercheese (pimiento cheese, for the non-southern among you)

2007-07-16T19:25:00.000-07:00

Whoa.. I'm probably going to get drummed out of the Southerner club for making this fancy version of pimiento cheese, but it's REAL DAMN GOOD.

10-12 oz extra sharp aged Vermont cheddar
10-12 oz pepper jack (I used Cabot for both cheeses)
1 medium yellow onion
3 roasted peppers (I had one yellow, one red, and one orange on hand, so that's what I used)
About 1/2-3/4 cup homemade mayo, enough to bind the pimiento cheese without being gross (I made it with white wine vinegar and peanut oil this time, and hit the dry mustard and the cayenne pretty hard)

Grate the two cheeses in the food processor using the grater blade (another heresy!!) Run the onion through the grater as well. Spin the roasted peppers a couple of times, till they are in bits ranging from breadcrumb size to julienne size. Combine with the cheese and onion and the mayonnaise; mix and EAT IT UP!!

So good - so spicy and sweet. Eat it on crackers, on soft white bread (Pepperidge Farm thin white is classic, or use the potato bread recipe below,) in a grilled cheese, broiled onto toasted white bread, on potato chips as an appetizer, on top of grilled burgers...the list is endless!! Mmmmmmmmmm.

Grillicious!

2007-07-15T21:10:00.000-07:00

(Title: so corny. But I can't help myself.)

We had a throw-together dinner from some of our farmer's market yummies. I had some leftover roasted peppers from something else, and I sliced japanese eggplants and zucchini longways, and an onion into thick slices. I slathered it all in olive oil with italian herbs and salt and grilled them up. I grilled some chicken breasts, and topped the grilled veggie stack with about 1.5 oz goat cheese, then put the chicken breasts on top. The goat cheese got all melty (yum, warm goat cheese is the BEST. If you haven't put it in an omelet yet, you are missing out!) and it was a great contrast between the charred crispy almost bitter edges and the creamy soft middles. So good.

And I baked a HUGE loaf of sourdough that I'm having a hard time keeping my mitts off of right now.

Judy Rodgers' Zuni Cafe Cookbook and MOBILE, TOOTHY BABY!

2007-07-15T14:50:00.000-07:00

Thing One: Run! Don't walk! Buy this book ASAP! Not only is the Zuni roast chicken and bread salad FABULOUS - the entire book is packed with amazing recipes. Rodgers is amazing. I can't recommend it highly enough. As soon as we get back from the beach (have to use up what's in the fridge now - farmers' market bounty and much defrosted meat - before we buy anything else perishable) I will be cooking many many things out of this book. Instead of studying for my PhD exams. Perhaps I will cook something delicious for my committee when it comes time for my orals, and they will kindly overlook the fact that I'm slack as hell and pass me anyway!

Thing Two: Baby is mobile! I've been trying to make enchilada sauce for two days now, and the nugget won't allow it. R is in the middle of building a huge storage unit for the living room, so he's outside from dawn to dusk, and I'm inside with the newly crawling, newly cruising and obsessively standing up (and OVERNIGHT THREE NEW TOOTH-GROWING) baby. If I put him in the walker (no steps in our house, it's safe, and I watch him all the time anyway) he immediately rams it into the dog's water bowl, or chases me around the kitchen in it. If he's in the kitchen with me, he's pulling over the trash can, or trying to eat the dogfood, or trying to stand up holding onto the cabinet door handles (it opens! He falls! He cries! He does it again!) If he's in the living room (attached to the kitchen) he immediately crawls! away! into another room! that's far less childproofed as of now! (We can't do everything at once, unlike Archie, who mastered standing/cruising/crawling literally in three days, after barely rolling over for 9 months.)

Pair all this motion with the fact that last night he woke up at 3 am ready to party! And did so until 10:30 am (his normal schedule is wake at 6:30, nap by 9:00 at the latest.) He slept till 12:30, when I woke him up. This action was debated hotly with my husband, but I wanted him to take his normal afternoon nap. WHICH HE DIDN'T. But he just fell asleep at 5:45, and will hopefully just stay asleep for the rest of the night.

Toddlerhood, here we come!! So...I haven't gotten much done on the enchilada sauce. ANYWAY, buy the book. And tell me that we'll get the house babyproofed soon, and I won't have to be all up in his grill every second. Or just commiserate with me on the lack of sleep.

Potato Bread (and Cinnamon Rolls!)

2007-07-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

The potato bread is the perfect American-style white bread, in my book - and it makes so much dough that you have to use 1/3 of it to make cinnamon rolls! These are super yummy (tender and soft, as cinnamon rolls should be, not hard and crusty, as yeast-raised cinnamon rolls often are in this flawed world of ours.)

We had meatloaf and mashed potatoes last night, and I made extra potatoes on purpose to make this bread. It's the homemade equivalent to the Pepperidge Farm white - tight crumb, tender, a bit sweet. The recipe is from Ellen Foscue Johnson's The Bread Book: A Baker's Almanac.

Farmhouse Potato Bread

1 cup milk
1 stick butter
1 cup warm mashed potatoes
1/3-1/2 cup honey
1 1/2 tbs dry yeast
1/2 cup warm water (preferably potato water)
1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp ground ginger
2 eggs
2 tsp salt
6-7 cups unbleached bread flour
1/4 cup wheat germ (optional)
1 egg for the glaze

Bring the milk to a boil in a large saucepan; Remove from heat and stir in butter, mashed potatoes, and honey. Let cook to lukewarm.

Proof yeast in the potato water with the 1/2 tsp honey. Add the lukewarm potato mixture, and the ginger, eggs, and salt and beat well. Add 2 1/2 cups of flour and beat at least 2 minutes in the KitchenAid. (I use the paddle for this, then switch to the dough hook for the next bit.)

Gradually add more flour, as much as it takes to make a workable dough. (This dough will remain a bit tacky b/c of the richness; don't over-flour it. It won't be exactly sticky, but VERY elastic and soft.) Turn out and knead till smooth.

Raise till doubled in a greased bowl. Punch down, let rest 10 minutes, and divide into three. Form 2 of the pieces into loaves and place in greased loaf pans; roll the last out into a rectangle, smear with ample softened butter and load up with sugar and cinnamon (and chopped nuts, if you swing that way.) Roll into a log (jelly-roll style) and cut into spirals; lay into a greased 9 inch cake pan. (I also drizzle with additional melted butter at this point, b/c my sugar and cinnamon are all dry and sprinkle-y.)

If it's now late and you're tired, bung the pans into the fridge and allow to rise overnight. If you do this, definitely brush the tops of the rolls with melted butter first and cover all pans with greased plastic wrap. If you didn't do this after dinner like a dumbass, press on! Preheat the oven to 425 for the rolls and let them rise on top of the stove (you want them to bake first.) Set the loaves aside in a cooler spot in the kitchen to rise more slowly.

When rolls are doubled, bake for about 20-25 minutes, till golden on top. They'll still be tender and soft, not crusty, so look for the browning. Pull them out and turn them out onto a plate while still hot, so the gooey bits underneath don't harden and stick to the pan. They're the best part!

Lower the oven temp to 350 and bake the loaves for about 30 minutes, again till golden on top. In last 5 minutes of baking, brush tops with an egg wash. Cool on racks and eat - delicious toasted with butter, makes fabulous tomato sandwiches or BLTs - it's sort of brioche-like. Yum!!

y

2007-07-09T19:15:00.000-07:00

Well, the baby didn't go to sleep until 9:45 pee em tonight. Teething? Maternal caffeine? Simple obstreperousness? Who knows. I nursed him and rocked him and sang to him until I was so annoyed (not at him, at FUCKING APPLE MAIL, a program not worth of Apple. Unintuitive, ugly, slow, and SUCKS A BIG SMELLY ASS. If you're an Apple Genius, I'll be glad to tell you of my woes. They involve Gmail [which works fine with evil-empire-Microsoft, btw.] and not being able to delete a mailbox/account once created. Below par, Apple. WAY below par.) ANYWAY, no sleepy, much play-ey and giggl-y. No sleep till Brooklyn.

So we made mint cheesecake swirl brownies (4 bowls, I admit, but way easy.)

adapted from Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything.

4 oz Trader Joe's bittersweet chocolate
3 tbs + 2 tbs butter
4 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup + 3/4 cup sugar
1 egg + 2 eggs
1 cup + 1 tbs flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp mint extract (I bet mint oil would be better, but I don't have any.)

Preheat to 350, grease a square baking pan

Bowl 1: (I used a Pyrex measuring cup): melt the chocolate and 3 tbs of the butter in the microwave on half power (about 4 minutes.) Stir till smooth and set aside.

Bowl 2: Use hand mixer to beat the cream cheese with the 2 tbs butter. Add the 1/4 cup sugar and then one egg; beat well, then add the 1 tbs of flour and the mint extract.

Bowl 3: Use mixer to beat the remaining 2 eggs with the remaining 3/4 cup sugar to the ribbon stage.

Bowl 4: Mix together the cup of flour with the salt and baking powder. Stir in the chocolate mixture and the egg mixture.

Pour half the chocolate mixture in the greased pan, and top with the cream cheese mixture, then the rest of the chocolate mixture. Marble a bit if you desire.

Bake at 350 for about 22-25 minutes.

Celery and Green Onion Salad with Lemon-Dijon Dressing

2007-07-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

Celery and Green Onion Salad with Lemon-Dijon Dressing

I had NOTHING in the fridge in the way of fresh vegetables and no time nor inclination to do anything about it, so to go with our roast pork tenderloin with cider jus ala je mange la ville (no linking! battery dying!) I put together what we had. And it's delicious - fresh and crisp and light.

1 bunch celery, trimmed and sliced thinly
1 bunch green onions, stripped of its somewhat slimy outer leaves from sitting in the fridge just a day or so too long and sliced thinly

1/4-1/3 cup homemade mayo
2 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs dijon mustard

Mix the celery and onion; mix the dressing ingredients (obviously, the wet things!) and toss with the celery. Can refrigerate for up to 30 minutes while your husband finishes painting the living room wall the color of a ripe cantaloupe, if desired.

4th of July BBQ

2007-07-06T07:41:00.001-07:00

Whoa, I cooked up a storm for 2 days. I'm posting recipes here with notes for future reference!

Reposado Margaritas (adapted from Cook's Illustrated (These were AWESOME and totally worth doing ahead of time.)

Makes about 1 quart, serving 4 to 6 (I doubled this and upped the liquor content, as you'll see)

The zest, peeled off with a veg peeler, from 8 limes and 6 huge lemons
The juice from said limes and lemons
1/2 cup sugar
Pinch table salt
1 bottle rotgut tequila
1 bottle triple sec

Process the strips of zest with the sugar in the food processor. Combine with the juice from the citrus and let sit (CI specifies 4-24 hrs, saying that it becomes more intensely citrusy the longer it sits. We did it for 24 hrs.)

Strain this mixture and combine with the tequila and triple sec (I probably should have done 4 more limes and 3 more lemons for this amount of liquor, but it was GOOD, just killer strong, as we discovered after drinking one!!) and serve over ice.

Nummy. 5 stars.

Barefoot Contessa's Pan-Fried Onion Dip, from here. Oh my GOD, this was so good. Seriously, Robert, Leslie, and I ate at least half of this before ANYBODY showed up. It was easy to make, not expensive, and you'll NEVER make Lipton Onion Dip again once you try it. Trust me, go make this TODAY!!

2 large yellow onions
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper (I used way more, like 1/2 tsp or more)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup good mayonnaise

Slice the onions into 1/8-inch thick half-rounds. Heat the butter and oil in a large saute pan over medium to medium-high heat. Add the onions, cayenne, salt, and pepper and saute for 10 minutes (you want the onions to brown.) Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 20 more minutes until the onions are browned and caramelized. Allow the onions to cool.

