Snow days

Happy 2022! We got an unexpected bonus weeklong extension of holiday mode around here when Virginia got the first snow of the season last Sunday night. It turned into the biggest snowstorm in 3 years (the last one was our first winter here) and led to treacherous road conditions and cancellations and closures galore, including this I-95 clustercuss, our weekly milk delivery, and most of the school week. A second storm overnight on Thursday finished things off, and we all got some extra down time with no pre-dawn alarms and no good reason to attempt to drive anywhere.

I went back to my normal work schedule, but with most of the global academic community also still in holiday mode, things were relatively quiet and I had a little extra brain space to get creative with my overstuffed pantry:

Kung Pao Chickpeas: Monday lunchtime I was craving some Asian flavors to go along with the weekly batch of Instant Pot rice which is already a fixture on the schedule in order to meet Miss B’s insatiable carb demand. I decided to see what I could do with legumes, and ended up adapting this recipe for kung pao lentils to work with what I had, which was canned chickpeas. It was a success and has now been added to the list of Recipes That Only I Will Eat But Are Still Worth Making.

Speaking of which…behold my first attempt at Whole Wheat Sourdough!

As usual, I’m about 2 years behind the starter/sourdough trend, and this is one that I’ve actively resisted, as previously mentioned. However, I requested and received Bittman Bread for Christmas, and the method of making a sourdough starter described therein finally convinced me to give it a try. After following the prescribed 3-day feeding plan, I now have something living in my fridge (on purpose for once!), and produced this as my first output. On the one hand, I can see that I’ve got some work to do on my folding technique. On the other hand, even a pretty imperfect first attempt is still pretty damn good bread. I’m looking forward to developing my knowledge, and will provide further reports as warranted. 

Alas, it’s raining today, so I expect there will be no further impediment to returning to the regular school schedule tomorrow, including the 6am alarm call. Hoping your weekend is peaceful, relaxing, and free of Sunday Night Blues.

Instant salad

As a parent of a school-age child, I seem to spend a fair amount of time dodging activities that cut into the dinner hour. I consider family dinner more important than most other things, so I prioritize accordingly. Recently, I have been making one exception, though, for a kung-fu class. Miss B really likes it, it ticks a lot of boxes for her physical and skills development, and it's a 2-minute walk from our house. That last part mitigates the fact that it starts at 6:30 pm, since it means I can still cram in a family dinner beforehand. I've been using it as a challenge to myself to see if I can get dinner on the table with 30 minutes or less of prep beforehand; as a result, this is now my go-to kung-fu-night salad. It's delicious, it's nutritious, and it takes even less time to prep this than it does to walk to class. (Cutting an actual salad is enough to send me over the edge in a 30-minute prep window.) And every time I do this, I think fondly of my friend J., who first introduced me to this ridiculously simple concoction.


Retro cool avocado halves
Cut one avocado in half and remove the pit. Place each half on a small plate, and sprinkle with salt and freshly ground pepper. Fill the pit cavities with balsamic vinegar. Serve as a starter or side.
Serves 2.

(Miss B is not into the avocado, so I chop her up a carrot or cucumber instead.)

Concoction documentation

Between the disruption of normal routines caused by Christmas (and school summer vacation, and trying to maintain some level of work output notwithstanding) and a kitchen full of holiday food, I seem to be spending a lot of time lately concocting things out of bits and pieces to have for dinner, rather than cooking any of my regular standards, or trying out new recipes. Nearly everything I’ve made recently feels like a one-off, based upon a particular conjunction of ingredients I’ve got lying around.

Some of these have worked out better than others. This one, cooked up out of sheer desperation when I had a guest coming and my dinner Plan A had failed spectacularly, is by far the best of the lot, and worth recording for posterity and replication.

Creamy (and a little spicy) mushroom pasta

Please note that all measurements here are extremely approximate. Also note that butter appears twice; this is not a misprint – you use some at the beginning and some at the end. (I always forget about the second part when there’s one of those ‘divided’ instructions.)