Place the cream cheese, sour cream and mayonnaise in the mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat until smooth. Add the onions and mix well. Serve at room temperature (delicious with those kettle-cooked potato chips - or if you're really going all out, homemade ones would be fabu!)

Can't tell you how good this was. 5 stars PLUS.

Grilled Pork Burgers Indochine (From here. Everybody else LOVED these; I didn't think they were as good as I thought they were going to be, even though we ground the pork fresh! 3 stars from me, 5 from everybody else.

Dressing:
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh Thai basil leaves
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves
2 green onions, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

Patties:
1/4 cup Vietnamese fish sauce (nuoc mam)
4 teaspoons jaggery (palm sugar) or brown sugar (I used a combination of maple sugar and brown sugar)
1 teaspoon sriracha or other Asian hot chili sauce (I used a tablespoon)
2 pounds freshly ground pork
1/4 cup chunky peanut butter
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon ground star anise
Vegetable oil, for brushing the grill rack
6 French rolls, split
6 interior butter lettuce leaves

Make the dressing ahead of time: combine the mayonnaise, basil, cilantro, green onions, and lime juice in a bowl. Cover and refrigerate. (I thought it needed more basil, but I completely decimated my Thai basil plant to get the 2 cups. The sauce was a bit flat to me, though I added a tablespoon of fish sauce to give it depth. Perhaps I should have added some regular basil? I'll make some changes next time I make this.)

Mix the fish sauce, jaggery, and chili sauce in a medium bowl. Add the pork, peanut butter, ginger (I used a garlic press to avoid getting too many chunks of ginger strings in the mixture,) garlic, and star anise and blend loosely with a fork. Form into 6 equal patties.

Brush the grill rack with oil. Grill the patties with the grill top closed for 4 minutes. Turn and grill until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the center of the patties registers 160 degrees F, about 4 minutes longer.

Grill the buns, spread with the dresssing, top with more dressing and lettuce leaves, and serve.

I thought it was a bit too peanut-buttery and not spicy enough for me. I'll cut down on the pb and add more sriracha next time. As I said, everyone else freaked over these, but I thought they were just good. (Nowhere CLOSE to the pineapple jerk burgers, for me!!)

King Arthur's Golden Hotdog/Hamburger Buns (Very good. Would have been best if served still warm, though. Nice and tender and sweet-ish and wheaty. 4 stars.)

3/4 cup (6 ounces) lukewarm milk
3/4 cup (6 ounces) lukewarm water
5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces) butter
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup (1 1/2 ounces) Baker's Special Dry Milk
3 tablespoons (1 1/8 ounces) potato flour or 1/3 cup dried potato flakes
1/2 cup (2 3/8 ounces) Hi-maize® Natural Fiber
3 cups (12 ounces) King Arthur 100% Organic White Whole Wheat Flour
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

Dump everything into the mixer and work with dough hook for about 5 minutes (I know, it's crazy, but that's what they have you do.) Pull out and knead by hand till it feels right (sorry, if you don't bake bread, go to the website and they have better directions; if you do, this is what you do anyway!!) Let rise 2 + hours in a greased bowl (probably won't double but will get puffy.)

Form into burger-sized rolls and put them on an ungreased pan, so that sides will be touching once they've risen somewhat. Let rise another hour and a half or so, then bake at 350 for 22-25 minutes. Yields 16 rolls.

The next part was a huge pain in the ass - I spent the whole day making custard-base ice creams. The peach was worth it, the mint was NOT.

To be continued...I'm tired of typing!

Baja Fish Tacos

2007-07-02T18:18:00.000-07:00

Y'all, this was really good. We usually do blackened tuna tacos with mango salsa and habanero-lime white sauce, but we decided to do a typical Baja taco this time, and it's going into the rotation!

1.5 lb cod or other firm white fish, cut into fish-stick type shapes
Flour, cornmeal, Tony Chachere's seasoning, 2 eggs for breading
oil for frying
4 flour tortillas

1/4 cup very hot Habanero salsa
1 cup sour cream or full-fat Fage greek yogurt

1 small head cabbage, shredded very finely
Juice and zest of 1 lime
1/2 cup homemade mayo
1 small head fennel, shaved
1 apple, finely chopped
1/2 white onion, minced fine

Make the slaw:
Mix the cabbage, fennel, onion, and apple with the lime juice and zest and the mayo. Let sit for at least 2 hours to meld the flavors.

Make the white sauce:
Mix the yogurt and the hot salsa.

Make the fish:
Dip the fish in the flour, then in the beaten egg, then in a half and half mixture of cornmeal and flour, heavily seasoned with Tony Chachere's. Pan-fry for about 4 minutes per side over a medium hot flame in aobut 1/2 inch of oil.

Assemble the tacos:
Put 2-3 fish fingers into the center of a warmed tortilla. Top with 4 tbs of the sour cream/salsa mixture and about 3/4 cup of the slaw mixture. PIG OUT!!

(I'll post the blackened tuna tacos another day if anybody wants me to - just ask!)

Simple tomato soup with dill

2007-07-02T10:53:00.000-07:00

I bought a HUGE can of tomato puree at Costco and didn't want to make that much marinara sauce, so I decided to make a simple, homestyle tomato soup for lunches this week. We ate it with grilled cheese sandwiches on homemade oatmeal bread - I made them with havarti and cheddar and added sliced farmer's market tomatoes, avocado slices, and radish sprouts. Even the baby loved it!

This recipe is simple to make, quick, and delicious (as well as cheap - and it's all things I keep on hand all the time.) You can do it with pretty much any fresh herb that strikes your fancy - our dill needed to be cut back or I would have used basil, but rosemary would have been wonderful too!

2 tbs butter
1 onion, minced
1 carrot, in very small dice
1 rib celery, minced
4 cups chicken stock
3 cups tomato puree (fresh or canned; if fresh, strain to remove seeds)
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sugar
1 cup half and half
4 tbs minced fresh dill (or herb of your choice)

Cook down the veggies in the butter over medium heat until they're very soft and translucent, about 8 minutes or so. Add the chicken stock and tomato and simmer for about 20 minutes, then add the baking soda and sugar. Stir till the baking soda stops foaming, then blend with an immersion blender till vegetables are smooth. Add dill and half and half and bring back to a simmer. (It's even better after reheating the next day!)

Also made a fruit tart with leftover pate brisee and some peaches and raspberries from the in-laws' garden. It's chillin in the fridge right now. Pastry cream is a way smaller pain in the ass than I'd thought - it's no harder than pudding. (But a little less delicious, to be honest. It's a bit eggy for my taste.) Hopefully the fruit will make it more interesting.

Am I supposed to do something with melted apricot or strawberry jam? I just have the fruit arranged on top of the pastry cream right now.....

Pork with Pepper Vinegar Gravy, Corn Pudding

2007-06-29T15:57:00.001-07:00

I made a weird accident that turned out really good, so I'm documenting it here for future reference. (I was going to cook this in the crockpot, like the italian pepperoncini beef recipes I keep seeing, but someone turned the crockpot on "warm" instead of "high" with dinner only a couple hours away. So I dumped it out of the crockpot and roasted it in the oven, on a bed of sliced onions, a la Mark Bitttman's standard recipe, using the pepperoncini juice to baste with. THEN I had a huge pan of pepperoncini juice, yummy onions, and delicious pork drippings that I didn't want to waste. So I browned some flour, dry, (there was already plenty of fat in the witches' brew in the roasting pan, so I didn't want to make a traditional roux with MORE fat) and whisked the liquid and onions in with it, and simmered for a couple of minutes. Then I immersion blendered that mug, and it was good. Spicy, vinegary, and unexpected.

Made a new-to-me corn pudding recipe from Cook's Country along with, and green beans. The corn pudding was rich, but really good. Here's the recipe if you want it.

Savory Corn Pudding (Adapted from Cook's Country)

6 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels (I used frozen, of course fresh would be better)
1 1/2 cups heavy cream (next time I would use half and half, and a bit less of it)
6 large eggs , lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups shredded extra sharp cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
4 chopped fresh scallions, white and green

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2-quart casserole dish. Bring 2 quarts water to boil in large saucepan for corn.

Add 1 tablespoon salt and corn to boiling water and cook for 1 minute. Drain in colander and dry with paper towels. Pulse 4 cups corn in food processor until rough puree forms, about ten 1-second pulses. Transfer to large bowl and stir in remaining whole corn, 1 teaspoon salt, cream, eggs, cheese, sugar, cayenne, and basil until combined.

Pour corn mixture into casserole and transfer dish to roasting pan. Pour boiling water from kettle (I just used hot tap water, and it was fine) into some sort of bain-marie holder, until water is halfway up sides of casserole dish. Bake until pudding is set and browning slightly on top, 40 to 45 minutes. Remove casserole from water bath, transfer to wire rack, and let set for 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Zuni Roast Chicken and Bread Salad

2007-06-23T17:48:00.000-07:00

This recipe is a pain in the ass, but it's good. The bread salad is SERIOUSLY good. (I started too late to dry-brine the chicken as long as the instructions...well, instruct - so the chicken was just a normal amount of good.) But the directions are really, really hard to follow and verbose - I think I'll paraphrase it myself for next time I make it (and there will be a next time,) because it was really hard to follow. We did take pictures, but it will take a couple of days to get the pictures here, I think - they're on the fancy camera, which has to be downloaded to my husband's computer, and you can imagine how high priority THAT is.

Also, yummy sangria - we bought a box of wine (! yes! Box! And it's not bad! It's "The Black Box" cab and it's really not bad at all!) and made sangria with it. Bottle of wine, 1/4 cup Grand Marnier, 1/2 cup sugar/water simple syrup, 1 each sliced orange/lemon/lime (with end slices heated with the simple syrup) - macerate it all in the wine for a while (1 hr was plenty for us) and serve over ice with about 1/2-1 cup fizzy water, depending on how "light" you want it to taste. Next time I might squeeze in the juice of one more orange, but it's TASTY. Adapted from Je Mange la Ville (I always love her stuff - she's one of my faves!!) and the Cook's Illustrated version.

Mango-Fennel Salad

2007-06-22T20:03:00.000-07:00

I had some mangoes and fennel languishing in the fridge, and we're on a "don't throw away anything you paid money for" plan, so I invented a salad. If oranges and fennel are good together (not that I've tried it, but it's not an uncommon combination) then why not mangoes? And lo, it was delicious.

4 champagne mangoes, getting slightly soft
1/2 bunch parsley, a little wilty around the edges
1 bulb fennel
1/2 red onion

I'm not sure how most people deal with fennel, as this is only my second encounter, but I trimmed off the fronds and the root and took off the yuckiest outside "leaves," then sort of peeled it to get off all the rusty bits. Then I ran it through the mandoline (that's a husbandly task around here, as our mandoline was incredibly expensive yet sucks major ass.) Diced up the mangoes and sliced the red onion very thin and minced the parsley, made a dressing of 1/3 fresh lemon juice and 2/3 olive oil (somewhere between those proportions and 50/50) and tossed it all up. YUM. I had two bowls. Hopefully mangoes and fennel are superfoods!

Anyway, let this be a lesson to you. If you have stuff hanging around the refrigerator, throw it all together and see what happens! (I made Robert taste it first, just in case, though.)

Also, has anybody seen Idiocracy? It's actually kind of funny, though depressingly possible.

Like Flea needs MY piddly little traffic, but...

2007-06-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

Go read this post right now. Please. (I always forget to say please when I boss you around, don't I?)

It's short, and really REALLY funny.

Meri, you will thank me.

CAKE!!! Cake cake cake cake!

2007-06-18T12:42:00.000-07:00

Whoa, this cake is easy. Two bowls, one spatula. I put it together in 10 minutes. Instant gratifiCAKEtion! And so, so good and simple. I found it on the Chowhound boards (if you don't read the Home Cooking board, start.)

6 tablespoons butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
scant 1 cup sugar; of this, put aside 2 tbs
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk (we're out of regular milk, so I used buttermilk and added about 1/2 tsp or so of baking soda to the dry ingredients to compensate)
1 tsp vanilla extract
I added 1 1/2 tsp almond extract as well, to complement the peaches
Fruit: berries (blueberries or raspberries; if using raspberries, frozen ones work better), apricots, plums... (I used peaches that weren't quite acidic enough to eat out of hand, and cut them into slices and layered them in circles like a fruit tart)

Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 9" cake pan and coat with flour. Stir together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream together the butter and all but 2 tblsp of the sugar, using a rubber spatula. Add the egg, milk, and vanilla (and almond extract.)

Stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and mix with a spatula until smooth. Transfer batter to the pan. Cover the surface of the batter with the fruit, pressing the fruit slightly into the batter. Sprinkle with remaining sugar.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350, then reduce to 325 and bake for another 50-60 minutes, until golden brown and firm to the touch. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then unmold and cool completely on a rack.

I'll post pictures when I get off my lazy bottom and download them from the camera.

Crab Cakes (yum!)

2007-06-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

Robert's parents gave us a pound of king crab meat when he was there on Saturday (and some almond pound cake!!) So I used Mark Bittman's crab cake recipe and they were GOOD. We had them plain for dinner Saturday night with some sauteed spinach and Molly's carrot salad, but what was really transcendent was this morning, when I cooked up the last of the crab cakes and topped them with lemon and soft poached eggs. If I hadn't been too lazy to make hollandaise it would have been the perfect Father's Day breakfast! We had it with my standard toasted oatmeal bread and a drink we invented to cover up the taste of cheap sparkling wine (I can't bring myself to even call it Champagne - it's $4.99 a bottle!)

Mango Champale Cocktail

1 cup of sparkling wine (could use sparkling water for a nonalcoholic version, but why bother?)
1/4 cup mango juice
1/8 cup peach schnapps

Crab Cakes
1 lb lump crabmeat (I just chopped up the big chunks from the crab legs - heresy!)
1/8 cup minced roasted or fresh red bell pepper
1/4 cup minced scallion
1/4 cup mayonnaise (I used homemade)
1 egg
2 tbs fresh bread crumbs, as needed (I needed a lot more - like 1/4 of a cup or more)
1 tbs dijon mustard

salt, pepper, old bay seasoning for flour dredging
2 tbs olive oil + 2 tbs butter for frying

Mix the crabmeat with the mustard, mayo, pepper, scallion, egg, and bread crumbs until it makes a wet but somewhat hold-together-able mixture. Heat the skillet over medium-high heat for 2-3 minutes before adding oil and butter (heat until butter stops foaming.) Shape cakes and dredge in the seasoned flour (Bittman calls for curry powder in place of the Old Bay, but WHATEVER!) and place in pan; fry for about 2-3 minutes on each side, till golden brown. They will fall apart, so only flip them once, and be gentle about it!

(Here is Bittman's version if you want to see his wording, etc. I really like his recipes in this book - though I've had trouble with some of the Minimalist recipes in the Times, so far everything I've made out of How to Cook Everything has been really good. I actually use it as much as my old Fannie Farmer, which is my normal go-to book for everything!)

(And just for good measure, here is Bittman's super-simple homemade mayonnaise recipe - we've just stopped buying mayonnaise, as this is SO good and SO easy.)

Homemade Mayonnaise
1 egg
1/2 tsp dry mustard (I use double or triple that)
salt, pepper, cayenne to taste
2 tbs freshly squeezed lemon juice (or other acid, depending on what you're going to use it for)
1 cup oil (for everyday use, half should be extra virgin olive oil and the other half some neutral oil. If you want it for aioli or some other strong-flavored mayonnaise, use all olive oil; if you want it to taste just like Hellman's for tomato sandwiches this summer, use all peanut or canola.)

Combine egg, mustard, salt, pepper, cayenne, and acid in food processor. Turn it on. Drizzle in the oil, slowly at first, then in a thin steady stream until it's all in. (Sometimes I pour it into the little pusher thingy on my Cuisinart - it has a pinhole in the bottom - and it drips it in perfectly slowly.) Eat on everything. Keeps up to 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

Am web dork.

2007-06-14T18:53:00.000-07:00

The link to the cake works now, but I don't know how to delete my own double comment on the last post. Good thing I don't get many spam commenters, cause I'd be screwed.

AND I wish I could remember how I edited my blogroll, lo these many moons ago - I remember it was really freaking complicated. I have tons of people I would add (and a couple I would delete - I'm looking at you, Delicious! Delicious! No posts in a year = off with your head! If only I knew how!

Anyway, make the cake while I figure out bloggy things. And read Chowhound.

Oh my god oh my god oh my god oh my god

2007-06-12T17:29:00.000-07:00

Make the pineapple upside down cake recipe.

Everything else was also fabu (especially the tabbouleh - very authentic!) but the cake stole the show.

Here's the tabbouleh recipe: (I got if off Chowhound; I'm quoting the entire thing verbatim, as I copy/pasted it into my recipe manager, but I cannot find the link to the actual post, no matter how I google.)

"Don't boil the bulger, rinse it in a strainer until the water is clean, then let it soak in a bowl with equal parts lemon juice and cold water to cover for about 20 -30 minutes. When it's tender, squeeze it dry, then add the rest of your desired ingredients. We used cucumber, tomatoes, red onion, twice the amount of parsley as bulgur and salt. More lemon juice and definitely extra virgin olive oil, usually Sultan brand. Soaking the fine grain bulgur in lemon juice and water was a winner. We never added garlic. Sometimes we would add mint and tiny diced radishes in season. I loved the radishes.

Rose's Tabboouleh Recipe

½ cup dry bulgur
2 large bunches parsley, stems off & finely chopped
2 bunches green onions, finely chopped
2 large tomatoes, seeded & diced
1/8 tsp. Allspice
2 tsp. Salt or less
Pepper to taste
¼ cup lemon juice
¼ cup olive oil

Rinse bulgur, drain, and then soak bulgur in cold water until it doubles in size, approximately 30 - 45 minutes
Drain well and squeeze dry.
In a large bowl, add parsley, and onions. Add enough bulgur to suit your taste (less is usually needed).
Add oil, lemon juice & spices to taste then toss in tomatoes and mix lightly. Adjust seasoning to taste."

- Random fabulous Chowhounder (wish I could credit you! So so good!)

Fennel Gratin, Pumpernickel Bread, and a Party!

2007-06-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

Fennel Gratin

Slice fennel bulb with about 1 inch of the stems into slices about 1/2 inch thick. Roast in a 425 oven (tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper) for about 25 minutes, till browning a bit and tender. Put into casserole dish and put about 1/2-1 inch of half and half in the bottom of the dish. Cover the fennel with breadcrumbs (I used fresh, untoasted ones that I made from stale bread and keep in the freezer, so they're technically neither fresh nor dry. I bet either would work!) Grate romano or asiago (one of the stronger-flavored parmesan type cheeses) on a fine grater (but not microplane - you want distinct shreds.) Melt some shmaltz (the reserved fat from a roasted chicken seasoned with herbs that you thriftily saved in the fridge - or any flavorful fat will do, including bacon drippings or butter) and drizzle over the crumbs. Top with the cheese and bake at 375 for about 25 minutes. Notice that the top isn't getting brown and increase heat to 425 for about 10 minutes. Eat, with rude noises of enjoyment.

Having some folks over tomorrow night, and am making:

Onion Toasts, from Epicurious on homemade pumpernickel bread (recipe follows; my first attempt at it!)
Citrus-Glazed Barbecue Ribs, from My Husband Cooks;
Long-Cooked Chipotle Ribs from the LA Times food section;
Tabbouleh
Zucchini Carpaccio Salad, from Je Mange la Ville;
and Cook's Illustrated's Pineapple Upside Down Cake (recipe can be found here.

I'll let you know how it goes. The ribs are rubbed and the BBQ sauces are made; everything else will be made tomorrow.

Here's that bread recipe if anyone wants it: (I used the bread machine to knead it and let it do the first rise in there; it's out and in a long pullman-type pan rising overnight in the fridge right now. I'm hoping that will give it plenty of depth of flavor and also will make it more dense and fine-crumbed.) The dough is so dark and glorious smelling! We'll see if it's rye-y enough for me tomorrow.

Pumpernickel Bread
1 1/8 cups warm water
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 cup rye flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoons canola oil
1/3 cup molasses
3 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 tablespoons caraway seeds
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 tbs vital wheat gluten

Put in the wet ingredients first, then the dry, ending with the yeast. Put on dough cycle. When finished with the first rise, knead down and put into a greased long narrow pan. Cover with greased plastic wrap and a weighted cookie sheet; refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 for about 35-45 minutes.

Mexican-Flavor Salad with Avocado Dressing

2007-06-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

I didn't take any pictures of this, because boy did it look disgusting. But it TASTED great, and it's all stuff I keep on hand, and it was super quick and healthy!

1 head red leaf lettuce, washed and torn
1 cup corn kernels (fresh, frozen, canned, whatever)
1 can black beans
sliced radishes
Organic blue corn tortilla chips
1/2 red onion, thinly sliced
1 marinated skrt steak if you happen to have one left over like I did, or some grilled chicken or shrimp - whatever.

Dressing:
1 avocado
3/4 cup loosely packed cilantro, chopped
3/4 cup liquid (I used part water and part buttermilk; anything would work, up to and including chicken stock)
Juice of 1 lime and 1 lemon (the lime was really dry, so go by taste here)
1/2 cucumber, peeled
4 scallions, roughly chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded
1 tsp cumin
a couple of shakes of cayenne and chili powder
Throw all these together in the blender and blend until dressing-ish. Toss salad ingredients together (leave the chips for last) and pour over the dressing. (It makes way more than you need for one salad, obvs.) Eat.

Cream Biscuits

2007-06-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

VERY EASY and authentic version of southern biscuits. (And I should know!)

2 cups flour (low-gluten, like White Lily, if you can get it)
1 tbs sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Preheat oven to 475. Whisk together the dry ingredients; add the cream and stir just until the dough comes together. Turn out onto a lightly floured board and knead gently, just 5-10 strokes to amalgamate the dough. Pat out to about 3/4 inch thick. Cut out biscuits with something that's sharp on the edges (don't use a drinking glass!) and don't twist the cutter as you cut. Put on an ungreased cookie sheet with sides barely touching. Bake for about 12-15 minutes, till golden brown on top.

Eat hot, with lashings of butter and plenty of honey or homemade preserves (I used fig preserves from the farmer's market. YUM!)

Update...potatoes a resounding success!

2007-06-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

Delicious! Run out and make them! (Archie liked them, though they were a bit spicy for his taste - the faces were pretty priceless during the afterburn. There was a quick grab for the sippy cup. But he ate three!)

Farmers' market trip today - many goodies promise for the week ahead. Stay tuned.

Sweet and Spicy Roasted Sweet Potatoes

2007-06-08T18:53:00.000-07:00

I started out to make Rachel's Balsamic and Molasses Sweet Potatoes, but I couldn't find the HUGE bottle of balsamic that Robert brought back from Costco not two weeks ago. I looked everywhere. I remember thinking that the bottle wouldn't fit on the normal vinegar shelf, and I remember thinking "I'll have to put it somewhere I can find it and access it easily." Well, clearly I failed at that. Because I've looked everywhere but the linen closet (is it maybe in the linen closet???) and I can't find it. I'm sure I'll find it when I DON'T need it.

So I made something kind of wacky but based on the same thing. I'll tell you if it's good or not when they come out.