1 Tbsp/½ oz/15 g bacon fat

1 Tbsp/½ oz/15 g butter

1 anchovy

2 slices hot salami, diced

1 small red onion, diced

2 handfuls mushrooms (any kind), chopped

1 lb/450 g pasta, preferably short

½ cup/4 oz/120 ml white wine

½ cup/4 oz/120 ml cream

2-3 oz/60-90 g goat cheese

salt & pepper

1 Tbsp/½ oz/15 g butter

grated pecorino romano cheese, for serving

Put a large pot of water on to boil for the pasta.

In another pan, heat the bacon fat and butter on medium, then add the anchovy, salami, and onion. Cook for 3-5 minutes, stirring regularly, until onions have softened and anchovy has dissolved. Add mushrooms and cook for another 8-10 minutes, continuing to stir regularly, until mushrooms have released their liquid and begun to shrink and darken.

By now the pasta water should be boiling. Add a generous amount of salt and the pasta; stir to make sure the pasta isn’t clumping, and leave to return to the boil and cook for 8-10 minutes. Check and stir every couple of minutes.

Add white wine to the mushroom mixture and stir in, scraping the bottom of the pan to deglaze (get all the good stuff that's stuck on there). When most of the wine has cooked off, add cream and goat cheese and stir through. Lower the heat on the pan to lowest setting while you deal with draining the pasta.

When pasta is al dente, scoop out about 1 cup pasta cooking water and set aside. Drain pasta and return to the pan in which you cooked it.

Return your attention to the mushroom mixture. Taste and adjust seasonings, then add the second installment of butter and toss to mix through.

Combine pasta and mushroom mixture in whichever pan is easiest to mix in, and toss thoroughly. Add a splash or two of pasta cooking water, if you wish, to bring the whole thing together.

Serve immediately. Serves 4 adults with some left over.

Pasta salad

Not being a huge mayonnaise fan (although the homemade version is a much more convincing argument for its merits than the storebought kind), it took me a long time to warm up to the idea of pasta salad. Add in all the people among my family and friends who can't or don't want to eat mayo for various reasons, and it becomes an even less appealing option. But then again, remember that this is pasta we're talking about here - pretty much my single most favorite food item. And then you'll understand why I still remember the day, probably 15 years ago now, when I discovered a recipe for pasta salad that didn't involve mayo; that I could feed to vegans and people with high cholesterol; that I could leave out in the sun at cookouts without fear of giving everyone food poisoning. I've been making variations of it ever since.

Tomato-pasta salad
Adapted from Betty Crocker's 40th Anniversary Cookbook
I haven't looked at the original recipe for this in years, but I knew exactly where to find it. I had never made a pasta salad before I found this; since I have I've made dozens, and passed along the recipe almost every time. When the audience permits, I've added variations such as chopped prosciutto or salami, shredded pecorino romano, or olives. It's very adaptable.

1 450 g/16 oz package short pasta
4 Tbsp olive oil
4 medium tomatoes, chopped
4 green onions, chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
4 tsp balsamic vinegar3 tsp chopped fresh basil leaves
~10 grinds black pepper

Cook pasta as directed on package in salted boiling water and take off heat while it is still a bit more al dente than you might like. Drain; rinse in cold water to stop cooking; drain again. Dump pasta into a large mixing bowl and mix oil through first, to keep from sticking together. Add in remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly. Cover and refrigerate about 2 hours, or until chilled.

Serves 10-12 people as a side.

Celery root

Celery root could be the poster child for the maxim, “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” It’s hard to find anything new to say about its appearance: it’s hairy, it’s brown, it looks unappetizing, and it’s easy to pass over in the produce aisle. I always have. But at this time of year in Missouri, pickings are slim if you’re trying to eat seasonally. Faced with a choice between a hairy, brown but reasonably priced lump or some jet-set produce worth a considerable chunk of my weekly grocery budget, I decided to be adventurous. I bought a celery root, took it home, let it languish in the crisper drawer for two weeks, and then went looking for a way to cook it.

And finished off my food adventure, as usual, by kicking myself over how much of my life I’ve wasted not eating this.