Peel and cube (about 1 inch cubes) four sweet potatoes. Chop up about 4 tbs of our fresh rosemary and simmer it in olive oil with some dried sage (about a teaspoon.) Add about 1/4 cup of molasses and plenty of salt and pepper. Suddenly realize that you can't find your balsamic vinegar and let that cook while you run around looking everywhere but the linen closet. Give up. Add 1/4 cup fresh lime juice and some cayenne (about 1/2 tsp) and about 1/2 tsp of hot pepper flakes. Decide "fuck it, I'm going for the sweet/hot caribbean thing" and add a couple dashes of habanero hot sauce and about 1/2 tsp cinnamon. Get annoyed at your husband for not helping you look for the damn vinegar after you made him a super yummy dinner and did two loads of laundry and put the baby to bed and put all the groceries away and also cleaned every damn thing up yourself, and then he got annoyed at you because you ask him to pause the Ramones documentary for a minute while you finish up the potatoes. Toss the potatoes in the bizarre marinade and put in a 400 degree oven on a jelly roll pan (with a silpat - have you thought of that trick yet? Makes the cleanup after roasting much easier!) and cook for a while. (20-40 minutes depending on how you like your roasted potatoes.)

I'll let you know how it goes.

On the other hand: made The Best Spinach Salad with Hot Bacon Dressing in the Whole Wide World.

Bag of washed spinach (I'm lazy, what can I say)
2 hardboiled eggs
2-4 slices of bacon, plus drippings from same (don't EVER throw away bacon drippings!)
1/4-1/2 red onion, sliced thin
3 tbs apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 tbs sugar
1 tbs water
salt and pepper

Fry the bacon over med-low heat until crisp. Dice the eggs and toss with the onions and spinach. Chop the bacon and sprinkle over the salad. Put the drippings in a microwave-safe measuring cup and add the vinegar, sugar, water, salt and pepper. Cook for about 1 minute on high, until boiling. Pour over salad while still hot (to slightly wilt the leaves) and toss. Eat with relish. Make sure to turn the bowl up to get the last dribble of that yummy dressing. Then email me and tell me how fucking awesome it is.

(Tammy, I'm looking at you - your regime of salad doesn't have to be low-cal unless you want it to!) (Also, the original called for thinly sliced radishes - we didn't have any that weren't wilty and icky, but if you get them in your CSA box throw them in!!)

Also made Alton Brown's yummy skirt steak.

Carrot-Ginger-Orange Muffins (I made these up!)

2007-06-08T09:06:00.000-07:00

All by myself, I made these up! (I used some of the same proportions from the Buttermilk Streusel Muffins, but seriously - these are practically original! Except that they're pretty much a morning glory muffin, which isn't original at all! But goooooooood.)

Here's how (rough sketch so I don't forget what I did. If it's unclear, and you want to make them, just ask!)

Juice and zest of one orange
1 cup buttermilk
b/t 1/3 and 1/2 cup veg oil
1 1/3 loosely packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 inches ginger pressed in garlic press to get juice

3 cups ap flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2-2 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup coconut
1/2 cup golden raisins
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp allspice, cloves

Peel orange zest off. Squeeze orange into measuring cup; add 1 cup buttermilk (meant to make up to 1 cup, but had 1/8 or so cup left of bm, so used that in addition. If you measure accurately you'll only need 2 1/2 cups flour!) Squeeze ginger. Mix oil, sugar, chopped zest in a mixing bowl; add liquid ingredients.

Mix dry ingredients and spices in another bowl. Toss with carrots, coconut, and raisins. Add wet ingredients and mix until just combined. Put about 1 cup of mixture in each jumbo muffin tin hole. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes, then lower heat to 350 and bake about 18 minutes more, checking.

Good new, bad news on baby sleep front

2007-06-04T18:07:00.000-07:00

So, the bad news is, his teeth have GOT to pop through soon. His gums have huge hard lumps on them and he's clearly in pain/crabby/awakening every 45 minutes at night if he's not doped up with Motrin. (We should have bought stock in that stuff - and thank you, Motrin people, for making a non-FDC red no. 5 version of it! It's not like he's choosing the medicine based on its delicious neon glow - he's a BABY! We squirt it into his mouth! He doesn't need the extra dyes! I'm looking at you, Infant Tylenol!)

But the good news is, he doesn't want to nurse to sleep nearly as much now. He'll nurse for a while, then pop himself off and lay there in my lap or in the bed beside me till he falls asleep. That's a good step, isn't it, sleep gurus?

The OTHER bad news is that I totally don't feel like cooking, so the husband is making something with a cream sauce (his decision, clearly. All i really want is frozen yogurt. Does that mean I'm pregnant again? I craved TCBY the WHOLE time I was pregnant.) So anyway, no recipes. Just baby sleep news.

Oh my god, go make this now.

2007-06-03T16:14:00.000-07:00

I made this Mediterranean Eggplant, Barley, and Mint Salad of Deb's and, while it may not sound like much, it's fucking awesome. You should go make it right now. (No pictures, as we ate it all hunched over the bowl like, immediately.)

I'm not going to retype it as we made it with no changes and it was perfection.

Pizza tonight. Plain old Greek pizza with feta, sauteed spinach, fresh tomatoes, oregano, olive oil. And then cream cheese cherry brownies.

It's been rainy all day today (my grass and scrawny plants thank you, rain gods) and we've spent most of the day reading books - some to ourselves, lots to Archie (we even went to Barnes and Noble and got a few more good ones: Good Dog Carl and Goodnight Gorilla.) We had a nice long walk in the soft drizzle this morning and it smelled so green and earthy - things have been really dry here, and it smelled like the mountains used to when I lived there. Lovely day. Deserves brownies.

Rip-Off Muffins.

2007-05-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

I don't mean they were a rip-off in terms of deliciousness - I mean I totally ripped them off from Ivonne and Jeff. Well, you can call it adapted, if you want to get all fancy, but I really just flat out stole it. And boy are they good! (*pats self on back*)

I even took pictures, with our shitty little point and shoot camera. I don't know why we spent all that money on a digital rebel when I've never figured out how to work the thing and the memory card is ALWAYS full. So....maybe they look disgusting, I don't know. But they're not.

So I took Ivonne's amazing buttermilk and fruit muffin recipe and put it together with Jeff's Tropical Banana Cream Muffins and came up with this. (And hell yes, I'm going to enter it in Rachel's Coconut and Lime Birthday Contest!!)

Streusel:
1 tbs cold butter
⅓ cup packed brown sugar
½ tsp cardamom
½ cup finely chopped walnuts
1/8 cup grated coconut

Muffins:
½ cup peanut oil
1⅓ cups packed brown sugar
1½ tbs grated lime zest
3 tbs lime juice
2 drops lime oil (I used Boyajian)
1 egg
1/2-1 tsp coconut extract
1 cup buttermilk
2½ cups ap flour (plus more if needed)
¼ tsp salt
2½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1¾ cups mashed bananas
1/4 cup grated coconut

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F and prepare a muffin tin. I have a new giant jumbo cup teflon (I know, I know) muffin tin, so I didn't do anything to it at all, and they slid out beautifully. This makes 6 super-giant coffee shop sized muffins, or 12 normal-person sized muffins.

Mix together the dry ingredients in one bowl and set aside.
In another bowl, combine the oil, brown sugar, lime zest, juice, and lime oil, and egg. Once combined, stir in the buttermilk, coconut extract, and mashed banana.
Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well. The batter should not be extremely thin; if it is add a couple more tablespoons of flour.

Pour the batter into the muffin cups (fill them completely. None of this 2/3 full crap for us; we got a great crown on them!) Top each muffin with its due portion of streusel.

Bake for 15 minutes at 400, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for an additional 18-23 minutes (for jumbo muffins; for normal ones, do about 13.)

Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack.

I'm going to have to post my cruddy pictures tomorrow, b/c I'm too lazy to get up and download them from the camera right now.

"Gifted?" Stop it.

2007-05-19T17:48:00.000-07:00

I see this new coinage everywhere. He "gifted" her with diamond studs after the birth of their baby. They "gifted" me a set of tupperware at the grocery store.

Monstrosity. Just say gave.

Cry for Help

2007-05-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

I'm having a small Mother's Day cookout on Sunday and I can't think of what to make with my main stuff. I'm making those PIneapple Upside-Down Jerk Burgers (I posted that recipe a long time ago here, and can't be arsed to link it right now, so just search or something!) and I don't know what to make on the side!

Anyone?

April Book Fool.

2007-05-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

I'm not EVEN going to apologize for not updating. You don't care, and I don't either!

Here are the things I read in the cruelest month. Literally, not one was for fun. Although some of them were fun.

Frank Norris, Vandover and the Brute
Incredibly depressing and sad. Possibly the most depressing book I've ever read. I don't know how in the world Norris does it, but by the end of the book he has you feeling tender pity for the horrible, horrible main character.
Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware
Also depressing. What is WITH these 19th century American literary naturalists?
Pauline Hopkins, Of One Blood
Not depressing in the least. In fact, hilarious. Like a combination of a Gothic tale with a Rider Haggard novel. There's mesmerism! And incest! And miscegenation! And hidden civilizations! Really very interesting from a critical point of view as well as a popular one.
Henry James, In the Cage
Story of a telegraph operator who meddles with the affairs of her clients and marries an ambitious grocer. (But, as always with HJ, it's really about FAR, FAR more than that - it's about discontent, and perception and imagination, and social class, and about a million other things.)
Henry James, The Jolly Corner
I'd never read this before. I heart Henry James. Creepy tale of a doppelganger (imaginary? No way to know with HJ!) Exploration of identity and roads not taken.

And a bunch of articles on these works (I'm not going to synopsize them because I can't imagine that anybody else really gives a shit.)
John Nickel, “Eugenics and the Fiction of Pauline Hopkins”
Thomas Otten, “Pauline Hopkins and the Hidden Self of Race”
Laura Briggs, “The Race of Hysteria: ‘Overcivilization and the ‘Savage’ Woman in Late Nineteenth-Century Obstetrics and Gynecology”
Richard Menke, "Telegraphic Realism: Henry James's In the Cage"
Pamela Thurschwell, “In the Cage, at the Ouija Board,” from Literature, Technology, and Magical Thinking, 1880-1920
Semir Zeki, “Neural Concept Formation and Art: Dante, Michelangelo, Wagner,” from Neurology of the Arts: Painting, Music, Literature

Gillian Beers, Open Fields: Science in Cultural Encounter
Started about 3 days ago. FASCINATING study of how science and culture interact in the 19th century. Beers is a fabulous close reader and extremely erudite (I think she's actually Dame Gillian now, in fact.) Highly recommended to those who are at all interested in the 19th century or in the interplay between science and culture. Not too abstruse; I think it could be read for pleasure by somebody only relatively geeky.
Robert Loewenberg, "Darwinism Comes to America" and "The Reaction of American Scientists to Darwinism"
Bob Richardson, William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism
Started and have been treating myself to a few pages a night. Bob Richardson is a fantastic writer who really makes his subjects come alive. He's married to Annie Dillard, also a writer of lovely and luminous prose, and he's written the definitive intellectual biographies of Emerson and Thoreau. I believe that this will become the definitive intellectual biography of James. Could absolutely be read for pleasure by any non-geek at all (and in fact was intended for a lay audience; he even refrains from excessive footnoting!) I took a class from him and he's simply amazing.
Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity
Started, didn't finish, only because I ran out of time before class. I will finish this eventually (along with all the OTHER books I didn't get to finish.)
Richard Rorty, "Postmodernist Bourgeois Liberalism," "Ethics without Principles" (from Philosophy and Social Hope), "Dewey Between Hegel and Darwin," "The Consequences of Pragmatism for Literary Study," and "Pragmatism as Romantic Polytheism"
Rorty's an entertaining polemicist with a vivid writing style. He pisses a lot of people off, and I like that in a philosopher. He's not super rigorous philosophically, which I'm actually fine with. Actually a pretty fun read.
John McGowan, book on liberalism in America (no final title as of yet.)
Another professor's book. Really, really concise and interesting treatment of liberalism in America. He creates a genealogy of liberalism going all the way back, and then brings it to the present-day crisis of liberalism. He marks out a pragmatic vision of what a democratic society can be. Very, very good (and John's a very, very interesting thinker/teacher as well as a lucid writer.) Any avid reader of the New York Times political editorials would love this book; it's written for a lay audience. Highly recommended. Coming out from UNC Press (I think) in 2008. Look for it!

There's my list. Isn't it the ultimate irony that one goes to graduate school in English literature because one likes to read, and then is not able to read for pleasure again for at least 7 years? :( But most of these books were pretty awesome, actually.

Am I doing this right?

2007-04-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

Am I only supposed to list books when I finish them, or mark them down if I read them during that day, then mark when I finish them or give up on them? Oh well.

So yesterday I read:

Frank Norris, Vandover and the Brute (finished)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, selected essays (I can post the titles if you guys are really hungry for 19th century judicial decisions that relate pretty loosely to pragmatism...or not?)

I'll post today at the end of the night, b/c they're kind of all over the place (going from one thing to another!) but I've been reading Dewey and Mead and am starting Of One Blood by Pauline Hopkins.

this is fun, except I keep forgetting to keep track of all the different things I work on in a day...

4/2/07

2007-04-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Today I read:

Vandover and the Brute (oh my god, the most depressing book EVER)
Dana Seitler's "Down on All Fours: Atavistic Perversions and the Science of Desire from Frank Norris to Djuna Barnes"

Book Binge Beginning.

2007-04-01T15:43:00.000-07:00

OK, it's the day.

I'm reading George Herbert Mead's Mind, Self, and Society*.
And also The Diaper Free Baby.
And Vandover and the Brute*. And some articles about that (too boring to list!!)
And Ramona the Pest.

Can you tell which ones are for school?? :)

Book meme, now with screwy formatting that I won't bother to fix.

2007-03-21T19:50:00.000-07:00

Got this from Mary and decided to do it because I'm a book geek.

READ for those you’ve read;
WANT TO next to those you are interested in;
AGAIN & AGAIN next to those you’ve read and loved, over and over;
REPEAT for those you’ve read more than once, without necessarily loving them;
MEH for stuff you read and weren’t impressed by;
STARTED for those that just never got finished;
and leave blank those you don’t care to read.

Title Rating
1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) Again & Again
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) Read
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) Read
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) Again and again
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)Again and again
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) Again and again
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) Again and again
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) Read
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling) Read
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) Want to
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling) Read
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King) Repeat
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling) Read
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) Repeat
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien) Again & Again
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) Read
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) Repeat
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel) Started
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)Repeat
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) Read
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) Again & Again
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) Meh
31. Dune (Frank Herbert) Meh
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand) Read. Liked v. much when I was 19, now very Meh.
34. 1984 (Orwell) Repeat
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) Repeat
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) Read
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel) Read (again, at about 14. Loved the naughty bits then.)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible Read
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) Want to
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) Want to
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt) Want to
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) Read
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) Read
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) Repeat
54. Great Expectations (Dickens) Read
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) Read
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) Read
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) Read and liked at 15
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood) Read
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) Repeat
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand) Read
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy) Read
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) Meh
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)Read
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) Again and again
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) Repeat
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell) Read and loved at 13 (also loved the miniseries so, so much at that age.)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) Want to
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) Again and again
76. Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay) Repeat
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) Again and Again
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) Read
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind) Read? (Can't keep his books straight)
85. Emma (Jane Austen) Again and Again
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams) Read at 12 or so. Bummed me out v. badly since rabbits died. Never could face reading it again. (Or watching Old Yeller more than once, for that matter.)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) Started
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) Read
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) Started
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford) Repeat (it was my grandmother's)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce) Started

Daylight savings time: suck it.

2007-03-20T20:56:00.000-07:00

DST has fucked my baby's sleep all up. He's awake RIGHT NOW. Just you go look at the post time on this. I'll wait.

That's right. 9 pee em. He's been going to bed later and later ever since the time changed (and, you know, it's still BROAD DAYLIGHT OUTSIDE when he's supposed to be in bed.)

Will he ever get back to normal and go to bed at 6:30? I wore him around the house for TWO HOURS tonight. On the sunny side, the house is cleaner than it's been in weeks! And there's soup cooking! Because he won't let me stand still while I'm wearing him!

I kind of count on that 6:30 bedtime. That's when I get the majority of my work done.

!@#$%%#$#@.

Sitting up!

2007-03-02T19:12:00.000-08:00

For like 20-30 seconds at a time (some places, like my lap or his pram, for like 5 minutes, but there are places to catch himself if he starts leaning in both those spots.)

Also, what's with the arm flapping? It seems almost compulsive when he's tired, and I get bopped in the face OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER in the mornings (he comes in with us after 7:30, when he gets up - we play for a while then we all go back to sleep for about an hour at 8:30 or so.) And I'm usually too tired to move my face, so I put up with it.

Also, I had him on my back in a wrap today, and he puked in my hair! Aaugh! Here is a piece of wisdom for you: do not flip a baby up on your back and tie him there tightly squished against you when he's just eaten like 5 oz of milk!! Unless you like the sensation of warm stomach contents trickling down the back of your neck.

And I had just gotten out of the shower, too.

Cooking/baby question

2007-02-25T16:22:00.000-08:00

Not a question about cooking the baby, don't worry!

I am planning on doing baby-led weaning with Archie (link about it here if you're interested! And don't worry, it is in English.) He's 6 months in a little over a week, and I have already let him try sucking on apple halves, chewing celery/carrot sticks [great for teething - I read that the celery has something in it that numbs the gums!], avocado, hummus, and toasted olive-rosemary bread. Thumbs up on everything so far - he's a big fan.

Here's the question: babies are supposed to have NO ADDED SALT until they're older and their kidneys are mature (a baby in GB died b/c he'd been consistently fed an oatmeal product with salt for breakfast and mashed potatoes with gravy for dinner!!) so...will our adult food taste yucky being cooked without salt and salted at the table, or will it be fine? (I could always keep a portion aside for him and salt the rest during cooking - just do it in a separate small vessel.)

I made a faker cassoulet tonight (recipe here, don't bother though) without salt (just for practice - I wouldn't feed him that yet. Kielbasa? Yuck!) (also, it was NOT that good - boring, nothing special, and a lot of faffing about for not a very awesome end result.) ANYWAY, it was so bland even after salting at the table - I wondered if the salting during cooking was part of what was missing. Anyone know?

And...back to normal.

2007-02-22T17:53:00.000-08:00

I took him to the doctor this morning just to rule out ear infection (because it's so not like him to not sleep! He LOVES to sleep! He sleeps 15 1/2 hours per 24 hour period!) and of course, he was fine.

And we came home and took a 3 hour nap together. And then we read books and went for a walk and had a bath and he got all yawny and I fed him and put him in his crib awake and he went to sleep. Just like yesterday never happened!

Babies are so weird.

..but he's giggling in his sleep.

2007-02-21T21:11:00.000-08:00

Babies are weird. :)

Teething??? Sucks!

2007-02-21T19:17:00.000-08:00

I guess that it's teething, at least. He took a normal (though early) nap this morning - got up at 6:00 and went back to sleep at 7:00 for about 1 1/2 hours. AND THEN ONLY SLEPT FOR 30 MINUTES THE REST OF THE DANG DAY. This is a child who averages 15 1/2 hours per day. He wasn't really cranky all day, but was CLEARLY exhausted and couldn't get to sleep. And when he would drop off, he would startle himself awake (despite brutally tight swaddling) about every 5 minutes.

I finally got him to sleep in the Ergo on my back around 5:30 and then he woke up within 15 minutes of me putting him down (although I waited till he had been asleep for 20 minutes to make sure he was really sacked out.) He finally fell asleep again in my lap about 6:30, but kept waking up crying like he was uncomfortable or in pain - I finally gave him some infant Tylenol and he seems to be snoozing much better now. (He's in bed with me all snuggled up to my leg - I couldn't sit crosslegged with his heavy self in my lap for another minute.)

I see what all the fuss is about now. Poor little man. How long does it usually take for them to pop through? Or will it be like this from now on?

It may be combined with the prep for the 26 week developmental spurt - he's well out of the 19 week one and has been going down by himself again like a champ for about a week or two. (He's 23 weeks now, but apparently this is a big one and the prep is longer?)

Also! In other news! I'm now done with all my small semesterly writing/presentation stuff - and both professors said they didn't care if I turned in the seminar papers over the summer, when I'm not teaching. So things should be calmer around here from now on, as I'll only have to keep up with the daily readings and begin my researching for the papers (in a relaxed fashion.)

Good thing - I pulled 3-4 all nighters in the past two weeks (and it wasn't the baby's fault!) That totally sucks when you're 36, let me just tell you.

It's totally true about the sleep sweet spot.

2007-02-11T05:23:00.000-08:00

Man, if I catch him right at the moment of staring off into space and put him down then,
he lays down in his little bed with nary a complaint and looks in his little toy mirror and
coos himself to sleep. He gets cuter EVERY DAY.

(Why did I have to manually line-break that so that it didn't become one long sentence
rolling off to the right? That's never happened before. With blogger, it's something new and exciting every day, isn't it?)

2007-02-06T15:17:00.000-08:00

I feel like a shitty mom AND a shitty student. I can't get him to go to sleep these days - I'm not patient enough. I'm so sleepy and so hungry and so anxious about school and I can't calm down enough to get him to groove off of me. All I have to offer is the boob, and if that doesn't knock him out I don't know what to do.

Thank god Robert can get him to sleep, but that makes me feel even shittier. Moms are supposed to be able to do that too, for chrissakes.

At least once we get him to sleep he's still sleeping at night (and I probably just jinxed that too.) But he only got up once between 6:30 pm and 4:30 am last night. Of course, I had to get up at 5:00 to plan my class, and I stayed up till almost midnight studying, so it didn't do me much good - but at least I know he's still getting the sleep he needs at night.

And I didn't finish the reading for yesterday OR today, and I felt so stupid in class, I barely understood anything that I HAD read, and everybody else is smarter than me now - and I feel like my head is stuffed with pudding (and that's another thing, I'm supposed to make some goddamn pudding tonight for my father in law's birthday) and I have a presentation to do next week AND a paper to turn in and I can barely get the daily work done.

And also, I'm starving. Fuck.

In which I bore my own self.

2007-02-01T18:06:00.000-08:00

Today I made Je Mange La Ville's Moroccan Chickpea Stew, with kale instead of spinach, and I am here to tell you it is gooooood. But that's for tomorrow's lunch. We had salad for dinner (remember! Weight Watchers! Although mine was pretty pointy, I think.) So: here's a good salad combination: shredded leftover roast chicken over spring mix with chunks of roasted acorn squash, kalamata olives, red onions, and goat cheese. With plain ol' balsamic vinaigrette. Something about the squash and olives and vinaigrette together was awesome.

And more of that brown rice/mango/coconut pudding. Can't. Stop. Eating. It.

Dammit! I'm boring! Um....the baby makes jokes now! (Seriously. He gums my face [which I do to him all the time, except for not gumming, just sort of raspberry-ing, which is where he got it from] and then looks at me and grins - he totally knows he's funny.)