Celery root soup
Loosely based upon a recipe from bluestem: the cookbook

Following my usual soup spec, I peeled and chopped up the celery root (and the attached celery stalks and leaves), plus some red onion. I threw these into the pan to sauté briefly, then added in a couple of cloves of roasted garlic that I had in the fridge. After a few minutes, I poured in about half a cup of prosecco (the last of a bottle sitting on the counter), then put in just enough vegetable stock to cover the chopped vegetables. I brought this to a simmer and let it do its thing for about 15-20 minutes, then went at it with my trusty stick blender. After puréeing it, I may have added a bit more stock to thin it a bit, and then stirred in a healthy dollop of crème fraiche. I finished it off with some salt and freshly ground pepper. In keeping with its origins, it was not the most attractive color—kind of beige—but full of flavor.

Orange soup

In one of countless conversations about food during our Dallas visit, C. described a soup that her French mother used to make, known in her family only as “orange soup” and consisting of three ingredients: leeks, potatoes, and lots of carrots. I don’t remember what we were talking about that raised this memory, but that brief description lodged in my brain and was waiting for me when I cast around yesterday for something simple and hearty to make for dinner.

Orange soup
I think of this as basically a potato-leek soup with carrots added in, which to my mind makes it a more nutritious option—potato-leek soup, as delicious as it is, always seems too, I dunno, beige to be a convincing source of vegetables. This, on the other hand, is bursting with beta carotene and clearly good for you. I don’t know how much resemblance it bears to C.’s mother’s standby, but it was very well received here.

2 Tbsp olive oil
4 medium leeks
8 carrots
4 medium potatoes
4-6 cups water or stock
salt & pepper

Pour the olive oil into a large soup pot and warm over medium-low heat. Scrub, roughly chop, and add the vegetables in the order specified. Sauté briefly in the olive oil, then add water or stock to cover. Bring just to a boil and then simmer until all the vegetables are soft, 45-60 minutes.

Remove pot from heat and purée soup using an immersion blender; return to heat and season to taste with salt & pepper. Serve with good bread and lots of cheese for a lunch or light dinner.

Makes about 2 quarts of soup.

April roundup

Like sands through the hourglass, so goes another month, leaving only the last crumbs behind. And, like yesterday’s Royal Wedding tea party, almost consumed before there’s enough time to take a decent picture. Before it slips away completely, here are a few links to commit some of April’s best mouthfuls to memory:

No stirring

Polenta with sauteed Italian sausage and baby spinach

I’m not afraid to admit it: I’ve never made polenta before. I’m not afraid to admit the reason either: I was totally put off by the 30-40 minutes of continuous stirring that every recipe indicated was absolutely critical to a lump-free finished product. I like polenta, but not enough to contemplate the possibility of requiring physical therapy as the end result of a cooking project. (Should I mention the old hockey injury? Is that overkill…?)

Deconstructed salad

Clockwise from top: pita chips, hummus,
cucumber sticks, grape tomatoes, Caesar dip, baby carrots

One of my cooking idiosyncracies is that I absolutely loathe cutting salad. I’m not really sure why; it could just be that I’m impatient. Or it could be that people always throw salad in to recipe and menu discussions as an afterthought, as if it’s a snap—you know, all that “serve with a tossed salad”; “all you need alongside is a salad”; etc.—when cutting and making dressing for a tossed salad involving more than one ingredient can take up a pretty good-sized chunk of time. It’s not hard, but it is fiddly, and not my first choice of activity when I’m trying to get dinner on the table for the hungry hordes, or for that matter, lunch on the table for my hungry self. I don’t find “knife work” (that’s cheffyspeak for “cutting up things”) soothing at the best of times, and right before I want to eat is definitely not the best of times.

Tomato soup

I don’t really have anything clever to say about this soup, but that’s kind of appropriate. Because this soup is a great recipe to have on hand when you’re out of clever ideas, or energy, or patience, or time, or fresh vegetables.

All of these are excellent reasons why this is a staple in my Friday-night dinner rotation.

Superlative snacking

I can hardly begin to quantify the number of things I learned about cultural diversity and human nature during my years of living overseas, but I must also confess that many of the most memorable lessons are less than profound. Prominent among these is my recollection of the first time I went to the movies (or should I say the cinema) in England. Having bought my ticket, I went to the concession stand and requested popcorn.

“Salt or sweet?” inquired the helpful person standing behind the counter.