Also! It snowed a little today, and iced! (And of course there was a typical North Carolina freak-out, where all the stores ran out of milk and bread, and all my afternoon meetings were cancelled, and public schools were closed. Um, people? No WONDER the Yankees laugh at us. I love a snow day as much as the next girl, but it was only TWO INCHES, and the roads were warm so nothing stuck.) (Although tomorrow morning might be a different story - it's freezing rain right now and it's COLD outside. Will I miss my La Leche League meeting? Tune in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion!)

2007-01-30T16:37:00.000-08:00

Oh my god, I actually made dinner. (And my husband has a gig tonight, so he missed it all!) And also it was good, and healthy. (Mostly.)

I made Kickpleat's red beans and rice, which were quick and AWESOME! Something actually smelled like sausage when I was stirring in the beans etc. (I think it must have been the salsa - I used a homemade chipotle salsa, and maybe the chipotle smoky smell had a sausage vibe going on?) GOOD. (And only 9 points per serving, if you're weight watchering! (1 cup each of beans mixture and rice.)

And then I made coconut-mango rice pudding. And I'm eating it right now. And it's effing good.

I used a cup of the brown rice from dinner and sauteed it in coconut cream (which is DELICIOUS - I could have eaten the can with a spoon!) for a while and then added a chopped fresh mango.

Good. Try it.

2007-01-29T08:36:00.000-08:00

Maybe this is old news to all of you all who read the Omnivore's Dilemma (I haven't yet) but Michael Pollan has an interesting article up on the perils of "nutritionism" on the NYT website.

Go! Read! Tell me what you think!

2007-01-28T16:53:00.000-08:00

Rabbit Hill Inn Oatmeal-Molasses Bread from Dairy Hollow House Soup and Bread, by Crescent Dragonwagon

2 cups boiling water
1 cup oatmeal
2 tbs butter
1 tbs yeast
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 cup blackstrap molasses
2 tsp salt
4-5 cups bread flour

Pour the boiling water over the oatmeal and butter; let stand for 30 minutes. Proof the yeast in the warm water towards the end of this time. When foamy, add yeast, molasses, and salt to oatmeal mixture and stir. Beat in enough flour to make a workable dough (it will be a little sticky.) Knead until smooth (8 minutes or so.) Oil a bowl, turn to coat; let rise to double (about 1 1/2 hours.) Punch down, divide, and shape into 2 loaves. Put into greased loaf pans and let rise again, about 40 minutes this time. Bake in a preheated 375 oven for about 30 minutes.

Delicious toasted for breakfast or for sandwiches. A little sweet but nutty and hearty from the oatmeal, and it's a complex kind of sweetness from the molasses.

2007-01-28T16:52:00.000-08:00

I made the MOST DELICIOUS cinnamon-raisin bread in the bread machine the other day. (I know, I know, y'all purists want to get into your dough up to the elbows - and I enjoy that at times too. But I'm BUSY, and hate boughten bread, and plus the King Arthur people use them in their test kitchens to make their dough as the bread machine is the home equivalent of a real proofing box and that's how I do it too, so hush.)

Anyway, here's the recipe; the basis of it is a Beth Hensperger recipe from the Bread Bible that I completely copied, and she has lots of variations after it, but strangely, no cinnamon-raisin variation. So I made one up. And It Was Good.

Makes: 1 loaf
Dough for 1-pound loaf makes 6 round and 8 long rolls
Dough for 1 1/2-pound loaf makes 8 round and 10 long rolls
1 1/2 -pound loaf
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup water
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 cups bread flour
3 teaspoons gluten
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 teaspoons bread machine yeast

1-pound loaf
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1 large egg
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 cups bread flour
2 teaspoons gluten
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Filling:
3 tbs butter, softened
3/4 cup golden raisins, soaked in about 1/4 cup dark rum
1 tbs cinnamon
1/3 cup brown sugar

1. Place the ingredients in the bread machine according to manufacturer's instructions (I also added about 3 tbs sugar to the dough ingredients.) Choose the dough cycle. After it is finished proofing, take it out and knock it down, then roll it out flat. Spread the filling mixture (obviously, drain the raisins first) over the bread and roll it up; stuff into a loaf pan seam side down and allow to rise again (it won't take long.) Bake at 350 for about 35 or 40 minutes - don't overbake.

This was totally delicious - next time, though, I believe I'll knead some of the cinnamon and raisins into the dough itself, as well as having the swirl that runs through the bread.

I actually cooked something worth posting.

2007-01-25T19:15:00.000-08:00

It's kind of a crazy intense but good pasta sauce (and I can report that it's even better the next day - more balanced.) I read Deb's post about bolognese with italian sausage and couldn't stop thinking about it - yet we're on Weight Watchers! So I tried to do something in the spirit of that sauce. (It's 7 pts per serving, and this recipe makes 4 VERY generous servings.)

Brown 8 oz lean ground turkey in about 1 tbs olive oil with about 2 1/2 tbs of fennel seeds and the oil from some anchovies, along with 2-3 of the little fishy guys. Boil 1 1/2 cups to 2 cups of red wine and soak about 1-2 oz of dried shiitake mushrooms in the hot wine. When they're all soft and delish, put them in the food processor with: 6 cloves of garlic, 1 onion, 1/2 lemon (rind and all) and whatever tomato products you have available to you. I used 1 can diced tomatoes and 1 can tomato sauce, cause that's what I had, but I bet if you had some of those Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes your outcome would be good. Process till smooth-ish and add to pan with turkey, fennel seeds, and anchovies. Simmer for about 20 minutes, at least, if not more.

Serve over pasta. I wanted orechiette to hold the saucy goodness, but husband cooked spaghetti (?) so that's what we had. It was REALLY citrusy the first day (intense!) but mellowed to a very classic bolognese taste today - and the fennel seeds are really coming through. I would almost think that there is italian sausage in there!

I took today off (mostly - I taught from 8 to 9:30 but have been free ever since, and not studied a lick!) I had a luxurious nap with the baby (2 1/2 hours!) and feel like a new woman. We went to the store and I prepped up a bunch of stuff for the rest of the week: oatmeal bread, cinnamon-raisin swirl bread (mmm - I soaked the raisins in dark rum. I wonder how many points THAT will have? It's rising right now.) I baked sweet potatoes, roasted brussels sprouts, roasted cauliflower with olive oil, mustard, and capers (needs some work but will be super-yum!) and made collard greens (a long process, as I'm from the south.) We also bought stew beef (buy one get one free at Harris Teeter!) and I'm going to make a bourgignon tomorrow (all I have tomorrow is one meeting, to which the tot may come, but I do have to get back to reading/studying tomorrow. I don't want to be all down to the wire like I was last week - but it sure was nice to be able to spend unlimited time with Mr. Smallpants and not feel pressured like there was something else I should be doing.)

Maybe...MAYBE I'm figuring out the timing on my life a little bit? (I even cleaned the bathroom this morning, though the rest of the floor is afloat in dust-doggies [dog hair dust bunnies, for those of you who have never been around Akitas] and the kitchen still needs mopped. But...it's a start!)

Oh well.

2007-01-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

Baby can't go (something to do with ABC laws on the ship) so I can't go. My husband, however, can go with a friend. I HATE that! I sort of want him to have fun without me, but I also kind of don't want him to have fun without me at all!

I'm such a big baby.

I won something!!

2007-01-21T10:49:00.000-08:00

Dudes! I totally won a cruise! And not the rip-off kind where you end up having to pay a bunch of money - a REAL PRIZE THAT'S TOTALLY FOR FREE!

It's a 6 day 5 night cruise all included (including pina coladas!) in March from Ft. Lauderdale to Mexico!

Here's the trouble: the babe is breastfed, and as of right now the rules are that the prize winner (me!) and guest (husband) have to be 21. Well, we totally are - but they don't think Monkey can tag along for free as he didn't win. So...I have to talk to the Director of Marketing at Harris Teeter (my grocery store! I didn't even enter on purpose - I just bought groceries and got entered automatically!) and see what we can do - but the guy at the prize question line said that I'm not the first one to ask about that....so I'm crossing my fingers.

We never had a honeymoon, and this would be SO TOTALLY RAD.

Now must study more! Monkey is asleep (yay for sleep!)

My God.

2007-01-13T20:02:00.000-08:00

How does anyone get through grad school with a baby? He's even a good sleeper, but there are just not enough hours in the day unless I want to starve to death while living in a filthy hovel and never go outside again or do ANYTHING that isn't related to baby or work.

Course, two problems are that 1) he's kind of a shitty napper (45 minute max for several naps daily) and I don't work as well in small bursts - it takes me a few minutes to get going, and it's also hard to tear myself away. I'm more of a chunk girl. And 2) I'm NOT a late night person, so his predilection for going to bed at 6:30 (yay!) only helps so much, as I'm up at 5:30 on the days I teach and 6:30 or 7:00 on the days I don't (b/c he is.) And - trust me on this - I can't possibly get up any earlier. He's still up 3-4 times during the night, though they are mercifully brief feedings and he goes right back to the business of snoozing as soon as he's drained one.

So....if anyone WERE to read this thing, and have some advice, they would be welcome to post it. And isn't it national delurking week? So - advise me, passersby!

He's cuter than CS Peirce, by a long shot.

Uggs? Still? .... Seriously?

2007-01-11T10:23:00.000-08:00

So, it's been hot in NC for a while (like 70 degrees, thanks global warming!) but today it turned January-ish for the first time in forever. And I saw, no lie, TEN GIRLS wearing Uggs.

Uggs were not attractive even WHEN they were stylish, which they most assuredly no longer are. What the fuck?

2007-01-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to pack in as much kitchen love as possible before I start back to the mundanity of classes, teaching, and constant reading. So I cooked a lot today.

I'm also on a Soup Kick - I've decided to have at least one Tupperware full of soup in the fridge at all times for quick lunches. We finished the curry-apple-cauliflower yesterday, so...I made soup.

I (very slightly) modified a lentil and sausage soup that I found on Farmgirl's site to look like this:

From Food photos

Here's what I did:

Red Lentil and Italian Sausage Soup

4 links sweet or hot Italian sausage (I used sweet) in chunks
Healthy glug of olive oil
1 onion, chopped
3 carrots, chopped
6 cloves garlic
1 cup red lentils, rinsed (aren't they gorgeous?)
4 cups water
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 tsp cumin
1 tbs paprika
1/4 cup chopped parsley
salt, pepper, red pepper flakes

Brown the sausage chunks in a touch of oil in a skillet. Set sausage aside; brown carrots, onion, garlic in some of the sausage grease. Add the lentils and stir around, then add the water and tomatoes. Simmer for 1/2 hour; add spices and simmer again for 1/2 hour. Immersion blend most of it till chunky and add the sausage.

This soup was a gorgeous color because of the red lentils, and was so hearty and delicious. I ate 1 1/2 bowls. It was especially good with the buttermilk bread you see behind it - the bread is slightly sweet.

2007-01-03T13:51:00.000-08:00

IF you have a Mac, go download Yum! recipe software RIGHT NOW! It's freeware/donationware and it's SO GOOD. I have about 3500 recipes in there now (so, so handy for cutting and pasting from teh internets - I've culled tons of things from all the fabulous food blogs out there and from epicurious with NO TYPING - just cut and paste, and when I go to use/print out the recipe, I edit it and clean up formatting, etc.)

You can search for ingredients, recipe titles, whatever within the collections you set up, and can categorize recipes based on categories you invent. It's really fabulous, and the developer is SO responsive, nice, and helpful.

I can't recommend it highly enough! You can also get it here, at the developer's website.

Go try it today - I'm going to go donate right now. It's THAT good. (I hadn't realized there had been so many updates - I was at version 0.5, and he was up to 1.2 - I just found that out and DLed the new one, hence the sudden excitement over a program I've been using for like 2 years.)

Resolution (that's a pun, you'll get it when you read the post.)