Fancy schmancy

Even with a habit as well established as Friday Pizza Night, there’s room for innovation. Especially with something as adaptable as pizza, which is amenable to pretty much whatever you can think (within reason) to put on it. And well worth doing when you’ve got a guest coming, who might a) appreciate the extra bit of effort involved in having two different kinds of pizza on offer, and b) be more likely than DP and Miss B to branch out and try something that sounds a bit more sophisticated--dare I say fancy?--than the standard weekly offering of pepperoni/salami/sausage topped with mozzarella.

Soup specs

Once upon a time, I used to be flummoxed by food writers who said things like, “No one really needs a recipe for soup, but….” Huh? I thought. I need a recipe for soup. What, am I supposed to just throw a bunch of stuff into a pan and hope it turns into soup?

Action points

Conferences are great, especially if, like me, you work alone most of the time. They allow you to re-connect with friends and colleagues, resolve problems in a five-minute discussion that would’ve taken days over email, brainstorm projects for the future, talk about things using jargon and shorthand that only your co-workers can understand and appreciate. They send you home feeling professionally recharged, motivated, and inspired.

Both ends

This morning it occurred to me, as I crawled out of bed at 7:00am after another late-night work session, that there is a direct link between how much sleep I get and how cheerful I feel when I wake up.

Yes, I am sure that this cause-and-effect relationship is already blindingly obvious to the vast majority of you. However, those of us who are chronically sleep-deprived sometimes take a little longer to make these connections. And it is slowly, slowly dawning on me that I cannot continue to burn the candle at both ends without feeling the effects, now that I’m officially middle-aged. (Eh? Speak up!)

PB fail

Since I already had one spectacular failure in my one and only attempt to make jam in a slow cooker, it seems only fitting that its companion in this illustrious category should be peanut butter.

I’m not sure what I did wrong, or if I even did anything wrong. As one of my everyday cooking challenges, I decided to try making my own peanut butter in my fancy new food processor (aka Archie). I looked up some recipes, all of which seemed perfectly straightforward: grind some cooked peanuts until they turn into peanut butter. Add seasonings as desired. Eat. I bought some dry-roasted peanuts (I figured that, if my first experiment was a success, then next time I could maybe try roasting the peanuts myself.) I put two cups in the food processor and turned it on.

Musical fruit

I’ve already written about a couple of my food prejudices, deeply entrenched from childhood. The red pepper one disappeared of its own accord, and I’m still working on the whitefish one.

Here’s another one I’m still working on: beans. As in, legumes/pulses. (Not green beans. I love those.)

I’m always kind of fascinated that other people go out of their way to eat beans: that they actually like them. In England, baked beans on toast was everyone’s favorite storecupboard meal, from tiny children on up; and since I’ve moved here, every cookout I’ve attended has included a huge, enthusiastically consumed dish of baked beans on the buffet table. I know people who eat beans and rice as part of their regular dinner repertoire, and they’re not even vegetarians. And don’t even get me started on chili.

Friday puttering

Purchase update: paperwork signed and sealed, down payment delivered. We are now officially homeowners (or, rather, mortgage-holders).

Appliance update: when I wrote the first draft of this post earlier today, I was making positive noises here about progress. Then I went downstairs and found a huge puddle in the basement. So now I’m going to make positive noises about my home warranty instead. And move swiftly along to….

Plan B

(Or really, at this point, Plan D, but who’s counting?)

Things have started to look up on the housing front. We are still no closer to knowing when—or if—we’ll be able to buy this house, but the owners, exasperated on our behalf at how long all the bureaucracy is taking (and perhaps on their own, since the house is sitting empty and costing them money), have offered to rent it to us as an interim measure, and then cancel the lease if and when there is a mortgage to replace it. So, barring any further unforeseen hitches, we should be in the house in the next 10 days.

Dinner guests

One of the lesser-known drawbacks to being in life limbo is a dearth of people to cook for. In some ways this is for the best, given the corresponding lack of cooking utensils, but that doesn’t make it any easier to adjust to. I read other people’s blogs where they describe cooking up vats of goodies to feed family, friends, neighbors, school groups, and random passersby, and honestly, I feel a little envious. I’ve been bringing homebaked treats to every event I’ve been invited to (adhering to Sparkly Em’s philosophy of “Make friends through cake”), but Miss B’s preschool doesn’t allow homemade food to be brought in (WTH?) and we don’t have enough chairs—or plates—in our serviced apartment to have more than one dinner guest at a time.