2007-01-02T06:48:00.000-08:00

Our New Year's Resolution (the ONLY one, b/c I fucking hate the whole concept) is to buy a new digital camera so that I can take (well, so my husband can take) appealing, mouth-watering, non-blurry and pixilated pictures of Teh Food. (And Teh Baby, of course.)

Get it now? Resolution? Like...digital camera resolution megapixels?

Yeah, it was lame. Shut up. I'm sleep deprived.

2007-01-02T05:55:00.000-08:00

First laugh!

He laughed out loud this morning on the changing table (luckily the baby monitor was on so daddy heard it too) - and then again when we were back in bed playing this morning. But he won't do it on command (like when the camera's on, for example.)

He's been sort of half giggling/chuckling for about 2 weeks, building up to it - but the real thing is amazing to hear.

We're going to have Cook's Illustrated French Toast from Lindsey's Luscious for brekkie this morning. (It had never even occurred to me to put flour in the batter - what a great idea!) And I have about half a loaf of homemade challah to use for the base, and some homemade anapestic turkey sausage in the freezer, too.

Shit, we're going to have to join Weight Watchers after this holiday season and baby-making year. Breastfeeding is NOT the magic liposuction tool they tell you it is.

2007-01-01T19:23:00.000-08:00

Word!

Now, if you're reading, COMMENT for the love of God - how can you resist that face? That shirt? That too-big hat??

2007-01-01T19:22:00.000-08:00

From Archie

2007-01-01T19:21:00.000-08:00

Well, that looked like nothing. I'll try something else.

2007-01-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

SUH-WEET!!

Although post titles aren't supported, apparently. Now how about a picture of my Sweet Babboo??

Let's see if that looks like a picture of the World's Cutest Baby, or like a jumble of HTML crap.

2007-01-01T18:44:00.000-08:00

I hate searching for blog clients. If this works I will never ever do it again.

2007-01-01T18:17:00.000-08:00

Why can't I post a picture? I click the little icon of a picture, browse to where the photo is located on my hard drive, and choose it - and then they say that my request can't be completed.

What the fuck?

2006-12-31T20:09:00.000-08:00

Well, everything turned out good EXCEPT the french toast. It was kind of dry on top and kind of slimy on the bottom. All the men SAID they liked it, but I think they must have been lying - it was kind of gross to me. The grits were good but plain (more cheese! more cayenne!) The hit for me was the bread pudding with the leeks and gruyere/fontina mix - YUM. And also the coffeecake was fabulous. The grapefruit curd was really good but too sweet - I'd cut the sugar some next time. (Maybe by 1/4 or 1/3?) And the challah was a fine base for the bread pudding, but it's a little cottony and sweet and one-dimensional for my taste. The one from the Silver Palate cookbook is way better.

The babies were SO CUTE together - Oliver got into A's doorway jumper and entertained himself (and us) for about 30 minutes - and when he first got here he reached out and grabbed at A, trying to touch him and hug him. It was ADORABLE. (I'm too old school for all this bold and italic bullshit - I use caps, y'all.)

Anyway, don't make the french toast, but make everything else. And do me a favor - make some fruit salad or something. I realized this morning that EVERY THING I MADE was bready or baked in some way!!

2006-12-30T19:52:00.000-08:00

I forgot to say that Trader Joe's has finally come to Cary (about a 35 minute drive from here) and it KICKS ASS. We spent $200 in the blink of an eye there, and I didn't get but about 3/4 of what I had my eye on!

Also, Justin Timberlake has jumped over to my "approved" list - that "Dick in a Box" video on YouTube is just too funny. I love it when you think some celebrity is maybe annoying, and then it turns out that they can laugh at themselves.

2006-12-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

That brunch stuff yesterday was GOOD, by the way.

Having 8 people over tomorrow for brunch (in our tiny house!) and I'm prepping lots ahead tonight. (8 people, 11 am, 4 month old baby? You bet your ass I'm doing as much ahead as I can!)

I have the challah in the oven now to use in the Creme Brulee French Toast casserole (2 of the guests are non-pig-atarians, so this is for them.) I'm going to get that soaking once the loaves cool. I've already cooked the leeks and sliced the ham for the Bread Pudding with Ham, Gruyere, and Leeks. I've made Grapefruit Curd (yum!) for spreading on scones - I'm trying to decide if I should do plain ones or maybe ginger ones? Weigh in if you're reading. I also made a Sour Cream-Cinnamon Coffee Cake and a pitcher of Bloody Marys (2 of the other couples are bringing the fixin's for mimosas.) And tomorrow morning, I'll bake off the stuff and prep a simple baked cheese grits casserole along with the other stuff. So hopefully all I'll have to do in the AM is slide some things in the oven, mix up the scones, and clean the bathroom. :)

I found the recipe for the bread pudding on the Cooking Light bulletin boards - the author of the post credits it to Martha Stewart, but I can't find it anywhere but there. So here it is for your delectation:

Bread Pudding with Ham, Leeks, and Cheese – Martha Stewart
Serves 6-8

Using both Gruyere and fontina gives this savory dish complex flavor-and they melt beautifully. If you use only Gruyere, just double the amount. You can assemble most of this dish up to one day ahead and refrigerate, covered; then add the batter, and bake.

2 tbsp unsalted butter, plus more for dish
1 bunch leeks (4-6), white and pale-green parts only, halved lengthwise, cut into 1/4 inch thick half-moons, and rinsed well (about 3 heaping cups)
1 tsp course salt, plus more for seasoning
8 large eggs
1 quart milk
8 slices challah or brioche (1/2 inch thick)
6 ounces thinly sliced ham
2 tbsp thyme leaves
1 cup grated gruyere cheese (4 oz)
1 cup grated fontina cheese (4 oz)

1. Preheat oven to 325. Butter a 9x13 inch casserole dish. Heat the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Cook leeks, covered, until softened, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and transfer to a small bowl.

2. Whisk together eggs and milk. Whisk in the salt and pepper. Set batter aside.

3. Layer the bread, ham, reserved leeks, thyme, and cheeses shingle-style in the buttered dish. Pour batter over top; press gently so bread absorbs liquid.

4. Bake until puffed and golden brown (tent with foil if edges brown too much before center is set), about 1 hour.

2006-12-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

Here's what I'm making for breakfast tomorrow (none of us has to work - not even the three-month-old!)

Sara Foster's Creamy Cheesy Corn Grits Topped with Sweet Potato, Bacon, Blue Cheese, and Rosemary

RECIPE: Creamy Grits Topped with Sweet Potatoes, Bacon, and Blue Cheese

SOURCE: Sara Foster's Fresh Every Day (dude, I'm so lucky that I live about 4 blocks from her store, Foster's Market - both her cookbooks are FABULOUS.)
CATEGORIES: Breakfast/Brunch

INGREDIENTS:
2 teasp sea salt
1 cup stone-ground yellow grits
1 cup milk
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
3 tbs unsalted butter
1 cup grated parmesan
1 tsp fresh ground pepper

1 med sweet potato
1 tbs olive oil
1 tbs melted butter
fresh rosemary
crumbled cooked bacon
crumbled blue cheese

METHOD:

Peel and chop (1-inch dice) the sweet potato; toss with the oil, butter, and rosemary and roast at 400 for about 20-30 minutes. (I'm doing this step tonight and will just warm them up in the morning.)

Bring 3 cups of water to boil in large saucepan; add salt. Add the grits in a slow stream, whisking constantly. Reduce heat to med-low and cook grits, stirring frequently, for about 45 minutes. (Until they are thick-soupy and tender.) Stir in the milk and corn kernels and cook about 2 minutes longer.

Remove from heat; add butter, Parmesan, and pepper and stir until butter and Parmesan are melted.

Serve the sweet potato cubes over the grits and top with crumbled bacon and blue cheese.

2006-12-28T19:50:00.000-08:00

Tonight I made Cream of Cauliflower Soup with Curried Apples, baguette toasts broiled with goat cheese and caramelized onions, and a green salad with walnuts and dried cranberries. (I was feeling a little fussy and small-things-making-ish.) I got the soup recipe off the Cooking Light bulletin boards, and it's apparently from the December 2006 Bon Appetit; it was pretty good, but I think next time I'll make this epicurious one.

Here's the recipe for the one I made; it's good, but next time I'd do some curry with the sauteed aromatics, and more cayenne:
6 tbs butter, divided
1 head cauliflower cut into florets (why bother separating it into florets when you're going to blend it? I sliced the whole head thin and then very very coarsely chopped the slices.)
1 cup coarsely chopped onion
1 cup coarsely chopped leek
1 leaf bay
1/2 cup dry white wine
4 cup veg broth
1 cup cream
2 tbs fresh lemon juice
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
1 large unpeeled apple
1/2 tsp curry powder

METHOD:

(Soup portion can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and chill.)
Melt 4 Tbsp butter in large pot over medium-low heat. Add cauliflower, onion, leek, and bay leaf; saute until onion is translucent, about 8 minutes.
Add wine; simmer until almost all liquid has evaporated, about 4 minutes.
Add broth and cream. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer until cauliflower is tender, stirring often, about 20 minutes.
Remove bay leaf from soup. Working in batches, puree soup in blender. Return soup to pot.
Mix in lemon juice and cayenne pepper. Season with salt and pepper.
Cut apple into matchstick-size strips. Melt remaining 2 Tbsp butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add apple and curry powder; saute until apple is tender, about 2 minutes.
Bring soup to simmer; ladle into bowls. Spoon warm apple mixture over. Sprinkle with additional curry powder.

Source:
"Bon Appetit, December 2006"

2006-12-26T15:44:00.000-08:00

Oh yeah, I almost forgot - I got Dorie Greenspan's new baking book, the Good Home Cookbook, Donna Hay's Modern Classics, and Sara Foster's Fresh Every Day.

Too bad I won't have any time to cook, cause I'm all set.

Christmas recap

2006-12-26T15:25:00.000-08:00

Christmas was good, but tiring, especially for Mr. Smallpants. EVERYBODY wanted to hold him and talk to him and tickle him and dangle toys in front of him, and frankly he got fucking sick of it. But we're all home now and all is good, and the resolution is made not to pack more than 1/3 the amount of stuff we took this time. The grandparents need to get on the stick and buy some shit to keep at their houses so we don't have to lug EVERYTHING.

The food came out pretty good, though not as fabu as if I was allowed to plan it all myself. But mom was paying, so whatever - it certainly wouldn't have been standing rib roast if I'd been buying, so no complaints. But somehow we got "standing rib roast" mixed up with "prime rib" (they're NOT the same thing, are they?) and cooked it...wrong. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't $150 good. (It was for 17 people, so it was a 7 rib roast, I think.) So, the recipe (for PRIME RIB, now) had us rub it with a garlic paste (why do they do this before telling you to put it in a 500 degree oven, or sear it? The garlic ALWAYS burns!) and then sear at 500, then cut it down to 350. Accounts varied on whether to roast it 8 min/pound or 18 min/pound, so we went with 8 minutes with lots of extra time to spare in case it took longer. Came out at exactly 140 degrees, rested for a while (30 minutes) - and was bland, boring, and on the tough side. Why is that, you who are so wise in the ways of meat?

Most of the other stuff was good though (but my creme anglaise didn't even thicken enough for THAT, much less for normal custard - but it tasted good, and it was meant to be poured over cake, so no harm no foul.)

Also, I might have been a little drunk by the end of the preparations, so....maybe that was the problem. (But I did the anglaise EARLY in the day! BEFORE the first glass of wine!)

Got totally awesome presents - aforementioned mixer (!!), pasta attachment - and a cappucino foamer (the one on our espresso machine is missing a key part, so this is welcome) and a kitchen blowtorch (! Eggnog creme brulee for ALL!) And some Knifty Knitters for those long "winter" evenings at home (the ones that are 60 degrees - thanks a lot for ruining the North Carolina White Christmas, global warming!) I'll be knitting everyone scarves, hats, and blankets. For the increasingly warm weather. Makes perfect sense.

Now I have to go and actually get to work - I was so anxious last night about classes starting and having to redesign the course I'm teaching this semester because of my own stupid mistake (I don't want to talk about it) that I woke up like every hour worrying, so I ended up just sitting up and working on it in bed at 4 am beside the snoring (yes, he snores) baby. But I at least got some ideas.

But don't expect a lot of beautifully crafted and picture-ful (grr - still can't figure out how to upload pictures!!) posts on fabulous, slow-cooked food (unless it's slow-cooked in a crockpot) since I'll be busy as shit this semester.

Ack.

Oh my GOD, y'all. It's a work of art. (The mixer, not the dinner.)

2006-12-20T15:44:00.000-08:00

I got my MIXER today!!!! My Christmas mixer! And it's the most beautiful thing ever, except for the baby, in the whole world!! (I'm currently waiting for onions to caramelize for ravioli filling, or I'd be in there using it RIGHT NOW - dough to be made in there for SURE, and I got the pasta roller attachment too!!)

I'm going to try to put in a picture. (This new beta Blogger seems to make everything easier - screw the second party blog clients for the Mac that I can't fucking figure out - how un-Mac-like is THAT? Blogger is now all I need. IF I can figure out how to load the images, which apparently I can't. Seriously, what good is a food blog without pictures? And I wanted you to drool over my new baby. Hell, here's the link to the page - go look at it your own self, then come back and tell me how faboo it is.) (Fabu?)

ANYWAY, I also got a 13 1/2 inch preseasoned Lodge skillet. (My husband is the best - he was all worried that they would be "chauvinistic" gifts, but they're what I wanted!!) I have about 7 onions caramelizing in that bad boy right now. Here's what's for dinner (and pictures will have to come later, after I wrestle with the angel a little bit.)

Fettucine (whoa, that cutter is good. They were perfect!)

With a kind of weird but delicious stroganoff-type sauce: (LOTS of umami!)

8 (!) cloves garlic
olive oil
a bunch (double handful) mushrooms (I used all domestic, b/c I had some to use up, but it would kick ass with some reconstituted dried fancy ones, or fresh ones if you're rich.)
a couple tablespoons butter
a couple tablespoons flour
salt and pepper
red wine to deglaze
white truffle oil
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 - 1/2 cup milk

Gently saute the garlic in the oil. Add sliced mushrooms, the butter, and let soften up (~ 5 mins.) Add the flour and cook till it loses its raw taste. Season with salt and pepper; if it starts to stick (and it will) splash in a little wine (white would have been better but red is what I had) to deglaze the pan. Stir in the sour cream and the milk (enough to thin to sauce consistency); drizzle in about 1/2 - 1 tsp of white truffle oil.

Meanwhile, boil the fettucine that you made using your fabulous new pearly green KitchenAid mixer and pasta roller attachment for about 6-7 minutes in salted boiling water . Put sauce over. Drink a bottle of Toad Hollow chardonnay (with ice in it b/c you sent your sweet sweet husband out to get it at the last minute and it's not chilled yet.) Enjoy while baby sleeps. :)

Yum. Now go watch Elf, if you totally want to have my exact night.

This is the kind of thing I don't usually post about (just thrown together stuff based on what's in the fridge and what I need to use up) but...maybe somebody will be interested in it. It sure was good.

Cheese is the new cheese!

2006-12-19T20:09:00.000-08:00

OH! Y'all, I almost forgot - cheese is back in! The Small One's gut seems to have matured enough to tolerate it!! :) AND the occasional coffee seems to not be objected to any longer, as well!

Whew. Things look a whole lot brighter now that the dark dairyless days are behind us.

Almost Christmas!!

2006-12-19T20:01:00.000-08:00

We're ready around heah. We have the 1960s-looking LIME green tinsel tree (think the trees that Lucy wanted Charlie Brown to buy and you'll get the picture) and the delish eggnog from Seriously Good and the presents under the tree.

You foodies out there will swoon to know that I am getting a 14 inch (or bigger? Maybe 16? That mug is HUGE) cast iron skillet AND...wait for it...a KitchenAid PRO5!!! I am going to pass on the old Classic that has served me so well to someone else with small batches of aforementioned eggnog and single loaves of bread and small cakes to make and I am going to cook in quantity! And style! (Next on my list is the KA pasta roller attachment - and I can only imagine what short work that 450 watt motor will make of those sheets of egg dough!)

But I'm not sure how much cooking/posting I'm going to be getting done this coming semester (you know, I might have to back off the punishing posting pace i've been keeping up lately) since I'll be taking 2 classes and teaching one AND mom-ing a 4-5-6 month old! And indulging my neurosis about trying to keep the drifts of dog hair off the floor and the dishes and diapers washed, of course.

NO recipes! NO photos! NOT today!

Whoa, hey, I still suck!

2006-12-07T16:22:00.000-08:00

Yeah, remember I said I was totally going to come back and post some more? I didn't! But I keep meaning to, but the baby keeps me busy (even though he's a really good little monkey.) And the LAUNDRY - my GOD, babies make a lot of laundry! (Cloth diapers, yo. I do a load every day. He's a little pooper.)

Um, so that's what I've been doing. The laundry.

I really want a good blog client for the Mac - I tried ecto (that everyone raves about) but I couldn't even get that mug to connect to my blogger account. So that's kind of a bust. And the one I was using seems to have come unsupported - they don't make it any more, and the website's gone.

I'm totally in the Christmas spirit! I'm done shopping! (Not done wrapping yet.) And the decorations are down (from the attic) but not up (on the tree and in the house.) And I'm making cookies on Saturday with some friends! (I'm trying Ivonne's rugelach recipe from Cream Puffs in Venice.) It's cold and windy here, and I'm watching The Grinch steal Christmas, and contemplating the undecorated Charlie Brown-like sad little droopy tree (it's a potted Japanese cedar or some such since we can't afford one a them $90 Fraser firs at the Christmas tree lot, so it only holds like 5 ornaments without wilting completely - but it's the thought that counts, along with the lights.) And drinking hot apple cider. The baby is asleep (he's a good sleeper!) and as usual I should be working on something else (though I essentially took the semester off - I'm RAing for a professor instead of teaching, and I'm not taking any classes) (next semester there will be hell to pay though - 2 seminars and teaching 1 class WHILE starting to study for exams!!) and I'm not. Whew. That was a lot of parentheticals. (My first drafts are ALWAYS more syntactically complicated than my final ones!)

So...that's what's up.

I'm making carbonara for dinner later, except for maybe without the cream - I think I'm going to go for the egg/bacon version, not the cream/parm/bacon version. The baby seems to have some sort of dairy intolerance, and when I eat much dairy (it used to be ANY dairy - I've been eating SOY CHEESE, y'all, and that shit is no good, and also it makes you fart like you wouldn't believe. Not that I fart, or anything. But I've heard.) ANYWAY, when I eat dairy he gets miserable and farty and screamy at 3 am (always at 3 am) so...I never thought I would say this...but it's not worth it.

I am going to eat SO MUCH CHEESE when he's weaned (or when his gut matures some, whichever.)

Bye!

OK, I guess I'm back.

2006-11-01T18:40:00.000-08:00

I stopped posting, not because I died or pregnancy debilitated me or I stopped eating, but because I got suddenly paranoid after reading about how academic hiring committees have rejected candidates based on (very personal) things the candidates chose to share on their blogs that the committees would otherwise have had no way of knowing. Not that I think a hiring committee would decide I'm not the candidate for them based on my predilection for having my husband take pictures of our dinner, but it seemed like it was better to be safe than to be preemptively dooced.

But I've decided that this is an innocuous pastime, and I'm going to come back to it. It's a great record for me of things I've cooked and whether I loved or hated them. And I have so much time on my hands now that the kidlet is here (that's a joke, people) that I NEED a hobby. And I am way more motivated to cook interesting things when I'm publicly accountable in some strange self-imposed way.

So I decided I just won't talk about school or work or anything else remotely connected to anything professional - and hey, if I don't get an academic job, perhaps I can put it on my application to culinary school. (Which, by the way, I would NEVER want to be a chef in a restaurant - I've worked in way too many restaurants over the years to romanticize that job.)

So - hi again, peoples of the internet!

(And a warning - Senor Smallpants seems to dislike any dairy or chocolate in my diet, and I pay for it in the coin of lost sleep and self-hatred while he cries and writhes in gas pain, so...I'm working with a limited palette here while I'm breastfeeding, people.) (And I love the products of the cow, so I'm really sad about it - I don't think I could cut out dairy for my own health, but I can do it for his. Perhaps this is the diet wave of the future - cause physical pain to the dieter's loved ones every time the person cheats on his diet. VERY FEW CHEATS would happen, I guarantee it.)

I haven't been posting much, but.....

2006-06-21T05:22:00.000-07:00

In case anybody reads this thing, I HAD to post the recipe for our dinner last night. It was AMAZING. I saw it on the Food Network show about the Sutter Home Better Burger Contest and googled it - if you haven't already done this, here it is typed out for your gustatory pleasure: Pineapple Upside Down Jerk Burgers! It's burgers with jerk marinade mixed in, grilled and basted with more marinade, served with grilled fresh pineapple rings (also basted with the marinade) and topped with a mango-avocado salsa and lime mayonnaise.

JERK MARINADE:

1 cup chopped cilantro
1 cup chopped parsley
4 green onions, chopped
2 small habaneros, seeded and chopped
6 garlic cloves
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 tablespoon allspice
1 tablespoon thyme
1 teaspoon cloves
Pinch of ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons red zinfandel
1/4 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons lime juice
PATTIES:

2 pounds ground sirloin
1/2 cup Jerk Marinade
2 teaspoons salt
MANGO-AVOCADO SALSA:

2 mangoes, minced
1 large avocado, finely chopped
3 tablespoons minced cilantro
1 jalapeño, minced
2 tablespoons lime juice
LIME MAYO:

6 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon lime juice
TO FINISH:

6 cored fresh pineapple rings, sliced 1/2-inch thick
6 jalapeño hamburger buns, split
For Jerk Marinade: Combine cilantro, parsley, onion, habaneros, garlic, ginger, allspice, thyme, cloves, cinnamon, oil, vinegar, zinfandel, soy sauce, water, brown sugar and lime juice in food processor; process until finely minced. Pour into sieve; strain juice into bowl, pressing mixture with back of spoon until dry. Discard solids.

For Patties: Mix beef with 1/2 cup strained marinade. Lightly form into 6 patties. Salt both sides lightly; set aside. Reserve remaining marinade for grilling.

Prepare medium-hot fire.

For Mango-Avocado Salsa: Combine mangoes, avocados, jalapeño and lime juice. Set aside.

For Lime Mayo: Mix mayonnaise and lime juice. Set aside. To Finish: When grill is ready, brush rack with olive oil. Grill pineapple rings, basting with reserved marinade, 2-3 minutes; flip rings, baste again, and grill 2-3 minutes or until heated through. Remove and set aside.

Place patties on rack; baste with reserved marinade. Cover and cook, turning once, 4-5 minutes per side for medium-rare. Baste again with marinade after turning.

In last few minutes of cooking patties, grill buns, cut side down, until lightly toasted.

Remove buns from grill; place on plates. Lightly spread each bun half with lime mayo. Top each bun bottom with pineapple ring, followed by burger. Top each patty with 2 tablespoons salsa. Add bun tops and serve.

Makes 6 burgers.

Source: Gina Wilson/Sutter Home Winery; I got the recipe from the San Antonio Times website at http://www.mysanantonio.com/salife/food/stories/MYSA052406.03Q.burger.rec.pin.14a8243a.html.

You guys, seriously: make this. It was awesome.